Bits of Yarn, Calico and Velvet Scraps                                                            Page 4

After a year in Ireland we returned to the more

ancient and mysterious home-land, the Land of the

Mother. The relationship with the mother is a mad

desire, because it is the "dark continent" par

excellence'. (Luce Irigaray)

My mother - a fourth generation Australian - not

of the wild interior of this vast land but of those

who work hard on the safe edge. She was born and

bred in the Big City, in the security of an Anglican

family in small business. She married an Irish

Catholic and her adventures began. The cost was

great. Her family was not pleased/ although they

were reconciled after a few years. She had to leave

behind the church she knew, friends of a life-time

and her own city to move to a hotel in the bush and

then to another and another and another. Both my

parents became experts in their trade as they and

we with them moved from success to success.

She bore five children before death entered and

began to play its part/ in two scenes: our little

brother accidentally killed at age four; five years

later, my father/ suddenly/ with no warning/ in the

night; age forty-eight. She was a widow at 40 and

she had four teenage children.