Just because..it made me laugh

Here We Go Again

So, here we go again, singing that old time song again....
It has been an interesting week, full of travelling along the awful, abortion of a road that will be claimed by BOTH State Governments as their idea and their success whilst the rest of us groan under its wrongness. By-passes may seem undemocratic, or un-capitalistic, or un-involved with community or some-darn-thing...but when it comes to local traffic the death of ONE ten month old is a bridge too far.

So we are not to get our 'by-pass' ( and it being discussed since, to my own personal knowledge, 1965) even though this has been a rusted on National Party seat since...well ....since it was formed in some part of the previous century. Stupid stupid stupid to hang on to ONE political party for ...ever, no matter which side...coz they really really do take us, the voter, for granted.

So here we go again, buzzing along in the second hand car again. ( Well actually it is probably third hand, but whose counting).
And there sitting in the South somewhere is a sibling who thinks a disabled person owning two TWO (2) cars is just not on....'Get rid of one' he says, like he has had some kind of say in my financial, or practical, or supportive life over the past some sixty years. STFU is my first and honest reaction. I don't say that of course; I say; Yeah we are thinking about it ...might give it to our daughter..after all she has our father's old car...how old is that? Um....25 years old. ( Not saying; you ever helped her, or me, or us, or anyone in the family apart from your kids??then STFU).

So here we go again.
Hydro therapy finished but we are still full on driving the 40 mins to the local centre to dentists, physio, GP and pharmacy...and tomorrow , for me, counselling.

So here we go again, singing again from the counselling song sheet.
Why?
Because I loved , fell in love with, my first grandchild....and it has made me anxious, depressed and to have feelings of total uselessness and disrespect.

So off we go again.
And HWMBO (He Who Must Be Obeyed) is checked, double checked and tested for 'pernicious aneamia'...so GP says to me; You need to have a break. I say; But I love being with HWMBO and he said; NO, I mean a break for illness, your man's illnesses....

How did he know.
So;
Here we go again....and I am gathering my loins, my internal organs and my heart fot the next demands.

Bits and Pieces

I am now fifty nine. My last year in my fifties.

My son is still in South Korea.

My daughter is still in Sydney but now the Assistant Director of "Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre" in Liverpool, NSW but still involved in new Australian theatre projects the latest being 'A View From Moving Windows'.

My baby girl is in Melbourne, Married and now the mother of my first grandchild.

And we are still here.

I do some ironing now and again for a few pennies and my dog is still keeping me centred.

My man has been to hell and back AGAIN and he is on a new treadmill of worry which we shall face.

And I am still sick of those who would 'Pollyanna' me to death.
I am still heading off for counselling and instead of being told to 'snap out of it' or 'others have it harder than you' or 'be grateful for what you have' or blah-bullshit-blah..I am told most people have two major incidences in their lives to deal with. I have had at least SIX. This puts me into the realm of 'PTSD'. So all that 'get on with it' and 'move on' actually damaged me further.

Getting validation is an amazing gift. It frees you to think differently about how things have been going for you.
Getting validation means someone recognises what my life has been and says; that is pure shit, and then begins the skills to deal with it.

So here I am still with my man, still hanging in there even when it all seems so difficult and extremely unfair. It is usually those whose 'plans' in life have panned out and generally have gone in the direction of their control who tell those whose haven't, 'god doesn't give that which you can't deal with'...etc...well I can tell you; there is NO god and if there was he is a right bastard.

And so I move on because of the work I do and because I want to get through this.

Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre
A View From Moving Windows

Equality

So our 'democratic' Parliament voted NO to Marriage Equality.
This was NOT democracy in action.
This was political expediency at best, and hypocrisy at worst.

Our representatives were asked to go back to their electorates and find out what the majority wanted them to do.
The majority ( 60% of all Australians) want Marriage equality for our Gay brothers and sisters.

Marriage Equality is one of the last bastions of freedom for a mature, caring and democratic nation and what does our (atheist) Prime Minister do? What does our (staunch Catholic) Leader of the Opposition do? They hypocritically refuse to accept that Marriage Equality has to do with human rights and less to do with religion or politics.

