These Rooms Of Mine, These Windows Of Mine
“I have just stood before the open window of my bedroom and I have breathed in deeply all the honeysuckle-perfumed air, the sunshine, the snowdrops of winter, the carouses of spring, the primroses, the crooning pigeons, the trills of the birds, the entire procession of soft winds and cool smells of frail colors and petal-textured skies, the knotted snake greys of old vine roots, the vertical shoots of young branches, the dank smell of old leaves, of wet earth, of torn roots, and fresh-cut grass, winter, summer, and fall, sunrises and sunsets, storms and lulls, wheat and chestnuts, wild strawberries and wild roses, violets and damp logs, burnt fields and new poppies.”
As I sit in this sun-filled room, I can hear the ocean. It’s loud and roaring, and the sun is so warm. The wooden floors are polished, and the sliding mirror doors reflect back the space that surrounds me. I meet my gaze, and I’m looking at myself as if to say, “Well, here we are.”
I drove over 11 hours yesterday in the Jeep, all the way from Bowral in the Southern Highlands to here, the Gold Coast, to Surfer’s Paradise. Up to this apartment. I hauled every box and bag up and down in the elevator. I didn’t allow myself to properly look at the view or the place until every last bit was up here.
The drive suddenly didn’t feel so long. I have always loved driving—long distances, short distances, alone, with company. I really do just love driving. On the drive here, I sang, listened, cried, and talked to myself. I drove in silence, too. The drive is mostly highway, but I knew the whole way on my right was the coastline, even if I couldn’t see it. Then, when you finally take the turn into Surfer’s—first you smell it, the saltiness, then you hear it, and then there it was, the deep, vast blue.
I’m surrounded by boxes and containers and suitcases. My bed is against the window, and when I say I wish you could be here to sit by this window, I mean I really wish you could be here. It feels like having a window by the edge of the world.
Walking into this room last night, seeing the sunset, I felt an immense amount of love. As if this room, even though it’s my first time seeing it, is an old friend. I immediately felt so at ease, so warm. There’s something about the energy in a room, the feeling.
I have had many rooms and many windows in my life. I remember every one. I even remember hotel rooms, airport lounges, windows from buses and trains. Every time I remember or think back to a certain time in my life, I remember what room I had, and I see in my mind’s eye the window view I had. Sometimes, I imagine a large wall with hanging frames. Some silver, some gold, some wood, some more worn and splintered, others brand new, etched into, intricately carved. Although instead of pictures or paintings, each frame has a view I can look at, or even peek my head through to get a good whiff again.
My very first room is the one I go to when the world feels very quiet. In my mind, it is always between 5 and 6 pm in that room. The light filters softly through the trees, and I am lying on my bed. Where my head rests is right under the window, and I am listening to the mourning dove sing a song most familiar. My room is warm and filled with love. Soft toys galore, toys, a dollhouse. I sit on the carpet often and draw, colouring in. I listen to tapes and sing along. I pretend to read and flick through picture books. It’s safe, and it’s perfect. Outside smells of cut grass, and the way the water tasted through the garden hose lingers on my tongue. A bit sweet, tangy. I fall asleep to a tape of nature sounds my mum puts on before leaving a crack in the door after saying goodnight. The house I grew up in also had a friendly ghost. A woman. My mum often heard her talk to one of the dogs at the front hall entrance, clear as day. I never saw or heard her, but as a young girl, I think I felt her sometimes. Panorama smelled of home.
