Wendy’s new man was skinny, red headed,  awkward and had a comical, lopsided smile.

It was like he had written his own comedy sketch, and type cast himself into the leading role.

Bridget couldn’t help but  like him, she liked the way he had taken ownership of his awkward geekiness.

She was envious of Wendy, but not jealous. That was just not her style.

Remarkably, Beam only side stepped him, a man as vulnerable as a Geisha in Kabul.

Once upon a time there was a girl. She was small for her age, with skin the colour of pastry dough and frail limbs, which hung from her tiny frame. She had always been a sickly girl, although nobody really knew why. She spent most of her time in her rickety wooden single bed in the downstairs bedroom of her family home, wearing a cotton nightgown that her Aunt Beatrice had sewn by hand. She would sigh at all the appropriate times, and flutter her eyelids as her sister re-arranged her pillows or fetched her books to read.

The family members would take turns to attend to the girl, bringing her bowls of broth or taking her by her feeble elbow to guide her along the cold narrow hallway to the washroom so that she could relieve herself. Nobody was permitted to be too loudly-spoken or jovial inside the house for fear that it would upset the unfortunate bed-ridden girl.

Every day a tiny brown sparrow would land of the ledge outside the girl’s bedroom window, and nestle himself amongst the delicate purple violets that grew in the planter box. The girl’s father told the girl that the bird came just for her, to sing to her and brighten her spirits, and to check on her well being. The girl would smile warmly when her father told her this, feeling so special that a bird would come just for her, and she would ask her father every day, “Why is the bird here father?” just to hear him say the words.

Because of that the family were filled with hope that one day the girl would recover from her mystery ailment and be able to go outside and play with the other children, to hear all the birds of the nearby forest singing their melodic songs. They were a family of unwavering faith and they truly believed that the bird was an angel of God, sent to watch over their girl and bring her back to health. Her doctor, however, would have nothing of such notions. He was a man of science and found it preposterous to suggest that a bird could possibly be anything but a bird.

And because of that the family ordered the doctor to leave the house immediately. His services were no longer required, they said, as he had failed to diagnose the girl in all the years that he had been attending to her. It was true that he had never been able to find anything medically amiss with the girl, but the doctor knew that a man of no faith would not be tolerated under that roof and therein lie the precise reason for his abrupt dismissal.

The family were overcome with sadness. It spread through them all with a ferocious malignancy. What was making this poor girl so sick? Was she long for this world? And what would happen if the sparrow on the windowsill ceased coming to visit??

Until finally the father could stand it no more. One morning, just as the sun was beginning to peer over the hills in the east, the father secreted himself in the garden outside the girl’s bedroom window and waited.

A short time later the swallow landed in the planter box beneath the window and commenced his sweet tune. The father leaped swiftly from behind a nearby rose bush, capturing the bird with a net made of spidery, white string. The bird shrieked and fought against the net, his wings in a fluster and panic flooding his small black eyes.

Be still, the father commanded, I’m not going to hurt you. The bird became limp in an attempt to fool the father into thinking it was dead. The father raised his hand slowly and deliberately, bringing the bird within inches of his own face, looking straight into the beady eye, which was framed perfectly in the centre of a hole in the net.

Who are you?! The father demanded, fully aware of how ridiculous it was to attempt to converse with a bird. Despite his own commonsense he continued on, the questions spilling uncontrollably out of his mouth in desperation. Have you been sent from the heavens above to watch over our girl? What is it that makes her so unwell? Is she to live or die??

The sparrow looked deep into the father’s eyes. He saw the pleading, the fear, the sadness, swirling uncontrollably in the father’s dark gaze. He could feel the father’s pain, which had infected every part of his body, from those grief stricken eyes to the trembling of his hand as it clasped the bird’s fragile and feathered body.

At that moment the bird began to sing and the father could somehow understand him. Your girl is not sick. She is as well as you and I. Relief surged through the father and his grip on the bird loosened a little. The words repeated in his mind. Your girl is not sick.

The bird continued, and the father listened in amazement. I see how well you have cared for her, you and your family, but I see her when there is nobody with her. The bird paused and the father stood very still, fearful that any movement would break the spell and that the ability to understand the bird would be stripped from him at any moment.

