Words

30 May 2016

I like to read.

And by ‘like’ I mean love. Like adore. I soak up books. I use books to turn my brain off, turn my brain on. I read magazines, devour news articles, read the fine print. When I was young, I worked my way through my own books, library books and the books on my parent’s bookshelves.

I have preferred genres. These change. My bookshelves appear eclectic to anyone but me but I can pull a book off the shelf and tell you how old I was, where I was living and the state of my life at the time I read it.  I don’t like everything I read. There is the odd book I haven’t been able to finish and having to study Tess of the D’urbervilles three times in two years means that I loathe the book and it’s lead character with a passion normally reserved for the truly evil.

I read incredibly fast and even at 41 still occasionally realise I’ve never said a word out loud when I go to use it and realise that my mouth is not familiar with the shape and texture of the word, even though I have read it a million times.  I enjoy spending time with other prolific readers and I apply the ‘page 99 rule’ when overwhelmed by choice in a book store. I have literally read thousands of books.

And now that I have been a parent for almost six years I can safely say that I never want to read ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar” ever again.

Obviously, we read to our daughters. We have since they were born. They love listening to stories. They love telling them. They love re-enacting them when they play together. And this year, our eldest daughter is learning to read for herself.

And I am becoming increasingly aware how many words there are in the world to read that we never notice.  Until accompanied by somebody that has just learned how to read.

Going out in the world with somebody that has just cracked the great mystery of reading requires doubling the time it takes to go anywhere so we have time to sound out every single word we see.

Every. Single. Word.

We read the words on street signs and stickers on the backs of cars.

We stop to read graffiti.

We read shop names, clothing labels, the names of cereals in the supermarket.

We read magazine covers, no junk mail signs on letterboxes.

We read the shopping list aloud.

We read the spines of the books in the lounge room.

The covers of DVDs.

We read the brands on prams as we pass people by and every single word written on t-shirts.

We read ALL the signs on buses, trains and every single construction site around us.

We read words on envelopes, sales receipts, brochures.

We read name labels, safety instructions, the toy catalogue.

We read business cards, book marks, the words on the remote.

We read everything.

Even the stop sign. Which I obviously see without reading. But now we stop to read it. Every single time.

It turns out that there are words everywhere that I have been paying absolutely no mind to as I go about my days.

I find her enthusiasm for the joy of words incredibly endearing. I love how her face lights up when she’s managed to sound out a word for herself and how indignant she was when she realised that people use the number 2 to represent the word ‘to’.

“It’s just WRONG Mum, why do they do it when it’s WRONG?”

She’s going to feel the pain of their, there, they’re very young I think.

We can no longer spell words out we don’t want her to understand because she just writes them down and sounds them out until she cracks it. She hears every conversation you have and asks you to write down words she has heard you say so she can see what they look like.

We are obsessed with hangman and some game she made up that involves letters and lines that she always wins because none of us understand it. But all of it is for the love of words.

She reads to me at night now. Slowly and with an amusing mix of genuine ability and a dose of chutzpah we are making our way through yet another story about two girls and a dog. There are so, so, so many stories about two girls and dogs.

So just like that – she’s a reader.

She’s literate.

She’s cracked open the mysteries of the universe.

She’s found love.

     

I’m a heterosexual

17 May 2016

And I bet you don’t give a rat’s bottom.

But I do need to start this by stating that I am a heterosexual married white female.

Not transgender.

Not homosexual.

Not bisexual.

Not queer at all if we’re referring to sexuality.

You still don’t care right?

I’m one of those humans that gets all their human rights here in the land down under handed to them on a platter because I’m

• heterosexual

• white

both of which I have no control over.

Am I still boring you?

I have no control over the female thing either to be honest though my human rights get muddied a little there because of ingrained misogyny, centuries of patriarchal privilege and all that jazz.  But that is not important today.

Ooh. Now you’re wondering why I’m not getting on my #feminist high horse?

I chose to get married and because my heterosexuality is deemed more worthy of human rights than your ‘otherness’ here in the land of plenty I was able to do so without any fuss or bother. Bar the bother and fuss of organising a wedding and trying to keep everybody happy. #heterosexualAustralianproblems

Ah…. here’s her soapbox you’re thinking?

Yep. Help me up okay!

It’s the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia and the focus is on celebrating gender and sexual identity and I can’t share any personal experience which would maybe get you to rethink any ingrained bigotry you have about homosexuals or transgender individuals or any of the other less mainstream sexual identities.

But I can tell you this.

