Me: I'm back with a New Year's resolution to do a daily writing practice.
She: Welcome! How is it feeling?
Me: I'm determined to do this. Not in a blood and guts, bludgeoning kind of way, but in a purposeful, deliberate way. I have to write. I want to and need to do it. Words are my great love. Writing is a gift. And I have spent my whole life tangled up in knots about it. I'm 55 now, and if I'm lucky I'll have another 35 - 45 years left in me. Time to love this thing called writing, and do it for the love. Can I pull it off? Yes! All I need is a new sound track.
It's pretty devastating to realise the soundtrack that haunted my childhood is still broadcasting loud and clear 50 years later. Mine's nothing special, just a rendition of a Beatles hit from the 60s: "Then I saw my face!! I'm such a big loser!!" And actually, it's no longer loud, or clear. But it's still there, a low-level background rumble that's so familiar I don't notice it any more. Trouble is, the messaging, the words, carry clout, even when I'm not conscious of them.
So that loser sound track really has to go.
Something good has come from all this procrastinating over writing. I have been reading too much great quality Buddhist teaching, popular science and psychology, listening to many many Deepak Chopra Facebook videos... getting to grips with that question that's been bugging me since I was old enough to string thoughts together, "Who the fuck am I?"
The Buddhist teachers, the Buddha himself, Deepak Chopra and even the Dalai Lama have been very helpful with this. They all have different philosophies, but they all insist on one important point--I am not who I think I am. I am not who I've been told I am, or who I was expected or forced to be, or who I resigned myself to be. This is seriously great news, because I've been dragging around a suitcase of very awkward and heavy shit about this very subject. Back breaking, spirit breaking, nasty stinking lies perpetuated by the lyrics of my soundtrack. I believe those guys are right.
I am not a loser. I am not naughty or dirty. I am not bad or broken. I am not too serious. I am not too sensitive. I am not lazy. I am not lacking. I don't talk too much. I don't have my head in the clouds (actually, I do, and it's a perfectly fine place for my head to be.) I'm not too big for my boots. I'm not a smarty pants. I'm not funny (peculiar) to be worried about the meaning of life. I'm not anti-social. I'm not a freak for writing in a journal. I'm not a sinner, either. Or a slut. Oh yeah, and I'm not a disappointment, at least not to me.
Whew!! That's better out than in.
Deepak, the Buddhists, and the DL also all agree that I am wise, creative, compassionate, kind and loving -- sounds divine! We all are, at our core. Until we get brainwashed to think otherwise. So really, the work of life is to un-believe all that bullshite that's stuck to us over the years, and get back in touch with our gorgeous glorious divine insides.
That of course is at least half a life's work for some of us, maybe more. But it's good work. Honest work. So much better work than dragging around a couple of ton of toxic rocks.
I think my new sound track will be James Taylor's hit from 1975, "How sweet it is to be loved by me!"
Saturday, January 2, 2016
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Over the right shoulder
She: You're back.
Me: Hmmm. Yes. Reluctantly.
She: But you're here.
Me: I've been realising that avoiding writing is a habit, based on something, someone I think I am. Tied up with identity. Someone who's suffering, and thinks that writing will heal the suffering. But if I stop suffering, then who will I be? In some ways I think writing will save my life. I give it this tremendous weight and importance. And so I don't do it. I avoid and fear it instead.
It's exactly the same loop as the drinking/quitting drinking loop, except I cracked that one -- exposed it I suppose is a better way of putting it. I quit drinking, nearly 1,000 days ago. I needed to, wanted to, thought it would heal the suffering, had it all tied up with identity, thought it would save my life. Gave it tremendous weight and importance. All those things matter. They all happened. But quitting drinking wasn't conclusive in the way I expected it would be. It was just the end of one thing and the start of something else. Definitely something better. I never regret being a non-drinker. It's become normal. And I can learn from this.
Writing is just normal for me. It's not a huge shattering deal. It doesn't have to be at least. I can write because I'm drawn to it. I think I've been looking for more valid reasons for doing it.
She: what do you mean by "valid"?
Me: I've felt like I've needed a bloody good reason to write. To heal myself, to heal the world, to expose the truth, to make a living, to make an impression, to inspire, to entertain, to deal with the anger I still feel toward my parents, to make sense of life, to make something of my life, to leave something worthwhile behind, to validate myself somehow.
