What IS it?

With everything before me, everything yet to be done, I could not help but do it.

To live in disarray would remind me too badly of our old Housing Commission house, where dad raised me from age 10.  I had become a thorough, detailed cleaner in separation from that house – the icy cold I woke to gloomy mornings, knowing dad’s room was warm like a sauna as he bought only one heater for the household, and it was for him; the pile of clothes in the middle of my room from which I lifted my thin school dress and underwear, wore yet another day; the depression like low-hanging clouds, oppressive – I gasped for breath – the kitchen with only randomly more than beer and sultanas in it.  I had to get our new home into shape.  Immediately.

Tirelessly I worked, and as I did, Daniel’s happy disposition became ragged.  He wanted more in life than to see me unpacking clothes into cupboards, crockery and cutlery too, pots, miscellany into kitchen drawers, pushing the fridge into place, our toiletries into the bathroom.  More and more broken felt my back as I lifted, pushed, bent and dragged our new home into shape.  It was only 24 hours since I had scrubbed out our old flat, wiped over the floors with a wet cloth on my hands and knees because I consider mops inefficient, polished all the windows and latches.  And less than 24 hours since I had near drowned by Tracy and her energies.

Now it was all out of the bag and Tracy no doubt had complained to Chris that the mother of his child said she’d committed child abuse – though I did not – I would be able to talk with Chris.  I guess something good had come of it.

Yet, I had spoken with Chris months ago.  I had told him I didn’t feel comfortable with him leaving Daniel with Tracy.  He’d asked why and objected at first, then simply elected not to.

“OK, I won’t”, he’d said, which disarmed me.  I could say no more when he said that.

But Chris did not keep his word.  Again, he had spoken the words he believed served the moment, honouring not a breath.

.

When finally I was done late in the afternoon, when Daniel and me were placed, no longer misplaced, I begged a long soak in a warm bath.  However, for Daniel I took us out the door. 

.

On the beach Daniel wanted breeziness and joy from me, energy to play and giggle with him.  However, tears were in my eyes and an anchor was on my heart.  I could only sit by him as he occupied himself, and smile by my lips only as he showed me lumps of wetted sand sliding through his fingers, a hole he had dug.

“People always say when you’re with me that you shine and are beautiful and joyous.  Always, ALWAYS when back from Chris, theres a dullness in your eyes.  What is it.  What is it.“

- I wrote later that night when finally Daniel’s long dark eyelashes rested over his eyes; when his marshmallow soft cheeks dented slightly, momentarily, as my lips touched them in loving kiss; when a tear escaped my eye and splashed against his blankets as I stood back to hold my mouth and my heart, ‘knowing’ but not knowing something was wrong in the world.

“I thought at first it was because of the shunting from him to me but I feel so sure now it is more, it is something else.  I just wish I understood.”

“Aaargh, I can’t move my legs!” I said with a sliver of energy as Daniel dumped wet sand over my knees and shins.  He giggled.  But he knew I wasn’t really there.

“Daniel, I want only to give you the room to blossom and grow freely and I feel more and more that Chris is a risk to your personal development.  He is so negative, so sour.  He is horrible.”

- I wrote with the last breaths of energy available to me at the end of that day, trauma in my heart trying to speak to my mind, to formulate a voice.

“I am near to having had enough.  I feel for certain that we have had enough.  We cannot take him any more. 

I have to think of how to break us from this man.  I feel truly it would be doing you a favour – YOUR LIFE, YOUR FUTURE. xxxx Mama”

And down I lay my pen, looked into the darkness outside my window, heard the traffic on Stirling Highway, felt again so isolated, the keeper of Daniel and me.

I could not ring my sisters in Melbourne.  I was not on a real level with either of them.  Neither knew my life.  They only knew Daniel is a cherub.  They only knew Perth is sunny.  They only knew I am getting by and nothing could have me return to Melbourne, for I could not live in the same State where my father breathed, existed.  They didn’t know quite how truly, but I could not ever return to Melbourne where echoed still that little girl me, crying in my father’s household, a jar of psychiatric and sleeping pills stolen from my father’s floor at side for when I could not take any more pain – really, really could not take any more pain.

