“As a journalist, you’re always looking to capture things in words. Up here, it’s everything between the words that seems to count most. The laughter, gestures, and the sounds of instruments weaving together, a little face watching behind the frangipani tree.” – Liza Power from an artwork by Tobias Titz.

I read that quote in The Age on the weekend and I thought it summed up the day-to-day here so beautifully. There’s no music or round-eyed kids peeking from the leaves of the Frangipani, but she’s right; it’s everything between the words that seems to count most.

The days here can be tense and stressful, immeasurably sad sometimes. But there are moments of uproarious laughter and joy too. It’s hard to count how many times I have thrown my head back and hooted at one of the sex worker’s imitations of a mug, and marvelled at the candour at of the some of their stories.

T. sauntered into a conversation about weird clients and made a passing comment that demonstrated how capable these women are of holding on to their dignity despite it being chipped away with every job. ‘This guy, Mate, he picks me up and we go to a car park. I’m giving him a head job and he keeps patting my hair, saying, “Good girl. Good girl”. I look up and I’m like “Mate, I’m not a fucking dog!” I hate it when they mess up my hair,’ she recounted before strolling off, ciggie clamped in mouth. We all heaved with hilarity in her wake.

Last Monday I was standing, having a chat with Bell as she sat waiting for a job. The sun was shining, and as a car pulled away from the curb further down the road, gathering speed as it went past us, the sex worker who had just been picked up rolled down the window and yelled to us, ‘I’ll just be half an hour! Less if I’m lucky!’ Her hair whipped in the wind, glowing red under the unusually warm sky as Bell and I clutched our sides giggling. Joking about the sexual prowess of men, it seems, is universal.

And to the outsider I guess it sounds like insensitivity. It’s like the time I went to see the Australian movie, The Castle in a UK cinema. There were two people laughing in an otherwise silent theatre, me and another expat. All those jokes about the cars, and the suburban proclivities of your average meat-and-three-veg Aussie, were totally lost in translation. These jokes are easy to lose in translation.

Although I can tell you how funny some of the moments there are, words cannot describe the relief they provide. It’s immeasurable. These moments are like sustaining little rays of sunshine breaking through the gloomy clouds, a respite from the howling winds and relentless cold.

Of course it’s not just laughter, and it’s not just sex. That little house, full of women who are mothers, aunties and grandmothers, is a refuge in the fullest sense of the word. We all take our turn to beam with pride relating the stories of the kids in our lives. When I am desperate with longing for my small nephews I pull out photographs and show them around. The women gush and coo, and tell me how beautiful they are. It’s comforting because they understand the pain of separation. When we share our stories over cups of tea we are all just mothers, aunties and grandmothers. And all those other labels fall away.

I see people walk through the door, visitors and volunteers, looking awkward and uncomfortable and I’m reminded of myself eight months ago, unsure of where to sit or what to say. Now here I am, snorting uncontrollably when Bee pronounces she’d ‘rather be a whore than a bore’, having a chat about how much the sex workers charge someone for fantasies, or trying on shoes with Deb. It’s become so normal.

It’s a trap though, like long term lovers you develop some kind of shorthand, and those little details are lost in a familiarity that breeds blindness. I want to bundle up every moment here and share it, I want to keep all the little details that might otherwise fall in the cracks. Or the wisecracks. But I can’t, because it is everything between the words that counts the most.