Your girl is not sick but she is suffering.

The father slowly lifted the netting from around the bird with his free hand, discarding it in a heap on the grass beneath them and opening his hand wide so that the bird could perch on the flat his palm.

This doesn’t make any sense, the father whispered to the bird, she is barely able to get out of bed.

She is suffering with an insatiable desire for attention, a need to be loved, to be cared for, the bird watched the father’s eyes narrow slightly, become colder, as he listened to the words. When you leave the room she gets up and dances to my song, she cart-wheels across the floorboards, she climbs out the window and races over the lawn in her bare feet, picking berries from the bushes which line the neighbouring forest. And then she returns to her sick bed and closes her eyes before you enter the room. Your girl is not sick. Your girl is a fraud.

The father clasped his hand violently shut, suffocating the bird in his massive claw-like grip and crushing the small creature to his death. He marched inside the house and discarded the bird’s lifeless body into the open fireplace and stood watching it burn whilst staring into the flames and shaking his head at the absurdity of what had just transpired.

Then the father washed his hands, and made his way down the hallway towards the closed bedroom door, to perform his fatherly duty, to care for his poor sickly girl.

Once upon a time there was a girl. She could best be described as crumpled, which she didn’t mind. It was easier and more fun than being, (and being described as), neat, ironed, pressed. Who had time for that crap?!

Her favourite hobby was going to state fairs and having a ride on the flying fox zip lines that were always featured. She met some great people, and had such interesting conversations. But at the end of the ride they always worried about how they looked, which totally spoilt their enjoyment of the ride. But not her – she started crumpled and ended crumpled.

Every day she knew that one day she would meet someone who enjoyed these rides as much as her, who didn’t mind the crumpled effect at the end. She didn’t want happily ever after, didn’t believe in that fairytale crap. Her wish was to find someone to be with crumpled ever after – to have fun with, laugh with, cry with and be with.

Because of that she kept going to the state fairs. She knew this was her best way to find her Crumpled Charming, plus the fair food was to die for. And as she was eating outside she could make a mess, (as she usually did) and no-one, including her, had to clean it up. Basically her deal meal.

And because of that, the day she met her Crumpled Charming she had jam down her front, (not in a sexy way, more in a doughnut exploded way) and her mouth was crammed full of nougat (she’d had to cram the whole bar in to her mouth to free her hands for the flying fox). The over presence of nougat severely hampered her talking ability, (note to self, eat small bits of nougat in private, not massive bits of nougat in public). So many life lessons learned at the fair!

Until finally she managed to finish eating the nougat and started talking – he was too busy laughing at her nougat eating display to talk. He asked how the doughnut was, (so he’d noticed the jam down her front), and whether its flavour had clashed with the nougat? She was about to spit out a clever retort, (why couldn’t she think of one?) when the ride finished. And, joy of joys, he didn’t complain about how crumpled he was, but instead asked her to accompany him to the doughnut stand. That doughnut, and the resultant jam explosion, was the first of many in their crumpled ever after life together.

‘This may be the last chance you have to write anything. Write it like it is the last time.’ Deveny meant it, and she had to do it. She wrote something. She had ten minutes. She didn’t need writeordie.com or bloody Freedom App. She had Deveny breathing down her neck. In fact, she’d had a day with the ‘who gives a fuck?’ CatherineDeveny, an ex Irish Catholic (still Irish maybe?), a room full of women and a man who kept quiet. It was Stella’s idea of a dream day.

