Where can you be safe in this world? Maybe we're asking the wrong question | Jane Rawson

The overarching project of my life has been making myself safe. But what is the point if everyone else is drowning and burning and starving?

• This is part of a series of essays by Australian writers responding to the challenges of 2020

I am descended from people who factor a flat tyre into a drive to the airport. I own a personal, portable water filter, just in case. I am someone who patrols her boundaries. I am a list writer, a timetable checker.

The overarching project of my life has been making myself safe. No alarms; no surprises. It has become legend in my family that, at age 11, I ruined a holiday by demanding we move out of our accommodation at the foot of what everyone told me was a dormant volcano, because I thought it was too dangerous. (The volcano did erupt, on my 35th birthday.)