A friend of mine recently referred to me as ‘laissez-faire’ parent, which I thought was an insult until I revisited the definition and saw that it meant ‘the policy of leaving things to take their own course, without interfering’ – which actually describes my default parenting style almost perfectly.  That said – not in the beginning – I was as obsessed with the milestones as if I was the most attentive of helicopter parents. 

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She said lots of other things too but this one is resonating with all the people who’ve been in touch recently to ask what they can do PRACTICALLY to support refugees and asylum seekers since our own government is most politely described as ‘pretty shit’ when it comes to upholding the human rights of others.

1. TALK

The first, and sometimes the hardest, thing to do when it comes to asylum seekers and refugees is to talk. Talk to your racist uncle, the work colleague that repeats some bullshit they read in a Miranda Devine column, the person that thinks that Spudutton is right to demonise minority groups. Challenge the mother that is up in arms about the word halal going on a jar of vegemite, the friend that shares shit on their facebook page about ‘sharia law’. Change the conversation. For everybody that talks about illegals, send them the links explaining how they are wrong.

When somebody says refugees and asylum seekers are nothing but societal parasites – mention Hieu Van Le – the South Australian governor, or Anh do – Comedian, Artist, TV personality, or Les Murray – Sports commentator, or Frank Lowy – the guy who built Westfield, or Majak Daw – the AFL chappie, or Dr Karl Kruszelnicki – Scientist and Radio DJ, or Deng Adut – Criminal Lawyer and NSW Australian of Year 2016, or even Dr Munjed Al Muderis, the pioneering surgeon who is giving amputees the chance to walk. Just for starters.  There are more examples. Everywhere.

And keep talking.  Even when your friends are sick of you talking about it. Tell them you’ll stop talking about it when positive change has occurred. Change might be slow, but it does and will happen.

2. BE A GOOD NEIGHBOUR
http://goodneighbour.co/

This fantastic initiative is about connecting local people with refugees and asylum seekers, who are new to the area, have arrived without the support of their own friends and family, and who need to create a whole new life for themselves in our community.

For project volunteers, it’s about reaching out to others within your local community, building new friendships and doing unto others what we could only hope would be done to us, should we ever find ourselves in need of a good neighbour.

3. SUPPORT BUSINESSES THAT SUPPORT REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS

There are heaps out there. Google is your friend on this occasion but a few to get you started are

• https://refugeetalent.com/ –  is a digital platform to connect skilled refugees with companies offering short and long term job opportunities
• http://www.noosawelcomesrefugees.org/aboutus – one of the artists involved in this project has been on Nauru since she was 15. They make amazing stuff. 
• www.gardens4good.net –  By buddying up trainee asylum seekers/refugees with experienced gardeners we provide on site training and job support. Profits from G4G go back into wrap around services for our trainee gardeners- including driving lessons, English classes and workplace training. 

https://www.kilimanjarokrafts.com/ – 50% of profits go to social good initiatives including assisting refugee children to attend schools and also to provide tuition for cultural activities such as music and recreational activities such as sports

4. BUY THEM SOME PHONE CREDIT
www.facebook.com/pg/GFMAN2016

The donate button is at the top of the page. Phone credit provides vital support for mental and emotional health by allowing contact with family, as well as giving access to medical, legal, media and advocacy support in Australia. All things we can agree they desperately need.

5. DONATE TO SPECIALISED SUPPORT SERVICES AND PROJECTS

This might seem like a no-brainer but these services can not function on love alone. They need your time and your money – whichever is easiest for you to give.  There are different services in each state but check out these for starters

• www.asrc.org.au – they provide food, shelter, legal advice, advocacy, education and employment programs, health services, general support, run campaigns, fundraise, you name it. There are equivalent organisations in each state but they are all working towards the same aim so you can’t go wrong with hunting them out and giving them time and/or money. 
• https://chuffed.org/project/seasonforjustice/ – this is a Mums4Refugees and Grandmothers against Detention of Refugee Children initiative which funds lawyers to help rape survivors needing urgent medical evacuation or women with breast lumps being denied assessment. Basically the kind of cases that Spudutton doesn’t want you to hear about – but you have the power to help fight and win urgent help before it’s too late.
• https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/ – it might seem a little less practical, but this organisation works to change the policies and what not that shape our overall approach.  RCOA’s core purpose is to promote the development of humane, lawful and constructive policies towards refugees and asylum seekers. To inform our positions on policy matters, we undertake research into a wide variety of issues affecting refugees and asylum seekers. 
• http://www.julianburnside.com.au/whatsinside/uploads/2016/03/national_list.pdf – this is a list compiled by Julian Burnside which covers most of the rest.  