Nor could I ring my sister in Adelaide.  If changing your surname by deed poll to disconnect from family didn’t say clearly enough you wish not to be of our vein, nothing would.

.

I took one last look at my sleeping son.  I turned off the light and crawled into that haven, bed.  I drew the covers tightly around me and wondered, I wondered how I could disconnect Chris from Daniel’s life now Daniel was two years old and Chris had established rights of contact.

The reality was, I could not.

.Copyright

Noeleen&Daniel 50/50

Your perspective IS your reality

Good morning, Subbers

Some days – aye, not all days, but some days you have a certain perspective.  It just comes about, I don’t know, perhaps from fatigue, being rundown through your days, from ennui, or watching the news too much.

I don’t have a broken, tired perspective today (blessings!).  In fact, I’m doing okay these days (removing alcohol’s importance from my life has good side effects! How slow I’ve been to wake up that it never did heal or bring true comfort to my dark, tragic heart of depression).

Yet,

I was looking back on my “poetry” – you know that big volume of words I have and never knew what to do with so stashed them all into the one place, for the sake of preservation of those days may they rest in peace.  I’ve pulled out a couple of these “poems” before and you’ve been okay with that, so thought to venture one today, if I may.

It’s not joyous, but it speaks of my perspective.  My perspective for over decades, starting within my father’s damaging, soul-destroying household to when I fled and stood alone, it stayed within my marriage still bulimic, and continued when I raised Daniel – my perspective was BLACK.

I came by an article, Your Perspective ISYour Reality, and if you’re having anything like a low or uncertain day, I recommend a visit to it.  I wish I had read such an article way back then, but… well, that’s life, isn’t it:  negotiating your way, negotiating; negotiating those dark streets, dead ends, having the endurance and finding the will to turn back and retread and turn about, facing inner demons, side-stepping, deciding forks in your everyday path, until here and now, I have landed myself today.

I wish you each and all, wellness.

It’s funny to say that because I don’t know you each, but I do mean it because you are people.  You are out there, and you are braving your thing this life, negotiating your way – and I feel for that.  And that’s how I say such a wide reaching thing and mean it.

Cheers

N’n. 

 

JUNE OH-TWO 

Sleep relieves me from consciousness

dreams relieve me from reality.

The alarm clock rips me from my bed,

work gives way to time, I pass the day

 

Dusk dispels the sunshine, night covers the humans as they bed down to rest,

just a few sneaking from beneath its blanket of darkness to kill, rape, rob and harm, as the seconds tick by seceding to minutes to hours, as lives advance, stall, falter and die, as newspapers hit the stands,

as dawns the new day.

Copyright, Noeleen

Thanks Google Images

Excess of things

Below, a reading of the next chapter far below.

I knew we were being watched.  You just know.

The best tactic for integration is to smile regardless of how you feel, I had learned in my years, so I kept a pleasant face as I showed the removalists upstairs, opened the door of our new flat, went down and assisted them in bringing up bags and boxes.  If I saw anyone peeking through their curtains, I would smile.

I couldn’t wait to return my old keys to the real estate agent and have my bond money returned.  The anxiety I felt in their power of decision – despite I had scrubbed the bath, toilet and tiled floors well, the stove, the floorboards; that they could decide it wasn’t good enough, in the name of that human pastime of winning money over other people, kept me badly nervous.

“Daniel, come back!” I called.

Daniel had strayed down the driveway, which led directly onto Stirling Highway.  We had chosen, for the third home in Daniel’s life, a unit along Stirling Highway.  But we were now in another suburb and closer to the city.  I planned to sell the car as since giving up the job with the porno-loving boss, I was suffering on a single parent pension. 

The job I was promised had not come through yet.  “We definitely want you”, they told me when I rang to follow up, “But just have nothing at the moment.”  Such power to keep me hanging was in their hands and I could do nothing but clean Tom’s Yoga Room more often, for that handful of cash more often.  

