Silence (Delirium)

Give me release
witness me
I am outside
give me peace

Heaven holds a sense of wonder
and I wanted to believethat I'd get caught up
when the rage in me subsides

In this white wave
I am sinking
in this silence
in this white wave
in this silence
I believe

Passion chokes the flower'til she cries no more
possessing all the beautyhungry still for more

Heaven holds a sense of wonder
and I wanted to believe that I'd get caught up
When this rage in me subsides

I can't help this longing
comfort me
I can't hold it all in
if you won't let me

Heaven holds a sense of wonder
and I wanted to believe that I'd get caught up
When this rage in me subsides

In this white wave
I am sinking
in this silence
in this white wave
in this silence
I believe

I have seen you
in this white wave
you are silent
you are breathing
in this white wave
I am free

Sarah McLachlan

Where's my Tribe?

This morning, my best friend since childhood wrote on facebook that she was looking forward to having Brunch today with her tribe.

I miss my tribe.

Lately, I've had an ache in my chest for home that has been a little debilitating.

Life here has become an endless round of work and coming home to stare at the computer screen - doing more work to pass the time between the short and infrequent snipets of conversations with friends on skype or facebook.

I miss going out for breakfast and a stroll in the little urban village where I feel most at home - where members of my tribe I don't even know surround me; I miss always having some social event to look forward to - the celebrations and rituals of my tribe; I miss having good friends close by who I can drop in on for a cup of tea and the tribal audacity of being myself with reckless abandon; I miss passing the time at the movies or shopping with my best friend - the tribal ritual of Saturday "stuff" we do. I miss the ease of communication and problem solving that my comes with living in a developed world tribe - and - strangely enough - I even miss hanging out with my ever strange and complicated closest tribe - my family!

When I took this job, I knew that it would come with some challenging experiences, I just never thought that feeling so disconnected would be one of them. This weekend has been better - I've been much more social and perhaps I am lifting a veil that has been camoflaging a tribe I just didn't look for hard enough, but this is a strange little half and half world where I feel connected to a group of people - both local and expatriot- who appreciate me but who don't really feel a conection back to me; as much as I might be liked, I am not accepted - and there's a big difference. It's a tribal difference.

I think in all of this, my fear is also that my tribe at home is changing - as tribes do - and that when I go home I'll continue to feel that sense of isolation even though I'll be right there. Right now, my tribe are having shared experiences without me, meeting new people, making their own new family tribes and building friendships around those shared experiences. I know its something that has pushed people before me to roam an ever increasing world in search of an ever decreasing tribe.

I don't want that for myself. So in the meantime, I try to stay connected - not just to my tribe - but to their experiences - to their thoughts and feelings. It's hard because much as I might want that and have the time for it while I am here - they are busy actually having those experiences and I am met - not with the beating drums of their thoughts but instead, with a wall of silence. Which is a lesson in itself. Perhaps being pushed to seek further experiences of my own, to really question what I want those experiences to be and what results I want them to yield for myself and others - is something to be done in moments of quiet solitude.

It's just that I find quiet solitude so much nicer when your tribe are all around you - close enough to touch.

Goldilocks and the Soboteur

When I was a kid, we had this great Walt Disney album recording of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. The narrator and Papa Bear parts were played by Bing Crosby (the rest of his family including his kids played the other parts) and there were some great songs on that record we used to play over and over. I have always remembered one of Goldilocks' songs and it came back to me as I was thinking about the life lessons I have written in this post. As I used to tell my students when I was a teacher, a smooth path in life can pretty much be summed up in the words of this song

For the right things to do will say their hellos
The right ways to go are under your nose
carefully choose, your don'ts and do's
dont settle for less, than the best.

It's my birthday and introspection abounds. There's just way too much "me time" in this place right now not to be contemplative so I thought I might at least try to put it to good use. Another zodiac has spun around and as happy as I am with the physical space I'm in - I'm not so sure I thought I'd be in this emotional and spiritual place at this point in my life. But, although I feel very alone here, I am trying to avoid terms like "isolated" and "lonely" and instead focus on the positive gifts this time affords me. After all, millions of people would love to have the space I am being furnished with right now so I strive to recognise and appreciate that. It might be a long time in coming again.

