About Me — Len Varley
The thing about Light is it bends but it never breaks
Let me open by saying that you can’t start reading the Book of Len in the middle.
So, let’s begin at the Beginning.
“In the beginning there was nothing. Then God said “Let there be Light!” And then there was still nothing, only now you could see it.” —Book of Len 1:1
I was born in England to an English father and a Malaysian mother of Portuguese extraction. So I am what happens when East and West collide— a cultural crash test dummy, if you will.
That mixed heritage apparently makes it hard for people to place my origin, and I have been variously described as being Lebanese, Italian, Greek, Kiwi, Portuguese and Navajo.
I feel as though I belong everywhere and nowhere.
I was transported at an early age to the colonies, and lived the majority of my life in the Great Southern land of Australia.
Australia will always be my cherished home. Once you get past the fact that the majority of its wildlife is out to kill you, it is hard not to fall in love with its rugged, expansive beauty.
It is a land of contrasts, and perhaps I could describe my own life in a similar way.
Small Windows
To condense the breadth of this life into a relatively brief story is a tall order. Instead, I will present this as a series of ‘small windows’ to tease the bigger story.
The deeper rendering can be found my articles, and at the risk of shameless self-promotion, I encourage you to follow the literary breadcrumb trail!
I had a reading age of 22 at age 10. Raised before the internet and mobile phones, books were my refuge. I read widely and often, a skill I highly recommend in an era where reading is rapidly becoming a lost art.
As a painfully shy child, I dreaded an aptitude test for a private school. While others quickly finished their reading assessments, mine dragged on, with increasingly difficult books.
My heart skipped a beat as the assessor finally interjected, “I’m going to have to stop you there.” I braced myself for rejection. “So far, you have a reading age of 22, and I’ve run out of books,” she explained.
When I go to a petrol station, I cannot use pump number two. The same thing applies at public restrooms — I cannot use stall number two, urinal number two and/or wash basin number two. This is non-negotiable. Likewise at supermarkets — checkout number two gets a big swerve.
I have two tattoos. And yes, before you point it out, this entirely contradicts my previously disclosed compulsive disorder. I have no idea why. The tattoo on my left shoulder blade is of a Celtic cross tangled in barbed wire.
In my early-twenties, a psychic told me I would have a difficult life. She described her vision of a cross so heavy that it had burned its image into my flesh. This encounter inspired my choice of the Celtic cross.
In later life, I came to understand exactly what the vision had meant.
Michael Hutchence chipped my tambourine. One of the highlights of my musical career was meeting charismatic INXS lead vocalist Michael Hutchence. Cathedral had finished a support slot for INXS and we were coming offstage when Hutch approached me, asking almost timidly if he could borrow my tambourine.
What struck me that day was the look in his eyes; or rather the ‘absence’ of a look. It sent a shiver down my spine at the time — the distinct sense that somehow he was just a wayfarer passing through.
Going back to my tambourine — a brand new half-moon tambo which cost a mint at the time. Hutch proceeded to destroy it — throwing it around the stage as he stormed through INXS’s set like a man possessed!
Long story short — the tambourine exists to this day; badly chipped from the experience. Sadly, Hutch succumbed to the emotional chips that dogged him through his later life.
I did three trips to the notorious Cove in Taiji, Japan. The fight for whale and dolphin protection took me to Japan’s killing Cove on three occasions.
Perhaps, in hindsight, my cultural blending of east and west stood me in good stead. You walk a fine line when entering a foreign country and advocating for change.
I was hopefully a consumate diplomat whilst urging a change of mindset with respect to the mass slaughter of dolphins.
The duality of Japan presented itself at every turn — high spirituality intersecting with commercial greed. It evoked laughter and tears, and the occasional discreet evasion of local police.
Just as reading was my refuge in my early childhood, so writing has become that refuge in later life. It is for me both therapy and rebellion. It has shone a Light on places of Darkness. Hopefully, it has been enough.
Oh, I’m also an unrepentant nerd. If I was asked to defuse an unexploded bomb, I would cut the blue wire.
“When it comes to resilience, the two most important bones in the human body are the backbone and the funny bone.” — Len Varley
I hope that, in reading my works, you will find evidence of that backbone and funny bone. The two, I have learned, are intimately intertwined.
Website: www.lenvarley.net
