Here’s the thing. There is no doubt my life is all the richer for having my boy in my life. He is blonde, six foot 2, has great friends. He has the type of sunny disposition that lights up a room. He is charming and connected and for the moment, he is still mine.
Every so often I meet a white witch. A woman who is so cool, so super grounded, so confident in her channeling of knowledge that she sums up the universe in a glance. Rarotonga attracts people of this nature. The locals will tell you energy meridians run deep in the South Pacific and that the island sits right on top of a convergence. 22 religions are represented on an island 32km in circumference. Young clean shaven, name tag wearing, Laterday Saints wander looking for a lost soul to convert. And it was here on the island where I’d heard of a woman with powers. A German woman in her 50’s with kittens and a boyfriend in his 20’s. Must be a witch.
In Raro only locals can own land and only then if you happen to be a member of one of the eight original families. The island is divided into pieces like a luscious tropical cake. Eight slices each with a piece of mountain, fertile planes sweeping down to fishing rights. Like any island in the South Pacific, Raro is prone to cyclones. And while these mothers hit with a disarmingly, random sense of frequency, they hit the island between 2 and 4 o’clock - north east. People build breeze block houses with louvres so they can simply open them up and let the pressure of the storm move through. Leaving the coasts, the locals move up and take shelter in caves, where I am told you can still find the reminisce of pig ovens where they cooked people. Love a cannibal.
Sometimes rather than live with the threat of coral in you kitchen, it’s more clever to sell your lease of land to a whitey and let him get clobbered. Add to this an appreciation for ghosts and the qualities of superstitious khama and it was no surprise to find my witch living on a stretch of cyclone land, in a house where a woman had fallen from the balcony and died. Supposed at the hand of her husband’s….ghost. She’d been unfaithful, she had it coming. The story goes that the witch hung the embroidered, burial shroud on the living room wall. If it was the shroud I saw it. And it was beautiful.
I arrived. She knew I was coming. I’d made no time or appointment as I had no number and phones are scarce in any case. The Italian boy friend, charming, invited me in. A kitten jumped onto my lap. The sea breeze blew and fluttered all cotton. The air was thick and warm and pacific. This point of the island is close to a break in the reef and I think I saw a whale. I couldn’t be sure and as I squinted out to sea I became aware of someone watching my back. I turned around. The witch nodded and closed her eyes. When she opened them she looked inside me. She said, connect with your power. How could I ever doubt it? Why would I give it away? She said there was a blonde girl child with green eyes sitting on my shoulder. Yet to enter. I have two children. And time is ticking out for a third.
Then she said she could sense my love of the island, my love of freedom and my love of non judgement. She said she could sense my fear and reluctance of the western world, of games and fast pace. I began to cry. And she then said the words I must remind myself to repeat every day - you don’t have to be on the island to live like you’re on the island. You take it in your heart.
It was at this point her boyfriend kissed her, with wonderful passion and I felt like a trespasser. I thanked and left. She touched my hand briefly with a flat palm on the top of my right, near my wrist. As I drove home on my moped , helmet-free, under massive Mortonbay’s, I watched a leaf in free fall, the size of a dinner plate, it hung slow in the air and played. Then landed and kind of stuck in the balmy night, to the place where a moment before, I’d been touched by a witch.
avalanche francois morelli at the pompidou centre
awe inspiring moments; moments of wonder that take your breathe away. i remember flying in a plane and looking out and seeing an island. it was perfect. sand where sand should be. palm trees. rocks and waves breaking. it was exactly how the kid in your minds eye would choose to draw an island. it was a moment of awe. of wonder. and that’s how i felt when i stumbled into the morelli room of avalanche. here were ideas expanded ten fold; thinking with light, with space, with colour. originally designed to sit in snow - imagine that…thank you francois.
day two - kids and working and running a studio. and not surprisingly, now and then you lose your way. quite alot more now than then. it’s tough. not tough in the no running water, can’t educate my kids, what are we going to eat next week kind of reality that is living in a slum in new delhi kind of tough.
nope. here we’re talking the kind of tough that snuffs out dreams. my friend kate said it the other day - you know what, she said, you can’t have it all.
but what’s the all?
kate and i were educated to be independent, smart arse, take no prisoners, switched on female thinkers. and do-ers. and we are. but it comes at a cost. and for me that cost has been self. i lost me.
over the next 7 weeks, thanks to circumstances, i have a moment to rebuild myself, my body and my perspective. there used to be a good ad on teli and the jingle went like this: put a good thing into your body, and you’ll get great things out of it. that’s where i’m headed. i want to get great things out of me. they’re going to be my thoughts and my discipline.
for the next 7 weeks, i’m a single parent. and i’m looking forward to the challenge. it’s sunday night and i don’t reckon i could be more prepared for the week ahead - there’s even a list on the bench of with check boxes for boy 15 and girl 13 to sort out. i sense my fridge is about to pack it in. i’m better after a week of being sick as a dog so looking forward to getting into work with my body and mind.
so challenges? i’ve forgotten how to be self reliant. i’ve forgotten how to make decisions. and i’m not sure why. day one - built myself a blog. day two - got myself organised. day three - i’m just going to see what unfolds. motivational image for the day. hmm what can I find….a street in paris is all i ever need and look closely….what can you see? never lose the ability to see things afresh…a bien tot.
