I'm a little sickie, short and stout ...

Sorry for the MIA status for the last week and a bit. I had a severe allergic reaction to Wattle ( a reminder that Australia has some dangerous stuff), a usually innocuous national flower - unless of course, you are allergic to it like I am. The pollen infiltrated (there is no other way to describe it) my lungs, got infected and lo and behold, I am struck down with pneumonia. This,of course, made the asthma that has not bugged me for decades rear its ugly head.

I am getting back on track, thankfully, and am busy trying to finish my next piece. I hope none of you thought I was being rude, I was just totally incapacitated.

Food for thought

Polly and Me.

If you're in Australia and get ABC1 watch it and continue the effort to break the cycle.

Inside you there is strength.

Shaun Tan's The Red Tree is one of those amazing children's books that transcends all age and generational barriers to speak to the world. Some say that it speaks of hope in a cruel world, others find it full of existential angst; yet most, if not all who find it, feel compelled to own it.

When I first found it tucked high on a shelf at the back of a bookstore, I knew I had to have it. The cover caught me, in fact it grabbed me by the chest and clung on until it had convinced me that I needed this book in my home.

I had no children, so many people did not understand my obsession with children's books, but this book, like so many others spoke to me.

It told me that sometimes bad stuff happens to good people and no-one seems to notice.

It told me that even though I could be drowning in sorrow, there was always something there for me to grab on to.

It told me that buried deep within me was a spark of strength that had seen me through the almost intolerable pain I was forced to swallow, and bury, each and every day.

It told me that this strength was something so magical, something so wondrous, that I only had to wait and I would be free to enjoy it.

You need this book in your collection, there is no other comment that will do this justice. The illustrations in themselves speak volumes. Shaun Tan's insightful comments manage to remind us all of the often bleak way the world behaves. It is up to us to change the world; one red tree at a time.

I love the way you lie?

I like Eminem, I really do. And I am sure this is 'just' poetic licence, but there is something bothering me about it. It bothers me tremendously that radio stations are giving this song air play, but no-one discusses the absolute truth about domestic violence (henceforth known as DV). It bothers me that people talk about how wonderful Rihanna and Megan Fox are in bringing people's attention to DV. It bothers me that only those not affected by DV are the first to talk about how wonderfully this song brings up the discussion.

The thing is though, all people are doing is discussing this song. Yes, it's catchy. Too catchy. So catchy in fact, that I am ashamed to find it stuck in my head.

And I guess if it's good enough for Rihanna to sing about ... well. Oh, and Rihanna and Megan so generously gave to DV foundations ... I should stop, I am going to sound cynical.

DV and romance only go together in music clips. The trouble is, when they are there together, and placed togther so well, people forget what DV actually is.

And like Eminem's work, mine now needs a language warning.

*SERIOUS language warning ...*

Domestic Violence isn't something you would actually want to experience.

Domestic Violence isn't romantic.

Domestic Violence isn't something we, as a society, are actually dealing with.

Domestic Violence IS:

A punch to the face in the middle of the night.

Someone you love calling you a stupid fucking cunt of a child, and you thinking that it means 'I love you'.

Watching a child being thrown across a room.

Hiding behind a shower curtain.

Wetting your pants while being belted.

Blood dripping down your head.

Wishing you were dead.

Being ripped out of your bed at 2.00 in the morning.

Never sleeping.

Being hit.

Being kicked.

Being belted until you bleed.

Being thrown.

Being broken.



I know a lot of people will not like this post. I know some people will say that in order to heal, one must move on. Others will find this a confronting, negative post, and will not return.

I am taking a risk.

I have moved on, to a point. One must NEVER forget. One is duty bound to ensure that it never happens again, and in that, I have an obligation to be honest. In this case, the truth hurts very much.

Eminem - I do not like the way you have lied.

A person's a person, no matter how small- Dr. Suess

I cried, but you chose not to see.

I wept, but you chose not to hear.

I reached for your hand, but you waited for someone else to steady my fall.

Who am I?

 

I am the child who you ignored.

I am the child whose parents you prayed for.

I am the child who you thought deserved it.

I am the child whose parents you didn't want to upset.

I am the child who never understood why I was left there.

I am the child who cried herself to sleep.

I am the child whose job it was to console my siblings.

I am the child who was scared.

