Deirdre Hargraves
Island Mean

Living on this island as a refugee from Sydney has restored to me a sense of community and belonging that I didn't feel when I lived in that large city. The smaller population of Tasmania forms a closely inter woven net of friends, relatives, and acquaintances through which news and stories ripple. When a tragedy happens it is felt in varying degrees all over the Island, when something positive or wonderful happens likewise. In either case the commiseration or congratulations come from a wide and varied cross-section of our community. No matter where you go on the Island, camping on Bruny Island, fossicking, bushwalking, fishing as soon as you start to talk with someone you start to participate in the weave of this net.

This net not only covers people but the beautiful geography of the Island of Tasmania and its history. The history is all pervasive and the links remarkable, the stones that you stand on could have been used thousands of years ago by the original inhabitants, if we knew more we would see these signs of occupation every where. Instead we see what we know, the water worn convict brick, the rusty chain, the fossil and perhaps a midden. It all permeates into the psyche as you live on this wonderful island and connects you to the Island and to the community.