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Irony in action – last day of 2017

I’m thin! I’m interesting! I’m committed! I’m resolved! I’m kinder! I’m BETTER THAN I WAS!

And then I think, actually, I’m kind of okay. And yeah, I’m fat but I’m perfectly happy at the moment sitting here on the couch with a glass of wine and a book, mindlessly flipping through Netflix and listening to my daughters cackle with manic glee in the playroom.

Yes, I have plans for the year, but I write to-do lists most days so it’s seriously not going to change my life. I, like all of us, can always work at being kinder, more empathetic and more compassionate, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to start liking everybody – surely liking most people is enough?

And if you don’t get caught up in all the hype that better is completely different, aren’t you always better than you were? Isn’t that the whole point of life? You start as a blob of a human, cute, hungry and a bit needy and you grow, and you learn things, and you start to communicate and you go about the business of life, each day becoming a better, more evolved version of the person you were yesterday? Sometimes that’s a ‘life lesson’ and sometimes it’s a ‘life goal’. 

I’m not saying don’t make resolutions. Resolutions are generally positives.  I am resolved this year to get back into meal planning and regular exercise – it all got derailed last April when I broke my sacrum in three places, and tore my rotator cuff falling off the toilet (see – life lesson – don’t stand on toilet seats to use the mirror – you’re welcome!)

2017 wasn’t a great year for me in many, many ways. It was a long hard slog back to mental equilibrium after the period of my life in late 2016 I jokingly (black humour is my fave) refer to as ‘that time I didn’t die’.  As a relatively high functioning depressive, there was a disconnect between how I felt and what people saw for most of 2017.  I got there by the end of the year – a few months of no suicidal ideologies and I was all ready to throw my pills out the window and declare myself CURED.

I didn’t of course. 2016’s life lesson was ideas like that are DUMB.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that I am excited about 2018. I have high hopes for it – particularly in regards to my family and my business. VERY high hopes. I’m looking forward to many things. I have plans, I have goals. But the person I am today is 43 years in the making. I’m perfectly imperfect like every other person on the planet. I don’t need to be somebody else entirely to be happy, loveable or successful.

My now is the exactly the right place for me to be on the second day of the new year. And if at the end of the year I’m a more evolved specimen of the person I am today, it’s not because of something I promised myself five hours into drinking wine, Pimms and mojitos on New Year’s Eve. It’s because the alternative to evolution is extinction. And the one thing I definitely know is that extinction is not what I want for myself.

What I want for the people I love (myself included) is that we find our inner peace. That we can be happy in our now so that we don’t feel like judging or judged. That we can be confident in ourselves so we can be open minded, that we can be kind and that we can be compassionate to those that most need it. 

For those of you that specific goals I give you these:

1. Eat Turkish Gozleme at least one a month – it is happiness
2. Think about exercising – for I am told it is the thought that counts, and lastly
3. Don’t be a dick – for this is the answer to all of life’s conundrums.

Happy 2018!

     

And just this morning, I thought, if I thought that – Imagine how freakin’ bone weary the people that live with discrimination day in and day out are feeling. The people who have had their voices silenced, their worth devalued, their very existence politicised to the nth degree.

I started actively campaigning for marriage equality over ten years ago. And by actively I mean I wrote blogs and news articles, I marched, I talked about the issue, argued and debated with people, rang the politicians, emailed the politicians, tweeted, marched, wrote, marched, tweeted, raged.

And now, now it is done.

Gay and queer Australians have finally had their human rights recognised.  That’s not to say that it’s all instantly better. The kind of abuse and prejudice gay and queer Australians have been subjected to over the decades and especially over the last few months is pretty awful. And when I say pretty awful – it’s because I haven’t yet found a word that truly encompasses the magnitude and cost of the bigotry.

