With sadness, another Dedication.

James Wade, 1979-2017 - "Creativity is a human necessity."

A few weeks ago, sadly, so very sadly, suddenly, unexpectedly, my dear cousin James passed away, into the world of Spirit. Shock, grief, deep sadness, the pain of loss followed. 

James was just 38, in the prime of his life, composing beautiful music played by orchestras and musicians around the world, almost finished his PhD in Music Composition, working on a documentary about the music of China. He lived a full full life, so much already done, and so much still to come, only just begun.

The last message I wrote to James, back in April, began, “Holly and I were talking about you on Friday. I miss you,” and I wrote that I hoped we could catch up soon finally, after having missed each others calls and just sending messages by text since I returned from Europe in October 2014. James was also in Europe that October, and we messaged on facebook, but he was in the UK, and I on the continent, so close, but so far, and I said that we’d see each other back home. But somehow, sadly, we never did...

My dear cousin Michael, James’ brother, through immense grief and pain, managed to organise a most amazingly beautiful and special celebration of James’ life and music last week on 6th July, and we who loved him shared stories and looked at photos and listened to beautiful, precious music composed by James. A recording by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra of his piece inspired by a 2500 kauri tree in New Zealand, “Te Matua Ngahere” - The Father of the Forest. A folk song sung by his friend Hannah, playing guitar in James’ place. Hannah and James had formed a folk duo, The Wayward, and wrote and recorded some songs. And four classical pieces composed by James - "Dream Collision," for piano and clarinet; "Crepuscular Rays," for solo violin; "Two Becomes One," for a duo of cellos; and "Let the Moon Light Her Night," for flute. The musicians introduced the pieces and spoke of James' unique compositional voice, and told stories of moments shared with James.

Standing with our shared dear old friends, I spoke of my memories of my times with James, and how I hope his inspiration will live on in us all...

"James – a man of many and varied characteristics, interests, thoughts, ideas and tastes in music. Embodying perhaps many contradictions over his life, sometimes at the same time – naïve and wise, messy and meticulous, systematic and random, highly focussed and vague, awkward and confident, goofy and poised, shy and professional, easy going and difficult, quirky and alternative and also somehow conservative, quiet and loud, serious and silly, private and capable of deep and intimate sharing and talking about the meaningful things in life.

Like many of us I suppose, he was in some ways like his mother, in some ways like his father, in some ways like his brother, in some ways like this friend or that, in some ways like me, his cousin, and in some ways not like any of us at all and only exactly just like him.

Messages and tributes with so many beautiful words have been coming in in the last weeks from his family, friends and associates around the world and it is really special to know how he touched the lives and hearts of so many. People have described how he was a good listener and supported them at tough times in their lives, how he played jokes on them, how he did funny random things, how he shared music in their lives. His presence and friendship meant something to each of them in many different ways.

As for me, having not seen a lot of each other in our childhoods, despite being born the same year and living in the same city, we managed to end up in the same place at the same time, both starting our post school years studying at Melbourne Uni. We crossed paths before the end of our 1st year and by 3rd year we were firm friends, meant to be. We hung out at least a couple of times a week, sometimes even every day, luckily finding each other at that time of life when there is a lot of time to spend with friends. Sometimes it was just us, sometimes Michael or my sister Katherine, who sends her love from Berlin, and sometimes we hung out with other friends, including our close little group of friends here, that came together in time, plus others that came and went from our lives. So I am privileged to have many memories of happy times with James to treasure.

Hanging out in my garage bedroom 

Classic James pose

Watching the Olympic torch pass with friends

Celebrating my birthday, with my sister, Mum, and an Irish cousin from the other side 

We shared many interests over the years and as well as hanging out at Uni, at Union House, on the South Lawn, in the Baillieu Library, and the nearby cafes and pubs, we visited each others’ houses and went to James and Michael’s family’s holiday house in Torquay and mucked around playing music and had a band of sorts, The Bandura Project, named after the psychologist Albert Bandura. James had a wild range of screeches through to wacky basses, adding his unique touch with his voice, as well as his guitar. We watched foreign and art house films; we went often to listen to jazz at Bennetts Lane and Manchester Lane; we did a little bit of swing dancing; and some yoga classes. We joined the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir together and formed a tradition of pre-choir curry at the Classic Curry Company in Elizabeth Street, where we systematically worked our way through all the vegetarian options on the menu, ticking them off week by week and noting our favourites. We went to gigs and concerts, and for a drink at the pub. Once in our pauper student days we pooled all our money and scraped together enough to buy us a pot of beer to share, causing us to spontaneously invent the ‘one beer cheers’, so now I can cheers James any time I have a drink, his sip going high in the air. We played basketball together with our team of friends, naming our team the Dribbling Basketcases. I’m not sure that a high level of coordination was among our shared traits, though of course James had height on his side and perhaps better aim than me… Luckily we had some talented friends and our team did well in our little comp.

