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Showing posts from April, 2022

The Dunedin Writer's Walk

After a night of no sleep, I emerged from of the damp depths of the Pit.   Dunedin was in its quietest hour of the night. And yet, it was calling me out before the peeping dawn. For what? I wondered, slinking down into the lamp-lit street, slipping from shadow to shadow to the Octagon. The centre of Dunedin. The mystery I hadn’t yet cracked. For an answer, perhaps? I was seeking an answer to the problems I had created for myself - the downward-spiral that was my finances and creative endeavours. And I trusted in Dunedin. I trusted in its magic tricks and mysteries. I believed I would find my answer here, hidden in the city I held dear.  The statue at the Otagon’s crown held my attention. I always noticed this man sitting there, nonchalant in the  centre  of town. And yet I had never stopped to wonder who he was or how he ended up there, immortalised in Dunedin’s most curious place. A seagull landed on his head and squatted there, looking oddly suspicious. It cocked its head.  Why i

Writing the Writing Story

I was 10 years old when I made the Wish, my feet sunken in the sand of Omaha Beach, eyes searching for the end of the sea. It was a place of wishes, Omaha beach, and it had nurtured me since I was tiny and new to the world. It had fed my imagination, invited me to dream. My whole life lay before me, as vast and mysterious as the ocean that was lapsing near my ankles, and I didn’t stop wondering where I wanted to go in that adventure. That day, the Wish was born. And it felt right. I carried it back down the scraggly, sandy walkway from the dunes to the wooden deck of the Bach, and went inside after hosing my feet. Carefully, I unclipped my black journal and began weaving the Wish onto the sand-coloured paper with my most treasured pencil. I was only ten years old, but there was no need to wait until I had grown up to start fulfilling my wish. A story was already blooming in my mind, and I felt the need to write it.   Sadly, as the years passed by, that Wish faded to a whisper. But jus

I have chosen to go all in

  Ah the glorious in-between. I’m waiting for a video file to upload so that I can proceed with my new edit. And I find myself in the in-between. I instinctively went to my browser and loaded Facebook, and then Instagram. My compulsive urge to return to these sites has become a lot worse recently, ever since I decided to share myself and my work again, in February. I guess I’ll write about that. I take us back to 2018, the year I dub ‘the most epic fail year of my life’, and it absolutely was. I was so naive back then, and I adamantly refused to get a job because I thought I could ‘make it’ as a musician. In my efforts, I ended up on the welfare benefit, scrounging for my next dollar and picking up the pieces of a shattered life purpose. My hopes and dreams seemed to obtainable, so possible to achieve, but how foolish was I, thinking that Life was so QUICK. It’s not. I was  beginning  to explore themes such as Life Purpose and Mastery, and I had even called my Memoir and life-long w

To be a Performer

The window at the back of the Pit squeaked as I opened it, and a cold breeze meandered through. The garden on the other side was swathed in shadow, and touched by only a few licks of light from the street. Despite being right in the centre of Dunedin city, it was a remarkably peaceful little place.  A secret little garden would be, though. I hopped onto the window sill and perched there, straining my ear for a certain pocket of sounds. The sounds were there as I expected, quietly though, like a wasp sneaking through the garden. However faint, it still sent a wave of anxiety through my body. No… nerves. They were nerves, tinged with excitement, disguised as anxiety. I slipped down into the garden, the shrubbery crunching beneath my sleek kung fu shoes, and stalked down the zig-zag pathway like a cat in the shadows. I made a brief glance up to the giant manor, hidden the  middle  of Dunedin city, the residence of some mysterious 'philosopher' that I'd never once seen. I wond