‘TIS THE SEASON…
November is Pride Month where I live and it has been kicking my butt hard! The level of exhaustion is intense. Many, many positive things have been happening but for the people doing the work it’s full on! As a PFLAG+ Mum, from Australia’s oldest PFLAG branch, the events I have been a part of have been many and varied!
On the day of the Pride Parade itself I picked up a message from a father looking for support for his child. I rang back and spoke to him as I was getting ready to leave for the Parade and he and his family were able to join us on the night and attend their first Pride! They are also coming to a youth drop in session tonight, so not a bad day’s work!
Last year, thanks to Covid, we didn’t have a Parade and this year’s Parade was different than any we’ve had before. It was a different one for me as well, because this year I wasn’t just participating, I was doing a lot of the organising for our Parade entry. For me this meant a lot of anxiety around making sure everything went safely, smoothly, and every one had a good time. Just relaxing and enjoying the night wasn’t a luxury I had this time around. But we did it and all went well!
We didn’t get home until after midnight and as we ate dinner together, swapping stories from our night, I took a phone call from my eldest son. When I ended the call there was a missed call on my phone from facebook messenger.
The name on the notification was that of my genetic contributor. Some context:
My Grandfather, their father, died before Daughter Number One was murdered. He left an estate of over $2 million dollars, in six equal parts, to my genetic contributor (G.C.) and myself and my four siblings. My GC promptly lodged a claim against the estate, suing the estate against the other beneficiaries (you know, their own children.) The estate had to retain solicitors and barristers to defend itself and was also ordered to pay the GC ‘s legal fees – no one ever wins in court except lawyers who get paid to be there.
The GC KEPT THE SUPREME COURT CASE GOING even after Daughter Number One was murdered. Priorities, am I right?
They DID NOT attend Daughter Number One’s funeral service. I even sent a car for them, because they DIDN’T ACTUALLY TELL ME they wouldn’t be attending, they left that for a surprise! Instead, they held their own service, because obviously it was all about them.
The last time I spoke to them was over SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO, when they turned up at the primary school of my child who lives with a disability, unannounced, with a cake and presents on his birthday. My Son’s birthday is TEN DAYS before the anniversary of my Daughter’s death and by that stage the GC had not seen my surviving children for over a year – you know, because of the whole not attending my Daughter’s funeral and suing us all in the Supreme Court stuff.
So, on Saturday night, as I tried to relax into acknowledging I had done an ok job, as it goes, of getting us to the Pride Parade, instead of being able to just enjoy that for a little while, I was catapulted back into anger and violation from eighteen years ago. Shovels of salt into the never closed wound of my Daughter’s murder. Again. Because not attending her funeral service wasn’t enough and neither was surprising us at my disabled child’s school ten days before the first anniversary of my Daughter’s murder.
So, what did they want? FUCK KNOWS! And I don’t care. There’s nothing left to be said.
Here’s what I do care about:
Scotty from Marketing’s Religious Discrimination Bill has been tabled in Parliament. This hugely damaging and divisive bill threatens to strip rights from already marginalised people. It will literally create second class citizens. It is not anything like the ‘fair go’ we like to think we are about. Don’t take my word for it! Do your own research here –
And here –
https://equalityaustralia.org.au/pm/
And write to your MP here –
https://equalityaustralia.org.au/take-action/
This Friday, the 3rd December, I’ll be speaking at a rally against the Religious Discrimination Bill. Please join me, if you can. Look for events to join locally! Do what you can when and where you can!
The best tribute I can ever make to my Daughter Number One is to keep spreading the love to combat the hate. For her and all our other young people and everyone we care about, standing up to be counted is so important! That visible display of love, support and acceptance literally saves lives! And Pride isn’t just a Parade or a month, it has always been an act of resistance against systems of oppression. And that’s something to be proud of!
Travel safe friends x
No I don’t wanna be bitter,Or come across as a quitter.
I went to sleep sometime after 1am. Nightmares are still very extra for me, which means that no matter how tired I may be, my brain will resist the call to sleep. ‘Danger Will Robinson!’. It doesn’t help that I’m a night owl by nature. It’s quiet and familiar and I am way more afraid of things that boldly come at you in the daylight. For lots of reasons, getting to sleep takes some work.