The next room was a room in my grandparent’s farmhouse, Die Plaas, in the Karoo. While we never stayed for very long at a time, the farm was like a second home, so it must be included here. There were quite a few rooms to choose from, but the one in the very back, on the left, with the three beds, was the one we stayed in the most, my brother and I. I’d sleep on the bed closest to the door, and the beds were all against one wall, facing the opposite walls that had large windows looking to the back. At night, it was pitch-black darkness—no lights, no generator, and the fire long done. Eventually, your eyes adjusted, and when I’d lay in bed with the covers up to my chin, I’d look out those big windows and be mesmerized by the silhouettes outside. Especially when the moon was full, everything was the most magical indigo blue. The sound of the old windmill outside would lull me to sleep, and early, before the sun rose, a big splash into the ice-cold dam let me know it was morning, because Oupa was awake, and he’d dive right in with no hesitation. The floors were wooden and dusty, and I loved the way that house would smell. Like wet earth, rooibos tea, and lingering powder from Ouma’s perfume. One morning, I remember I was still asleep when the sun was already high in the sky, and I was woken up by a wet nose and muddy paws. I woke up laughing and couldn’t believe my eyes. My grandparents had a border collie called Sasha, and her brother lived on a farm “next door” (next door is in quotations because there’s no such thing as next door in the Karoo; next door could be over 20 km away). His name was Sockies because he was all black except for his white paws. He was much bigger than her, too, but he had the kindest eyes. Other times when he would visit, he would walk everywhere with me. There was a small graveyard near the house where people who lived on the land were buried a very long time ago. I loved going to the gravestones and sitting there, wondering who these people were. He’d sit next to me with his head in my lap. I opened my eyes that one morning, and there was Sockies, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, right in my face. I hadn’t seen him for ages. He had walked or ran or wandered all the way from his farm to us. To me. I remember he would jump up, and I’d keep his paws on my shoulders, and we’d hug, but if he was sitting and you reached to pat him, he would lay down and cower. Even then, I knew Sockies maybe weren’t with people who were very kind. I made sure I was extra kind, but I worried and felt sad when he had to go back. I remember his paws were so worn from walking so far on the rocky roads. When I think about this room, it’s often at night before I fall asleep. I imagine I’m a ghost, and I wander through all the rooms. I stand motionless, and breathe in the silence. And those big windows, the earth out there, the Milky Way so radiant and swirling, the windmill clicking and clacking. I remember that morning often with Sockies. In my mind, he has his paws on my shoulders, and we’re dancing, and he knows only kindness. The Karoo smells of dried bush, muddy earth, and the scent of animal fur.
The third room was in a new house, very close to my school. It was at the end of a small cul-de-sac, a smaller house than the one I grew up in. I remember this room in the middle of the afternoon, full sun beaming in. I had a desk, which made me feel like a big girl, and on my bed, only a handful of soft toys sat propped up perfectly, thanks to my mama always making the house a perfect home. I remember more toys on my desk, a mirror, and myself sitting down, playing with a zen garden. It was a light wooden box with bright pink sand and a little wooden rake. I would flatten the sand and draw patterns with the rake all day long, mesmerized.
When I’d look up and out the window, I had to look through thick metal bars. I remember thinking, Windows aren’t supposed to have bars, but I suppose I could look past them. Beyond those bars was a green garden running alongside the house and a big palm tree. It was very tidy. I didn’t hear the mourning dove anymore, but it was okay because I had a Walkman, CDs, and a belt around my waist to walk around with it—or better yet, rollerblade around. I’d listen to Westlife and rollerblade outside until my legs ached. Or I’d be swirling around that bright pink sand until it was perfectly zigzag-patterned.
This house smelled of wax when my mama learned to make candles and whatever the scent is of a fresh cast on your left arm when you snap it in two from rollerblading too fast down a hill.
My fourth room was in a new country. It was cold, with carpeted rooms and a tall staircase. We arrived at this new house at night; the heating wasn’t turned on yet, and it was dark, so the world felt very small. We had to go to Marks & Spencer to get bed linen and duvets, and we were delirious despite the crisp cold air and the unfamiliarity of it all.
I remember waking up the next morning. The house was quiet, my body warm from sleep. Tired-eyed, I walked like a ghost to the bathroom, making note of my new route in this new house, shivers running down my spine as my bare feet stepped on cold tile. I loved the window in the bathroom because it was under a slanted ceiling, with a big handle you could push open wide. The window was foggy. I reached for the handle, turned it, and used my fingertips to nudge the glass.
Green. The world outside was green.
Fields stretched far and wide. I could smell the wetness, the cold. My breath escaped my lips in small puffs of steam, and my eyes remained unblinking. I felt like I was in a dream. I was only on the second floor, in my little bathroom, standing on tiptoes. My little arms were crossed, hands tucked into my armpits. I realized our house looked right out onto rolling green hills.
I smiled at what sunlight does because the dark would have never told us all this was out there.
A little patch of bright daffodils across the street. The grass around them would grow so wild and tall during the summer that my newly made neighborhood friends and I would walk circles and swirls through them to make little pathways. I remember thinking, Having a house made of tall grassy walls may not be so bad. It was soft and smelled of petrichor.
Cows would scatter across those faraway green fields, and years later, a painting done by my mother now hangs in my parents’ home, immortalizing those sweet creatures.
Whenever I want to wake up a little more, I peek my head through this frame, out to that view, back to that morning.
Just me and the suddenly very different, cold, green world out there.