I obviously grew up knowing lots of gay people. It’s just that as an Australian child of the 80s at a Catholic co-ed school whose naivety was outweighed only by her gullibility, I didn’t know they were gay. It wasn’t something you spoke about unless you were listening to George Michael and you knew the rumours of him being gay were clearly WRONG because you’d seen his “I want your sex” video. It had a girl in it = not gay.

Clearly I was an idiot but it was 1987. I was 12 years old and felt incredibly worldly just being able to sing lyrics like “sex is natural, sex is fun, sex is best when it’s one on one.” (Like you’d want to do anything that embarrassing with more than one person – EVER)

By the time I realised all the gay people were gay I didn’t care. That’s not because of some kind of huge revelation or anything. I just don’t care about your sexual orientation.

I don’t mean that offensively. I just don’t care.

Just like you don’t care that I’m heterosexual.

I was fascinated when my friends started coming out, mainly because so much about life fell into place for me. I understood them better because they weren’t having to hide something about themselves which was as natural as breathing. But you know, when you start to recognise that you actually know a lot of gay people, it just reinforces to you that you’re incredibly unobservant sometimes.

The only thing that changed for me is language. Turns out like every other person, my casual use of homophobic language was awful. It didn’t change overnight – it takes time to reframe your inside thinking to filter out words and phrases which are clearly not nice, not helpful and totally informed by a lifetime of unrealised thinking that homosexuality was ‘different’.

It makes me sad that we are still talking about people’s sexual and gender preferences.  It enrages me that we have legislation that differentiates. I become apoplectic when people talk homosexuals and transgender people being responsible for the fall of civilisation.  DO YOU READ THE NEWS PEOPLE? The apocalypse is coming and I can assure you it’s entirely the doing of heterosexual madmen, bigots and haters. Calm the fuck down will you.

It pleases me that my girls are growing up not realising that there is any difference to the love between Brad and James, Mum and Dad or Tash and Dee. Nor do they give a shit because quite frankly all kissing between adults is ‘icky’.

And this isn’t because of anything we’re doing to indoctrinate them. It’s just that kids aren’t arsehats to start with. They’ve got to learn hateful behaviour and we just don’t let them hang around bigots to minimise the chance of this happening. They’ve met transgender men and women and never noticed. Because if you say your name is Sue, they just say “Okay, hi Sue.” Because kids don’t care.

I don’t know if my girls are homosexual or heterosexual. Mainly because when one of them is choosing to wear underpants on her head to school, she’s clearly got more important things to think about right now. And I hope that for them, identifying their sexual orientation never becomes more important than underpants on their head.

Because it shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. #loversgonnalove

Hatred is a learned behaviour. And it always but always stems from ignorance.  We need to stop it and it’s not actually that hard if we all follow the same simple rules:

1. Don’t be a dick.

2. Don’t teach your children to be dicks.

3. Wear underpants on your head when you go out into the world at least once before you die.

     

So. John.

5 May 2016

In 1992 when I was 17 and half years old, I went with a bunch of other Scouting types (aged about 14-21) to Russia. It was a couple of short years after walls and curtains had collapsed around communist regimes and the youth in Soviet countries were starting to find their feet in the shining light of democracy (ahem).  Which was basically just chaos. You could still see the soviet imagery behind the freshly painted facades of hotels and camps, and the churches built without any kind of metal were still boarded up and pockmarked with iron nails in the forests around the Volga.

It was a crazy, idyllic and emotional few weeks. We dashed into Lake Lagoda on a 38 degree day and dashed back onto the sands where it took us about 12 hours to recover. The waters between Russia and Finland are cold even in summer. We canoed up the Volga, wandered around Red Square, examined the gold leaf papering the walls of the Kremlin, billeted with local families, delighted in the seven towers of St Basil, marvelled at the restoration of the Summer Palace, spoke terrible Russian, decided that a dead Lenin wasn’t worth queuing up for, ate Macdonalds in what was the biggest Macdonalds we had ever seen, taught Russian youth Australian slang, tasted caviar, experienced our first Russian sauna, ate strawberries dipped in vodka. Friendships were made, some started dating, one guy came out. We took photos, wrote letters, send postcards, bought vodka.

Drank it all in Rome and had the photos of me sleeping in a bath surface on my 21st a few years later.

That trip was also the start of an easy friendship that lasted almost 25 years. And ended with John dying earlier this week, unexpectedly and entirely without notice, aged 45.

The big happy heart that made John such an easy friend, a loving and committed husband, an affectionate and proud dad, a brother, a son…. well that very same heart took him away.

It is entirely without irony that I say it is heartbreaking.

