This poor old blog.

When I first started writing DorkyMum back in 2011, I posted on it three or four times a week. Then, as life became busier, that became three or four times a month, Now, a decade and a half on, it’s lucky if it sees some action three times a year.

Blogging in the early days had a real sense of community. There are children all over the UK who I feel like I know, even though I’ve never met them. Us ‘mum bloggers’ commented regularly on each other’s posts. We subscribed, we shared, we compiled blog rolls and linkys, and then once or twice a year we gathered for champagne and selfies at conferences and award ceremonies.

There is very little of that left now. A few people have hung on and worked hard on their post-parenting niche – vegan recipes, kids counselling and life coaching, photography, arts and crafts – but most folk have abandoned their blogs entirely. There are certainly not many of us still sharing the mundane, everyday stories of our lives.

For me – as for all of those other bloggers – there are good reasons for that. Many of us wrote as a creative outlet when our kids were very young. We churned out 800 words in nap time, or wrote on our phones in the café at soft play. Now we now have full or part-time jobs, less time to spare, and kids who are teens not toddlers. Quite understandably, not many of those teens are comfortable with every detail of their lives being shared.

There’s also the fact that social media has nibbled away at many of the things I used to post here. Before it became ‘Stories from an Island Home’ my tagline used to be ‘parenting, politics, photography… and anything else that takes my fancy’.

These days, most of my parenting and family news goes on Facebook, my photos go on Instagram, and my political grumbles go on Bluesky (or across the dinner table at DorkyDad). That doesn’t leave much for the blog, which is why over the last few years it has mainly been about holidays and medical emergencies.

Like my paper desk diary, my handwritten to-do lists, and my clunky old iPhone that still has a home button, I’m not yet willing to give it up. Having an online space that is only mine – with no deadlines or word counts, is a precious thing.

But I would like to make better use of it, and I’ve been thinking about how to do that.

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A month or two ago, I read Inciting Joy by Ross Gay, and loved it. It’s a collection of essays about the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life’s inevitable hardships. It’s about practicing tenderness, and noticing delight.

Among many other things, Gay writes about skateboarding, about gardening, and about caring for his father as he was dying.

I think one reason the book has stuck with me is that while I consider myself an active joy seeker, it has felt harder to celebrate that joy in recent years. It has felt frivolous, or flippant, to write about the things that make me happy – even things as simple as hot mugs of tea and good books, walks by the water and nights by the fire – when I have a constant, nagging awareness that other people are denied those joys.

But in Inciting Joy, Ross Gay turns that position on its head. Here are two quotes from the book that I’ve saved and revisited multiple times since my first read:

“…what does joy incite? I should say, I have a hunch, and it’s why I think this discussion of joy is so important. My hunch is that joy is an ember for or precursor to wild and unpredictable and transgressive and unboundaried solidarity. And that that solidarity might incite further joy. Which might incite further solidarity. And on and on. My hunch is that joy, emerging from our common sorrow–which does not necessarily mean we have the same sorrows, but that we, in common, sorrow–might draw us together. It might depolarize us and de-atomize us enough that we can consider what, in common, we love.”

“… life, though it is a gift, is not a privilege. And rather than indulging in virtue signaling that simply reifies or maybe even enjoys the guilt— guilt can be titillating, let’s admit that; bathing in it oneself or dumping it on others–of so-called privilege, rather than wading around in that little impotent, indulgent cesspool of hand-wringing regret, how about instead we figure out how to get rid of disprivilege, which we could do.

Part of which includes acknowledging that, baseline, we should all be able to get into a garden or a forest or an orchard if we want. It includes acknowledging that we should all have clean drinking water and good schools and excellent health care and safe housing. What would happen if we acknowledged that none of this is privilege, but rather it is as it should and could be? And what if we figured out, together, in a million different ways, how to make it so? Or to say it another way: rather than cursing the darkness, what if we planted some seeds?”

I think what he is saying, far more eloquently than I ever could, is that in hard times – times of genocide, of climate crisis, of fascism, of human rights being stripped back, of personal and global pain – identifying what incites joy is actually more important, not less.

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That all feels like a very long and roundabout way of saying: “I’ve decided what to do with my blog.”

What I’m doing is setting myself the goal of a seasonal blog post. Seasonal feels more realistic than monthly, for now. And in each post, I’ll share ten moments of joy that I believe are worth taking the time to record. A snapshot of our life, but with structure.

Something to look back on in future, yes. But also, something to spur me on in the moment. As Ross Gay would say, the planting of some seeds. An attempt to move beyond the cursing of the darkness.

This post is the first in that series.