I wonder if that’s why, even today, green is still my favorite color.
The Isle of Man smelled of snow, horses, and popcorn from the Gaiety Theatre.
The fifth room was in another new country, much farther away, and may as well have been on another planet. The day we moved into this new house, it was a very hot summer. I remember at night asking my brother, “What on earth is that?” Listening to the kookaburra’s call outside. I remember boxes and containers and the sound of cellotape being ripped off bubble wrap. I remember thinking my dad must be tired. My room was the first door on the right when you went up the stairs. It was perfectly rectangular, and the windows faced out to the street, a view I have etched in my brain. I remember noticing a kind of screen attached to the window, so you had to look through what seemed like a netted veil. It wasn’t very sturdy, and I had said at my new school to a girl named Rebecca, who was assigned to help me "settle in," that it would just tear if someone were to break in. She looked at me with her head cocked and said, “No one’s going to break in, those are for the mozzies!”
We had a front garden full of eucalyptus trees and stones, and past them, you could see the road, houses on either side and opposite. I could always see who was in the driveway, coming or going. I remember when I had friends over, we’d sit by my piano, which we had positioned right under the windowsill, and we’d absentmindedly play random keys as we spoke and gossiped and laughed and whispered. Most of the time, we weren’t looking at each other—we were looking out that window. At the leaves rustling in the wind, at people walking by with their dogs.
One night, the sunset was so beautiful, and I felt full of life and existential all at once. Imagine that—you’re 10 or 11 and already pondering life’s deepest questions. My heart didn’t know how to carry all that yet. I remember I took off the fly screen on my window, climbed over the piano, and onto the slanted roof of the lower floor. I had seen in movies when kids sat on rooftops or outside their windowsills, and I wanted to be like the movies. I remember the way I felt sitting there. I was alone, and it was perfect. The sky was burning pinks and reds, and there wasn’t a breath of wind. I sat with everything I felt. I felt older than I was. I felt like I had lived so much life already. I still remember the rough texture of the roof against my bare feet, the warmth beneath me from the hot sun baking those tiles all day. I climbed back through and set the fly screen back in place to hide the evidence, and I felt like a changed person once I hopped back into my room.
Nobody knew, and nobody saw. I felt invincible. That age when you become aware of secrets and yourself, and all you want to do is be like the movies. Cherrybrook smelled of eucalyptus and red liquorice sticks I’d buy for 10 cents each at the magazine shop at Appletree.
The sixth room felt more like a castle than the fourth room. We moved neighborhoods, and our new house was three levels—four if you counted the stairs leading down into the bush. My room was on the third, facing the back of the house, and the trees were so tall they towered above the house even at that height. The house sat on a hill, so from my room (which had dark, hunter-green walls, by the way—so meant to be, I thought), I felt I was watching over the neighborhood.
I could see a few streets away and a school in the distance through the trees, and while I fell asleep at night on my bed (which was next to the large window taking up almost the whole wall), I’d have the covers up to my chin and observe. I knew the exact hour and minute the street lamps turned on, what time the boys down the way would play basketball in front of their house with a makeshift hoop. I even spotted an owl once in one of the trees. Its quiet “hoo’s” felt like it was trying to tell me something. And only me.
On days when I was sick from school, I’d feel an odd sense of being misplaced when I’d hear the school bells in the distance and the echoing voices of children. When it rained, it was beautiful, but when there was thunder and lightning, I was always afraid of those tall trees.
When I swam in the pool down below, floating on my back, looking up, I’d sometimes imagine a clone of myself watching from that bedroom window above. I’d watch myself float, looking up at the trees. I’d watch myself from below and wave up at the window. We’d catch each other’s eye and smile.
Beecroft smelled of polished wood from the piano the previous owners left behind and the ground coffee beans from the first time I started drinking it in high school.
My seventh room made me feel like I was really in a movie. It was my city girl era, and I was in university. Milsons Point. It was the first room I had in an apartment, and I had the whole right wing. My room was a funny kind of square, hexagonal in shape. The entire left wall was attached to the balcony, looking back at Lavender Bay, and I had floor-to-ceiling windows. My bed was in the middle of the room, with two bedside tables, and eventually, I moved my desk out of the way so I could have a full view through the windows.
