Part Of The Crowd

I’m a bit of a Swiftie, and I would have loved to see Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. I didn’t know much about her until I picked up her Lover CD a couple of years ago. The car is the only place I can still play CDs, so I found myself listening to the whole album on repeat, driving from A to B.

The apprentice at my hairdresser’s managed to get tickets to The Eras Tour in Melbourne, and she absolutely loved it. Before she went, she made lots of friendship bracelets — which is all part of the culture surrounding Taylor’s shows. When she got back, she told me her seats were really far away from the stage, but she said it didn’t matter. It wasn’t about the view — it was about being there, feeling the energy, and being part of the crowd.

Taylor Swift has a song called “22,” and during her shows, when she performs it, she gives her hat to a pre-selected fan in the crowd. Below is a video from one of her concerts in Melbourne, where she gave her hat to a beautiful 9 year old girl who has terminal brain cancer.

I don’t know why, but that video really got to me. Scarlett was so sweet and so excited when she briefly met Taylor Swift. After that, I started following Scarlett’s stepmother on Instagram.

She posted that Scarlett’s birthday was coming up in May and asked people from all around the world to send birthday cards saying where they were from. I sent her a message and asked if I could send a present, and she gave me an address to send it to.

But before I had the chance to send anything, there was a message on her stepmother’s Instagram saying that Scarlett had taken a turn for the worse and might not even make it to her birthday. The post said she was in Perth Children’s Hospital, so I decided to send her an anonymous bunch of balloons — the ones pictured below.

The people who put the balloons together sent me the photos.

In the card, I wrote:

"From one Swiftie to another, I want to let you know I am thinking of you and sending you all my love."

I remember when I was young and naive, living for a time in Tanzania. I used to have long conversations with a Catholic priest there, and I’d ask him how he could believe in a God when children get sick and die. I asked him that because, in Tanzania, that’s the reality for so many children — not only those who die young, but also those who grow up in extreme poverty.

Scarlett's situation has reminded me of those conversations.

This beautiful young girl had every right to grow up and travel the world, to try out as many careers as she wanted, to live her dreams. She had every right to become a woman, to fall in love, to get married — or not — and to have children of her own, if she chose.

It is just so fucking unfair that she has been robbed of all of that — by what can only be a cruel and merciless God. 

The Butchers and Me

Having just been in Alice Springs has brought back a whole lot of memories from when I lived there briefly at 17–18 years old. My schooling in Adelaide had been unsettled, to say the least. I had been to six schools by the time I reached 17. My parents changed me around a lot in the younger years, and then as I got older, I was used to moving, so I chose to move schools a few times.

It was strange—I had this very real longing to go to the outback. My parents were both very busy, and I didn’t have a lot to do with them, so I proposed to them that I wanted to move to Alice Springs to finish my schooling. At first, they weren’t keen on the idea, but they eventually warmed to it.

Mum arranged for me to move into student accommodation called Gillen House, which was a two-story building with student rooms on each floor and shared bathroom facilities. When I arrived at Gillen House, it reminded me of American college dorm rooms.

The primary purpose of Gillen House was to accommodate apprentices when they came to Alice Springs from around the Territory for blocks of trade school. I had just been picked up from the airport by a representative from Centralian College, where I was going to be studying, and she took me to Gillen House.

As we walked up the stairs, I could hear Shania Twain playing through a CD player, and when we reached the top, there were five men who looked to be between 19 and 25, all staring at me. These young men were five apprentice butchers, and I could instantly pick out which one of them was their leader. He was tall, with an average-looking build and brown hair. Thinking back about him now, he really looked like he had the devil in him—and he really did.

As I settled into my new home, I quickly came to know the butchers, and they made me feel welcome. There was also another cast of characters that lived at Gillen House: a Malaysian dentist, a morbidly obese young man who became my dear friend and was my fellow student, a uni student from Adelaide who was doing some sort of placement at the Desert Park, and different people who would pass through.

