“I think I wrote my first poem when I was 7. That’s the first one I remember anyway, about the fairies in the Wattle blossoms. My Mum was always reading me poetry, stories and singing me songs so it just kind of came naturally. When I was in 4th grade I had this great teacher, Mr Fraser, who busted me writing when I was supposed to be doing maths. He made me bring it up and show him but instead of punishing me, he put a folder on his desk and told me to put every poem I wrote in it, When there were enough he had it made into an illustrated book and put it in the school library. It was the first time I felt like writing wasn’t just something for me but something that other people would value. By high school I used to write love poems on commission for people to give to their girlfriends and boyfriends. 50c a poem! In Year 12 we studied ‘An Open Swimmer’ which introduced me to Sylvia Plath who revolutionised everything I understood about poetry and made me realise how much more could it could do.
Newcastle was pretty magic for a creative person. I was fortunate to study under two published poets, Peter Kocan and Paul Kavanagh. Paul actually gave me a pretty hard time but he made me a better poet, almost in defiance, and I managed to wring HDs out of them in the end.
I wasn’t a very conscientious student during the heroin years. My academic record was an insane mix of HDs and Incomplete’s. I kind of paid attention to what interested me and wasn’t really focused on the piece of paper. My life was all over the shop, my drama lecturer was down on me and my friends for not really having it together although he always thought I was a talented actress. We were kind of the dud students. At the end of the year I interviewed all the bouncers from my rose run and we wrote a verbatim piece called ‘So Much Time, so Little Blood’ which we performed for our major work. Someone from the Sydney Theatre Company was there and he put it on their reading list so all of a sudden we were the star pupils, which was pretty funny.
I was getting ,more and more involved in heroin to the point where there were physical repercussions if I didn’t have it. I’m not sure when it really took hold of me but I did it for a couple of years. I was still working for and part running the rose business. I was into a fair bit of political stuff, the protests against the war in Iraq and trying to stop uranium mining in Jabiluka and of course the memorable first incarnation of Pauline Hanson. David and I were writing music and peforming. The whole scene was really creative and collaborative and the art, music and writing sort of fed into each other.
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The Newcastle Fringe Festival started up out of that in 97 and I was starting to feel like I was getting a bit out of control with heroin so at the end of the year I decided in 1998 I wouldn’t touch it. I made the decision I wasn’t going to use or smoke for the year. I shaved my head and stepped into the New Year clear. I got really involved in the Fringe Festival. The National Young Writers Festival was on and we linked them together. I was the head of the Literature program so I got to organise those events and we put together a really great anthology of writers and artists called ‘Poesis’ and launched it there. It was all consuming and amazing to do. Now it’s called ‘This is not Art’ and it gets funding. Back then we got some grants, people loaned us their empty shops for performances and it was such a great time. I loved it because it was so what set me on fire. It was a huge success.
And then New Year’s Eve I scored again. The year was up and I really went in hard. Maybe I was over confidant because I’d been able to go a year without it. It wasn’t playing after that. It complicated everything but it felt like it simplified everything because you know what you want. You wake up in the morning and you know exactly what you need and the happiest mornings are when you already have it. I started to understand what desperation was when I couldn’t get it and was so terribly sick. I was still functioning with uni and work but heroin was the priority. I’d go to my Mums in Tamworth where I couldn’t get it and get clean and then come home. If I didn’t get it on the way home I’d have it within a week or 2. In total I was on it for two years, a year off and then another five years. It could get up to $100 a day so you have to figure out where to get that. I had the rose business and various other ways to make money. A lot of people did really dodgy things to keep going, which is totally understandable because you feel so desperate. I tried really hard to hold onto my ethics and had a code of behaviour. I wouldn’t steal from people. But I definitely let people down and did things I wasn’t proud of. You’re in survival mode. I was lucky that I had a lot of good friends who weren’t junkies and they totally accepted me. They wanted me to get off it but still accepted me and loved me and I also had my Mum. They kind of kept my head above water.
I watched other people drown. I overdosed a couple of times. One time my heart stopped. Friends OD’d and died and it was a crazy scene. The weird thing is you keep using even after that happens. It always bemused me, these threats that you can go to jail. I’m like, you can freaking die! How is going to jail a deterrent? It had consumed me and became a part of who I was. At the time being clean was kind of scary. Heroin gives you somewhere to belong and you have all your people. You are so disparaged by the outside world, you’re the scum of the earth junkie and I think that makes it harder for people to get out of it because the straight world doesn’t want you. I think I was hungry for somewhere to belong because I never really had that. And I was vulnerable to that feeling of having all my edges smoothed over. I had a lot of edges. It’s hard to explain, how, it’s total self-destruct but you love it for that. It’s like the problem and the solution all at once.
David and I weren’t great. I think it’s pretty equal parts scary and boring being in love with a junkie when you’re not one. His parents were up here in Dunoon and had the Post office. They had a place where he could stay so he moved up here. We’d been together for 7 years by then so that was pretty big. I stayed in Newcastle but we still talked to each other all the time and wrote letters. I had a very close friend and eventually I got involved with him. I’d still go and visit David and he’d visit me. We were writing heaps of songs and we were sending them to each other. We wanted to start a band and it just became this thing that I would move up here. It was hard because I was in love with the guy I was seeing and had a tight group of friends in Newcastle, I had my business – my life was very much Newcastle.
I was still into heroin and a big drought in the drug had hit. It was difficult and humiliating. I was fed up with the positions I had to put myself in. I realised it was always going to be there and I couldn’t get away from it. It was really tough because I had to leave this guy I loved. He wasn’t into the drug and he was a beautiful man. I loved David too and I was very confused. It just felt like David and I were unfinished business and I had to get away from heroin. I could see I was going to die. It was coming for me.”