To The Light

At the foot of a lighthouse, one finds darkness – Spanish Proverb


Having exchanged the life of an inner city skateboarding punk for a man and a fetus she finds herself astride a Malibu surfboard, paddling across a channel of water where sharks have been sighted. She’s wondering about the choice she’s made. Some might call it a sea change, while others think that she’s lost her mind.
This is a long way from the terrace house in Melbourne – from op- shopping expeditions and sessions at the pub. Her belly is four and a half months swollen; the hardness against fibreglass reminds her of what’s there. She hasn’t thought about it much.
The man behind her paddles furiously. He carries a backpack with two weeks’ supply of groceries wrapped in plastic bags. Waves rock the board and sideswipe them, and sea spray prickles her skin.
She’s excited, anxious, wavering somewhere between faith and apprehension as her guy restates his knowledge about the ocean and its ways. What would she know, having grown up on an inland farm? Her only experience of the sea being a childhood holiday at Rosebud, where tentative tongue waves lapped the shore and seaweed octopuses threatened to snare. Here the currents are tea-cozy warm and the expansive ocean beckons like a siren.
The sand on the island’s back beach is fine and squeaky under foot. He drops the backpack and they lug the surfboard to the far corner of the beach, setting it among native grasses. Once it’s wrapped in an old tarp they turn to the next leg of the journey: the sand-hill. He carries the pack and she navigates herself – a tired baby carriage. They traipse along the rough bush path towards the lighthouse cottage.

He’s inside, strumming his guitar. He’ll remain the same for hours until she initiates a conversation or stirs an argument. Sitting on the sandstone veranda she has no choice but to hold strong, and at least there’s an outlook.
Thirty metres or so off the Point a bombora stirs from beneath, receiving the crash of white water with nonchalance, as it has cargo ships and simple sailing boats. She’s been told that dozens of vessels have gone down on this rock in the past hundred and fifty years. This makes her shudder. Even recently boats have run aground here, regardless of the light.
Alertness to all she can see casts a shadow of oblivion. She walks the length of the veranda to find another angle. Daily, she sights spouts, followed by full-bodied eruptions as humpback whales migrate south. She’s constantly searching and straining her vision for the passing traffic. Last week, during the ritual of the heated outdoor bath they saw one heave itself from the water, only fifty metres away, and in falling slap the water like a kid’s belly-wacker.
“Ouch,” they said in unison; “that would have hurt”.
Today there are only coal ships passing, on their way to Singapore or Valparaiso.
She’s nineteen years old and the horizon is infinite. A crisp, perfect afternoon is imprinted on her mind forever.

Imprisoned by her otherness in the company of a boy-man who’s no more than a stranger, she as vacant as a seashell. Is she running from something or towards something? Her heart hurts when she thinks of her sisters, brothers, and parents worrying. They join her in futile dreams. Australia Post is reliable even at this distance, carrying regular missives from both ends. But nothing is said. She does her best to fight the undertow. I am an off-cast, an outcast. I am cast away.
She wants to express this feeling somehow, by skywriting or shrieking, psychic resonance or tragic journalling, but her feelings can’t form words. Seeing beauty is not conducive of happiness – she’s reminded of Coleridge’s lament and makes a cup of tea, wondering what to do with herself. There’s a constant clawing din in her head. I do nothing, I am nothing. I don’t belong. What is my nature?
The sandstone cools her body from toes to earlobes. Even on a mild day she’s on the boil. An incubator, she’s in charge of its growth. She asks of inner space, what is your nature? Who will you be? Her belly quivers; the little fish is swimming laps. They commune in tones resonating with heartbeats, organ- gurgle and breath, and she is nurtured.
Resting on the lumpy old mattress she yields but cannot sleep. Though the floor is made of stone, sounds of padding feet and vibrations rising up through the bedframe hold her attention. A storm out at sea gathers force and lightening snaps her into full awareness. Rampant rain pelts the baubled convex window, inventing mesmerising kaleidoscopic swirls as wind batters the building. Throughout the years wind and rain have infused the porous wall fashioning an ugly mosaic of bee-hives and pockmarks. How does this place endure? She coils into herself, wishing that the sun would set on this very long day.

