Joanne Fedler reveals the extraordinary encounter that brought her back to storytelling

Joanne Fedler defied inner fear and official advice, to take a risk at a time of personal loss – and made an extraordinary discovery that brought back her gift for storytelling.

On Mother’s Day, a year after I lost my mother to ovarian cancer, tender with sorrow, I bobbed alone as the whipping ripples and northerly gusts of wind, sang in the high tide, raising me on the incoming swell in Coogee Bay.

I was swimming alone.

It is not what they advise, ‘they’ being more experienced swimmers than I am, lifeguards, The World Open Swimming Association and anyone with decent common sense.

Cramps, exhaustion, sudden rips, a gaggle of stingers, a heart attack and of course, sharks are all risks you take if you ignore the simple rule: never swim by yourself, regardless of your age or swimming level.

Why I choose to ignore this rule is as much a mystery to me as to you. Please don’t try this at home.

‘It was time to change that’ ... author Joanne Fedler. Picture: Danielle Minett/Natural Light Photography.

I know I am not drown-proof. I make a calculated call each morning about the conditions, and I never swim on an unpatrolled beach – but still, it’s unwise, and it’s part of what I like about it. Every time I venture out on my own, I am experimenting against my own nature, which for too long has been so catastrophically risk-averse, I have erased thousands of adventures from the possible story of my life. It was time to change that.

Grief had been a vicious virus of its own. It had deleted my creativity and my motivation to wake to each day. The only enticement to get out of bed was the prospect of a swim in the ocean.

Every day, for the past few years I’ve been swimming in the sea after a serious back injury forced me out of the gym and into the water.

On that Mother’s Day, I swam out far from the New South Wales shore, lifted my goggles onto my cap and trod water, just to take it all in. Out here you can spy wobbegongs, Port Jacksons, blue wrasses, stingray or skates along the seabed, or even a manta ray, cuttlefish, or the prize I have never spied but I’ve heard other swimmers speak of, a turtle.

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Most days, you will see nothing. This is part of the addiction to keep returning – on the off chance, that today you will meet some unknown beast. Just the hope of it, sparks my blood and fires my spirit.

I flipped onto my back and I call out to the sky. ‘I love and miss you mum. If you are here, send me a sign.’

Nothing happened. Not even the clouds parted. I sighed and began to swim back to shore.

And then, something pink flashed in the water. I dived down to retrieve a pink heart-shaped stone, with the word ‘FRIENDSHIP’ carved on it.

It felt significant, but what did it mean? Sometimes we have to sit inside the mystery without hurrying it to reveal itself.

Some weeks later, in a similar spot, I found a twin blue stone with the word CREATIVITY carved into it.

‘What did it mean?’ ... the discovery helped bring Joanne Fedler back to writing. Picture: Danielle Minett/Natural Light Photography.

As I sat with these two ocean-gifts in my hands, with that comforting weight only a stone can bestow, I took these as a reminder to keep a friendship with my creativity.

Some years back, I broke up with my writing in a ritual as clear as a divorce. I was living in the shadow of the success of some of my books in my early career as an author, but too many disappointments had followed. I decided I wasn’t meant to write anymore and I took on a job at a seaweed company.

But grief and ocean swimming have helped me to let go of my ego, and feel connected to the immensity of Life-Out-There. The ocean is its own magical world of enchantment, one that reminded me of the Enchanted Woods in Enid Blyton’s stories, the wardrobe that leads to Narnia, the yellow brick road Dorothy takes.

So I began to experiment with a new story, one about a child who has lost her mother. I kept a friendship with my creativity and I painted watercolours, wrote silly poems, and wondered ‘what if a little girl went on a journey to save someone she loves?’

‘Like a cry from deep inside’ ... The Whale's Last Song by Joanne Fedler

And out came The Whale’s Last Song, like a cry from deep inside me.

I could not save my mother from the cancer that claimed her. But The Whale’s Last Song, addresses this longing, obliquely and symbolically so that it lands, I hope, on the reader like a gentle hand on the shoulder.

The Whale’s Last Song by Joanne Fedler is out now, published by 4th Estate, RRP $32.99. Please share the stories that have helped you through tough times at the Sunday Book Club group on Facebook.