My nightmares feel so real. It’s rare that I know I am dreaming. The themes revolve around loss and failure but any anxiety provoking scenario will do. Lurching through multiple traumas most nights is exhausting. I’ve spoken about waking from nightmares and having to reorient myself, not only to where I am but to WHEN I am. That reorientation takes effort. It’s not as simple as opening my eyes. It’s more like talking myself back onto the ledge, from the vice-like, sticky fingered grip of the abyss. And the best I will be able to do is cling, shaking, teetering on the edge of the ledge as I begin another day.
A couple of years ago I started a new medication that ‘took the edge off’ my nightmares. There was a threshold I would hit, dependant on the amount of other stressors in my life, where the medication wouldn’t work anymore. Post Covid, I seemed to be above that threshold all the time. And since I take multiple medications for other conditions I didn’t see the point of continuing to take one that no longer worked.
Last night, my brain levelled up, and found a new way to torture me. Our brains are fascinating. In one of last night’s nightmares- was it the main feature? Probably – I was flicking through a folder, with documents in it. I came across a birth certificate, where I was listed as the mother, for a child that I didn’t recognise as mine. I scanned the page, over and over. I could feel the page in between my fingers, the edge of it sharp against my palm as I gripped it tightly, fighting to make sense of what I was reading.
Was there another baby? Did I have another baby? What happened to the baby? Why couldn’t I remember? What happened to the baby? Where was the baby? Why wasn’t the baby with me? Why couldn’t I remember? What had he done to my baby?
As someone who has lost whole swathes of her life to trauma related memory loss it is plausible to me something horrendous had happened and I had blocked it out. But it’s not like I was thinking logically. It was all panicked confusion and ice cold terror.
Eventually my distress was enough to catapult me into consciousness. Where I grounded myself with the warm body of my little dog. My mind and heart still racing I went through a checklist of reality.
There wasn’t another baby. I’ve ‘only’ had one child stolen forever from me. And although she was and will always be my baby, she was fourteen when she died. And that’s the Catch 22 you see. When I am flung from a nightmare into consciousness my reality is still a nightmare. It always will be. Which is exhausting.
I do all the things, to take care of myself. All of the things I have learned to do over all of the years. I focus on the good in my life and my gratitude for it all. I immerse myself in the bigger picture and live to honour my Daughter in the best ways I can. There are many good people who love me, and who I love. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time. But some days are hard.
Today was hard for me. I hope yours was easier.
Safe onward travel x
I’m Mad At God. He Won’t Take My CallsSo I’ll Make My Own Way Home.
I’m not really mad at God, basically because I don’t believe. I am just really, really angry at the moment. Behind that anger is grief, sadness, helplessness, hopelessness. I know that. My own anger doesn’t scare me. It’s an emotion, like any other. And, most of the time, anger is very motivating for me. So, not necessarily a negative.
This time I am just blindingly angry. I have cried many hot, furious tears that have burned and blistered their way down my face. So much of what I am angry about falls into the ‘accept the things you cannot change’ category, and there’s no motivation or inspiration out of that. No new motivation or inspiration. I’m still out there changing the things I can. But it doesn’t feel enough and I don’t know how it ever could be really. And to be honest, I AM SO FUCKING SICK AND TIRED OF HAVING TO ACCEPT the things I cannot change. Seriously over it. Especially when so many of them are unacceptable. Absolutely.
I am privileged to live in a place in the world that has been one of the most unaffected by Covid. I don’t underestimate that. And yet, Covid has slammed me. It’s the suspense of it. The not having control of it. The ‘SURPRISE! GLOBAL PANDEMIC’, uncertainty, insecurity, suspense of it. I hate surprises. Since roughly March – around the beginning of our Covid experience- last year the symptoms of my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder have been off the charts. My nightmares now are as bad as they were just after Daughter Number One died. The usual themes of loss and grief and powerlessness. Without exaggeration, as bad as they have ever been, My sleep varies in levels of shittiness all the time but is consistently the shittiest now. Getting to sleep. Staying asleep. The horrific nightmares really don’t help that.