Before they moved to the lighthouse, his father told her the history of the place. In 1824 convicts blasted, dug and cut the enormous bricks from perfect sandstone hills surrounding the Hawkesbury River valley. With the aid of bullocks, and the enigma of human endurance, the stone was loaded onto ships as ballast, and transported more than 150 miles to this island. The ships were reloaded with cedar from the Myall Lakes district and returned south. The newly landed Sydney gentry required the premium timber to build their stately homes, and the ships bearing the precious cargo could not be risked. By way of inverse logic the lighthouse and its cottage were built with stone ballast, and the fancy Sydney homes were built by forces against nature.
The local landowners, a clan of the Worimi nation, live along the coastline and further inland on the lakes. The island had been in their care for thousands of years. They brought their dead here. It was a sacred place for souls to journey undisturbed.
The Governor’s men negotiated the island’s purchase, proffering tea and flour and instructing the ‘natives’ how to make damper. When they realised that the owners would never abandon their vigil, the colonials offered flour laced with arsenic.
The cottage was built as a symbolic ship. Three families lived in adjoining quarters. The seven-room section was inhabited by the Commander or ‘Head Keeper’, the middle four rooms were allocated to the Engineer, and the last two rooms were reserved for servants.

The lighthouse was automated in the 1970s. Humans were no longer required for operations, so the Department of Transport ordered that the disused cottages be shovelled into the sea. His father, being a local businessman with some sway, intervened and signed a ‘peppercorn lease’ for the cottage, and took responsibility for its care.
In the Head Keeper’s bedroom she senses ghosts circling close then uncoiling away. She stirs herself and goes to her designated post to prepare their evening meal.
The next day he rouses her with his ambition to clear the island’s orchard. In the middle of the island and off this century’s well-beaten path, they cut their way through overgrown weeds. Among the entangled catastrophe of introduced species they glimpse the sparse limbs of old fruit and nut trees reaching outward. The orchard has been strangled by lantana, a South American import that in the subtropical environment has become a rampant triffid. She remembers it from the farm in Victoria – contained by pots and tamed by a different climate it was admired for its petite flowering clusters. With ancient, blunt secateurs she hacks into the tough vines and is rewarded by the foul stench of its sap. The plant bites back with barbed tendrils. Within days these tiny nicks bruise, swell and erupt into pustulant tropical boils.
He’s been digging with an old mattock, making rows and planting native shrubs that he sprouted from seed. He trips on his tool, injuring his foot; and they limp arm in arm, back to the cottage.

Most nights she wakes to the weak refrain of a woman crying.

The surfboard mysterious disappears, so his father finds them a tin rowboat. They catch the usual bus to the Port, and this time they purchase a month’s supply of groceries. He forks out money for a taxi back to the boat.
On the girth of the bay, feeling the pull of a heavy load he tries a different tack. If they paddle to the north of the island, to Shark Bay, they’ll have an easier walk to the lighthouse. She knows it. It’s near the orchard, and a bit north of the beach where they found a speared dolphin and gave it a grave. With no counter-argument she acquiesces. He’s four years older, has travelled, studied at university, and been so much more in the world than she.
On the way, she demands her turn at rowing the boat. As they both expect, she can’t get past popping an oar from its rollick, churning the boat in circles and showering them both with brine.
She calms herself after a giggle fit, relaxes under the sun, and enjoys the visage of him leveraging the boat across the swell.
Shark Island comes into view. He explains the geology and topography of this side of the island – something about rock formations, pre-historic earthquakes and the prevailing wind. She tunes into the word shark...Shark Island, Shark Bay... Her eyes sweep the waters, scouring from left to right, right to left for a fin. She imagines a pod of them circling, charging the boat and capsizing it. In a soup of shiraz infused froth, severed limbs rise to the surface.
He cries out, “Holy shit!”
Her heart leaps in its cage. There’s a narrow tract of water between the two shark places, through which they intend to pass. Waves are lunging through and breaking from the island through to the bay point. He looks at her and for a moment she sees a small boy lost in a shopping mall.

“Do something!” She shrieks and clutches her belly. “Turn the boat around!”
“I can’t,” he replies, “the tide’s against us. It’ll throw us back onto the rocks.” He points to a spot where waves are breaking less often, and says that if he times it right, they’ll get through. If they’re unlucky a wave will spill into the boat and capsize them.
“Right. So where’s my life jacket?” she spits.
“Too late for that now,” he yells, pragmatic in the absence of options.
He manipulates the oars to hold the boat steady, watches and times the wave-sets to gauge the ocean’s intent. She curls her fingers around the gunwale, leans back and rolls her eyes to the gods.
Fairy floss clouds scud past, the sort that charade as earthly objects then morph into other shapes. She catches the cloud slipstream and soars up. Seizing a view outside of herself, she feels futures leap in her womb. Time trickles and the ocean refracts light like a mirror ball. She recognises two people in a toy boat near the edge of a continent, and feels with certainty that there’s so much more of life to come.
He sees his opportunity and takes aim, paddling like billy-oh towards the foe. The wave will peak and spill but it must first give them a chance. They mount the brewing rise as foam forms underneath; the wave preparing to follow its pact with the moon. She holds her breath.
They ride through, the wave breaking a split second later, and together they squeal with relief. He turns the boat towards the bay, so suddenly swarthy and confident. She, recalling the adage; never turn your back on the ocean, turns and takes a look. A bold, briny wave slaps her in the face, engorges the boat, and drags them under. 

