Dreams, we know, can be fleeting, disappearing with the dawn. Small moments of insight are equally evanescent, best to jot them down when they happen

There have been two small epiphanies for me in this political year. The first happened when, for a whole afternoon, the heavily contested universe I inhabit didn’t turn the full force of its scorn on Tony Abbott. Peace broke out on the day Abbott announced that 12,000 displaced Syrians would come to our shores to find refuge from un­imaginable horror. For several hours the nation absorbed the unexpected news that something rational had emerged from Canberra. The flow of information was orderly, measured and proportionate, as was the reaction. It had been so long since I’d felt peace and stillness in my world, the harmony of the moment resonated. I’d been on the deepest of dives, pressure pounding in my ears, then, suddenly: surface, light, sky, release.