My ex husband, a mechanic among other trades, had loved our 1977 Holden Torana.  It was the only thing I took from the marriage, which I did by promising to pay off our personal loan, our joint debt.  We made that agreement.

“Things” dissolve of meaning in your life when something of greater meaning is dissolving right before, and around you.  My ex husband’s “love” was liquidating rapidly into resentment and bitterness and the deluge of his seething feelings was drowning me.

“I will never be with another woman ever again if you leave me” he’d said, which kept me in his hold a year longer.  I did not want to be the cause of such effect upon another human being so I tried, I had tried to remain in his life, for his sake.

“I hope someone hurts you as much as you’ve hurt me” he then spat, when finally I found the guts to act in the name of my wellbeing rather than his.  It couldn’t have been love all along those nine years, I realized – not when in the final moment, at his most raw, the truest voice of his heart spoke that way.

David stepped into the comfort of another woman within months of my departure, eventually marrying his mate’s sister.

~

Daniel turned away from the traffic on Stirling Highway and returned to me.

“I need your help, sweetheart.  It’s a big job,” I said.  I then gave him a plastic bag with two brightly coloured stuffed toys bulging through it, orange octopus arms hanging over the side.  Daniel took the bag, and I the last box, and we together made our way up the stairs to our new home.

With the men paid and departed, Daniel and me stood in our new lounge surrounded by things.  I felt tired of things, and gladly offloaded many things every time we moved.  Things were like weights to me, making it difficult to move from one stepping stone in your life to another.  Waters of time and circumstances would always rush beneath our feet and if we insisted on carrying too many things each step of our way, I felt our journey may be impeded, the negotiation of our path threatened by imbalance as we tried to hold on to things, things, things – as well as our lives.

My sister Wendy was opposite to me.  She was a hoarder.  On her last visit from Melbourne, she had scolded me for letting go of so many of the stuffed animals given to Daniel by work colleagues, from when I was court reporting.

“How can you just throw them away?” she reproached.  “They were given to Daniel.”

“He already had two other bunnies,” I had explained.  “I kept the cutest” – at which we had an argument as to who was I to decide which bunny was the cutest.  They were Daniel’s bunnies, all three of them, and his opinion on which was the cutest may differ from my arbitrary one.

“And I gave them to charity – I didn’t throw them away!”

Wendy shook her head with great disapproval. I conceded I was wrong to discard gifts to Daniel but he had ample gifts and I wasn’t willing to carry them with us for 18 years just for sentimentality.  Besides, I hated over-abundance.  I did not understand why Daniel should have three bunnies when perhaps some child had none.  “I keep things of meaning,” I concluded, indicating to Wendy the white bear I had bought a few months before Daniel’s birth, and slept with so that he could sleep with it when he entered the world, the bunny then infused with my energy, smell and love.

But still Wendy and me did not agree, and whenever she sent me a birthday or other card in the years to come, she asked me to send it back to her if I planned to throw it away “because I really like it”.  Strange as it was to me, and no longer a gift which Wendy had let go of but rather still held, I sent back her cards – “Thanks for the birthday wishes:  it’s a beautiful card”, unwilling to myself possess these cards which served a moment, for decades future.

The only “things” Wendy kept among the rubble of memories about her home petrified in boxes, old suitcases and dust laden plastic bags that I understood the preservation of, was her swap cards from our days in the orphanage, one page of letterhead from the orphanage which I have no idea how she came by, but which she gave to me, and her green book of fairy tales by Hans Christen Anderson. 

As soon as I could read, I read those tales – and then again, and dreamed by them.  I was The Little Mermaid, I was The Little Match Girl, I was the girl with The Red Slippers. 

I was anyone, but me.

.

.

Copyright noeleeN&danieL 50/50

Echoes, a life departed

The men took charge, jamming the wire door open and first loading my bed into their truck, my fridge, writing desk, the six foot tall mirror from my marriage, and then all else we had, which was in boxes.