She: How does that feel?
Me: A huge burden. That's why I avoid it. Too much pressure.
She: Where is the pressure coming from?
Me: Interesting question. I can locate it in space over my right shoulder, about a meter away, higher up than me. I can't "see" it... like it doesn't have a shape or colour. But it does have a message.
She: ... which is?
Me: "You will NEVER be a writer."
She: How do you feel about that? Start in your body.
Me: Hot in the chest. Tightness around the shoulder blades. Fingers want to curl up. And toes. I'm actually feeling quite relaxed today, so I'm not having a huge reaction to be honest. It's pretty mild.
She: How does it feel mentally?
Me: Old and annoying, boring even. Incredibly strong. Like the grip of something dead. It can't let go. But it can't do anything else either. Powerful and powerless at the same time.
She: Good description.
Me: I can see it for what it is. A very old, strong, dead idea. That's all it is. How can I let go of it? How can I get it to let go of me? I don't know what to do.
She: Just keep writing.
Me: OK.
Me: Hmmm. Yes. Reluctantly.
She: But you're here.
Me: I've been realising that avoiding writing is a habit, based on something, someone I think I am. Tied up with identity. Someone who's suffering, and thinks that writing will heal the suffering. But if I stop suffering, then who will I be? In some ways I think writing will save my life. I give it this tremendous weight and importance. And so I don't do it. I avoid and fear it instead.
It's exactly the same loop as the drinking/quitting drinking loop, except I cracked that one -- exposed it I suppose is a better way of putting it. I quit drinking, nearly 1,000 days ago. I needed to, wanted to, thought it would heal the suffering, had it all tied up with identity, thought it would save my life. Gave it tremendous weight and importance. All those things matter. They all happened. But quitting drinking wasn't conclusive in the way I expected it would be. It was just the end of one thing and the start of something else. Definitely something better. I never regret being a non-drinker. It's become normal. And I can learn from this.
Writing is just normal for me. It's not a huge shattering deal. It doesn't have to be at least. I can write because I'm drawn to it. I think I've been looking for more valid reasons for doing it.
She: what do you mean by "valid"?
Me: I've felt like I've needed a bloody good reason to write. To heal myself, to heal the world, to expose the truth, to make a living, to make an impression, to inspire, to entertain, to deal with the anger I still feel toward my parents, to make sense of life, to make something of my life, to leave something worthwhile behind, to validate myself somehow.
She: How does that feel?
Me: A huge burden. That's why I avoid it. Too much pressure.
She: Where is the pressure coming from?
Me: Interesting question. I can locate it in space over my right shoulder, about a meter away, higher up than me. I can't "see" it... like it doesn't have a shape or colour. But it does have a message.
She: ... which is?
Me: "You will NEVER be a writer."
She: How do you feel about that? Start in your body.
Me: Hot in the chest. Tightness around the shoulder blades. Fingers want to curl up. And toes. I'm actually feeling quite relaxed today, so I'm not having a huge reaction to be honest. It's pretty mild.
She: How does it feel mentally?
Me: Old and annoying, boring even. Incredibly strong. Like the grip of something dead. It can't let go. But it can't do anything else either. Powerful and powerless at the same time.
She: Good description.
Me: I can see it for what it is. A very old, strong, dead idea. That's all it is. How can I let go of it? How can I get it to let go of me? I don't know what to do.
She: Just keep writing.
Me: OK.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
The whole point, and why I have two bums
All this time, all this struggling and effort clusters around one piece of annoying grit: what's the point? What's the point of anything? "Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?" as Stephen Hawking put it. And on a mini level, why do I go to all the bother of caring about why I exist and what it's all for and all about? I'm like a dog with a very juicy, indestructible bone, and I'm not the only one in the world. Not by any stretch.
I'm hung up on childhood. Why it was so weird. What was so weird about it. Am I a Benjamin Button who did all the grown up things first and get to do the child things now. I mean that's kind of happening, in a way, or could if I would let it.
Everywhere, even on public radio, we're bombarded with messages about respecting ourselves, trusting our intuition, following our hearts, being authentic. As a child I was aggressively brainwashed into distrusting myself, my intuition, my heart. The only thing to trust was adults, particularly parents but adults in general, and the Catholic church. Basically bad until you proved you were worthy, unlovable unless you behaved in certain slavish and demeaning ways, untrustworthy to the bone. Bad, wrong, naughty, untrustworthy.
