When I went to art school I met a few people and one person was a mentally ill girl named Pedita. She was around a few heavily psychotic people who babbled and after a short spell I had to bail because it was too disorienting. We had fun though and managed to keep in touch decades later as she lived in my old area then. She was cheery and fun, and was happy to be involved in art/poetry events.

We did a few poetry nights and spent time chatting and generally being incredibly loud and obnoxious. It wasn’t really our style but it just happened during our poetry readings and it was a fun kind of chaos. After a few months I met a few new friends and my second girlfriend so things kind of changed. We would bump into each other though and sometimes hang out. 

When we saw each other decades later she was with her long term partner who was into music. He was always quiet and kept to himself but he was a calming influence on her. I saw him recently and I had noticed she had been absent from the area for ages. I kind of had assumed she had probably died but asked him so I could clarify. He said she died but it wasn’t clear what had killed her. 

She did have health problems when I saw her but she was still cheery and chatty, but yes she was now buried in St Judes church which is a beautiful church in Randwick. It was strange how she had been living near my first girlfriend’s place in Rosebery and seemed to be always around not that far away decades later. She was a wild character and I believe she had some sort of addiction which she couldn’t kick.

She was on medication as well, it is so strange thinking about just how much Sydney has changed since those times in the 90s. There were so many crazy artist lead galleries and places to go and do creative stuff for free. I am not saying it was the golden era but it was wild how over the top and theatrical art and art venues were. You couldn’t see that happening in Sydney again with the way things are now.

Perdita reminds me of that happy chaos, I mean to be honest I was totally depressed but also amazingly happy even though I was living in dives. No furniture, clothes folded on the floor, a table and chair I found on the street and a futon with no bed base. I was like that until I turned 27 and had my first full time job. I would go to Pedita’s housing commission unit and it was basically the same, that slight smell of mould, the beat up furniture found on the street and creative visions.