Shattering the Hearing Wall
She leant lazily across the picnic hamper and reached for my hearing aid in my open-palmed hand. I jerked away from her, batting her hand away from mine. The glare of the summer sun blinded me. I struck empty air. Her tendril-fingers seized the beige seashell curve of my hearing aid and she lifted the cargo of sound towards her eyes. More>>
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Pink Angel
Saturday was a blisteringly hot day. It was far too hot to do anything other than lie underneath the ceiling fan, watching the blur of its white blades, a monstrous dandelion in perpetual motion . . . Despite the good sense of staying indoors on such a day, I found myself sitting in the shade of a white timber pergola, at the end of a short pier leading into the sea at Sandgate . . . when a pink angel landed on the seat next to me.
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I Hear with My Eyes
My essay memoir of a deaf girlhood during the 1950s-1960s, a time in which oral education was trialled at the Gladstone Road School for the Deaf, Brisbane. This essay was originally published in The Griffith Review, Autumn 2006, following the mentorship of Stuart Glover (University of Queensland) and the editorial guidance of Julianne Schultz. I have attached excerpts from it . . . More>>
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An Unexpected Lesson in Hope
I have been thinking a lot about hope lately. I worry about hope. Sometimes, I feel that it has gone missing in action. It is certainly missing from our political landscape.
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The Gift of Work
Work:vocation or burden? . . . The nun who taught me in grade ten, Sister Mary Alpheous, was fierce in her teaching. When I look back now, I see that she had the gift of work. She was driven to teach with all her heart all that she knew about history, poetry and language. Her work was her life’s vocation. Now, there’s a word we don’t hear much these days and we are the poorer in our spirit for this loss. More>>
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Work - Shifting realities or shift-work redefined?
The way we think about work and retirement is changing significantly. Our efforts to define the shape of our future might seem idealistic, naïve even. Maybe we are simply making a grab for a second youth. Perhaps, perhaps not: history will be the judge. More>>
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Searching for Brisbane
If we are defined by our place, then how does Brisbane define us? from River-city to BrizVegas, from suburban sprawl to village communities, from Waltons to Tiffany's... Brisbane has many identities, many stories.
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