A MOTHER'S JOURNEY
There are many different types of parenting. Mine was... not a type at all. I have been asked a few times, about how I got my boys to this point. Get ready for an upside down world!…
LIFE LESSONS
A collection of 'life lessons' for those reaching a certain age and scratching their heads. " What do I do now?" Dredged from eighteen years of conversations with my two sons...…
BITE ME
Sometimes odd things pop into my mind. Mostly in that twilight state, craving sleep but needing to stay awake. Those I remember, I write down, a habit formed after many years of snatching sleep between caring for an ill parent. They're not all pleasant. Most surface from memories and I've had my share of bad ones. Others are observations; snippets of lives. Some arrive because... they just do.…
BITE ME TOO
The Bite Me series has been a tremendous experience for me and I am grateful to all of you who have read and participated in the many discussions. That has been the place I park those random things I observe, or situations I have lived through - even my views on varied topics. This however is your space. This is where I will write something and want some challenge see? Rarely do I receive anything but praise. So this second Bite Me series is where YOU get to bite back! I want discussion, but I also want differing viewpoints, I want to hear you smack me around the head a bit and challenge whatever I propose. That's the theory at least!…
QUESTIONS
In-between words there is that sitting still. Staring at the screen or off in the distance, your eyes are not seeing outward. ... A question invited itself in. Perhaps due to something read, or seen or heard; perhaps an old odd one resurfacing for another try. Or simply, a reaction to a momentary action- like spilling coffee on the keyboard. I want to know. How YOU answer these questions. Maybe I'm seeking collaboration as comfort; maybe I need to borrow other perspectives for a while. Or. Maybe together we can shift the world just that little bit. (These are not writing prompts or invitations to flights of fantasy. I want REAL ya hear?)…
DEATH OF A FATHER
My father had been dying for almost twenty years. There is a difference though between dying and death. One is ever in the future, the other in a catastrophic now.And it is one thing to assign blame and live accordingly and another to reconcile two lifetimes and understand, despite it being too late, that a father cares. More shocking still, that you do.I pictured his death differently every time I ventured into a future divested of constant need. I imagined his dying a freeing thing for both of us- he escaping his failing body, I no longer at the beck and call of this and that needing doing.Turns out... death or near-death is a palpable thing. The one dying and the one observing death both feel the finality. There remains naught but to connect and seek, those final moments, some forgiveness.…
OLD WELLS ROAD
A miracle occurred whilst lost on Old Wells Road one chilly Spring morning on the way to buy some Dutch tobacco with my son, Dylan. A fair dinkum bloody miracle!It involves a 5kg rare 18th Century Bible, a lock of baby hair in an envelope, a stack of mattresses, two women drowning in tears, (neither one me) an episode straight out of Weeds with (yes) me starring as Nancy, and some very, very outrageous tomfoolery. It also pauses one (least it did me) enough to suppose, "Maybe there is some Divine Being overseeing everything because how else can this miracle be explained?"…
AFTER WORDS
I write most often what I live. Moments when I am at a crossroad and I choose one direction and take a step in that direction but- something happens on the other road - I have not travelled far enough to have left the crossroad behind - and I turn around and I see! I see something I might have prevented perhaps or given more attention to. It's the not knowing whether I'd have made a difference...A time and place splintering of moments too precious to let go by unrecorded.After words, the looking back at steps taken and doors ahead to behold. Then the words after the words. There's always ever been me and a door. Rather a series of doors which, left ajar or partially open, present as invitations to enter. So I enter. Sometimes there are EXIT signs bright-lit above them but they are unseen by me; I ever-assuming I am entering something, never leaving it. There is that final door to contemplate, however. As time passes and I find myself near enough to reach out and touch the handle - though it remains closed for now - I gaze at it from time to time. Pondering on the when is useless, as is the what and why. What matters ultimately is the who. Who I shall be when I finally enter, and who shall be left behind better, for having known me. I ever striving to give much more than I receive. I, wishing to leave behind six fond smiles. (The seventh reserved for my own lips.)…
BED & BREAKFAST
When you don't know what you don't know- you just don't know! Take love. You know you love and you know yours is the best possible love because it IS what you know. But when you meet LOVE love... Suddenly you know what you didn't know before. And in this knowing... everything changes. Or does it?…
24
Twenty four hours in a typical day of mine. Twenty four chapters each filled with the minutae of times awake when others are asleep, talking when others are at work and writing when others are... living. Follow me into my private space. Where words are created and friendships are formed and emotions dare emerge amid the chaos and the messes constantly accompanying this existence.…
LOF
This is a work of fiction, yet it includes some elements of real life. The reader make perhaps inject their own thoughts - be they contradictory or arousing reactions other than those described. It is intended as a glimpse into that space, between fantasy and reality, the place where sometimes two strangers meet and create within it a semblance of a home? Whilst it may feel at times almost as real as any real home, this place is an illusion. Words do not foundations make and although they may tether one in place for a time, life and the reality of living ultimately override the validity of this place, and one must accept - difficult as it may seem - that illusion is but the self's desire to seek relief. Motives and modus operandi may differ as people process this place in personal ways... The constant however is the same: Words can be exchanged and emotions bartered, but, words alone can never replace even a single moment of living outside the myriad lines they create. Being illusionary, no such transcendence can evolve from the exchange. These exchanges can prop one up, salvage and salve. Yet he concept of love - the emotion - perhaps unintended and created in the process is but a fairy tale... perhaps a parable to pass on when one reaches the other side... the wiser for having reached it. As to the parable itself? That is best left for the reader to construct.…
