When the flood was at its height and we held our breath until the peak came, I remember standing on the verandah as darkness fell and looking out into the bush to watch the water rush past.
Twice over two nights I heard a deep thud and a splash somewhere out in the vastness of the travelling lake as a tree finally gave up its grip on the earth and decided to lie down.
This made me think of how much our physical and emotional landscape will be changed by this flood.
I can’t walk out of my backyard yet, the river is still flowing past. But when I do, I have some idea of what to expect.
The 2010 flood completely changed the layout of the land. Where there were gullies there are now massive logjams packed with debris and not all of it natural. Junk food cups, beer cans, fishing tackle and disposable nappies were some of the things I remember tangled in the new walls of debris. There were also fallen trees with roots exposed like the entrails of great dying beasts.
Some of these changes could still be seen 12 years later, before this new flood arrived. Now they will be replaced, or added to, by yet more debris. It looks destructive and ugly, but there is something magnificent and eternal about a changed landscape after a big flood. New routes to walk, new obstacles to negotiate and all the time, a feeling that none of this is permanent. Nature is in a continual state of flux – destruction brings new opportunities for creation to renew itself.
As with fire, water brings new life to the land; what seemed to be there forever is now gone and a new landscape has emerged.
So it is with people.
As the water filled our backyard, I, along with thousands of others, spent sleepless nights thinking of the worst. Waterlogged and ultimately rotten floor and skirting boards that would have to be replaced; carpets thrown out; water-damaged possessions; creeping mould and mildew; cracks in walls and foundations. Would all this actually happen? The not knowing and the breath-holding were the worst
By the grace of God, these images remained as nightmare possibilities for us. But for many others they became a reality after the waters rose. For them, the misery continues as homes are stripped and the clean up continues.
Are there any positives at all we can take from this miserable scenario?
Well, yes. We have imagined and experienced the worst of possible scenarios – and yet we are still here. We carry on and rebuild. We create new possibilities.
Just like the natural landscape around us, our emotional landscape has changed and we are new and different people. Without diminishing the battle that is still happening for many of us, I believe we are now stronger because we are not waiting and living in fear anymore.
We know what can happen; we know our strengths and our weaknesses – they have been tested and we came through. For some, emotional landscapes are still changing and being tested, but they should know there is a deep well of support surrounding them, and that as Australians we all have encoded in the chain of our DNA a small but indestructible link.
It’s called resilience.