My whole focus has changed in the past month. Not only have I felt changes within, but also without. Even through a veil of sadness and tiredness, I can clearly grasp what is important to me and what must be done. I will be the greatest support and love for my son Tom and my wife Nadia, separated as we are. I will not swerve from this course for anything. That is my abiding focus.

We made our first tentative return to Cunningham St a few minutes ago. Cristie and Jaime have done a great job cleaning the house from top to bottom and even did a little painting. I am so very grateful to them for their kindness - they even re-connected my old washing machine in its original spot! What can I say.

Of course, I don't want to go back to my old house, nor leave my beautiful new house, nor lose my wife and upset my lovely little family. But it's something that I have to do. I have made my bed and so I must lie in it. I don't know how permanent this move is, not can I be sure how things will pan out in coming months. I am uncertain of everything at present. My thoughts and feelings are all over the place and I cry at the drop of a hat.

But the child man in me must grow up. I have to learn from my mistakes and never make them again. Some things are preventable and avoidable and I do have choices that I can make every moment of every day. I can choose to be better. I can choose to say no when it's clear that something is dubious or wrong or may in some way be hurtful. I can choose to look at the consequences of actions from the beginning.

And I choose to do those things now. From this moment until I am no more. As God is my witness.

This has been a very tough time for my family. Separation after 14 years is like the untying of a huge and complicated knot, with so many twists and turns. And unexpected kinks. For Nadia and I it also feels like the unsticking of superglue - the painful unjoining of what seemed unjoinable. We have so much history together - travel, work, music, house-buidling, marriage and Tom, to name but a few, that everything, no matter how seemingly insignificant, resonates like a cathedral bell.

These words are inadequate, as seems everything I do at the moment, in expressing the picture of sadness and pain that pervades our lovely home. And to top it off, it rains and rains and rains.

tears from above
fall long from a sun-hidden sky
our cheeks, shining

this asthmatic summer
finds it's perfect arm-in-arm partner
in my heart

Tom, play.

It's tough knowing what you have done wrong, even if you don't quite know why you did. And its tough not being able to set matters right again. But I am determined to change those parts of me that are immature and grow into a good man, if I can.
I have been watching other fathers closely, those that are engaged with their world, and can see the joy of that engagement. It's something that is palpable.

After Tom's swimming class today, during which I had to physically manoeuvre his reluctant frame into the water, we went to Gloria Park. There were half a dozen families, children and their mothers, furiously involved in play of all sorts. Tom soon joined up with a group of tree climbers and he got to quite a height, and down again. Later the same group swelled into a bamboo wielding tribe, who made huts from fronds of bamboo and swished their sticks like light sabres. I enjoyed every minute of it, sad as I was.

It's never too late, you know.

Another day of sadness and tears. I am sad most of all for hurting the people I love, and even if the motive was not to harm, the end result was just that. And I take responsibility for that, irrespective of what my intentions were. Because I did not foresee the end in the beginning does not excuse me one iota. I am to blame.

I feel naive and stupid for not anticipating disaster and foolish for buying into my own illusions. This is a side of me that I yearn to change and will work on over the coming months. God willing I will become a better man.

The feeling of overwhelming sadness and loss, something which pervades my existence at the moment, has moments of joy, too.
Last night I finally sat down with Nadia to watch As It Is In Heaven, the Swedish movie that just about everybody raves about. Nadia has wanted me to watch it with her for years and I always declined, not because I didn't want to see a great movie, especially with her, but because it had scenes that I thought I would find too confronting. But now that our marriage is over, I wanted to see it. And with Nadia. No-one else.

Sensitive, beautifully shot and cleverly constructed, As It Is In Heaven leaves me largely without anything to say. I mean, I am at a loss to describe my reaction to it because language is inadequate. On an emotional level, it soars between hope and despair. It confronts the meaning of love, the central purpose of music, the nature of community, the complexity of faith. But it is also ephemeral and illusive. That which creates also destroys, though destruction, as in death, is not to be feared. The final scene goes beyond any experience I have had in cinema.

So, thank you Nadia, for persisting with me. And I'm sorry Nadia, that I didn't say 'yes' when we were man and wife, and not just friends, as we are now.