My other constant companion

During those dreary Sydney days, while Aquiline carried my spirit, my car carried my body. It is a character, having colletcted many names over time including "The Little Red Terror," "Little Red Devil" and "The Red Velocipede." This beast here is a 1985 Nissan Pulsar:

I am the third generation of the family to own this car. My great Aunt and Uncle bought it off a friend when it was 6 months old and they kept it until they died in about 2008, after which it was passed onto my Uncle Darryl in their will. My Father bought it off him for a grand and gave it to me. It had spent the vast majority of its life in a garage and was generally only used to go to the shops and back. It has hardly a rust on the body and the paint is hardly faded. However, it had a lot of aged parts that I have had to replace over time. It had no functional handbrake, cracked exhaust manifold gasket, leaking rear brake cylinders and ball joints so worn that you'd have to be a weightlifter to steer it. I have had grown men asking me how I manage with it. As I have gone through with repairs, it has become very reliable and it only broke down on me once because the original 25 year old radiator packed in. It did not have reliable indicators when I got it and the culprit was copper corrosion on the connections in the hazard light button. I also had o glue the frontpassenge window back onto the bracket because the glue had perished.

Whenever I felt stressed I would go out and sit with the car and perhaps give it a wash or do some other work on it. To me the car represents safety. I survived a fair amount of domestic abuse by housemates during my time in Sydney and if I did not have the car, I would have been dead by now because wouldn't have the ability to escape fom these dangerous situations. For me, this little old car that no-one else wanted and many people told me to dump, was my ticket out of the wretched place called Sydney. I was born in Sydney but I did not belong there. The Sydney I was born into did not exist anymore anyway. Back in the late 80's and early 90's people stil had pet sheep in their backyards. When people are alone they tend to personify things and to me there is no experience more isolating than being in a sea of people. My Little Red Terror grew eyes and ears. I do swear that driving it is more like managing an animal because you have to understand the sound of the engine closely to know when it wants to shift gears. It is noisy for its size and has a good thoaty purr to it.

This is the cockpit of my red rocket. The only modern feature it has is an automatic choke. It only has an AM radio, no cassette player even. There is no air conditioning, so it roasts in summer by virtue of its greenhouse inducing sloping frontand back windcreens. My late uncle bolted the mini fan to the floor and it does help a bit. The fuel gauge gave up at about 17,000 km. I can tell this because there are notepads in the glove box that record the mileage so that one can calculate fuel consumption. I am still doing that now because it has no trip meter nd I have not found a spare fuel sender unit.

O-Shamo

I was roaming around the Science Library looking at random books as you do when I happened across a book that was a Catalogue of South-East Asian Poultry. I was quite intrigued. The shape and form of Asiatic chooks seems to be quite a bit different to the rounded bulk of European fowl. My Mother had described the chickens she had grown up with and they had pictures of Filippino chicken breeds there. They oven have very long legs and tighter plumage. They are actually more similar to the ancestral red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus) which is still reputed to be widespread in the wilds of South-east Asia. One particular chicken breed that causght my attention was the Japanese O-Shamo. This drawing was done in the Science Library of the Sandy Bay Campus of the University of Tasmania. This was when I was doing my bachelor's degree. The year was 2008.

My constant companion

I did this drawing in 2011 when I was writing my Honours thesis: ,

It actually took me two years to complete because of my workload. Honours was a torturous time for me. The only thing that drove me forward was my dreams and aspirations. Drawing is the process by which I consolidate wh I am. The drawing is a process of my being. This was not being respected during my time in Sydney and this is the major reason why I am not living there. Aquiline is my alter ego and in this life, which has been a solitary psychic struggle until quite recently, Aquiline is my inner shadow self, a large part of my spirit. When I draw Aquiline I feel what it is like to be Aquiline. I feel the power in his muscles and the fluidity of his movement. His body taut like a coiled spring and ready for action, is pelt glimmering and metallic like flowing thick water. Aquiline's eyes are forever watchful, missing nothing inthe darkness in the void that is the underbelly of human nature, and challenging what is dangerous with their firey crimson hue. I feel unity and harmony within myself. I kept looking at this drawing regularly to remind myself of my personal power and that no-one could beat me into submission or make me become anything that was not true to my nature. I gave the original away but I did scan it before doing so. I printed out a copy and pinned it to a kitchen cupboard. In the morning it looks really awesome because I made kitchen curtains out of shock which is an aquamarine colour with a yellow metallic sheen. During this time,the kitchen is bathed in the colour and energy of Aquiline. It feels good to see that my psychic self has a physical expression, a space were it can be visible without having to fight for the right to be.