As I am writing all this I am thinking of all the people who have been directly affected by Covid in the worst ways. I really don’t ever forget how lucky I have been. And I am grateful. Even though everything is not all about me, this is my place to write down how I feel. I guess if you think I am being too much of a selfish cow then you’ll stop reading?
You know what else isn’t all about me? A young friend who died of cancer last year, having fought it a couple of times before. He wasn’t a very close friend but a friend nevertheless. Genuinely one of THE MOST LOVELY and decent and kind people I have ever met in my life. Just a really GOOD person, you know? Someone whose mere existence makes the world a brighter place. Except he doesn’t now. Exist. Except in our hearts and memories. And that’s another thing I AM SO ANGRY about. IT’S SO UNFAIR. An exceptional human being, a young person with a young family, who every day was offering a helping hand to anyone who needed it. Who was clever and funny and brave. Who believed in the greater good and put those beliefs into action. When I think of all the arseholes still out there walking around IT MAKES ME FURIOUS!
At his funeral service the religious person officiating said he had tried to have conversations with this exceptional human being regarding their beliefs and that the exceptional human being had ‘refused to be drawn’ but that his family could have hope that he would be entering the gates of heaven, despite being noncommittal. I’m paraphrasing but that was the gist.
This absolutely INCENSED me! As I said, I wasn’t lucky enough to call the exceptional human a close friend and we’d never spoken of religion. We spoke about his partner and the home they were making together and his overwhelming pride in his little toddler. We swapped memes. Did each other the odd favour. I don’t know what religious convictions he held or didn’t hold.
But here’s what I do know. Hypothetically speaking, if there is a heaven, this exceptional human spent his days walking the walk. I don’t expect he was a perfect person, there’s no fun in that. But a genuinely decent person who lived his life with joy and appreciation and in active fellowship with the rest of us. IF there is a heaven then, by God (ha!), this person should be guaranteed entry. Not because he spouted the company line – which he may have done, I don’t know – but because he lived his life in a way that represents what all that stuff is actually meant to mean!
IF there is a heaven then his family shouldn’t have to hope anything! IF there’s a heaven it should be rolling out the red carpet and escorting him to the VIP lounge, ffs!
I was watching an episode of House the other day. House was talking about the lack of dignity in death. I think that’s right. There are certainly more dignified ways to die than others but, yes, I agree, the dignity is in how you choose to live.
In the last almost twelve months of Covid, like many others, I haven’t been able to travel to people I love. Some people I love have gone through/are going through extremely difficult times and I can’t go and be with them. Or hug them. I can’t get to them – another trigger. And again, my privilege acknowledged. I haven’t missed any weddings or funerals or births. I’ve gotten off easily, I know! The irony of me whinging about the effect ON ME of not being able to get to people I love to support them in THEIR time of need is not lost to me. This is an extremely self centred post. I’m not perfect either.
Another dearest heart, beautiful human – another exceptional being I am proud to call my friend – is dying as we speak. A kindred spirit, someone I felt a strong connection to the first time we met. Again, a bright, witty, giving human. Again it’s cancer, although they have lived a longer life than my younger friend. And I know, I know, we are all dying, day by day. I know that. But, yeah, there are more dignified ways to go and cancer is just not one of them. And my friend, who has lived a colourful and inspirational life, looked me in the eyes and said “It’s not fair!”. And they are right, it’s not fair. It is the opposite of fair. The furtherest away from fair it’s possible to get, if you ask me. And that makes me angry too. REALLY FUCKING ANGRY.
And sad and helpless and hopeless. I am still doing all the things. All the things I have learned, over all the years and all the traumas and all the fucking accepting of things I cannot fucking change. I’m still focusing my energy on things bigger than me – although this pity party post probably suggests otherwise. I’m still DOING. ALL. THE. THINGS. Putting my energy into things and people that matter to me. Taking photos. Taking medication. Writing here. Blaring songs on repeat. Like ‘The Middle’ by Jimmy Eat World.