And I’m not gay or queer. If I cried, if I felt overwhelming relief that justice had finally been served, if the visceral sense of a wrong being righted was felt so strongly by me, a straight female – imagine how huge the feelings of those who it affected must have been.

While the whole vox pop debacle about marriage equality was being played out, Australia stepped up it’s oppression of refugees on Manus Island. And I wonder what it will take for Australians to recognise the catastrophic violation of human rights occurring in our name and stand up to the politicians on this issue? How many more lives do we have to ruin? How many more have to die?

When will now be for them? When will it be ‘done’? We don’t know, so weary or otherwise, we need to stay loud, stay angry.

I realise that we’ve been played beautifully on this issue. We can’t see the refugees, the policies and processes that refugees in our communities have to live by are so draconian, that they are silenced by the threat of being sent offshore, being locked up again. They are not allowed to work, to travel, to access medical nationwide. Their visas are chopped and changed. We finally get people prepared to be vocal about it and they come back into politics and are silenced.

Yes we have our own homeless, our own poor, our own elderly, our own abused and our own sick. But you can’t care about one, if you don’t care about all. Empathy, compassion and a truly equitable and inclusive society doesn’t come about by only caring for people you see.

So tis the season know to make choices and resolutions for 2018. And I ask, that if you can choose to be anything in 2018, you choose to be kind.

For it in choosing kindness each and every time, that we truly change the world.

In the current environment, kindness is the fundamental, most controversial form of activism that exists in our world. 

Let’s stick it to the man, let’s be kind together.

     

I have a lot of friends with faith – in religion, in the supernatural, in the universe, in signs, in superstitions, in pseudoscience, in science, astrology, in alternative therapies, in the power of ‘woo’ generally…. the list goes on.

BUT

The only thing I believe in is Rumpology.  Who doesn’t want to believe in something that states that although everyone’s bum is unique,  a round bottom suggests a person is open, happy, and optimistic, whereas a flat bottom can mean someone is vain, negative, and sad.

Better still – you can get ROCKY’S MUM TO READ YOUR BUTT! This is a true story. Check the link out if you want definitive proof that fat bottom girls make the rocking world go round.

ACTUALLY

I don’t really believe in Rumpology.  Though I really want to do so because I have a round rump.

I am however, an expert in the ancient (1990’s) art of faking Feng Shui.

The following are 5 untruths I attributed to Feng Shui in the time before the internet to help some friends, that ended up actually being REAL Feng Shui.

It’s a gift.

I said it was something about the mattress holding all the negative energy of past relationships where you needed something clean and untainted. They got a new mattress, got a new partner and lived happily ever after.

2. Don’t have your front and back doors aligned

I said it was something about needing the good luck coming in the front door not being able to go straight out the back, and you could fix it by putting a table or plant in the way to divert it into the house. They gave it a crack, got a promotion and six months later spent a lot of money on an interior designer to Feng Shui their entire house so they could live happily ever after.

3. Put up pictures of you with your friends having a good time

I said that I understood it was something to do with surrounding yourself with visual statements of positivity was good Feng Shui. They whacked up a bunch of photos, had a ball finding the perfect ones, reminded themselves of some great times, actually called some of the friends and voila! – no longer feeling friendless and lived happily ever after.

4. Declutter

Even I, queen of the untidy, recognises that tidying up makes you feel more in control of everything. You tell somebody you are pretty sure it’s a basic Feng Shui principle rather than just some basic common sense, THEY WILL DO IT and live happily ever after. 

5. Get some red cushions and ‘stuff’

I honestly even said and ‘stuff’ proving once and for all I clearly knew nothing. They were saying that it didn’t seem to matter how hard they worked or what job that they tried, they weren’t feeling successful.  Working on the assumption that the Chinese like red, Feng Shui was probably Chinese based, I said that I had seen somewhere that having strong blocks of red around the house attracted wealth, success and happiness.  They got red cushions, red vases and I think a red dinner set, actually stuck out a job for longer than three minutes and put it all down to the red cushions as the reason they lived happily ever after.

Thing is – at it’s heart Feng Shui seems to me more about the ancient Chinese art of common sense than anything else –  surround yourself with colour, have a positive mindset and clean your shit up occasionally*. 

And that’s definitely something I can believe in!