Is it the intensity of the damage that comes with those messages that drives me toward finding some meaning. Is it the habit of looking for an answer -- an answer that someone else has, and I don't have, and I will unlikely get until I'm good enough which will probably be never?
I don't remember the polio injection story. I was just told it. But it might explain something about the separation I felt from mum all my life. One of the side effects of going to school was taking swimming lessons, which in turn involved being see naked or near naked by classmates. This what when I found out there was something wrong with my bottom, or my leg, depending on how you looked at it. I had a normal enough bottom, but on the left side, I appeared to have two bottoms, one about 8cm lower than the regular one. The flesh and skin on the left leg was pulled into a pursed mouth of a scar. Actually there are two scars, like two small smiles, etched into the top of my leg.
I don't remember who pointed it out or asked why I had two bums, but I do remember mum telling me that next time anyone brought it up I should tell them I was bitten by a shark at Oreti beach, and the scar was where its teeth went in. I was thrilled by this story, and I feel sure I showed off my shark bite to anyone who was interested, just to get the attention.
But the true story also came out. The scar was a polio vaccination injection gone wrong. New Zealand had a couple of polio epidemic in the 1950s (and several in earlier decades of the 1900s). It was routine to vaccinate babies. I have just read that in 1960 an oral vaccination was released in New Zealand, but I had the injection variety, in the big thigh muscle on the left leg. The vaccination site got infected, and what should have been a quick healing jab turned pussy and nasty. The doctor came to clean and drain it. I screamed till I was blue in the face. It took a long time to heal, the doctor couldn't come every day, so it was mum's job to keep the wound clean, and keep it opened up. The doctor told her if she didn't keep it opened up, I would get a deep scar on my leg. My screaming disturbed mum so much that she stopped opening up the wound, and I got a scar. Good for mum. There is no way I would have been able to do something like that to a baby -- to hurt it like that.
I don't mind having that scar. I have never minded. I still refer to it as my shark bite. But I do wonder if that was the start of me fearing mum. If for the short while that she followed doctors orders and pried open my infected leg, I seized up and shrank from her. Is it even possible for a baby to react that way? Certainly I had plenty of other reasons to shrink away later in life, but maybe it all started with the trauma of so much physical pain at the hands of my primary caregiver. Maybe. If so, I would really like to know why.
I'm hung up on childhood. Why it was so weird. What was so weird about it. Am I a Benjamin Button who did all the grown up things first and get to do the child things now. I mean that's kind of happening, in a way, or could if I would let it.
Everywhere, even on public radio, we're bombarded with messages about respecting ourselves, trusting our intuition, following our hearts, being authentic. As a child I was aggressively brainwashed into distrusting myself, my intuition, my heart. The only thing to trust was adults, particularly parents but adults in general, and the Catholic church. Basically bad until you proved you were worthy, unlovable unless you behaved in certain slavish and demeaning ways, untrustworthy to the bone. Bad, wrong, naughty, untrustworthy.
Is it the intensity of the damage that comes with those messages that drives me toward finding some meaning. Is it the habit of looking for an answer -- an answer that someone else has, and I don't have, and I will unlikely get until I'm good enough which will probably be never?
I don't remember the polio injection story. I was just told it. But it might explain something about the separation I felt from mum all my life. One of the side effects of going to school was taking swimming lessons, which in turn involved being see naked or near naked by classmates. This what when I found out there was something wrong with my bottom, or my leg, depending on how you looked at it. I had a normal enough bottom, but on the left side, I appeared to have two bottoms, one about 8cm lower than the regular one. The flesh and skin on the left leg was pulled into a pursed mouth of a scar. Actually there are two scars, like two small smiles, etched into the top of my leg.
I don't remember who pointed it out or asked why I had two bums, but I do remember mum telling me that next time anyone brought it up I should tell them I was bitten by a shark at Oreti beach, and the scar was where its teeth went in. I was thrilled by this story, and I feel sure I showed off my shark bite to anyone who was interested, just to get the attention.
