Thea - Back in Tin Can Bay

Precious Friends,

As much as I would love to keep contact with so many wonderful people on Gaia, I have been too focused on getting my book finished. And so I am enclosing a news letter I have just sent off to my friends on hotmail. 

While I was still doing the finishing touches on my book prior to Norfolk island, it was a wonderful feeling to go over there knowing that it would be ready for print by the time my birthday arrived at the end of July.

I arrived in Brisbane on the Saturday and caught the train up to the Sunshine Coas on the Monday morning for a dental appointment. All the dentists were away because one dentist had the flu. I can’t get over how fearful people are of ‘catching’ something. I refuse to buy into it. 
 
Due to my injury at Norfolk, a friend has made an appointment for me with a fantastic massage therapist in Gympie who does deep tissue massage. It’s painful, but is he good! And as the only train didn’t leave until 7p.m, I spend the day in the Nambour library.

My book is about my journey in this lifetime. And because of my own experience in dysfunctional relationships, I also want to inform women in abusive relationships what resources are available to them. I also want to include statistics. Whilst in the library, I come across a book written by a woman about her extremely abusive relationship. She thanks the Chairman of the Survivors of Domestic Violence for her assistance, who happens to have the same name as me. As I have only personally ever come across one other person with my name, I’m prompted to read her CV. It’s very impressive. Amongst other things, she writes books and also edits. It turns out she is also Dutch born. I take it as a sign that I’m meant to contact her.

I send her an email from the library and tell her what I’m hoping to achieve by writing my book and if she can give me the statistics I’m after. I also send her the introduction to my book. I mention it’s about my tenth draft and while there is still a great deal of room for improvement, I’ve had to draw the line somewhere and that it was never meant to be a literary masterpiece.

In Gympie the next day, I find out that my appointment has been cancelled as the guy who does the deep tissue massage did his back in. At the library, I check my hotmail. Thea offers to edit my book for free, but won’t have time until August. It means waiting a few more months before the book goes to print, and although we are of a different mindset, she does empathise with what I am trying to achieve, and why I believe her to be an answer to my prayers.

After two days in Gympie, I return to Brisbane to stay another day with Talia. She’s done the art work for the cover of my book and while it still needs Bobby to do the finishing touches on the computer, I’m very happy with it.

I book into a backpacker on the second floor of a hotel almost on the beach at Coolangatta. It’s a quiet time of year, so I’m given a room to myself which leads onto the balcony. Coolangatta was my old stomping grounds after I left home at sixteen and It’s right next door to where I used to work. I hardly recognize the place. It used to be a sleepy little town, but now high rise buildings line the foreshore. I had hoped to go for long walks along the beach and to meditate by the water, but it rains and blows a gale the first week. At least I’m able to keep on with the finishing touches to my book and to spend time with Bobby, further up the coast.

It’s fascinating to watch him do the finishing touches to the book cover. I almost feel like and author. While the hotel is very noisy on Thur, Fri and Sat nights when the nightclub is open until 5a.m. and I have trouble sleeping, I stay on an extra week when the sun finally comes out.

Carrying luggage all the time on public transport and having no fixed address is beginning to wear very thin. I’ve been living this gypsy life now for the past three years, or is it more, and I need to move into my own place. As much as I want to live by the water, rentals have gone sky high on the coast and I don’t want to share. I keep getting invites to look after friend’s houses and animals while they’re on holidays, but I feel the need to be settled. Rents are much cheaper in Gympie, but it’s not near the water and the pool is closed for the winter. Even so, the place has a nice feel to it. I consider moving there for a year and then see what happens.

I return to the Sunshine Coast to celebrate my birthday with Mary at Pomona. It’s King of the Mountain race on Sunday and I wouldn’t mind walking in the fun run at the base of the mountain.

On the Saturday night we both look forward to a night of frivolity at the King and Queen of the Mountain Ball. I haven’t been to a ball for ages. I haven’t had time to dress for the occasion, but Mary looks stunning in an outfit she had made for belly dancing. We arrive to what looks like a regular hen’s party – seven females to every male and there’s no more than about fifty people. I suspect that all the fit, able bodied men are reserving their energy for the big race next day. Even so, we have a lot of laughs and meet some very fun loving and interesting women. Mary is thrilled to be chosen as Queen on that ball. Of course, I can’t help myself and I dance every dance. I know I will suffer the next day, but I had not expected to be as bad as it turns out to be. Next morning, my right leg is so painful, I am limping. I miss out on the walk, but enjoy the poet’s breakfast.

I was going to stay with my friend Rene in Gympie for a few weeks to make up my mind whether it is where I want to stay the next twelve months. He was having financial difficulties and has decided to return to Groote Eylandt, which is where we met, and to work there for twelve months. A family will be moving into his house in his absence. My gear is still okay there, but now that he won’t be there, I make the decision to look for a place to rent in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast, which hasn’t become as touristy as the rest the coast.