Flotsam at the shore-dump’s mercy, grazed and disoriented they haul themselves onto a pebbled beach and slump, weak as rag dolls. Her hair is seaweed salad, his smirk an unsavoury assault on her good nature. She throws a handful of stones at his head.
Under the dark sky their squabble is snatched aloft by a squall. The ghosts chuckle, then plan their next move.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Stephens_Light

Write Something, Right Something

Invent a new word and scrawl it on the footpath

Create a peace banner and hang it on your chest

write 'left' on one foot and 'go' on the other

- get a job and wait patiently for the aftermath

Spend your only life as an artisan scratching

scrimshaw into bones of frames for scaffolds,

for masterpieces. Pray for patent protection, or an afterlife,

and wait for the plan's inevitable hatching

Sledge stone, incise, align. With ten thousand other

slaves you join this chorus with the sky. Climb past breath

until with battle spit, collapse you are revolting

with the very stench of hope

Chipping away at the despised potato? Wondering why the chips fall the wrong way? Perhaps you’re just a chip off the old iceberg?

I was loud for a while on the blogosphere. For around 4 days I waved my cocktail flag about as if it could claim some ground. Since, then, who knows why, but the flag has flailed. Had its breeze lost puff, or had it’s own stuff fallen flat?

This is me periodically. Feeling flat, having nothing to say, striving to know what’s good about myself. Onomatopoeia created the term: ‘meh’.

I cooked dinner for darling daughter, who had her first big exam today. She too was quite maudlin, yet again took to study. So I sat in the fading-light-yard and breathed in the freshly mown and humid air. I sipped another glass of wine and thought about nothing useful. I pondered thinking about nothing useful. I thought about not wanting to do anything more useful for the day, or for that matter anything that was a florid waste of time. I didn’t want to hear music. More deeply I dug at myself for not wanting to create.

Cranky at myself, tired from work, and knowing I was in the mood that wouldn’t let me sleep tonight, I took myself for a neighbourhood walk. A limping-ish one, thanks to my sandal breaking.  To add salt and insult to my efforts to outsmart anxiety, and doubt to my desire for community connection, I noticed that people around here are more often putting their chins at right-angles to the passers-by-ers, casting their vision aside in preference to a view of nothing.  Shucked off, my nod and smile falls into the newly made curb and guttering.

I’m sure this is just me in a low mood. If you’ve read this tiny thing, I hope you and I sleep well. Nigh night.

Salvage or Selvage?

Ahoy, lofty, alighted and abridged sailors, be sure to stow away and sail away, for if we run or stand agrounded we'll be nothing but salvage for pirates, sharks or the king's garbage men. Thar'll be nothing left. Just scrunched up, ruined stuff flotsaming free upon the sea. Sadly true, pirates are not an olden day myth. Impoverished African nations are increasingly relying on stolen fortunes and the ruination of the lives of 'developed world' seafarers. A new breed of murderers and thieves steal a foothold on the bottom rung of the economic evolutionary ladder. Out of control anachronistic anarchists? When someone behaves like a Robin Hood character, can the line between social justice action and self-combusted soul destruction actually be held?  

Jello Biafra provides worthy commentary about America's economic crisis; saying that it has nothing to do with the country losing its financial assets, it's entirely about the same people who have always had wealth, stealing even more of it from the poor. After bringing the behemoth to its knees, the 'have alls' don't look like giving anything back. Not a new story. The rich get richer and the poor get the picture, said some rock and roll muso, come politician who reckons he didn't inhale the meaning of his own words.

And so the salvage of humanity's material worth washes up on the same peoples' shore, in a different century.   