But the true story also came out. The scar was a polio vaccination injection gone wrong. New Zealand had a couple of polio epidemic in the 1950s (and several in earlier decades of the 1900s). It was routine to vaccinate babies. I have just read that in 1960 an oral vaccination was released in New Zealand, but I had the injection variety, in the big thigh muscle on the left leg. The vaccination site got infected, and what should have been a quick healing jab turned pussy and nasty. The doctor came to clean and drain it. I screamed till I was blue in the face. It took a long time to heal, the doctor couldn't come every day, so it was mum's job to keep the wound clean, and keep it opened up. The doctor told her if she didn't keep it opened up, I would get a deep scar on my leg. My screaming disturbed mum so much that she stopped opening up the wound, and I got a scar. Good for mum. There is no way I would have been able to do something like that to a baby -- to hurt it like that.
I don't mind having that scar. I have never minded. I still refer to it as my shark bite. But I do wonder if that was the start of me fearing mum. If for the short while that she followed doctors orders and pried open my infected leg, I seized up and shrank from her. Is it even possible for a baby to react that way? Certainly I had plenty of other reasons to shrink away later in life, but maybe it all started with the trauma of so much physical pain at the hands of my primary caregiver. Maybe. If so, I would really like to know why.
Sunday, April 26, 2015
More Coming
There's more coming. Lots I think. I wake up, in my Canadian bedroom in my new Canadian life and the stories are swirling galaxies out to the edges of my mind, forming, floating apart. Always mum and dad, always Invercargill, as many questions and gaps as stories. Fragments and feelings, fleeting bits and pieces of lives bound so inevitably together and yet so clearly random.
The thing I'm still grappling with is the act of writing. The urge, the tide of it, the shame and guilt and fear about it still alive and well. And a gap too, in the why of it. Why write, why want to, why indulge this urge? I feel like a tree that's been hacked back but keeps coming back for more. Can't be stopped. I don't have a handle on the force of it. I think the answer is knowing that it's actually got nothing to do with me. Not personally. Why else am I here anyway? I will write. More. It's coming.
The thing I'm still grappling with is the act of writing. The urge, the tide of it, the shame and guilt and fear about it still alive and well. And a gap too, in the why of it. Why write, why want to, why indulge this urge? I feel like a tree that's been hacked back but keeps coming back for more. Can't be stopped. I don't have a handle on the force of it. I think the answer is knowing that it's actually got nothing to do with me. Not personally. Why else am I here anyway? I will write. More. It's coming.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Everything matters
Me: I've just understood the urge to write. It's because everything matters. Absolutely everything. And writing honours that simple fact. Memories matter. Families matter. The smell of cut grass matters.
We spend so much of our lives wondering what it's all about, looking for meaning and a way to belong. And all the time, we totally matter, we totally mean something, just by our existence.
To question writing about anything is blind and ignorant.
We need to write about absolutely everything. Nothing is too small, too dull, insignificant. Nothing.
She: Yes. Yes, that's right.
Me: Thanks for helping me know this. I feel like I could now write every day, with passion and burning, just like I've wanted to all my life.
She: Yes, you can.
Me: Woot!
We spend so much of our lives wondering what it's all about, looking for meaning and a way to belong. And all the time, we totally matter, we totally mean something, just by our existence.
To question writing about anything is blind and ignorant.
We need to write about absolutely everything. Nothing is too small, too dull, insignificant. Nothing.
She: Yes. Yes, that's right.
Me: Thanks for helping me know this. I feel like I could now write every day, with passion and burning, just like I've wanted to all my life.
She: Yes, you can.
Me: Woot!
Saturday, October 25, 2014
A broken leg and lots of blood
She: Glad you're back.
Me: I keep waking up full of stories. I keep not writing them down.
She: What's holding you back?
Me: I want them to be finished in my head before I start writing. I want to know where they are going.
She: You were enjoying just writing whatever came up, when it came up.
Me: I wasn't exactly enjoying it! Well, I was a bit I suppose. I was experimenting and it was strangely exhilarating, and very interesting what I was remembering, and realising about those memories. But it felt really out of control, dangerous.
She: And a little bit fun? It's good for you to write like that, without a plan or target to hit. You will get to enjoy it. I guarantee that.
Me: I read the whole thing yesterday for the first time.
She: I know. How was that?
Me: I thought it was good. I thought it was funny and sad and honest and meaningful.
She: It is. Keep writing. It's so good for your spirit. So good.
