Healing strategy No. 2

Distraction. I was totally engrossed in the novel I read in the last few days. Luckily I was able to get through some of my transcribed interviews and re-code the participant identifiers into question-and-answer codes. Ten down, forty to go.

The novel: ‘Fire Fire’ by Eva Sallis, is a must-read for anyone with a troubled childhood. I know Eva’s uncle so the book had a really strong impact on me. She based it on her own life story. Set in the Australian bush of the Adelaide hills her musically brilliant family starts off as living an idyllic life away from the hustle and bustle of mainstream materialism. Her artistic mother takes the seven children on a wholesome alternative lifestyle journey from love and nature to squalor, debauchery and violence. It’s beautiful, shocking, disturbing and all true.
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Eva Sallis award-winning Australian author

Personal insight: That novel made me reflect on the last ten years of my life. How did it pass quickly? Those years swallowed my dissertation work, made it obsolete. It’s as if I’ve just woken up from strange dream. I suddenly understand why my supervisor thinks everything I wrote is so dated. She insists I ditch half of it or the examiners will slam my work. My self-revelation is both a shock and a relief. Eva’s book has moved me forward just enough to know how to tackle that chapter I have to re-write. I think I can do it.