Luke, the leader of the butchers, and I quickly developed a love-hate banter, and we fought constantly. But that was just a cover for what became a strong attraction to each other. I was really out of my depth with Luke. I was 17 years old, I had only had one boyfriend, and I was still a virgin. I kept thinking, If something happens between us, I don’t know how I would tell him I’ve never had sex before.

I started school, and I really loved the school itself. I remember walking through the main corridor, and there was a display with a heap of red dirt. It was the sort of outback scene I had been craving when I decided to go there in the first place.

I would arrive home from school, and the butchers would sometimes be around wearing their uniforms with shower caps and boots. In many ways, they actually looked like serial killers. It was coming up to my 18th birthday, and I let it slip to the butchers. They took me to the casino the night before my birthday and counted down until 12:00am with me, and we went crazy.

It was funny with the butchers—I had this intense chemistry with Luke, who was from Katherine, but his best friend, Ben, and I also became very good friends, and I think he liked me too. Ben was a big build—not fat, but big. I would actually say cuddly. He was very good-looking and an absolute sweetie, from Katherine like Luke. He gave up some nights with the boys just to hang out with me, which they all said meant he was head over heels.

There was a TV room at Gillen House, which had a VCR of all things, and I remember one afternoon they were watching pornography. I was in my bedroom doing something, and a few of them knocked on my door and told me to come out and watch it with them. I said, "Not a chance."

We went out for my birthday, and we went out a number of other times, but it was soon coming to the time when they had to go home. Luke and I had this banter, but he really was an arsehole. One night, though, he wasn’t an arsehole. We got locked out the back in the lawn area, and while we were waiting for someone to let us in, he said to me, "You’ll make something good of yourself. We’ve just got to get you to finish school."

I had a habit of talking to the boys from the doorway of their rooms at night before they went to sleep. On their last night, I came down to say goodbye to Luke and Ben, who were sharing a room. We talked a lot of rubbish, and then Ben told me I would be okay at Gillen House without them because Luke wouldn’t let anything happen to me. I told them I was going to bed, and Luke asked if he could walk me back to my room.

They were on the ground floor, and I was up a level, so we started walking slowly to the stairs. We had that typical goodbye conversation, which went a little bit like:
"Why did you hate me so much?"
"I didn’t hate you at all."
"Are you serious? Maybe something could have happened between us."
"It still can."

I’m actually not sure how old he was—probably 19 or so—but it was very late-teensy, loved-up talk. We walked up the first set of stairs, and in the middle, before the second set to my level, he pushed me up against the wall, and we kissed. He then lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around him. Back then, I thought it was so hot.

We quickly walked up to my room and took things to the bed. But as things got hot and heavy, I couldn’t shake the thought that I was a virgin, and he wouldn’t want me if he knew that. We kept kissing and getting undressed, but then I asked him to stop.

He asked if I was okay, and I said I was fine, but then I told him I had my period and didn’t want to have sex. He asked me a series of dirty questions, which I won’t write about in this blog because it’s not that kind of blog, but then he asked me when the last time I had sex was. I lied. I told him it was just before I came to Alice Springs.

He seemed deflated, and looking back now, I don’t think, as an 18-year-old woman, I fully appreciated how frustrating it would have been to get him all revved up to no avail. We talked for a while, but then he said he needed to get some sleep, and he left.

The next morning, all the butchers told me Luke had said we slept together. I denied it because it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t believe he had betrayed me like that. I cared about him a great deal at this point, and he had blatantly lied about me. I was still sad when he left—when they all left—but not two weeks later, more butchers arrived.

There was a very good-looking butcher, Mark, from Tennant Creek, and we struck up a bit of a friendship. He had just broken up with his girlfriend, and I was very sad about Luke leaving, so we kind of formed a lonely hearts club of sorts. Nothing happened between Mark and me, but we hung out a lot. He was very shy, and the other butchers told me that he liked me. Even that young, I knew I didn’t want to get a reputation for getting with all the butchers who came through Gillen House.

As well as butchers, there were a fair few chefs who stayed there. I got to know a whole range of apprentice tradies. One young woman, Bianca, came to stay, and she was an apprentice chef. We got along really well. She actually got into a relationship with another chef, but she always made time for me.

