“Sweetheart  –” I began.

“No Dadda today!” Daniel said again, half in order, half request.  I snapped the buckle shut, looked at my boy.

~

“Chris, how often do you leave Daniel with Tracy?” I had asked, when collecting Daniel.  It was the opportunity I had been waiting for – Tracy was not around.

“Why?” Chris asked defensively.

I had learned over the months that if I had a concern regarding Daniel, I had to broach it carefully with Chris, tactfully.  I had learned that his temper needed to be managed and I had to be calm, gentle, placating.   If I angered Chris by questioning Daniel’s mood upon his return to me – or even wanted to know what they had done together, Chris was susceptible to tantrums.  He might handle Daniel roughly to demonstrate he is in charge – to see pain and anxiety rip through me, then storm off down the walkway of the block of flats, Daniel looking at me over Chris’ shoulder, me feeling anxiety, concern, helplessness.  He might sneer or laugh at me for my fears “groundless”, humiliating me in front of Tracy, regarding me as soft, brainless – “You make him a Mama’s Boy!”  He might raise his voice, have me cringe lest neighbours complain and Daniel and me be looked upon as trouble in the otherwise peaceful community.

I wished so badly that I could discuss Daniel with Chris and not be met with defence and guardedness – rather, equal concern.  But I could not, and inside me burned embers hell hot, of anxiety.  Daily I burned deep within where the child in me still cowered, trembled at raised voices, pleaded to not be the cause of a man’s ire.

~

“Mum has to work, darling,” I said.  I have to make money (how to explain that to a child?) so we can buy things we need and want – and pay rent!”

I had left my job as actor at the Police Academy and was working normal hours in a small office.  The boss often had an open Penthouse magazine on his desk when he called me in for some reason or other.  He repulsed me.  I was conflicted whether to tell him to put it away, or resist saying so in case he got some bizarre pleasure out of me acknowledging the breasts and long legs laid open before him.

Daniel was not persuaded.  He told me again he did not want Dadda today.

~

“Because, well, I don’t know Tracy”, I had told Chris.

What would Chris say if I told him that when I was putting Daniel to bed the other night and turned off the light, he began panicking and crying “Tracy in the dark!  Tracy in the dark!”  I had snapped on the light immediately and ask ‘What?’  But Daniel would say no more, just whimpered, “Tracy in the dark…” as if that explained itself to me.

Could Chris handle to know this, or would he think I was making it up?  What if he told Tracy and she got upset, and took it out on Daniel?  This is what broken people do to get at others, isn’t it:  harm children or animals? Could I risk this potential side effect of me telling Chris why I wanted to know how often he left Daniel with Tracy?

Tracy, a former battered wife who took beating after beating, but when her husband broke their son’s nose – then she left.  Tracy, who Chris planned to take custody of Daniel with once Daniel was out of nappies, “Because we got a house, dog, fence, and you got nothing.”  Tracy, who told me she knew Chris was having an affair when he met me (and I thought we were starting a relationship), and who forgave his disloyal character “Because he’s been hurt by love”, she’d said, pouring a cup of tea, watching the steam rising.  Tracy:  someone I had no right to sum up, or judge.

~

I looked at Daniel’s eyes in the rear vision mirror as I drove.  They were troubled:  where was he going?  Where was Mum taking him?

“We’re off to child care, sweetheart!” I said, cheerfully.  “Lots of fun with your friends!”  Daniel’s eyes turned from gazing out the window to meeting mine in the rear vision mirror.

I had done well to leave the job I loved, in favour of normal hours.  This way, Daniel could be placed in child care instead of with Chris.

But Chris now had established rights as Daniel’s father; a pattern, though haphazard, of seeing Daniel.  He did not pay for Daniel’s food, keep or wellbeing – I still needed to construct a response to his appeal against the backpay due to “achieve” that – but he had established rights because when Daniel was born I felt that a father has rights to see their child, bond, assist in raising them.  With that idealism, I had availed Daniel to Chris from the very first moment he expressed interest in Daniel – one week after his birth when Chris rang out of the blue near 11 p.m., arrived with a feng shui chart he had drawn up about Daniel and told me I had born him a lucky child “right time and day – not perfect, but very good.”

I had accepted Chris’ bruised fruit offerings, allowed him to display Daniel to his various female accompaniments as they went out for a night on the town (he was not shy to say); I had accepted $100 once, thinking, “That’s not how it’s done:  you don’t indulge in hours of fun at thee casino then give to your child what’s left, or lucky left”, my lips speaking nothing, knowing I would be called ungrateful.

I had flung the door open to Daniel’s father for no greater reason than because he was Daniel’s father, and I did not know how to close it again – or no, hold it only ajar, stand guarding the entrance, allowing Chris to pass our threshold only if he followed my rules.  With Chris’ intention to have custody of Daniel, I feared going to the courts in case they forced me to hand Daniel over even more than I was now, with growing reservation, doing.

“No Dadda today” Daniel said, meeting my eyes in the rear view.

“Daniel,” I said, “Dadda wants to see you.  He wants to have fun with you!  I have to let him pick you up from child care, sweetheart – but then Mama will come and get you.” 

Daniel did not respond.  I repeated, “Then I’ll come and get you.” 

He looked away.

~

“Don’t know Tracy, don’t know Tracy.  You don’t have to know Tracy.  She my girlfriend!” Chris retorted.

“Chris…”  I had to tell him.  “Daniel seems to be afraid of the dark – because of Tracy.”

“Lots of kids afraid of the dark!  Why blame Tracy?!”

He was irritated with me, did not want this conversation.  He didn’t like it when I had concerns about Daniel.  I was pure annoyance to Chris.

