Jamie Lewis

It’s 8.56pm and I’ve just put the baby to sleep. I am trying to unpick the jumble of thoughts in this brief half an hour where I feel mildly energised.  We are six months in, almost too quickly. M is trying her hardest to stand, does a bum shuffle, and we are on to the exciting part of food adventures. She has a chill temperament, loves a social situation, but is also happy to hang back and…

I turn 38 today.Sometime in the next 3-4 weeks, a child may be born. 2 weeks ago, I wrapped up work after ~3 years at Next Wave – to go on parental leave. Read my reflections here.Since then, I’ve had a pedicure, a massage, done my hair, took long lunches and have had a nap daily at around 3pm.About 2 months ago, I got married over 2 days. I had the Lewis family and my 4 aunties in town. In an…

A thousand yellow daisies

For a long time, about Melbourne I’ve said – this is not my last stop.I’ve never been on a mobile phone contract here.Even when I was married – perhaps it was in how much time we spent apart – I thought mostly in relative terms of “when was the next stint apart?” Or “when was he coming back?”When I quit junior college as an almost -17-year-old – I relished in the no-plan-plan.My itinerant,…

And in the scheme of things, I am truly but a speck in this ever-expanding world. And everything I have experienced in the past ten years mean so much and so little at the same time in the face of catastrophe after catastrophe. The world as we know it has already changed. And into the next decade, we are going to need courage: to love / to grief / to forgive / to dream / to be kind and generous /…

A score for another day

A score for August

For the last two years, I have been writing rather public reflections every four to six weeks. Reflections on my practice – art making, love, life – propelled by the need to (re)claim a narrative as I navigated the early days of the end of my marriage; that charting time was a way to process; and subsequently a recognition that this journey needed to be witnessed. The last…

In amongst the routine, it seems I have eased into a surreal mundanity of this new normal. And anytime now, a black cat will lead me down a laneway into an alternate reality ala a Murakami novel.

The days bleed into each other, and I’ve stopped naming them, instead referring a memory according to ‘the day it rained,’ or that everything happened ‘a couple of days ago.’ But today:

It’s a…

Standing in your desire, you wrestle –

with non-linear timelines;

undetermined outcomes; and

the fear of rejection.

the shoulders sink in disappointment; heavy

with anger at the incompetence

of the men who seem to lead the world

of the men once in your lives

we are living in strange and uncertain times

and my heart aches

I am known for my optimism, but…

On pressing pause buttons

And on this last evening in Brisbane, it is cool with the kind of rain like feathers falling from the sky. Tonight I walked the Metro Arts Gallery alone, watched a show in the Sue Benner Theatre, and then a dress rehearsal in the Basement. And told another story in the Lift.

When I think of the changes this place has gone through – be it the building, the organisation, or the community…

What's on Jan – Jun: the newsletter I don't have

In lieu of the newsletter I don’t have, here is a list of things I’ll be up to, and places I’ll be work-wise. It is a very exciting year ahead. And some of these are public, and some of these are for you to come play too! So stay tuned for details. And please share in the wins with me, because god knows we need that sometimes.

I share this list also knowing full well that this is no guarantee…

There is a lot to mark with this decade just passed.

Ten years ago, I was on a plane back to Singapore having rung in the new year with my best friend, who I was visiting in Melbourne. Only days before that, whilst still on my long-awaited, hard earned holiday, I was on a skype call with my mom – where with the full moral, emotional and financial support from my extended family – we made a…

It’s a slow Friday morning in Shepparton. I’m writing this whilst still in bed at the lakeside cabin I am staying for these couple of nights. I can hear the frogs (I think?), and the sun through my window. It’s the first real slow morning I’ve had in a while.

I am listening.

The frogs, birds; a car door – it drives away.

Someone’s laughter, the click-clack of this keyboard.

Last…

In the middle of July, I went out to Mount Buller. It was my first time there; it was my first time in the snow. There was a lot of attempting to snowboard, and quite little actual snowboarding. But it was a glorious day. There was a blitz only the week before, so the snow levels were high, it was soft and fluffy, and the sun was out.

It will forever be etched in my memory – traversing…

In the magic hour of 8:08pm last Friday night, I learnt that I have a friendly relationship with the unknown...So here I am. And I surrender.

In the magic hour of 8:08pm last Friday night, I learnt that I have a friendly relationship with the unknown.

In this past month, I gave myself a week off and by invitation of a dear friend, went up to Minjerribah / North Stradbroke Island on Quandamooka country. For the most part, I gazed at the water and the horizon, at sunsets and dolphins, koalas and curlews and whales. For the most part,…

Howling to the moon

I’ve woken up two mornings in a row to go to my pilates class. I’ve got washing on, cooked and ate an omelette, and I’ve had a coffee. 3MBS is playing in the background – something I’ve come to enjoy since I moved into my own apartment. In the slow cooker, a chicken red date soup is simmering for a dear friend who’s in hospital.

The last few weeks have been intense – taking care of said…

…to build a democratic society

Conversations about ‘multiculturalism’ here in Australia often fall short of my lived experience of what it means to embody multiple identities, politics, and values, all at once; of what it means to blend into, and rub against with someone else’s identity, politics, and values at the same time; and still sit at the same table and share a meal.

As I sit in the discomfort of the outcome of this

36 hours of solitude; slowing right down.

In what looked like my first real weekend since the start of February, I gave myself 36 hours of solitude. This decompression was long overdue.

We’ve seen the list of things I got up to in the last four months. I finally bounced back from that mystery virus 15 April, and immediately, things were non-stop again. In great, amazing, heart-full and thrilling ways – but still, it was non-stop.

Tracking backwards these past four months of 2019:

Finished two weeks of creative development with Latai Taumoepeau for a work we are making for Refuge at Arts House. Spent time dreaming about waterways – salt water, fresh water, and creeks we no longer see. It feels like many of my previous projects merging into one another.

Things to celebrate: SK!N won a Green Room Awardfor Innovation in…