This week, I decided to up my meditation routine and to do a month long on-line course in self sabotage. Sounds all very wanky and new-age I know, but I figured that I may as well get some contemplative guidance and direction rather than randomly putting out spot-fires of the soul.

One of the exercises in the second "lesson" of the course was to write down what I believe to be my life lessons to date. It was an interesting thing to do. At first I wondered where to start, but I realised that in essence, I know what I need to know to get life right and be happy.. happier. What I really need to crack in all this soul searching is exactly what I feel I'm getting out of heading down the WRONG paths.

To get a grip on my lessons I just looked at all the patterns of my own beahviour that I struggle with; decisions, relationships and interractions that have brought me the kind of pain I can learn from. Once bitten, twice shy and wiser to boot. Well maybe 10 times bitten, 11 times shy. I guess that's why they're called patterns!

The positive thing is that I KNOW for sure these are life lessons because I have had a taste on occasion of getting things right - and the proof of these lesons has definitely been in the tasting.

While I'm not sure that I have nailed these exactly, it's a pretty accurate first draft of my lessons and I speak them to myself hereto hold myself to them as much as anything! Maybe you can let me know your own favourite life lesson. Just so I don't feel too much like I'm hanging myself out on a limb here!

EXERCISE DUE DILLIGENCE WITH YOUR HEART: Take radical responsibility for who you get into relationships with. Listen to your instincts- they are your research. Don't be swayed by the opinions of others. Deep and not so deep down, you know when its right. Have the courage to say both when its not and when it is.

WALK YOUR OWN PATH: Don't be afraid to go it alone. If it is your truth, if it represents the authentic you, if it is positive in its source and is not wilfully harmful to anyone else, walk the lone tightrope if you need to. You are actually never alone. Those who truly want the best for you will always be by your side.

DRAW A LINE IN THE SAND & DON'T BE THE ONE TO ERASE IT. Respect yourself, your own needs and your knowledge of what your boundaries are. Do not cross the line because someone draws you into an argument about why you should. Essentially people are self-interested and there will always be an argument to cross the line. Others take their lead from you; show that its ok to devalue your boundaries and that's what you'll have reflected back.

LET IT GO: So you still want it? So what, let it go. They were wrong? So what, let it go. It hurt you? Heal yourself and let it go. Promises were broken? It happens, let it go. It still has the ability to get to you? Take away its power and let it go. Not because you aren't right, not because you don't deserve better, not because it shouldn't have hurt, but because letting it go is the only way you can hold on to the shining light of a positive future. LET IT GO.

NO ONE IS COMING TO CLEAN UP AFTER YOU OR RESCUE YOU: and even if they tried you'd probably hate it. So start taking responsibility for the areas of your life you've been neglecting. It's all you baby - so take some action where its required and stop making excuses.

YOU CANNOT SAVE ANYONE: stop trying. When you start focussing on your own issues and support people in the times and ways they specifically ask for - you will feel a release. Any other behaviour is simply self serving and controlling. Be kind. Show compassion. Be mindful and present in your relationships but stop trying so hard to help and you actually might succeed at it more often.

WITH YOUR THOUGHTS YOU MAKE YOUR WORLD: Telling yourself and others you are less than anyone else is the worst kind of pride. Look within and accept the good. Accept what you have to offer and breathe life into those elements of yourself. You have a purpose and the talents to realise that purpose; denying these things will lead to unfulfilled potential.

So, this birthday, I give myself the gift of these lessons. Learning them is an entirely different gift - but accessing them is the start.

already gone?

Twice in my life I can remember falling for someone the instant our eyes met.

On the first occasion I was a teacher at a high school in North Queensland and I was walking past the library when a student called to me and introduced me to a new member of staff. I remember nothing of the conversation I had with the new maths teacher, I just remember shaking her hand and looking into her ice-blue eyes and knowing instantly that somewhere in time and space, we had met before.

