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Where To From Here

Updated: Sep 23, 2024



I like to paint my fingernails before I sit and type. It makes me feel more in the flow of fluidity having clean, fresh, polished tools to take me where I want to go. Literally and literarily.


This is a time of insignificant significance. The place and time I have arrived at. A crossroads of contentment and ease, life taking its natural course as I stand by as its humble hitchhiking observer. It's in a fresh field I find myself. Amongst the colours of confidence, shades of assurance, and festive fragrances of authenticity. As though everything is vibrating from a place of peaceful knowing and aligning itself along the path ahead, leading to wherever it is I am going. Exploring. Inviting. Igniting.


This past week has brought two poignant experiences both of which I feel the need to document so as not to scribe them after the fact. You know, the things we say when something we are in the running for runs off in another direction and in response we quote 'the result didn't matter anyway' and that 'all is as it's meant to be' even when that's not entirely true to what we feel. Let it be known however, that's exactly how I feel. Now. Today. Before the results of a CBAA National broadcast awards, and before the phone call to confirm who has been chosen to represent BayFM as the new studio manager. I have a one in five chance of the first and a one in six chance of the second.


But it's more than that. A chance. A wish. A prayer. I have been shortlisted in the CBAA National broadcast awards (for the second time in two years) and that says something in itself. It says something I hear loud and clear. A message of monumental meaning.


The nomination is in the very appropriate category of 'Excellence in Community Engagement'. It belongs to a group of us who put our hearts and souls into the Young Legends 3-part podcast series, which contains interviews with the Young Legends of Main Arm School immediately after the devastating floods of 2022 here in the Northern Rivers. This is for them, for the region and for our resilient community. This is our reward. We have already won.








Results announced at the 2024 CBAA National Conference on Oct 19.


 

The second event I feel has already happened, even though I am awaiting the decision. I somehow feel it's not about that though, more about my own confidence to apply for and to be shortlisted as one of six potential candidates for the new paid Studio Manager role at BayFM, a place I have volunteered at for almost sixteen years.


Having done pretty much everything at the station and still deep in the fabric of it all, I took a whole month to envision what that role would need and take from me. Two days before the deadline I applied because it would never have sat well with me for the rest of my life if I hadn't. My timely thoughts were not questioning my abilities, I know I have the skills and abilities to work in that role, it was more about whether they would see my hard-earned worth, and also how I could gracefully move through the decision of someone else being chosen.


I pondered these imaginary moments momentarily before realising my life and its direction does not hang on the result of either of these two things. My life shall go wherever it may continue to take me regardless of whether I win an award or become the new studio manager at BayFM. Both of which I would be happy with btw!


Knowing I felt completely at ease during the interview and left feeling as though I was high from something other than outright good vibes, demonstrates where I am at in my life. Not where I am at in someone else's. The only person who has brought me to where I am at right now .... is ME.



I have weathered the storms of torrential attempts to deflate my sails, shut me down, stomp on my dreams, steal them, replicate them, destroy them, and I have continued on through it all, determined to rise above the shallow polluted waters that could have easily held me back, wading in a pool of negativity and drowning in its insane ability to hold me there. Instead, I maintained a view of the stars, the galaxies that hold my future, not the small mindedness I snivel at, it's minute dust particles barely big enough to make a difference yet offering me all the irritation I need to blow that annoyance out of my way and leave it in its puny wake.


Angels have come, the wise words from the nearly departed, in whispered breathes all too soon to be silenced, yet still retrievable, believable in their worth. The gifts we offer when we have nothing to lose but life itself. What would you choose to say to those you'd never said it to before. I wonder. Living as though each day is that day and each word is the last. For it could so easily be.


From the dawn of remembrance, I have felt my path is not only my own, but also that of others who choose to dance alongside me. We have somewhere to be. The future is waiting. An open armed earthly embrace that's expecting us. A cosy band of curious cohorts who with wide eyes, see the glistening crown of whose jewels we embody. We are the crown; it wears us well.


Tangled in temptation to be somewhere other than where I often was, has taken leave of my being. For once in my life, I long to be nowhere but where I am. Of course, my heart revisits Guatemalan volcanoes and Golden Bays of belonging from time to time but I know they are the dreams of yesterday and I linger less longingly. I am currently creating the memories of my future now. Today. This moment. Some day to be reflecting back at me when I am no longer able or willing to be where today finds me. I shall know that I gave it everything. Produced my best work, answered the interview questions to the best of my ability, and that if that's not enough for whoever has the power to decide another's life path, then it's not the path for me. If it is then I accept it willingly.


Plantation Studios is alive in the world. My small business that has a large life purpose is birthed and breathing. Open to a select few so far until I finish tweaking the website and add a whole online component. If you have found your way here, you are one of the selected few. Thanks for stopping by! The rest will join us. All in good time. For now, I am lingering between the worlds of possibility and graceful acceptance. Which will it be I wonder? Both I expect. All shall be revealed by the next moon. I wonder what I will have to return to you with.


Like the pages of my paper journals, the empty future lies wide open, gaping as if desperate to be filled, alive with the impossibility to foresee all of its unknown possibilities. The true joy of living and not just being alive is an option upon us. Always.


