Ode to my Townsville girls

on the sweetness of long friendship

Dearest friends,

Apologises for the delay, we’ve been a little distracted here with two fluffy (and very cute) additions to our family: bunnies!

A few years ago, two dear friends (who I met while living in northern Australia over fifteen years ago) got in touch and suggested we catch up for a weekend together. We had so much fun that we made it an annual event.

The story in this edition of Wild and Wonderful is a tribute to these women and to all the generous and loving people in my life. I hope you enjoy reading and that you find something here to nourish you. Let’s celebrate long friendships!

Thank you, as always, for being here and for your support. I am deeply honoured to be sharing this journey with you.

With love and kindness,

Kate xx

P.S scroll to the bottom for a little video of the new bunnies!

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It’s a chilly autumn morning and I am sprinting down the street in my bikini with two of the best girls in the world. The wind is howling and the sky is threatening rain but we’re too wild to care about the weather. This is our last day together in Tomakin, a small coastal town in New South Wales, and we are going swimming in the sea.

Over the soft green buffalo grass we fly, our towels flaring behind us like wings. Past the parade of ‘front of beach’ houses with their giant glass windows and sleek concrete walls, and down the path through the dunes to the sea.

On the beach the roar of the waves sends us into a frenzy of giggles. Whose idea was this? We drop our towels and run into the water. Rips extend their sandy trails on either side of us, so we don’t go too deep. We hold our arms up and shriek as the water licks the soft skin beneath our breasts. It’s cold!

This one? A points to a large wave rolling towards us. We nod and wade out to greet it, turn to catch it together, stretching our bodies flat and kicking our feet, until we emerge from the foam with brilliant smiles.

*

A few hours earlier, we had walked to the beach to watch the sunrise. The sky was brightening fast, so we had left in a hurry: pyjama tops tucked into tights, down jackets thrown on, and sunscreen pushed into the creases beside our eyes. There was no chance of UV exposure in this weather, but still we applied — an old habit from the sunny beginnings of our friendship, and perhaps, a lurking fear of crinkled skin. We are middle-aged women after all!

A gentle rain was falling as we wandered north towards a small headland. Above, the sky bruised a gorgeous strawberry pink. I knelt in the sand to take a few photos. Stand just there, I asked the girls, where the colours of the sky were reflected in the wet sand. They laughed and threw their heads back and stuck their bottoms out.

Click click click.

A moment in our lives captured forever. Three friends standing by the sea, watching the movement of water and air and light.

How strange and wonderful it is, of all the variations life could have taken, that we are here, sharing a connection as delicate and dear as friendship.

Perhaps you are blessed with a long friendship too, and you know a little about the wonder of this sort of bond. How precious it is, how nourishing it is for the soul.

*

We never saw the sun appear — a thick band of grey cloud hugged the eastern horizon. But we had started the day together, just as we used to, more than fifteen years ago, in Townsville, in northern Australia. Every Sunday, running along the esplanade lined with palm trees, past the barracks, the shark proof swimming enclosure, and the old figs with their long roots extending towards the ground like tentacles. Turning for home as the sun began to rise over Maggie Island¹. Home before the heat and humidity, and our boyfriends were awake. I was always at the back of the group (I was never fast) and D and A up ahead.

*

Some friendships last a lifetime, through distance, ageing, and grief. I don’t know why. All I can tell you is — sometimes you just click.

You don’t look like you are from here, the waiter at the Thai restaurant joked.

What do you mean, we laughed.

And he replied, Because you look like you are having too much fun!

And it’s true, we are hilarious together, a miraculous menagerie.

D’s eldest daughter renamed our group chat Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry — after our hair colours, but I think it also reflects our personalities and the paths we have chosen.

You can always tell whose room is Snowball’s, D laughs.² The contents of my bag — with more pairs of shoes and books than my children — having exploded all over the floor.

We are different in so many ways, and yet, we are deeply connected — three women, three mothers, committed to helping each other become the best versions of ourselves. Because life is not a solo act. Success, joy, and even survival happen together.

Try on the jacket. Do it!

You look amazing!

