Becoming and Remembering: The Journey to My Poetry Diary

This January, I turned fifty. You could say this was a defining moment when something in me shifted focus to what goals I have achieved in my life and what I can do to tick off some long-awaited boxes. My role as a stay-at-home Mum was my main focus for so many years, and I loved it, but when I found myself longing for those days and drifting back into melancholy, I knew I had to change something in my life so I didn’t sink back into depression. Like a boat that’s lost its rudder, I have been drifting.

My son is turning twenty-one, and my daughter is turning eighteen soon; it’s hard to believe. Time is a thief, perhaps, but also a jester – dancing around in our minds, bells ringing on his hat shouting – “The sand is falling!”- in the hourglass of life. It’s only when you reach these mid-life moments that you wonder how it all moved so fast, your children getting taller than you, your hair and body changing, and loved ones leaving this mortal plane. Staring at all the hundreds of photographs of birthdays, Christmases and holidays that can feel simultaneously like only a couple of years ago and a lifetime ago.

I will be sharing my experience of inheriting boxes of photographs, documents, family history and diaries from my mother, and my methods for keeping and storing them to pass them on to others as well.

Being a co-owner of a family-run plant seed business has kept me busy. Since starting the business in 2018 and shifting from volunteering weekly in school activities to homeschooling one of my two children, I haven’t had much time to focus on my creative side.

Usually, I give up sleep to write; I still do, but I know most busy parents who need time for their own things, like their creative pursuits, can relate that in the quiet hours of the late night or early morning or sometimes the middle of the night, we can be our most productive, as ideas flow when no other outside pressures can find us. Some of my best ideas or poems have come to me in these ungodly hours (trust me, I like my eight hours of sleep and sometimes resent this creative pull).

Creatures of Habit	
Are there others like me?
Creatures of habit
Awake late at night
Bloodshot eyes, determined
Woken in the night to answer a call
To create something
Obsessed, engrossed, possessed
With the fire of inspiration
At our post, at the ready
When more convenient
But no, not then does it come
It comes in a flood when sleep
Sleep is sorely needed
Passions filling the void
That loneliness called forth.
©Angela Woolcott, 2026

When I say creative pursuits, I mean any form of creativity that involves a person stepping into another world where they feel alive. I love being a mother, married life, friends, and family, but I am speaking of the other fragment of ourselves that doesn’t have to wear all the hats. I’m not just referring to the writers, poets…my tribe but also sculpters and painters (oh I wish I could paint and make clay mugs – teach me, I love your work!) but I also want to acknowledge the person studying, completing essays, rebuilding a collector car, renovating a cottage, solving a mathematical equation, inventing a biodegradable plastic, perfecting a recipe, cultivating a rare plant, sewing a patch work quilt or scrapbooking their child’s baby photos into a beautiful photo album (on my to-do list) or even delving into a really great book. It’s such a personal perspective and sometimes a secretive, solo or unacknowledged one.

I know I’m not alone when I say just sitting in nature, quietly adoring and enjoying a moment of peace, watching a sunset, dolphins swimming, a spider spinning a web, or the trees blowing in my backyard feels like a connection to creativity. I know I’ve always had this urge to share something within my heart, to connect with like-minded co-creators of source energy. Those wanting to raise the frequency of the planet or multi-verse. Wondering who we are, our reason for being, and what our purpose is.

Over 2,500 years ago, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus argued that the universe is defined by becoming rather than being. He is the one who famously said, “You cannot step into the same river twice,” because the water is always moving and you are always changing. An ancient, celebrated concept: life is a constant flow of change.

What if the truth actually lies in the middle? While we are constantly flowing like the river, perhaps there are certain values of the universe that simply are, and always will be. This suggests that life is not just a straight line of constant change, but a journey of the full circle; a beginning and an end that meet. Perhaps enlightenment is not a destination we must reach through constant striving, but rather a gentle process of remembering who we already are.

Despite all the challenges I’ve faced, heartache and pain, knowing that life is a gift when I focus on gratitude and all the blessings has helped me through them. Stepping into the fifth decade of my life perhaps shifted my perspective and helped me let go of some fears that had held me back. I know my life is ever-evolving and yet also a journey of coming back to my true, authentic self.

When I first started writing poetry, it was for a school project in the late 1980’s. I liked the idea of poetry, its rhythm and flow. When the teacher read poems aloud and discussed the rules of poetry, we learnt about the different styles that could be used, and I loved that there were many approaches to telling a story and that you had ‘poetic licence’ to choose which method you wanted to use. Like a good book, a poem could take me away to another world, place or time, and I saw it as an art form as I painted the canvas in my mind.

I enjoyed dancing, drawing, singing, playing the piano and all things creative and free, but even art, dance, and musical notation are carefully structured. I loved that a story could be told with such distinct imagery through poetry and rhyme. I grew up in a household of music lovers. The only music we learnt at school was church hymns or boring old-fashioned Australian songs (which I now appreciate a lot more). Poetry sounded musical to me, so it was familiar and seemed fun.

I soon discovered a love of writing poetry. It took a while to find my confidence, but later in my teenage years, I delved into the themes of love and heartache, and my appreciation and intrigue of the natural world and our reason for being.

In between the faded photographs and the busyness of running our family-run plant seed business, I found my own voice tucked away. I have decided to reach into those boxes and pull out the pages that started it all.

These parchments are like the seeds we sell; they were dormant for a long time, but they are ready to bloom again.

My new—well, old—collection is called “My Poetry Diary”. I will be sharing the hundreds of poems I have typed up from old notebooks, diaries, and scraps of paper (including shopping dockets) that I scooped up, hugged, and whispered to – “I see you, thank you, everything is alright now, you are safe.” A majority of these dusty old papers were then let go, it felt cathartic to cull down another box taking up space in my office.

As I create a space to share this archive, I will let my poems grow wings and fly away, like my children leaving the nest one day; I was their blessed temporary custodian. I never really owned them anyway. I let go to allow them to venture, explore and share their messages with the world.