These are just a few significant photo highlights, taken by and with various members of my family and friends.
Birthdays, book launches, engagements, visitors, writing group, arts exhibitions and arts events.
A special thanks to my super busy friends who still make time to catch up for a coffee and chat (so much so that we forget about the time and our stress) and friends not seen for years, who make it seem like yesterday we last saw each other and no time has passed.
A special thank you to friends who email, text, phone, drop around, meet up, invite us to be part of your special days and are a caring about me and my family.
And to new friends who invite us into their world and make us feel a sense of belonging, you are so kind.
And finally to those who are travelers and reach out in friendship to new people in a land they may not have known before, so hope you feel the love of Australia when you visit.
Some of the work over at my Memoir Space. I’m exploring the metaphor of beading. You’ll need to click over THERE to read the draft passage that begins this journey into a short story and some poems.
Sophie’s Beads – These are my friend’s Beads .. they are very precious to her. This image makes me think of her, proud Kalkadoon woman.
Forever making notes; writing down lists of things to do, remembering the phrase ‘the inbox is never empty.’ So much to learn; so much to do; so much to remember. What to do but begin?
Today I think of the first time I did a self portrait. I was in an art studio with my classmates and must have been eight or nine. I stood in front of a mirror with my multicoloured jumper that might have come from my grandmother. She was a grandmother I didn’t know very well.
She was later to surprise me, and she and grandfather, gave me a red typewriter.
The multicolour jumper became my focus. I wasn’t so interested in my face, and my curly hair but I did…
I have been adding a few more things to my research memoir blog. Feel free to go and see what’s happening over there. Some of these ideas are for development into longer pieces, or a different kind of piece. Identity and second generation migrant themes are emerging again.
Where were you born?
I am often asked that. What country please?
And if I say Papua New Guinea
the next question is Where?
And I have the village name ready,
‘Maipa Vilage’
and a story about the yellow face paint of the bush mekeo
but no real picture of where it is?
See I left there when I was two.
Sometimes people then want to insist but you want to go back don’t you to understand who you really are
and the next question
is why haven’t you done it yet?
So I try to explain my Papua New Guinea is
my mother’s Papua New Guinea
in snatches of motu
and village language
never deciphered.
My Papua New Guinea walks
around dressed in my mother’s life
which is itself dressed
in experiences of a new land.
She is sometimes Papua New Guinea
missionary raised girl and other times she…
“Where in 1945 it was thought that the way to solve the problem was to create wildlife parks and nature reserves, that is no longer an option. They are not enough now. The whole countryside should be available for wildlife. The suburban garden, roadside verges … all must be used.”
I agree. We have bush turkeys, ibis, crows, and cockatoos frequent our back yard. They enrich our lives.
The down side is that we can’t start a vegetable patch outside because of the bush turkeys digging holes everywhere. However the upside is that they love eating all our scraps and it’s kind of cool they are protected and have the run of the neighbourhoods. We are going to start a vegetable patch on the veranda. I’d love to attract more butterflies to the backyard, perhaps because I miss the beauties we had in Feluga and Murray Upper.
I was thrilled this week to discover an interesting and attractive new plant not far from home. In my ecology quest I’m making a point to find out the names of unknown plants and animals. Today I present to you the Bat Wing Coral Tree – and here is a photograph where it does look like a bat wing! A friend who lives in Mission Beach, but who knows heaps about the natural world, helped me identify it from a photograph I posted.
I hope to use my ecology quests to develop my poetry and stories. It will be fun and empowering to look at things and be able to name them.
Whilst living in North Queensland I learnt a lot about the variety of palms – which prior to living there I had a limited knowledge and interest in. Being surrounded by them I could see so much variety, it became intriguing.
Returning to Brisbane after an eight year absence I am determined to know more about the more obscure looking plants in the garden, parks and streets.
(c) June Perkins words and images
Postscript – A friend has suggested that I can create raised vegetable patches and bush turkeys won’t touch the vegies. Looking into this and may post the garden in process. Spring is in the air.
June Paisa Perkins 