Our New Materialisms (NM) Special Interest Group (SIG) is back on!
The March NM SIG is our first meeting back for 2021. I’m so happy!
Because we are reconvening after the New Year break, we wanted to offer the opportunity for participants to reconnect more directly. So instead of going straight into guest presentations, we decided to have a writing-process open forum to ‘warm-up’ our ideas, discussion and writing-with NM approaches.
So, in this session, we gave breathing space for a topic we all wrestle with: how to ‘write up’ or ‘present’ New Materialisms research.
We invited participants to bring a piece of writing/data/something you are working on to share.
This NM forum encouraged cross-pollination, stimulate new ideas, spark some inspiration, offered some new skills and probed what im/possibilities might emerge for stretching your NM research writing-data.
In this meeting, we asked: How might researchers who are working with New Materialisms ‘write up data’?
We had two readings to get the juices flowing.
Readings:
Somerville, M. (2016) The post-human I: encountering ‘data’ in new materialism, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 29:9, 1161-1172, DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2016.1201611
Niccolini, A. D., Zarabadi, S., & Ringrose, J. (2018). Spinning yarns: Affective kinshipping as posthuman pedagogy. Parallax (Leeds, England), 24(3), 324-343.
5 mins warm-up: Delicious Research(er)s. NM SIG March 2021.
March NM SIG notes
Our warm-up NM writing activity was on: Delicious research(er)s. I developed my Delicious Research(er)s warm-up into a 25mins, 100-word worlding – and this is what emerged:
Delicious research(er)s.
Delicious research(er)ing is an open-ended kitchette of inquisitiveness, capabilities, ingredients and alchemy. Folding, passing, mixing and blending: foundational blisters pop into syrupy-sweet intellectual nectar. Flavour(ful) data fragments over tongues, in eyes, and on minds. Delicious researchers are lightning rods for the unexplained. They stand tall: chins up, ears swivelling, noses twitching, eyes roving and skin electrified with buzzing intensity. They dive deep into salty pedogological soups, spin with umami-rolled embodiment, and languish in astringent-infused relationalities of common wor(l)ds. Delicious researchers are sexy, amorous, desirable and magnetic, heated yet ‘cool’ – and prone to spontaneously combust in moments of exquisite flambé rupture.
See images below for some of our other NM lines of flight.
Spinning Yarns. NM SIG March 2021.
Post-human ‘I’. NM SIG March 2021.
Discussing NM problematics. NM SIG March 2021.
NM SIG collaborative notes. NM SIG March 2021.
NM ‘data’-research-writing discussion. NM SIG March 2021.
Being an open and inquisitive researcher means I attend a wide range of SIGs, workshops and seminars. I’m open to lots of new ideas. Recently, I went to a feminist research group where a PhD candidate presented their work. The presentation gave me much to think about – and below is a 100-word worlding I wrote that explains why.
ATR WFU Women Leadership. Source: Worker’s Control
Cooperative Gap-ness
Passionate work to accelerate fair and (just) transitions to climate action using a grassroots union of Western Australian youths. Encouraging and political. Using Feminist Participatory Action Research and Cooperative Inquiry to be more culturally responsive, ethical and inclusive. Emotional labour. Green and ‘sustainable’ as false solutions. Extractivism of volunteers. Research(er)ing through-with-and-as ‘storying’. As insider-researcher-activists, I suggest Sherilyn Lennon’s ‘Unsettling Research’. Nicely messy. Critical cusps of Hope. Anna Tsing says hope can obfuscate activism. Astrida Neimanis and Jen Hamilton question hope, turning instead to desire. Tactical gap-ness. Expectant tool-processes of change and reviving neglected knowledges. Wrangling manageable recuperative action.
This time last year I was in Lunsar (Sierra Leone) undertaking my bikes-for-education fieldwork.
I often think of what I saw, felt, learnt, and experienced there.
The trip was exciting, profound and challenging.
I sift through my research journal and field notes, diving into them, drinking in the details of memories brought back to life in full technicolour.
So many significant moments that won’t make it into my thesis.
Moments like Mariama and the Addax Aunties singing me in.
Addax school distribution. Girl-student-new bike. Photo: Nina Ginsberg.
