I came to Bellingen at the end of 2000 escaping the city (and marriage) by taking a temporary job for a year at the local High School. I thought the God’s were finally smiling on me! After years of travelling, moving, never living anywhere for more than two years, I found myself in a wonderful, eclectic, artistic community.
A year or so later after divorce, alopecia, anxiety and stress – a part of me was certainly unraveling but simultaneously being rebuilt. My book of poems Penelope’s Shroud, Poems 1980-2008, (TopKnot Books, 2008) is a testament to my need to witness my soul’s journey, “enfolded and unfolding in life’s mythology” as student, wife, sole parent, or facing middle age; reflecting on dreams, observations and characters who crossed my path.
Instead of opting for the antidepressants (I tried them but could feel the chemicals in my body, a slight tremor in my hands) I began to walk every morning at first light in the bush, go to Yoga when I could, and swim 40 laps in the pool in summer. I began to write again after a ten year hiatus, though those years were full of the tender joys of mothering and hastily jotted poems at three in the morning,
Down among the women we share
Our broken hearts, lost youth and recipes
We watch our children grow, through sleepless nights
Hazy days; play dates, sticky hands and picture books
This is what we know.
I have been writing poetry since I first recited poems to the nuns at my Catholic boarding school,
