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Es sitzt ein Vogel auf dem Leim, er flattert sehr und kann nicht heim. Ein schwarzer Kater schleicht herzu, die Krallen scharf, die Augen gluh. Am Baum hinauf und immer höher kommt er dem armen Vogel näher.
Der Vogel denkt: Weil das so ist |
It was the year 1985. I had tossed in the best job I had ever had - for no better reason than that my Arab boss had angered me with an ill-considered comment - and "come home" to an Australia I no longer recognised. I had dug myself a hole in Townsville from which I had only escaped at the very last minute, and I was about to dig myself another hole in Sydney. I was angry at the world and at myself.
Frantically searching for a way out, for an alternative - in fact, for an 'alternative lifestyle' - I had answered an advertisement in a GRASS ROOTS Magazine I had found at the local newsagency which pressed all the buttons: get away from it all, live a simpler life, find new friends ...
Unlike the advertisement above which appeared (again) some months later, the one I read (and which GRASS ROOTS' friendly Emma Jameison may still locate) sounded even more evocative as it was signed by a Uta Langer to whom I wrote and who replied and who shortly afterwards stood on my doorstep, having hitchhiked from Tabulam to Lismore from where she had taken the train to Sydney to renew her passport at the German Consulate. Between one (former) German and another, we hit it off well and the thought grew stronger to move to Two Waters Farm.
Of course, those were the days before the internet and so the only way to check it out was to go there. What delayed my reconnaissance long enough was her warning that this was serious 4-wheel-drive country and I would not be able to drive all the way to it in my then NISSAN Stanza.
As I wrote, it delayed me long enough for something else to turn up - see here - because, as the saying goes, "Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans". Perhaps, more to the point, I should've remembered the first rule of holes, "If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!", because more "diggings" revealed an even deeper hole than the ones I had still been lucky to dig myself out of before.
With the hindsight of forty years, I dare not even think how my life may have turned out had I taken this 'alternative' route and joined the funny people at the Two Waters 'funny farm'. Another road almost travelled!
I continued to stay in contact with Uta Langer who observed me from afar and then during a surprise visit to Canberra, after which she sent me Wilhelm Busch's book of poetry, "Der Vogel, scheint mir, hat Humor", appropriately amended to read "Der Vogel, scheint mir, braucht Humor".
Then, long after I had finally settled into mainstream Australia, she told me in her final letter that she had left Two Waters and was living in a women's shelter in Yamba run by the Sisters of Mercy. Maybe it was her turn then to find some solace in Wilhelm Busch's little book of poetry.