“No, just – how often do you leave Daniel with her?  And Karen?  Why do you say you want Daniel but then leave him with your sister or your girlfriend?”

“You just jealous, that’s all!”

Oh no, not that argument: I wasn’t a woman of thought, opinion or concern:  I was dismissible jealousy.

“Chris, I’m not jealous,” I said.  How could I explain to him there was no way in the world I wished to partner him, as I realized his character more and more every day.

“They got opposing energies, that’s all,” he then offered.

“What?”

“Just a bit of different.  We all different energies – opposing energies.”

“Chris, it’s not an energy thing.  Daniel cried out ‘Tracy in the dark!’ when I was putting him to bed.  What does that mean?  What’s he saying?”

Chris looked at Daniel, annoyed.  He looked at Daniel as if he were the reason for this hassle of a discussion.

“I don’t know!  He make it up!” Chris said.

Tears came to my eyes.  I felt like I had no say what Chris did with Daniel when he had time with him.  I felt the horror of not knowing.  I felt powerless, engulfed in sadness, fear.

“I don’t want you to leave Daniel with Tracy,” I said through my tears.  Daniel in my arms, put his hand to my face, wet his hand with my tears, looked at me curiously.

“You want I help you, you don’t want I leave Daniel with Tracy!”

I couldn’t believe I had vocalized that:  I had actually made a rule.  It would probably offend Tracy, but Daniel was my child and I didn’t want him in her company any more.  I didn’t want to offend Tracy.  Surely she was facing issues from what she had escaped from, but I just didn’t want Daniel with her.

“Yes I want help but no, I don’t want you to leave Daniel with Tracy,”  I said.  Daniel was patting the wet of my face against my cheek.  I shifted him to my other hip.  “Don’t say it unkindly.  Just, if you want time with Daniel I don’t want you suddenly going off because of an appointment.  Make your appointments when you don’t have Daniel.”

Chris began steering me toward the door.  He did that whenever I reached his limit of tolerance – which was so, so low.  He didn’t want to talk with me any more.  He wanted us gone – me and my teary face and Daniel who didn’t keep his mouth shut.

“OK, OK, I not leave Daniel with Tracy” he said, opening the wire of his front door.

“Do you mean that?” I asked, incredulous.  Had I actually established a boundary?

“Yeah yeah I mean it,” Chris said. 

As his body moved forward on me backing out of his front door, I saw Phong, Tracy’s son, in the shadows of the house in the background.  I hadn’t known he was there.  I wondered what he would tell his Mum, how he would say it.  I wondered what he knew.

Minutes later, Daniel and me were driving away from Tracy’s house, Chris behind us.  I did not trust what he had said, but felt I should learn trust.  It’s just that, Chris had an awful habit of delivering words to you, wrapped in what you wish.

.

.

Copyright, Noeleen&Daniel 50/50

It was a bit affluent (I have always feared getting that word mixed up with effluent)
 and in my jeans and black top, I didn’t feel I could walk into any of the dress shops that so tempted me.  

They were all empty, the dress shops, and appeared cool and dark inside.  In each, at the end of the rows of gorgeous dresses stood a woman well coiffed, well dressed and manicured, waiting for “real” customers;  customers with money to burn:  not me.  I just did not feel rights to step in and browse.  

So I was outside, on the streets, in the balmy lovely sunshine.

The reason I was in that suburb is because Daniel had an appointment.  The thing is, that place is notorious for keeping you waiting, waiting, waiting (and that professional is worth waiting for).  As Daniel was fine to sit texting his friends back and forth, I went for a wander.

I ambled down one street without entering any shops, crossed the road, went up the other side.  I was aimless, idling time.  There was an intersection up ahead, so I crossed the lights and went down another street.  I heard jazz music flowing through the open windows of a cafe/bar.  I looked in:  again, I didn’t belong.

Then I smelt incense.  I followed it.  I came upon a new age shop.  Comfortable at last, I went in.  Jade, crystals, books, essences… and a sign:  the palm and tarot reader is available.  I thought, hmmm, it’s been a while since I did something spontaneous…  

When I first met Daniel’s father, it was all chance – well, fate. I had decided to try the hairdresser on the ground level of the building where I worked as a court reporter.  That random day the hairdresser chatted, saying she’d met a feng shui practitioner who did a reading, and her life had improved.  I said I’d never thought about feng shui. She said give it a go. Why not, I thought, as I took the number she gave me.  Later arrived Chris at my bed sitter, pony-tailed, vibrant, Eastern wisdom to offer (I thought).

So I asked the attendant how much a palm reading was, and tarot reading, and then – though I had gone out that day for Daniel’s appointment, I decided to give it a go.  I rang Daniel, asked if he had been seen yet, and did he mind me taking half an hour for a reading?  He said, ‘Go for it’.

Wow.

So so much was said, brought into perspective, resonated.  How can this be?  She even became curious at Daniel and drew some cards relating to him.  Again, what she said was entirely credible/related/happening.

Rather than bore you with a self-indulgent post on what the reader said of me, I’m letting you know I have decided to video my recall of the reading.  In a year’s time, I will look at that video and report on what she said that actually happened.  Things are meant to be changing this very year upcoming, so I will “look again” in a year’s time…

~

Subbers:  thank you again, for being there.  Thank you for what healing is occurring to me in the writing of Daniel and my story, which you receive – and sometimes comment upon:  I thank you, we connect.   

For a bit of ‘entertainment’, the below video is a poem I wrote and had nowhere to place – about a year after Daniel and me arrived in Melbourne, 4000 kilometres from Perth in Western Australia (where his father is).  The year that followed this became very dark indeed, and the one after that…

but today the sun shines, and this is prosperity.

