Mercia Deane Johns

1902

Chapter Two

Shortly after making the pilot I moved to a three bedroom, three bathroom, two loungerooms, eight- bedroom mansion in Vaucluse. The large house was nestled on top of a hill over looking the ocean and every Saturday morning six Italian gardeners arrived to tend the vegetables and flowers. I loved watching them potter happily in that glorious garden. The path to the house was edged by rose quartz crystals, and at the side of the house there was even a crystal shop.

Seven of us lived in that house, and we had a lot of fun. Someone was always cooking a feast, there was always lots of music, lots of laughter. Lots of people coming and going.. Lots of dramas.

I spent a lot of time in my room, writing a column for Playboy magazine, simply entitled Women. Peter Olszewski, also known as JJ Mc Roach, the founder of the Marijuana Party was the editor at the time. He had given me the opportunity before I travelled to India. I enjoyed writing for Playboy. I had a lot of material around me at the time for inspiration. Things were fine.

Eventually though I grew tired of living communally, and moved to Paddington into film and television director Kevin Dobson’s house, while he and his wife Susie and baby Harry travelled to Los Angeles. I’d known Kevin since I was nineteen when we met on a tele movie called Demolition, and we have been good friends ever since. While living in Paddington I started working as a singer with a Japanese piano player, took up a stint at nude modelling ( Life modelling as it was called in the biz) for art institutes all over Sydney. I was picking up different crusts of bread from many sources. It wasn’t easy, but it was interesting. Eventually though I had to find a steady source of income, so I resorted to the curse of all actors- Waitressing.

Andiamos was a cafe in Darlinghurst owned by a Hungarian Jew, close to a venue for Alcholics and Narcotics Anoymous meetings, so the main clientele were people from these organizations. They’d come and go. Play backgammon and drink endless lattes. One day a rather lanky dishevelled man with shaggy blonde hair and a booming voice came in and left flyers on the counter. He told me the flyers were about a concert to raise money for Tibet. That was how I met Damien Lovelock, lead singer of the indie label band The Celibate Rifles. A friend of his had told him to check out the new waitress, and he did. We fell in love and lived together for four years. He also had another band which he called Damien Lovelock’s Wig World, I sang both lead and backing vocals for them. Some Patti Smith songs, and a great punk rock song called Identity, which I loved doing. Also the old blues standard, Nobody Loves You When You’re Down and Out. And ain’t that a fact!! We lived in Newport. He surfed and gigged. I read and sunbaked, and sang, and sometimes worked for The Celibate Rifles as the door bitch stamping peoples wrists and selling merchandise. We also did some recording at EMI. In 1989 The Rifles did a seven-month world tour, and I accompanied the band.

Damien and I had brief holiday in Hawaii, and we started the tour from Amsterdam. A European tour might sound exciting, but it was a tough and gruelling existence. Basically there were eight of us crammed in a van: Damien, Kent Steedman, guitarist, Dave Morris, guitarist, Paul Larsen, drummer, Jim Leone on bass, manager Graeme (Woody)Reagan, Rob XXXX, the sound guy, and of course me.

My job was handling the money, making sure the food and the bands rider were in the dressing rooms, giving everyone their per diems, selling merchandise and generally keeping the peace. Occasionally at a really late gig, I might sing some Patti Smith songs. After months in a van, crossing endless borders, driving for hours, setting up, doing the gig, packing up, sleeping and then doing it all again the next day in another country, tempers do start to fray. Often we stayed in older hotels with no lifts, and often we’d be on the sixth or seventh floor. I remember once in the north of Holland managing to get three bags to our room on the fifth floor. I was so tired I sat on my suitcase and wept. It was hard. We went to Italy, Spain, Finland, Norway, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, London, and New York. We’d do a lot of gigs in each country, in different cities. We had piles of luggage: guitars, the p.a, cases full of whammy pedals, microphones, microphone stands, drum kit. Damien is a big sports fan and the soccer World Cup was happening while we were in Europe, so the first thing he’d do when we hit a town was to find where the soccer was being televised. It drove me crazy. He also felt guilty for being the only band member with his girlfriend on board, so he’d sit anywhere but with me and often seemed to ignore me. We started fighting. Half way through the tour it was time for all of us to take a holiday. We were heading back to Amsterdam to return the P.A,