It was a wonderful feeling to have the men helping, even though I was paying them.  I loved their sweat, their biceps bulging behind taut tanned skin as they lifted my boxes, carried them into their truck.  I loved them carrying for at least an hour, the load of my life.

I reflected how it must be to have a partner – someone in support of your life, in support of you.  I had failed, and I was over 30 years of age, to settle with someone alongside me.  Why did I only ever attract men exactly as my father had defined for me in teens:  “Boys will never be interested in you; they’ll only ever want you for sex”. 

“Anything else?” the removalist asked.

Daniel was beside him.  He had trailed the men out to their truck each trip.  Although they didn’t engage with Daniel, he was happy just to be with them, I could see.  He looked up to these men carrying our loads, taking care of business.  I wondered if Daniel would ever know what loads I had carried for us, why mother was so, so tired some days.

“Um” I said, looking around.  The flat was so hollow.

Echo, would our memories in this space, until someone else moved in, generated new vibrations by dumping down a couch, a bed, fridge and wardrobe.  Echo, would our memories in this emptiness until other people trod upon the floorboards, clinked glasses and celebrated their new home, until the vibration of their voices, their energies, their lives filled the roominess we were leaving behind.

“Yes, that’s all,” I said.

The men jumped into their truck as I closed the door of the flat behind us, so glad to leave it behind us.  Daniel, all of 3 feet tall, walked proudly alongside me as we made our way to the car park.  Hungry, underslept and with Tracy’s rage still prickling on my skin, I turned the key in the ignition, manouvred my Holden out of the car park, and rolled down the lane to meet Stirling Highway.

I had done it again.  I had caused us to move on.

Copyright, Noeleen&Daniel, 50/50

She called it love; He called it stalking.

Gidday Subbers

I can hardly believe that a chronic under-achiever like me has not only STARTED something this lifetime, but I’ve finished it too!!  

THE JAMES DIARY is now “out there”!!!!!  So ripe to be picked by YOU for a poetic and emotionally engaging read of one woman’s heart.

The James Diary is the book I wrote in my first year out of marriage – and two years before Daniel was born.  And oh, such tell!  Alas alas, it is only in e-book form.  However, anyone and everyone can download a free e-book reader – here.  Easy!

Subbers, readers, passers-by, publishers (ha ha!), I would be delighted if you found your way to obtaining a copy, if you read it… even if you let me know what you think (but true!).

I here offer a video launching The James Diary including a sample reading by me:

and here, a trailer of The James Diary (’cause you know I like making videos):

Who was this woman, mother of Daniel, before Daniel was born?  Refer:  The James Diary

 

 

Copyright, Noeleen

(please, please ignore the blurb up there

- it’s embarrasing – view this launch/ignore that blurb!) 

The sheer terror in this man’s voice, his fear extreme – I’m sorry, I just can’t stop laughing about it

Good morning Subbers!

Whether the sun is streaming through trees just outside your window right now, or it’s grey being the second day of Winter as in Australia this Sunday morning, I wish to share with you something that made me laugh - and LAUGH!!!

I was working on my next chapter, but now am driven to distraction in wish to share with you.  Daniel sent me a link - ”Something you might like, Mum”    I SOOOOO LAUGHED!!! 

Today, no matter what else is happening (hey Susie; hope sincerely you found an abode) I wish to declare, Ah, ya  gotta laugh, Day.  WHATever has made YOU laugh recently – please give us a link in the comments.  A video? news item? humorous post by you? cartoon (wink, wink, Carl )?   Please share it!   I’d love to see today brimming with funnies – it’d be so wonderful!

~ The Inaugural International Ya Gotta Laugh Day ~

YOU are welcome:  hit me with your funny!

OK, here it is:  a reporter reporting from a country town in Australia – CLICK HERE (laugh there!)

YOU TAKE ON THE STRENGTH OF THE OBSTACLES YOU OVERCOME

Good morning!

I won’t claim fame to those words – they were a ‘tweet’ of John Holland, a spiritual teacher, psychic and author.  But when I read those words I thought:  YES!!  Tell my subbers!!

Wishing all wellness.

N’n