Me: And now I'm sitting here wondering what next? What stories? There are so so many. Stories about the Ward girls, the nanas (who could easily have a whole book each), the family outings, picnics, holidays. The food. The Christmasses, weddings, funerals. Pat and Jim O'Brien, aunty Win and uncle Jack Elder (Gin and Wack), Uncle grandad (our dead granddad's brother, Jim) and aunty Muriel and their son Neville (Devil). And more stories about mum and dad.
_________________
So now it's taking a huge effort to stay here and write. I get this pressure in my chest. It's so solid and heavy. I just want to get up and do something busy, like clean the house or dig the garden, run the dog... if I was still drinking, I'd want a drink to bring me back down to a relaxed level. It's anxiety. It is so obvious now. It's really good to be able to see it, know what it is, and be curious about it.
A broken leg -- Polly
We were in Gore, visiting mum and dad's friends Tony and Jan Fosbender. Tony worked in the Gore branch of the same company as dad. He was small, wiry, with a squeaky voice. I think he had a moustache. He was small, and dapper in a grungy sort of way. Jan was large, loud, with died orange hair. They were not like any other friends mum and dad had. They weren't Catholics for starters. They weren't related to us either. And they didn't have children. They were an odd fit for family friends. I don't know why they were friends at all, but we drove the 40 miles to Gore to visit them occasionally, and dad and Tony would drink flagon beer, mum and Jan would have sherry, and Jan would make an uncomfortable fuss of us because she really wanted children but didn't have any.
Polly wasn't a baby, but wasn't walking yet. She could nearly sit up, so was probably 6 or 7 months old. I was 5. She was in the kitchen and I wanted to carry her into the lounge where the others were, because she was having trouble crawling on the lino floor. Jan's kitchen floor was legendary for its shine. I always asked before I did anything new, so I asked if I could pick her up and carry her out of the kitchen.
First I had to practice they said. It was agreed that a big bag of salt from the pantry would by a good Polly substitute for me to carry, to prove I could do it. I passed the salt test with flying colours, and went back into the kitchen with permission to carry Polly. I got her up into my arms, but as soon as I took a step towards the lounge I slipped and fell, and dropped her -- and broke her leg.
Polly ended up with her lovely little leg in a heavy plaster. The up-side of that was that suddenly she could sit up good and proper, because she was weighed down by the ankle to thigh plaster. The down side was that for a while after the plaster was taken off, she would fall backwards and hit her head on the floor, because she'd come to rely in the weight of the plaster to hold her up.
This was told as a funny-haha family story, and I was grateful for that. I wasn't harassed or shamed over dropping Polly. I was never allowed to forget it, but it was a light-hearted thing, not a guilt thing. I do remember being shocked when my feet shot out from underneath me like they did. And I do remember one kind adult saying something like "that was Jan's fault for having such a shiny floor." It wasn't traumatic for me. It probably was for Polly.
If you were to take the family photos as a true record, I always had a baby under my arm, from age three to thirteen. Uncle Jim often said that he'd not seen me as a child without a baby latched on to me. I was very sure, from a very early age, that my job was to look out for my sisters. It was a job I took very seriously, and usually I did it well. But not always.
Lots of blood -- Julie
Obviously, it wasn't my fault that Julie got a cut on her head when she fell off the back of Mr Hunt's trailer. How could it be? But I was supposed to be "keeping an eye out" for the girls, and I had to bring her home with blood gushing out the side of her head, and deal with mum's hysterics, which were pretty dramatic.
Mr Hunt was the father next door, Mrs Hunt's husband, and the Hunt kids' dad. He was a builder. They weren't Catholics (so they didn't go to the same school as us), and they weren't related to us. We played with the kids anyway, but I don't remember the adults having that much more to do with each other than a hello over the back fence.
Mr Hunt drove a car with a trailor attached, for carrying his tools and wood to work. He would stop at the corner of Patterson and Harvey St, and the kids from the street would pile on the back of the trailor and get a ride the half block to the Hunt house. Then they'd all pile off before he went in the drive. That's when Julie's head got dinged. She jumped off the trailor, and someone else (probably Trevor Hunt, same age as Julie) jumped off just after her, knocked her over and scraped her head.
Julie got hauled off to hospital and came home with a cool big bandage around her head. It was only a small cut but such a lot of blood. Now I know head wounds bleed dramatically, even if there's just a little cut. This was dramatic. I felt terrible. That day I did a really bad job of keeping an eye out for the girls.