Sincere best All.

Copyright, Noeleen

I was conscious of my mortality, conscious of the salt in the breeze, could almost feel salty specks get caught in my nose hairs as I breathed in.  I was conscious of the sun warming us; a mighty heater in the heavens.

Daniel was giggling and interacting with another toddler.  But I stayed very close, so deeply, deeply afraid he might do something wrong like throw sand or hit the boy or frighten him or be loud.  I was ready to swoop in and remove us, excuse us, retreat.  I did not feel comfortable in society.  I was taut with anxiety.  Not even the radiance from the heavens could melt my anxieties.  All of the other mothers, I saw, were capable and confident.  If their child cried it would be normal, accepted, a part of life – but if Daniel cried, I would be guilty of disturbing the peace, guilty of having a child unrestrained of emotion, guilty of being noticeable.

I hated my low self esteem.  I was conscious that the way I was, was not normal.  Yet I did not know how to change how I naturally felt.  How do you naturally feel you have a place in society?  How does an ape sitting in a tree amongst the others feel surely it belongs?  How do you feel you have a right to be, to take up space, to plot yourself on the beach and actually spread out? Where does this sureness of being a valid human come from?

Invalid.  A burden to a mother who must kill herself to escape you; to a father who drank himself into stupor enough to not see you. And now Daniel’s mother.

.

A seagull landed nearby me, joined by another, and cocked its head with a knowing.  It eyeballed me, cocked its head the other way.  Yes yes, I had food.   I remembered my hunger, teens.

.

The other mother smiled blithely at Daniel and her young.  She looked so relaxed.  Was she actually enjoying being here?  What would she do if… if… I don’t know.  I wasn’t fully sure what I feared, but the unpredictability of Daniel growing and forming alongside me petrified me.

I wanted to put my feet in the ocean, to walk away for a few moments – submerge fully.  I remembered my days before Daniel when I went to the nudie beach, Swanbourne, and bathed without inhibition in the blessing which is the ocean, that chopped about wildly at my feet. As I stepped into the ocean, it drank me into its depths as much as I drank it.

.

I could not let it be with Chris.  If I did not establish a foundation of support for Daniel now, there would never be a marker of expectation.  My expectation from Chris was to step up and be a man.  I had to find the balls to face the every day of having Daniel, and he needed to find the balls to support that in the absence of him self.  I decided I would respond to Chris’ argument.  I would write to the Child Support Agency and state what I saw to be just and right from my perspective.  He had given his perspective:  I would give mine.  The Deciders of round 4 would make their decision and we would all live with it (I hoped).

But I would not surrender to Chris’ bark now because to do so would be like cutting cloth painstakingly through the months, leaning over my purpose, stitching the insignia of Daniel and me through stress and fatigue; it would be like hemming that symbol of rights and raising it up a flag pole in statement:  you have engendered karmic debt by your human actions in the throes of pleasure and here we stand to ask you to pay – it would be like that flag being caught by the wind and billowing wide and loud, but being shot down.  It would be like, then, not raising it again.

I had to raise our flag again, shot down by words in opposition, because though Daniel and me were small upon this Earth: we were small, but real.
.
.

Copyright  Noeleen&Daniel 50/50

I paused, let the sun breathe on me a few moments more, let the slight waft of breeze from the ocean ruffle gently the plant life around me a few moments more, let peace remain a few moments more.  I then opened the letter.

‘Application for Review of a Child Support Assessment’, I read in black and white.  Behind that page was several more, being Chris’ argument against the backpay which had gathered in dollars and cents as he stalled through the Courts, aiming incredibly for the impossible:  to not be declared Daniel’s father.

“She could have been with anybody,” I could still hear him say to the Magistrate, but had introduced Daniel to his family only weeks earlier as his son, and begged I tell them that I was his wife.  I had looked around the courtroom, had felt crimson Catholic shame tinge my face.  Indeed, I could have been with the local football team.

 .

“Already paid,” was Chris’ defence.  What?  How?

‘Television – $100’ I hadn’t asked for a television!  Chris just came up with it one day. Was that “child support”?

‘Washing machine – $80’  That old washing machine he gave us that day I giggled so much -  I was grateful for it, though it broke soon after, and cost me to repair.  Can that be “child support” when food is what was needed that week, and shelter; support toward Daniel’s shelter?

‘Babysitter’ – how could Chris paying his sister to look after Daniel when he said he would have Daniel, be child support?  It wasn’t my fault he handed Daniel along rather than kept his word.  And surely that was “sharing responsibility”?  

I did not understand.  Did Chris have a valid argument?  Had the effort and stress in bringing us to this day been made futile by Chris’ neatly compiled Plan B?  I felt gutted.  

‘Chinese medicine and doctor for when Daniel was sick’.  But I took Daniel to the doctor when he was sick too!  It was part of “caring for Daniel”, not child support… was it?  I did not know.  ‘Baby capsule, bottle, clothing nappies…’   

Then I read, 

“On September 22^nd to the 27^th of September the mother disappeared during this time the father has had full care of Daniel and paid for everything in this time, the mother did not tell any one where she was which caused anguish to the father and the child.”

I was mortified.  Chris had let the Department know of my breakdown.  What would they think of me now, how would the Department treat me now, having deserted Daniel to his father.  Is leaving a baby with their father for a few days deserting them?

I felt so ashamed, outed as incompetent – not competent enough to keep going through sleep deprivation, crying publicly without reason and randomly, Daniel crying, Daniel grizzling, responsibility, weight, weight, weight of need upon you, alone.  What was Chris’ purpose in stating this?  To say he paid for Daniel singlehandedly a few days and it had been a draining experience?  I knew that!!! 