It is late afternoon and everyone is hot. We are in Addax and have just finished a long day delivering a school bike distribution program at the only high school for miles around. We are far from anywhere. It took a long, rutty, dusty trip squished between Kao (precariously pillion-perched behind me) and Ben upfront. I marveled as Ben cheerfully bounced the struggling moped over the dirt road to get us here, two at a time, earlier this morning. He made numerous trips shuttling all the staff members to the school collection point. I admire his skill and grace as he navigates the precarious transfer in such harsh conditions – hard work(er) indeed. It is so remote. There is no way to walk the distance or drive on this surface. Access is so limited. As I wait for the others, I think of the isolation and the implications of this walking-world for the women and girls who live here. Inconceivable. Humbling. Unsettling. I wonder what it’s like for school girls riding bikes here.
After a day at the school, Ben ferries us individually to a family a few kilometers away to gather, rest and await our return transport back to Lunsar. We will be here for a while. As the ‘guest’, I was the first of Ben’s deliveries, but on arrival I see Jak magically got here before me. I wave to him from the other side of the yard. I watched him do great work today, explaining in Kriol basic bike maintenance to the students. He was a superstar. He smiles and nods to me and accepts a drink of water as he collapses into a nearby plastic chair. Ben grins and tells me to wait here and rest: he is going back for the others. No problem I say. He takes off in a cloud of red dust. I look around me.
I see a young girl approaching me. It takes me a moment to realise she is one of the students from the school. She was in the workshop we ran. Attentive and confident, she had shuffled students around to position herself to sit next to me all morning. I liked her bold style. She had smiled shyly at me the whole time. Walking towards me now, she has changed out of her school uniform which is why I didn’t recognise her. Her clothes are oversized, stained and threadbare. A dirty white singlet hangs limply over a patched-together skirt. The material seems awkward on her lithe frame. Barefoot. She looks so vastly different from her clean, coordinated, green school uniform replete with white socks and lace-up black brogues. It’s hard to believe she is the same girl from an hour ago. Her name is Mariama. It means ‘gift from God’. She gives me a glorious smile and takes my hand.
Family hub: the cooking shelter. Photo: Nina Ginsberg.
Mariama leads me to a shelter to meet her family. There are many of these ‘family clusters’ around here – hidden, unknown, near-inaccessible. ‘Here’ is a grouplet of three ‘dirty brick’ huts. I’m surrounded by extreme poverty. The huts are dotted around a cleared centre which is the hub of all family life. In the middle is the cooking place. Under a corrugated iron roof held up by poles, I take my lead from the older women and join them around the open fire pit.
Mariama is animated as she tells the women about me. They smile while looking me up and down. Small groups of young children appear and mill around, watching, listening, whispering, giggling. Some of the kids sit on their mothers and watch the braver ones sit near me. An overheated dog snoozes as a wretched little chick walks over it. A rubbish pile smoulders nearby. An assembly line of freshly made mud bricks is drying off to the right, and a collection of single-use alcohol sachets are littered on the left. Flies buzz. Everywhere I look, skin sparkles as sunlight catches diamonds of sweat. The fragrant, sweet smell of red palm oil simmering in a cauldron wafts through the compound. I hear birds calling in the surrounding bush. Clumps of overgrown tallgrass tower at the edge of the clearing and rustle noisily in the wind. The women are clicking their tongues, quipping in Temne, and raising their eyebrows in my direction. They find me amusing. I sit down quietly on the closest stone.
Snoozing dog and wretched chick. Photo: Nina Ginsberg.
Mariama’s English is good and she translates our introductions, adding explanations and embellishments freely. We chat, suspended in time. Refreshments materialise. We talk about family, life and women’s business. After a while, I feel a shift in the mood. The conversation peeters out. Silence. I wait. Mariama’s mother nods to her daughter, who turns to me with a massive smile. Something has transpired, but I’m not sure what. I hold the moment, and the other women do the same.
Mama looks directly at me. I meet her gaze and hold, watching her intently. She has my full attention. She nods at me then closes her eyes. I watch her breathe. Time flattens. Tenderly and gently, Mama starts to clap. Refrain. Then she starts to sing in Temne. Lowly evanescence. Her lilt is stirring and ephemeral. The Aunties are nodding. The wind stops to listen. Mama’s voice is clear as it reaches out, rising and falling, pouring in and spilling over, flowing between and rippling through. I feel her voice seep into my bones. The Aunties join in. Snoozing dog opens an eye, sighs contentedly, and returns to slumber. The singing is rich and resonating, full of emotion and vitality. My heart pines. The timbre is achingly melodious. I listen, transfixed. After a few rounds, the lyrics change. I hear my name, ‘Nina’, included. My scalp tingles. All the women watch me as they increase in volume and enthusiasm. I am barely breathing. Mariama is singing too. She turns to me with bright eyes – what an angelic gift. The singing is still building. I feel what she is going to say before she says it. I don’t need words to know what is happening. ‘It’s for you’ she says, ‘they are singing you in.’