change all the different currencies into guilders, do eight peoples laundry, book our tickets and then fly our separate ways for about a week. It was morning, and Damien and Kent were going to book all the tickets while I went to the post office to change the money. We all walked together. When we got to the travel agents I wanted to keep going to the post office, but Damien insisted I wait for him. Another fight. When we finally did set out together we were both angry. At the counter, Damien stood a little behind me, I handed over the money. The clerk counted it. Kent appeared. The clerk handed me an account of what he owed me, and just as I took it from him, there was a huge bang. It sounded like a firecracker. As I turned I was thinking who would let off a firecracker in a post office, and then I heard Damien say,’ It’s a fucking armed hold-up.’

I saw two men in bike helmets. Both were firing guns into the air. Every time they fired I screamed, involuntarily. One of them ran straight towards me, firing his gun. He pushed me backwards into a wall, screaming in Dutch. The other one ran directly forward, nearer Kent, and was also screaming and shooting. I found myself sitting in a tall silver ash tray. The gun brandishing maniac ran from me and grabbed a stranger. He dragged him back to me, and placed him on his knees in front of me. The guy had turned to jelly. His face was in my lap. Then he grabbed Kent, dragged him over and knelt him in front of me. The gun was now pressed against Kent’s temple, and the guy was screaming directives, which I could not understand. Damien was still standing, and in my mind, Damien’s name started flashing in red neon. I wanted to turn to him, tell him I loved him, but we all knew to move or speak could be death. Money was flying everywhere. The robbers were stuffing it into bags; it was flying from the

ceiling. It covered the floor. The clerk I’d been doing the transaction with appeared. I watched as he stuffed all the money the Rifles hade earned in the last five months into the bandits bag. I was worried he was going to take my bag, which contained passports and Swiss franks. He didn’t. I was worried they might take me, but they didn’t. They started running toward the exit. As they got there, the guy who pushed me into the wall fired one last shot. He didn’t look back, just fired. Now I understood the term ‘parting shot’. Damien all this time had been standing against the wall, his face half turned, his hands against his head. The bullet went straight through his hand, between his index and middle fingers. An inch to the left and it would have gone straight through his head. The bandits were gone. The tellers, the customers, all of us were crying and laughing at the same time. It was like we were at a rave party. We were hugging, and kissing. Money still floated from the ceiling. I tried to help Damien. I told him to sit down . He wouldn’t Sirens rang out. The police arrived. Then the ambulance. Damien passed out, but only briefly. ‘ Don’t leave here without our money,’ he told me.

‘ It’s o.k.,’ I assured him. His last words as he was carried out on the stretcher were the same.

‘ Don’t leave here without the money, no matter what the police say, get our money, or don’t budge.’

‘0.k’

The police at first treated us like we were the banditos. It was annoying. ‘Right we’ll take you to the station, they announced, moving me toward the door. ‘Ah, I need to get our money first,’ I said

‘ You can come back later.’

‘No I need the money or I won’t leave.’ They gave me our money.

The Amsterdam police station is located behind the Milky Wieg club, the inspiration for the group The Church’s hit Under The Milky Way Tonight. Kent and I were questioned at separate desks. I was surprised I knew so much about the guy who had pushed me into the wall. I knew he had dark hair. I knew he had swarthy skin. I knew he wasn’t a native of Holland. ‘ What kind of gun did he have?’ the detective asked me, in a heavy Dutch accent. I looked bemused.

‘ Was it a revolver or a pistol?’ He became quite annoyed when I couldn’t answer that.

‘ A revolver I guess.’ I said.

‘ Do you know the difference between a revolver and a pistol?’ ‘No, I don’t.’

He explained in a tired beaten way, as if to a moron. I heard the other detective interviewing Kent ask him what was said next. ‘ Ah, then Damo said, “They’ve fucking shot me. Fuck.” His Australian accent ricocheted around the walls like a crow’s caw. We became hysterical with laughter. The police kept asking us if we wanted trauma counselling. I said I was fine. Damien did the gig that night with his arm in a plaster cast. The bullet hadn’t shattered any of his bones, just gone straight through. A miracle.

