Positive Life NSW

Tobin Saunders joins the library - as one of the books.

Living Books: Tobin (second from left) with some other books

I was born and bred in Sydney, residing till the age of one at Milson's Point just across the Harbour Bridge. [I never quite understood that term 'born and bred'; it seems like a kooky anachronism.] Mum, Dad, my two brothers and I squeezed into a dark, red-brick Federation-style flat. Not that I have a visual memory of this time, but I do have photos.

Then our family moved from town, as it was called back then, to our groovy new pad (which Dad designed) in the lush and nature-filled environs of Bilgola Plateau on Sydney's Northern Beaches. My parents were thrifty people with flair and vision and this didn't miss the editor of Australian House and Garden, who featured us as a cover story in the June 1972 edition. In one grainy black and white photo I can be seen watching my brother astride one of those inflatable, bright orange, bunnyeared bouncers that were all the rage!

A bush childhood

I was a big fan of Skippy, was a fully paid-up member of the Gould League and had more reptile pets than toys. Our back balcony played host to a variety of colourful and chatty birds. I recall warily and respectfully dodging the female wedge-tailed eagle on the bush path to school. If she was nesting, we had to be extra cautious. Imagine the magpie-swooping trauma but four times the size, with razor-sharp talons capable of snatching a small child!

Afternoons and weekends were spent exploring pockets of rainforest, the mud flats of Pittwater or the beach. I remember winning a competition for my intricate pencil drawing of a huge tree for a local flora and fauna organisation and I beat the whole school at orienteering. I simply loved living there. It was essentially outer suburban bush and I think it left an indelible earthy print on my nascent little mind. Not long after my eleventh birthday, I recall Mum and Dad showing us a huge map of Australia and telling me, my brothers and sis that we were moving to Perth so that Dad could use his engineering skills in the big WA mining boom of the 1970s. So, in the grand tradition of Alby Mangels and the Leyland Brothers, we ventured across the biggest island on Earth. Let's just say it was a paradigm shift! I can proudly say that I've driven from Perth to Sydney and back at least three times and one time I was accidentally left in the Nullarbor Plain momentarily!

Urban life

I stayed in Perth until a year after high school, then came back to Sydney to be around more like-minded people and to discover myself after years of internalised and external isolation in the then not-so-wild west! It was a decade prior to my HIV diagnosis, but my sexuality was the hot topic back then and I needed to be in a nurturing environment to express it fully.

I skipped all over the continent for the next 10 years and all the digs, excluding my bushy suburban home in Bilgola Plateau, were urban and busy. It didn't take long for me to settle back in Sydney, where I lived socially, culturally and topographically in the very heart of the beast. It all got too much for a number of reasons and having seen a bit of the north coast, I found my way towards the Byron Bay region quick smart. I'll never forget one trip where we passed through Brunswick Heads and deep down I knew that one day I'd be living in the area.

Space, nature, peace

All up now I have been living in various parts of the stunning Northern Rivers region of NSW for 10 years. Several peers and a posse of cynical Sydney folk said I would never last and that I would go crazy or get cabin fever. I left the big smoke running – during a really successful career as a promoter and performer/activist – and I have never looked back. Sure, I still do my gigs around Australia and I certainly pop down to sin city from time to time for cultural and social delights, but I have no desire to move back there. Even if I win Lotto I won't be enticed to live there, I'll just have a chic inner-city crash pad!

It's true: the transition from city to country can be tricky, but having always loved the tranquil bushy surrounds of my formative years, I didn't feel like a duck out of water when faced with this fecund landscape. After a few local moves I'm now settled in semi-rural South Ballina and I love it! Plenty of space, lots of nature and hardly any people around to disturb the peace (if you don't count the pesky skydiving planes buzzing overhead).

I've kept pretty much to myself over the years but I do spend time with a small group of close-knit friends. I guess all those years of being in the eye of the social storm took its toll and these days I'm disinclined to seek endless social networking. I still stay in touch with my Sydney friends and other mates around the country. It's true that you need to keep a balance in life. This balance shifted dramatically when I successfully applied for a health promotion job at ACON Northern Rivers. Having semiisolated myself, I've now been flung into the social and community miasma of the region and it's been fantastic. I meet so many people and share so many stories, from local mayors to indigenous elders and everyone in between.

Self-publication

About six months ago my manager suggested I become a local Living Book. I'd been a Living Book a couple of times in Sydney during Mental Health Week and enjoyed it enormously. I adored the unexpected social frisson that it created. The Living Library originated in northern Europe and Lismore became the first Living Library in Australia. The Living Library works exactly as a regular library, only the 'books' for borrowing are living books – people. Borrowing a living book fosters an appreciation of the individuals who make up our community and allows us to reconsider stereotypes and prejudices.

The library has a large selection of 'books', from a Sudanese refugee and a vision-impaired author through to a person with schizo-affective disorder. The title of my 'book' is Gay HIV-Positive Performer/Activist and I've been read now about 15 times. Part of my induction required me to 'read' several of the available books as a way of listening to different stories and story-telling styles. So here I was, delving into the complex and amazing lives of Northern Rivers people. These experiences have reiterated and expanded my understanding that human nature and diversity exists wherever you are. It's helped me realise how much we may simply judge a book by its cover and maybe walk the streets full of false (or at least misleading) assumptions about our community.

A few weeks ago about 10 young women attended the Living Library from a local Catholic girls school and read their way through about 10 books. Their teacher had previously attended a LGBT awareness course for schoolteachers and students that I was involved in. I got to tell my story to about 10 students, two at a time. It was exhausting but utterly rewarding. Some of the young women furiously and studiously scribbled notes as I spoke and others just stared with that look of young hungry eyes, eating up all this new and at times unusual information!

Book meets borrowers

It's so powerful that the threads of our rich community tapestry meet in these unexpected ways, sharing different worlds. Essentially it is extinguishing fear and ignorance and planting the seeds of understanding and hope. If that sounds corny, I'm sorry, but it really feels like this.

One sunny winter day one of my 'borrowers' inadvertently became a 'book' himself as we volleyed our life stories like a game of yarn tennis! He had a rich and colourful life history, from LA to Nimbin and everywhere in between. At times it felt like I was the accidental counsellor and then all of a sudden I'm sharing with him deep and emotional moments of my complex life living with HIV.

I don't really adapt my story any more than I would if I was talking to someone I met in the street. The odd tweaking, editing and age-appropriate theme/language, but other than that they can have it, metaphorical warts and all! It's empowering to share my life and it's an honour to have people listen and ask questions. It's not only therapeutic, its life affirming and it makes me feel more connected to my local community – the big, wide, varied and beautiful rainbow region of Northern NSW, Australia, Planet Earth! Tobin Saunders

Tobin Saunders (aka Vanessa Wagner) is Community Health Promotion Officer at ACON Northern Rivers. He is also a Positive Speakers Bureau speaker.

The Living Library has its regular open day on the first Friday of each month from 11am-1pm at 110 Magellan St, Lismore. Tobin is usually available to be read.

Lismore Living Library: http://tiny.cc/91985