Let’s do the long walk, swim in the rock pool.

Build the deck here, right out front.

Isn’t there a writing event you can go to after this?

Look here, at this world map flipped upside down — Antarctica at the top, and in the middle, just blue.

*

One evening we dress up and go out for dinner at a fancy restaurant. The waitress takes our photo — but chops off our legs at the ankles. We are horrified. It’s taken the best part of an hour to look this good.

Over glasses of rosè, D talks about her father and his farm in Tasmania, but we read her lips — we know it is her late mother she’s really thinking of. A talks about the electric bike she bought for her husband, so he can still join in on family adventures. But we know she wishes he didn’t have to live with a brain injury. A asks me when my next MRI scan is. I pretend I have forgotten. Next year, I say — but they know I’m changing the subject.

Good friends know life is stitched together with grief. They remember who we were before all of this.

Remember —

When we walked for hours to a waterfall and you called it paradise?

When I stayed up all night baking a flour-less chocolate cake, and you declared it the best thing ever.

When you sent me a postcard every week, each one decorated with little drawings by your daughters?

The holder was small, much smaller than the love it contained. I’ve still got them in a box upstairs.

And remember when I was recovering from brain surgery, and you flew to Townsville to lie on the grass by the pool with me? I was eaten alive by sand flies. Itchy for days. You told me I’d get better. And I did.

Through weddings, wars, motherhood, trauma, and illness, we have supported each other — travelling across the country and across the vastness of time, always.

*

At the airport, we hug and part ways. I fly home via Sydney. A drives long hours to Victoria, and D a few blocks to her family in Canberra. Over the next few days we send messages in the group chat.

xxx lol sweet where to next?

We post pictures of our home arrivals, excited children, outfits bought op-shopping together, and share snippets of life: this new contraceptive pill, this gym class, this date night.

Words and images are all we have of each other now.

But as the space between us stretches, I remember — three women, wild with laughter, running into the sea.

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Ode to My Homegirls

by Safia Elhillo

One of my favourites and the poem that inspired this story. I hope you enjoy.

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A few other things

• I’ve been away for one long luscious week — visiting girlfriends and family, sight seeing in Sydney, and soaking up delicious words and conversations at the Sydney Writers Festival with a dear friend. It was incredible and I am still adjusting to my small wonderful life back at home. Thank you to my incredible husband and mother, you are my stars and moon!

• Highlights from the festival — wowed by author Jeanette Winterson, AI as an alternative ‘other’ that the human race needs. We are in this together! Gina Chick, author and winner of Alone Australia, talking about her childhood obsession with eating the pages of the books she loved — so she had them with her always. I’m 70 percent paper now! She was incredible and a little wild! Waiting in line (mostly women I notice) for a book signing, excitement rippling, people eager to chat, there is a feeling of openness, a leaning into —I’m in a sourdough phase. Don’t you just want to sing? Everywhere brightly coloured glasses — orange, red, lime-green. The beautiful books waiting on wooden stands, while rain rattles on the huge metal roof and lightening crackles. A group of women raise their plastic tumblers — To books and friends! Laughter and giggles for hours listening to novelists, Liane Moriarty, David Nicholls, and Marian Keyes — You know when you turn 40 and you’re a woman, and you just kind of lie down in a coffin, and say, throw the dirt in!' Author Toby Walsh on the future of AI — imagine a world where machines do the mundane repetitive work and we have jobs, tending to the garden, caring for the elderly, and raising children. I thought, I am ahead of the times!

• For fans of Irish novelist, Claire Keegan. This podcast episode, on bravery, writing and the single life.

• This essay on poetry and AI by

  Maya C. Popa
  .

• This mediation on the beauty of Haiku poetry by

  Sally Gillespie
  and this collection of 5 Haiku by
  David Kirkby
  .

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There won’t be a Wild and Wonderful next fortnight. It’s my birthday, the big 40, and I’m looking forward to celebrating with my family and friends, perhaps a walk in the wild, a swim in the sea.

Until next time,

Wishing you the warmth of friendship,

Kate xx

1. short for Magnetic Island

2. Snowball is my maiden name.