I don’t know if anyone has ever asked you the question of what was the best day of your life, but for me, it was a day I spent with Bianca. We caught a taxi from Gillen House to the Alice Springs cemetery and spent the afternoon looking at all the tombstones. It was the only day that I think I’ve ever just felt free and loved—free to be myself, unmasked, and loved by a true friend who I have unfortunately lost contact with.

The butchers, the chefs, and the hairdressers all inspired me and taught me a lot about hard work and craftsmanship. As a vegetarian, looking back now, it’s hard to believe that at such a young age I developed strong, misguided feelings for a butcher who hacks away at dead animals like their lives meant nothing at all.

I actually looked Luke up on Facebook a few years ago, and he really did look like a serial killer. I still replay in my mind that night in my bedroom with him. I honestly believe that if I had just told him I was a virgin, my relationship with sex would be a lot better today. I would have also felt free to experiment with other men and make mistakes, but I took a very different approach. I wish I could have had a sense of humour about it.

But being eighteen and a virgin is not funny—it is totally normal. I just read a story about a 55-year-old Adelaide woman who lost her virginity to a male prostitute, and there’s nothing wrong with that either.

Oh, to be young, and free, and unmasked. Maybe not living in a house full of young butchers, though. 

Strike A Posey

My brother is in town for his best friend’s funeral. It is such a terrible story. His best friend, Ryan, was out on a boat near Spilsby Island off Port Lincoln with his father, his brother, his nephew, and a friend when a freak wave capsized their boat. Ryan, his father, and their friend all drowned. Ryan’s brother and his 12-year-old son survived by clinging to a reef. It is heartbreaking. Ryan was only 40. He had a wife and two young children, and just like that his life is gone and the lives of his family are changed forever.

Ryan was a beautiful soul. I hadn’t seen much of him over the last twenty years, but when my brother and I were young I knew him well. Later, when I was working on the reception desk of a nursing home, Ryan worked there for a while as a carer. He was such a gentle, thoughtful, and caring person. I still remember at the work Christmas party we drank too much together and he told me I had been like a sister to him. That meant a lot. I didn’t go to the funeral today, but Mum said my brother spoke well.

I don’t like funerals, but something that always makes them gentler is the flowers. I think I have literally wanted to be every profession in the world at some point, but the one I regret not pursuing the most is floristry. I love flowers. I can only name the basics — roses, lilies, tulips, gerberas, chrysanthemums — but I love them all. I love their smell, and I love it when a florist has taken the time to cut the stems and arrange them into something beautiful.

If you think about it, floristry must be an ancient profession. Scientists have found evidence that Neanderthals laid flowers at burial sites for their dead. There must have been someone arranging them, deciding how to place them, even then. Neanderthals first appeared around 400,000 years ago in Europe and western Asia, which suggests that the art of floristry is hundreds of thousands of years old. I haven’t heard of other hominins using flowers in ceremonies, but it seems possible.

I can easily imagine florists in ancient times making arrangements for weddings, or flowers being used in rituals of love. I want to know did men give flowers to their girlfriends and wives in ancient times? I feel like it’s a universal, timeless act — and I think there’s a real chance it happened.

Back when I was about 18, I seriously considered studying floristry. I used to go into my mother’s office in town and chat with her receptionist about it. She was about my age and also had an interest in floristry as a side hustle, but unlike me she was actually doing something about it. Incidentally, I only recently discovered she now has a top job as an executive assistant to a minister.

At the time, I had all sorts of grand ideas. I wanted to open my own florist shop called Strike A Posey. I imagined a fleet of vintage VW Beetles painted as ladybirds for flower deliveries. Inside the shop there would be a “bed of roses” and a section where customers could “tiptoe through the tulips.” Daisy chains would hang from the ceiling, and big screen TVs would play Little Shop of Horrors on repeat — because, that movie is set in a florist. I even envisioned marine fish tanks filled with exotic fish, inspired by the aquarium scene in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet.

