“They were the most beautiful people. We had people come over who had never seen a TV, lights or a toilet flush. The simplicity and the beauty of life there… and the generosity. People had nothing but would come over with their crop of pineapples or sugar cane. The generosity blew me away. We made good friends with the villagers up the road. I would be feeling sad and they would arrive. Peoples intuition and their sense of community was so phenomenal.
We had these two security guards because it was quite violent there. They would sit outside from dawn to dusk with traditional homemade bow and arrows. In the highlands that’s way more scary than a gun because their aim is so precise. They became our very good friends. One who’s name was Vino, I told him we lost our baby. He said he was magic man. He said I’ll go to dreamland and I’ll bring you a baby. I was like..ok. I had no idea if it was true or not. He had this native tobacco and we had to circle it around our heads and say our names. We went to sleep and he went outside, smoked it and went to dreamland. He said in Dreamland in his PNG spiritual way, he believed Dwayne had dug a garden on an angry spirit woman’s land and she cursed him with dead babies. In Dreamland he went and took the life of the woman. He bathed me and said there is a baby in there and you will have living babies now. I found out I was pregnant shortly after that so who knows? We did have a baby, my third son Jimmy.
I got a scholarship to study Clowning in Italy. I studied in Florence. I couldn’t finish the course because it was too hard with the kids. I’ve done a lot of clowning and I find clowning an ancient theatre practice and there’s a lot of purity in it. The clown can say and do things because he comes from innocence. Almost like a child. There’s something that everyone loves about the clown.
We finished our time at the theatre company and went back to Hobart to have Jimmy. That was so joyous. Everyone was so happy. Jimmy is now 11 1/2. That was a really healing time. When Jimmy was 3 we moved to Central Victoria where we were closer to my mum. We just lived and got on with it. I did some disability theatre and Dwayne was selling antiques. There we had another son Django, our littlest guy and then my Dad came back into our lives. I said No, I don’t want to see you. He only had my email and it turned horrible. We had to go to the Police. It was really, really horrible from my Dad. We were so peaceful until then. He came to our house. I’d gone out but Dwayne was home and he was shaking from fear. He was sending threatening emails to me. The Police advised us to move so we moved to Northern NSW. We wanted somewhere warm with this beautiful sub tropical culture so we came here.
My big boy finished school in Mullum at Shearwater. Life has been great up here and we feel settled after what happened with my Dad and losing my baby. We’ve recently separated and through that a lot of trauma has been coming to about my Dad. I’ve been with this great group called Nature Philosophy. That are about 2 hours south. They do a lot of questing and primitive living skills which I have better than any Psychologist. I learned to make fire with my hands and things like that.
I auditioned and got some work with children using laughter therapy which was amazing. I worked with a woman called Helen who had many years experience. During Corona we’ve stepped back from that work so we’ve started being the Metre and a half Maids. Helen came up with the idea. People would have seen us at the market. We wear gold and it’s sort of a parody based on the Gold Coast Meter Maids. It’s our Lismore version so we have been asked by markets to keep people socially distancing in a fun, satirical way that’s not threatening. We deliberately don’t mention Covid at all. We’ve only done a few but it’s been fun.
I’m really interested to learn more of primitive living. I want to learn to hunt. I feel good when I’m out on country, on the land. I want to learn as much as I can about bush tucker. I want to raise my kids, grow more food. I’ll never stop theatre. I love teaching drama, especially to teenagers and kids. It’s been incredible for my confidence and I love giving that to other people.
I love Lismore! I absolutely love Lismore and I love Goonellabah as well. I’ve travelled a lot but I’ve never come across a country town that’s so diverse and so accepting of every kind of human. It’s rough and it’s artistic. It has every element that I like. There’s an electricity and pulse here that I don’t find anywhere north or south. It has a life force of it’s own and it fits me well.”