Searching Spirit

By Peter Williams

Peter Williams has always had a searching spirit. He had a growing awareness of something else out there, another layer beyond his understanding; he had to know more. As a teenager, he turned to the Internet seeking answers to other worldly questions. That’s where his search began, and he had his first connection with spirit, a connection that set Williams on a path of learning as an attentive student of spirit.

In Searching Spirit, Williams chronicles his life story, telling how many years later, while pursuing his teaching ambitions in Japan, a cataclysmic event shook the foundations of his world to reveal the true nature of the lessons he’d been studying. He and his wife, who is heavily pregnant with their first child, are forced to make the difficult decision to leave their home behind and return to the safety of Australia. It’s here, born out of those dark days of upheaval, that Williams’ true purpose is revealed.

A memoir, Searching Spirit offers an honest and humorous look at his life and his message, communicating that if one is willing to open up, connection with the spirit can be lifechanging.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Jun 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781504318051

Peter Williams

Peter A Williams is Professor of Polymer and Colloid Chemistry and Director of the Centre for Water Soluble Polymers at the North East Wales Institute. Has published over 170 scientific papers and edited over 30 books. He is Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Food Hydrocolloids. His research is in the area of physicochemical characterisation, solution properties and interfacial behaviour of both natural and synthetic polymers. Recent work has been involved with the determination of molecular mass distribution using flow field flow fractionation coupled to light scattering, rheological behaviour of polymer solutions and gels, associative and segregative interaction of polysaccharides, development of polysaccharide-protein complexes as novel emulsifiers.

Book preview

ALL CHANGE

There I was, just an ordinary kid, enjoying the sausage and chips I looked forward to every Thursday night, when BAM!

We’re moving! Mum said.

Just like that. Out of the blue.

Wmwhmm, what? Moving? Where to? I asked through a mouthful of hot chips.

The Gold Coast, she said, as if it was the most obvious place in the world.

The Gold Coast? What are we moving there for?

Dad’s got a new job at the airport. At Coolangatta.

I took a moment to process this revelation.

But what about my friends? And my school? What about-?

You’ll make new friends Pete. Don’t worry. You’ll be right. There was something about the way Mum responded that made me think she was ready and rehearsed for my protests. She spoke with such firm finality!

I looked to my brothers across the dinner table, waiting for them to chime in. Come on, say something. Help me out here.

For all the good my silent pleading did. Nothing! Too busy eating, I suppose.

Meanwhile, my sausage and chips had lost their weekly anticipated excitement.

"But I don’t want to move."

Suffice to say, a kid of 12 doesn’t really get much say in these matters.

Once the wheels are in motion, that’s it.

I guess I couldn’t complain too much. Up until that moment, I’d had it pretty good.

I’m one of those people who can honestly say, I had an idyllic childhood. There – I said it!

I had the good fortune of being born in the early 80s, so I guess I got to enjoy the best of both worlds.

Growing up in the Northern Suburbs of Brisbane, my life was all about old-school fun. You know what I mean when I say ‘old-school’ right? Playing outside all day long!

That’s not to say I ran wild. If I wasn’t home by the time the street lights came on there’d be a price to pay, make no mistake.

I spent most of the daylight hours on my bike or at a friend’s place. I’d often play in the bush behind our house or run around like a mad thing playing tag on the golf course. Ah, that golf course. It had the best grass in the whole neighbourhood. Always freshly cut, no bindis or weeds to worry about. We just had to keep an eye out for the greenkeeper. If he came along we’d do a runner.

My grandmother was a huge part of my life at that age. Pat was my mum’s mum and she lived in the granny flat attached to the front of our place. We were only separated by one door. That’s what you call close. I spent a lot of time with her.

We had a back gate that led straight out onto a massive clay pen. It must have been the size of four or five football fields and beyond that was bushland, tracks and a meandering creek.

I loved being down there listening to the creek and the birds and their happy chirps and pre-historic squawks. I guess you could say the sounds of the bush made up the first soundtrack of my young life. At that age, you don’t stop and consider how lucky you are. Things are what they are and you just do your thing.

The sounds of the bush took on a baaarrrrrppp baaaaarrrropp, and the occasional squeal or growl at the weekends when the tracks were taken over by dirt bikes.

As I recall, our neighbours didn’t particularly enjoy those weekend wake-up calls, but for my friends and me, we took it as a sign it was time to get up and out on our own push bikes across streets and through bush.

The bush wasn’t a pretty sight by any stretch of the imagination. Most of it was lined by mangroves and muddy, stench-filled swampland. I’m pretty sure I remember a shopping trolley buried in amongst it all, but that didn’t faze us boys. I lost count of the times I traipsed home caked knee-deep in mud, stinking of rotten eggs at best. Nope, I wasn’t popular. Not popular at all!