Out the front, I pictured people dressed as bees and butterflies handing out flowers to passers-by. I can laugh now and admit the business probably wouldn’t have made much money, but at the time I dreamt about it. I told so many people around town about Strike A Posey. Mum never liked the name — she thought the word “strike” made it sound like domestic violence — but I loved it.

The floristry course in Adelaide is the Certificate III in Floristry at TAFE SA. It runs part-time over a year, and I never ended up doing it. In all these years of jumping from one thing to another, I never sat down to commit to floristry. One day I’d still like to — not to work as a florist, but simply to learn how to arrange flowers properly, and to be able to go to the flower markets and buy fresh blooms every week.

Every now and then, I would slip back into my Strike A Posey mindset, until one day I googled the name and discovered there actually was a florist called Strike A Posey — in Adelaide, of all places. I couldn’t believe it. Adelaide is small, so I couldn’t help but wonder if the owner might have heard the name through me, third-hand. I can’t be sure, but either way I say good luck to her. It’s a great name, and an even greater profession. 

Shock To The System

This evening, I’ve been at the Royal Adelaide Hospital visiting my Nanny. Above is a photo of the flowers I sent her last Friday before I went to Alice Springs. I love flowers, and so does Nanny; in particular, we both like chrysanthemums, which are the orange ones. They are usually dyed bright colours, and if you leave them in a glass vase, you can see the colour seep out into the water. I actually find that quite disturbing, because it makes me think about the colour I put in my hair—is it coming out into my blood in the same way chrysanthemum dye does to water?

Nanny is no blood relation to me; she is my actual Nanny. She has been my Nanny since the day I was born. She has looked after my brother and me since we were children. She looked after us on a day to day basis, and my parents would also leave us at her house—with her and her husband—for long periods of time when they would go to Canberra or overseas.

Nanny came to Australia from Lithuania after the Second World War as a 16 year old. She worked in various jobs—as a nurse, at Balfours, and in a deli—before she came to us in her mid-forties. She has three children, one of whom recently died, and she has four biological grandchildren. She also considers—and calls—my brother and me her grandchildren. Nanny has three great-grandchildren as well.

In addition to nannying us, she would clean the house, and after my brother and I became adults, she continued to come and clean twice a week—even working with us up until her 90th birthday, which was just last year. Nanny and I are very close. Her husband died around 13 years ago, and after he passed, I used to call her twice a day: once to wish her good morning and once to wish her good night. I visited her often and would also drive her to places like the cemetery to see her husband and mother, to visit friends in a nursing home, and to the Lithuanian church.

I like to go down to Outer Harbour to watch cruise ships dock and depart, so I recently took her down to see one because I wanted to share the experience with her. Below are two photos of Brilliance of the Seas, which was circumnavigating Australia—coming from Western Australia and heading to Victoria.

The trip to Outer Harbour could be the last trip like that we ever do, because two weeks ago she had a number of strokes. It’s just a terrible, terrible thing, and it is deeply upsetting to see her now. She can’t talk properly or walk, and she just sits there all day at the RAH watching TV. She gets very upset when she tries to talk about the prospect of never going home, and I’m not sure what is going to happen to her in terms of rehab, but for now, I go in as much as I can just to sit with her.

It’s been a bit of an awkward time with her family, actually. Nanny’s husband was involved with the Nazi party in Germany and was not a good person all around. When he was dying, my brother and I went to his hospital bed. Nanny invited us, but we weren’t made to feel welcome by her children or grandchildren, so we didn’t stay long. My brother was quite upset and cried a little bit, but I didn’t shed a tear. He treated Nanny, me, and I’m sure everyone else in his life like shit. But I’ve never expressed myself to anyone about him because I don’t want to upset Nanny.

Nanny is the most forthright person I have ever met. She can be incredibly racist, homophobic, judgmental, and rude—but beneath all of that, she has the kindest heart and soul of any person I have ever met. She has worked hard all her life, but the most important role she has ever had is as the matriarch of her family. She calls me her granddaughter and her best friend. She really is my best friend, and I’m actually finding it quite a shock to the system not speaking to her every day or watching Escape to the Country with her on Saturday nights.