About three days later in Ireland, we’d stopped by the side of the road. A man on a bike drove toward us. I broke out into a cold sweat, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. It was the sight of the helmet. That night I woke up to find Damien pacing. He was as green as Ireland itself. The minute I saw his colour, I turned green too, and we threw up all night. Isn’t it romantic? For about two years after that whenever I was in a bank I’d get edgy. I’d always start checking out the other customers for any signs of danger. I still do sometimes.

It’s the anniversary of Damien Lovelocks death. I’ve been finding photos of him & listening to him singing & talking soccer all morning. I’ve also been crying & sobbing at the loss of him from this world. I can hear Damo laughing at me. ‘Don’t be sad, Ponnet,’ he would say.

We first met at a café I worked in in Darlinghurst. At the time I could never work out why so many patrons stayed there all day playing backgammon. My friend, Saskia Post, who also left this mortal coil, last year, said, ‘They’re Na Nas.’

‘What’s that? ‘I asked. ‘Narcotic Anonymous’, she replied, ‘ There are meetings just up the road’.

Unbeknownst to me, a musician mate of Damo’s ( you know who you are), mentioned he should come take a look at the new waitress.

So one day in walked a lanky, tall man, with shaggy blonde hair, who was placing posters for a Free Tibet concert of the Celibate Rifles on the counter. He said, ‘You should come.’ And so began a lifelong friendship & love.

As Damien wrote in ‘On a Blue phone at the Green Iguana’, a track with the best keyboards from the Necks, ‘ You see a cloud, I see a rainbow, We’re both looking out the same window.’  That is what we were like together. I was the cloud, dressed in head to toe black. He was the rainbow dressed in hot pink board shorts & aqua blue ‘T’ shirts. He was the sun, I was the moon. I was Blue, he was Green.

I’ve been an actress all my life, yet in Damien’s razor sharp incisive way, he could see there was something else much closer to my heart.’ What do you really want to do? He asked. ‘ Oh singing is my absolute love, ‘I replied. And so began years worth of music with The Celibate Rifles & his solo band, Wig world.

We shared an apartment in Newport with Dale, very close to his beloved Newport Beach.

I’m very tidy & organised. Damien could write an entire album surrounded by ashtrays spilling over, paperwork everywhere, towels full of sand hanging on the balcony, dishes spilling over in the kitchen, an eclectic mix of chaos, TV blaring with any sport that might be happening.

‘Who said tidy is better than messy? Who wrote that rule?’ he would say, as I busily cleaned and tried to restore order.

We toured the world in 1990. All over Europe. Sometimes, if it was a super late gig, he’d let me sing my Patti Smith covers, with the Rifles supplying a wall of sound so loud & strong I could’ve leaned back into the sound & been supported by it. We travelled everywhere for months, the only female with six men in a van. Crossing borders, hunting down anywhere that might be playing the World Cup in every  new town.

I cannot abide sport. My brothers were football players, some professional, and the sound of any sport was an aberration to me when I was little, & beyond. How our friendship survived is a miracle. Day & night. Night & day.

Before sharing a home with Damien I had no idea there was always sport on television. Soccer, football, surfing, girls hockey, ice hockey, basketball, Tour de France, it never ended.

One night arriving back from a gig, to a ‘tidy’ house, he went to turn the television on & I said, ‘If there’s sport on that F~!@#$^&*() thing I will kick the television in.’ His finger retracted from the on switch & he left the room. Our sharing of a home was almost at its end.

Gone would be the speedos everywhere, sand, vitamin supplements, plectrums, guitars, full ashtrays, the constant sound of sport, walks on the beach, swims, dinners & endless gigs. I moved to Melbourne. We continued to do gigs together.

One day recently, I was so depressed, I could barely breathe. I managed to throw something on & get in my car to hunt for food. I turned the ignition on & there was Damien’s mega phone voice speaking to me. He was speaking soccer. I just sat with tears of joy & sadness streaming down my face. Somehow spirit had brought him to me to restore a very sad soul.  I sat in the car just listening to him, occasionally speaking to him. Hearing his voice again, gave me the strength to pull myself together. That’s what he did for so many. He helped them to the sunshine. He showed the way.

He was generous of spirit. Fair. Kind. Thoughtful. Funny. Loud. A story teller. A truth speaker. He was much loved by so very many. I’m sure I can speak for all those who knew & loved him & say:

We will always miss you Damien. Forever in our hearts & minds. A true legend, of heart & soul, courage & truth.

