The Afterword

Tag: writing

  • A Job for One Day, A Longing for More

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    Peter
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    There’s something meaningful about watching an animal return to the wild. After weeks or months of care—feeding, tending injuries, creating safe spaces—it comes down to a simple moment: a gate opens, and the animal walks or hops or flies back into the world. I’d like to be there for that. For a day. Maybe more.…

  • Make Australia Nate Again

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    Peter
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    A nod to the local bloke who ran for a seat that doesn’t exist Nate Newell, local mechanic and owner of Star Garage, made headlines this week—not for a scandal, not for a policy gaffe, but for throwing his hat in the ring for a federal seat that technically doesn’t exist. That seat? Mona Vale…

  • The Slow Productivity of the Morning

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    Peter
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    There is a kind of productivity that moves fast —urgent, noisy, tangled in a web of demands.And then there is another kind:the slow, deep work of becoming.I find it most clearly in the morning. The house is still.The animals are fed.The world has not yet begun to press its needs against me.In those early hours,…

  • What I Can’t Stop Writing About

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    Peter
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    So here we are: blogging about my blog. A reflection on the reflections. I know—it’s a bit meta. But I think there’s something fitting about pausing to ask, What am I really talking about, underneath all this talking? Because the truth is, I like to write. And in all these stories and afterthoughts, there are…

  • Who will you be? How will you live?

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    Peter
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    What do you want to be when you grow up? It’s a question I’ve heard all my life — first directed at me, then at the next generation. It usually expects a job title, something neat and impressive. But what if the better question is: Who will you be? How will you live? That question…

  • The Weight of Staying Silent

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    Peter
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    I’ve built much of my life on being reliable. Loyal. Dutiful. Self-sacrificing. These are strengths I’ve cultivated with care—virtues I’ve leaned on to be the kind of person others can count on. I take my responsibilities seriously. I honour commitments. I do what’s asked of me. And I like the respect that comes with that.…

  • On What Makes Me Nervous

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    Peter
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    It’s not fear that shaped me, not really, not in the way some people mean it. I was never afraid of change, not even as a kid, though I didn’t chase it either. I’ve stayed where things mattered. By the time I’m done, I’ll have worked in four places over forty years, and that sounds…

  • Unwinding

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    Peter
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    I’m not sure I do this very well.Even the question—how do you unwind?—makes me pause. It doesn’t trigger a confident answer, but a kind of internal audit. I don’t have a ritual for it, not really. Not in the conventional sense. Unwinding, for me, is functional. It isn’t about indulgence; it’s about rhythm. I’ve learned…

  • A Kind of Home

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    Peter
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    Sometimes the people we need most are the ones we’ve never met before. There’s something oddly tender about the first conversation you have with a stranger—especially when it happens in a room full of strangers, where no one yet knows how the story will go. That first confession, “I’ve never done this before,” offered by…

  • Still, I Stay

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    Peter
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    —from the voice of a Syrian in exile I have never stopped dreaming of the olive trees.Even now,in this camp of sand and plastic walls,I see them when I close my eyes—the way their shadows fell across my grandfather’s fieldbefore everything cracked and scattered. Home is a scent that never fades.It lives in cardamom coffee,in…

  • Bucket Lists and Buffett Lists

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    Peter
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    There’s something intoxicating about a bucket list. The name itself is cheeky and rebellious—do these things before you kick the bucket. It suggests urgency, vibrancy, life-before-death. Bucket lists seduce us with a sense of possibility: Swim in Icelandic hot springs. Walk the Great Wall. Eat something unpronounceable in a night market at midnight. The irony,…

  • The Happiness I Didn’t Buy

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    Peter
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    Let me start with what I am not. I am not a consumer, at least not in the way the world often defines it. I buy what I need—groceries, dog food, replacement socks. But I’ve never found myself wandering through a shopping centre just to “see what’s new.” I don’t crave the latest model of…

  • The Architecture of Relationship

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    Peter
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    They say school prepares you for life, but I think it’s more accurate to say it reveals you to yourself. If that’s true, then high school was the first place I caught a glimpse of the person I was becoming—the kind of person I wanted to be. I didn’t have the classic prelude. No pre-school…

  • One Brave Yes

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    Peter
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    Thirty years ago, I said yes to something that made my knees knock. Not a yes to danger or fame or anything that would impress my teenage self. Not a bungee jump or skydiving. No. This was far more terrifying: Creative writing. Even saying it still feels strange in my mouth, like speaking a second…

  • To Move Together

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    Peter
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    It’s a simple enough question—what’s the most fun way to exercise? But for me, the answer loops around in unexpected directions, landing somewhere between the paradoxical and the profound. The short answer is: with people. Always with people. But not just any people. And certainly not in any way. This in itself is strange. I’m…

  • On Being John Keating

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    Peter
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    If I could step into the shoes of any character from a book or film, I’d be tempted to choose John Keating from Dead Poets Society. Robin Williams brings him to life with that inimitable, twinkling mischief in his eye—the kind of teacher who walks on desks, encourages rebellion with flair, and dares students to…

  • The Quiet Ones

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    Peter
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    As an Australian, it almost feels like swimming is part of our DNA. We’re a coastal people—literally. Around 87% of us live within 50 kilometres of the coastline. All of our major cities hug the shore. That’s over 22 million people who call the coast home, and when we talk about the “classic Aussie holiday,”…

  • Before & After – Mark 4:35-5:43

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    Peter
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    Desperation,raw and unfiltered,crashes like waves against the fragile ribs of a boat.Fishermen, seasoned by salt and storm,shake in terror.A storm that silences courage,a darkness that devours hope. And yet—He sleeps.Not indifferent,but unshaken. “Don’t you care if we drown?”They cry out,as I have cried out,when the winds rise and the waters rise and I riseonly to…

  • Bearing Fruit – Mark 4:1-34

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    Peter
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    Mark 4:1-20 Original message by Andrew West, The Bridge Church Macquarie Park NSW The farmer is not careful with his seed.He flings it wide, casting it over stone and soil,over path and thorn and quiet earth.He does not measure the worth of the ground—he only sows, and sows, and sows. Some seed never settles, never…

  • Through Seventy Years

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    Peter
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    Based on the Life Stories of Trevor & Patricia DavisWritten for their 70th Wedding Anniversary, 1 January 2025 It started with a barn dance,two strangers moving to the same rhythm.A quiet smile, a tentative question,May I walk you home?Patricia took a chance and said yes,and from that moment,two paths became one. Clarence Street saw your…