She looked electric: the moment I knew

It was 2007 and I was driving up Highgate Hill to join an entourage of arts workers heading to Cherbourg for the Indigenous arts festival Stylin’ Up. At sunrise I saw Patty leaning against a yellow ute in a striped 70s men’s T-shirt, a rat’s tail catching the light.

She looked electric; I thought, "Uh oh. This person is literally shining." My stomach turned and I felt a premonition — in Queensland in the 2000s the queer scene felt small, and I fell for her straight away. I was nervous about meeting properly and about sharing a cabin for five days, so I played it down and tried to keep my cool.

Connection came easily: Patty is a drummer and producer, I’m a songwriter and guitarist, and we both believed in art as a force for social change. I had recently returned from working in East Timor and Patty was working in youth transitional housing programs. Months later she invited me to a gig in Lismore with her queer band Bertha Control; that night our crush opened up and we ended up pashing in a tree.

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