I’m just angry. I’m just sad. I’m just tired. And my Daughter Number One’s birthday is in less than two weeks. Which probably isn’t helping. We will celebrate having known her at all and the time we had with her. But she still won’t be here anymore. It still won’t be fair. And I will still be angry. Because she deserved better. She deserved more. A lot of us do. But we play the hands we are dealt the best that we can. And we keep going, because it’s all we can do. And we choose love, because in the end the love is what we leave behind.
Safe onward travel x
HAVE A HOLLY, JOLLY CHRISTMAS 💜
This morning I woke up to a video that had been posted in the private facebook group I set up, for people who love/d my Daughter Number One, to share memories of her. It’s been seventeen and a half years since Daughter Number One was murdered and it’s so incredibly touching to me that I still get posts like this! Today’s post was a video of a performance Sam did at six and a half, with her dance school. In the entire video she jumps out of the screen! I can almost touch her! One of my longest serving and dearest friends wrote:
And that’s it, in a nutshell. It’s who my Daughter was, and how she lived her life.
People are still finding me here and reading those posts and I appreciate that more than I can say. Especially because I haven’t been writing very regularly. So, whoever you are, however you found me and wherever you are from; thank you for stopping by!
This year has been crazy for all of us and Daughter Number Two being a teenager combined with my stuff I do with PFLAG take up a lot of my time and energy. In good and positive ways! The rest of it goes on living. Putting one foot in front of the other to get to the other side. I’ve spoken before about the fact I used to be a Christmas freak, with an extensive and valuable Christmas ornament collection. Like birthdays, and any other special event really, things are different now. Forever harder. I bought a rainbow Christmas tree and matching baubles. Only a tiny thing, maybe 50cms tall, if that? But it’s laying on it’s side in the loungeroom and the baubles are still packed beside it. It used to be a huge night, decorating the tree. My birthday is in early December so usually to coincide with that we would decorate the tree. All the decorations. All the memories that came with them. Now, like everything else, I do the best I can with what I have. And I’ll get to the tree before the day itself – better late than never, right?
A few posts back I wrote about reconnecting with someone I had known about thirty five years ago. We reconnected to find we had both found our way to the other side of the country and currently live a stone’s throw from each other! Life is so weird! Anyway, I received an invitation from him to his Christmas event. Although we have written to each other, just after Daughter Number One’s murder for a couple of years, and in more recent times, we hadn’t actually seen each other since our private Catholic school days thirty five years ago. There were a lot of people at the event, which I don’t do well at all, but I got to meet his lovely husband and I watched him move around his home, playing host. And he was so different but still so very much the same. Despite exceeding my level of comfort by a good measure I was so glad I had gone, glad he had thought to ask me, and happy to see where he is now!
Lots of us have our holiday plans up in the air or completely changed, thanks to Covid 19. I am lucky to live in one of the most controlled places on earth and I don’t, for one moment, under appreciate how lucky we are. There are loved ones I can’t go and see this year. So many people I don’t get to hug. But I can’t dwell on the hard bits too much. We just have to do the best we can with what we have. The best we can for all of us collectively, not individually. I’ve always been a big picture girl but that doesn’t mean restrictions don’t hurt. It is what it is though, right? Stay safe. Think about others. Play your part.
Live life like my Sam. Bring laughter and happiness to those around you while having a blast at the same time! It won’t always be easy, sometimes it will be the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do. But it will be what the people you love remember. And it will be what they hang onto when things are tough. It will be what you hang onto as well. Because the presents will get opened, the day will pass. The dates on our calendars will change. Covid will become more managed. Life will go on. But the love we generate will be what stays.
Health and happiness to you and yours! Safe onward travel x
A THOUSAND YEARS GO BY BUT LOVE DON’T DIE.
You can box it in
Bury it in the ground
You can close it off and turn it away
Try to keep it down, six feet in the ground
But love don’t die
Love Don’t Die – The Fray
Wear it Purple Day was on Friday the 28th August. It’s a day to celebrate diversity and most particularly young people who are part of the LGBTIQA+ community. Wearing purple and holding events to be very vocal and visible about the fact that there is love and acceptance out there. That even if you feel alone right now there’s a whole community of family you just haven’t met yet.
I started the day helping Daughter Number Two get ready for the events she had helped organise for her school and made her pose for photos before she left.