The same guy that introduced me to alternative Australian folk rock, that swam across the shipping lanes of the Volga without getting hit by a ship, that moshed so hard at the ANU he gave himself whiplash, whose face always smiled when he said his wife’s name, who made sure everybody in the room at my 21st saw my 17 year old self asleep in the Roman bath, who chatted and cavorted at our wedding, who always greeted you as if you had merely been in the next room no matter how much time passed between visits, who delighted in his children’s mischief and their achievements, that same guy is gone. Just like that.

There he is in the middle of it.  And my husband is the one doing blue steel at the back.

If it is incomprehensible to me that this world no longer has him in it, it must be even more so for his wife, children and family. It’s not the milestones I grieve on their behalf though there will be many. It’s the every day moments. The skipping of his daughter on her way to school. The shrieks in the backyard when the boys can’t agree. The grazed knees. The bedtime stories. The wild tales so full of bullshit. The end of day wines. The deconstruction of a dinner party on the drive home. Somebody to blame when the sunscreen isn’t packed. Somebody to laugh with when the youngest child says something completely inappropriate. The quiet moments when nothing is said. The hand holding.

He wasn’t perfect – not one of us is. But he was joyous and so few people have that generosity of spirit that lets people be their own selves no matter what.  I am a firm believer in remembering people in technicolour – their faults and their virtues both.  And the most annoying thing I could come up with for John is that he voted Liberal.

A lot of my friends do.  I try not to judge generally but if technicolour is required, technicolour is required right?

So. John. It was awesome. But dude, It was not long enough. Not long enough at all.

Much love. Go well. x

     

Vaccinate Vaccinate Vaccinate

28 Apr 2016

In 2000 I had the good fortune to meet a girl from Indonesia who had talked her new husband into forgoing her dowry the year before so they could use the money to vaccinate the children in her village.

She said that while the money would have been useful to them, it was more useful for the village to have their children grow up.  The dowry money would cover vaccinations for all the children in the village until they turn 18 plus fund vaccinations for new mothers.  Most of those children would be grown up now and I wish I had kept in touch with her to find out how it all went.

And also to ask her what she thinks of the fact that there is a movement of people that deliberately don’t vaccinate their children in Australia even though it’s free. I am willing to paraphrase the answer I think she’d give me.

“They’re f**king idiots.”

In the meantime, I think it fair to say that at 19 that girl was twice the woman I’ll ever be.

This is Yash.  He is four. He and his community are sponsored by World Vision which is why I have heard about him.  He is hanging out with his mum Shweta after getting some of his vaccinations because his mum doesn’t want him to die or end up with a permanent disability. 

Shweta is grateful that sponsorship and donations make vaccinations for her and her family possible.  I bet if I rang her now and asked what she thinks of people who could vaccinate their children against preventable illnesses and don’t she’d say something like

“They’re f**king idiots.”

Do you know why?  Because vaccinations save lives.  People in first world countries like Australia who don’t vaccinate their children suffer from a first world arrogance that the information they have gathered on the internet makes them more of an authority than all of science.  

I can’t get my head around why people think that vaccinations are going to kill kids. The stats are in and of the 700 children that died in NSW alone in 2013, none of them died from being vaccinated. Some died as a result of not being vaccinated and some from car accidents and some from drownings and a whole lot for other reasons like suicide and cancer and abuse. 

But anti-vaxxers still put their kids in cars even though that is statistically proven to kill more children than vaccinations world wide.  

And anti-vaxxers still buy clothes from retailers who use child labour which is statistically proven to kill more children each year than vaccinations.

And anti-vaxxers still use the internet which is statistically proven… nah, now I’m just messing with you. 

So it can’t be the fact that they are supposedly dangerous or kill people. Because then they would apply that logic to all of their decision making.  

The breathtaking arrogance of choosing not to vaccinate when 3/4 of the world would do anything they could to have your privilege is something I truly don’t understand.  

I have tried. But the more I read and the more I learn about how immunisation saves lives, the less I understand anti-vaxxers.

World Immunisation Week has been a timely reminder to make sure we’re all jabbed up and I want you all to make sure you’re all up to date as well.

My four year old is going to be less than impressed with me next week because she is the only one due for any jabs.

And she really hates jabs.

And next Friday, when I hold her as she’s jabbed, she’s going to hate me too.

Such is a first world life baby girl.  Privilege is not always painless.

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The hardest thing

15 Apr 2016

I was asked by a friend recently what was the hardest thing about being married to somebody from abroad was and my initial reply was to say ‘Nothing really – he’s British’.

