Positive Life NSW

John muses on life in rural NSW and the changes it brought to his life. Now, busier than ever, he’s convinced he made the right choice, though access to healthcare services is still a major issue.

I’m sitting here, in my little back room – no, not that kind, it’s mid-winter.

I’m watching the clouds trying to rain on my bare fruit trees. I’ve just planted a cherry, and throwing down a hot cuppa of tea.

I cycled into town to pay for my dog to be washed and pick up something for tea. Some more wood on the fire and waiting for the sultana and honey cake to come out of the oven. This is my life, slow, even and restful. Three words I abhorred not five years ago, just before I moved to a regional town with some bad furniture and a carer who needed a break as well.

We came from Sydney, Darlo, Glebe, that sort of story. Got the HIV in ’92, and never had a day’s sickness until a couple of years ago, when one of my meds went feral and started to attack my liver.

It was a big decision to leave Sydney. I was in Glebe in a government housing terrace. Very nice, little backyard, couple of dodgy neighbours. Something horrid happened and I decided I should just get away from the city. I was worn out. I’d got a severe interest in growing veggies and the backyard was getting a bit small.I applied for a house transfer and, guess what, it happened in three weeks. They said I choose was a low demand area. How rude, to suggest I wasn’t on the cutting edge of accommodation choice! 

Settling in

I arrived at 6pm on the 13 July 2005. It was minus eight degrees. There were no lights and it was a dark street at the edge of town, and then the furniture arrived.

A friend who’d moved up here had come by to light the fire and then the lights came on. The removal people unloaded and proceeded to set up a table with cutlery, crockery, food, cups of tea etc, and invited me to have a meal with them. They do this for all their new arrivals because they know how hard it is the get a meal together the first night. Lamb casserole, fruit pies, home made bread, the whole thing.

I felt like crying, I just didn’t know what to do, apart from sit down and stuff my gob.

My friend Ron arrived a couple of days later, and he stayed at my place for two years. We got the garden going. It was mid winter, minus 12 degrees. I had soil which was white clay with stones in it. I dug a little patch, like a sort of grave shape, and threw a bit of manure in the scratchings, and planted some garlic. It sort of grew. We got some heads of garlic about six months later.

Every morning, I would get up at 6am, in the dark, and go out and dig 2 square metres of garden, so very soon, we had quite a large area to cultivate. Manure is free in the country, as well as mulch, so all I needed was a bit of hard work.

Ron bought me two apple trees as a home-warming gift. He still had heaps of money then, so it wasn’t a problem. He had just got over a liver transplant, and he was my carer?

He had a few issues with drugs and mood swings etc, but he was the easiest person to live with – I’m not. I would have killed anybody else I think. He just doesn’t get ruffled by stuff. I get the shits with everything: loud music, screaming kids, junkies, drunks, beggars, bad food, everything really. We worked a system where I cooked and he did the dishes, joy for me. Great for him, he didn’t have to cook, and I didn’t have to clean, bliss. We went on like this for a while.

The night I moved in, my sister rang from Melbourne to say that she had bowel cancer. It had spread all over her body, she had not a lot of time to live etc. she also informed me that my younger brother Troy had gone into the hospice for the fifth time with his HIV. He was a long-term survivor and had beaten death so often.

Anyway, she lasted until March the next year, and Troy went home again. When Libby died, I felt pretty bad. Here I was in a beautiful place being looked after pretty well and there she was in a shitty flat with an insane Pentecostal husband and she had died, really angry, without much support and all that.

I didn’t know what to do. I just sat there for a day or so and decided to live the life that I wanted. I was still well, had all my faculties, had a few friends in the country and Sydney, Melbourne, etc. I came home on the fourth day and Ron had bought me a return ticket to India, where I had always wanted to go. People on a DSP don’t flit off round the world whenever they want, so it was a bit of a shock. I’ve been to India four times now and go every year to teach organic farming in the villages. Ron just gave me the ticket. I’ve never had someone do something like that for me. I was truly speechless, very rare, and I went in June of that year.

The quirks and perks of rural life

Having HIV in a country town, even a town of 25,000 people has its challenges. There are no HIV specialist services near me, the closest is nearly 400km away. I have a GP up here who is open to listening, but seems to have little knowledge of my issues. I have had to keep a dialogue with my doctor at Taylor Square Clinic. I have his email and can ask questions, and he answers when he has time. I go and see him when I go to the dentist in Sydney, and sort of lump all the medical stuff in together.

I’m lucky I have friends in Sydney, so I can stay for free in their amazing flat. The doctor thing is a bit strange. I had one doctor who told my history to the mad junkie woman next door to me. I have had people I’ve never met come up to me and ask how my health is. A small town is just that, everyone knows everyone. And everyone’s business. There are not many other gay people up here, there’s Ron, and a couple of others. Most are in a relationship, but sex isn’t a priority, so no probs. If I needed sex more often, I think it would be difficult.