That evening, with a friend apiece in tow, we headed off to join the Youth Pride Network’s Pot Luck get together. YPN are on facebook and are an exceptional bunch of young people doing amazing things! Seriously, their knowledge and commitment is beyond impressive and I am always in awestruck admiration of it. Their pot luck event was held at Perth City Farm, a venue I had never been to before and it didn’t disappoint. I had been stressing all day about what to make to take for the pot luck dinner; budget and time being restrictions. But I remembered I had fettuccine and pesto in the pantry and threw that together. During the course of the evening I watched people loading their plates with generous amounts of my simple dish and it made me feel warm and fuzzy! Food is definitely one of my love languages! Some genius with a patience level I don’t possess had made rainbow jellies! Sooooo pretty!
After the YPN event we had tickets to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Girls School Cinema – a venue I have had the pleasure of previously! It is, as it says on the box, an old girls school that transforms into a seasonal cinema. It is fabulously spooky and rich in history and, whatever movie you are there to see, it those facts definitely add to the atmosphere. Daughter Number Two’s friend had never seen Rocky Horror before and it was, as always, a kick to introduce him to some history and culture and listen to him muse about the impact this film must have had on release. Without a doubt we celebrated Wear it Purple Day in style! I was exhausted but happy as we arrived home.
I’ve been stumbling through 2020, as I established in my last post. Since I last wrote we have moved house. It’s a good move and I love the new place but still, moving is stressful and change can be hard. In the photo from my last post you can see the little trouble maker we adopted just before Covid 19 changed the world forever. His name is Zorro and I adore him! He is happiest when he is snuggled up with me and sleeping and I am happy to oblige him in that endeavour as often as possible. He is an emotional support/ therapy dog without credentials. Just stroking him, playing with his ears or holding his little paws and playing with his toe beans (which he indulges me in all the time!) or listening to his soft snoring, calms me and grounds me.
When we arrived home very early Saturday morning Zorro was his usual beyond excited self to see us and did his happy dance and gave us lots of kisses. When I was ready I let him outside to go to the bathroom. I took some things upstairs and came down to let him inside for bed. Except he wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the backyard at all! I realised the side gate was open and he was gone. Daughter Number Two and I started looking for him in the park next door but after 15 – 20 minutes of nothing I called in My Love and his daughter to help. By this time I was beyond hysterical. Zorro is only a small boy and it was a windy and rainy night. I had assumed he had just taken the opportunity for a romp in the park but when I couldn’t see him or hear him in the park or the surrounding streets I began to get really worried.
After TWO HOURS of searching and thanks only to My Love driving further than either of us thought he could ever had been we found the little bugger! He was trotting down an island in the middle of a main road; cold, scared but miraculously unharmed, over a kilometre from home.
On the other hand, I had died a thousand deaths and probably aged ten years. As PTSD has wired my brain to do, every memory involving loss and guilt that I have stored away was matched to the feelings I experienced in those two hours. For those of you playing along, you’ll know there’s a few such memories. “This is the same as that! This is the correct response!” Even once he was safely home and none the worse for his adventure my mind still raced along with my heart.
One particular memory stood out. It happened when my beautiful first born Daughter was four. It was a weekend morning, about six months into my relationship with her murderer. I was in bed with him when Sam walked into the room. We said our good mornings and I remarked that we needed milk. In jest I said “Do you mind popping down to the shops to get some Sammie?” and the the small talk moved on. Sam left the room and I got up to make her breakfast.
Except I couldn’t find her. She wasn’t in the house. She wasn’t in the yard. Like a bolt of lightning it hit me that she may well have just gone to get the milk! To the local supermarket, several blocks and busy roads away. My heart in my mouth, I was paralysed by terror. Her murderer leapt to action and shot off to look for her. Do you know how fucked up it feels to write that sentence? To have that memory? And he found her, safe and sound, on her little trike, with her little bag, almost at the shops and cool as a cucumber! Like her mother, Sam was always a ‘Why not?’ kind of girl.
I, at the time, naturally beat myself up for my offhand comment and, even midst my relief that she was fine, whipped myself with thoughts of what could have happened to her, as mother’s often do.