My heart goes out to all the victims of abuse at the hands of pathetic grimy Pell. Just goes to show Church and State not separate. Totally disgusting verdict. Shame on you judges and jurists alike.

His protection of the pedophile priests is a crime against humanity. Not only that, even more victims, filled with the shame he gifted them, are now coming forward.

He has no shame. None at all. Ran to hide behind the ornate frocks of the Pope until the outcry was too loud.

Do not lose hope. Good always wins. It just takes longer. The eye of Horus sees all. The invisible is watching.  The Greater Omnipresent Diety will find justice for you, you grubby, horrid snake.

May you burn. May you choke on the stolen gold. May you eat your stupid pointy hat.

To those who so quickly dismissed the testimonies of his victims, may you never sleep again knowing how many people you have destroyed today.

Devastated.

Listened to Noam Chomsky tonight, always mind expanding to read or listen to one of the great minds of the 20th Century. Heart and mind.

The thing is, democracy has been dead for quite some time, not even ten people went to the funeral. No-one noticed. No-one noticed the corporations running the world, every politician a mere pawn on the chess board that was owned and run by Pharma, Oil companies, Insurance companies, Armaments, Gun manufacturers, the list is endless.

Capitalism. Free enterprise. If you could dream it, you could have the dream. The dream being make as much cash as one can, keep it for the chosen few on the board, pay the workers a pittance, pay the politicians to advocate for you, pay crooked police forces  to look the other way while in one day a million trees were felled for illegal cattle farming. Construction of roads, dodgy buildings, developments, palms greased, lunches had, deals done, laws passed in the dark of night. Neo-Liberalism. Make as much money as one can, by any means one can, hoard it, invest it, while others starve. Create wars, create embargos, cause unbelievable unimaginable suffering, control, dominate, in the name of what? Power and money?

Neoliberalism: ideology and policy model that emphasizes the value of free market competition. Although there is considerable debate as to the defining features of neoliberal thought and practice, it is most commonly associated with laissez-faire economics. laissez–faire. [ (les-ay-fair, lay-zay-fair) ] French for “Let (people) do (as they choose).” It describes a system or point of view that opposes regulation or interference by the government in economic affairs beyond the minimum necessary to allow the free enterprise system to operate according to its own laws. Sounds fine. Of course we should be free.

And here we are. Indians thrown from their jobs, into instant homelessness and starvation. Iranians dying without any help from the west. Soon Africa will follow suit, and who cares?

Pay thousands of dollars to have lunch with Scotty and his minister( Hillsong), who of course can earn millions from donations from the truly terrified followers, tax free. What a guy. And why lunch with Scotty? So you can get favour. So they know you’ll pay up, and if you’ll pay, then they’ll do whatever it takes to protect you and whatever heinous crime you’re committing against the planet or the people. Buy a few Gucci bags to put the payola in. Give the bag as well for the good little woman at home with the boring ugly children. Get that development through.Fuck Mother Earth. Get the cotton farming through. Bring in the poisons to spray on the cotton. Fuck the people who pick it and get sick in droves. Take the payola from the idiot who grows rice in this water strapped country. Direct the water to the coal mines, fuck the fish. Fuck the river. Fuck the people. Fuck it all. We are the rulers of the world. We can do what we want. We can sleep knowing we’ve got enough to feed an entire city, while we keep our money off shore. Free enterprise.Why vote for the pawns? Because the pawns will protect you and your money. They won’t tax you. They’ll tax the middle classes and the poor. Don’t touch the rich. They, the 1%, keep the pawns in government going. They are the fucking government.

It’s a dirty world. Banking, Churches, developers, mining companies, politicians, armament manufacturers, war machines, Pharma, the war on drugs, private prison systems, private medical systems, private private private. read that as secret. It’s all a secret. A secret war on humanity. A secret war on nature itself. A fucking evil secret that is destroying us and mother earth.

They knew this virus was coming. Did it serve them to work on a cure? Nope. It served them to pay doctors to prescribe opiates though. Now those who truly need them can’t get them. Legalising drugs is the answer to the drug wars. Will they. No. It would cost them too much. They’d lose trade in the prison systems. They’d lose. We’d win. They can’t have that.

