Danielle O’Leary

Deep, Dark Blue

Danielle O’Leary

The sun is at its highest point on the winter solstice as I walk into the water on Ningaloo Reef. I’m not sure what time it is: my phone is long dead, and my watch was purposefully left at home. The water resists with little effort, making way for me to cool down. It is hot, and the air is still. I struggle to dive into the water, despite the relief it will offer.

Near to the same stretch of coast, I once had an encounter with a blacktip reef shark. He was only about 1.5 metres in length, but size is irrelevant when you are scared. He may as well have been a kilometre long. I came across him – I think it was a him – in a tight stretch of reef. His dorsal fin hit my flipper as he tried to move away. This annoyed him, or maybe scared him, and he turned back suddenly. In my fight or flight response, I chose the less known third option: ‘scream underwater, curl into a ball, and pretend to be dead’.

I’m convinced that the shark was, and still is, angry. As a precaution, I have researched the average lifespan of the blacktip reef shark (13 years), if they have memories (they do) and if they recognise people (apparently not).

I can happily jump into the ocean, kilometres offshore, to snorkel an isolated reef and to swim with whale sharks, knowing dangerous creatures could be nearby. But to walk ten steps from the shore, into the welcoming reef, is now petrifying.

My family are not from here. When in Australia, Ireland is home. When in Ireland, Australia is home. In my diary, aged 10, trying to be profound, I wrote, ‘why is home where I am not?’ In the same diary, I talked about envy of my school friends who went camping with their extended families to exotic places like Cervantes, Lancelin and Jurien Bay.

Our holidays were not spent camping. We travelled to our other home. When we arrived in Ireland, it would be a different season. I would leave Perth in a wet wintery July to arrive in Ireland in what was also a wet wintery July.

‘Ah, there’s a grand stretch in the evening,’ they would say, trying to convince me it was summer.

Once home, the Australian home, I would write letters to my cousins, telling them about Mullaloo Beach on Christmas Day. I would write about how we didn’t have to go to church in our best, most uncomfortable outfit or go visit certain Aunts by a certain time. We would, as family, stroll the 300 metres from our home to the coast with a new beach toy. Bright, silvery blue waves would crash onto the beach with such intensity that you’d need to time the run into the water.

‘You can’t go to the beach at Christmas,’ they would reply. ‘It’s too cold’.

I would say, ‘ah but the evening is really stretchy and grand.’

When I married, it was in a garden, with a gelato cart ready nearby for our guests the moment after we said, ‘I do’. When congratulating us, my oldest uncle asked: ‘Was that a wedding ceremony? Did you really just get married?’

He had never been to a garden wedding before, or seen a ceremony conducted by a woman.

Still confused but brushing it away so he could get to the gelato, he said, ‘ah, but it’s grand weather for a Spring wedding.’

It was Autumn.

The Ancient Celtic calendar, the one Ireland uses today, has always been confusing. Winter starts in November, ends in January. Summer begins in May, ends in July. The seasons in Ireland are linked to agriculture. March in Gaelic, Márta, translates to middle of Spring. September, Meán Fómhair, means middle of harvest. Whenever I

Lindy Lee: Moon in a Dew Drop, 2022, installation view, John Curtin Gallery, [left to right] Moonlight and Rain, 2008 synthetic polymer, oil and wax on aluminium, courtesy the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne; Auntie, 2008, inkjet print, ink, synthetic polymer paint on Chinese accordion book, courtesy the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney and Singapore; Equanimity (No More Struggles in the Ocean of ‘Yes’ and ‘No’) (detail), from The Immeasurables, 2017, mirror polished stainless steel, LED lights, courtesy of Curtin University Art Collection and Curtin Foundation, 50fifty Acquisition Initiative, 2020. Photographer: Sue-Lyn Aldrian-Moyle.

would wish my cousins a happy first day of summer, I was always off by a month. Whenever they thought February was a cooler month to visit Perth because our summer was finally over, they were wrong too.

In this home, the only place I have ever really felt at home, I now try to understand weather with Nyungar seasons. The flow of these seasons feels so clear. I take comfort in that the seasons begin with a sign from country, not an arbitrary date on a calendar.

It is now Makuru, the first winter. This season is associated with the colour: deep, dark blue.

I am camping by Ningaloo Reef with my husband. Ningaloo means ‘deepwater’. The deep, blue water here is different to the water I know in Perth, the water I know in Ireland.

The sunset on the winter solstice seems early, even though it’s expected. No matter what season it is, no matter what calendar you live by, if you are in the southern hemisphere, this is the shortest day of the year. For my family in Ireland, it is their longest day.

The sun sets quickly, but the light lingers. There is the smallest, thin cloud just above the horizon, like pale grey ink thrown against the sky. The water quickly shifts from deep dark blue to a bright liquid gold that shields the ocean, broken only by the waves crashing over the reef.

The tide has called the ocean back, making visible to the moon what is usually hidden. A small blacktip reef shark rubs its belly on the retreating shore. Turtles pop their heads up for moments of air. Driftwood that was hidden in the day is now stripped back.

Once the light from the sun is gone, I look up, and try to find a patch without a star, without a planet. The Milky Way overwhelms the sky. We walk the 80 metres back from the pebbly beach to our campsite that we call home for six days. Small spiders glitter the sand, their eyes like shards of glass retreating as we move closer.

The next day, the sun is at its highest point again. I’m still not sure what time it is. Up to my waist in the water, I freeze as a curious reef shark pup swims toward me. I have a choice: walk out, or swim in. Floating like a ball is not an option in water this shallow.

Where the reef is, the water is a deep, dark blue. That is where I go.

Author’s note This work is a response to Moonlight and Rain (2008). I was inspired by the deep blue colour of the work and Lee’s discussion of identity.

Danielle O’Leary is a Senior Lecturer is Professional Writing and Publishing at Curtin University. Her creative nonfiction work has been published in Westerly and Meniscus.

Echoing the 10,000 Patterns (installation view), 2020, flung bronze, courtesy the artist, Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney and Singapore and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne with the assistance of UAP. Lindy Lee: Moon in a Dew Drop, 2022, John Curtin Gallery. Photographer: Sue-Lyn Aldrian-Moyle.