It makes me sick and angry and disgusted. That a Prime Minister, a women ( who should know better about inequality), an atheist ( who should know better about inequality), and unmarried ( who should know better about inequality) who lives in the "Lodge" of the Prime Ministership with her partner, Tim ( paid for by the tax payers) and who has no children (should know better).

It makes me sick and angry and disgusted that the Leader of the Opposition, a Catholic ( who should know about inequality and the dangers of past experiences within his church of inequal status....), a male ( who may never know the feeling of inequality), who is married with a wife and children ( should know better the importance of recognition of committment within ones loving life), and is a brother ( who should know better since his own sibling is gay) decided against allowing his party members who represent the Australian people, decided against giving them a 'conscience vote'. Knowing that many of them are FOR marriage equality he refused and they refused to stand up ethically and be counted with those who believe the law should include those who love and want committed relationships to be overtly noted in our Society.

And our own PM saying she did not believe in Marriage Equality after she can CHOOSE to marry or not ( she has chosen NOT to) but refuses the right to a section of our community simply because they are GAY.

She is wrong.
He is wrong.
They are wrong.

Our minister for Finance and Deregulation is a gay women and her and her partner have just had a baby together. What does that say about our PM and what does she say to Penny? How can there be mutual respect?

This is so fucked up.
This is so pathetically obviously that it has nothing to do with legal matters, our society, what the Australian people want but is purely a politcal decision/vote based on fear of the bloody Imaginery Friend beleivers.
This is fucked up.

Grandmother/Nana

I am a grandmother.
The little chap arrived three weeks and four days early.
He arrived FAST!
He was traumatised by such a fast birth, had low glucose levels ( no energy), was not breathing and had no sucking reflex.

His mother, my daughter was traumatised. They whisked him away and she was not 'bonded' to the little addition. She 'paid' for that for over a month.

We got there ( 1300klms away) three days after he was born.
I walked into the hosptial room held my daughter tight, then turned and picked up a tiny baby crying in his bassinette.
I was gone.

My whole being, my whole stomach, my whole heart turned over in desparation upon touching this little new body.

From then on being so far from home, in someone elses house, with a new dynamic I was lost.
No-one, no-one ever told me this was how 'grandparent-hood' was going to be.

It was tense, stressful, stress filled and tight.

I was at once out of my depth and as well as being right in there where it felt right.

But I was not right.

She/they did not ask anything of me. I watched and waited and waited and watched, gritting my teeth, holding my breath, staring with a sense of a long wait for them to turn and say;
We have never done this before; We do not know what we are doing: I, the new mother needs you to steer this little new ship toward independence of care: I, the new father had never held a baby before let alone a newborn and I am scared.

They did not.

I waited and my man cooked and wiped the benches, I cleaned the bathroom and put on the washing; waiting waiting waiting for all our experience, our knowledge, our love to be called upon.
I read the 'latest' books on breast feeding, care, growth and information on 'precipitous childbirth' and brushed up on my knowledge.
I waited.
I became anxious and fractious. I argued once or twice with the new father over something silly; ( the door should be closed, it is winter and there is a slight breeze coming in when baby is being changed;. he is tiny, thin, new...he needs warmth)
The new father ( a good man) is a professional..works with facts, figures and definites. He cannot be told anything! He has to learn surruptitiously...like HE has thought of everything possible and HE has come to the RIGHT answer.

I back off.
I then am asked to apologise.
This breaks my spirit.
Of course I apologise, but it costs....ME.

I finally (after a week or so) sit down with my daughter and say;
I need to tell you; "I am an elder of the tribe. Without the older women to teach the younger women babies would die. I shall tell you what I think about the little one, but will not say anything about the two parents.If i see something that may not be right for bub, I will speak up. Otherwise I will shut up"
She said; Ok.

Two weeks later we leave and drive the three day drive back home.

Now I am anxious. I am traumatised by the rip in the fabric of my heart. I was bonded, I fell deeply in love...I have heard others say this is so...but NO ONE ever said that there is this disconnect, the unspoken line, this fragile relationship, new between your child and you. The border of overstepping the mark and crashing to oblivion never to see or hear again because you are soooo far away.

I am going to counselling..if the govt grants me permission.

I am anxious and teary.

I am afraid and it is too complex to explain.

So I am writing to my blog.