I was 23 years old and I barely knew myself. I hardly even understood that I was gay, let alone that it was possible that another woman might feel the same way about me. So, even when she and I sat opposite eachother on a couch in my livingroom one Friday afternoon and she swept the hair back from my face and told me how much she would miss me when I left to travel overseas, I wasn’t able to understand that this was her, making a move. Years later I can only shake my head and wonder what might have been had I been more self-aware; more courageous.

The second time, I was 26. I had just come back from living abroad – a couple of significant relationships under my belt. I met her at the local Uni pub- she was a friend of a friend’s friend and for some reason we both wound up in a small group of people playing a ridiculous drinking game. We had to look directly into the eyes of the person opposite us and say “I’m so excited and I just can’t fight it, I’m about to lose control and I think I like it” deadpan. If you smiled or laughed or cracked in any way, you had to skull. She was opposite me. I started confidently but as I looked in her eyes I had that feeling of the earth falling away; everything was spinning and she was grinning the sexiest grin on earth. I caved. Two weeks later we ended up in bed and I was quietly obsessed thank you very much. She was straight and not ready not to be – and she was pretty young, and maybe in the same place I had been three years before. It ended badly – for me- and though we still see each other occasionally and it is fine, nice even – for a long time I regarded her as the one who got away; my relationship nemesis who, were she to click her fingers and nod, I would drop anything and anyone to be with.

There’s another lover I’ve had who I knew was going to change my life as soon as I set eyes on her. I was at the top of a staircase, she at the bottom. I saw her and I knew in a way that comes without knowledge.

Then again, I have had slow burning loves that I didn’t recognise instantly but whose eyes I still cannot meet without the recognition of a lasting connection – one heart to another; one soul to another. Still I meet their gaze and wonder what part it is they have left to play in a story yet unfolding.

And yet each of these magical, wonderful experiences lived their lives, died their deaths.

I am wondering about the significance of each of these loves now because I have just finished reading Paulo Coelho’s “Brida” – essentially a novel about each person’s search in life for their soulmate. Though I dog-eared many pages for review at some time in the future, I admit to finishing the book and wanting to throw it across the room.

It all started so well, because the theory is a really interesting one to me. At one point in the book, one of the characters explains how the earth’s population continues to expand when it began with so few and scientifically, matter can neither be created nor destroyed. The theory is that in certain reincarnations, we divide in two; our souls divide and we scatter the globe. If this division and scattering were to continue ad infinitum, we would also weaken terribly; that’s why we find ourselves again and again through love; each soul ultimately finding one or more shards of itself in any lifetime.

Coelho says that we can only achieve union with “God” when we manage to commune with one of these shards- our soul mate; that the whole of any individual’s life on earth can be summed up by that search; that all else we achieve will be incomplete if we fail in this task.

The book follows the central character through this journey which is led by two teachers; one who is her soulmate. She learns that love is the bridge between the seen and unseen world that any of us may experience and that when we do, we are capable of learning everything and knowing things we never even dared to think, because love is the key to understanding all of the mysteries of the world.

She learns that the wisdom of soulmates is that they always recognise eachother by a certain light in the eyes or a point of light over the left shoulder. Ultimately, although she recognises and “unites” with her soulmate, she does not go on to build a life with him. The lesson apparently being that no-one can possess the beautiful things of this earth; they can be known and treasured and loved and remembered, but not owned; that a soulmate is never lost, because they are never possessed in the first place.

Coelho says that life hinges on faith. That in searching for the answer to the meaning of life, each of us can only accept that we will never know it, but that there is a meaning beyond us all. Our only choice is to accept the mystery, hold faith, follow our dreams. True love he says, allows each person to follow their own path knowing they’ll never lose touch with their soulmate.

I could bust the myth right now and say I think it’s all a croc of shit. The problem is, I believe most of it is true.

My problem, my sadness, is a question. Is it really enough to merely know and observe your soulmate? To enjoy them as you might a beautiful flower in a field or an unforgettable sunset? To have a burning knowledge and memory of them that lasts in your heart but to try to make a life beyond each other?