I felt deep despair in recall of that time, just on a year ago.  I had one night spoke out to Chris my intention to pursue child support, as his “I’ll pay what I can when I can” wasn’t happening and although I had trusted his word, I realised it was not trustworthy.  In his rage that followed, Chris spat, “I’ll piss off! You’ll see!”  He then became uncontactable for a month, unavailable, absent – not there for Daniel for a whole month. 

Alone in the west of Australia, no friends with children, no meaningful friendships, no mother/dead, no father/his name cut bad memories through my mind, no family at hand/all east of Australia, besides which they were strangers to me.  Zombie-like, undernourished, depressed cold dark and reverberating, I handed Daniel to Chris when Chris rang out of the blue, suddenly available.  And I did not pick him up for three days – it wasn’t five.

As Daniel babbled about the newspaper laid out before him, I lay back on the concrete driveway and looked up at the brilliant skies of sunny Western Australia.  Heaviness descended upon me, fatigue, and sadness.  If Chris was this dedicated to not surrendering to Daniel what Daniel actually needed and Chris was capable of paying, perhaps I should just let him so be.  My energy had been eaten by the financial wrangle this past year, like tiny pincers of negativity tearing away at my qi, daily.

With looking for work, trying to stay buoyant for Daniel, manage life – washing, shopping, cleaning – and cleaning the yoga room on top of all that, let alone I wasn’t sure Daniel was in good hands when left with Chris so I had to work that out, perhaps it was better to apply my energy to daily life, not the argument of money.  Money was so hollow, so nothing compared to all that mattered.  

Yet, so necessary.  

Without money we may have to move to a less prosperous suburb than I had born Daniel into, eat less quality food, less food, live poorer: less everything.  To not be at loggerheads with Chris, Daniel and me could step down in circumstances and just focus on us, on survival – like hundreds of thousands of women who began to fight for the best for their child, had lain down their guns in the face of such kind of men.  

Money has no soul.

Copyright
Noeleen&Daniel 50/50

It remained too difficult to me to get rid of someone who has given me something for “free” – first lesson free, first hour free, free quote.  I seem to be incapable of extricating myself from such lures without buying a course, pack or service.  I loathe this of myself.  It was just as well I didn’t have a house, to quote.

.

Holding the letters, I noticed one was from the Office of Births, Deaths & Marriages and the other was from the government.  I felt cold fear at the letter from the government. 

“Would you carry the newspaper for mum please, sweetheart?” I asked Daniel.  He proudly took to the task.  As we walked down the driveway to our flat, I opened the letter from the Office of Births, Deaths & Marriages.  It was confirmation that my request to amend the records of registration of Daniel’s birth had been obliged:  Chris was now recorded as Daniel’s father.

“Tell them I’m a student who went back to China,” I recalled his words, fearing being named, accountable.  “You’re lucky in Australia – the government takes care of it.”  

So easy is fun; infinitely personally challenging, consequences.

I sat at the end of the driveway, the opened letter in my hands.  It was sunny, Perth.  Daniel sat with me.  How could I express to him his father was now written in history because of me:  named as his father.  Chris was not recorded anywhere as the father of his daughter, but because of me he was declared, inked, recorded as Daniel’s father.  

I wondered if Daniel would ever be allowed to know his half sister, or would want to.  For now, it was clear Chris didn’t want me in touch with “the other mother”.  I sensed he feared I would tell this Asian woman that in Australia, she didn’t have to alone bear all the costs of her union with Chris.

.

History can be written, and it can be not written, I reflected, watching Daniel spread the newspaper on the ground, and open it out as if we were going to have a reading session there at the end of the driveway. 

As we each live, impacting other lives, how so much is lost to memory – unless crumbs of those lives, their moments, are swept up and collected by someone inclined.  When all players centre stage have exited and the lights are turned off, those inclined creep back in to collect from the floorboards accidentally kicked to the edges to be forgotten, or trampled during violence or passion of living, or swept under some rug: the facts.  Fact collectors cannot help but take record, photographs, and write the drama as it pierced their life.  Anne Frank and countless others caught history because they could not help but record their existence.  They could not help but say. 

And so, I had written history – or recorded it true.  Still I knew, written in history is not the same as written in heart.

.

.

Copyright Noeleen&Daniel 50/50

.

My boss said she didn’t think she could put me on any more assignments if I was likely to “pull out like that”.  I looked down, troubled:  I had never before in my life been unreliable in work – and that’s since age 14.  I wished I could explain to her that the reason I had to decide this was that I didn’t feel good leaving my son with his father – the father says he wants to see Daniel, and enable me to work, but then leaves Daniel with his sister or girlfriend because he says he needs to keep feng shui appointments, but being his own boss I don’t know why he doesn’t make appointments in the times he doesn’t have Daniel; and Daniel looks so unhappy sometimes when I pick him up, and I have this feeling but I don’t know, and my doctor says it’s because I’m a first time mum; all first time mums feel like that, he said; and Daniel told me I was bad the other day and calling him ‘bad’ isn’t in my vocabulary, so I don’t know where he got that from – let alone the word ‘fuck’.

.

I was sitting at my writing desk.  Daniel was asleep.  It was 9.47 p.m.  In the land of bliss Daniel lay blithely, while I hunched over my desk with the weight of both our lives on my shoulders.

