How does it feel

to be loved
to die
to be a problem
to be pregnant
to be in love
to be drunk
to get shot
to know I love you
to drown

But what if

I don't want to go to college
there are bears
it's all bullshit
there is a tie in an electoral college
there was no moon

Why do they

scream in fencing
shower after diving
name hurricanes
call new york the big apple
act that way
leave
call them wisdom teeth
call it the clap

Cubby

It was sort of nice and therapeutic painting the old cubby. Pulling down torn posters and pictures cut from Dolly and TV Hits - cringing the whole time, pretending I wasn't to blame. Pulling out so many staples and ten-year-old blu-tack, then finally painting over drunken, secret and incomprehenisble scribbles that covered the walls and ceiling. A patch that memorialised Em and I becoming blood sisters in 1998, a little square marked out with texta framing bloodied fingerprints - proof!
And pseudo-wiccan spells scribbled under the window - the remnants of a melted candle on the sill and staining the carpet. And so many expressions of lust/love/confusion/hormones. What a weird time high school was. Reacting to a reaction. Every emotion amplified and stretched tight, making it so vulnerable to attack. We were all so easily wounded.

The house has transformed so much it is not so hard to say goodbye to it - 'cause it was also the site of stressed and unhappy times. But it is outside, the dam, the land and out gardens which pull on my heart. I know there are bits of that place in me, and parts of me are embedded forever in the seemingly bottomless dam - which we would spend whole summers in. Part of my souls still plays down on the other side of the dam bank, amongst the chinese scrubs and the half-burnt stumps that created cavernous bunkers. And a part of me is sitting on top of the water tank and then leaping down onto the dam bank, exhilarated with my fear and my courage, encouraging my town-friends to follow me.

In the cubby too, hide innocent and not so innocent memories. Chris and I bravely sleeping there, scared to turn out the small fluro light for fear of the wolf that almost certainly lurked beyond the door. Experiments in witchcraft and a night when I was 14, ridiculously drunk on brandy stolen from the pantry with Jenna and Shelly.

Painting the cubby, I thought about the possible family that might make our home theirs. The new memories that will be created and the new worlds that will be imagined in this place.

This red woollen parrot

She is making a parrot using a latch hook and some thick red wool. Except she doesn't know how and nor do I really. So I teach myself and we begin.

Both of our hands hold the wooden handled hook. We carefully slide it under the bridge, looping the wool over, and then back under the bridge with a slow turn, back over the bridge to collect the wool and then pull it through the loop. A complex process. But we do it, together, at a snails pace. And when Jenny finally tugs the loop tight a look of surprise and satisfaction transforms her face, in a small and beautiful way. And just for a moment I feel in my element. I understand what I am doing and why, and I relax in this slow and intimate latch hooking, this red woolen parrot.

snow to sea level

I forgot I had a blog

then found it

it's been a while

strangely i found it at a similar time as when I last wrote

about changing seasons, and pissing possums and giant cakes



today hobart waits in anticipation of snow falling right down to sea level

minds are full up with visions of snow fights on the beach and skiing down elizabeth st, snowflakes caught on jackets and drinking fountain stalactites.

but it might just be really really windy

and really really rainy



the wind sent the peas cascading over the edge of the bed

and messed  up lorna's hair

it's buffeting windows

and harrassing dogs

who bark and growl their resistance

dad used to say that kids went mental with the wind

that they became like animals

and went wild in the classroom

I always think of these wild ones when it's blowing so furiously

How school assembly made me cry (a bit)

I went along to the whole school assembly and sat cross legged at the back of the gym behind the rows and rows of little kids. All trying to distract the person in front of them without the teacher seeing - surreptitiously tugging a shirt or whispering something in an ear.

 It is a school which is in one of the poorest areas around Hobart - so many of the kids have such complex needs and many are living in poverty.

The assembly today was a celebration.

These kids had been engaged in all kinds of commuity (local, national and international community) building activities and heaps of charity sort of work - from raising money so an orphanage in Cambodia could set up a fish farm to 'save the bandicoot' and so much in between. The teacher coordinating all of this had entered this small school into a competition to win a whole bunch of money that could help the school continue this kind of project work with the kids.

We were gathered and the waiting. The teacher told a suspensful story of sending off this form and waiting and waiting and hoping and hoping and all the kids were listening,  and waiting and hoping - and finally  "we won!!" and everyone - the teachers and the kids and the community representatives who sat up the front - cheered and beamed and clapped and whistled and the man from the bank awkwardly said his part and handed over one of those oversized cheques and 'oooohs' and 'aaaahs' sounded from the crowd - $50,000! for THIS SCHOOL!.. and the teacher unveiled this MASSIVE cake decorated in school colours, that sat grandly upon a trolley and all of the kids, despite knowing they should be sitting and listening quietly sprung up and looked and talked excitedly about how it was the biggest cake they had ever seen. the cake was to be cut up and shared with everyone, to celebrate what the school together had achieved.

It was just beautiful. It was all this beaming and laughter - watching the bank man and the teacher pose weirdly in mid-handshake holding oversized cheque while some photos were taken.

It felt like a community and it felt amazing to simply bear witness to such celebration