Recently, I attended a very unique opportunity: a 4-part virtual Geography, Art and MemoryWorkshop co-convened by Griffith’s Centre for Social and Cultural Research Dr Laura Rodriguez Castro, Dr Diti Bhattacharya, Dr Kaya Barry and Prof. Barabra Pini.
As a New Materialisms community bike researcher working in Sierra Leone, my work is embedded with post(de)coloniality, cultural dynamics, current-past experiences, gender, geography, mobility and space-time-matterings.
So I was excited about this workshop! Right up my (v)alley! (Get it? Geo joke!)
This workshop invited us to examine and experiment with the cultural and political potentials of ‘memory through art’ in geography inquiry. We looked at creative practices, collaborated and had discussions on some key and pressing issues related to our specific research. There was also the added bonus of an invitation to contribute to a Special Issue of Australian Geographer(2022).
In this session we asked:
What does art do to geographies of memories?
Image: Memories Through Art
A workshop in 4 parts
The workshop was structured in four parts:
Part 1 – 1st February 2021 by 5:00pm: In the week leading up to the event, workshop participants submitted a 1 page (A4 portrait or landscape) response to the question: ‘What does art do to geographies of memory?’ The response could be written, creative, drawn, mapped, photos, collage, text, prose, or more. We will share these on our website, and will form a key discussion point for the interactive workshop event.
Part 2 – 4th February 2021, 3:00pm-5:00pm: We attended the keynote presentations by Libby Harward (Australia) and Virgelina Chara (Columbia). These two artists (see below) work with the current pressing issues of geographical research, treating them as a threshold point for their own creative responses and provocations that they may choose to share during parts 3 and 4. We focused on artistic interventions from Southern epistemologies as these continue to be underrepresented in Australian geography.
Part 3 – 5th February 2021, 9.30am – 12:30pm: Each participant gave an informal 5-minute talk about their creative response which they submitted prior to the workshop. (See my submission is at the end of this post).
Part 4 (optional) – 5th February 2021, 12:30pm – 1:30pm: In the final hour, we collectively discussed how to take these ideas and discussions forward as a Special Issue ofAustralian Geographer integrating some of the workshop themes.
Keynote speakers
Virgelina Chara
Virgelina Chará is a human rights defender, educator, embroidery artist and protest music composer from Colombia. She coordinates the ‘Association for the Integral Development of Women, Youth and Children’ (ASOMUJER y Trabajo) which works with forcibly displaced families and victims of the armed violence in Colombia. She is also the leader of the Embroidery Union at the Memory Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in Bogotá, Colombia. She is a world-renowned educator on the pedagogy and power of memory for the construction of peace.
She was born in Suárez, Cauca, which is a region where armed conflict, extractivism and neoliberal development have meant many people, including Virgelina and her family, have had to confront violence and displacement. Since 2003 Virgelina has resided in Bogotá. In 2005 she was proposed as a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.
You can read more on Virgelina’s work here (left click to Google Translate to English).
Libby Harward
Artist Libby Harward is a descendant of the the Ngugi people of Mulgumpin (Morton Island) in the Quandamooka (Morton Bay Area).
Known for her early work as an urban graffiti artist under the pseudonym of ‘Mz Murricod’, and her performance-based community activism, Harward’s recent series, ALREADY OCCUPIED, engages a continual process of re-calling – re-hearing – re-mapping – re-contextualising – de-colonising and re-instating on country that which colonisation has denied Australia’s First Peoples.
This political practice engages Traditional Custodians in the evolution of ephemeral installations on mainland country which has become highly urbanised and calls for an artistic response that seeks to uncover and reinstate the cultural significance of place, which always was, and remains to be there. Her current place-based sound and video work engages directly with politically charged ideas of national and international significance.
You can find on Libby’s work here and read more on her project DABILBUNG here.
Workshop foucs
During this workshop we discussed themes of memory, art, and geographical knowledge in order to motivate a creative dialogue among geographers, artists, and activists.
