The island where time stands still...

...or moves in mysterious ways.

I only noticed that it was spring when I looked at the calendar. The weather here is much as it always is; sunny, hot, humid. The flowers bloom year round. The fruit trees are on a schedule only they understand. It’s either wet season (hot, humid, raining all the time) or dry season (hot, humid, not raining enough).

The only subtle difference I’ve noticed coming out of rainy season is a slightly cooler temperature at night. The days will cool as we head towards winter (the middle of the year) but remain sunny and bright. There may even be one or two where you need to wear a jumper and socks.

How the house looks for most days of the year.

Otherwise, there’s no sign of the times changing. No leaves turning red and orange and brown in autumn, no snow in winter, no sudden burst of flowers in spring.

I asked my mother-in-law, Marion, if she misses the seasons. “Oh, yes,” she says. “Spring is my favourite season. And I love the snow. I miss the seasons. Here, you don’t feel time move.”

It’s quite the change from Melbourne.

Melbourne, where I’ve lived most of my life, has a different problem. You experience all four seasons, only you experience them all in the same day. There’s even a song about it:

I don’t know anywhere else in the world where you have to leave the house prepared with:

• Sunscreen

• An umbrella

• A hat

• A jacket

• Sunglasses

• A scarf

• Hay fever medication

The seasons in Melbourne being all over the shop makes sense when you realise that the British arrived and tried to shoehorn Australia into the same seasons of northern hemisphere Europe.

In autumn, the banksias start to flower in Melbourne.

When you look at the indigenous calendars, things start making a lot more sense. Local calendars from different parts of Australia can have as few as 2 seasons and as many as 13. The seasons last for different amounts of time and are dictated by not just the weather, but by the animal and plant life, as well as what’s happening with the night sky and the stars.

A calendar showing the Yawuru seasons, for the area near Broome (source)

After learning about the seasonal calendar of the Kulin Nation, I began noticing the shifts between the seven seasons myself and stopped relying on the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) when dressing myself for the day.

I do miss the crisp, cool mornings of a Melbourne spring day, hearing a barrage of currawongs during their mating season, smelling jasmine in the street and seeing the fresh green leaves on the trees. I miss the golden autumn sunlight through orange tree canopies and crispy leaves on the sidewalk.

I don’t miss winter. Winter in Melbourne is not charming like it is in many parts of Europe. It’s grey, it’s sad, it’s cold. The wind is biting. When winter rolls around, I’m very happy to be in 25ºC sunny Moorea.

Time does move strangely here.

Perhaps it is the weather that gives me a strange sense of time passing. The mornings seem endless. The sun rises by 5:30am, and most of the population are already up and going about their day.

The afternoons rush by as if they have somewhere better to be. It seems like the sun slinks behind the mountains in mere seconds. One moment, blazing bright, for a moment the pinks and oranges of sunset, and then- bam!- it’s night.

Moorea at twilight.

Time is lumpy liquid. It’s the magic sand picture Martin and I bought at a market in Melbourne. The sand trickles in delicate lines of yellow and ochre and white, building smooth desert landscapes. Until there’s one bubble too many. Then, suddenly, it begins to cave. The sand falls faster and faster, in lumps and clumps, until it’s all settled on the bottom and the top is just dark sky.

March art download - hope you like chickens!

Last week I wrote about my evolution into crazy chicken lady. To help you become your own crazy chicken person, why not start with a custom artwork by yours truly? Maybe you can’t have chickens in your yard, but you can definitely have chickens on your wall!

If you’re a free subscriber (or not subscribed at all) and you’d like access to the download, consider supporting my work by becoming a paid subscriber. You’ll get one free download per month along with the satisfaction of knowing that you’re helping me make more art. You’ll also get access to all of the previous free artworks… if that’s not good value for money I don’t know what is!