Now, with this memory on repeat in my head and all jumbled up- the memory of the rush of relief as her murderer brought her safely home, my guilt for being a bad mother, anger and breath taking grief that ten years later the man who ‘saved’ her on that occasion would take her life, guilt for being a bad mother – I do not have the words to begin to tell you how seriously this memory fucked me over.
The day after Zorro ran away I stayed in bed, only getting up to make meals and eat with Daughter Number Two. I mostly slept. Today is the day after that and still I am a mess. My entire body is so sore and stiff. My head hurts and my chest feels like what I imagine it feels like to be kicked there by a horse. Every muscle, every joint, feels as if it is on fire. I cancelled plans I had yesterday and have tried to take today quietly but it will still be some time, probably, before I feel ok again. I don’t need to exaggerate how debilitating this is. If you know, then you know and if you don’t- lucky you! – it is probably beyond comprehension how quickly and thoroughly your own brain can you hobble you. Last week I was shopping in Coles with My Love and a song that had played at Sam’s funeral started playing. I burst into tears and couldn’t move for a while. In the middle of Coles. My Love just held me and only remarked once that it was a very long song! I just suffered a migraine from that experience but it was still enough to knock me out for the rest of that evening.
Because we moved there have been things to sort and unpack. So many memories. It makes it heavy going. Today I was reading through some letters from someone I loved dearly. I realised we are 18 months off thirty years since we met. Son Number Two, with whom I was pregnant when my friend died, will be twenty two years old tomorrow. Life goes on. On the back of one of his letters my friend wrote “Yes I’m still alive! Ha!” and I know that he is, in my heart and my memory. So is Sam, in the hearts and memories of so many. Love doesn’t die. It is what remains. It can still hurt like a bitch though!
Safe onward travel x
OOH BABY BABY, IT’S A WILD WORLD.
CW: Violence, child death, trauma, grief.
It’s surely a billionty years since I last wrote and a whole new world we are living in. I think of all the things I should be doing. Could be doing. My house should be immaculate with all the cupboards sorted. I could be reading all the books. Making and creating. Getting fitter and healthier. Baking!
But actually I am just getting through one day to the next. The Coronavirus situation is so hugely out of my control. I know, it’s out of everyone’s control. I am frustrated beyond belief with my reaction to it. Every day I vow to do better. Be better. Still I feel stuck in a holding pattern.
It’s just so triggering you see. The powerlessness. The lack of control. The anxiety and uncertainty. The massive demarcation of before and after coupled with the ever excruciating feeling of being in limbo.
It brings back all the feelings I had around Sam’s murder. The night she was killed I waited and waited for her to get home. Not knowing. Not understanding. Then, when I was told she was gone there was a two week wait for the autopsy to be performed, so any plans for a service had to wait. Then after my brilliant and beautiful Daughter was cremated – more than she had been in the burning wreck of the car that was used to kill her – we had to wait ten months for the inquest.
The pathologist who conducted the autopsy had retired before completing a good number of post mortem reports. Until it was completed the inquest could not be held. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
The family law proceedings Sam’s murderer’s mother brought against me couldn’t be finalised until after the inquest. Until they were finalised I was legally bound to stay in the area that held so many memories for me. Memories that destroyed me on a daily basis. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
All of these feelings and memories triggered by what is happening now, to the point of paralysis almost. I cannot kick my brain into gear. My mental functioning is operating on a very basic level because my entire body is on high alert in response to imminent danger. Fighting that is exhausting! I try. I do try. Coupled with insomnia and nightmares of a level that sort of impresses me when I disassociate enough to contemplate them. That constant panicky feeling of not being able to physically go to people who are dear to me.
I’m writing this for those of you who are struggling. For whatever reason. I write it for those of you who are grieving; for lost loved ones, lost incomes, lost feelings of safety. I write it because the beautiful Lori wrote a facebook post shortly after this began that resonated with me so deeply that I remembered I wasn’t alone in this grey in-between world. As always I am also writing for myself. So that I can empty out my head a bit and drag these things into the light. Speak their name so they lose their power. Somewhat.
