.....When I was eight years old I left home. I had my first big adventure. Dad flew me in a little aeroplane across the Great Outback of Australia to the Coast. We slept at the Peoples Palace and Dad said, The Sallies are a great bunch. They’re corker! Then he took me to The Children’s Hospital:
The Specialist said, Stop telling lies. Which one’s brighter, the lion or the puppy? She fiddles with something then asks, What colour is this? Which one’s blurred? Then she calls Dad back into the room and says, Your daughter has an astigmatism in her right eye. For the next 12 months she needs to wear an eye patch and follow an exercise routine. This will correct it.
I stare at them in horror, thinking, Eye Patch, a pirate´s Eye Patch? I´m not wearing one of those! You´re suppose to say, Your daughter needs glasses. Then ask me, Which pair would you like, the Cats Eyes in bright blue or the pretty pearly pink ones? I don’t want an eye patch, I want glasses like Debbie at school.
Thwarted. For weeks I’ve plotted. I pretend to be cross-eyed, I drop things and I tell the Teacher I can’t see the blackboard. The Optometrist is perplexed. He says to Dad, I don’t know what the problem is; she’d better see a Specialist…
The Specialist talks with Dad. She asks, How many children do you have? He says, Six! He’s proud. She looks at me for a moment then says, Perhaps your daughter would benefit from a Break? How about 8 or 9 weeks at the Bush Children’s Home?
So Dad takes me to the Redcliffe Bush Children’s Home and gets all emotional. He thinks he’s abandoning me, just like his mother did him. I hardly notice. I’ve seen the beach and the swings and I can’t wait……
For the next 8 weeks I do eye exercises. I go to the State School with all the other Bush Kids and at night I sleep in a dormitory with rows of big white beds. Each girl has a white bedside locker and we’re taught how to do ´hospital corners´. We have Day Nurses and a Night Nurse and the thing we’re scared of most is peeing the bed. Every morning the Day Nurse checks and all the girls know. We’re not allowed our own clothes or toys and any gifts sent from home are confiscated ´till we leave. They give us foul tasting margarine on red-jam sandwiches and scour our hair for nits. And when we first arrive we have a Check-up. They make us stand in our knickers in front of a Doctor and it’s horrible. But…… I enjoy being there, mostly……
I´m curious and I like to play: that kid´s an epileptic. She has fits. That one has a hair-lip. See! She´s got a scar! The girl with beautiful long hair which the Day Nurse combs and plaits for school, she was born without eyelids –they made her some. That boy has speech therapy and that one over there has a hearing-aid box with something he pokes in his ear. It squeals and squeaks and he’s always playing with it. It’s very interesting…… I like the Day Nurse, Jane. She plays a fife. Sometimes she lets me play it, too. We get to go to the Brisbane Exhibition and a Ballet and sometimes after school there’s ice creams and pink watermelon AND at the weekend there’s Sunday School. We sing songs and memorise scripture and they give us tiny paperback Gospels and things to collect.
For a year I do eye exercises and wear the horrid patch…off and on….. Neither work. By the time I’m aged twelve I need glasses but by then I don’t want them……
Leon Cathedral is a spangle of treasures and prisms which fractalate through my brain. The colours splice through my short-sighted eyes and give me kaleidoscope visions……..
-Lovingkindness
]. A memorial strung with bells from the 7 sunken churches stands out front. ( Oh dear, I´m beginning to sound like a tourist guide. Sorry....I had a deeply meaningful time here, really....I improvised a Blessing and a Hallelujah and let rip in the Ermita.... )