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1. A few weeks ago, DorkyDad had what we hope will be his last ever PET scan. Five years to the week since his initial cancer diagnosis. It came back clear. Given that he’d already had a clear scan last year, and this one was more a formality, I think we were both surprised by how emotional the news made us. The seven weeks of radiation treatment he underwent in 2020 were one of the very hardest time of our lives, but on the other side of it now we could not be more grateful for the extra days, weeks, months and years that have been gifted to us as a result. What joy!

2. After two years of studying photography at school, and taking planespotting photos in his spare time, DorkySon has recently started exploring other types of photography too. He’s been working really hard to get to grips with more technical things like long exposure and double exposure, and has been taking some really lovely shots around Hobart. He’s got a new Instagram account set up for sharing his non-aviation photos – including some recent ones from his stint as a student photographer at his school’s recent music festival. What joy!

3. Towards the end of June, I found myself feeling really exhausted and burnt out. When it came to filing my taxes, it was suddenly obvious why – I’d made more than half of my annual income in the final quarter of the year! I’m really grateful that I’ve been able to make freelancing from a home office work for me, but it was a good reminder to take breaks and set boundaries – and not say yes to every project. I’m so glad that two months into the new financial year, the pace of work is feeling more reasonable and I am steadily busy without being frantic. What joy!

4. The two fellas went up to Melbourne last month for a weekend of motor sport at Sandown Park. DorkyDad and I both love the time we get to spend one-on-one on our city trips with DorkySon. They had some great food, enjoyed the races, and even remembered to take a couple of photos for the annual album. What joy!

5. While they were living it up in the city, I was at home with the dog having the staycation of my dreams. I had three blissful days of long baths, films on Netflix, poking around the op shops, brunch with friends, early nights, and easy-peasy girl dinners with minimal cooking required. What joy!

6. Last travel one I promise. It has been a LONG time since we had a family holiday that wasn’t planned entirely around seeing friends or extended family. And while that’s always lovely, it’s also just a lot of fun to hang out in our little group of three. We’ve just remedied that by booking ten days in Aotearoa/New Zealand next summer, including two cities that we haven’t visited before. Excitement levels are very high, and there’s still five months before we go. What joy!

7. One of my hobby projects (Hello ATO! I promise it really is just a hobby and not a business!) is selling on my preloved books through Instagram. I offer free local collection, or paid-for postage around Australia. If I can recoup back a little of what I’ve spent on a book, then I usually use it to… buy a new book. But more recently I’ve been donating all the proceeds to charities instead. I recently held a book sale over two consecutive weekends, and managed to sell enough of my unwanted, already-read books that I could send two donations directly to displaced Palestinian families in Gaza to help with their groceries and rent, and a third donation to a grassroots project in Gaza itself that distributes food and personal items. What joy!

(On a related note, I’ve been getting a lot of messages recently asking for the best way to support Palestinians in Gaza, because so little aid is getting through. While the major INGOs are still very well resourced, two options that I’ve been encouraging people to explore are Gaza Soup Kitchen and The Sameer Project. They are a great middle ground option if you don’t want to support a big NGO but you don’t have the capacity or networks to verify and support an individual family.)

8. I’ve been filled with love recently for my local Good Karma Network. Good Karma Networks are localised online communities, often run through a Facebook group, where people can ask for and offer help to their neighbours. The key thing is that no selling is allowed, so they are generally much more chill than Buy, Sell, Swap groups.

My local one is very active, and just in the last month I’ve been able to: share information about a neighbour I had concerns for, so someone closer to them could do a welfare check; ask for advice and guidance about injured wildlife; and give away a bunch of unopened, unwanted pantry items that would otherwise have gone to waste.

Tasmania is already a great place for bartering and swaps with neighbours and friends (I’ve been delighted to give away apples and lemons from our garden and receive passionfruit and native flowers in return this year!) but GKNs are a great way to extend that network. What joy!

9. I had a bunch of jeans with holes in the knees and merino tops with holes in the arms, and earlier this year I took them to local seamstress Lena Callaghan to work her visible mending magic on them. I’m SO HAPPY with them! I’m short on mending skills myself, but believe really strongly in repairing things rather than replacing them, and if someone can make them look beautiful and interesting in the process, then all the better. What joy!

10. Technically we are still in winter here, and I don’t want to get too confident, because cold snaps have been known to arrive in August, September, October and even November… However, this week, it definitely feels like spring is in the air. There are blossoms and bees appearing on all of our dog walks; I’ve been waking up to the early morning bird chorus rather than my alarm clock; and I’ve switched from a full puff jacket to just a puff vest. The light and the warmth are definitely on their way. What joy!

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If nothing else blog-worthy happens in the next three months, I’ll see you in November for the Spring Joy post. In the meantime, leave me a comment below and let me know what joy there is in your world today – even if you have to look hard to find it.