I book into a backpacker a street from the town centre and a few minutes walk from the beach. The managers are a lovely young French couple and only put someone in the room with me as a last resort. It’s a small backpacker, very clean and has a lovely feel to it. The only unit advertised in my price range, close to the beach is a dump. I put an ad in the paper. I get some response, but nothing suitable.
I visit my friend Lyn at ‘Velvet Waters which is a Rock ‘n Roll restaurant not far from where I’m staying. I tell her of my intent to find a place to rent, look for a car, get my book published and then do something productive about approaching the right people to assist in raising the money for a holistic centre. It so happens that the guy she and her husband are in partnership with also buys cars at the auctions for interested buyers. Apart from his talent as an Elvis Presley impersonator, he’s had a very interesting life as a stunt man and jumping over cars, up to twenty-five and even jumping over about twelve cars blind-folded. He was known as ‘Johnny Wonderboy Fogwell’. He knows cars well and when I meet him a few days later, he offers to take me to the Brisbane auctions to find just the right one for me.

I receive my draft back from Thea. While I am most appreciative of the constructive criticism and all the valid points she makes, I sense her frustration in my approach to life. We all heal differently, and all I am doing is sharing what has worked for me. I suspect she sees some very bad cases of abuse and can understand her frustration with someone like me, who harbours no ill-feeling towards the three men I was in dysfunctional relationships with. Perhaps its because I don’t see myself as a survivor of domestic violence or as a victim. I’m a human being, experiencing life with all its ups and down. And while I may not have had a perfect childhood and ended up in far from perfect relationships, I’ve also had many wonderful life experiences that everything that happened was just as it was meant to be. I feel blessed for all that I have experienced, be it negative or positive.

Thea also pointed out certain incidents which needed more clarification, and for the book to be more professional, I needed to work on it some more. The thing is I’m not professional, and while I felt like burning the draft and feeding myself to the sharks, I enjoy the show at ‘Velvet Waters’ instead. And while I should have been resting my injury, I kick up my heels up on the dance floor, and pay the price next day, and the next and the next.

I go for walks early in the morning and I meditate on the beach just as the sun comes up. After a few days, I decide to re-write the draft again, and to consider including the draft from my first book. Quite a daunting task when it was finished in 2004 and I haven’t touched it since. It’s about the early years of my life, up until I met my children’s father in 1978.

I’ve been in Caloundra two weeks when a friend asks me look after her dog on Bribie Island for a week. I jumped at the opportunity to have a house to myself. Before going there I go with Jonn to the auction. He’s had a very interesting life and I enjoy hearing about it. I mention to him that I used to own a Honda 125 and had ridden it from Brisbane to Mount Isa two weeks after I bought it in 1976, having just learnt to ride it. I also tell him about the trip. He’s amazed and says, ‘ I hope that’s in your book’. He tells a guy at the auction about it. I’m surprised as it seems nothing compared to what he’s done on motorbikes.

Two hours later, I’m the owner of a 1998 Toyota Corolla Seca. It’s more than I had intended to pay, but John says it’s a very good buy and worth paying extra for and that I could take it out the road next day and drive it to Perth. I say ‘I just might’. Truth is, I don’t even feel confident enough to drive it from Brisbane to Bribie. It’s been seven years since I sold my car before going to Norfolk Island to work, and while I drove a few times over there and again on Groote Eylandt in 2004, since then I’ve only driven a car once on the highway from Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast in 2006 as well as a few times on Bribie Island. John drives it to Caloundra a few days later.

After all these years, I finally own a car. It’s taken me five years to buy one, but better late than never. When I get to Bribie I tell my friend about John and how amazed he was about me riding such a small bike to Mount Isa by myself. She doesn’t know the story about the bike and so I tell her. When I finish, she says, ‘I hope that’s in your book’. Two people telling me exactly the same thing on the same day is a sign for me that I do need to make the two books into one, as I had originally set out to do. Going about it though is something else.

Russell, whose house I rented for only $100 a week up until I went to Norfolk Island in June has been away sailing since July and I was welcome to stay there again. It was too far away for what I needed to do, but as I now need to isolate myself from everyone so that I can focus on the task ahead of me, I send him an email to let him know my change of plans.

Back in Caloundra, I take possession of my car. A week later, I leave while it is still dark, to avoid the early morning traffic and head for Tin Can Bay. Needless to say, I’m relieved that we both got here in once piece.

I’ve been here three weeks and I’m loving it. The house is opposite the water and it’s so still at night. There’s a lovely secluded pot across the road where I meditate in the early morning. It’s nice and flat for walking and when the tide is in I swim in the ocean, and when it’s out, I swim in the pool. Last week the council put in a gym along the shore line where I usually swim, so that has become a part of my daily ritual also. And it’s all free

I trust  you are all doing whatever it is your soul wants you to do.
Love, Joy, Peace, Happiness, Laughter and Good Health – what more can I wish for you? Thea X