As I sit here reflecting on the floods of November 2022, I see the visuals – our rural landscape saturated in rushing, debris filled water – flowing like an outsider in places new and never before seen. I see soggy socks, gumboots, muddy brows, fire trucks, choppers overhead and the weariness portrayed in slumped shoulders.
I see vision from the air of swollen lakes, rivers and waterways…of paddocks that were not so long ago posed to birth crops and produce; and now are glassy with their laden water filled bellies. I see the imprint and shadows of that was – and what will be again – but for now, the water clouds it – muddy and untamed.
I see animals; their fur, wool and hides dripping in muddy water, caked with mud, the patches worn like medals marking their time in sodden paddocks as they strive for higher ground. I see the news crews, the TV flashes, the Facebook clips where those from outside our homes and communities battle to understand these times and re-tell our stories.
This is what I see.
What I feel though is twofold.
It’s the feeling of loss, of sadness and grief. It’s the lows of heartache – of overwhelming misadventure. This picture is one you could easily get lost in – it’s heavy and emotive, it’s raw and it’s real. It’s families apart, each member playing their role in defence of lives built in our gorgeous rural landscape. It’s community – my team – working and serving even when their homes, possessions and families are at risk. It’s one foot, then the next, plodding as though through the mud for fear of stopping – and the emptiness that may well come with it.
And yet, it is hopeful. As the seed grows from well-watered and cultivated ground, so do our people. Tended by kindness, by comfort food, by small acts and large that fertilise with care and love. Our rural ethos is ‘helping a mate’, it’s bolstering and supporting each other with a recipe of quick wit, raucous and inappropriate laughter and a harvest of mateship. I sometimes think the concept of resilience is disarming, that it somehow negates the need for care and compassion as it promotes some inhuman strength and hardness.
But it is resilience in spades that I witness every day. Clinicians tending to others when their homes are under water; our support services team tending faithfully above and beyond to continue to serve our community; the heart of our admin team who hold us up with care and comfort when they themselves are stationed far from home to continue working in our health service; leaders modelling the way, providing care, being present and mindful of both the emotional and service focus that remains a need amongst the rushing waters.
I am weary, and yet I am energised.
I am driven by my awe and inspiration in the approaches of those around me.
I am bolstered by their acts and words every day.
My community; soggy socks, gumboots and mateship.
