Emotional

Bleary eyes aren't great lenses for reading but after a full 7 hours sleep I was awake, the house was quiet and I had a great book. After a coffee and a wander around the garden I fell into a comfy lounge chair and picked up that big fat book by Paul Kelly 'How to make gravy'!

HAPPY Drawing by the boy

A chapter for every song in his A - Z kit, every story a slightly different angle, and I'm connecting with every word! The writing is pure! Clear.... A thousand lies couldn't be more true. When I reached a really interesting chapter, Emotional, I heard the bedroom door creak and eldest child came out of her room. Also bleary eyed but keen to chat... It often happens like this, just when I think I've got some time to myself... This chapter surprised me. Paul Kelly's writing can do that. Shifting from amazing introspection to compassionate empathy.

As I read Emotional' I realized that I had misunderstood the lyrics of his song. It was not about what I thought it was. Kelly recounted the intense experience of visiting people in the Baxter detention Centre and the disgraceful treatment of those stuck in the Woomera hell hole! The scenarios are quite familiar to me since they started converting Darwin into a giant emigration detention centre! The sad and horrific stories are not uncommon among people I've met who have been transferred from Christmas Island or those who dread being sent out to Nauru. Living in limbo, having their hopes and spirits crushed at the whim of the Immigration Department who consider punishing them as parto fo some master plan to deter others from seeking safety in Australia. 

As I tried to read this unexpected chapter, which I found particularly interesting, on account of there being at least four detention centres within half an hour drive. my daughter decided it was time for a meaningful conversation about the nature of dragons and unicorns.... I persisted with the book and tried to answer her questions along the way, luckily the chapter was quite short, Kelly got his message across loud and clear, didn't waste any words and told it like it is!

I am so glad he has taken the time to tell this story and that he felt it was worth including in his book. So many Australians couldn't give a flying f-ck about the way Refugees are treated! It seems all the country is now against these people but here's one of our national heros openly declaring his compassion for them, he even wrote a song about it!

My head is swimming with emotion! Love for my kids, connection to the legendary song writer and mostly thoughts of the people I've been meeting at the DAL just down the road from where I live. The latest arrivals are from Iran. They shared their stories with me about the terrible journey across the sea from Indonesia. They all have hopes to see their children grow up in a peaceful place and to learn English and to be happy. It's nearly Christmas and a group of local people I'm involved with are trying to get Christmas presents for the kids.... nearly 180 of them (kids)! We've only got $10 to spend per kid and there's just 9 sleeps until Christmas so the next few days will be busy.

When I'd finished the chapter I put the book down, my was swimming with ideas and emotions. Thinking about the gifts I've got to find with a very limited budget I jumped up to grab the discount store brochure from the dining table... maybe something there. As I strode forward I kicked over my coffe cup! "NOoooooooo!"

Coffee cup with a crack

My favorite coffee cup! I smashed it! The cup I got from the Op Shop two years ago. That one I love with the romantic 1950s Hawaiian scene, with the girls dancing and the colonial American tourists and the flying boat.... Oh... Bleary eyes and foggy mind! Why do you mock me!

I'll try to fix it, no big deal really. What's a broken cup? I heard a fella got charged for smashing up some plates and shit in one of the detention centres! If you fuck up in detention and smash something they can charge you with destruction of property. I reckon if I was in there I'd break every frigging cup I had. What good is a favorite cup!

CROSS Drawing by the boy

'The road to my survival'

Stressed... I left work two weeks ago for some Time-Out!

Well a rather intensive week at Dhudupu Galiwin'ku, but sleeping under the stars and surrounded by some pretty special people, followed by a week in the bush with my wife and kids.

Before I left I was feeling crowded but isolated. Agitated by people and desperate for solitude, it's kind of ironic that I would spend the whole two weeks amongst people who, if I try to find the most accurate relational term to describe them, are, My Clan... A week amongst adopted Yolngu family, three days with just my wife and kids and then another three days amongst a strange and varied group of people, with whom I share the most critical of bonds! Amongst my own kind.

Magic happened while I was away... I needed it to! Somehow being on the land with the people of the land and with my own kind, fresh air, a fire, time space, sleep, peace... I am human!
I don't know how long the feeling will last but I know where to find 'The road to my survival'!


There's nothing much on my mind to write about but I thought I'd share a little whimsical excursion my mind took recently.