None of us had a care in the world. I was one happy pig in mud!

The arrival of new technology improved life further still.

I won’t deny it. My head was turned. Oh boy!

Nintendo, Super Mario Brothers and Legend of Zelda, you name it, I played it.

I loved those games.

I wasn’t glued to the screen day in and day out because the great outdoors always called, but I loved playing video games all the same.

Life at home was pretty relaxed too. I was the youngest of five, so I always had my three brothers and big sister to look out for me or torment me. Either way, it was a busy household full of noise when I was young.

My sister Bec is the eldest, followed by Tim, Matt, Adam then me, the baby of the family by about five years. You can imagine the fun and games that come part and parcel with being the youngest boy, but most of the time it was good.

I remember Bec had been on a Contiki tour and she came back from America with the Macarena on CD. It hadn’t even been released in Australia yet, but I knew all the dance moves. I used to love it when my friends asked, Hey, how do you know this dance?

As siblings, we were all close – though because of the age gap, I didn’t spend a lot of time with my three older siblings. They were closer in age to each other, while I was closer in age to Adam (or Ad as we called him).

Ad and I bunked together for as long as I can remember - right from an age where we had Humphrey B. Bear curtains all the way through to the time he was old enough to buy an automatic rotating 5 Disc CD player. I always remember Ad singing along to Inner Circle’s ‘Sweat’ (A La La Long) on repeat. It’s funny the things that stick in your mind. Because he was a bit older he’d often come home with something new like that CD player and then I would pass it off as my own to my friends.

We were lucky enough to have a TV in our room, though I always ended up as the delegate channel changer because there was no such thing as a remote control changer in those days. Yup, sharing a room with an older sibling came with a fair amount of lurks and perks.

I also remember back then Ad was not what you’d call a morning person. On school mornings I would be standing outside the shower waiting to go in.

Morning, I’d say when he emerged.

And do you know what he’d do? He’d thump me three times on my left arm.

Yeah, there was a whole load of brotherly love right there. I’m sure if you’re close to your siblings you know exactly how it is.

My other brother Tim was busy finishing school. He was that guy everyone liked at school. He had a thousand friends, many of whom found their way to our place and some of them would even end up living with us.

Matt did his own thing. Like me, he enjoyed movies, music and riding his bike from dawn to dusk. He worked at the video store and volunteered as a DJ at the local radio station. He lived on Vegemite sandwiches.

Then there was my father, Owen. He had dedicated his whole career to the aviation industry and was your typical hard-working family man. He was the provider. He was just Dad – you know? He was the one who went to work and paid the bills while my mum, Terry, did everything else.

Actually, I’m probably being a bit unfair when I say "he was just dad". On his days off there was always a whole bunch of housework to do, and he was also President and fixture organiser for the Northern Brisbane Soccer District. Between all that and us kids, he was a busy man.

Sounds so simple when you say it, "we’re moving".

But I was beginning to realise there was a hell of a lot of goodbyes wrapped up in those few words.

Admittedly I would have been going to a new school anyway (because I was about to start high school). So, Mum’s logic was that’s why it was such a good time to move.

You can start a new school after the holidays and you’ll be in the same boat as everyone else starting junior high.

She didn’t seem to appreciate I had been ready to start junior high with my own group of friends in our own boat.

Now I would be getting nervous on my own – cast adrift.

There were also other factors at play. Other things going on in the background that probably helped make the move more of a certainty for Mum and Dad. My parents had a falling out with my ‘next door nan’. Perhaps the fall out made it easier in some ways for Mum to walk away from her life in Brisbane? I don’t know for sure, but it was another ‘cutting of the cord’.

The thing that really hit me in the guts though, aside from saying goodbye to friends and everything I knew, was the realisation that my siblings wouldn’t be coming with us.

The mad thumper, angry Ad who was next closest to me in age was already leaving school, and my other siblings were older and already independent. My sister was travelling the world and my brothers were working. So that was it. I was moving with Mum and Dad, and I was going to have to start a whole new life without my brothers and sister.

Things moved quickly after that family dinner announcement. Dad moved down the coast ahead of us, started his new job and found a place to rent. I think it was another three months before Mum and I joined him.

The day we left was a hard one.

The guys with the removal van came and packed up a few of our bits and pieces, but most of it was left behind. My siblings were staying in the house until it was sold, and besides, we still had to find a permanent place to live on the Gold Coast.

It felt weird and not just for me.

I remember Mum writing a note to my brothers.

I feel like I’m abandoning them, she sobbed quietly as she wrote the words ‘Don’t forget to remember me’, a line from the Bee Gees song by the same title.

