Originally published in Farrago Edition Two (2022).

In the song “Time Escaping”, the opening bars of percussion clatter reluctantly into view, as if someone’s dropped a pair of sticks down a slightly confused slope. You can hear Adrianne Lenker sigh and cough a little; then, a second rhythm, overlapping. The first time I heard it, I felt turned around and faintly bewildered. They were going somewhere I wasn’t sure I’d be able to follow. 

When the song gasps into place, it does so with a flood of peculiar and immediate magic. The percussion suddenly takes form like a clay figure, opening its eyes and sitting upright.

Later in the recording, Adrianne’s dog runs in, startled as I was by the song’s noise. You can hear her reassuring him, repeating gently: “It’s music! It’s music!” 

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If you grow rocket in your garden, beware in late spring. Left unchecked, the plants will bolt and become an unruly field of yellow flowers. No more salads—the plants’ energy flees to the bright seed heads, and the remaining leaves grow tough and bitter.

The year after we made this error, rocket sprung up all over, vivid amidst the native plants my mum preferred to grow. If I weaved through the grasses and banksia bushes, I could pick at the new growths, wild between the rocks and dirt and compost heap. Unprotected from insects but hidden from our eager hands, they had grown thicker than they ever did fenced in.

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Big Thief’s album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You is not cohesive the way a soup might be, with root vegetables boiling down to something smooth and safe. The album stirs up an admittedly soupy sense of comfort, but its bright and familiar textures feel freshly grown. Like a garden gone to seed, it’s sprawling, unpredictable, and generous in its variety and substance. When I listen closely, I can hear shoots of intense and untidy joy, springing up from a warm soil.

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The year the rocket went wild, I was nine and hooked on adventure novels, the kind with dragons and magic and children clever enough to foil wicked plots. Keen for “real adventure’”, I groaned to my mum about the plotless boredom of my life. She was patient, suggesting I chase thrills by trying new foods—rocket, perhaps, since it was everywhere now. I was frustrated by the idea, wanting proper dragons, a real story, and maybe also to be chosen for something bigger and truer than spices or leaves.

These days, though, I am overjoyed to be worthy of a good salad, and it seems like very little is truer than spices and their startling generosity. I take a bite of what’s in front of me: Something is crunchy, something else soft, and maybe the cheese is too salty, but there’s bright fleshy orange in there and the sharp citrus soothes the rest. I learnt this recipe and made it with my hands, and that is almost enough of a marvel to sustain me. Magic is no longer a mystery, sitting undisturbed like a dragon in its old, golden cave. Instead, it’s peppery and sweet and taught to me in recipes from friends. It sits in the rocky crevices of my week like tastebuds, watering, anticipatory.

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The year has begun to bolt ahead like a loose percussive instrument down a hill, or rocket left untended. None of the rolling beats make any sense and the ingredients confuse me, but surely soon I’ll be humming in a kitchen, taking deep breaths of the fruit in my hands. I imagine orange rind, fragrant and gathering quietly under my fingernails with the garden dirt.

Somehow, this mess is going to be music. I believe in it, although I remain unsure about the recipe. All I’ve got is something green in the ground before me, and I’m trying to figure out if I should call it rocket or arugula. I am deeply fond of untidy gardens and untidy albums, and I suspect that I also love untidy salads. I know I need to wash these oddly shaped leaves. Somewhere, though, I hear my mum promising that dirt is good for the immune system, and I am listening.