Private aged care. It’s a disgrace. Over paid CEO’s, and underpaid, over taxed staff. Patients treated like cattle, kept barely breathing. Why? Money. Money. Money makes the world go round…The world go round. Well not for too much longer if  we keep allowing these evil capitalistic money hungry twisted hype spinning talking heads run the show.

We could’ve had solar, wind, water power by now, but coal and oil companies can’t let go, and the idiot politicians assist them every step of the way. Hemp, which self seeds, only needs watering once, can be used for so many things. Oil, lamps, cooking, clothes, weaving, rope, endless. Hemp plantations planted years ago could have saved trees. No. We still  honour  outdated laws that were created by pawns for the Oil industry. They have no place here, except for? Money. The corporations that governments protect. So basically the Governments we pay with our taxes ( not the 1%), just the us, spend all their time protecting the 1%, while becoming the 1%. Evil.

Meanwhile planet earth, the only true greater Omnipresent Diety we have gets destroyed by the 1% for the 1% and most of them are religious because it looks good, or alternatively because they are dumb or evil. They worship a patriarchal God, while they commit murder and mayhem in the name of God and good.

Unbelievable. All of it’s unbelievable. So while Scotty still insists on keeping schools open and Gladys lets 3000 people disembark and spread the virus like wild fire, and then they clamp down once the horse has bolted, we’re meant to feel thankful for their wisdom.It’s laughable. Yet downright disturbing on every level.

One wonders if the new pay package for business owners is just another scam on the behalf of the neo liberal party we unfortunately have here. It’s more like an advertising group. Spin, spin and more spin.

In Australia, any laws or law enforcement is over the top. It’s a hangover from our beginnings 280 years ago, when the English brought boats bursting at the seams with  sick and miserable convicts. Mostly their crime was fishing on land taken from the pagans and given to lord Earl Fauntleroy the third, simply for being a Fauntleroy. The poor no longer had hunting or pillaging rights, because they no longer could access nature. Sound familiar? because of this the prison systems were bursting and they used docked boats as extra places for lockdown.

So began colonisation of Australia, Gondwana Land, and when the boats arrived it was indeed a sad day for our Indigenous peoples. There was no mercy or a will to live in harmony. No respect for the ancient wisdom and knowledge they held regarding their land. Only cruelty and contempt. Murder, mayhem, rape, pillage and theft of lands. Exactly what had happened in England, in very different ways.

So building on that evil, we now have an over the top police force that often treats a minor infraction as if it’s first degree murder. Going through a red light can cause some constabulary to froth at the mouth with an idiotic love of power. Same with the Gubberment. ( No-one it would seem in official office can say the word ). Yet it is more perfect than they know. Gubber ( white). So the rulers, the dominators, the controllers, who look and sound as draconian as those in the 17th century, are our Gubberment, and they are beyond the beyond of evil, stupid, ignorant, greedy, cruel, liars, dodgers and power mongers.

So now we can be fined for going out. Fear clenches at my heart. Is the Corona virus just an excuse to send us all packing. To control us even further? Perhaps. Just as 9/11  brought ‘terrorist’ laws. Now we have Corona laws.

So here we are holed up inside. Still allowed to go to school and uni, yet not allowed on the beach, which one might assume would be a healthy place to be. The boats with refugees stopped, yet cruise ships, known contamination sites, allowed to dock and disembark. This country always gets it wrong. They clamp down, yet it’s the wrong clamp in the wrong place. Over kill of domination. Power hungry. Into power rather than genuine care. Into the look rather than genuine substance.

A sulphur crested cockatoo just flew in. It’s raining, so the little cloud has burst. The tears shall bring healing. Must go get my mate a biscuit.

The blessing is the burden. The burden is the blessing. Life is an endless paradox. Is life death? Is death life? Death is a natural part of human existence. We suffer loss all our lives. Usually through our beloved pets when we are young. Then more pets when we’re older and we watch as our children suffer the loss of a fish, or kitten or dog. The endless circle.

Recently so many of my beloved friends, teachers, loved ones, colleagues have slipped off this mortal coil. Some without a goodbye. Some suddenly. Some knowingly, slowly. Every one a different type of grief. Sometimes I have found myself praying to an invisible, yet ever present force, to take them quickly, to end their suffering. Usually this has been when someone is very old, or when, even though they are young, it is unbearable for them and those they love.