We talked about the key question and looked at how to move beyond methodological debates and how to use art mediums as approaches to bring to light the affective and political forces of place speaking to timely and important issues such as colonialism, climate change, migration and peace and conflict.
There was a strong focus on Indigenous and Southern epistemologies and discussions on how to decolonize feminist research involved with geography, power, labour, art, and memory.
Image: Still taken from Virgelina Chará’s keynote.
Workshop convergences, notes, artifacts and ideas
I was heavily invested in the discussions, which were provocative, rich and challenging. Out of respect for the content and participants present, I have chosen to deliberately deviate from the traditional blog ‘reportage’ style of summarising the workshop. Instead, I am using a non-linear, fragmented, messy, (in)process(un)complete, more New Materialist approach to ‘throw up’ a few random snippets, thoughts and connections I noted during these sessions. The below content is a deliberate post-human shift from presenting content as if it is ‘right’, ‘accurate’ or ‘makes sense’ to humans-participants-knowers. While some content may make sense – some may not. There are no mistakes or errors in these notes. So for the below notes, you dear reader, are implicated in the reiteration and (re)co-creation of the workshop ‘matters’ ….. here we go!
This story is ‘sew’ important …memory, history and life for so many, but new information for others (like me) elsewhere..truthtelling, invasion, pollution, academic violence and extractivism…The ‘Justice ‘ dept, The Memory Centre, the Power of Memory, parent-teacher-adult time with student-children-learner, ‘education is so square now’, pedagogy of memory, to the teachers: ‘do you realise you are the useless ones here?’… we don’t do it through writing, we do it through sewing and food, they have had massacres in every country, ‘ (Duque) he’ is just the model..creative outputs that help us think about these issues…
Some participants linked Virgelina‘s keynote to other textile protests, work and exhibitions, such as:
Libby shares with us her visionary bloodletting, deadstream and saltwater reflections. Flow. Sand Crunch. Lying in grass. Forms and textures. Listen (more) carefully. Birds-eye views. Film as experiential documentation. Art that moves and breathes. Unexpected. Tasmanian salvaged timber. Art(work)s. lying – lying. Post-colonisation – Decolonisation.
Mike is a chairmaker and researcher. Listening to Mike makes me think about how the ideological state apparatus presents a ‘version of collective memory-truth’ (ie statues & iconoclasts) – that is literally set in concrete (or other material) and associated forms of patriarchal, colonistic (tee-hee..get it?! not now, stay focus(ed), be serious!), political issues that go along with that kind of art …and that the artist is rarely? clearly? identified or acknowledged….after all it is their output/work/….
BI re(views) the memory artifacts produced: Proserpine Ambulance Depot (1990), Proserpine Hospital Outpatients Department (1939-1999), Proserpine RSL Club (1950-1990), and the Eldorado Picture Theatre (1927-1985).
Janis literary maps and remaps the Queensland Wollen Manufacturing Company floorplan(s) with mill(field)work, mill(i)visits, millscapes and milieus. Overlaying Coral’s draft interpretations of Mud Maps. Ron’s List across the ages – staff payroll (50?) years on.
Embodiment -moving through time-space-places
Public art
Art, bike, memory and geography
Institualization of memory – academic violences – uni mapping vs uni tracing
During this holiday break, I have sorely missed our New Materialisms (NM) Special Interest Group (SIG) monthly meetings. NM is the approach I am using for my bicycle PhD (more specifically Quantum Physicist Karen Barad’s Agential Realism). I thrive on sharing ideas, resources and experiences with this incredible group. In November, we had our last meeting for 2020. We reconvene in March 2021. It feels so far away! I am craving some NM activity. So, I revisited my 2020 NM SIG notes and here’s some of what bubbled up in 100 words. Enjoy, NG.
Worlding: A galaxy of relational encounters
Each month we meet to discuss theory, practice and research. Who knows what might emerge? The bite of elliptical surfboards. How affects have wayward offspring. Stealth(ily) mother-in-laws. Malian master desert musicians. Temporarily captured objects. Run-ins, rangings, ruts and recognitions. The half-life of (could-be) facts. Un(re)learning sentipensanto feminisms. Personalities, prisms, passions and ponderings. Gothic academic co-authored monsters. Atmospheric political graffiti in disused textile factories. A school-child’s unexplained vomit. Women’s business from the paddock to the boardroom. Dynamics, details, disorientations and discoveries. Always something interesting, always something new. Conversations worth having and experiences worth sharing. This is what is remembered.
