Monday 10th October

I've been away from Darwin since Friday - initially in Hobart and now in Melbourne. Louis and Emma spent the weekend visiting Helen and this morning have both headed back to Brisbane for a while. Over the weekend Louis says she had some really great moments with them. He brought her fresh squeezed orange juice one morning and a home made beef soup another time and she really enjoyed both. Whilst she was sleeping he and Emma were befriended by another patient from a few rooms up who sounds like a wonderful person. They all read Helen's poems together and later the other patient came in to see Helen and share with her how much the poetry had moved her. Louis found this very special. He is planning to reprint "Refugees: Living on the Margins" as there are not so many copies left of that volume and it is his favourite. In the interim Louis and I have received a number of very touching emails and messages from friends and family around the world. Thank you to all those who are thinking of us. I have the urge to share one of them with you all as it is from a friend who know both my parents well when they were young and reflects beautifully on that time but I guess I should ask his permission first :). One friend from another country asked me to explain the coffin decoupage in more detail as it was hard for her to understand long distance and in her second language. "Decoupage (or découpage) is the art of decorating an object by gluing colored paper cutouts onto it in combination with special paint effects, gold leaf and so on. Commonly an object like a small box or an item of furniture is covered by cutouts from magazines or from purpose-manufactured papers. Each layer is sealed with varnishes (often multiple coats) until the "stuck on" appearance disappears and the result looks like painting or inlay work. The traditional technique used 30-40 layers of varnish which were then sanded to a polished finish. This was known in 18th century England as The Art of Japanning after its presumed origins." So...in my case...supported and inspired by David and Louis I have bought a very basic coffin made from mdf. I have begun tearing and gluing pieces of paper on it - each has Helen's writing on it and they vary from the banal (shopping lists etc), the outre (mad writing from her manic phase), the profound (snippets of poetry and philosophical musings) to the confidential (letters to and from supervisees and clients - all thoroughly deidentified and damaged I hasten to assure you). For some colour and contrast I have added pieces of fabric Helen dyed or screen-printed in her time making art with Lil Smith and Helen Peake in Darwin. It's not finished yet but has progressed a long way from my initial shots and looks fantastic already. My vision for our Darwin funeral ceremony includes inviting Helen's friends to come forward and write a brightly coloured word on her coffin that means something to them about Helen and their relationship with her. We plan on cremation so it will be evanescent but then that is the point... Louis is going to come back to Darwin at some point and plans to stay there until my birthday. I will fly back to Darwin early this Wed morning and stay there until Saturday when I will return to Melbourne and head on to Natimuk. I won't go back up to Darwin until after my birthday, the Nati Frinj and my trip to Galapagos Island (my 40th birthday present to myself for the week after Frinj!) and probably the AGPN Forum conference which is on in Melbourne mid November..