As she stuck that note to the fridge I could see just how hard it was for her. I could feel it. It was painful for me to see my mum hurting and I think in the end – I’m not ashamed to admit it – we both had a cry.

My brothers and sister weren’t around for the long goodbye. Probably for the best, all things considered.

It was the summer of 1996, and to my 12-year-old self, it felt like my happy world had caved in around me – as if childhood itself had ended abruptly.

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There’s something disorientating about looking at the place you called home for the last time. It’s a box filled with imprints of your life. It holds your laughter and tears and it holds the essence of you just being who you are. Your home is such an intrinsic part of your identity. There’s a weird emotional emptiness as if you’re casting that shell off and leaving your past behind with it.

Looking back, this may have been the first time I felt a lack of control over my life. It wasn’t just about being told no, you can’t do this, or no, you can’t do that, as you’d expect when our parents are guiding us through right and wrong. This went deeper. I didn’t want to move and I most certainly did not want to leave my siblings behind.

My desire in life at that point in time was to stay exactly where I was, doing the same things I had always done, secure in the safety of my family and friends. I was happy.

However, it was not to be, and as we all know, goodbyes are part of life and change is necessary to grow. When these things are thrust upon us and are not of our choosing, it can feel a little like we are forced out into the cold.

This would be Spirit’s first lesson for me, though I didn’t realise it at the time. There is safety and comfort in what we know. But like a child in the womb, we must be expelled to begin our new life. I’d just had my first taste of what it felt like to be separated from my siblings. Whether you’re separated by death or distance, loss is loss, and you grieve for it just the same.

LOST SOUL

Well, what was I worried about?

The beach lifestyle rocked.

I was swimming morning, noon and night.

We lived right across the road from the beach and I loved every second.

This was the Gold Coast lifestyle. Who wouldn’t love that, right?

Once I had adjusted to the hardship of all that sun and surf, I began thinking, perhaps life isn’t so bad after all.

Then school started!

That was one rude awakening, I can tell you.

My parents enrolled me into one of the Gold Coast’s largest schools, Palm Beach Currumbin, or PBC as we called it. Back in those days, the first year of junior high school in Queensland started at Year 8.

There were close to 800 kids just in my grade. After coming from a school with 1,500 kids in total, you can imagine what a shock to the system that was.

I won’t lie. That was a tough gig.

Please, Dad. I don’t want to go back there, I pleaded.

Dad responded with tough love and a dose of, Come on now. We all have to pull together and get on with it! You’ll be fine.

There weren’t going to be any reassuring hugs to ease this pain, just more ‘get it together’ stuff.

I hated school that first week. Absolutely hated it!

I missed my siblings terribly – yes, even Ad thumping me every morning. I really wanted to speak to Bec at one point. I knew she’d make me feel better. But it wasn’t to be. Nothing could be done.

I guess this is when the reality of my new situation finally hit home. But the die was cast. I had no choice in the matter. I just had to get on with it, as Dad had said.

That first awful week turned into a pretty awful year.

Finding and making friends where circles were already established proved to be near impossible. As if that wasn’t hard enough, I soon realised the subject changes were going to cause some difficulties too.

I had been learning French for the last two years. I was good at French. I enjoyed it. I was so good, I got an award for French. Yup, I was one of the top students!

But French wasn’t an option at PBC.

Instead, I was thrust into Japanese.

I mean, seriously? What on earth is this language with all those strange characters that made no sense?

Not only was Japanese completely new to me, but I was also two years behind. While I’d been learning French, and feeling pretty good about my brilliance, my PBC classmates had been learning Japanese.

So, there I was. The new kid in Year 8. Finding it hard to make friends, now with the added ‘bonus round’ of having to play catch up with my studies.

Suffice to say, things became decidedly quiet for me.

I no longer leapt out of bed in the mornings as I had on those endless days of play. It’s not as if I had friends to meet. School became this thing I just had to get on with.

After I’d endured the school day, I’d come home to a quiet house.

My dad was doing shift work, Mum was working 9–5 and there were no siblings to annoy.

I wasn’t the only one doing it tough. Mum definitely found that first year rough, too. It must have been strange for her to have only one kid at home, on top of all the other changes. I know having five of us and having to do everything while Dad worked was no picnic for her, but I’m sure some days she would have preferred that mayhem to this emptiness.

Somehow, we managed to be there for each other, and our relationship grew stronger. Dad was ‘there’ but he had work. His attitude was he was the man and he had to do what he had to do to support his family, which was just the way it was in those days.

I discovered that I enjoyed fishing and it was something I could occupy myself with all year round. During the warmer months I would go to the beach, but apart from that not much else could hold my attention.

It