NEXT: Everything matters
Me: I keep waking up full of stories. I keep not writing them down.
She: What's holding you back?
Me: I want them to be finished in my head before I start writing. I want to know where they are going.
She: You were enjoying just writing whatever came up, when it came up.
Me: I wasn't exactly enjoying it! Well, I was a bit I suppose. I was experimenting and it was strangely exhilarating, and very interesting what I was remembering, and realising about those memories. But it felt really out of control, dangerous.
She: And a little bit fun? It's good for you to write like that, without a plan or target to hit. You will get to enjoy it. I guarantee that.
Me: I read the whole thing yesterday for the first time.
She: I know. How was that?
Me: I thought it was good. I thought it was funny and sad and honest and meaningful.
She: It is. Keep writing. It's so good for your spirit. So good.
Me: And now I'm sitting here wondering what next? What stories? There are so so many. Stories about the Ward girls, the nanas (who could easily have a whole book each), the family outings, picnics, holidays. The food. The Christmasses, weddings, funerals. Pat and Jim O'Brien, aunty Win and uncle Jack Elder (Gin and Wack), Uncle grandad (our dead granddad's brother, Jim) and aunty Muriel and their son Neville (Devil). And more stories about mum and dad.
_________________
So now it's taking a huge effort to stay here and write. I get this pressure in my chest. It's so solid and heavy. I just want to get up and do something busy, like clean the house or dig the garden, run the dog... if I was still drinking, I'd want a drink to bring me back down to a relaxed level. It's anxiety. It is so obvious now. It's really good to be able to see it, know what it is, and be curious about it.
A broken leg -- Polly
We were in Gore, visiting mum and dad's friends Tony and Jan Fosbender. Tony worked in the Gore branch of the same company as dad. He was small, wiry, with a squeaky voice. I think he had a moustache. He was small, and dapper in a grungy sort of way. Jan was large, loud, with died orange hair. They were not like any other friends mum and dad had. They weren't Catholics for starters. They weren't related to us either. And they didn't have children. They were an odd fit for family friends. I don't know why they were friends at all, but we drove the 40 miles to Gore to visit them occasionally, and dad and Tony would drink flagon beer, mum and Jan would have sherry, and Jan would make an uncomfortable fuss of us because she really wanted children but didn't have any.
Polly wasn't a baby, but wasn't walking yet. She could nearly sit up, so was probably 6 or 7 months old. I was 5. She was in the kitchen and I wanted to carry her into the lounge where the others were, because she was having trouble crawling on the lino floor. Jan's kitchen floor was legendary for its shine. I always asked before I did anything new, so I asked if I could pick her up and carry her out of the kitchen.
First I had to practice they said. It was agreed that a big bag of salt from the pantry would by a good Polly substitute for me to carry, to prove I could do it. I passed the salt test with flying colours, and went back into the kitchen with permission to carry Polly. I got her up into my arms, but as soon as I took a step towards the lounge I slipped and fell, and dropped her -- and broke her leg.
Polly ended up with her lovely little leg in a heavy plaster. The up-side of that was that suddenly she could sit up good and proper, because she was weighed down by the ankle to thigh plaster. The down side was that for a while after the plaster was taken off, she would fall backwards and hit her head on the floor, because she'd come to rely in the weight of the plaster to hold her up.
This was told as a funny-haha family story, and I was grateful for that. I wasn't harassed or shamed over dropping Polly. I was never allowed to forget it, but it was a light-hearted thing, not a guilt thing. I do remember being shocked when my feet shot out from underneath me like they did. And I do remember one kind adult saying something like "that was Jan's fault for having such a shiny floor." It wasn't traumatic for me. It probably was for Polly.
If you were to take the family photos as a true record, I always had a baby under my arm, from age three to thirteen. Uncle Jim often said that he'd not seen me as a child without a baby latched on to me. I was very sure, from a very early age, that my job was to look out for my sisters. It was a job I took very seriously, and usually I did it well. But not always.
Lots of blood -- Julie
Obviously, it wasn't my fault that Julie got a cut on her head when she fell off the back of Mr Hunt's trailer. How could it be? But I was supposed to be "keeping an eye out" for the girls, and I had to bring her home with blood gushing out the side of her head, and deal with mum's hysterics, which were pretty dramatic.