This week I am delivering my final in-progress PhD milestone before submission – the Thesis and Candidature Review Milestone (TCRM).
The timing is perfect/necessary/awkward being right at the end of the year and just before holidays! Righto!
What is a TCRM?
The aim of the TCRM is a ‘final check-in’ to see how the candidate and thesis are tracking and to provide a forum for a formative review of work completed so far. Part of the TCMR is to also outline what work is still left to do and progress towards submission.
Like other milestones such as the Early Candidature Milestone Report (ECMR) and Confirmation, the TCRM requires a written report and a 30-mins presentation. The report is reviewed by external assessors who also attend the presentation (with your supervisors and anyone else who is interested and invited).
The TCRM is set up to:
review and confirm I am making ‘satisfactory progress’
check my timeline for completion
review that my work is fulfilling the University research output requirements (like publications)
identify any difficulties I am having that might negatively affect the quality of my research or completion (ie COVID – like everyone else!)
give me an opportunity to share preliminary findings
demonstrate I have been developing capabilities that progress my research goals and career objectives
Preparing for my TCRM
Like any milestone, preparation is a little nerve-racking, but also very helpful.
I kept telling myself: I don’t have to have all the answers; this is a moment-in-time ‘catch-up’; my data analysis is still unfolding, so I can only share as much as I have.
It was really beneficial to take stock and audit my work done so far – it feels good!
For my TCRM, I ditched the ‘template’ format the Uni recommended and opted instead to ‘tell the story’ of the project’s evolution in my own way. It was more ethical, genuine and satisfying to do so.
I was tired by the time the presentation came about, so I was conscious not to overinvest. I knew I ‘had this’ and that the project is on track.
Dr Sherilyn Lennon (my principal supervisor and kick-ass educator, writer, philosopher and New Materialist) made the brilliant suggestion that I perform some of my data as the clincher at the end. This way I could give a sense of what I was working on for data analysis. It was a unique and engaging way to finish – and was very much in keeping with New Materialisms and my personality…and the audience LOVE it!!
My TCRM went really well
The external assessors were very supportive and gave me awesome feedback and ideas to consider.
My mum and dad came along for moral support (and because they are genuinely interested) and it was awesome having them there. After the presentation, people were invited for questions and comments and both my parents contributed some very thoughtful on-point comments (as well as being very proud – which was a given). My other supervisor Prof. Parlo Singh said it was lovely they came and gave them a special mention.
I’m not sharing the details of my work here (still top secret) but below are a few slides from TCRM slides as an indicator for some of the content covered.
Hazah! It was good to do and a relief now it’s now done.
For the next wee while, I’m taking some time to rest and recuperate.
Then the real hard work starts: data analysis and write up.
This is not your traditional academic article: no big words, no theory no-one understands and no in-text references.
This piece is perceptive, personal and poignant.
It is only 2.5 pages and is an embodied exploration of what is seen, said, felt, performed and experienced during international travel.
It centres on my return trip home (to Brisbane, AUS) after doing bike PhD Fieldwork in Sierra Leone.
In it, I share some moments of ‘Encountering the Return’ trip that any traveller would instantly recognise.
Anyone who has ever been overseas or in an airport will relate to this article.
I wanted to capture how time, space, place, bodies, objects, movement and feelings are all co-implicated in re(co)creating the fleeting moments that make up our lives.
Not many people know (or understand) what it is I actually do when I ‘work on’ my bicycle research project. It is private, complex and challenging work. Usually, my academic skills are concentrated on producing research/writing as a way of communicating my expertise. But every so often…..there are delightful moments when being a researcher intersects with the every day in fun and surprising ways. Here one such situation that happened recently in 100 words.
Image: Libparlor.com
An unexpected pleasure: a dear friend comes for a visit. Hours of poignant conversations, cheeky reminiscences, a casual bike ride for coffee around the bayside, good food and late night laughter. I keep to my work schedule, hard as it is. Researching, teaching, writing. After one workshop that goes particularly well, our house has a friendly game of scrabble before dinner. Two games in a row, my opening move is a 8-letter word: bipedals (126) and capsized (138). Surprise all round. I am embarrassed. I joke that my brain is still ‘on’ from work. Maybe this PhD thing is working.
