Hello from us!! November 22 2015

Hello all,

A quick update.
Frank and Tara and I live in Ballina, in ramshackle old house that was converted into flats in 1970, and we have turned the back half into our home after gutting the lot and restoring the teak floors and VJ boards. We now have a new small studio out the back for dance, music, and imagery, which has a loft that looks out at the sky. Also a pond with waterlily and frog, and a fire circle which is wonderful whatever the weather.
I still work in Brisbane, now at Lady Cilento Children's Hospital three days a week, I stay at the Mater through a private arrangement, in the same monastic quarters where I slept as an obstetrics student in 1983, making up and stripping my own bed daily! It is peaceful, and I am only really there to sleep as I generally spend my free Brisbane time at Farmers Market, GOMA, Palace Cinema, and keeping up with my parents, sibs, and nieces and nephews ... In Ballina my time is generally taken up with Sprung!! projects or enjoying nature.
Frank is thriving on his job as a youth counsellor in Lismore. He has developed many more skills for his armoury, including expressive therapies, sandplay, and heaps of understanding of neuropsychology and how this influences youth work. Sometimes he takes lads fishing or surfing or just sits on the floor with them. He also still does the imagery work- some people have been coming to the sessions for 20 years now!
Tara still lives at home but will move into one of the front flats next year. She teaches Zumba two days a week, volunteers at the Xavier College canteen and the video shop, is a principal dancer in Sprung!! Integrated Dance Theatre, and hangs with her boyfriend and other friends in Ballina. You can keep up with Sprung!! on FB or at www.sprung.me The most surprising things about Tara are that she really enjoys being on her own- in fact craves the opportunity to be in the house cooking, cleaning, and watching movies on her own, and that she seems to become more intelligent every year. She really listens carefully to people, and offers really pertinent comments and questions.
This year I was able to enjoy the Odd Socks assembly at Petrie Terrace State School where the Bumbletown Hall was named in Maeve's honour. I guess if you are going to have a dignitary to live up to, her examples of compassion and creativity, and her Creed, are pretty good for young people. At the school the atmosphere is still exceptional, student-led, green power everywhere, a sea of precious faces singing and rocking back and forth together.
Frank and I went down to Woody Head and camped last night so that we could spend today immersed in the natural world where memories of Maeve's joy overlapped with fresh experiences of nature like a thicket of tiny wrens and the ever-renewing, ever-different wave surges crashing and runnelling through pools on the rocky shelf. We had great fun playing, see photo above.
Thanks to all for sharing our journey.  xxxx RFT