Her daughter and her husband recently moved into a retirement village-type place, and she is talking about selling her house and buying somewhere big enough for Nanny to live with them. That is none of my business, but I couldn’t help but wonder if that is practical. At the moment, she needs 24 hour care, and it would be the kinder thing to do to see if they can get her into one of those beautiful nursing homes, where she will be in good company every day and very well looked after.

My mother and I cared for my father with dementia for five years at home until it became impossible to look after him—in terms of personal care and his own safety—so we got him a bed at a nice nursing home, where he still is today.

It’s funny—Nanny will be 91 next month, and if my father makes it to November, he will be 96. I really think both of those ages are quite an achievement.

If you think about all the things that can physically end—or incapacitate—your life on the road to 91 and 96, they both pretty much avoided them all.

Now, they both have severe cognitive impairments, and they—and everyone around them—are completely powerless to do anything about it. 

I'm Home

My experiment to shift my sleep schedule wasn’t entirely successful, but it wasn’t a complete failure either. Things seemed to revert back to normal last night, and I didn’t drift off until after 4:00am.

The flight home from Alice Springs was hassle-free. I’ve posted three photos from the journey below.

The first photo is of the waiting area at Alice Springs Airport. I took this picture simply to capture the spectacular carpet. It felt almost wrong to step on something so beautiful!

The second photo is my million-dollar view from the window. When I was a child, my family often traveled to Canberra for my dad’s job. Back then, I was a huge fan of the Care Bears, and from what I remember, they all congregated in the clouds. Whenever I flew to Canberra, I would stare out the window, expecting to see Care Bears bouncing around in the fluffy clouds. I thought about that today when I saw the same soft, dreamy landscape outside my window.

The last photo is a painting of Major "Moogy" Sumner AM, which I spotted while walking into Adelaide Airport. Seeing it brought back memories — I did a temp job at an Indigenous organisation about twenty-two years ago, working on their reception desk for a few months. Uncle Moogy used to stop by and, while he was there, he would chat with me on reception, and I always looked forward to his visits. I haven’t seen him in person since, and he wouldn’t remember me now, but over the years I’ve seen him on the news and in the papers at various cultural events.

I’m at a point in my life where I don’t engage with people as easily as I used to. There’s so much to be said, and in my heart, there’s so much I want to know and say, but these days, I tend to keep to myself.

If I need a ride home, I’ll order an Uber, and one of the things I like about Uber is that everything is taken care of before the car even arrives. There’s no need to worry about payment because the app already has my credit card details. There’s no need to give directions because the destination is in the app, synced with the driver’s GPS. I can just get in the car, and if I don’t feel like talking, I don’t have to. For these reasons, I’ll choose an Uber whenever possible.

But if a taxi is right there, like at the Royal Adelaide Hospital or the airport, I’ll just jump in. Over time, I’ve gotten into the habit of immediately giving the driver my exact address and gently hinting they put it in the GPS. That way, I can just sit back, and before I know it, I’m home.

But today, things weren’t that simple.

I was directed to a taxi by two men who were managing the airport taxi queue. The taxi driver got out of the car and put my bag and backpack in the boot. He looked around 75 years old, and when we got into the car, he had classical music playing. This was actually a nice change from some of the music the younger drivers play.

He was polite, and I could tell he was a nice man. He was nice, but I didn't want to be seduced by the lure of a good chat, so I very bluntly—and, upon reflection, quite rudely—gave him my address.

He repeated my suburb, then I gave him the number and the street again. He realised what I was getting at, and he said, "Oh, you don’t want to, you don’t want to," before telling me he knew where my suburb was. He then offered to put my address into the GPS if I wanted.

I told him not to worry about it and said I would direct him to the house once we got to my suburb.

I was sitting in the back left seat when I whipped out my phone and started sending a message to a friend. The man started asking questions. "Where are you coming from?" I told him, and then he asked about the weather in Alice Springs. He then began telling me about how the weather in Adelaide had been over the last few days.