More important is the edge that social fabric relies upon: the selvage that that holds and takes care of the common weave, the democratic equality principle. But we also know that the thin facia that guards us from the abyss is frail and fraying. Society's handmaidens and seamstresses are working hard to patch it up and hold it together, but vast chunks have worn, torn and fallen away. Yesterday Rob and I happened upon the Occupy Melbourne protest, as we were going to a 'date day' lunch. Young and bemused police officers on horses and others carrying riot shields swept through and pushed the everyday citizens out of public space. I briefly spoke to an Occupy Melbourne organiser who was disgusted. He told me that, during the week of occupancy, any protester who uttered fighting words was evicted. On the sidelines a few scouting types handed out cornchips and fruit pieces to onlookers while the chanting gained strength - 'this is what democracy looks like', and 'we're here to keep the peace'.

I also chatted with the fruit-stall man, who asked, 'what's it worth - we believe in democracy and a fair society, but nothing ever changes. What difference does a protest make?' 

I think every action makes a difference. Occupy Melbourne is a small and passing moment in time, where a curious motley mix chose to be selvage, and held a line. 

Noighty Noight

I've had a chest lurgy for 3 weeks and needed to scarper off from work early today. Which means I have more time to make up tomorrow. So, it's well and truly beddy time. But before I go, here's a wee bedtime story......
Once upon a time, my sister Claire and I shared bedroom for 17 years, until she left home. Being of a large tribe, every night of those years, we were shooed off to bed at 'ridiculous o'clock', which, for farmers was 'perfect sense o'clock'. During daylight savings, Claire and I wiled away at least a couple of hours before we needed to sleep. There were games with sheets and pillows. There were charades and finger puppets. And there were listening, guessing games as the cicadas chirped and birds got tired of keeping us awake. Finally, we had a ritualistic sleep blessing that we bestowed on each other. Two tiny prattling girly voices said something like this, almost in unison.
"Good night sweet dreams god bless don't let the bedbugs bite hope you wake up fit and well in the morning don't forget to say your prayers be good tomorrow sweet dreams". And of course before we went to sleep, I piped up every ten seconds or so, just to annoy my big sister.
Sweet dreams dear loves. xxxxx

Emulating the Village People

The Village People were a great advertisement for choosing a career to love. We know these days that we'll probably embark on six or seven various vocations throughout our working lives. Well, the Village People, as old-school 1970s mentors, were doing it all; wearing dress ups to work, being proud Naval officers, and getting everyday satisfaction from volunteering with the YMCA. A diverse representation of all walks of life, they spoke to the common man, and didn't mind going the extra yards to pump iron (probably at the YMCA) to keep themselves nice. I was one of those kids strutting my stuff in front of the black and white tv, in my halter-neck top and frayed jeans shorts, vying for position alongside my six siblings. I worked those moves, I knew those lyrics. I wanted so much to be an indian and a construction worker that I forgot I wasn't a man.

I've had quite a few careers, straying off well-worn paths to taste other fruity callings, searching for the Edenic work place, only to find myself brooding in the Garden of Gethsemane. But I believe I've been redeemed by virtue of hard-earned wisdom, and only today stumbled upon confirmation of this by wise words spoken, or course, by a man who is recently deceased. 

Steve Jobs said about work: The only way to do great work is to love what you do...Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.

Ahhhh, at last I can tell my parents I'm okay!!! Because Steve Jobs said so. He also said something about work being like a valued relationship. I've heard too many musician blokes saying that a band is like a marriage. I guess in some ways, a preferred work environment will, like a good friendship, have its misadventures; will rely on a degree of faith, fortitude and the willingness to negotiate for the bigger picture love-fest. 

If you're familiar with the rumpus vagaries of narrative writing, you will have figured out that, yes, I'm about to talk about myself, as a happy worker.

A few months ago I went back (again) to work for an organisation that has for the last 6 years been the work affair of my life. We've had a few separations over the years, and through those I've wisened up. 

Though its the best, sometimes it's a grind. Being in my forties, there's an arthritic twinge or two, a few workplace injuries (repetitively strained brain cells) the occasional need for a mid-afternoon nod off, etc... But on the whole I LOVE IT. Consider the metaphor of a lover bringing flowers. It's very rare, especially when its a long haul gig. Today I had a 'bunch of flowers' moment. My colleague Julie brought in a bunch of hats. 

For the last few days, I've been excited about hats. Rob, my partner, asked me this morning before I left for work: 'what's with your stupid hat obsession?' And I said, it's not so much about the hats.

Last week I invited my team mates to join me on Melbourne Cup day at the Lomond Hotel in East Brunswick. Its a hokey neighbourhood pub, famed for folk and Irish music. For the last few years I've bowled up sometimes on my own, wearing a self-made ridiculous thing on my head. It's a tradition I've established for myself. The Lomond hosts a chicken, sausages and salad brunch, some old-timey musicians play some tunes, and the tensions rise prior to the race being run, the pub presents awards for hats, frocks etc. Now, its only fair that I boast and say that for the last three years running I have won the best hat award! 