I chilled to recall my cherubian boy, 16 months old, standing alongside my bed with a ruler in his hand.  I came in to discover a strange look on his face, like dark anger.  He slammed the ruler down, striking the bed hard, twice, and bellowed, “BAD!  You’re bad!  Bad, BAD!”  He eyeballed me steadily, and the strength of his voice surprised me.  I tried to take the ruler from Daniel, but he had a strong hold of it.  I sat on the floor to look into his face, his eyes, and tell him that I am not bad.  I reflected, then added, “And nor are you.”  I said he was a good boy, at which his grip lightened. He seemed to be seduced by my talk, for when I said he was a wonderful boy and I loved him very much, he let go of the ruler and I took it from him.

“Sweetheart,” I said, “Why would you say that?”

Daniel of innocence, had not an answer.  He just looked at me.   Like a pet that witnesses the burglary of your home while you sleep, his eyes bespoke intelligence and information, but he did not talk his mind.  His mind, his formative mind.  I was bewildered.  I did not understand what had just passed.

.

“Perhaps I can’t stay with this work then,” I told the woman who had hired me.  I did not want to say that.  I did not want to become that social pariah “a single mum on benefits”, but nor did I want to leave my son in the hands of people I did not know.  Why couldn’t Chris just say, “I’ll take care of Daniel,” and then actually take care of Daniel?

We agreed that I would stay in the job until she found a replacement.  This was the least I could do.  It had been enormous fun being an actor for Police recruits, but I could no longer keep the job.  I had to let that whole opportunity for work slide away from my life, because acting work was notoriously irregular.  An office for me it would be, and childcare for Daniel. 

~ ` ~ `

Sweet Daniel

Last night your father rang and suggested custody to himself, saying Tracy (his girlfriend) could take you on.  Wednesday, the night before, Chris was aware that I had been with a man.  I am normally very private, having sensed that your father would be jealous and withdraw his babysitting support of you.  He normally has you Friday nights, you see, but won’t tonight because he told me (suddenly) he doesn’t want to see you for a week.  He said, “I want a break.”  That’s how easily he gets a break; I cannot.

I try always that Chris not know I am ever with a man, but this time he was aware because I was late back to collect you and he seemed to know.  Then the next night, Thursday, he suggested custody.  Your father, I am sure, does not want me to see men because that implies he maintains a control over me – my freedom – and so is supposed to hook me into need of him, emotionally if nothing else.

10.58 p.m.  

I left my writing desk, went to look upon Daniel in his cot.  Completely surrendered to his need of sleep, he lay wholly protected by me, safe.

Chris had frightened me when he told me of his plan to gain custody of Daniel once he was out of nappies.  That was a year ago, but he seemed to remain dedicated to the plan. 

Deep, is my fear that Chris would expose my lone circumstances to government agencies, and they would decide I am not mentally strong enough to raise Daniel, and they would take him away and hand him to Chris. 

Deep, is my fear that anyone might learn of my depression.  I never discussed it with my doctor after I’d left the marriage, the whole three years I was single.  Why he offered to enable an abortion at 16 weeks “because of the detriment to your mental health”, he’d said, I still cannot fathom – but my mental state was my secret, I believed.  Mum’s mental illness, dad’s mental illness, my sister’s mental illness – all my quiet secret.  I could not let any service, agency, doctor or even family in Melbourne know my inner anxieties, for it would become pin the tail on this donkey (too).  And more, I must not let Chris know.

I want to give you every opportunity to grow in life, Daniel

I wrote into the night, capturing my son’s life lest, lest we forget.  11.17 p.m.,

- to discover your own self-empowerment.  I want to give you all.  I will fight for custody of you, my beloved.  I will at no cost concede to custody.  It is in my arms, I believe, that you will be given the best upbringing. 

You have so much potential, my darling. 

You are a winner in the making and a winner in the moment. 

God bless you.

xxxxxxx Mama/Noeleen

.

I closed my journal.

So quiet is the late of night, so lone my life, so echoes does my childhood in my head, so tired I do feel.

I cleaned my teeth as we are taught to do.  I washed my face like we did in the orphanage.  I put my shoes neatly aside like Aunty Betty showed me the way.  I turned off the light.

.

Sex.  I had had sex with my old lover, Stuart.  And Chris had sensed it.  I was sure he had.  I sighed askance as he flaunted various lovers in front of me.  They each, I could tell, thought like I did when we were together:  that a relationship was in the making between them.  One by one, they would discover he was in a relationship already.  I did not care.  It was Tracy who needed to care.  But me, I kept my life as private as I could for I knew, just knew Chris would react badly if I had a lover, or fun, or didn’t need him any more – the respite he could give me, the saving of my sanity.

After sex was written all over my face, whereas Chris had at first been available, suddenly he was not.  I had to find a sitter for my next shift at work.  The stress ripped me up.

On top of that, he reinforced that he would make a path to take custody of Daniel.  Would a Magistrate give him custody, if he is wont to become unavailable for weeks at a time?  What about the month he withdrew from Daniel’s life, when I first mentioned child support?  That had so broken my back.  No one had ever needed me my whole life (in fact, I needed) – but Daniel needed me so totally, on some days it buried me.

.

Quiet, quiet,

still,

the night.

.

I have to not rely on Chris, was amongst my last thoughts before I stepped into the stream of consciousness which roams free at night.  If I did not count on Chris in any way, I could not have the rug pulled from under me by him,  sending me off into battle alone, to stand 24/7 sentry for our son, provider single, exhaustion, sleep deprivation.  It’s punishment, I thought to myself.  He was punishing me for having been free of him, momentarily. 

Was this me being too mental again, thinking like that? I am so, so mental.

Was I making this up of Chris or was it real, this powerplay I perceived?

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The  tide, gentle, lifted me off my feet and I lay back, surrendered, to the stream’s will to carry me away for the evening.  I would be strong and not need Chris’ help, I decided as I felt remnants of dreams brush by my arms:  flotsam and jetsam of other days. 

