When my salad is brought over to me by the sunny waitress, I have a laptop balancing on my knees, ready to start the day’s work. I suddenly spot that the halloumi on my plate is in the shape of Tasmania – it’s uncanny – and I can’t resist ditching the work in favour of conjuring memories of a place I once lived and breathed.
It’s been 18 months since I left the shores of Tasmania, for a life back in Britain. A lot has happened – more than I could ever have anticipated. Catching Covid-19 twice as a family might give a flavour of recent history in our Oxfordshire home.
In recent news, these personal challenges seem trivial. We now have a maniacal European leader who is invading another country. It’s akin to the atrocities witnessed in this continent more than 80 years ago. The mood in Europe is a mixture of anguish, incredulity and anger. Where will he stop?
I’ve noticed that an impulse of fight or flight overcomes the senses whenever the news comes on. Flight is my chosen response. It’s cowardly, but my being is ill-equipped to process the evils of a megalomaniac – how I’d love to storm the Kremlin with news that no amount of Botox will delay meeting his maker!
The urgent pleas of Ukraine’s leader ring in my ears; I respond by frantically searching for the most remote Tasmanian beach in my mind. I visualise the rugged peace Tasmania’s wilderness selflessly and indiscriminately offers to anyone wishing for a meaningful experience.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s appeals for our help loop louder in my ears and my heart breaks into a thousand pieces. Flight secures its grip on me – and promptly ghostly rosellas swoop past my vacant eyes; the distant sound of waves crash onto a pristine beach and the smell of eucalyptus lingers. I can picture our older kids jumping on the rocks at Clifton Beach, while the little one builds a sand castle. The look of achievement on her cherub face is priceless. Suddenly, my mind jumps to a scene of us eating ice-creams on the golden sands at Long Beach. We push our kayaks out into the Derwent and ecstatically paddle to Blinking Billy, before racing each other back to the large floating platform. The reflection of the sun against the water blinds me and I greedily fill my lungs with wholesome, pure air.
Oxygen fills my body back in England. It’s my greatest escape yet.
The meditative memories are medicine for the soul. But now I must go back and fight – fight by uniting with the world against evil. We will keep donating, we will keep sending aid, we will give refuge to Ukrainians fleeing the crisis, and we will sanction you and all who support you until you shrink and fall into the cracks of the universe; forgotten evermore. You will not win.
I’ve caught my breath, for now. But I’ll be recalling you again, Tasmania – you restore me.
Clarissa Horwood grew up in Oxford, courtesy of her English father, and spent all her childhood holidays with relatives in France, courtesy of her French mother. She has a keen sense of the ridiculous, and can swear better in Spanish than either English or French. Despite being so thoroughly European, she married an Australian and moved to Hobart in 2013. Their three children are adept at switching accents. The family returned to Oxford in 2020 to be with Clarissa’s mother during Covid-19, and the move was such a major upheaval that it looks likely to be permanent. Her column, Letter from Oxford, will be about memories and connections between two cities a world apart, but it will be written in a Tasmanian accent.
