Let’s go back… to the beginning.

Let’s go back. Way back. Waaaaaay back. Okay, wait, we’ve gone too far. I’m not one to dwell on the past but, since we just met, I feel it’s only fair to fill you in a little.

I’m a Creative Writing and Literature major at Griffith University and I’m just about a bee’s dick away from finishing my degree, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to talk about the words. The books. The writing that has permeated and enriched my life since I was a wee one.

My love affair with books and words began long ago. We don’t have time to go back that far. So let’s just say I was a child who read and read and read. Then I wrote and wrote and wrote. Journalling, mainly, as a child and young teen, which mutated into full-blown, angst-ridden poetry, self-reflection and prose. Then came some good stories (I won a competition at school – go me), a shitload more reflection, many poems and several stopped, started and ultimately discarded ideas for books. Chuck in graduating high school, having a child at nineteen, leaving an abusive relationship, recovering and raising my daughter alone for a long time and starting my Bachelor of Arts around six years ago, and I think we’re ready to leave the past behind.

Okay, we’re kind of ready to leave it behind. We’ll probably revisit it. That’s the nature of the stories we tell about our lives, right? Cycles of narrative, circling around, coming back to the fore, seeking amongst ashes for new meaning, new understanding, new modes of being. So in the spirit of that circling contemplation, let me share this old poem with you…

Morning

In the semi-woken hours of the morn
I dream of a life left behind
a love thought had then lost
a legacy of feeling to be amputated
cut away.
For in loving you
I found only loss of self
not a gaining of empowerment
not acceptance
not a safe place to fall.
You betrayed me
yet the betrayal was somehow my own.

That which remains unseen
run deep in flesh and bone
hidden in the energy of mind
I know not.
I shall not fear truth, though
this I know.
The strength within me has grown
it seems
and I can endure
fight for my life
protect my blood
hold my head high
and feel no shame
cry no more tears
because my time has come.

Jedda Winkworth November 2006