I would establish some boundaries – I would cease to be available whenever Chris fancied, and he might value his time with Daniel – make no feng shui appointments in that time, plan an occasion in that time.  But I had decided that before, but I had not been resolute.  I wanted Daniel to know his father.  If that meant being available whenever it was that his father could make room for Daniel in his life, that was what I should do, wasn’t it?…

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Images surreal, Mozart floating, stars shimmering.  I lapsed.  I fell to sleep. 

But a new thought,

direction,

way

penned itself into my Manifesto For Daniel before I was carried along the stream into the ocean of dreams:  I would become stronger each time Chris played a power game; not weaker.  This was a decision I needed to make.  It would be a decision Chris would not like, but remained a decision I needed to make.

Copyright, Noeleen&Daniel 50/50

Greetings, Subbers

To those keen, curious and those just hangin’, here is a The James Diary update.

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The best of LIFE, to you all.

Noeleen

Chris was still touching me when I went to collect Daniel from him after my work at the Police Academy.  It is that which I had instant recall of when I heard his voice on the phone:  his hand sliding down my buttock cheek, patting me, his exploded chest proud and manly, feeling good about it all – and in front of his girlfriend who accepted him sleeping around “because he’s been hurt by love”, as she told me.

When I resign from the job, I would be leaving having to collect Daniel from Chris (largely).  For this I felt better inside. I didn’t want to leave the job.  It was a magnificent break into acting, but it was not sustainable in my life.  Still, I wished upon the natural outrage that some women have at being touched without invitation; I wished I could shout at Chris, “Get your hands off me!” and glare at him, rather than shrink deeper into myself when he does it, as I do.  Childhoods are so accountable.

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“What do you mean I’ve won tattslotto?” I asked Chris on the other end of the phone.  It was a strange way to start a conversation.

“Dada”, Daniel said.  I nodded, and stroked the top of his head, my fingertips feeling softly his silken locks.  Chris was quiet.  I was quiet.

“Huh,” he said. “You don’t got a letter?”

“No, what letter?” I was really beginning to wonder now – especially as I hadn’t entered tattslotto lately.

“I have to pay.”  Oh.

He must have received notice from the Child Support Agency that he is not only liable for Daniel’s life, being his parent, but for having stalled the proceedings so long that he now owed backpay.  I wondered how much.  Chris laughed again, but a snide, unkind laugh.

“There – there – you got your way.  You happy now?”

“Chris, I didn’t get ‘my way’,” I said gently, trying to help him understand.  “You’re Daniel’s father. You are responsible for Daniel.  He’s going to cost money as he grows.  We all did.  We are his parents.”  I paused, then couldn’t help myself, “You’re responsible for your daughter too, you realize?”

“Not the daughter!  Not the daughter!  I told you not go to the courts!”  There was true nastiness in his voice.  I felt deeply bad inside.  I felt guilty.  How cruel of me, to have forced Chris to face his responsibility to our beautiful son, I felt, but conflictingly I also felt the opposite:  not cruel:  normal:  it’s called consequence of actions.

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I cannot forget that night I lay back on his bed and allowed his plunge into me;  allowed because I felt sorry for him and he kept asking and pushing.  Pushing, pushing…‘allowed’.  I didn’t want to live, I was fine to die:  sure, use my body.  Have fun.  Getting pregnant was not possible, me having premature menopause.  Sure, I thought when he said he could hold back his semen – had mastery over his semen.  Yeah, sure, don’t wear a condom – don’t let me spoil your pleasure of my body.  And laying back thus, surrendering to the will of man more powerful than me, my boy Daniel came into being.  What, this life.

“Chris, whatever it is you have to pay, it’s because you avoided it so long.  If you faced – “

“Got your way! Got your way!,” he cut in, and then hung up.

I looked at Daniel at my feet, looking up at me.  No-one had ever looked up at me before in my life.  It was frightening having to lead some kind of a way.

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I began to unpack the pram, place the groceries in the kitchen, wash out Daniel’s bottle.  All the while, thinking.  Perhaps I had got ‘my way’ without even knowing my way this lifetime:  I “got” a baby boy, to become a man.  I got love.  I loved Daniel with all the rays of my heart.  I could not have guessed as a little girl that one day my heart would explode but remain together, and would amplify a love from me so overwhelming that even I was left to wonder in near disbelief, how amazing was its enormity, my love for my boy.

I didn’t have a child with my husband over our nine years of togetherness.  I did not want to.  I couldn’t.  I wouldn’t.  Then I left the marriage – and here is Daniel.  Was that ‘my way’ this life?  Without meaning to – for life itself meant to – had I ‘got my way’:  the way to learn to love, which I had not ever felt through childhood – either loved, or loving to any person in my life.  Closed about age six, I did.  Was this ‘my way’, this love I had discovered through the human being descended to my womb?

I did not know my way this life, but absolutely certain nor did Chris.

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“Meoooooowwwwwww”, called sleek black Pathos at our front wire door.  Us having arrived home from our walk to the shops and our venture with the Firemen, meant to Pathos some cool white milk was due.  He willed his way too.

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Copyright Noeleen&Daniel 50/50

Similarly, no one can really know but Bryan Hemming himself, why on the 3^rd of December 2010 – just over one year following Colleen’s lock-out in the ‘burbs of U.S.A. – started a blog and depicted in his first post his beautiful village, Conil, Andalucia.  The pictures are lovely.  The cats to me, stole the show.

I have a fetish:  it is visiting first posts. 

When I cruise the cyber-highways, usually weekends, and find a blog I like, I cannot “move on” until I’ve read their first post.  Why did they start blogging?  And what did they branch into, or discover of themselves from whence they started?  I really, really enjoy it.

