When time moves too quickly: Alexandra MacAlpine on savouring family life on Parkwood

How do I tell time to slow down? I’m struggling to grasp how quickly our son Jimmy is growing as a little human. Perhaps it was the arrival of our beautiful Beatrix (known as Birdy) that made me realise how quickly those first three years went. Here’s this little boy who thinks for himself and adores what his dad does. He wants to be out there in the action: in the side-by-side, opening gates and in the yards. His awareness of the comings and goings on our property astounds me. He knows which paddocks the sheep are in; which mob of heifers have calved; and when Dad is in the ‘green tractor’ sowing pastures.

I often find myself torn between enjoying the busyness that raising a family on the land brings and wishing I could be less busy so that I can savour those fleeting moments a little more.

We thrive on busyness. Busy, to us, is getting outdoors and being on the property. Whether it is moving livestock down the laneway or being out in the garden, sitting around our newly built fire pit watching the dogs chase one another while Jimmy chases the guinea fowl, it’s always a hive of happy activity here at home.

Alex’s idea of relaxing is to be busy. The longest he will sit is for an hour in the evening, after dinner. It’ll be a reluctant sort of sitting. He’ll enjoy a TV series for that one hour before telling me at 8.30pm that he’s done for the day. Then he’ll take himself to bed to rise at 5.30am, eager to start a new day.

I consider ‘pottering’ a leisurely form of busyness, where one potters about doing odd jobs that aren’t a hassle. I love to potter.

Pottering for me often takes the form of a stroll. Something I’ve always enjoyed but found myself doing even more with Birdy in the pram and Jimmy on his bike. We’ll potter down the laneway, collecting sticks for the fire and glancing at the sky as willie wagtails flitter about. In between the minuscule moments when Jimmy is off down the laneway chasing after the dogs on his bike and Birdy is half dozing, half observing what she can see from out of the top of her pram, my thoughts drift back to those pangs I have about the passing of time.   

But I find solace in the laneway. I know every time I walk down this wide, tree-lined, fence-bordered laneway that it won’t change. The mountain range to the right of me will always stay the same. At dawn, it’s what I turn to first when walking on the laneway. The impending day’s rays will illume from behind it, casting a soft hue of pink across the paddocks below.

The cluster of ironbark trees ahead of me will catch those rays and the deeply furrowed brown bark and bluish leaves will become radiant in the slowly rising, warm yellow of the sun. Once I reach the top of the laneway hill, slightly breathless and with cheeks flushed from the crispness of the wintry air, I gaze down at the dirt road that continues below me. A straight downward line before a sharp dogleg to the right where the laneway curves and carries on out the back to the paddocks over the undulating hills.

When livestock travel down our dirt highway, regardless of the season, their movement is a form of assurance for me that some things never change.

The giant swirl of a mob of merinos at the entrance gate is a certainty. The swirl will ebb and flow, rotating clockwise then anticlockwise. When the leader is singled out and crosses the line between laneway and paddock, the swirl collapses in on itself. I look on, always flummoxed by their ability to swiftly funnel through the gate without their bodies scraping it or the strainer post.

It’s time as a family here at home, at Parkwood, that often soothes any last twinges I may have about time moving too quickly. Our routine gives me comfort. I love that this property and our crooked, eclectic, 1950s-built house is becoming the foundation for our memories. This will be the seventh year that Alex and I have called Parkwood our home. Reflecting on how much has changed in our lives during those years is a lovely reminder of the good things that come as time progresses. 

Follow @graziher on Instagram to see Alexandra MacAlpine’s ‘Thoughts on a Laneway’ reels.

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