Debating Debate

I have been thinking a lot this week about communication in this day an age. The resources that are available to so many of us, to make comments and statements and express opinions and points of view. Thanks to the web and technology, the platforms are endless. Yet my mind has spent a lot of time remembering my days of being on the school debate team and of the competition speeches I used to partake in, in high school. I love a good argument but that’s just it - an argument. Not some slanging match fuelled by ignorance or hatred or just because you have a keyboard that is linked to the outside world so you just can. And the thing that gets me the most is that it seems to be, in this day and age, that sweeping generalizations are more the norm than rarity.

In high school, those days of my past where computers barely existed, I would have never stood up in front of a group of my peers with knowing dam well I had done my research. There is no way I would have walked into a debate session with out many a fact, example and in some cases literal proof to back up the claims I was about to make. The word ‘all’ was rarely if ever used but percentages and statistics and from where they where sourced always were. I remember one debate topic being “Girls Need More Pocket Money than Boys.” My team was the affirmative and we walked into that school hall not only carrying all our notes and prep cards but a suitcase filled with the items a girl needs. It was my job to lay it all out in front of the teachers and 500 odd students as I spoke my carefully prepared words that molded into clear facts. We also laid out many a till receipt to validate our claims. Proof.

This week many have taken aim at that non-quantifiable 21st century podium, Twitter. Of course you cannot fire off your thoughts, theories and ideas about Twitter without it involving the people who use it. You also cannot have a discussion about Twitter without things like Facebook and blogs being brought into. One man, a popular well known blogger jumped into the fray and from my perspective, made some pretty big sweeping generalizations about its users and they were not positive or respectful words. The other thing that got me was he seemed to be saying all these things without ever actually having been on Twitter. He cast his dispersions, made judgments and assessments with no facts or experience to back it up.

I jumped in knowing full well that a close group of bloggers, of which I am one, would read what I was writing. I couldn’t quote facts because I am not sure there are legitimate, verifiable percentages and statistics on which to have an argument on such things as “infinite deluge of pointless human discourse. It takes brain farts and dolls them up as bumper stickers. It receives the groans and whines of the lonely and distributes them as junk mail. It’s a system for people who can’t stand to be alone, who have purchased wholesale this media-fueled idea that we are all “special”, that their every thought is a star in the great digital universe.” What I do have however, is experience. I am an active participant of Twitter and to even those who know me, do not know that I have a second identity on Twitter and it involves spreading what I think is the good stuff. A couple times a week I search through a myriad of tweets using words and themes and when I find a feel good indiscriminate sharing, I pass it on.

Twitter for me is medium by which to connect with other people. It is not the only medium I use. In fact I’ll take face to face over a cup of good coffee any day but Twitter, along with Facebook and blogs, exists and I refuse to be frightened by it or to see only the negative aspects. When I wrote my response to this mans very public opinion I toned it down, turned some of my experiences into a third party perspective rather owning it was actually me, because I wanted to share the very heartbreaking understanding that my fellow bloggers and I went through earlier this year when one of our crew passed away suddenly. Unsure how they would feel about bringing up such a personal thing but determined get my point across I also gave myself a different identity. I underestimated these I people because the subsequent responses that followed have been amazing and yet the negative retorts have also left me feeling a little perplexed.

I sat down at this keyboard over two hours ago to try and make some sense of all of this. To grasp, if I can, some centre or balance between the good and the bad, the empathic and vitriolic. I am no closer to that but I do know that access to all things internet and web based is a privilege not a right. Yes the world for many of us is so much larger and easily accessible because of technology and that is a wonderful, magnificent thing but maybe we all need to remember that there is a human being behind every keyboard. Our words on that screen have impact. We need passionate, healthy debate if we are to continue evolving and creating and learning and discovering. I just cannot think of a good reason why we should use arguments and debates as a method to try and devalue one another.

Breathe

BREATHE. That is what I tell myself on days like today. In moods of this mind.

I am feeling drained. Mentally and emotionally spent. Lately, every time I close my eyes be it for a nap or a full nights sleep, my dreams are filled with tears. Not quiet gentle sobs but gut wrenching howls. Other visions appear, float in and float out but they do not stay in my waking mind. I do not see why I cry so sorrowfully. Who or what my sub-conscious grieves for but I stir more tired than when I lay down.

