Bangalay Sand Forest & Elbow Dislocation

I’m lying on the floor looking out over the largest section of ‘Bangalay Sand Forest’ in the world. This strip of wilderness runs from my South Brou paradise, all the way to Moruya. When certain trees and shrubs combine in this unique way - Casuarinas, Lilly Pilly’s, Old Man Banksias, Flax Lillies, Snake Vines and the Bangalay Eucalyptus itself, it forms a special kind of magic. A magic that has thankfully been protected.

I imagine what it would be like if the developers had been allowed in. Blocks of concrete masquerading as ‘luxury hotels’. A tragedy that has befallen so much of this world. I mourn the wild places. When a landscape is destroyed, a piece of our heart goes with it. ‘What happened to our wildness’, the poet John O’Donahue writes. Someone tried to turn it into a carpark. But it can never really die.

This forest is my home. Each day I walk along Bengello Beach until I feel the call to go ‘in’. I teeter through the thick shrubs, careful to not break the intricate webs of leaf spiders, resting in the middle of their masterpiece. Sometimes I sit and watch. I get so still I can hear them spinning their webs. Jaw open. Awestruck. This is where I feel the most connected. This is where I re-member who I am.

Last week, in the midst of dislocated elbow despair, I went on a pilgrimage from tree to tree, offering one armed hugs until my cast bore the print of the trees themselves.

The next day my arm was out of the cast and the fracture was labelled ‘insignificant’. The trees healed my arm. They can heal you too.

Yes. I fell off my bike. Again. This time the universe wasn’t messing around. The first time was extreme enough. ‘at least you didn’t break something’ everyone said.

The first fall made sense. I was going so fast. I was singing rather than watching the road. I was intoxicated with the smell of sunshine on early morning grass.

This second fall was the opposite. It was so subtle, inconsequential as the dust particles that settle on the windowsill. I was at the lookout point at South Broulee, less that a kilometre from my house. The soothing cloak of night descended as I set off down the tiny hill. I’d lulled myself into a trance. Home. Dinner. Sleep. A minute away. I remember the thought ’I should turn on my light - safety first’ and instead of stopping, I did it whilst riding, lost balance and fell to the side. I put my right arm out to catch my fall. The bike fell on top of me. My bone popped out of it’s socket. My arm went limp and the most intense physical pain I’ve ever experienced washed over me.

I lay on the side of the road, tangled up in my bike. I couldn’t move. My right arm useless and heavy. The bone sticking out at a sickening angle. An arm that felt like it was being slashed by knives over and over again.

Luckily my friend was right behind me. He pulled the bike off me, called the ambulance and sat with me as I screamed in pain for what seemed like hours. As soon as the paramedics arrived (bless you!) they gave me a shot of morphine. To get me into the ambulance they had to move me. Through the morphine haze I heard them talking ‘we’ll have to give her ketamine’. I protested at first. Years of warehouse raves and dancing in fields had me fondly acquainted with this drug but now was not the time.

I was scared enough, I didn’t want an altered state. But there was no other choice.

I was transported into a dissociative trance. My first time in an ambulance. Flashing lights. Needles. Breathing tubes. It was like one of those dreams when you try to wake up but you can’t. I thought of my plants abandoned at home. My relaxing Sunday evening transformed into a ketamine nightmare.

We got to Moruya Emergency Dept which was another kind of hell. It took 5 hours and a K-hole for my elbow to be ‘reduced’ which apparently means pulled out and popped back into it’s original resting place, aka. the socket. After the ‘operation’ I lay on the hospital bed in a corridor under the harsh florescent lights. Clothes cut off. Disorientated and alone. My right arm completely useless, in a cast and bound across my chest. ‘You can go now, call your husband to pick you up’ they said.

Husband??? It was 2.00 am. I could hardly open my eyes to see my phone. I had TOO many options and didn’t know which friend to call. ‘I live by myself’. I whispered. ‘Maybe you can get a taxi?’ A taxi?? I had no clothes. I couldn’t even walk. Eventually they let me sleep there, gave me a hospital gown and told me to get over it. I realised how privileged I am. What a bubble I’ve been in. Floating from yoga studio to treehouse, surrounded by the kindest people. The land where tears are allowed to flow. The universe had slapped me in the face, ‘this is the real world! It’s hard. Deal with it!’.

5.00am: After a couple of hours in a dreamlike state, morphine still coursing through my veins, I managed to get it together enough to call my friend to rescue me. Arriving back in my sanctuary I’ve never felt so grateful for the beautiful life I’ve created. I ate some toast, crawled into bed and slept all day, cradling my plaster cast right arm.

Waking was the hardest because I kept thinking I’d dreamt the whole thing. Then I’d try to move and remember. Left sprained wrist. Immobile right arm.

Getting dressed was a military operation. I couldn’t type or use my laptop at all. Writing an email with my left hand, poking at individual letters for an eternity. I’m the queen of ‘getting shit done’ I wailed to no-one. I felt myself sinking BUT my legs both worked. I walked out into the forest.

I lay on the sand, just off the dunes. If you walk South from the Broulee break, it doesn’t take long until you’re on your own. Away from human people. Surrounded by bird people, seaweed people, driftwood people.

A crab came to visit me. She poked her head out of the sand. Her body translucent with eyes like caviar. Her first visit was fleeting. She took one look at me and went back underground. She came back up a few moments later and stayed a bit longer. I stared into her black eyes. No longer bound by the prison of time. Nowhere to be. Just me and her. We are friends, I whispered. She seemed to understand. We’re the same. We’re the same consciousness represented in different ways. What a mystery this life is!

I had to move my arm and she ran away. A second later she was back. It got to the point where I could move around and she stopped being afraid She didn’t crawl away. We’d formed a relationship. It made me think, what the hell are we all doing, rushing around everywhere. We could all be lying on deserted beaches, communicating wordlessly with crustaceans.

Again, it took an injury to slow me down. This time I’m really listening. I’ve taken a few weeks off teaching studio classes. I miss you all very much, but I know it’s what I need to heal. I cancelled a few trainings I had planned in Sydney and Canberra. Hard decisions. I love sharing my work, but the Bangalay Forest taught me I don’t need to go to the city. I actually don’t want to leave this place. I’ve had some hard conversations. I’ve disappointed people. But as Glennon Doyle writes, I can no longer keep disappointing myself:

“Every time you’re given a choice between disappointing someone else and disappointing yourself, your duty is to disappoint that someone else. Your job, throughout your entire life, is to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself.”

So here I am. Taking my time. Learning that’s there’s no time to rush. I couldn’t rush even if I tried with my beautiful sprained left wrist and a right elbow that won’t straighten. YET.

I can feel it getting stronger by the minute. It must be all the dancing and a life full of love.

Thank you all so much for your patience, your kind words and support! I’ll see you all in April.

With so much love, Clare

With so much love, Clare