Tea towel under her arm, timer at the ready, Stella left the Gunnas workshop. She walked out into the crazy Hobart Street. The street was filled with a huge blue and yellow water slide, yellow plastic rings, people in swimmers and screams. The DJ was doing yet another count down and music was pumping. Just another Saturday in Hobart I hear you say? But no. This was different. Stella looked left and right for an escape route. It was yellow plastic rings whichever way she chose, and as she turned on her heel to go north, a huge yellow ring with a woman in situ came flying over the barrier. It landed with full force onto Stella. They both fell with a thud to the pavement. The woman sat astride Stella, water dripping from all her sticky-out bits onto Stella’s new trousers, now patchy all over. The woman saw that Stella was still holding a tea towel – a tea towel? A piece of paper had fallen from her left hand. ‘She’s not moving. She’s not breathing.’ The woman stood, staring, with her yellow ring still firmly in place. She started to cry as people pushed past her to get to Stella. She opened the paper and read ‘Inspiration follows action. Catherine Deveny’s  writers’ workshop. Melbourne – next month. Don’t fucking miss it!’
When Mavis had left the house that cold, dark morning to go to the water slide event with her four children, (only because it was pre-booked and her mum had paid for the tickets), she did not know that this day would change her life forever. She had always wanted to go to Melbourne and she had always wanted to write. She ran to the top of the queue through the field of yellow, ready to scream.

“You need to know, who your people are, what your culture is, and where you come from. If you don’t understand that about yourself, you’ll never understand it about us,” said the elderly Aboriginal man, who was doing his best to ‘educate’ me. Those words guided me to return to Tasmania, and to seek out as much time as possible with my last remaining grandparent, my paternal grandmother.

I discovered that I came from a colonial, Vandemonian family. Of course I was most attracted to the story that no-one wanted to tell – Gran’s mother’s family …. why did no-one want to speak about them? Gran’s mother, Annie Catherine, was universally loved and adored by her grandchildren. “She never liked to talk about her family”.

The mystery drew me in. I discovered a photo of her mother, Ada Amelia. It had been mistakenly identified as the “other” grandmother, Charlotte. But there was Charlotte, in the background. So the grandmother featured in this photo was not Charlotte, meaning it must have been Ada! My expertise in understanding our family was growing … I had discovered something that no-one else had.

Now to find Ada’s family. There was no birth record for her, but I found a family that seemed to fit. I contacted a descendent, who was also a family researcher. “No”, was his haughty retort. “You are not from our family, I’ve been contacted by your people before. Poor research. Please leave me alone”.

When I discovered the baptism records, for my Ada, and the haughty researcher’s ancestor, and two more siblings that he was not aware of, I wondered whether to share my discovery with him …. “Welcome to the family,” the haughty man said, without understanding that I did not need him to welcome me to my own family.

Now I had the name of Ada’s parents. This brought me face to face with the stories that had been buried.  Ada’s mother Janet, not just a young convict, like so many in my family, but an alcoholic and a thief until her dying day. There were the newspaper records – the time that she abandoned Ada, aged three, with only her seven year old brother to fend for her; when Ada was five, the removal of Janet’s twin infants into state care; when Ada was six, her mother serving short prison sentences.

After Ada married and started her own family, there was her mother, following her to settle in a nearby town, and being arrested for petty crime over and over again. So this was what Annie Catherine was hiding, a grandmother bringing so much grief to the family. By the end of her life, none of Janet’s children cared for her. She died in an invalid institution and was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave.

Yes, Janet had a hard life, she was abandoned herself, back in Dundee, Scotland – her father at sea, her mother in prison. Yes, she did the best she could. But how could Ada have borne it? How could she survive such a childhood? She must have been so damaged. And yet Ada raised Annie Catherine, universally loved, such a good woman. Ada broke the chain of neglect. She warmed her child with love, and brought her to a good life. Ada is my heroine, for what she did.

But, I was troubled by my feelings about Janet. Where was my solidarity with a woman who had clearly struggled?

So I went to Dundee, I walked the streets that young Janet walked – where she slept under the stairs with her friend, where she stole the shawl, where she hocked the shawl, where she bought the soup for them to eat, the place at the river where they washed their faces, the street where she was arrested, and the police station where she was imprisoned. Making that walk, I felt her as a young woman, who simply wanted to have a good life, but had no options.

The impact of tracing my family all the way back to Scotland, surprised me. Not only did I find peace with my great, great grandmother, but I now I had a visceral experience of “where my people came from”. We are not from Australia. Our time on this land is so fleeting, our roots are in other lands, far across the globe.