Until another tomorrow x



 
 
 

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Image Courtesy of Poinciana Cafe Mullumbimby

Byron Arts & Ind. Est

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Strangely enough I never had a dream of becoming a DJ. I did however have what you might call an epiphany one time in London in 1993, precisely ten years before I first touched the turntables in Sydney in 2003. This epiphany occurred at an after party, a common occurrence once we left The Ministry of Sound, a place that transformed lives and united an era of people who were hooked on the collective love we all felt by being there. We were part of something phenomenal, the birth of house music, love doves and the underground rave scene in the early 90's.  What a combination! Walking into Ministry was like coming home. No longer lost, alone, afraid or isolated, the dancefloor was a seething wave of steamy bodies that engulfed you in its irresistible cloud and took you places you never wanted to come back from. It brought a dance nation together, a generation of ecstasy gobbling, gooning, gorgeous souls who asked nothing of you except to dance. Swept up in the waves of life as I often have been, I was attracted to the crowd that always kept going. There was no stop button, no pause, no rest or sleep, it was one long adventure of music and movement and one of those waves lead me to this specific DJ epiphany. Loading the turntables, lighting, speakers, DJ's, records and bodies into cabs, cars, and onto a few magic carpets, we restarted the party anywhere we could find: An empty house where parents had gone away, old pubs where someone knew the landlord, underground bars that had closed and reopened for us, parks (there was a period of Hyde Park gatherings on Sunday's where masses of us, still dressed in club gear, would set up near the fountains with boom boxes, blankets, frisbees, and free love. Maaaan those were some special times). One day or night, I don't recall, we ended up in a huge house for one such after party. I remember only that it had many floors and a solid plush carpeted staircase that took me down to the basement level where some people had set up a set of turntables in a spare room and were giving it a go. As I stood in the doorway someone called out to me to have a go putting a record on. It had never occurred to me to do so but as I stood in the doorway I heard and felt something remarkably powerful.  I heard clearly the words:  "If I touch the turntables, they'll take over my life"  I froze in limbo for a few moments, as if frozen in time, before deciding all I wanted to do was dance, so took myself back upstairs to rejoin the party. I don't remember anything else about that party before or after that moment in the doorway.  I never thought about it again or pondered the possibility of DJing. I never gave it another thought. Until ten years later in Sydney. Hugos Lounge 2003. I know this date to be exact as I've kept journals my whole life through lack of being able to communicate with the rest of the world. I was working as Host/Reception Manager at Hugos Lounge, from its opening in 2000-2003, my first three years in Sydney. Hugos was an iconic venue in Kings Cross throughout the noughties, appropriate for that time as it was naughty as naughty can be and if you were there, then you know! One of my natural responsibilities was the music and then eventually the DJ's that came to relieve us of the same CDs on repeat, week after week.​ Sneaky Soundsystem were our first resident DJ's and then two very special female DJ's Jackie Shan and Lady Tre came to play. Thursday nights for Tre and Saturday nights for Shan. We fast became family and would talk and play music all night and into the sunrise and back into the sunset. If there was music was playing, we wouldn't go to sleep. Throughout these legendary sessions they both started to say things like "When you start playing...." and I was like.... huh?  Mid 2003 Shan came to the owners with a proposal to have an all-female DJ night at Hugos on Wednesdays called Sista. It was to highlight the incredible talents of the under recognised female talent that was out there playing in the male dominated landscape of DJing. The night started and the first DJ that played was inappropriate for the timeslot. We were a restaurant first, then a bar, and then a cranking nightclub. The music needed to reflect the mood of the Lounge in all its stages, so I shared my thoughts on the style of music to which Shan replied, "Do you want to come and play next week?" ​ I did. ​ I touched the turntables. ​ They took over my life. ​ No one ever taught me how to mix. It just made sense. I never once practiced at home, I borrowed some records for that first gig and remember sitting in the car with a small bag of records on my lap knowing in my heart that someday I would be lugging great cases of vinyl around. To where I didn't yet know but still, I knew. The whirlwind that followed was out of my control. As though someone else had come in and taken over my life. I, as the observer, yet simultaneously in the driving seat of this momentum of music and mixing. It was surreal, sublime, never scary, up there spinning tunes to heaving crowds, something I honestly believe I could never have done had it not started at the Lounge. This was my home. My happy place. Full of friends that were my family. It's where it all began.  From there I was taken on a wild journey that caused me to become adrenally exhausted after realising I had played my heart and soul out in the ensuing 6 years and had nothing left. Empty. Not a single drop of anything left for me. Thats when I left Sydney and moved to Byron. It was 2009. We ALL have gifts inside of us waiting to be discovered. All it takes is the right conditions to allow them to flourish and grow into something you'd never even imagine. I was 33 years old when I first and finally touched those turntables. Who are you and what gifts still lay dormant inside of you I wonder? ​​ These days I play outdoor festivals only. Island Vibe, Earth Freq, Burning Seed. And of course, the Radio. These places and people fuel me and give me back as much as I give out. There are many stories of gigs in exotic, erotic, chaotic locations and more than a few moments of pure joy and connection I could share, but I keep those moments for myself.​ ​ They are the fuel that feeds the flame. ​ Forever burning for the turntables. x​

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