Mr Hunt was the father next door, Mrs Hunt's husband, and the Hunt kids' dad. He was a builder. They weren't Catholics (so they didn't go to the same school as us), and they weren't related to us. We played with the kids anyway, but I don't remember the adults having that much more to do with each other than a hello over the back fence.
Mr Hunt drove a car with a trailor attached, for carrying his tools and wood to work. He would stop at the corner of Patterson and Harvey St, and the kids from the street would pile on the back of the trailor and get a ride the half block to the Hunt house. Then they'd all pile off before he went in the drive. That's when Julie's head got dinged. She jumped off the trailor, and someone else (probably Trevor Hunt, same age as Julie) jumped off just after her, knocked her over and scraped her head.
Julie got hauled off to hospital and came home with a cool big bandage around her head. It was only a small cut but such a lot of blood. Now I know head wounds bleed dramatically, even if there's just a little cut. This was dramatic. I felt terrible. That day I did a really bad job of keeping an eye out for the girls.
NEXT: Everything matters
Am I one of the girls?
I had my first epiphany when I was 11. That was when I found out I was a child, not a parent, and it was a Very Big Shock indeed. Here's how it happened.
The whole family was in the kitchen. Dad, mum, me, Julie, Polly, Maria, Angie. In that order. We were getting ready for our usual Sunday family picnic. It must have been winter because mum was filling the big green thermos with steaming Wattie’s tomato soup. Dad was leaning against the bench, finished buttering the white Sunday bread, probably thinking about the racehorse he’d put a bet on. I think he liked to spend his winnings in his head a few times before he actually won them.
Mum and dad were having a conversation, probably something ordinary like what time to leave, or which beach or bush to go to given the weather. I was standing by, as I did, watching and waiting for instructions. My four sisters were playing about in a girly tangle, as they did, giggling probably, and being told to behave themselves by mum. Or dad. Whoever got irritated with them first. Then mum said it to dad, or he said said it to her... I don't remember the details, but it was something about ‘the girls’ that clearly included me. First it puzzled me, then concerned me deeply, and then caused me to look at them both and ask “Am I one of the girls?”
Mum and dad were having a conversation, probably something ordinary like what time to leave, or which beach or bush to go to given the weather. I was standing by, as I did, watching and waiting for instructions. My four sisters were playing about in a girly tangle, as they did, giggling probably, and being told to behave themselves by mum. Or dad. Whoever got irritated with them first. Then mum said it to dad, or he said said it to her... I don't remember the details, but it was something about ‘the girls’ that clearly included me. First it puzzled me, then concerned me deeply, and then caused me to look at them both and ask “Am I one of the girls?”
If you knew my father, you’d know how deep and meaningful his laugh was when he heard something ridiculous. He laughed a particularly good one that time. Mum said something, but I wasn’t listening, because dad’s laugh said it all. And all I could think as my world view crashed around me was “What an idiot! I don’t even know who I am.”
I honestly didn’t know, until that day, that I was one of the girls. I am the oldest, and they started coming thick and fast from when I was three until I was ten. In practically every childhood photo after age three, I have a baby under my arm. The communication between my parents and me was mostly like this: “Are the girls ready?” “Where are the girls?” “Can you call the girls for dinner?” “Can you put the girls in the bath?” “Time to read the girls a story... get the girls in the car... put the girls’ coats on...” It never occurred to me that I was one of them. I was part of the mum+dad+me girl herding unit. Those four giggling tangled up creatures were the girls.
I honestly didn’t know, until that day, that I was one of the girls. I am the oldest, and they started coming thick and fast from when I was three until I was ten. In practically every childhood photo after age three, I have a baby under my arm. The communication between my parents and me was mostly like this: “Are the girls ready?” “Where are the girls?” “Can you call the girls for dinner?” “Can you put the girls in the bath?” “Time to read the girls a story... get the girls in the car... put the girls’ coats on...” It never occurred to me that I was one of them. I was part of the mum+dad+me girl herding unit. Those four giggling tangled up creatures were the girls.
Anyway, dad eventually stopped laughing, mum finished filling the thermos, the girls got themselves untangled long enough to get into the car and tangled back up again, and we took off on the Sunday picnic. Life quickly got back to normal -- or so I thought.