BRIEF BITES
Poetic prose? Random musings? Captured moments? Who knows...*Cover as always by my beloved @RebornOreo…
TELLING SELVES
I began writing down odd pieces of self, brief moments, reflections... Then I wondered what could be achieved if others collaborated and added their odd pieces of selves... Could we collectively create an ongoing communal self, shared, exchanged, accepted, acknowledged, respected, evolved, ... Is it possible?Much love to my Oreo for the cover....…
A Goat, a Prince and Other Characters
This collection emerged during the previous decade. It was also the darkest period of my life. As words began to trickle, they went almost unnoticed at first. Time passed however and the moment came when I saw these words for the beacons they were... leading me out of the darkness.Poem by poem, I reached the sunlight..."Some thoughts stand alone. You might wonder for a moment if they have the potential to become a story. Then you read again and realise they are already a story in themselves. That's Poetry. Some people arrive briefly then depart, leaving the vacancy sign blinking on unconcerned, carrying away small chunks of time and leaving who, what, where and why unsolved behind. Some when you need, also lack themselves, and you see eerie light where you expected bright shining hope. And so you cope.Until once in a while one touches you and shares the carving of the monuments to faith.One eases your burden, gives you instead bread and a bed. The vacancy sign flickers off. You see your new tenant, humanity.Some never leave, or take. They give. That's Poetry."*Cover as always by my beloved @RebornOreo.…
DAMN AUSSIE BUSH
No we are not Austria, and definitely not in Europe. Yes, we are the big blob in the middle of nowhere. We are also the only Nation that is a continent - go figure. We're THAT big. I read somewhere you can fit every person in the world in here - giving them an acre each - and still leave Queensland empty... Some of our cattle stations (ranches) are bigger than entire Nations. We're THAT big. But there's so few of us in all this space! Averaged out, there are 3 people for every square kilometre of land. A mere 26 million of us, hugging the coastline mostly. The rest (the biggest part of this big blob) is empty. The kind of emptiness where your nearest neighbour is hundreds if not thousands of kilometres away. People have been known to veer off a dusty dirt-packed 'highway'... never to be seen again.We also eat our 'Coat of Arms'... Oh and we export camels because someone once thought it was a good idea to introduce them to this big blob and just let them run loose in the outback. What does this tell you?And don't get me started on our 'thing' for BIG THINGS... I've been inside the Big Pineapple, and seen the big 'rabbit-proof fence' and even the big potato. We have a big - a really big rock - right in the middle too, though this one was here way before our 'thing' emerged...…
IS IT EVER LIKE THIS?
I wrote a piece a while back about my personal Online Dating experience. So. Here's where we all get to share similar experiences. The funny. The tragic. The wacky. The unexpected. True love?Is it ever like this? Or is it more like those pictures you see in ads and then you buy the product and compare... only to realise the 'picture' bears little resemblance to the product?*A huge thank you to @ThePessimisticOreooo for this beautiful cover. Much appreciated!…
LETTER BY LETTER
Jeremy messaged me one day quite unexpectedly, having read up to a certain part in my Memoir. What follows is the journey he and I took, in the behind the scenes world of Wattpad - where people connect and messages are exchanged and friendships are formed. Jeremy reached out a hand and I extended mine and together we travelled through many ups and downs and essentially, created his own Memoir in the process... He has asked me to make these conversations public so that readers can understand him and perhaps find within his words and his personal ongoing struggles, a path to understanding for themselves... He hopes too, that by releasing the 'monster' inside him, the blackness will lift, allowing the light of hope and desire for life to shine through.This is my hope also. It has been a journey of learning for myself as well, as I have tried to discover ways to help him, often shedding tears, feeling the frustration of helplessness and the fear of losing him, of his letting go my hand... These 'letters' are unedited, and broken into parts as they were exchanged. Jeremy's words are in bold and my words are in italics, for the purpose of distinguishing between our conversations.…
NEW STEPS
Dedicated to Robert Alvarez... Where would I be without you?…
LOVE UNSPOKEN?
Hellen and Paul met on a pier at a seaside town one summer's day. Their paths kept crossing over the next three years, until Hellen moved back to the city. They met again five years later at a Christmas party. Not a word had been spoken between them, circumstances always getting in the way of conversation... Their eyes and their thoughts flew back and forth every chance meeting however, evolving over time into a love-story...…
FREEDOM IS A CARROT
Freedom. A word bandied about, fought over, sought externally in every corner of the earth and internally through religion, meditation, reflection... What is it? Is one born free? Must one attain it? Can it be physically lived? Or is it simply a carrot dangled so that one is compelled to ever strive, sensing that it is just ahead, always in front? Have those ahead, in front, attained it or are they too seeing it but never quite reaching it? I am on a mission. Join me as I attempt to find it...…