Part 1: Things in their Abstract may appear scarier than they really are
Lach rakes a fire break
I had a backpack and a big suitcase borrowed from Mum and was about to fly to America by myself. My first solo overseas trip. New Orleans. The 2026 Folk Alliance International Conference.
I couldn’t let myself get excited about this trip. Even though New Orleans was a city I’ve been dreaming about visiting since I was a girl. There was too much that could go wrong. I was bracing for news bad enough to cancel the trip.
Adding to the unknown phantoms of planning was the fact I was eleven weeks pregnant. I wasn’t even sure I’d fit into the clothes I’d packed by the end of the trip.
With every new headline shooting out of the States (so many tragic ones, constantly coming in), Lach would look at me and say "are you sure you want to go?"
Then the bushfires kicked off.
We knew bushfires from 2019, where we were evacuated from Corryong, watching Mount Mittamatite engulfed like a volcano. We recorded a song about it.
It was terrifying, and looking at those maps with the black, yellow and red flame symbols brought back that deep, low hum of terror in our chests. So again, in early January, we were in Corryong hearing about a spark of flame on the mountainside and road closures. Horrible deja vu.
Back in Picola we watch as the bushfires get worse. They’re close to our home this time - an hour an half away in Longwood, half an hour away in Cobram, and then three fires within fifteen minutes of our house in Nathalia and Waaia. Dad gets sent with the Picola CFA to the fires.
You follow the steps of the fire plan. Pack the go-kit. Fill up the bathtub and all the sinks with water in case there’s a blackout. Make sure the cat and dog are inside and ready to be bundled into a car. Find all your wool blankets.
And once you’ve done the steps, you’ve done all you can. Then you just live moment to moment, responding and adjusting as the news changes. But you only ever have to deal with one moment at a time.
(My Dad’s advice when I was in a near breakdown ahead of one of our album launches, “You can only ever plough one paddock at a time”)
The Stress Cycle starts with shock, followed by fear, then hopefully you have a chance to resolve the stress. The fear is still there but you’re channeling its dark energy into a plan you can live out.
It’s paralysing if you only experience the first two steps: the shock and fear. It keeps you stuck in an abstract state. The stress cycle never gets to resolve.
I realised this when so many friends reached out in the days following the fires asking if we were alright, that the fires looked so scary.
In a way, it was scarier for them than me at that point.
We’d made the plan, done the plan and by then the fires were something to keep an eye on. Dad was back, we kept the emergency tub packed and organised Lach’s family to come stay with us (and their three dogs) for the week while the power was out in Corryong.
But all the folks far away, only got to live the first two steps.
Fear thrives in abstraction, but agency lives in specificity.
So I realised that I only knew America in the abstract. In my head, everyone there is walking around with MAGA hats and guns.
The headlines were scary. But I had a plan. In a day’s time I would step off the plane and respond moment by moment.
And that will be Part 2: New Orleans Diaries
OTHER SHORT THOUGHTS AND THEORIES ABOUT FEAR + THE ABSTRACT
So I totally dropped a baby-sized bombshell in the middle of the story there! Lach and I are super excited to be having a baby in early August.
These thoughts were something I madly scribbled in the middle of the feverish first night in New Orleans. Later I discovered there’s a name for this: Construal Level Theory. It argues that the further something is from us, psychologically or physically, the more abstractly we think about it.
Trying to live less in the abstract is low key one of my 2026 resolutions. Like do the thing, don’t just think about/plan the thing. Get less abstract in relationships: pick up the phone or organise the visit. Fight fear with embodiment. Use specificity in my songs and stories. Move by foot and make by hand when possible.
In some ways, pregnancy is the ultimate lesson in incremental time. My sister-in-law asked if I feel like I just want to jump ahead to having the baby out in the world. I laughed (because sometimes in the middle of a nausea wave, I kind of do!) but really, I appreciate that it’s a day-by-day process of building and anticipating.
Deeper dives on this stuff:
About resolving the stress cycle: Burnout by Emily & Amelia Nagoski
Some of the best writing against the false promises of productivity culture and coming back to the moment to moment of our day to day lives: Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman (and his fantastic monthly newsletter ‘The Imperfectionist’)
