winsomecowboy

I was working in Copenhagen when I got my first nun. I’d been after a nun for ages and had narrowly missed a couple over the years. They had walked past as I was putting my stilts on or taking them off, but in retrospect, it was worth the wait because this nun was perfect.

I hid behind a corner as she walked past. I stalked her from behind, I blessed her and mimed sprinkling holy water over her, and then I went back to my wall and crucified myself.

Some of the audience were crying with laughter.

The next day, some guy came out of the audience and gave me a photo
It was all I ever wanted in a nun and then some.

I made posters for my friends with my motto, ‘Who Dares...Grins’. This one image described who I am and what I do. Goodbye existential angst, hello fun with a nun.

After having lived overseas for a decade, I returned to New Zealand and moved back to my hometown. It was unsettling. There was my kindy, there was my primary school with the convent behind it. The convent had been sold and was now in private hands.

I was in the city stocking up on make-up remover, and I mentioned to the woman in the dept store close to where I worked that I was the nasty man on stilts. She said that she was pleased to meet me and what I did was marvelous and clever.

She said that she and her husband had bought the convent in Lyttelton and were converting it into a conference centre and that they would keep me in mind for entertainment. I told her I had been inside the convent as a child. A nun had dragged me inside by my tongue as a six-year-old, taken me to the kitchen, applied soap to a toothbrush and scrubbed my tongue and mouth out.

I gave her a copy of the picture on the condition that she frame it and hang it above the sink. It’s there, I’ve seen it. It’s beautiful.