I was being cold, and that's not who I really am, but I really am trying to avoid these situations. But the taxi driver got the better of me, and I asked him how long he had been driving taxis. That was all the encouragement he needed—he proceeded to tell me everything about his life.

We established that he had been driving taxis for ten years, and before that, he had worked at Holdens for 51 years. This man was the polar opposite of me—he had spent more than half a century in the same job, while my record is just under two years.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have worked in the same place for that long. I don’t know if loyalty like that would mean anything nowadays, but it would certainly come with a strong sense of belonging. In that way, I really did admire this man for his longevity.

He also said that he was offered a redundancy package at 65, which he took in 2014. With the money, he paid off his house and became debt-free, but there are still considerable expenses to be met.

I discovered that this man was a good man. He had worked hard his whole life, and now, in his seventies, he has to work 20 hours a week just to make ends meet. He should be traveling the world and spending time with his grandchildren, but I guess it doesn’t work out like that for everyone.

When we arrived at my house, I was glad I had spoken to the taxi driver and learned about his life. He seemed to want to talk, and thinking about it now, I was really too quick to shut him out completely.

It’s funny when you meet someone like that—someone who shares so much of their story with you. I feel like I know him, yet it’s highly unlikely I will ever see him again.

I had a great few days away, but it’s nice to be home. 

I Own The Night

I'm not sure if anyone will ever stumble across this blog, but if you have somehow found your way to it, you are most welcome to read as much or as little as you like. I want this to be a completely anonymous blog because I think there's something nice about sharing secrets with strangers. I also like the idea of expressing myself freely without judgment.

Although I want to remain anonymous, I will tell you a little bit of general information about myself to provide some context. I am a forty two year old woman, and I live in an Australian capital city. I went to eight schools—three public, five private, and three of those schools were all girls schools. I wasn’t a troublemaker or expelled or anything like that, but my parents weren’t happy with the first five or so schools. After that, I was largely unsettled, so I chose to move two or three times.

At 17, I moved to Alice Springs and I ended up starting a hairdressing apprenticeship. My boss was a drunk and frequently wrote herself off at work, which completely put me off the trade. I came home and, even though I’d decided not to continue with the apprenticeship, I got a job at my mum’s salon on reception and doing shampoos while I figured out my next step. It was quite funny — my mum used to go to the salon frequently for blow-dries because she worked in the city, and the hairdressers told me they considered her to be the "Jane Fonda of the salon."

While I was working at the salon, I decided that I wanted a career in secretarial or customer service type work. The best advice I was given directed me to business college, where I completed a Certificate IV in Business Administration.

I spent just over a year at business college and completed the qualification. At the end of the course, I decided I wanted to temp, so I signed up with a few agencies. I have since temped in mostly customer service, call centre, and receptionist roles in over 70 different office environments. Most have been good experiences; some have been bad, but I find it interesting how my transient days moving around schools translated into my adult life in the workforce. I sometimes refer to my career as a form of occupational anthropology.

In between temp jobs, I have started university degrees in journalism, social work, theology, visual arts, science, and creative writing. But every time I got started, I’d end up wanting to go back to work to earn money. Looking back, I didn’t really do much with that money — I honestly have no idea where it all went!

I moved to Sydney in 2010 and came back home in mid-2011, where I moved in with my parents. My dad was diagnosed with dementia in 2015, and my mother and I became his carers. At the end of 2020, Dad went into full-time care, and my mother and I moved into my brother’s house, where we are now, and we rent from him while he lives in London with his family.

Last year, I did some volunteer work as an English tutor, teaching a Chinese migrant through TAFE SA. I visited—and still visit—a Syrian refugee weekly at her home through a refugee organisation. I also volunteered with two organisations, recording the life stories of elderly residents and clients. This took up nearly four days a week.

I have a number of passions in life—two of the most important being human and animal rights. It was through my commitment to human rights that I became passionate about letter writing. I used to write letters through Amnesty International’s Urgent Actions, mainly to help free prisoners of conscience and to fight injustice around the world. I was dedicated to it, too—I would send at least four or five letters a week.