And then I realised they didn’t mean culturally. (Though the Brits do have some very definite quirks that can drive somebody from the land down under quite bonkers.  Whereas we are clearly perfect.*)

It’s a good question and I know why they posed the question. My in-laws are currently in residence for a couple of weeks for their annual immersion in grandchildren and chaos, and my brother and his wife are packing up their family and moving back to her native Canada for a few years. In addition we are surrounded by couples that consist of two individuals from different countries. And then we have some friends that married people from the Shire too which is like another country. And down south, we have another friend who is French who has moved to Australia with her Kiwi spouse and kidlets and is busy settling into another new country with its own unique approach to paperwork.

So paperwork is obviously hard.  As is the cost of the paperwork.  When you fall in love with somebody from overseas you basically just give the government money for years and years to prove that you like them enough to continue to do so.  Doesn’t matter which government it is, they clearly do not subscribe to the theorem that love don’t cost a thing.

Having your family and friends on the other side of the world is hard. Doesn’t matter where you live you probably have a whole lot of people who are part of your happiness that are living somewhere else.  Modern technology and social media make it easier to keep in touch but it’s not the same. Ideally somebody will get that teleporting thing cracked so if my husband decides to have a beer with his best mate, neither of them have to fly for 24 hours. The time difference thing might still suck, but hell – drinking before 10am is a small price to pay for teleporting.

Language is hard for some.  Even though we both speak English we don’t use it in the same way. Just getting dressed is convoluted sometimes by the time you steer safely through thongs and pants and undies and flip flops and the like.  Our children are bilingual though which is a blessing. They say both flip-flops and thongs and know that a duvet and a doona are the same thing.  When you add in what Dora is teaching them we’re pretty much parents of the year.

You also have to accept that their mother will never ever forgive you for not being local. It’s got nothing to do with whether they like you. It is the fact that if you’re not living near them they’ve not got their son/daughter nearby, and then when you have their grandchildren abroad you might as well stand there and rip their beating hearts from their chests and hold it aloft while cackling maniacally.  My brother and his wife have cracked this though – they take turns breaking their mothers hearts which seems quite egalitarian of them really when you think about it.

Strangely, politics is hard. Even when you are both bleeding heart lefties, the way that can play out is quite different. When you are watching the decisions your country makes from abroad and the only way you can make your feelings known is by howling at your smartphone, falling to your knees and screaming “WHHHHHHHHY?”. As a person abroad, how your country purports itself really impacts people’s perceptions of you as an individual.  And let’s face it, every person from a country that doesn’t currently have Justin Trudeau planking on his prime ministerial desk is basically feeling the pain.

But you know, when you love somebody – it is what it is. I have never known of anybody bar Colin Frissell choose love based on nationality. 17,000 kilometres isn’t that far really thanks to those that invented aeroplanes and it’ll be irrelevant when that teleporting thing gets sorted out.

So if she asks me again, I’ll say the hardest thing about being married to a person from abroad is he never puts the sugar away. Drives me effing bonkers.

     

*tongue firmly in cheek people.

Rent: Not the musical

4 Apr 2016

We’re renters.

You know, people that don’t own a house.

Mainly because we kind of hadn’t really decided which country we were going to live in so like all good people faced with hard decisions we decided not to think about it.

This century we’ve lived in three countries and 9 towns/cities in that time so clearly we have commitment issues when it comes to locations. That said, we’ve been in our last place for 3.5 years which is the longest we’ve lived anywhere since Y2K didn’t happen.

Our current place is a great house with a kick arse back yard and lovely neighbours.

But our landlordlady wants to move back in. Possibly because it’s a great house with a kick arse back yard and lovely neighbours.

Either way we’re on the move sometime in the very near distant future.

And even though we’ve only known that for 3.5 half days I’m obsessed with refreshing real estate sites every 3.5 seconds to see if somebody has put up a new place in the area we want to live.

Which is pretty much exactly where we are. We have a kid at school now and another starting next year and we love our local community which is packed with really lovely people. So much so my social tourette’s gets a work out whenever I go outside and Nick dreads the words ‘By the way did I mention……?”. We use words like ‘catchment area’ and can name every park in a 3 kilometre radius. We are completely smug about how close we are to the city and to the water and to Dan Murphy’s.

Moving doesn’t bother me as such. Yes it’s expensive and annoying. Rent will be inevitably be higher, moving costs are astronomical, we hate dismantling furniture and trampolines almost as much as hate putting them together and Nick just doesn’t pack the same way as me so we may even have to find two places if he can’t agree to do it my way.

But that’s what moving is like. Adrenalin inducing.

It’s the desire to stay local which has taken me by surprise. I don’t need much excuse at all to move on from a place, try somewhere new or do something different. I still hanker for London as much as I love Sydney.  But here I am, pushing refresh to make sure I don’t miss out on staying put.

And staying put is strangely adrenalin inducing.

Go figure.