There is a smattering of closeted guys, married usually, who don’t mind throwing the pencil up Pitt Street when the mood takes them, but there are not that many. It is strange not knowing who is a potential sex partner and who isn’t. Nothing is black and white. In Sydney, I could go to Kens or King Steam or someplace – it’s a fair chance that we’re all there for the same thing. In the country it’s a bit different. You can meet someone in the park or on the street and just start talking, soon enough you’re on ya back screamin’ like a succubus. Next time you see them, they’re with their wife and kids, who you know well, and you have to pretend you’ve never met.
You can’t just say, “Oh Hi, aren’t you the guy who went through me like lightning through a wet dog last week?” It just isn’t done.

I went last year to the rodeo. Some 400 guys from the district turned up to try their hand at winning the prize. I saw one guy I knew and we got together for a quick root at the back of the stables. Next day, he invited me back and he had a few friends with him. I felt so cheap. So, there are benefits.

It is very hush, hush though, you have to be discreet. These people have lives away from the end of their dicks. Most people I met in Sydney didn’t.

Just recently, I have had a reaction to one of my meds, it attacked my liver. I was put on Kivexa and had a really bad reaction, so at the moment I’m taking nothing, and hoping for the best.

The local hospital doesn’t seem to have expertise in anything relevant to my health. We don’t have a thoracic person, a renal person, a good dentist, an HIV person or a dietician. Most of the local GPs look after old people, HRT, calcium stuff etc, but for me, it’s okay. I’m not a person who obsesses about their levels, their meds and their health. I’m not a drama queen. I think it would be difficult. I have just had to get my teeth done at St Vincent’s – four trips, $600 each time for flights. I have to leave my animals, my crops, my regular routine. I can’t just nip down to the hospital if stuff happens. I have to plan things. I’ve got a lovely next door neighbour, a local woman who’s never left. She looks after my animals and garden, and drives me down the shops if I need it. It’s weird, you really have to mix with all sorts of people in a small town. In Sydney, it was my group of friends, all the same age, same interests, same habits. All that. Up here, my friends are Ron, and Robyn, another friend Ange, an opera singer and psychiatrist, and two elderly lesbian women. Do anything for me. 

Finding my niche

I was told when I left Sydney that I would be busier here than I ever was in town. It’s true. I started up a food co-op in town, I go to India for three months every year, we run a group of volunteers who help newcomers to town get their veggie gardens going.

I’m a potter and a painter. I do at least one course at TAFE every year. I have a show on the local radio about gardens and cooking.

There is a big university, so we have about 86 ethnic groups here, there’s always some sort of festival going on. German week is soon – lots of cute young boys in lederhosen, drunk and horny. I scored a job with the under 19s rugby club as their masseur for three months. I had to give it up, it was too much, really. A case of beware what you ask for! 

So, I’ve got my mad dog, my friends, my cooking, my radio show, my Mother India, my garden, my gym, my art and so much more. I walk round at night, minus 10 degrees, blowing fog outta my mouth, the cold biting my cheeks. I come home to a warm fire, and home cooking. I love having seasons. It’s winter now and then spring comes and everything bursts into life. It’s amazing.I’m still kinda worried about my health, I don’t like not being on treatments, but I never like being on them either.

I have a sheep farmer coming over later to show me the finer points of getting rooted until unconscious. He’s bringing a couple of bags of sheep manure, so I can revive the lemon tree tomorrow, after the doctor and the gym.

Know before you go

A lot of people move out to a rural area, only to move back again. You need to plan where you are going. Sitting on the beach and reading books and eating sounds really nice, but I hate sand, I get bored reading and I can eat anywhere.

I had to plan where I wanted to go and why. Wherever you go, you take your head with you. I didn’t come here to solve problems, I didn’t come to die dramatically, I didn’t come to escape myself.

One thing I want to say: I’m always completely honest about my HIV status. I let people know all the info I have and then it’s up to them. Some people don’t even ask and most don’t care, they think HIV is a gay problem.

Straight men are immune, so it’s okay. I don’t get heavy, but I do tell them that they are about to have sex with a man who has long-term HIV. As I say, most guys are fine with it. I’ve had a few who’ve walked out of my house in disgust. Mainly coz I burst their bubble by bringing reality into the equation. Reality can be a bitch. Not my problem. I have no guilt about HIV … all I can do is tell them the facts.

Lecture over. Moving here has been amazing for me. I’ve learnt to be more open, more tolerant, more easy-going, far less snobby than I was.

I really would recommend it.

My bio: I’m muscled, average looks, like gardening, more self-sufficient than supermarket. Good personality, quick wit. Oh, shit, sounds like Gaydar, a very scary prospect in a small town.

See ya!