I truly believe in the power of letter writing. Not emails—physical letters, sent through the post. Amnesty International often shares their successes from letter-writing campaigns, and I believe them. I stopped writing letters for Amnesty International because my mother scared me by telling me I would be put on all these blacklists throughout the Middle East, where a lot of the letters were going. I intend to travel through the Middle East to get to places like Africa and Europe, and I had these visions of getting detained at the airport. Thinking about that now, it seems highly unlikely. 

It was through this practice—writing letters for Amnesty International—that I began to incorporate letter writing into my artistic vision. Back in 2011–2012, I wrote letters to Chief Justices around the world, asking for a copy of the oath they use in their courtrooms. From there, it branched out into letters about anything and everything—from anaesthetics to immortality.

I am in the process of starting my artistic letter writing again, and I’m currently collating the addresses for all heads of government in the world, and all chief justices in the world. It’s a massive task to get all the names and addresses, but with the help of Google and ChatGPT, I know I’ll get there. I am going to ask them all for a copy of the oath they swore when they were sworn into office, as well as the oaths used in the courtrooms of the chief justices. Then I am going to create some magical oath art with all the responses.

I love the Red Cross, Live Aid, and Bob Geldof. The Red Cross, especially, feels like it exists in every nook and cranny of the world. I like the idea that in a war zone, people are supposed to stop firing when they see the Red Cross symbol. I love how the organisation facilitates the return of hostages and prisoners of war and how it can reconnect families separated by war or migration. 

Live Aid and Bob Geldof are one singular phenomenon. No matter how hard anyone tries, I don’t think the event on July 13, 1985, can ever be replicated. It was globalisation before globalisation was a thing. It was humanity in its purest form — we were the world — and Geldof pulled off the most extraordinary display of human cooperation I think we will ever see.

I also love how Geldof announced that certain bands — like U2 and Queen — were performing at Live Aid before he’d even asked them. And when they got angry at him about it, he simply said, “Well, okay, you pull out then.” It was the perfect blend of audacity, instinct, and belief in something bigger than any one artist.

The other thing I’ll tell you about myself is that, over the years, my sleep has gotten out of whack. Basically, I go to sleep late — mostly really late — and then have to sleep in later to meet my sleep requirements. I’ve been able to work and study while having this problem, but it means I am always sleep-deprived and not functioning at my best.

I literally have a million things I am trying to do at the moment, which has been harder due to the unpredictability of my sleep. So, I made a decision to take drastic measures to make a change.

The Greyhound bus service from Adelaide to Alice Springs is an overnighter, leaving Adelaide at 7:00pm and arriving in Alice at 2:30pm the next day. I had the idea that utilising this bus service might kick-start a normal sleep pattern. If I stayed awake overnight for the bus trip and then until 10:00pm the following night, it could trigger a circadian shift.

I have stayed up all night and then the whole next day a million times before, but my idea was that the distance of the travel would really exhaust me and maybe trick my body into a normal sleep pattern.

I booked my seat on the bus a few days before my trip. I picked a seat at the front, with the thought in mind that any troublemakers might prefer to sit at the back of the bus. I arrived at the station and took my seat on board. The bus was very high up, as you can see in the photo. We left with no dramas, and as the sun set we drove toward Pt Wakefield. We stopped there for half an hour for a break and some dinner.

The next stop was Port Augusta, and a group of Aboriginal people got on the bus. There were a couple of young men, and when the bus got going again, they talked and laughed a lot, speaking in their native tongue. I wished that I could understand what they were saying and join in the conversation, but the older I get, the less I engage with strangers. I’m just happy in my own little bubble.

One thing I did think about was that maybe they were saying something about how all the white people were sitting at the front of the bus and how they probably think they are better than them. When I mentioned before that I thought the troublemakers would sit at the back of the bus, I didn’t mean Aboriginal troublemakers in any way, shape, or form. I just meant anyone who could literally do anything at the back of the bus, and the one driver could do nothing to stop them.

