Thursday, December 5, 2024
Monday, December 2, 2024
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
The Triangle Forest
This is where we were. In the triangular-shaped forest that is covered with bats. We rowed our boat around the point of the green pyramid and then south-west towards the railway lines.
When we reached the railway lines back in 2013, we saw that the creek had become too overgrown with submerged foliage to continue, and so we turned around and rowed back a short way in the direction we came from.
Drawn to the shore and wanting to explore it, my brother and I disembarked somewhere towards the middle/tip of the pyramid on the western side of the triangle forest. We walked a short way in an easterly direction across the pyramid, and I lost Sam briefly in the forest.
The triangular island at Nanny Goat Hill is a very mysterious place.
11 years ago, when we returned to our boat and began our journey back towards home, something in the triangle forest has stayed with me ever since that day. My mind’s eye persistently wanders there, exploring the emerald green pillars of leaves with my brother.
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Monday, November 4, 2024
Sunday, October 20, 2024
The Mayfly
I walked down to the trampoline with the kids. Mayflies filled the inside of the trampoline nets so we all crawled inside and became covered in the flies.
Mayflies are a symbol of transformation, transience and renewal. We have never seen Mayflies at our Blue Mountains house before.
My hair full of mayflies and, according to my mother, a very familiar looking King Parrot flying under my left elbow.
Is that you, Sam?
Friday, October 18, 2024
Friday, October 4, 2024
My Brother Sam
Sam had acquired a boat, and he suggested that we row it down Wolli Creek to Nanny Goat Hill.
It was a beautiful sun dappled day. We played chess, navigated the mangroves, and eventually arrived at a strange island with bats sleeping in trees and big pillars of leaves that formed a cave-liked shape around us.
My boating trip down Wolli Creek with my brother Sam is one of my truly cherished memories with him. I captured these moments with him on video and it has now become an extremely sad video for me to watch.
My brother Sam Treffry committed suicide 2 days ago. In his suicide note he revealed that he had been diagnosed with a very serious medical condition called ENS - Empty Nose Syndrome. This rare, incurable and extremely difficult to treat disease is so severe that it has many recorded cases of sufferers taking their own life. This information is all over the medical literature on ENS.
Sam described in his note that he had been forced to withdraw from his university course and had stopped work entirely. He had been unable to sleep and entered an extremely dark place. He hid all of this from our family and me.
My brother died at 34 years old. It’s unclear in his letter how long he knew about his ENS diagnosis, but it seemed to be a recent diagnosis and a rapid spiral after Sam sought various solutions in private for his incurable disease.
ENS can only be developed by routine nose operations that remove tissue. My brother had multiple nose surgeries in his teenage years for sinus issues and septum corrections. It apparently took a long time for his ENS symptoms to reach a critical level where Sam thought that he had to seek relief in death.
Prior to his death, my brother was working at a hospital and a hotel, studied a town planning degree and generally seemed happy, although he did constantly seem very tired. One of the symptoms of ENS is insomnia resulting from breathing difficulty.
Sam’s suicide was a devastating blow to my family. We never knew about his ENS diagnosis and we never got a chance to help him, with full knowledge of the suffering he was enduring.
I love you Sam. I miss you so much. I wish you had reached out to me. I would have moved heaven and earth to take care of you. I would have ensured you received the treatment, love and care you needed, and you deserved.
…but you didn’t reach out. You chose to fight this battle alone and now you are gone. I will have to stay with our cherished memories now, until I see you on the other side where I know you are waiting for me and the rest of our family.
Until then, I’ll think of you always, Sam, and I’ll never forget what a brave, sensitive, hilarious, mischievous and mysterious person you were and still are.
For me, Sam, you haven’t truly left. You’ll live on in my thoughts, my dreams, my blood and amongst all the tears I’ve shed for you.
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Friday, September 13, 2024
Thursday, September 5, 2024
Thursday, August 29, 2024
Sunday, August 25, 2024
Thursday, August 22, 2024
Upcoming EP - Cloth made of Sea Snails
It will definitely have Your Name Summons Memories on it, plus a potential collaboration or 3 with the one and only William Colvin of Hedge Fund.