In my day to day life at the moment I am struggling to handle this thing called living, on my own, that much I do know. Yes there is much I am grateful for but right now I crave support like I have never craved it before. The mundane and the day to day things seem such a burden, an effort. What I would give to come home and find dinner cooked or the washing done. To have someone say “hey you looked tired, I’ll go to the supermarket, you put your feet up.” That to me would be heaven right now and mean more than anything in the world. I don’t want someone to carry my load for me but I need someone to walk beside.

I am not entirely sure what the perfect day for me would be in this moment but I know that it would end with coming home and being greeted with a smile, a hug & a kiss. A night curled up on the couch and just feeling that person’s warmth wrapped around me. No heavy or deep conversation, just the simplicity, the ease and comfort of being together, sensing the heart beat and drifting off to sleep. Knowing someone had my back that is what I need in my life more than anything else currently.

Yes I have friends, good friends but like all relationships, I believe there is only folly to be found in expecting one person, one relationship to deliver all your needs, even the close, personal intimate relationships. I have never been a subscriber to that Hollywood line “you complete me.” No I don’t have family the way others do, so I go about much of my life on my own and mixed with my good friends I go okay but not lately. Lately being on my own sucks and all the good friendships in the world are not enough. Being single is hard work and I am tired of it. I miss that I don’t mean something to somebody. I miss not being able to love someone and I miss holding hands.

A Ramble

It has been months since I posted anything and tonight I sit here a little melancholy, a little reflective. I don't want to stay here in this mood, it is okay to visit for a short time and often the quickest way back out for me is to share, so here I am.

This year has been a big year for me and members of my family. Yesterday was the memoriam of my fathers passing – 17 years since without so much as a goodbye, he left this lifetime. His sudden departure turned many a world up side down, including mine. 1992 was big year, a heartbreaking year in my life. Just prior to the fathers passing I lost the man who I had wanted to marry and spend the rest of my life with. I had not been home in eight years and I had not seen my father in seven. So it was time to go home. I needed to heal from my loss and somehow seeing my dad I thought would help. Without telling anyone what I was doing, I packed up my life in central Australia, got a plane to Sydney, spent a week re-acquainting myself with a big city and then hoped on a bigger plane and flew home. I had a month of sitting in the garden with my dad and talking and just being. The morning I left to fly back to Australia he was emotional, we hugged for a long time, six weeks later he was gone and I was back on a plane heading home again this time to bury him. I have never been so thankful that I got my shit together and had that time with him. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since his passing and it is fair to say that something’s would never have occurred if he had not gone so soon, so quickly. The first year after losing him I was a mess.

I arrived back in Sydney on the New Years Eve. I have had some very dark days in my life but none compare to the nightmare I lived through for the next 12 months. To be rejected my the man I had invested in so fully and to then lose the other most important man in my life just a few short months later was hell. Looking back, I can say now, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Those events pushed me right to the edge and in doing so I started to make changes, big changes, changes that have taken years to put into effect.

I sit here today a stronger, better person thanks to those life altering events and in the some of my thoughtful moments this past few days I have been remembering a few of the poems I wrote about that time. Sadly much of them are only accessible on a back up disc that I do not have operating software for but I did find this; written about the day I turned up unannounced:

The Journey Home

I was up at 5am
To start the journey home
This trip, it’s been along time coming
Eight years since I was home

My suitcase weighs in under
My heart ways in heavy with my mind
A friend gives me a hug
Wishes me luck
For she knows that this is hard
Hardest thing I have even done
I board the plane and wave goodbye
Though know one knows I am coming home today

The flight is long
Seconds pass like hours
The man sitting next to me
Keeps trying to make small talk
But mind is going home

I stare out the window and into the sky
When there she is before me
Aotearoa – the most beautiful sight I have ever seen

Customs takes my passport
And looks suspiciously at me
Then they laugh at how I’ve changed
As someone hands it back to me
A voice says welcome home

Connecting flight is late
I am nervous and wait impatiently
Though know one knows I am coming home today
I hope they have not gone out for tea