I also wondered whether it’s common for people to use the toilet onboard for something bad, because every time the bus made a stop, the driver kept encouraging us to use the toilets in the service station. I thought, why not promote the use of the toilet on the bus? Or do people only use it as a last resort because of criminal or anti-social behaviour that goes on there?

By around 1:00am, everybody on the bus was asleep. Everybody but me and the driver. The driver made some stops on the way at the letterboxes of some stations and in small towns. I thought about these remote communities that must rely on Greyhound to look after the administration of their postage. I had never really thought about them providing that kind of service.

The temperature was quite warm on the bus; it was almost dreamlike as we moved along to the sound of people snoring. I felt like it was a literal reenactment of my life — everybody asleep, and me awake. As sobering as that was, I liked the feeling of being around other people during a time I am usually alone. And because I was sitting close to the front of the bus, I was near the driver, who became my kindred spirit for the night.

Throughout the night, we stopped at a few pick-up and drop-off points, letting passengers on and off. Most of the stops were down these creepy little dirt roads, and I can tell you right now I would not have liked to have been waiting for the bus or getting off the bus alone at any of these places.

We made another stop at Pimba for fifteen minutes and then had a long stop of forty-five minutes at Coober Pedy, where we changed drivers. The new driver would take us all the way up to the Alice. He was a bit of a character. He gave a bit of running commentary, sharing stories about the outback and things like the history of the Stuart Highway.

One of the young Aboriginal men came to the front of the bus to ask the driver a question, and he was making a bit of noise communicating with his friends at the back of the bus. Once the driver answered him, the young man went back to his seat, and I actually can’t believe this happened, but the driver and the passenger sitting behind him started laughing. I am 100% certain they were making racist comments.

The start of the new driver’s shift marked the beginning of the new day dawning. You can see the photo of the sun rising through the window of the bus. I knew this would be my toughest time staying awake because, for the past few months, it has been my bedtime. I thought about sleeping by putting my wind cheater up against the window as a pillow, but I pushed through it and managed to stay awake.

At first, it was difficult, but with the big windows of the bus and the sunlight streaming in, I became energised, and I didn’t feel tired at all.

As well as mail deliveries, pick-ups, and drop-offs, we made two more stops along the road to Alice Springs. Both were at quirky little homesteads: Cadney Homestead, with a fake crocodile in the pool, where we stayed for 45 minutes, and Erldunda for half an hour, where there were real emus you could feed. When we finally arrived in Alice Springs, it was around 2:30pm, and I made my way to the DoubleTree by Hilton. You can see my room in the photo.

It was my challenge to stay awake until 10:00pm, and I achieved this by reading, speaking on the phone, and watching a documentary called Trophy, which is about trophy hunting. I can happily say that from 10:00pm last night until 6:30am this morning, I had the best sleep I have had in a very long time. The real test will be whether I can sleep tonight at 10:00pm, and if I can, I might be on to something.

I told my mother and my brother that I was going to Alice Springs to fix my sleep problem, and their initial reaction was that it was a bad idea due to a local crime spree gaining a lot of momentum in the media. I decided to go anyway, as I felt that the physical toll the bus ride would take on me might be enough to reset the chaos that has been my sleep disorder. The bus trip literally held a mirror up to my soul and showed me that, while everyone is sleeping, I am awake. And that is no way to live. I like being around people while they are asleep, but I like being around people even more when they are awake, and the goal has been to facilitate my ability to do this again.

As a result of tiring out on the bus, I had one of the best sleeps of my life last night, and I hope it happens again tonight. I fly home tomorrow, and my brother is flying in from London as well, so it will be nice to see him, even though it is under very sad circumstances, as he will be home for his best friend's funeral.

But to my brother and my mother, who advised me to stay away from Alice Springs due to potential dangers from a crime spree, I have spoken to a number of locals who feel the media’s characterisation of the crime spree is sensationalised and nowhere near as bad as it has been made out to be. But whatever happens with my sleep, I know I made the right decision because if it doesn’t work this time, I will find another way!