As many readers know, October is my birthday month. It is also a busy time for most universities. So for this month’s New Materialisms Special Intrest Group (SIG), I floated the idea of having a writing party. Instead of adding pressure to read and discuss, I thought it’d be a good time to pause, take stock, and to put into playful practice some of the NM ideas and approaches we’ve been discussing thoughout the year in our SIG.
It might seem a little weird to have a Writing Party for your birthday and not a bike-themed party but seeing as though my PhD research is on bikes – it was a win-win for me!
Woohoo! Writing Party!!!
Writing Party Invite
Here is the NM SIG Writing Party invite I sent out to NM SIG members:
Are you feeling overworked and lonely? Has your enthusiasm for writing taken a hit lately?
Are you struggling to get those paragraphs perfect and on the page?
Then it’s time to PARTY!
At our next NM SIG, we shift the focus from reading to writing and you are invited to join our 2-hour Writing Party (details and link included here – it was a closed event, so no details here on the blog – sorry!).
With a continuing focus on the feminist New Materialists, we welcome your ideas/musings/partially formed paragraphs and feedback for others in our group.
Bring along a partially formed paragraph for sharing and feedback.
This Writing Party will also include guided writing warm-ups and research-focused timed writings as well as some time to chat, reflect and share as much or as little as you want.
The aim is to help you get over the writing hump and back into the flow…
No matter what your current research project is, this session will help reinvigorate your writing passion!
We look forward to seeing you there!
So what did we do?
We had a great time!…..And we wrote heaps!
It was a small, but dedicated crowd who were up for writing and sharing NM ideas and practices.
We had 2 hours and I wanted to make sure we had time to write some new material, share some writing we had already done and have time to discuss and process writing styles and production.
I opened with each person saying why there were here for the sessions and what they hoped to achieve,
Then we did a 10 min writing warm-up activity I call Embodied writers in the here and now. I developed this as a warm up task for my own working days a while back and have been using it with others, colleagues, study groups and writing retreats since. It is a generative and useful warm up that gets the juices flowing and there is always something interesting to talk about that comes out of it.
We then shared a piece of our own writing that we were proud of. this is a great activity to do to boost confidence and be exposed to different types of writing and processing. I enjoyed hearing other people’s ideas on why it was meaningful to them and what they learnt from/while writing it.
Then, we did a word sprint activity looking at Research Tentaclesto get thinking about vocab, fluency, collocations and expression.
A 15 mins Rolling Research Activityfollowed the vocab discussion up nicely. Here we wrote down our answer to the question; What is a current research-writing-tension for you? We then took time to read other people’s answers and add some suggestions and ideas on how to shift or move forward with these. This was a great way to pool our experiences and resources and get some great ideas we would not have thought of by ourselves.
We then did a Matter Matters sprint. Using a piece of our own writing, we discussed , provoked, challenged and layered how matter matters in our research. We then did a quiet 10 mins written reflection to excavate if anything had shifted or moved as a result of dong the activity-discussion-writing.
For our last activity, we opened the floor to a Partial Writing discussion. This is where you share piece of unfinished writing you are currently working (selection or except) for those who want to get some feedback or ideas on what and how to move forward.
I had a ball! It was so great to have designated time to write, share, discuss, laugh and learn -we so rarely create opportunities like this – where there is no pressure or expectation, yet you can still experiment with writing ideas and prose.
I think it is very important to celebrate ALL types of writing and to keep writing fun. After all, sitting at a desk for years writing up formal academic research would be a challenge for any one – so it was nice to stop for a breather and to play and have some fun with writing.
Doing a PhD is usually seen as a good thing. But sometimes it can cause perceived or actual tension for yourself or others. Recently, this happened to me and it served as a great reminder that often (as with most things in life), things are not always what they seem and that everything is always-already with(in) a twist. Here’s what happened in 100 words. Enjoy, NG.
Well-meaning advice for my first-time BBQ: ‘Maybe don’t mention your PhD’. Gloomy backyard introductions and I only remember Mouse and Skipper. I stand awkwardly. Drinking. Tattoos pour down legs and arms, scraggly beer strained beards and black heavy metal T-shirts. Smoking. My trendy hat feels too tight. Disappearings. A huge brown mastiff watches half-naked kids fight. Reappearings. I make a joke that falls flat. Eating. Jonno tells me his secret fishing spots. Teasing. Raucous stories of youthful antics. Laughing. On departure: sweaty hugs and a take-home food pack. Over the balcony, Big Dan yells ‘Best of luck with ya research!’