“Twenty-one months of cloistered silence later, Nelle gets over her muteness,” wrote Nelle on the 20^th of March in 2011.    Not exactly 21 months after Colleen found herself locked out, but near enough to – and they don’t even know each other.  That’s just the beauty of it – over cyberspace we can say, Colleen:  meet Nelle; Nelle, this is Colleen. Then what follows, are very human exchanges:  lives, thoughts, feelings, experiences. 

What was that 21 months of cloistered silence endured by Nelle, and why did she start the blog?  That first post flows through to today, where to visit Nelle’s blog is to see she has established herself as a powerful voice for feminism, the core of women’s rights (aka human rights).

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Someone commented to me recently that my life is an open book because I blog.  This isn’t so.  One facet – well, perhaps a few – are open for humanity to view, relate to, be comforted if not strengthened if not inspired by.  But not the whole of my life is open.  Yes, just when you thought it couldn’t get any “worse” – there IS more (to me)!!!!

To read my first post, you know I started this blog because I am a writer offering the first drafting of my novel real raw and true to view, because I was writing inroads for years and etching ache into myself in the recall. 

I wanted to write it away from me, put it out there, let it go.  And you, the sometimes flinching audience to my heart told, relieve me simply by taking the story into your own hearts like any book read, giving feedback and encouraging me to believe I may have something to give in this world. 

“…for whatever reason”, the person then continued.  I write my life for the reason anyone writes an autobiography of spirit, endurance, beauty and ache:  because I must. 

People see an autobiography in a book store and the author, published, is excused – even lauded.  But tell it first round in a blog, and you’re just an office worker with a weird inclination to speak from the soul to the world at large, from your computer in your bedroom, the cat purring at your feet.  Every novel starts somewhere, and this new cyber age enables readers to see authors on the very first steps of their journey (if the author is so inclined).

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“There is an excitement there right now of really being on the cusp of something new,” wrote Jordan Clary on the 9^th of July in 2011.   It was the first post of a new blog launched into cyberspace – she was on the verge of a scholarship adventure, and continued that she will heed advice received while living in China, and “walk slowly”.   By contrast, Amy on 21 June 2011, set up her blog and wrote in her first post that she was packing, heading to Italy.  At that, personally, I’d be moving quickly – throwing all at-hand into my suitcase and singing out the door.

I reckon first posts are too overlooked.  They might have been read on the day they were established, by a handful of people, and then become forgotten as posts tumble one after the other and, in some blogs, snowball into a snowman of specific identity, style and humour… but where did they start at, I always wonder?  I truly cannot resist hitting that first post.

“These Klaxons are just fractions to me”

said Patrick Fennessey on 31 August back in 2011,

“The negativity

That’s entered my life; birth since three.”

I was interested in Patrick when I first ever read his words, but that first post totally nailed it for me.  I’m hooked.

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First posts are part of my delight of blogging.  If you wish to leave a link to your first post in my comments, feel free.  It may take me time, but I will get there.  I’ll have to unjam the photocopier, pretend not to hear the lowered voices of secretaries in the hallways gossiping, and fight peak hour traffic first, but I will get there.

And just in case you ever wondered whether Johnny Bollox’ blog is about Alfie:

“Alfie?

Nothing to do with Alfie at all.”

he wrote on day one 26 March 2012.

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What wrote from black ink darkness

rendered blue to purple sorrow

as lips red told true;

seeped words to bridge the morrow.

Shimmers golden life with promise

of healing and resolve

the words dark in trauma

by lighter hues dissolve.

The people they embraced

the telling as it told

the universal experience

of life what we behold.

A journey it is happening

as all we are so destined

and other souls they harkened

as openly I lesson’d.

Why does a writer write?

some of society ask

only us,  fellow bloggers,

know words reveal the task.

Why does a writer right?

the unknowing they do query

only us, fellow bloggers,

we find life;  know the theory.

 Copyright, Noeleen

Reblogged from SageDoyle:

Good morning, Subbers!

Cheers, love, *hugs* and all those beautiful energies you send my way:  back at YOU!   I wish you all, each, this day:  beauty, bliss and the ability to appreciate it.  

Thank you as ever, for being there as I unfold this hell; for coming with, on this journey trekking back as I am but forward, our lives.

I have been quiet this two weeks, yes, and the above video ‘AS ME (wrestling scenes)’ may say a little of why.  But, as I have said to Daniel day upon day upon years, “Every day is different.”  I’ve said that again and again, pretty much accidentally as we’ve woken to whatever has “happened” next, and I decide the day is a new one to tackle in a new way if we must, for every day is different.

Today is not yesterday – as if you don’t know that.  So if yesterday was no good for your wellbeing, I recommend letting it pass and seeing today anew:  new ideas, new ways to tackle whatever it is you must, new moves into new plans:  Your Life.

The weekend is almost here:  my visiting time:  ’see’ you soon.

Sincerely,

Noeleen 

“Sweet Daniel,

This is my final week of late shift, because it takes me away from you too much.  I told them I cannot do nights any more.   I love you so dearly.  I don’t like picking you up in the night, dropping you in the middle of the day.

You’re awake!  Surely not.  Please, you must sleep.  I have to type before I go to work.

Here is another finger painting by you, done at the pool crèche – and a couple of wild pen-to-paper expressions by you, 16 ½ months.

