Leaving everything behind

In January 2014 I quit my job, sacked my clients, shut down my copywriting and consulting business and spent every cent I had volunteering in the Philippines Visayan region following Typhoon Yolanda.

I returned home to Australia obsessed, changed, uplifted and depressed all at the same time.

I sold my stuff, played music in the streets (you may call this busking), and received donations from family, friends as well as people I had never met. I used all the money to create my own  humanitarian projects helping the children I had met and their families.

Somehow I did three trips to the Philippines in 2014; what a year!

Having shed all but a few material possessions (and my business to), I had planned to travel from country to country exploring my creativity, playing music in the street and writing stories of the people and places. But a fatal car accident, followed quickly by the suicide of one of the children I had been helping shut me down. Overwhelmed by grief I found myself unable to write or play music at all. I went into hiding.

Finding Jerry and my way back

Then a little Ilonggo boy (only seven years old) came into my life and changed everything. He didn’t even own a pair of thongs (flip/flops), his mother was dead and his father semi-paralysed from a stroke. The house (and all his things including his dog and her new born puppies) had been totally washed away in Typhoon Yolanda. He asked me (someone who had never ever had children) to stay with me and live at the house. At first I said no!

Somehow, I found myself in my mid-forties a mum for the first time. He couldn’t speak English and I could barely even say hello in his mother tongue Ilonggo. It’s been a challenging few years learning to be a parent but somewhere along the way I found fulfilment as a creative poet and songwriter, and (at last) real joy returning to my work as a professional copywriter, poet and blogger.

This website and blog is a story. It is my love of self-expression through music, art and poetry recording my travels and dual lives between Australia and the Philippines. It’s the place to engage the services of  a professional writer and business blogger. It is a collection of inspiring stories of love and kindness (the people I meet and the places I see). But most of all it is a narrative of a little boy who has changed my heart forever.

Click on the following links to learn more about Jerry,  how to hire me for your next copywriting job or how you can help disadvantaged kids go to school.