The story is me

SHE

Rabbit holes, so wide you could fall in.

Scratches and blisters and rusty old tin.

Shops in the shed, flat tyres on bikes,

Chooks laying eggs, and going bush hikes.

She never did find that far-away-tree,

But she never stopped looking,

Wait was that her, was that me.

Space and more space,

Beyond and within.

Long dusty roads,

Isolation begins.

Barbed wire fences,

Catch on my jeans

Ripping and tearing,

More mending the means.

No rain, no rain,

Water tanks that are dry,

Who lives like this anyway

Hiding to cry,

A simple life in the bush.

Not so simple for she,

Awake in the darkness, wait

Was that her, was that me.

I wrote this poem to reflect on what it was like growing up for me, and I know that anyone who had a similar upbringing will relate. Relatability can help with belonging - belonging can help with loneliness.

In the last five years, the stressors impacting on my being were in no way - kind! I’m going to start of this Blog by saying, I’m Australian, I’m a proud small-town woman, early school leaver - not by choice, a big dreamer; a cheerful soul. So what has these last five years or so done to me?

I’ve been so disillusioned by systems that put me in boxes and then left me there, by people who told me to stop going into the story - when the story is me! It’s where I needed to be to find the stepping stones to climb out of those boxes and back to this wonderful land - Australia!

So as an Australian - I have longed to experience with my whole being the wisdom of First Nations people shared EVERYWHERE in this world. The memory of me sitting in my Year 7 Australian History Class in the early 1980s, my stomach churning, feeling sick at the photos staring back at me from my history book, noise rushing in my ears at the evidence of what colonisation did to the beautiful beings who nurtured this land. The recognition of injustice stirred in me - I remember thinking “But what can I do to help?”

So what has led me to this Blog, a few things, it’s the long weekend and I needed to feel embraced by the bush so I jumped on a train at Bathurst and went to Katoomba, walked to Echo Point and started following paths through the bush, a breeze, swirling in gusts at times swept up my thoughts and moved me forward.

Walking with purpose and peace in my stride in the Blue Mountains, thinking about how I have not had the strength to feel proud recently. Not with all the dissecting of myself by systems and strangers, I didn’t just feel it for me- I felt for the whole of the disability community! So with the airing of the Four Corners Program- Careless last week and with the recommendations from the Disability Royal Commission now being made public, the breeze yesterday was refreshing and the walk, grounding.

I thought about all the ways over the last five years I’ve searched for ways to cleanse myself of the stress raging through me. I read lots, and listened to Audio Books - but so much of it was not Australian and I felt like a traitor.

I also stopped in Katoomba at a bookstore and bought a couple of books. Sometimes just reading something at the right time will make sense to me: I have a need to read books with heart and soul. Now I’m probably going to get the referencing wrong and I apologise in advance for that, but I just want to share something I read which was all I needed to help me settle into this book:

Sand Talk - Tyson Yunkaporta, The Text Publishing Company 2019, in the second chapter I read about a young Tasmanian Aboriginal Boy who states:

“I don’t know what I’d be if I didn’t have my identity, because I haven’t really known a life without it. I can’t discern parts that are Indigenous and parts that are not because all of my actions are Indigenous - the way I move through the world, my social interactions, my way of thinking about anything. It bleeds through you no matter what.”

I read that and felt an electric shock at the honesty of his words. And I was grateful for all the moments over the long weekend which led me to reading this book, because then I knew more about what I wanted to say today - The Story is me!

Show me anger,

And I’ll show you love.

Where there is confusion,

Find clarity.

Breathe into tight spaces,

That have been denied oxygen.

Pause for signs of life,

In the hurry to be somewhere,

Celebrate yourself,

For simply being.

Every day my rise out of bed begins with an acknowledgement of how as a young adult I knew exactly what it is like to have a body that was NOT able to independently meet my own needs, and that is always going to be a starting point for my story.

Celebrate yourself

Sue