I wanted to throw the book across the room because I want the version of the dream we’ve all been sold; that life will deliver your soulmate and it will be happy ever after. But maybe it doesn’t happen like that. Maybe the faith comes in believing that you are cradled safe in your destiny if you will only listen and follow – not attempt to control and own. Maybe the deliverance of our soulmate teaches us lessons we need to learn for life and happiness beyond them.

That’s not what I want. I want my personal legend to be the successful search for a soulmate and the building of a full and rich life with them; a true partnership of positivity and growth. But I have to accept that the meaning of life is beyond my reach and that my time with my soulmate may already be done. The faith comes in believing that if that is so, then the lesson is learned and the partnership of positivity and growth is yet to come, waiting to be born; perhaps even as we speak.

I don’t know. And I guess that’s the biggest lesson of all.

Vale

Today in Brisbane, my family will celebrate the life of my 96 year old Grandmother who passed away last week. Today, I wake with the hope that she’s on her last great adventure - or depending on how you view the universe and its vast mysteries, that she’s enjoying the adventure between her last conscious reality and her next.

Though she wouldn’t necessarily have called herself an adventurer, her life had its share of interest and intrigue and so as I reflect on the influence she has had on me, I know that part of what pushes me forward each day to new horizons, part of what makes me know I can do the things I try to do is the genetic imprint she has left in me.

Although my lasting impressions of my Grandmother will probably always be from a time when she was in her 60’s and my associations with her have more to do with the smell of her house on nights when the extended family would meet over Roast Beef, and my mother would argue with my Grandfather over University education, literature and history and we would read the books my father and his brothers and sisters had read and then climb into her impossibly high bed at the end of our child-sized night. Or with the fact that she selflessly arranged for the “box room” under the house at Chelmer to be cleaned out and wired with electricity after her grandchildren “discovered” it one Boxing Day, turfed out the suitcases and other carefully stored paraphernalia, declared it the underground home and themselves (along with Tessa, my grandparents’ Alsatian) the new famous five! I know another woman existed beyond the one who did the washing up in the kitchen listening to the radio, who would sometimes play the piano for us and who tickled my neck at the door as we would say goodbye.

As I got older, I got better glimpses of that woman- but still, I don’t feel I ever really knew the secret hopes and fears of her heart. Perhaps though I did; in eulogising her, my Uncle says that they were true and simple hopes – to be kind and virtuous and to love and care for her family. These things I have surely learned from her – though still only aspire to do them as well and as selflessly.

I may not have known my Grandmother in her heyday but that woman – the one at the edges of my imagination – is the woman who left Australia by herself on a ship to London in the 1938 under a cloud of scandal – gone to meet with her beau, later her husband and my Grandfather who was doing his PHD at the London school of Economics. She is the woman who sat in a flat across from a ballet school and typed her husband’s thesis while Hitler’s menace and the war in Europe drew ever closer; a woman who was aboard one of the last ships back home before the danger made that trip impossible.

Gran leaving for London, New Year's Eve 1938/9
In my 20’s when I took on the ritual I’d accompanied previously as a child - taking my Gran shopping on a Saturday morning - I probably didn’t see her as a veritable Jackie Kennedy; but I should have. In the 50’s, my Grandfather became a pretty famous Historian who met with Heads of State and advised on International Affairs; had his own TV show, a Journal of Politics and History – his admirers and his detractors. Because of this life of minor celebrity, there are photos of my Gran at Buckingham Palace Garden Parties, Presidential receptions and Balls –there was even one that hung for a while in the foyer of City Hall in Brisbane showing my Grandparents with Wally Campbell the one-time Governor of Queensland- and the guy who gave a toast at my parents wedding. Despite knowing all of this, I don’t think I have ever really reflected on the panache, courage and exemplary social skills it would have taken my Grandmother to stand beside her husband for all those years at all those events.
Gran and Grandfather in Sydney with Aunty Helen
My Grandmother had a formidable intellect. And although I knew the endless list of books she had read (in fact I just found out that she had read so many novels she exhausted the possibilities of 2 Brisbane libraries!) and the fact that well into her 80’s she continued to read three newspapers a day – I think that rather than engaging properly with her, I continued to see her as a product of her times as I cringed when she told me in my early 20’s lesbians shouldn’t be seen on the ABC (or anywhere really), or that the stolen generation were a product of a Government trying to “do the right thing.” But her interest in politics and her habitual watching of Parliament meant that she could have outdone most of my friends with degrees in political science on the history of politics in Australia – and added in a few funny anecdotes about people like Whitlam (who once kissed her!) at the same time. She and my father are probably responsible for my own slight obsession with Hansard and my nickname at one stage of “Hansard dot com”.