Love, your Mama xxxxx“

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The Police recruits may have to train at night too, but I decided to tell the agency I could not be available nights any more.  I was sorry to alter my agreement of availability but I needed to make a decision for Daniel’s benefit.  I was not enjoying the number of times I rang Chris when I left work to ask if he had Daniel, or he left him with his sister Karen or girlfriend Tracy, to find that Daniel was not with him.  What’s that in the back ground?  People talking?  Is he at a restaurant again?  When people are not up-front with you, you can only guess from what you know of them.

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Time gave way to days, a month.  Soon would be another year.  I decided I couldn’t continue being an actor for recruits at the Academy.  As I walked up the hill of Stirling Highway, pushing the stroller, my backpack laden and bulging with groceries, I made the decision I would find another job.  If I had a normal office job, I could have Daniel regularly in child care.  The child health nurse had said again and again that routine is important to our young, but again and again I failed at living a life routine.

Daniel said ‘fuck’ the other day.  I didn’t know where he got it from.  As a parent, I had to tell him it was a ‘bad word’ – or not a nice word, really.  I had to begin conditioning Daniel that ‘fuck’ is offensive.    It is but not, to my view.    It can be very expressive.  But it is not expressive in a child; that’s just disturbing.

Chris doesn’t swear, I know; Tracy I do not know, her son Phong I do not know, his sister Aunty Karen I do not know.  I wasn’t knowing enough of who Daniel was with and I was trying to trust and believe everyone had Daniel’s best interests at heart like I did.  But I just wanted to know.  I needed to know.

I guess ‘fuck’ isn’t that abnormal.  Maybe there was an argument in one of the households – maybe that was it.

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As we reached the crest of the hill where the Claremont Fire Station stood, I stopped to take off my backpack and retrieve a drink for Daniel and me.  I squatted alongside his pusher and for a moment there was silence between us but for gulps of cool water, and relief.  I looked into Daniel’s beautiful brown eyes and saw an intensity of some kind, that fascinated me.  Wherefrom our young spring, I just do not know.

“There!” Daniel said, leaning as far forward in the stroller as the safety belt would allow.  “There!” he said again, his arms outreaching to me and his head looking toward the fire station.   Its enormous garage doors were open, showing a cool and semi-dark interior.  I could see two Firemen talking to each other, one holding a drink.

“Oh no, sweetheart.  They’re busy.  They’re men at work.”

Daniel began agitating to be freed from his restraint.  I hesitated, but thought that maybe as we had only a short way left to walk, I would let him out so he could use some energy.  He climbed over the railing and moved in the direction of the open fire station.

“No, Daniel!  Busy!” I said.

In my difficulty of repositioning the backpack and standing up, Daniel had already begun toddling off into the fire station, seeking out what he wanted in the world as if life were that simple.

I watched as the Firemen noticed Daniel wander into their garage.  Only one part of me wanted to call him back, with the other part of me also desiring an adventure, a diversion.  Perhaps Daniel could let me into a world I would never normally enter.  I decided to test the potential for an experience.

“Sorry!” I said, calling out to the Firemen and pushing the stroller in their direction.  Daniel, now under cover of the fire station, paused a second.  Standing in the presence of enormous fire trucks and two men in uniforms, my boy finally had hesitation.

“That’s all right” one of the men said, the two walking toward Daniel and me.  I met them just inside the entrance.  As my eyes adjusted to the light, I wondered if my body was physically betraying my secret titillation.

“He’s – we’ve never seen the doors open before,” I said.  They smiled.  “We often walk past but, you know.”

“You live around here?” one of the Firemen asked.

“Yes,” I said. 

Daniel, seemingly a 50 foot descent from the centre of the action, wanted up.  I picked him up and held him on my hip, facing the Firemen.  I suddenly felt not like a woman any more, but a mother.  My sense of flirt retracted and my face reddened.  I wasn’t ashamed of Daniel, but felt inferior, being “a single mother” as Stuart had so nastily pointed out was what I would “be”, “with a screaming kid hangin’ off ya”, before he left me, Stuart did, my lover of two years.  I turned for us to leave.

“Has he ever been on a fire truck before?”

“What?  Oh, no!” I said, still red but sort of smiling.

“Does he want to?”

I couldn’t believe it.  “Yes!  He’d love it!” I said, knocking back a sob in my throat.  I don’t know why, but I felt sad that they were so nice.  It was difficult to accept.

“Do you want to go on the fire truck, Daniel?” I asked my boy on my hip, and he beamed delightedly.  Daniel’s legs started kicking and his arms waving, and the men and me all laughed.

.

It was some half hour later that Daniel and me left the company of the Firemen.  For no reason than that we were passing by, these men had given us an experience you would normally pay for.  I was overwhelmingly grateful how kind these men had been to my son, how wonderful men could be.

One had a wedding ring, but the other did not.  The other ventured into conversation which seemed to angle at my availability, my inclination to share my phone number.  But I felt too inferior, and so did not bite.  I felt he did not know what he was getting into – “a single mother”.  And I felt not as together as them in their uniforms, with their stable job, their lives in order.  I felt he was probably only curious to taste me as James had done those years ago before throwing me back in the water, for there are so many fish in the sea.  He couldn’t have been serious, I decided.  He couldn’t actually like me.  I had to be kidding myself – they were only passing time.

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The Firemen behind us as we continued our way down Stirling Highway, I wished I had the self esteem to believe a man could, ever, possibly, like me.

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I caught the phone, but only after almost tripping on the chair alongside my writing desk on which it rested.

“Hello?”

“Huh,” Chris said.

I didn’t know what that meant, and said nothing.  Daniel looked up at me, curious who was on the phone.

“Yes… Chris?”

“You won tattslotto,” he said. 

By Chris’ voice, I could almost see his sneer.  Then he laughed.  He had this thing, laughing at you when something was not funny.

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Copyright, Noeleen&Daniel 50/50