It feels like it's been weeks since a confessional, a long distance relationship shortened after a train journey, an awakening after a sleeping sickness. I'm not sure whether I'll slide back into this long delicious space provided by off line - ness or whether the proverbial flood gates will open, and I'll be writing again, but it's not worth thinking about. It comes when it comes, and this time of year is typically like this: we wonder where all the people have gone, when really they're just giving themselves a rest at the end of one year and warming their hands by the fire of the new.

I do find it sad that some people are resolving to leave, or finding it difficult to renew their 2026 Hive vows, or admitting they're lying to themselves if they pledge to post daily or be here more often, as if showing up is a deep breath that provides oxygen to the cells of the broader hive. Perhaps all it is a seven year, eight year, ten year itch, where the cycle has ended, or transformed into something new, a different shape - not a death spiral, or even a sparkler fizzing out in the night, but just different. And of course that's okay.

The last few weeks has had me think of many posts to write, in response to my own quiet, and to others that I glimpse when I scroll lazily through the Hive feed. They remain unwritten, and are forgotten. There's too much, and not enough, going on.

I know some things - that AI is absolutely repulsive, and I can no longer entertain it or even make excuses to myself that it is 'useful' or 'interesting'. Now we know that it's an environmental nightmare and it's destroying our brains and thus our creativity and diversity, we have no excuses. Still, like the big blue 'F' on the fourth page of my phone screen, Chatty sits there like a malicious imp. 'Go on', they say 'you know we make your lives easier'. I squat the thought and let the blood trail down the wall. Fuck easier, I say. I have a battery powered mosquito racquet for that - 'easier' shrieks and sparks against the wire and turns into something prettier.

I know that birds eye chilli and cayenne chilli make different Indonesian chilli sambals - one sharper and spicier, one mellower. The lime zings in my mouth. The rendang can be whatever you want it to be, depending on the spices in your cupboard. I shake an unknown amount of clove and cardomon into the mortar, grind it happily. I wonder what lime to plant in the new garden that we planned out this week. Kaffir lime for the leaves and zest, key lime for the rest. I want a wonder garden I can pick ginger from, various basils, invite new bees.

I know I will be happy in this new place. Happy as a giggle chicken. There is a family of kookaburras, the sound of their name breaking the air: kook-koo-kooka-kook-kook. The cockatoos make us empty the bird baths - they shit on the deck and bring scores of their mates. Two pink galahs stared disconsolately into the empty bowl and we thought we might try to fill them once a week, so the cockies don't get any ideas about taking up permanent and noisy residency.

I know it'll get quieter than it is now, summertime summertime. Town is busy a.f. The holiday makers are here, but we chose well with our street, which is quiet. My son, grandson and his mother stayed with us a week and let me tell you, if there's a three year old in the house there is no time to be a'hivin. I know that I am a good Grandma - I make nice cream and toilet roll binoculars and let him have the hose to inadequately water the garden. Jamie spends time with him in the shed, as Grandpas do, with screws and various fasteners, drills and hammers. The boy is delighted. The man takes on hero status. Perhaps he is already a memory in the circularity of time: 'I remember my Grandpa's shed', the future says, like we thought it would.

I know my brain must be fed if I am to defend against the ai forming its battalions that wear us down cell by cell, search by search, copy by copy, lie by lie. I'm trying to read. Nathan Harris' 'Amity', and 'Kyros' is now ready at the library. If you read you can't be online. Every 'list' I read and scour I plug into the library search engine and wait for it to be cooked, the ping arriving in my messages like another Christmas gift.

I know that we have drunk enough - we smashed the glass of the year against the deck and know the month coming should be, and will, be, dry. The deck is brilliant and works as it should. We have mangoes and watermelon out there, scrambled eggs, tacos.

It's hot to the north and cool to the south: it's summer, but it's not scorching yet, and no need to take refuge. I swim, dragging my legs behind me. Jamie chases piles of sand, scowls at dirty feet. I lick my fingers and sweep salt from my eyebrows.

I don't know yet if I need surgery. Somedays I can't function. Pain is heat and noise and swallows joy. I try not to let it. I resort to the occasional opiod, infrequent antiinflammatory, do exercises aimlessly, because everyone is on holiday and I have no guidance or answers.

I know many things and none.

I know I will die.

I know that I will live as best can this year, and have as many stories to tell as I can.

I know I'm not done here yet, not really.

Happy 2026.

With Love,

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