Coz I need to say it all, over and over and over.
I tried again today to 'help' online with a crying non sleeping baby. I heard his cries over the phone.....it made my stomach ache and made me cry.
I walked the God-ess in hope that that would release the anxiety. It did a little. I have to stop this...

And it is only one of many of my anxieties...my life is exhausting.

What my eldest daughter does

This is what my daughter does ...her passion.
I will be seeing her all the way down here in Melbourne, 1300 klms from where we live and 700klms from where she lives. We are coming together due to the birth of her little sister's major production; A grandson for us and a nephew for her.

I am proud and pleased she still does that which delights and causes her great joy, through the angst, pain and frustration.

S'Been

From the near death of my husband, to the rising from the anger and fear, to the visit from far away of our very pregnant daughter through to all the counselling sessions I have felt the first part of this year race by without a blink.

Life is still full of words for me. Words in my head, moving around as do I, through space and time and experiences. Words make up long rambling sentences and reform as I refine the idea the feeling the thought and as soon as I am able I forget to sit and write.

I am at once frustrated and hankering to sit down and just be and to just write as I once did.

But time and health concerns, my duty as carer and organiser for the seemingly simple life we lead takes me over to another place and there becomes a slip of possibilities that fade and glide into the bright Australian sun. I squint but cannot any longer grasp into my being those winding sentences that are born of my growing understanding of who I am.

Whether it is on the shores of the great South Pacific or tramping the tarred road of my village, whether it be sitting in the local pubic hospital's foyer waiting ( twice a week) for him to be done with hydrotherapy. Each time I am on my own I can feel the rising need to form into language my observations that started me on this trek all those years ago.

I do miss the Frog but she is no longer who she was.
She has moved through, on and has somehow transcended her past persona. Now Polly struggles to get her head out from under to express her new found reasonings, her new exposed wing span and her newly emerging sense of self.

And so this is just another preamble for that which was my intent.

I wanted to talk about;
life and death and the whole damned painful thing where others see you and think you should 'pull yourself together' just when you are feeling the thread of your own sanity unwinding around the man you love as he lies there.
children and the pain they bring, the whole joy and gorgeousness that turns into anxiety and hungering for their safety and security.
parents and how you are somewhere when suddenly you can smell your mothers neck or feel you dad's look of love and you crumbled feeling life is too hard and 'can we please start again'?
dogs and how humans are really too too stupid to respect and wish them well. People are so buys anthromaphorsising them that they forget we are called to take care of the dumb animals. We need to remember we have a duty of care to give them their full dogginess and stop making them into little humans...they are NOT and by the way, they do not LOVE you!
upcoming grandparenthood. The fear of my little one as she prepares now for the inevitable. Through her I now see (yet again) how amazing women are. They know the pain is to come and yet they swallow hard and move toward the time. Men have NO idea. Not even in war do you know for sure that pain will be your birth by fire...it can and sometimes will, but with childbirth women KNOW it is a test of who they are as women....Women are truly amazing and so so self contained. Already I am learning (yet again) through my child.
politics. How disappointed, sad, frustrated and dispairing it is to have a atheist female Prime Minister who does not 'put to bed' marriage equality. How long was the fight to rid the world of 'slavery'? Well it is still going...Let's not make the same mistake with this human right.
          The horror of knowing that the Opposition Leader is a card carrying Catholic who has such a narrow view of life and experience that he cannot see past his own penis. I feel this is being reflected in USA especially the new fight (AGAIN) for the rights of Women. Michigan silencing a woman for saying the word VAGINA in its legislature. How frightened these men must be of women and their bodies, of science ( it is the correct term for the birth passage...but usually Americans mean the Vulva when saying 'Vagina"), of reasoning ( God fucking this and God fucking that) and the sense of what is fair and right and equal.

Of course politics and religion can take up a huge part of my writing for the injustices are usually start, encouraged and perpetuated in those two sectors of our democracy.
Democracy. HUH. I have a lot to say about that too......I am mourning its passing in my Nation as the rich mining magnates take their piece, not just of Aboriginal land, but of the Mainstream Media's influence over the great unwashed.

And in the end it is about me and mine. My man, my life, my dog and me.

I shall try to unravel the sentences in my head and begin again.