The back of Luna Park was in sight, and at night—especially on the weekends—the lights would make me feel so cozy. I’d hear the festivities, the hum of the crowd, and kids screaming from afar on those little rollercoasters, while I was in my room, on my bed. I have always loved that feeling—being apart from the world yet still within earshot. In limbo. When the park would close, I’d love standing out on the balcony, and the sound of the water lapping against the sides of the boats lulled me to sleep. The way the sun danced on the water every morning, a sea of diamonds, was incredibly charming.
I loved when it rained, and when the wind would howl. I loved the lightning because there was no risk of trees falling. I discovered online shopping and loved collecting my packages from our concierge, Tim. At the front desk, Tim made me feel like a New York girl. I had always wanted to live in New York. Tim was very funny. He had the afternoon and night shift, so I’d see him coming back from class. He was the first person to know how my day went, and despite only ever talking over that desk of his in a few-minute increments, he also knew when not to say anything. When I’d come home tired or stressed, we’d share a tight smile or a nod. His eyes were kind and knowing. He’d hide some of my parcels and joke they hadn’t arrived just to see me laugh in relief.
I loved walking to the elevators. I used to hold my breath until it got to our floor and sigh as I stepped out. I grew up a bit in this room. It belonged to a very specific chapter of my life—studying in the city, independent. Driving everywhere with my sky-blue Fiat 500. I felt very cool. I fell in love with the city. I was figuring out ideas about who I was, or what I liked. I was getting my nails done for the first time, too.
I watched The Great Gatsby when it came out while living there. If you know the film, you’ll remember how Gatsby always stood at the end of his jetty, looking, pining toward Daisy’s island, where at the end of her jetty, a bright green turning light signaled. I rewatched that movie many times. It made me feel something. I eventually started ending it right before the inevitable conclusion so I could pretend it didn’t happen.
I noticed, however, that from my bed, as I looked out at the boats slowly bobbing up and down, that in the distance was a bright green signal light. I hadn’t noticed it before. It would twirl, and I’d count the seconds between each flash. Call me silly, but I felt like Gatsby. I’d lay awake some nights and watch that light. It meant something to me, but I didn’t know what yet.
“He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been at the end of a dock.”
“Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy, it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.”
While studying film in my final year, my crew needed a last-minute location to film a feature we were completing, and the apartment was free over a weekend. That was five or six years ago. It’s still on YouTube somewhere, and sometimes I watch back those silly scenes just to see the inside again.
Milsons Point smelled like Chloe perfume, burgers from Batch, and hotel lobby.
My eighth room was in another country entirely—France. In a beautiful neighborhood called Saint-Cloud, just outside of Paris. And it was the most beautiful place, a real Parisian dream come true.
Upon finishing university, I was in the process of applying for a J1 visa for the U.S. I wanted to go to New York, but my heart led me to Paris. My bedroom in Saint-Cloud was cozy. It was on the bottom floor, direct access to the garden. The wardrobe, dresser, desk, and bed were all whitewashed wood. The bed linens and duvet were off-white with red peonies on them. My desk sat perfectly next to the window, which looked out onto the backyard with its glorious pool and perfect green garden. I use the word ‘perfect’ because, girlishly, it truly was.
I sat at that desk during my first week in Paris and wrote a blog on this very website. I wrote it in pen on paper first, and then transferred it into this digital world of mine. I spent countless hours at that desk, writing letters to my friends and family. My friend Madeline, who lived down the road, had me hooked on stationery, and I bought stamps, ink, envelopes, paper, and pens—suddenly, all I wanted to do was write letters. My mouth tasted like paper stamps, and at night, I dreamed of sealing envelopes on an infinite loop.
We spent a lot of time on the floor of my room. Madeline would bake oatmeal chocolate chip cookies while we watched Girls on my laptop. She would knit or work on Sudoku puzzles while I wrote, both of us slowly sinking into a quiet calmness. I had watched Girls in my previous room at university, and rewatching it with Madeline in Paris felt so special. It was nostalgia and newness all at once.
I loved this room in all the seasons.
When I arrived in the summer, the window was always open, and the most heavenly breeze would lift the sheer curtains into ghostly figures. My door was always open, and there were wet footprints in the carpet from darting in and out of the pool, where we spent our days studying French, reading aloud to one another, and falling asleep in the sun. For the solstice, Madeline braided daisy crowns for us to wear. At the end of one golden-lit day, I walked into my room in a daze—drunk on sunshine and wonderful food—and saw she had clipped a daisy chain to my curtain. The following autumn, it was accompanied by a rose she had folded using maple leaves.
The trees were so beautiful then, ablaze outside my window. The leaves fell one by one, and then all at once.