By the time I formed my own adult relationship with my Grandmother, I think I appreciated much of the person she was, and right now that’s a comfort to me. I only ever knew my Grandfather as a caricature of himself – and was only just beginning to come to have an adult understanding of my father when he died. My Grandmother and I connected most when it came to her love of travel. She accompanied my Grandfather on many sabbaticals and she was one of the most widely travelled women I know. In my 20’s and early 30’s, whenever I was travelling somewhere (for there was almost nowhere I was going she hadn’t already been) I would seek her advice on the places she went and loved and I would invariably follow in her footsteps and enjoy our conversations comparing notes when I returned. I remember especially our conversations about New York which we both loved despite initial scepticism. I think she loved the fact that so many of her Grandchildren ended up living overseas and I wonder if she ever realised that her own demonstrations of fearlessness and resilience were part of what made such bold moves possible. It is to her very great credit that she never stifled the ambitions of her own children or Grandchildren through wishing they would stay close to home; instead she applauded ambition and a sense of adventure- as long as it was undertaken with integrity and the desire to be productive and passionate.

One of my Grandmother’s greatest gifts was her compassion. Like all of us she had her human failings – but she believed that the pursuit of any person’s life was to show kindness and virtuosity in all things. I remember my father once saying he used to cringe when she told her 4 children that they had a “position to uphold”. I suspect he thought it reeked of elitism. And perhaps it did a little. Like it or not, in 1950’s Brisbane they were role models. My Gran used to raise money to build new kindergartens and libraries and my Grandfather used to be asked to open them. My older sister and I still recall our 5 year- old awe when a Graceville shopkeeper asked for my Grandfather’s shopping list one Saturday morning and ran around filling his basket for him asking “is this brand alright Professor?” It’s just how it was. Regardless, my Grandmother taught us all that who you were and what you did was of no consequence unless you were doing good for others.

And so it is that in understanding her I can understand myself better; that’s how we pass knowledge and understanding from one generation to the next. She was a product of all her experience; her father’s post first word war shellshock and his love of family Christmas, her own experiences in the depression, her love of the Arts – and so too I am the sum of her experiences and my own brought to me through those I know and love. She got the idea that wisdom is gained and transformed through community and for this, and so much more I so humbly thank her.

Vale Gran.

Lunatic

I'm a lunatic tonight.
Driven mad by the moon,
I measure love in lumps of loss.
They rise up at me these losses;
like pale-faced demons from graves dug deep
they claw at me to be heard. It's as if they
never meant to leave this immortal sadness;
as if they keenly feel the weight of their own humanity.
Lost, but never forgotten it burns them
like fire from the sun. Be still! I say
And leave me! But they want me to stake them with forgiveness.
In the shaddow of the moon they sit and beckon silently
asking, always asking for release.
And this is why I'm a jumping, howling, mad woman;
to lose the loss, is madness made complete.

My Gran

Last night, my Grandmother passed away.

Soon I hope to write a post dedicated to her and the great influence she has had on my life. Today, I will simply hum the Faure Requiem, think of the way she tickled the back of my neck when we stood at her door saying goodbye, and enjoy the fact that she believed in a communion of souls beyond death- meaning that in some cosmic way she will reunite with her husband and son. Something I'm sure she's been longing to do.

My Grandparents loved Tennyson - so I leave this great poem in her honour and hope that my Gran's crossing of the Bar is smooth and tempest free.

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.