The Dribbling Basketcases

Later, after the Uni days were over, for me at least, I moved out of Melbourne to live in the country, and with James also coming and going to different places around the world, we saw less of each other, but in 2009 and 2010 I lived in a little old farm house called Killarney, in Eganstown, near Daylesford, and James, who had not long returned from studying in Canada, came to live with me there for that first summer. We hung out at the house, made coffee in James’ tiny perculator, and James read random articles from my Dad’s collection of old National Geographic magazines, and serenaded the cows next door, who were apparently Led Zeppelin fans, coming close to listen to Stairway to Heaven, but turning their backs and moooving on off when James started playing a Red Hot Chili Peppers song….

Killarney

Housewarming party

Housewarming dress ups - James embracing the character

Hanging out in the house, later that year

Always a man of ingenious solutions, James made a step in the bottom of a low hall doorway, to stop himself from bumping his head. We also hung a little woollen bell in the doorway in case he was looking up for a change. We padded the top of the doorway to his room with fleece. We hung out with friends and swam at Jubilee Lake, and we both got summer jobs harvesting lavender with old fashioned sickles at a nearby lavender farm. We went for walks and explored the many mineral springs of the area. James gave me a book with treasure map directions to secret springs undeveloped and when he visited again later on we continued going on fun adventures of discovery together, enjoying the beautiful natural surrounds of these hidden springs.

The bell remained, though the step became a tripping hazard and was removed… 

Cousin spring adventures

From the early Uni days we also shared an interest in philosophy, Western, and also Eastern. At different times we both later visited McLeod Ganj, Upper Dharamsala, the home of the Dalai Lama. I followed James’ suggestion and also stayed at the village of Bhagsu Nag, around the corner. James was lucky to have the opportunity to listen to a series of teachings by the Dalai Lama while he was there and he also listened to the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist monks in Australia along the way. For both of us the philosophy of Tibetan Buddhism in particular resonated, along with other Eastern philosophy. Another old friend Karen, described his very Buddhist trait of acceptance, his ability to not get phased when things didn’t always go perfectly his way. I was perhaps not always so skilled in this way, and at times was particularly infuriated by his resulting even-tempered conflict-avoiding responses in our cousinly spats, requiring gentle mediation from our friends.

We also once studied a subject Philosophy & Music together. James also managed to infuriate the lecturer of that subject, who asked, ‘What is music?’ ‘A teacup,’ was James’ answer. Perhaps she thought he was making a joke of the question. And in some way perhaps he was. But perhaps it was also about his ability to hear music in anything, just as he found music in nature and trees.

Music was always important to James and his tastes were wide and varied over the years, from 90’s heavy metal and grunge, to 60’s and 70’s rock, and folk, music from many other cultures, old and new jazz, classical and much in between. It was wonderful to see music become more and more present in his life as the years went on, in every possible way.

In those early days hanging out with James and our friends, I had a wall in my room we all wrote on, the Ideas Wall. James wrote on that wall “Creativity is a human necessity”. It has taken me many years and much experience to really truly understand the full depth and importance of that statement.

I am glad that he lived his necessity, and that as a result we have the beautiful outpourings of his creative soul to listen to in the form of his music and also to look at in the form of his photography, capturing the beauty he saw in the world.

He also wrote, above the door in that wall, “This is the door for angels passing.” A door for him to walk through now. The other day on my way to stay in Melbourne to meet up with family and our old friends, I saw many eagles, soaring in the sky above, and I could feel James’ pure spirit, feeling free and exhilarated, soaring too.

James always followed his passions and his dreams. He was dedicated and persisted and worked hard to make his dreams a reality. He is an example we can all follow, to make our dreams come true. And I hope we can all always make sure to have enough space in our lives for our creativity, our human necessity, and to remember our dear wonderful James."

Our friend Ben, speaking before me, ended by describing how he had come to learn so much more in the last weeks about James, and described him as a curious, complex character. This led me to spontaneously add in to the front of my speech, words that had been for some reason randomly running through my mind the last weeks:

"James, James, a curious fellow
That rhymes with yellow
And also cello."

I feel like that is like something James might say, and silly though it may have been, I'm glad it snuck its way into my speech, as an expression of random spontaneous creativity, wild and free. And, a reminder that as well as my writing, and other creative outlets I have ever so slowly been working on, one day I would like to finally fulfill a long held dream and spend some time playing the cello, as just one more part of living that human necessity of my creativity.

Thank you, dear James, for the reminder and the inspiration to follow my creative dreams, and bring them into reality.