Today a friend was cremated, alone. So young. So beautiful.The candles I lit for her are now gone, as is her body. Surreal. I wanted to hold her. See her. See proof of her spirit having returned to her home. Trailing clouds of glory. This was not possible. Our last words. ‘I love you. Talk soon when I’m home.’

An old friend and wise man who died a month before, he too was cremated alone. I left him barely breathing the night before his death, whispering in his ear to let go, to fly. Fly far away from this hell. Yet when he did the very next day, I went into a deep shock. Knowing I would never see him again, never speak again, Totally unfathomable.

He always said, ‘ You are not grieving the person. You are grieving for yourself.’ It’s true. One is grieving one’s own loss.

A young man lay in a hospital bed, a machine keeping him alive. His spirit gone. His mind dead. His heart being made to pump. I sat crying next to him. Holding his limp hand, telling him it was time to join his father who had died last August. It was time for them to meld souls. To shine brightly together. To understand together, the course of the life they had intertwined in this realm. To finally be at peace. To shine. Together.

I sat with his fathers body only six months before. I placed rosemary in his hands. I kissed his forehead. I thanked him for all we had shared. Thanked him for his love and generosity. He was not there.

Now in isolation, alone again, naturally, tears stream down my face in disbelief and grief. Nothing to do but feel the feelings and let go. One can die of a broken heart. How many times can a heart be broken? How can you mend a broken heart?

There are friends, loved ones, still on this earthly plane, no longer within my realm. I miss them terribly. One must let go. A parents nightmare, every day being the next allowing of separation. Then one day they’re gone, off into the world, with sometimes barely a glance backwards.

What’s it all about Alfie?

There’s a woman in Mullumbimby, a nurse, who had travelled interstate on 4 different flights, and on return home became very ill. So ill her husband moved out, and brought food to the door. She became worse and took herself to Byron Bay Hospital.

They refused to test her even though she had all the symptoms, she did not meet the requirements, ie international travel or contact with another person with the dreaded Covid. How absurd!!!

The fact that most people who have it are asymptomatic would logically take away the necessity for having knowledge of contact. We could all have it, without knowing. This woman, a medico, knows she has it and can’t get tested.

They allow a cruise ship to dock and approx 3000 people to disembark without checking any of them, even though they knew some of the crew were infected. Why??? Was it a cash deal between Cruise company and NSW government? If not then what?? A lot of those passengers then cruised around eating, swimming and flying to other states.

Red faced, but unapologetic, the government cracked down on beach goers, enjoying sun, sand and surf, all elements that are healthy. Meanwhile the Casino stays open. Jobs and growth. Jobs and growth.

Daily, in alarm, I watch suits, just different heads, pretend they know what’s what. They don’t. NSW health blusters her way through the endless botch ups. A specialist on Q&A stutters her way through the cruise  disaster. The only voice of truth and logic, was Norman Swan, intelligent and visibly alarmed at what he was hearing. Thanks Norman, such a relief to see a brain that works and a heart that hasn’t turned to concrete with lies and deception, like almost every politician and the doctors and scientists they employ.

Meanwhile, distracted by the possibility of death of loved ones or financial ruin, governments all over the world are giving the go ahead to fracking,( Victoria) money to fracking companies, ( Trump), and Scotty , our very own advertising exec, is throwing money at Qantas, and various other huge corporations, without a clause for them to pass on the money to employees. Always spin. Never substance in grubby Scotties world.

Pentecostals could gather, ( 3000), and no doubt Scotty was there spreading the love, and of course if you’re a pentecostal, God’s on your side, so you don’t have to worry. The scum, ( us) will be wiped out. A true blessing for Scott and his cronies.

The money they’re throwing at the jobless should’ve been done at least ten years ago, but no, let the poor suffer. Fuck them. Who cares? Not us.

So now? No-ones allowed to access salt water and beaches!!!! Unbelievable. We can still let cruise ships dock though. Schools are still open, and fracking is supported and underway. These suits are paid a fortune. Why?? So they can fuck the planet, and us on a daily basis.

