Q
It was time to take some steps toward finding my own path. I was a performer since a child, and I had maintained working periodically while I had the babies. I worked mainly for Nicky Noo and the OO Crew, a children's entertainment troupe who toured QLD. I was the scriptwriter & played the role of Wacky Woo, and as can be seen in this photo below, I was still breastfeeding my daughter. This would be the trip I weened her and I don’t feel she has ever really got over my tearing the breast away so suddenly. It hurt! not just emotionally but physically. I recall standing in the shower that evening and letting the hot water release some breast milk and ease the tremendous pain.
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This trip was no holiday. It was work and it was mostly spent roughing it. Yet I was feeling like I was indulging in some kind of self-satisfying escape from my reality. Despite this feeling of finite freedom, I was plagued with guilt. Leaving behind my children seemed criminal almost. No matter how much love they were receiving, the feeling of abandonment was not something I wanted them to relate to.
When I was just turned 7 years old I lost my father suddenly to a heart attack. This confused me as a child, and as an adult, I'm not afraid to admit. The belief that the departed’s return is any moment, has skewed my perceptions of reality slightly. The consideration of different stories, what if I was lied to and he ran away? What if he is still alive? What if? These fantasies were not something I wished my children to suffer through as they formulate their personality.
So performing arts had been my mother's way of keeping me distracted/busy during the time following my father's passing. I was enrolled in a youth theatre program and I became immersed within the world of make-believe. I began writing songs at age 9, and by then had already written scripts, made costumes, learned stage management and held many public performances. I had constantly been involved in performing arts my entire life since that early time, and even pregnant with my second child I was the lead role in a musical at the Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Arts. I lived in the art world and I felt sustained by it.
Not every decision I made, I can see in hindsight, was helpful in creating an environment conducive to progressing within my field. The move up the mountain saw me isolated and my depression was at the whim of this realisation. So it was essential for me to create a network in my new community. This happened by chance in one way and in another, I feel I crafted it also.
Writing songs had been my vehicle for expression for years. I had been in bands and duos and played gigs in many venues. My confidence was not great on the guitar and I prefer writing the lyrics and top lines rather than composition. Yet all the time up the mountain meant I became decent on the guitar and piano. The songs were flooding through the tears and I was writing each day.
It just so happened that a neighbour heard me playing one of my songs. She asked if she could drum to it?!?! I was almost in shock and asked her if she was joking. She was not joking and we began jamming regularly from that day on.
After a few weeks, I had a band! We were called Q the MOON, all-female four-piece. Piano, guitar, flute, bass, drums. We swapped instruments a bit for different songs. We were all basic level musicians and I can safely say we all learned lots from those regular jams. Most of the girls were young mums also and this weekly excuse to spend time with other females who understand living in the mountains with young children proved invaluable to my sanity and self-confidence.
Q the MOON played gigs for about two years. We killed it. This project sparked life in me once again. I was busy! I was the composer/songwriter, band organiser/manager. I was the P.R lady, booking agent, branding team, and basically obsessed with music again. The life force was surging around my limbs, then my torso, and eventually my heart. My heart said I had to make choices guided by intuition rather than other expectations. I had no idea at the time just how out of sync I was with my hearts beat.
Just as I mentioned in my last blog entry, I had to find independence and I approached Binna Burra for work. I asked to wash dished or scrub toilets, anything as long as I could be around adults. They called me a few days later and offered me a guiding job. “Do you like abseiling?” Was the question they asked me over the phone. This is where it all started. I had a network, I had a job, I had a band. Look out world.
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