I count my blessings. I am geographically blessed. I am able to spend time with two of my children while being comforted that Son Number One’s daily routine has not changed much and, something that has caused me past sadness, is protecting him now. I have only had friend’s of friends contract Coronavirus so far. What a privilege that is, really. I have a roof over my head and food to eat. Clean water and power.
Life goes on. For those of us still breathing it goes on. Whether we want it to or not. So I fight, really hard. to hang on to the love. Because that’s what remains after life has gone. When everything else feels too slippery to get a grip on the love is still there. I put one foot in front of the other. I get up and do the best that I can. I try.
Just before Coronavirus took hold of the world I had a message from a friend I hadn’t had contact with for almost seventeen years. He’d sent me something by mail and had it returned to him. He’d contacted a mutual friend who had a phone number for me, that remains my phone number still, and sent me a message to ask for my current address. When the package from him arrived it contained not only a gloriously hand written letter but a book that I had given him to read shortly after Sam was murdered. It is a book called The Tao of Pooh. He also included copies of a couple of letters I had written to him during the same period. In the intervening years he had moved, literally, from one end of the country to another. All the while my little book travelled with him, cared for respectfully until he returned it safely to me. One of the best parts was the discovery that he now lives only suburbs away from me! So very far from where we both began! I was touched beyond measure by this unexpected and overwhelming gift of kindness. Also awed by ripples in the pond of life we make that travel so much further than we can ever truly comprehend.
I was awake in the early hours of the morning- naturally- the other night when a message flashed up from the son of one of my best friends of over thirty years. He was writing to share his excitement at the news he was to become a father! It was so lovely to talk to him and hear his happiness! Life goes on. Love goes on.
There are things I am unable to do at the moment but there are always things to be learned. I hope we can hang on to the things we’re learning from this. While almost every artist, writer, musician and creative human I know is setting up Patreon accounts and asking for donations via PayPal, the rest of us are clinging on to books and music and movies to try to retain our sanity. The Arts have had their funding stripped and been deprioritised by our current government and the Coronavirus financial assistance currently in place does not cover them. The Arts go to the very core of what it is to be human and my hope is that, out of this, we can raise our voices to make our representatives acknowledge that.
Also worth remembering is the blatantly obvious fact that our social security safety net was not actually enough to live on. When the realisation came that thousands would lose their employment, you know, regular good people who weren’t deliberately disabled, uneducated, single parents or just too lazy to find a job, the payments were raised so that people might actually have a chance to survive economically. Who knew that this would have the added benefit of stimulating our economy? Astounding!
We should also remember that the heroes we recognise now are ALWAYS heroes, just usually behind the scenes. The doctors, nurses, all hospital workers, the teachers and child care educators, the checkout chicks and shelf stackers and trolley boys. All of the people who have suddenly become ‘essential workers’, who are literally putting their own lives on the line to help the rest of us. Maybe they are too scared of losing their income – some of them aren’t making the choice to be heroes, they just want to keep paying their rent but they are still risking their lives, either way. Women and young people, statistically speaking, feature highly in the numbers of ‘everyday heroes’ we are relying on so heavily at the moment. Maybe we should remember to pay them what they are actually worth?
While our government has had to take a break from attempting to legislate vulnerable members of the community into second class citizens, those same sections of the community are part of that essential workforce who aren’t stopping to ask whether you approve of their sexuality or acknowledge their gender before they save your life. It’s ironic but true, people who have faced adversity themselves are usually the first ones to put their hands up to help others. The beautiful spirit who is Johnny Valkyrie being a shining example of that and putting out some great resources on facebook!
The Australia that I hope we can become is the one in the posts made by some of the almost one million members of the facebook page ‘Bin Isolation Outing’, it’s there in the posts on various ‘Kindness Pandemic’ Facebook pages and it’s there in the people who are painting rainbows on footpaths and putting teddy bears in windows. Sometimes the worst brings out the best in us. Mateship and solidarity. A fair go.
We are AMAZING when we work together!
Be gentle with yourselves and others. Safe onward travel x
KEEP ON KEEPING AT WHAT YOU LOVE.
These are some of the things I have been up to lately:
https://www.outinperth.com/the-big-lgbtiq-issues-discussed-at-better-together-2020/
What Kate Did Next 