Lets turn the Covid into a crown that will change our world for the better. Rid us of the crooked, lying, cheating politicians. Bring communities together, even if as single units far apart. At least the fish are in the Venice canals again. Pollution down. Voices of truth and reason being heard.

Never surrender. Never give up.

I’ll have it til I die, this beautiful, simple, elegant, useful, fine gift. All the way from the mother country. Because I read so much, it is always with me. Treasured. It marks the places where I am, and shows me where I have already been. It lies inside my friends, the books that keep me company on long dark nights, when I hear bats wings whooshing past, and possums scurrying up and down the trees.

It’s white leather, embossed with ancient Celtic symbols in gold, is soft to the touch, and it represents a love I cherish, one that makes me strong, one that makes me know I should go on despite  the pain.

Bod:

Leian

Lib

Rary

Oxford

If I remember correctly it’s the oldest library in the world. The person who carried this gift, for me, 26,000 miles or so, shares his joy of reading and the English language, and his fine mind. He remembers quotations, and stories, authors names. I, on the other hand, remember little these days. I can read a whole book, be amazed by it’s wisdom and genius, and not remember one line, sometimes not even the authors name. If only I could forget my own. Start again. Erase the mistakes, the lost love, forget a child’s blame.

I remember him though, through this tiny, sweet gift. A gift that understands. A gift that thought of me thousands of miles away, across an ocean. A gift I shall carry with me until I die. Perhaps it can mark a page in a favourite book. Which one? Which book should my icy fingers hold, and which page shall this fine leather with the gold embossed letters mark?

Oscar Wilde? Dorothy Parker? Philip Roth? Shakespeare?  Yes a sonnet.

‘Let me not to the Marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

which alters when it alteration finds….’

My father didn’t say much. What he did say stayed with me.

‘Simplicity is the key.’ How right he was. How difficult it has been to master. This beautiful bookmark represents: Simplicity. Love. Literature.Loyalty.

My father also said’ A cat has nine lives.’ Did he mean in this lifetime? Or in many lifetimes? Not sure. This cat though is in her ninth, this life or any other. Times running away, and no matter where I go, I shall carry this beautiful simple, soft leather from Oxford, to mark the spot. It shall be with me wherever I drop.

They say siblings know each other longer than any other relationship. Longer than children or parents, or lovers.

Thank you for thinking of me, when so very far away. My love is with you always.

Firstly Cardinal Pell does not have a heart for it to be in danger of it stopping. His heart, or the hole where it’s meant to be, has been  buried deep under righteous Christiandom for eight decades. His Palace is just up the road, a Gothic ode to the mighty Catholic Church, built as a force to dominate, frighten, control and avoid taxation, while they rob the poor everyday of the week, especially Sunday.I often think of the Indigenous, already displaced when it was being built, and what they must have felt watching the construction, in the name of an invisible God, when all around, the true cathedral, nature,their mother, was being destroyed.

Secondly, Pell has the Church on his side. The  Catholic Church who killed women in droves, as witches, fucked them, tortured them and then killed them for being such temptresses. Then they installed marriage to protect their property from any offspring of the priests, in case the church had to relinquish any of the property it had stolen, all across Europe and then Sth America, Australia, America and Africa from the Indigenous Nations, the pagans. In other words, everywhere. Evil perpetrators of rape and pillage, and domination, suppression of anything natural. Suppress a natural component of a human and it will appear, it will thrive in the dark, and finally find the light as an aberration against the innocent, in this case the children, the flock, the unfortunate.

Pell will get his own, whether or not we bring him back from his gilded hiding hole in Italy. Hiding behind the pope’s skirts. What an evil place the Vatican must be. The whispering of men in their frocks. The hatred and  judgement pointed toward sex, or  nature. Some say the Vatican has been a part of a child pornography and slave trade, along with Royals, Judges, and the uppercrust in general. Jimmy Saville being an integral part of something particularly odious.It’s not too far fetched when you think about it. Money. Power. Moral righteousness. Hypocrisy. Greed. Domination.All the words I think of when anyone says the word religion. Pell looks like one of those men who never leave home. Rarely washes and has a leering, vile sexuality that he keeps in the dark from even himself. I hate to think what will happen to him in the next lifetime. Jimmy Saville and he reborn as twins attached at hip.