Sparkle

“The hand that calls you forward is the hand that leaves me behind”.

Angus and Julia Stone - lyrics from the song, ‘A Book Like This’.

The air was thick with humidity, smacking me across the face as soon as I stepped out of the arrivals lounge. It was midnight, late September 2007, Darwin. I was 35 years old and my life was about to change in ways I could never begin to imagine.

My accommodation that night was a boat anchored in Fannie bay, a boat that I would have been happy to have never set foot on again. On that boat was a man I had spent nine years of my life with. Six weeks earlier I had packed my bags and stepped off that very boat in Cairns, after coming to the realisation that it was impossible to live someone else’s dream. I was not at peace in the middle of the ocean, I never found my sea legs; but the truth is, I never really wanted to find them.

After I jumped ship, my sailor man kept sailing across the top of Australia and I spent six lonely weeks working as a ‘carny’ girl selling show bags with a traveling show. I didn’t know if the relationship was finally over, I didn’t know what was next, I was lost.

One afternoon I was sitting on the beach on the Sunshine Coast, when I received a phone call from a woman wanting to know if she could purchase one of my original paintings. I don’t remember where she had seen my work or how she found my number. I had only ever displayed my art in a handful of places and I had never considered making a career from selling my paintings but this phone call planted a seed. Shortly after this conversation my phone rang again, it was my sailor man informing me that he had arrived in Darwin and suggested I fly up and meet him. He promised the water was calm where he was anchored.

It is a mystery why we sometimes do things even when we know they are not right for us. I knew returning to the boat was not for me and I knew in my heart that the relationship was hurting both of us and couldn’t continue, but I went anyway because at that moment on the beach I couldn’t see a different path.

The night I arrived in Darwin we slept on the deck of the boat, the sky was full of stars, the water was still and the moon almost full. At first light I sat up to take in the coastline and was intrigued, there were just mangroves, cliffs, beaches and a few unremarkable buildings in the distance. It was the least capital looking capital city that I had ever seen.

We took the dinghy ashore and it wasn't long before everything started to make sense; there was a sparkle about the Northern Territory that was captivating. I had never experienced a feeling of coming home to an unfamiliar place, but Darwin opened her hot and sweaty arms and wrapped them around me so firmly that I knew I was going to stay for some time.

During my first week in Darwin a series of events took place that could only be described as divine orchestration, synchronicity or destiny. Like most visitors to Darwin in the dry season, I visited Mindil markets on a balmy still evening with the sun setting over the ocean, reflecting gold, pink and orange hues. I knew then and there that was where I wanted to sell my art. The same evening I met a girl who suggested I apply for an artist in residency government funded program with an organisation now known as Tactile Arts. Applications were closing that week and the successful applicant received their own studio space and an expenses paid exhibition at the end of the six month term. Amidst all this excitement and possibility, I was also offered a full time primary school teaching position with accomodation provided.

I had to make a decision. My heart wanted everything art related, but the reality was that I may not be successful with the residency application and the market idea was also not a given. It would be several months before I knew the outcome of either application. The teaching job was there in front of me, secure, safe and ready to go. I had to make a decision by Friday.

On Thursday afternoon I walked up the path to the office of Tactile Arts carrying a folder with an extremely unprofessional looking display of my work, a somewhat sparse CV and a cover letter outlining why I felt I would be suitable for the residency program. As I approached the building, I was overwhelmed with a memory from a dream I had dreamt several years earlier. It was so vivid that it stopped me in my tracks and goosebumps rippled over my whole body. It felt like the past had collided with the future.The dream itself was not remarkable but what was remarkable was the setting of the dream because it was identical to where I was standing, there was even a museum and art gallery in the dream, an ocean behind me and a high school on the hill to my right. This wasn't a deja vu as such, it was a detailed memory. And during those few seconds I knew, this part of my future was written.

The next day I rang the school to inform them that I wouldn't be taking the teaching position offered.

Three months later I received a phone call from Tactile Arts, congratulating me on my successful application for the artist in residency program. With the onset of the dry season, I set up my studio space and I began selling my art at the markets. My sailor man kept sailing west and although the ending of the relationship was extremely difficult, it was also necessary because for the first time in my life I felt that I was exactly where I was meant to be, doing exactly what I was meant to be doing. I was living my dream.

I left Darwin in 2019 and I will always be grateful for everything she allowed me to experience, for helping me become the person I have become and for all the evenings I walked along East Point and watched the light dance and sparkle across the gentle water that is Fannie Bay. I don't know if I will ever return to Darwin, but a wise man once reminded me that's it's important to never say never.