I don’t tell this story for sympathy. Not at all. I loved that job. I loved those girls. I watched them grow from babies, to toddlers, take their first steps, speak their first words, suffer their childhood illnesses. I doubled them to school on my bike. I dressed them, and wiped their cute little noses, and sang to them in the car when they were wailing with boredom or car sickness. That was my job, I was really good at it, and I loved it.
I don’t tell this story for sympathy. Not at all. I loved that job. I loved those girls. I watched them grow from babies, to toddlers, take their first steps, speak their first words, suffer their childhood illnesses. I doubled them to school on my bike. I dressed them, and wiped their cute little noses, and sang to them in the car when they were wailing with boredom or car sickness. That was my job, I was really good at it, and I loved it.
I tell this story, because I've recently had another epiphany, equal and opposite to that one.
I've been listening to Tara Brach's teachings about self compassion; she's the reason I even thought about that situation when I was 11. During one of her meditations, I realised I've been still stuck in that "What an idiot, I don't even know who I am" story, all these years later. It's an intensely anxious feeling, and I've spent a lifetime numbing and zoning out and desperately trying to disprove it.
It's played out as hanging about on the fringes, shrinking, second-guessing, isolating and not trusting myself. I've quietly thought the good things in life apply to other people, not me -- things like the law of attraction and book deals, for example! I expect to be whacked from behind, when I least expect it, and I've spent a good deal of energy making sure I'm ready to counter-attack when this happens (which it never does, by the way.) I am very shy of strangers, terrified of mingling and networking events. I think other people will find me crashingly boring. I could go on, but you get the picture.
I've been living scared. I don't even know of what. Scared and anxious. Believing I'm not OK and not acceptable, not safe, and accepting the resulting low-level background anxiety as a normal part of life. This is crippling and limiting. And totally exhausting.
So. How cool is it to stare that one in the face and watch it back down? Very cool indeed.
Tara Brach explains the limbic brain, or reptilian brain, which humans share with other animals. It's in the back of the head, and it has very useful powers and lightning speed responses to keep us safe, alerting us to dangers and kicking in automatic reactions like fight, flight or freeze mode. It's responsible for basic survival. Useful stuff for sure.
We've also evolved another brain in the front of our heads which gives us other powers like compassion, empathy, discernment, kindness, creativity, love. Don't you just feel relaxed and gorgeous thinking about it?
The epiphany for me was: I get to choose which brain is running my show. And I choose the evolved one at the front.
(ps. I wrote this story quite a while ago, but it seems to fit in the sequence here.)
NEXT: A broken leg and lots of blood
I've been listening to Tara Brach's teachings about self compassion; she's the reason I even thought about that situation when I was 11. During one of her meditations, I realised I've been still stuck in that "What an idiot, I don't even know who I am" story, all these years later. It's an intensely anxious feeling, and I've spent a lifetime numbing and zoning out and desperately trying to disprove it.
It's played out as hanging about on the fringes, shrinking, second-guessing, isolating and not trusting myself. I've quietly thought the good things in life apply to other people, not me -- things like the law of attraction and book deals, for example! I expect to be whacked from behind, when I least expect it, and I've spent a good deal of energy making sure I'm ready to counter-attack when this happens (which it never does, by the way.) I am very shy of strangers, terrified of mingling and networking events. I think other people will find me crashingly boring. I could go on, but you get the picture.
I've been living scared. I don't even know of what. Scared and anxious. Believing I'm not OK and not acceptable, not safe, and accepting the resulting low-level background anxiety as a normal part of life. This is crippling and limiting. And totally exhausting.
So. How cool is it to stare that one in the face and watch it back down? Very cool indeed.
Tara Brach explains the limbic brain, or reptilian brain, which humans share with other animals. It's in the back of the head, and it has very useful powers and lightning speed responses to keep us safe, alerting us to dangers and kicking in automatic reactions like fight, flight or freeze mode. It's responsible for basic survival. Useful stuff for sure.
We've also evolved another brain in the front of our heads which gives us other powers like compassion, empathy, discernment, kindness, creativity, love. Don't you just feel relaxed and gorgeous thinking about it?
The epiphany for me was: I get to choose which brain is running my show. And I choose the evolved one at the front.
(ps. I wrote this story quite a while ago, but it seems to fit in the sequence here.)
NEXT: A broken leg and lots of blood
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