In my early twenties I didn’t know what I wanted to really DO in life, which was a problem because society tells us we should be able to answer that question, as though life is about working towards a single goal. When I expressed my concern to one of my mentors, she simply said, “follow your bliss.” At the time I found such an abstract piece of advice exasperating. I didn’t know what my bliss was. How could I follow it, let alone know how to achieve it? It’s only now, nearly twenty years later, that I’m starting to work it out.

6.48am and I’m searching ‘gestation human baby’ online.

When Helena suggested the topic for this week’s writing: 40 Weeks — What’s happened?, I’d instantly thought of pregnancy and how long women usually carry their babies. But I wasn’t sure I’d got my facts straight. Numbers have never been my strength. So this morning I googled it. 40 weeks, it seems. You probably knew that. Now I do too.

The trouble with living in a share house is that usually, your whole life has to fit into one room. And if you want some space, or want to sleep in anything resembling a bedroom, it involves hiding a lot of stuff, wherever you can.

The built-in robe in the spare room at my father’s house is for storage. When Dad and his wife, my stepmother, first moved into their newly-built house in coastal Victoria, everything was dumped in that cupboard — and in wooden sideboards in the dining room and living room, and anywhere else with closable doors.

There’s something very satisfying about having an ordered wardrobe. I came to this later in life. As a child, my wardrobe was messy — until I spent hours tidying up, rearranging it, only to make it messy again a week or so later.

My wardrobe in Bologna, in Northern Italy, was ordered, because there was very little in it.

I don’t remember being in Mum and Dad’s walk-in robe while Mum was alive. But I do remember snooping around up there while Dad was working in the garden.

Although I was born in Australia, my life began in Italy. My parents, and my five-year-old brother, were living in the leafy outer suburbs of Rome when I was conceived.

Open the doors of my wardrobe and usually there was a musty smell. Sandwiches from a few school lunches ago, still in their little plastic bags, growing drops of condensation and spots of black.

On the third day we woke to sun streaming in through the round window above our bed. A thin layer of mist on the hill, the horses wearing muddied coats. We poked our heads out from under the warmth of the feather duvet and reluctantly agreed we now had no excuse. We’d have to leave our little brick bunker, at least for a while.

At the age of eight or maybe nine, I’d already decided I didn’t really believe in God. Then, one of the boys in my school religious education class asked Pastor John the question everyone wanted to know:

“If God is true, why can’t we see him?”

Pastor John pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. “Just because you can’t see something, doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

“Like Santa Claus?”

“Well, Santa Claus is a bit different. I’ll tell you about Santa Claus…”

Early morning is my favourite time. Before the Italian fishing village wakes. The air is still and the sea calm, and everything is muted — the colours and the sounds.

The windowsill of my apartment, smooth marble, mottled grey, is wide enough for me to sit on lengthways and long enough for my legs to fit, if I draw my knees a little to my chest. I feel the cool of the marble sill beneath my bare feet and press my head gently to the inner wall, breathing in and slowly out, becoming part of its frame.

A friend had been there a few years before. I’d seen her photo of the balcony and decided that wherever it was in the world, I needed to go. I’d never seen Game of Thrones. The city might have got more money out of me if I had.

I gave the apartment address to the taxi driver. “It’s a long way up,” he said. “It’s far from the centre but the view will be very nice.”

The tea leaf reader sits in a cloud of white tulle skirt and delicately holds my china teacup in her hands. I’ve already drunk the rose flavoured tea, and now she slowly turns the cup around, studying the forms of the petals and leaves that have collected at the bottom, interpreting them and what they mean for my future.

“There’s a plane,” she says softly. “There’ll be overseas travel. And there’s a boot. It could be interpreted a couple of ways. Perhaps you’ll do a lot of walking…”

She saw many things in my teacup that day. I wrote them down as soon as I got home and much to my surprise, in the next twelve months, most of them came true. The boot however, was the big one, and what it signified was one of the best times of my life.

I was supposed to be in the dust and red roofs of Florence but I hadn’t wanted to leave.

How lucky I was that the owner of my favourite pensione knew people, had friends about, and though he had no rooms available, he knew of someone who might.

An older gentlemen arrives to collect me — slim and fit, as you have to be with all those steps. He’s on his way back from his morning shop and carries his bags in his hand. He offers to take my pack, but I’m already strapped in, and he tells me the hotel is down the steps. Meglio, I think. Better. Better than going up. And down and down and down we go, surrounded by the sound of grasshoppers, and the heat of the sun, down wide steps between whitewashed walls, down towards the beach.

The instructions say to walk through the blue arched door, into the courtyard. Take a seat in the shade. Check-in opens at 5. 

I’d walked all the way up the hill to get there — 20 minutes or so from the train station in town. Along the bitumen, past the worksite with a dodgy crane and the workmen who’d whistled at me. Head down, keep going. No path, stay to the side.

It’s mid September, late afternoon, but in Tuscany there’s still so much sun. So much heat. 

Finally, a gravel drive, lined with pines either side. Up I trudge. There it is. It’s grand — two storeys high. Old stone and brick patched together with mortar, and windows with pale blue shutters. Through the door I go to the courtyard. Gravel crunches beneath.

Let’s start with the window in my shower. Pensione Marialuisa, Positano, Italy.

If you stand under the shower head, there’s a rounded window carved into the white concrete wall on the left. No glass or screen, just a wooden shade that pivots open and closed to reveal the side of the cliff. A cliff with views of the ocean and a village that reaches all the way to the sea.

It’s the end of September so the summer crowds have thinned and the heat eased enough to wear sleeves in the evening.

The sun has set just moments ago, leaving an opaque veil. And behind the dark green shutters and the ageing whitewashed walls there are people who’ve spent the day on pebbled beaches or boats or day trips to Capri. They’re tangled in their bedsheets — waking from a nap, or making love. They’re showering, and dressing, putting on lipstick and cologne.

“I was in the grocery store and this father next to me was talking to his daughter… and the dad says: ‘Honey, if you decide to go on the rollercoaster, that’s brave. But don’t forget, if you decide NOT to go on the rollercoaster, and you tell us that you don’t want to go on the rollercoaster, THAT is brave too.” – Glennon Doyle

When I was a child, there were a lot of things I was scared of — standing barefoot on a cane toad, stairs I could see through, anything I had to jump over, throw, or hit. And I avoided them wherever possible.

Then there were things that I chose not to do — not only because I was scared, but largely because I had no interest in doing them. Not once did I go on a rollercoaster. Or get on a surfboard, or climb a tree.

“Who am I? Well, I don’t know whether I’m the same person I was last night. I don’t think I am. Certainly I’m not the same person that I was three weeks ago…we’re all in the process of becoming.” - David Leser

I recently had the privilege of viewing a profile writing workshop, presented by award-winning writer and journalist David Leser.

The workshop was recorded at the Australian Writer’s Centre a few years ago now, but the processes and themes Leser discusses are just as relevant today, and I found myself more inspired than I have been in a very long time.