From the Memoirs of Billie Harper, looking back on her learning journey.
I remember the day clearly—I was about twelve. It was Kambarang, and we were sitting outside on the wooden bench after hanging out the washing. The air was warm. A perfect Solar Magnitude 2 day, our household PR had confirmed.
The conversation had paused when mum suddenly stood, eyes steady. “Come,” she said. I followed her to the archive room — a small, cool space at the back of our house. I loved that room. When sunlight streamed through the narrow window, the dust in the air danced like tiny spirits. I loved the smell of old paper and the shelves full of books, maps, and artefacts from a world long gone.
Ancestral Journals
She walked over to a wooden box — older than everything else in the room. Even before she unlocked it, I felt the weight of it. Reverence. Inside were journals, stacked in careful layers. Some leather-bound, others marked with symbols or pressed flowers. She handed me one and said, “This one is over two hundred years old.” It had been written during the Turning Years, when everything began to shift.
That day marked the beginning of my understanding of awareness. Not just noticing or observing — but sensing what matters. The journal belonged to my very great-grandmother (1958–2054), and her writing offered insights into events we rarely pause to fully grasp.
It reminds me of something the poet T.S. Eliot once wrote: “We had the experience but missed the meaning.” Awareness is about noticing the meaning — and learning from it.
That old box began an exploration of my matrilineal ancestry, spanning nine generations. My children, Bo and Lena, now the tenth, and my grandchildren — the eleventh — learn from these journals and add to them. My own reflections now sit alongside theirs, part of our lineage.
It’s 2282 and life is joyful. We’ve managed to sustain the Australia that was rebuilt after the Collapse in the early 21st century — a collapse that began, some say, with the 2024 U.S. election. But it wasn’t just politics or greed that brought us to the edge.
It was Mother Earth that said: enough.
Looking back now, I understand—awareness is what helped us listen.
Stories to Inspire
In this series, we journey from A to Z through fictional echoes of a possible future. These story fragments are drawn from Footprints in the Future — a yet-to-be-published speculative fiction trilogy. Each letter invites reflection, grounded in care, climate, and continuity.