In the winter, my door was mostly closed to keep in the heat, and I lit candles. Madeline and I would part ways earlier in the evenings, one of us walking back to our place before 3:45 p.m., since by then it was already dark. The days were so short, but I’d laugh thinking back to summer, when the sun set so late and rose so early. We’d walk the whole neighborhood flat, go into the city, spend hours roaming through the Louvre. She’d drape herself over the garden chairs in the Tuileries and groan, “Anya… there are too many hours.”
I’d laugh and ask, “What do you mean?”
“You know,” she’d sigh, stretching dramatically. “The days are too long, there are too many hours. I want to get to bed already.”
Eventually, even in winter or fall, when we weren’t so much in the mood to talk, if one of us asked the other if they were okay, all we had to say was, “Too many hours,” and the other would knowingly nod.
Spring, for me, was the most beautiful.
We’d cycle through Parc du Saint-Cloud to Versailles. The cherry blossoms bloomed for exactly sixteen days, and Madeline would talk about the lilacs. Jasmine, gardenia, and lilac filled the air, and she’d exclaim as we walked to the metro, “Anya! The air! It makes me feel crazy!”
“A good crazy, though?” I’d ask.
“Such a good crazy.”
That room held me for a whole little lifetime. Between travels and weekend trips. Long days, short days. All of it.
Ma chambre. Tu me manques.
Saint-Cloud smelled of blooming lilacs, parched paper Madeline would craft into poetry books, and warm crêpes salés.
The number nine symbolizes completion, new beginnings, and universal love. It's also associated with wisdom, compassion, and generosity. Before I left for Paris, I had a small taste of the new place my parents had bought on the Sapphire Coast—Hyams Beach. On the corner of Tulip Street. When I returned to Australia, I went straight there, and that sliver of coast stole my heart.
This house had four rooms, and I had stayed in every single one by the time it was sold again. The first year and a half after Paris was a complete retreat for myself. Hyams isn’t close to any big towns or the city—it’s a true small beach village, and it was divine.
The room at the bottom had access to the garden. It was cool during the summers, and I hung paintings on the walls, made a meditation corner, and slept like a baby. Then, I moved to the middle level, what we called the blue room. It was right by the kitchen and had access to the pool. The walls were a deep blue, making it extra cozy. Ceramic fish decorations hung on the wall, and a bamboo fan kept the air moving. Because of a mirror placed perfectly on the wall, when I lay in bed, I could look into the reflection and see the sea—Little Hyams just down the way.
Eventually, I moved down the hall into the yellow room. This room got the most sun and had the perfect view of the Banksia in the front garden, which was beautifully designed by a landscaper named Andromeda. She was inspired by the mountains and the sea, and looking out at that garden was like gazing into an oasis. When the moon was full, its light shone so brightly through those windows that I couldn’t sleep some nights. The ocean roared, and the moonlight was almost too radiant.
I was my healthiest and happiest in Hyams in a way I have never been anywhere else. I leaned into my spirituality, wellness, and mindfulness. I listened to podcasts and read books. I discovered Eckhart Tolle and Alan Watts. I wasn’t on social media. I felt like I was in the school of life. I even worked part-time as a wedding florist’s assistant—an amazing side quest that made me feel romantic, even though it was exhausting.
I loved swimming there. The water was crystal clear, especially in winter, and the sand—the whitest in the world.
Our Doberman, Ziva, spent the best years of her life there. I’d wake up before sunrise, just after 4 a.m., and we’d head to Nelson’s, diving over and under the waves together. She’d chase the swallows up and down the shore and always find the best, most magnificent sticks (more like logs) for us to throw. We had a fireplace, and I became a master at stacking the wood and lighting the best, longest-lasting fire you’ll ever see.
We had the best movie nights. Friends would come to stay and never want to leave.
I drove to the city a lot while living there, but I was always rushing back to that sleepy little village. Afraid I’d come to find it was all a dream.
We’d drive to my grandparents' place when they lived atop Fitzroy Falls in the Kangaroo Valley, and that winding road up through the misty mountains—I could do it with my eyes closed.
I lived at Hyams twice. This was the first chapter.
It was a glorious chapter.
Room lucky number 10. Little Thai Garden, it was called. A three-bedroom house made of bamboo, with a dusty, rarely used kitchen, and a garden so quaint and inviting it felt like a secret waiting to be discovered. From the road, you could tell which room was mine by the red-hot bicycle parked outside the glass sliding doors—slightly rusted, with a basket at the front, always ready for the next ride.