So my work colleagues will be joining me at the Lomond! I've got a vision for the Australian Cork Hat restyled as an Australian Horse Hat, and there will be Fascinators that Exasperate! This morning I awoke early, again, with ideas for a cornucopia of foolish headwear.  

I wonder if the fiddle player knows any Village People tunes. 

What does it take?

Cooking dinner and listening to new music on Melbourne's rrr radio station, I thought about Miss Georgia Lucy. Not long ago, Ruby and I had a 'single mum and daughter bunk in' existence in a 1980s two bedroom unit, in Brunswick; errr, with a dog, a cat and a rabbit. It was cosy and close. We were lucky to live next door to Georgia and an innumerable, relentless roll of free-ranging artomusicocraftiovibeo folks - of the younger human demographic. They lived next door in a run-down squat style house attached to an old garage. It was marked for demolition so it didn't matter how they inhabited the space. There they established 'Medium', as an artist space and gallery, a veritable playground for frolicsome spirits.


Living in close quarters in Brunswick, outdoors became a necessary lure, inviting simple urban adventures. Sometimes Ruby would strap Marvin K Mooney into his tiny harness and with Motu the dog we endeavoured to train a rabbit how to walk around the block. We mostly resorted to giving Marvie a piggy back ride on Motu (who was old and decrepit and didn't seem to mind). On other occasions we strapped ourselves up with wheels and roller-skated, around the vast concrete factory 'rinks'. And I frightened pedestrians by falling over a lot. But I digress. It was a challenging time; post family breakdown, etc..... and we 'made our own fun'. But in retrospect, there was more to it.

The weekend after the hippies moved in, they held a 'garage sale', and sold, well, basically stuff that nobody would want. Feeling a neighbourly sense of responsibility, we lobbed up in our Saturday morning tracky-dacks, introduced ourselves and donated some fairly decent stuff that we thought people might buy.

Georgia was around 19 or 20, and had moved to Melbourne from Newcastle. By typical coincidence, Ruby had only the year before, attended Year 7 at Newcastle High School, with Georgia's brother. This young woman like to paint and draw and sing out of tune with her husky voice late at night. She soon began to wear some of the old scraps of opshop clothes that I'd donated. And she became very fond of Motu. During a nasty hail storm Motu disappeared. After several distressing laps around the neighbourhood we eventually found him, well ensconced next door, sitting on a pile of cushions and beanbags, while Georgia painted his portrait: a veritable botticelli mutt.
Georgia gave us the painting. We love it, especially because Motu passed away last year.

But I digress.

So here I was, cooking and thinking about Georgia and her artistic clan, listening to the radio and relishing every song it waved at me. Then I heard about a stage play that I would LOVE to see. Barry Dickens; journalist, critic, playwright, has at last launched a play he wrote many years ago, about Brett Whiteley's life. Brett Whiteley. The exemplary eccentric, drug addled genius. The story of his life is intense and intriguing. Hmmm, would it be too clever, too avant-garde for a garden variety thesbi-cretin such as me?

I was thinking about talent, and the diversity of forms it takes. To me, creativity is an essential part of life, but so hard to incorporate when one lives with a work-focussed mind-bent. I mean; to create, survive adversity, truly love people, and celebrate living a meaningful life, while living in the moment. Is this asking too much, biting off more than can be swallowed by the average soul?

I personally struggle to do this. I have spent most of my life trying to run ahead of a dog snapping at my heels. You know, the black dog. Actually that metaphor doesn't work for me: its more like a deep dark well. I'm the sort of person who gives myself a harder time than anyone else can. I expect a lot from life: I require it of myself, and if I fail at this ambition then I find it hard to forgive myself.

I work with people who live their lives managing serious mental illness. I do this because nobody could inspire me more. Over the years I've worked on the development of a 'Recovery' program, initially researching and writing it, and these days I'm in the field facilitating the program with groups, and supporting people who have a mental illness to run groups themselves. This seedling of a program is changing people's lives. It's giving them a lease on life, but not like a pharmaceutical or a yoga program. It simply reminds them of their potential, and supports them to re-imagine themselves, gives them hope that despite the blows of social judgement, misfortune, homelessness, joblessness and ill-health, they innately have a 'take' on life. And everyday relearned achievements give them a powerful sense of accomplishment. This too is living life creatively. Making something out of very very little.

Cooking, listening to music and thinking about my exposure to wonderful people. This cheers me up; I almost feel like I've painted something.