Parramatta, Sydney
In February 2008, we ran a small-scale pilot writing workshop in Parramatta, with writer Nadia Wheatley and three braille readers. We're still waiting for a good window to come our way, on which to publish these braille writings and more, within cooee of Parramatta: 'river of eels'. If you know of a good window, please contact us. Meanwhile, enjoy these bytes of Parramatta, BWP-way:
Braille bytes
Meeting outside the library: feeling like the new girl on her first day. Everybody knows each other except for me!
The sense of a storm coming: air pregnant. Moist on my skin.
N. W.
The light touch of Hailey's fingers on my right elbow, Rebecca's on my left.
Two canes tapping away
a way across
a cross
in the pavers ahead of us.A. W.
As we start walking, we can hear Gwen's feet ahead of us,
hitting the ground.
The sound of happy children in the playground of a little park.
Then the jack hammer.R. W. & H. L.
Tracing the names on the war memorial, Rebecca spells out "Johnstone".
Who was he, this dead soldier who leaps to life again for a moment
beneath her clever fingers?N. W.
In the mall, people talk excitedly in coffee shops, over the clatter of the plates and cutlery.
R. W. & H. L.
"Come and buy some perfumes and colognes," yells the lady over the microphone as I trudge through the shopping mall.
"Come and get 15% off perfumes and colognes!"
The fragrance tickling my nose.G. I.
The sound of the busker playing his guitar.
He says "Hi" to us as we walk by.H. L.
Ancient ripples in the sandstone wall of the Westpac Bank tell the tale of a river that came here in geological time.
(237 million years swirl past every ATM transaction.)N. W.
We sit down at the river and talk about its history against the noise which sounds like a waterfall in the background.
H. L.
The place appears little by little
through a lens of simple conversation.So many bits and pieces of history lodging in odd corners of us.
Parra - eel
matta - water.Then names:
James Ruse, John Macarthur -
convict, settler,
and a feisty blackfella I'd never heard of.A. W.
The gentle, soothing, lapping water is so restful that the city seems to disappear altogether.
A passer-by observes: 'I don't understand this river.'
The smooth-layered paperbark tree is so soft that I want to peel some off and use it like a piece of paper. I want to touch and read it.
G. I.
As we reach the old gatehouse to Parramatta Park, an overturned supermarket trolley washed up on a narrow peninsular of footpath forms a barrier. Metaphors mix and mingle at this point. We are mountain climbers negotiating a treacherous ridge between the border of Parramatta Park and a torrent of traffic. Eric Weihenmayer, blind conqueror of Mount Everest, where are you now? We need you here, at the precipitous edge of the river of eels.
A. W.
I brush my fingers lightly along the gate as I enter the park. Now the occasional purr of passing cars fades, and my footfalls are light and silent as I drift over the lush softness of thick grass.
The breeze gentle and cool on my face, the soft grass underfoot …
The fullness of my heart.R. W.
The park is lush, green after so much rain.
We feel the South African grass, with some fronds hard and sticky and others soft and hairy.
What a happy group of picnickers - their voices reverberating from the park shelter!On the way back through the mall, the same lady yells over the microphone:
"Baby formula for $7.29."G. I.
As we arrive back at base camp, the waters break.
Raindrops splash and scatter as we hurry up the library steps.And now the clatter of the Perkins Brailler translates the walk into a journey of the fingers.
In a nearby room, someone is speaking in Chinese.N. W.
Sound bytes
The following sound bytes are mobile phone recordings taken 'on location' during the writing workshop.
- Transcripts
- Audio from Parramatta recordings converted into text.
- Cane music (mp3 160 kb, 27 secs)
- The clinking percussive sound of the white balls on the ends of two canes, skipping across the surface of uneven pavers.
- Eel River (mp3 240 kb, 41 secs)
- The group discuss how Parramatta got its name and what it was called in Aboriginal times.
- Eel River part 2 (mp3 200 kb, 34 secs)
- Nadia, Gwen and Hailey talk about 'understanding the river'.
- Park tucker (mp3 228 kb, 39 secs)
- The park rushes had many uses …
- Work-shopping (mp3 240 kb, 41 secs)
- Workshop participants reflect on what the noticed and how they all went on the same walk but noticed things differently.
Eye bytes
View slideshow with short and long descriptions