Inside, my room was spacious, its red earthy tiles grounding me in something warm and familiar. Out back, my bathroom had no roof, and showering beneath the towering palm trees was a ritual I never quite got used to—yet I loved it.
I spent just over five months here, working around the corner at a wellness retreat I had visited the year before on my birthday. This time, I had returned as an intern. My days were a mix of working in the kitchen with the Thai staff, checking in guests, leading tours and hikes, giving motivational speeches at the ice bath, and even learning to play Tibetan and crystal singing bowls to create floating pool meditations. It was paradise, but it was also hard work. And it was worth every second.
But my room wasn’t just mine—it was also Kendi’s, my rescue kitten. You can read more about that chapter of my life here.
I loved that room. On my days off, I would throw open the sliding doors, journal at my little desk, burn incense, and watch the sudden rain showers roll in. I loved when my friends would drop by unannounced, or swing by to pick me up for a trip to the beach. I loved cycling everywhere—especially at night, when the world was dark and quiet, the humidity clinging to my skin, the full moon above me, the streets my own.
There’s an atmosphere in Thailand—especially in Nai Harn—that has never left me. Maybe it was the people, the little bubble I was in, or how close to myself I felt there, but it was something intimate and unique, like a feeling I could never quite explain but always carried with me.
Leaving Little Thai Garden didn’t feel real. Packing up my things felt wrong—this was my room, so why was I leaving it? But the pandemic was looming, even before we knew it would be the pandemic. I took one last glance back, my throat burning, a lump I couldn’t swallow. I cried all the way to the airport, until my eyes and cheeks stung. And even now, a part of me still lives in that room, in the garden, in the quiet of those humid nights.
Room number 11.
While I was in Thailand, my parents had turned the Hyams house into a thriving Airbnb. But it wasn’t for long—soon after, the pandemic arrived, changing everything. They moved to a brand-new house in the Southern Highlands. James Fairfax. Bowral.
I loved it.
Very country, very green. It reminded us, if only briefly, of the Isle of Man.
Wow… remember room number four? Time flies.
My room in Bowral was front-facing, tucked into the far right corner of the house. By the bathroom, next to the study, near the media room. Everything was brand new, and it smelled new too—fresh carpets, crisp paint, that unmistakable scent of a place untouched by time. The furnishings were beautiful, but my favorite part was the view from the living room. The kitchen and dining area opened up into a sweeping panorama of the garden, lush and green, fields stretching beyond. And just over the hedge was a farm where horses grazed.
We loved the horses.
Ziva barked at the horses.
I loved driving through the Highlands, the quiet roads unfolding into misty landscapes. We were close to my grandparents, and Ziva and I spent endless hours walking through the national park, breathing in the fresh air, listening to the waterfalls roar. The twin falls were always alive, always moving.
Bowral felt cosy. Self-contained. Everything you needed was there.
Dirty Jane’s antique markets were my favorite, and the food? Divine.
Despite all these comforts, my heart was still down the coast at Hyams, where the house stood alone against the tide of change. So I packed my bags, called for Ziva, and watched as she leapt into the Jeep.
We were going on our own lockdown retreat, just as the world fell silent.
Back to room number 9.
Hyams, did you miss me? I missed you.
Despite being open as an Airbnb for a while, the house still felt the same—same atmosphere, same energy, same feeling of home. Ziva and I spent just over three months there, just the two of us. Mama drove down once or twice to visit, but mostly, it was quiet. Peaceful.
I feel immense gratitude that, throughout the pandemic, I was in a place where, if you didn’t know what was happening in the world, you’d never guess. I never once wore a mask or had to keep my distance. In Hyams, it was rare to see another person most days anyway.
Z and I had our routines—trail runs every morning, following the dolphins as they danced from Blenheim to Greenpatch to Chinaman’s. Some days, we’d see paddleboarders or kayakers out in the distance, small silhouettes against the water. They’d wave to us from far out, and we’d wave back before heading home to make a fire and fall asleep on the couch, watching movies or laughing at TikToks.
Some days, I did feel a little stir-crazy. But in hindsight, I wish I hadn’t. I was so held and taken care of on that coast. I had everything I needed and more.
I remember leaning back into my spirituality—meditating, writing, speaking to my guides, to God, to the universe, to the full moon. It was always about uncertainty. The same question, over and over: How? How? How?
