Suddenly, Over a Long Period of Time – On Weathering the Seasons of Waiting.

This year, I am joining Griffin Theatre Company as part of Griffin Studio. A year-long engagement to develop my next major work alongside some of the most rigorous storytellers in the country; something I have been building towards for nearly a decade. It feels like a milestone built on perseverance, tenacity, and (mostly) unshakeable good humour.

I have been thinking on what this arrival actually is. Because what it is not, is an overnight success. Not luck. Not inevitability. Not a surprise. The image that comes to mind is my archaeologist fathers enduring mis-quote when explaining the final dramatic moments of cliff erosion.

 “[it] happens suddenly over a long period of time.”

Cliffs in the Blue Mountains

I am seven or eight years old and my dad, a parks and wildlife ranger, had been hired to appear as on-screen talent for the classic Australian TV show Totally Wild. My school class were brought in to play the curious kids on a bush-walk learning about how the Blue Mountains came to be.

Totally Wild opening credits circa 1994.

Some people might insist he meant “after.” I don’t.

That wild tumbling down of a mountain is in my mind, both a happening and a waiting. It is a small erosion. Day by day. Season by season. Pressure layered on pressure. There is no “suddenly” without the long stretch of weathering. 

Cliff face to rocky gully happens both in an instant and over eons.

The original take must be on a film reel somewhere in the Channel 10 archives. I think Totally Wild reshot the line for the final edit, but I have a ghostly memory of watching it on TV and he says ‘over’ instead of ‘after.’

 It’s this version that I write on post-it notes and stick to my desk, motivating me through the next draft or application. It’s a tiny bit of time magic I quote back to my 71-year-old dad at important moments like yarning over coffee about how he’s finally starting his PhD. It is an arrival into his academic and elder years that happened suddenly over a long period of time.

Motivational quotes.

I applied for Griffin Studio for the first time in 2012 — two artistic directors ago.

Only a few years out of drama school and the program is in its infancy, just as I was, really. I remember that young artist, passionate, somewhat unfocused, desperate to be in rooms that could shape her. She thought she needed permission. What she needed was proximity. What I have now is practice.

Practice changes everything.

I have applied unsuccessfully for Griffin Studio at least six times. Once my application was lost due to a technical error. 

Griffin Studio is also the program I was hoping to be successful in when I wrote my ‘Almost to Maybe’ blog three years ago.  Studio being the hopeful ‘maybe’ pulling me into the future.

If I had been accepted that year, my work wouldn’t be what it is now.  Without the seasons of trying, failing, getting close, beginning again, I wouldn't be ready. I wouldn’t have this focus, this trust in relationships, this clarity in my next step or excitement in the work I am about to undertake.

To anyone in our sector sitting with disappointment, and to a future version of me who will sit there again.

Disappointment is not a verdict. It’s part of the weathering.

Stay in it.

Keep making.

Rest when you need to.

Let time do its work.

The play I will explore this year at Studio is currently called Jurassic Bark. It is a work that has also been shaped by Dad’s wisdom and our shared history on Gundungurra and Dhurag Country.

Draft 1 Jurassic Bark or Wollemi

It is inspired by the same rocky ups and downs of the Blue Mountains of my childhood, and its sacred knowledge of deep time and beauty in diversity. My dad has taken care of that place through many roles, as a Lore Man off his own country, as a Parks Ranger, a firefighter, an archaeologist, and once-upon-a-time, a gardener for the Mt Toma Botanic gardens. He has walked that place since before I was born. 

The Wollemia nobilis in their secret place.

Jurassic Bark grows out of the discovery of the Wollemia nobilis, a dinosaur tree hidden deep in a secret grove. As I type, a small box sits beside me. Inside it, an original specimen clipped from the Wollemi branches. A gift from my dad. Time, perfectly preserved in bark. 

Jurassic Bark’s story has been weathering for years. Griffin Studio is the place where it takes its next form.

 Some things happen suddenly, over a long period of time.

Fossil of Wollemia’s spiny foliage