Last night Urban Seed had the final laneway cricket game of the “Laneway Cricket Carnival” that Andy and Marcus organised. It has been really fun. A whole pile of corporate people from the corporations that sponsor us came out each friday night for the last month and a half and played cricket with us and a whole pile of credo punters. It has been really cool watching everyone just hanging out together in the lanes of Melbourne playing cricket. People from the Melbourne City Council and Cricket Victoria were hanging around last night too.

I am sitting in the Big Issue office at the moment, this is such a great job. I can write blogs and get paid. I have to go on a pitch walk soon so that will feel a bit more like work, although some of the big issue vendors are just lovely and I really enjoy talking to them. The magazine put outs in 300th edition this week. How exciting. Their will be celebrations.  

So I handed in my assignment yesterday. I was very tired after another very late night but at least it is in and I did not have to ask for an extension.

Yesterday I went to this “where the heart is festival.” It was really cool. It is organised for all the local services to participate in and get to know about each other and there was free facial type things and free haircuts and free clothes and free books. The coolest thing was though that I knew lots of people there and was able to have lots of good chats. 

I am up to 3:00 in the morning doing assignments again. It is not all that bad, I drank a V so that helped. It will suck however getting up early tomorrow morning to cook lunch for Credo. 

So my time in Sydney was intense and emotional in both good ways and bad. It was so lovely to see many of you, I think you are very special but there were so many goodbyes - David, the Enmore house and Monday Club. It all kind of hurt but I was glad I could be there for them all.  I read this quote in an article entitled “The happiness addicts missing out on a melanacholy miracle.” Sometimes I think I am a happiness junkie so I guess it is good to also have weekends where we let ourselves feel the sadness of loss and change in order to grow. Tom, you wrote about some students suffering loss. I guess you can’t scream this quote down a hallway but these ideas in the long run might comfort those students, as they comfort me.   

“Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and trouble is to school an Intelligence and make it a Soul?”   

Hello community.

I know that many of you guys are in pain right now. A day has now passed since David fell on his bed and died. Wow what an amazing and special spirit he was. I have been thinking about David a lot today. I think of his art work of Hannah, his dress up costume of Martin, the photo of him when he was a model, the fascinating conversation I had with him about Frida Carlo and about his dog Andy. There are many other memories. I have also been thinking about my beautiful community in Sydney and the grief that all of you must be feeling. Urban Seed is praying for you. Jane I especially think of you. May God hold you. Last night I prayed that God would hold all of you and I promised God that as he held each of you I would hold Him. 

I am back in Sydney tommorow night because I want to be with you in this time. It will be a time of lots of tears as we farewell David and the Enmore house as we know it. All I can say is lucky we have so much love for each other to sustain us.

 peace and lots of hugs and kisses.  

One of my friends from church is going away to America for a couple a weeks so we went out for dinner and drinks. We ended up at this pub where this man was singing old country songs. I was in heaven. One of them was “Hold On” by Tom Waits. I had this most amazing moment of nostalgia rush over me. I remembered my beautiful home in Hornsby and all the late nights I had there. I sometimes miss my past home and mum and Keith and their music and the lounge room I would stay up late in, listening to music, to old country songs. 

 Down by the riverside motel,
Its 10 below and falling
By a 99 cent store she closed her eyes
And started swaying
But its so hard to dance that way
When its cold and theres no music
Well your old hometown is so far away
But, inside your head theres a record
Thats playing, a song called

Hold on, hold on
You really got to hold on
Take my hand, Im standing right here
And just hold on.