I kept seeing the numbers 5-5-5. Doubles, triples, over and over again. I learned about angel numbers, how fives represent change. What change? I wondered. But as fast as I’d notice the numbers, I’d forget about them.
Then one day, my grandma called. I was too sad to talk. She told me she knew how much I loved that house, but that I had to understand why Mama and Papa were selling. They had their reasons. And I understood. But I didn’t want to go.
That night, I cried so much that I began to worry. I remember looking at myself in the mirror, eyes swollen, and asking, Where is all this coming from? I was upset about the house, of course, but the sadness felt deeper, heavier, like something I hadn’t even lived yet.
The fives kept coming. Every time I checked the time, the volume, a page number, my phone—everywhere. I started to believe I was seeing them because I was tuned in. And fair enough. But something else was nagging at me.
It’s not the house.
It’s not about the house.
So then, what?
When the time came to leave Hyams, to close that chapter, I wrote the house a letter.
I had also ordered a beautiful shell necklace online, a small token to hold onto. But the delivery was delayed. I realized I’d have to drive back to the house to collect it once it arrived.
That’s going to hurt like a bitch, I thought.
Back to room number 11.
I went back to Bowral house and settled into my room. As months went by, I found some routine. Ziva loved the walks around there, and as much as she pulled on the lead, she got to run loose on the field down the way. And guess what? Swallows. She chased the swallows around that field the way she would on the beach—like a racehorse, a cheetah combined.
I promised I’d take her back to Hyams—not the house, but to the beach—for her fifth birthday. We were always loving on her. She was probably the most loved dog in the world. But especially before her birthday, I would drape my arms around her and hold her body so tight. Oh, I loved her.
Her birthday was August 13th. On the 11th, she took her last breath. Just like that. Two days short of five. How do you make sense of that?
I walked into the house after completing my training in Pilates and Barre. I was hot and bothered, and my parents stood in the front hallway expectantly. Immediately, I knew someone had died.
I kept having to ask, “What? What?” until my mum told me it was Ziva. That she had died.
Air was no longer.
I don’t remember gasping or sighing. I remember my first response: “Was she in pain?”
All I cared about was that it didn’t hurt.
I remember, her whole life long, my greatest fear was that something bad would happen to her. I was so afraid and developed so much anxiety around it. A dog fight, a car, poison—I was so afraid something out of my control would happen to her. I had gone over a hundred thousand scenarios of how I could stop it and save her if something bad were to happen.
I just never got to the scenario where it would be a condition she had lived with her whole life—undetected, incurable.
I felt relief. I breathed again. She wasn’t in any pain. And then anguish, confusion.
I wrote about Ziva here.
I remember room number 11 felt very different after Ziva had died. I sat by my desk, by the window, looking out at the roads I no longer wanted to walk, and I wrote her a letter. On her birthday, I lit a candle for her. I couldn’t eat.
She used to fall asleep on the couch in the media room. Before I’d go to sleep, I’d walk out there and make sure she was tucked in nicely.
There’s a song called Pressure to Party by Julia Jacklin. One day, I was home by myself with Ziva and Bells (our other sweet dog who is still loving life), and we had a dance party, the three of us. I played that song over and over, jumping around and singing, and Bells would howl, tail wagging, and Ziva would stomp her feet, trotting circles around me, jumping up now and then in excitement at my excitement. It’s such a great song.
When Ziva was no longer, I avoided that song. I didn’t want to dance. I drove with the radio off for months.
There’s a part in the song where she sings:
I know where you live, I used to live there too.
There’s pressure to go strike out on your own,
Pressure to learn from being alone,
Pressure to not leave it for too long,
Before you find another heart where you belong.
Funny how I never took note of the lyrics back then. When I got the notification that that damned necklace had been delivered, I got into the Jeep and drove down to Hyams, through Kangaroo Valley, without Ziva’s head nestled into my neck, back to the Hyams house.
The new owners weren’t moving in for another few months, and we still had to pack up the furniture eventually, but I intentionally didn’t take the key because I couldn’t bear to walk in there now. The house had a fence around it, and to access the mailbox, you had to put in a lock code. It was always jumbled.
When I went to put in the code, the lock was set to 5, 5, 5. How? I don’t know. I got my package and drove down to the shore. I got out and walked halfway down the path to the beach, shook my head, turned around. I couldn’t do it. I wept in the car. I put on the necklace and sang Pressure to Party all the way home.
A couple of months later, I was sent back down to the Hyams house to pack up the last little bits. My parents had decided to leave almost all the furniture as per the agreement on settlement in the contract. It was a beautiful day. Perfect weather.