Once upon a time nothing mattered, nothing was small, nothing was large, nothing was same, nothing was different, nothing was right, nothing was wrong, nothing pretty, nothing ugly, no happiness, no sadness, no violence, no calm, no fuck you .. you fuck me, and no way all these things could dwell in the same time in one head poised to detonate like a suicide vest. This was long before we vacantly trailed our collective fingers in the earths’ dust for the last time, releasing an evolutionary seed nurtured by judgement.  Our tongues cracked into action to decree who was in, and who was out and long dormant networks sparkled in our brains, creating and recreating swearing words and provocative metaphors to give blunt force to our reasoning. Millenniums later, on hearing the photographer’s brother was a freak of nature, the new owner of a country newspaper requested a special image be created. There’s a copy of his written demand and twelve grim photos in the paper’s archive. No one knows how, or by who the photographers giant sibling was co-opted, where the tiny man was found, whether money was exchanged or who decided to tuck the small man into the rear of giant’s trousers, where he was captured forever grimacing through the centre vent of an enormous tailcoat. It’s a juxtaposition that furrows the viewers brow in an effort to disassemble the small man from the frowning giants arse. I’m not sure it doesn’t matter?

Banging around in my head are ALL the words!

Getting them out is up to me…I know that. I understand that I make excuses not to write, not to paint, not to be creative.

I’ve stopped being that person who sits in the passenger seat of the care and yells, “Stop!!” to whomever may be driving (usually my husband) so I can capture an image, so that I can paint a picture, write a poem or a story.

That old barn, the rusty red tractor, the field of poppies, that ridiculous sign that is misspelt. All stored in that iPhone that is my library of prompts.

It’s a sadness that I can’t explain and one that nags at me, every day.

What happened, why did I choose to let go of the one thing that truly satisfied my “soul”?

The joy of painting, listening to music, being in my own space, journaling the process.

It seemed to die the day I painted for my Dad. I came home from his passing…I let the sadness take away a part of me. I wasn’t strong, I was weak and of no consequence.

Gone was the urge to find quotes, make words that went with my visual – even the visuals had slipped away.

I have clung to the photos, joined all the Facebook groups to ‘force’ me to participate and sometimes, that works, but not always.

Sometimes I find myself crying. Not big heaving sobs but just tears that run.

Sometimes I’m angry, “Just fuck off everyone and leave me alone!”

I’m sick of being the fixer.

Now is my time. I have the space, I have the time, I even have the bloody photo references. I just need to do it.

That space upstairs is again going to be mine. I’m reclaiming it. I deserve it and I need it.

Wish me well. I haven’t done something just for me for a long time and I’m excited.

Best of all? I think I’ve learned that sometimes, you just have to not give a fuck. It’s a freedom I have been loath to embrace but I’m going to. With big open arms.

So how would a tarot novel start? With The Fool (number 0) would be an obvious place, but the Queen of Swords would surely want to oversee. The Queen of Swords standing above, looking over us all, appraising, noticing, seeing where we fall apart, where we have steeped too long in the tea of ignorance and have forgotten to question why we had poured ourselves a cup of conditioned crap. I would meet the Queen of Swords as a seeker. I want her to notice me and I want to grow well in her company, but I am also aware that she holds the larger experience here. For she has been sitting there with her Sword for centuries now. She has been watching human life arise and fall away and their stories be mistold or completely forgotten. She has been perfecting the art of communication for hundreds of years, since the first tarot deck was drawn into existence. She knows when to speak and she knows when to be silent. Yet it is her silence that unnerves me. How she watches me, gazing so intently that I know that she can see every shitty little ignorant irrelevant thought I’ve ever had. I want to cry like a baby at her feet because I am so small and insignificant in my experience of life while she’s been turned over in hundreds of thousands of tarot readings for hundreds of years by thousands of different storytellers, each with their own way of seeing and breathing and waking and sleeping. I want to stand beside her and pick up my own Sword and turn around to gaze at the world as she does. And see all without getting caught up in the haze that distracts us all. I would focus on the clear, distinct markers on the path – past, present and possible future – and speak to them directly. I would bypass all the silly, irrelevant activities that put a block between me and the understanding of the inescapable entropy of everything. There is much to write about in order to piece my brain and my heart back together so that I can share my music with you. It all starts with the first word.