I am the child who listened to the names she was called and believed them.

I am the child who has a high pain threshold.

I am the adult whose heart is hurting, not from my childhood, but from listening to others justifying why they ignored a child in need.

I am the adult who wishes that someone bothered to hurt his feelings because maybe then everything would have been better.

I leave my shoes on the doorstep every night.

They are painful, and hurt my feet.

I do not ask that you walk a mile in my shoes; I only ask that you stop these shoes from being made.

 

Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime.

--Herbert Ward

There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.

--Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa 

I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection.

-- Sigmund Freud

All those writers who write about their childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn't sit in the same room with me.

--Dorothy Parker

My childhood was a period of waiting for the moment when I could send everyone and everything connected with it to hell.

-- Igor Stravinsky

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. 

--Frederick Douglass

The most important question in the world is, 'Why is the child crying?'

--Alice Walker

Safety and security don't just happen; they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. We owe our children, the most vulnerable citizens in our society, a life free of violence and fear.

-- Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa 

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.

-- Albert Einstein, physicist 

There's more to doing good than hating evil.

-- Anonymous 

Failures are divided into two classes — those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.

-- John Charles Salak, author 

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.

-- Edmund Burke, author and philosopher 

Be the change that you want to see in the world.

-- Mohandas Ghandi, political and spiritual leader in India 

 

 

A sad turn of events.

I write, I read, I aim to change the world.

I teach.

And it is there that I see so much that just saddens me. Children who can't read, parents who are too busy trying to blame someone else, teachers who just don't have the time to fix the problem. Teenagers who are essentially illiterate; people who will probably never be able to functionally read, let alone enjoy the beauty that can be the written word.

These people will never see the world I see, never live in the world that I live in. They know it too, and they are angry, but pretend that they don't care, that it doesn't matter, that being illiterate is actually cooler than you or I think.

I am not fooled. I will keep trying. I may not be as successful as I want to be, but I will try.

And I wonder ... could I actually write something for one of them? Firstly, I've got to get them to read.

If you can read you are richer than any man, woman or child in the world.

If you can read you have more opportunities for change than those who are not privy to this secret world.

If you can read, you get to live wherever you like, see whatever it is you want to see, and feel whatever it is you'd like to feel.

If you can read you are free.

Reason # 450,000 for having a child

After a terrible and demoralising day at work, I sat down with DH and my little angel for dinner. Tacos. They are her favourite as she can make them up herself; pre-schoolers and independence are an on/ off commodity that can change on a whim, so we embrace it when it works for us. But I digress, Em was given a melamine plate that I had decorated in grade four. She loves it as it has a rainbow on it, and she currently loves painting rainbows all the while singing about how, and I quote, "I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too."

Like any person who has had an energy draining day at work, filled with blockers and naysayers and assumption makers, I sat eating my dinner, contemplating how I could debrief with my family without everything turning into a whinge-fest. So there I sat, in a contemplative stare, when I noticed the plate. Memories of grade four, being raced by my mum to my little sister's kinder program to create a plate template as my mum didn't want me to 'miss out', came flooding back. That plate always annoyed me. I was so stressed at the time trying to think of something 'good' to put on the silly thing, that I totally panicked when I realised I was running out of time. I decided to 'just do a rainbow'. Even then it annoyed me as 'so obvious for a girl to do', and to be honest, I wasn't even a 'rainbow type girl' (is that a term?) that I had feelings of betrayal for my own self at the time. I am sure I have put a few adult words into what was, essentially, an emotional experience for a 9 year old, but you get the gist (I hope).

And here is where I get to reason # 450,000 for having a child. While I sat there, stewing about my day, letting feelings of regret and annoyance from 1984 swamp my already tainted feelings, I blurted out that I really don't like that plate. Three and a half year olds don't let you drop a bombshell like that and not explain it, so I was asked the now obligatory, "why?" I rambled on and on with my little story, about how I felt rushed, and disappointed with the end result – all very 'woe is me'. Cue compassionate voice of an angel:

"It doesn't matter mummy, I like it."

Now I don't cry; it is a rare occurrence, but this made me tingle and tears of joy filled my eyes.

Reason # 450,001 would have to be the proud smile from her when I told her that she fixed the day for me. It takes a strong person to be able to change a whole day, and that three and a half year old is one of the strongest people I know.