I went into the house, sat in the yellow room, and looked out at the Banksia. I think my heart hurt so much, but grief has a funny way of opening it wide open. Like that good type of pain you feel stretching a torn muscle.
I packed up first and put the containers in the Jeep parked out front. I went to the beach, and I swam. I floated in the water. I’d look back to the shore, thinking I’d see Ziva. It was cold, but crystal clear.
I went and sat on the deck to dry up. And when I was dry, I tried to think of something else to do just so I wouldn’t leave. I walked upstairs to the main bedroom, where Ziva and I stayed those few months. The room on the top level of the house, the view of the ocean, and almost the whole village.
I looked at how the light streamed in at that time of day. It was afternoon. I frowned, knowing I wouldn’t be able to stay until my favourite time, between 5-6 p.m.
I thought about room number 1. I thought about the mourning dove. I thought about little old me. I cried, smiling. I whispered thank you to every room.
I lit Santo Palo and blessed every doorway. I shut the front door for the last time, and next to the door was a lockbox my parents had installed during its Airbnb season. You had to put in the code to unlock it, drop the keys, and scramble it. It was my first, and last, time using the lockbox.
I kissed the keys, I dropped them in, and scrambled the locks. I turned to leave and did a double take. The numbers were on 5, 5, 5, 3.
I changed the 3 to a 5.
I saw four 5’s look back at me.
I put my hand on my heart. I nodded.
I got into the Jeep. I couldn’t take a last look at the house. I drove up and out of Hyams Beach village with blurry eyes. Windows down. Hyams smelled of jasmine incense, and the way Ziva smelled after the sea—like salty goodness and soft, dove feathers.
The night before I left room number 11, I couldn’t sleep. I had a long drive the next day, but I just couldn’t settle. I didn’t feel sad or worried. It was a different kind of restless. I felt anticipatory, weightless, as if I was ready to get in that car and go.
I was excited, and I didn’t know why.
All my life, I feel I have had a knack for feeling things through before they happen. I was feeling something this night that I knew was for the next chapter of life, but I didn’t know what it was yet.
It felt like my future self was nudging me, annoyingly, saying, “Ohh, just you wait, just you wait and see.” And I wanted to roll my eyes at her.
I’m here now, in room number 12. All the rooms before me have led me here.
I can feel healing in this room. I look out to the sea and think of Ziva, but it hurts a little less because she had never been here. It also hurts very much because now I feel so far away from her.
It’s taken me three days to write this post. I keep remembering, and my fingers can’t keep up with my thoughts. I’ve gone down to the beach a few times—it’s a stone’s throw from the apartment building. It’s amazing. Early mornings are the best: people swimming, walking, running. The dogs.
I was sitting on the sand dune, maybe 200 meters from the shore because of low tide. A man was walking his dog, throwing sticks into the water. My eyes were already beginning to sting. The dog wasn’t going in as far as Ziva used to, but he loved the foam of the waves, and he looked so happy.
You have to do it, c’mon. My own, yet unfamiliar, voice kept saying to me. I was crying before I even got to this man, whom I had never met. He’s going to think I’m crazy.
I reached him and said hello to the dog first, tears streaming. He looked at me so comfortably, and when I kept having to apologize before I could even turn to him, all he said was, "Take your time."
I told him I had a dog who loved the beach and sticks. That’s it. That’s all I could muster. He nodded and handed me the stick he was holding. He gestured from the dog to me. His dog looked at him, and he said to his dog, "You stay with her." The man walked back a few steps and sat down on the wet sand.
I threw the stick, and the dog went to get it and brought it back to me. Once, twice, three times. I turned around, and the man objected to the stick being returned. He said, "As long as you want."
I realized sometimes healing is in the most unexpected places. It happens in small, quiet infinities. In a room with a window where the light streams in just right. In a song that you dance to, cry to, return to in the span of what feels like lifetimes. An angel in the form of a stranger, reminding you that what you once lost will circle back to you, albeit in small tastes of heaven.
My room is nearly packed out, but I know I’ll change it a few times as time goes on. How much time? I never know. All I know is that my bed is under the window. This window of mine. This room of mine. I watch the sunrise over the horizon, and it is magnificent.
I don’t know anybody here, and I don’t know what I am doing. All I know is I have an orientation to get to in six days. It’s with AWLQ, an animal shelter, and I’m going to go and help some dogs.
This new room smells like light, love, and possibilities.