I've got this friend and lately I've been watching her behavior. I saw her over the weekend and couldn't help wondering if she's insane or maybe she's blessed or something else more obvious to the casual observer..?

This past weekend I have watched her glide about, her attitude was for giving, always inviting the lonely ones, the outsiders the most destitute and desperate... She always seems to be there, Available. Somehow as I watched her the tune of a song started up in my mind... It was 'Duncan' by Paul Simon. Boys are often lost and men can become destitute as Duncan, Broken spirits are revived and confidence returned when Eros visits. There's always a chance an Angel may visit.

With the tune of Duncan on my mind for the past couple of days I had to look it up on Youtube and discovered some more magic. I love to hear Paul Simon sing this song but something special jumped out at me while watching this version!

Ephemoral Stream dreaming

A follow up on my last post which was a kind of screaming rant about the destruction of habitat loosely disguised as some kind of cryptic rant about academia...

Well they're still at it! Instead of improving road safety and building us shared bike path or cycle lane on Lee Point Road a certain Government department who for the sake of this post I am calling: The 'Suppression of Tranquility and Usurpers of Public Inclusion Department'. (STUPID) of the NT'. Have chosen to continue their assault on all living things the happen to find along the roadways.


Continuation of destruction from Yesterday.

Besides creating greater erosion and reducing habitat the removal of these trees has also removed a critical amount of shade... Of course this makes it less pleasant for humans to sit around, or ride through; but what it also does is leave the entire watercourse vulnerable to invasive weeds like Gamba and Mission Grass! These two species are highly invasive and highly flammable. Bad move STUPID! Both weeds are present in the area but had failed to colonize the shaded area in my previous post and you can now see in the image above.

There's something going on in this town and it Sucks! Like Billy Colony predicted... 'The Beige People want to taking over the world' (or something like that!)

I've ridden by that way so many times, delighting in the shade, the green the cool. A secret place functioning beautifully without interference, overlooked by the agents of the machine and loved... One more beautiful place defiled.
Without the cover of a row of trees so many Long Grass camps are exposed, vulnerable to the prying eyes of drivers and 9 to 5ers. Bush campers creeping a little further from the road trapped between the bitumen and a cyclone wire fence... Soon Old Darwin will be sterilized of all imperfections, sanitized of colour of every kind!

All around Darwin right now trees are being felled; cut down to the ground and their roots chewed out of the earth! The attack is not just on trees and greenery either... When I arrived in Darwin there were murals on all of the bus stops, Casuarina Library and a bunch of other places that may have already slipped by without being noticed. The murals are being painted over with some neutral uninspiring anti-colour!
WHAT ARE THEY DOING TO THIS TOWN?

So what's next?





Look what they're doing

Green Grass Grub

This is a song for Green Grass Grub

Grubs.
Green Grass Grubs that squish and squash and they squirt and squelch.
They squiggle in your face.
Pooing on your nose and weeing in your hair!
Sticky grubs are sticky and that's the end!
(copyright all rights reserved)


(I'll have to request a spider song next... after the encounter with a huge Orb Weaver I'm sure there'll be a wealth of material to go into that one!)

Calming tunes

(Big Jim)

Sometimes I don't know how I got here, why I'm here, what I'm supposed to be doing here, who I'm supposed to be doing it with, what the hell everyone else thinks I'm supposed to be or why I even care... (what the think I mean)!
Actually it's not sometimes... it's most of the time. My wife laughs with me when I confess these things and she gets that it's got nothing to do with herself or anything like that...
How have I managed to be at this for so long without the slightest idea of what it even is?
Sometimes it's just like that Talking Heads song "Once in a lifetime" and just the '...Same as it ever was'. So why should I be worried? Actually I'm not! and now is not one of those times. I am feeling totally comfortable and contented in this life that's wrapped itself around me. Whatever it is!

Leo Tolstoy packed up his kit and walked away from what most of us would expect to call 'his life' at the age of 82... apparently he died a few days later. He must have woken up a few times in that life and wondered '...How did I get here?' Why not? (I still haven't read the great book by the way)



Anyway I know these feelings very well but I'm not there right now. I've just been listening to one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs and it's kind of all about that, or maybe it's in reverse or something which is exactly what that feelings like anyway.
So how did I get here? Well it could be this is all just a world of my own making... "How did I get here?" Maybe back there somewhere I wished my way here.


(Apologies to The Boss)
It's not so bad you know... And this song was always one of my personal favorites... Actually I've never shared that.