Next flight arrives
I board eagerly
Then stare out the window in pure delight
My old home town is in my sight
I wonder how it has changed

Touch down
Home town
This is not easy

A cabbie takes my bags
And inquires about my flight
But 12 more k’s and I am home
It’s all I can think about

We pass through town
And all is see are changes
And unfamiliar scenery

My heart is in my throat
Tears are in my eyes
As he pulls that taxi up the drive

My mother is in the garden
She shrieks in total surprise
She cannot believe it is me
But neither can I

We hug, we laugh, we cry
And then I run inside
There is one person I am here to see especially
And there he is standing before me
I smile and look into those eyes

He has aged since I last saw him
But time has been kind
He drops what he is holding
And reaches out for me
It’s been seven years since he held me
And I will never forget that smile
That was in my fathers eyes

On the night of the day
I was up at 5am
To start the journey home



= / = / = / = / = / =


And then there is this poem, incomplete here, for I cannot find or remember the opening verses. I do remember where I was when I wrote it, what I was thinking and feeling at the time. Those changes I mentioned above were starting to occur and even though I was on my way out of the darkness and grief I was feeling very uncertian.


……………
You would listen
You would try to understand
I know you’d respect me
For what it is
I am trying so hard to make a life out of
And I know you wouldn’t laugh
Or think I was strange
For the things that I believe in

If you where here today
You would tell me I have only one life
So go out and live it
The best way you can
The way that you believe in
You would tell me not to listen to others
And that I am fine just as I am

But you aren’t here
You left this world
Two years ago today
You are on the other side now
Looking down and doing all you can
You see and hear my tears of frustration
You sense my worries and fears
I guess you are more on my side now
Than you ever were before
So all I can do is pray
That you’ll help me all you can
Just as I know you will and would have
If you were here today
I Love you Dad.

Waiting

I am waiting
I know that I should not but I am
Have you captured my imagination and solitude
A game I play with boundaries I set I now wish to cross

More than distance of miles
I cannot reach out and touch you
Nor steal a look from your eyes
Seeking what thoughts traverse your mind

Searching history of conversations
For snippets, for evidence
A key, any key that might open a door

Rational, logical mind says foolish
And I want to return to indifference
Is this just a thrill of a chase
Filling a void of unwanted seclusion

Your are my iniquitous secret
Only one other knows of you existence
And they partially a stranger too
Oh what tenuous and veiled lines we can dance

There is an arousing of feeling
Emotions are starting to turn
I crave the safety, the warmth of apathy
And I laugh to myself as read those words
Such imprudence really – apathy
Not an emotion or feeling common to me

And in that does there sit my answer
That this diversion I found would not release me
Only twist and entangle me
Aloofness, detachment and objectivity –
Required tools for a game
Maybe I should not have ever commenced

And so for now
I sit and I wait

A Dream of the Future Maybe?

I saw you last night, in my dreams -
Those wonderful images and visions that run free through our minds
When we close our eyes

With a tall, slim body and short dark hair
I do not remember your eyes
But your smile was clear, long, strong and welcoming
You stood close beside me
And without hesitation or doubt
Encircled one arm around my waist
We smiled for the camera, glasses raised
As I noticed the comfort I felt from your embrace

We fell to the floor laughing
You dressed in a good fine well fitted suit, but no tie
I do not like ties -
There is something about the contours of a mans neck
The lines of his throat that I like to see, unhidden

Unconcerned with our surroundings
We lay there and giggled like two childlike teenagers
Self consciousness no where to be found in that moment

Then we were standing
A pause in the silence
I needed to go
A child, a blonde haired, blue eyed girl
Needed help finding her way back home
I took her hand
And towards the horizon we walked
We wandered calmly, unsure but not lost
Then out from behind a mirage of a building
You appeared again
With an aura of tranquillity around you, smiling
Your hand entwining itself with mine
We walked, no words spoken
But much being said within the depth, the beauty of the peace
And the little girl skipped ahead
Chasing butterflies and singing

FAMILIES

Families from my experience are always are a complicated dynamic. You take a group of people each with our own strengths and weaknesses, good and bad personality traits and mix it all together over time and life events. Adding in what I call the emotional genetics of both parents families past and you end up with this assembly of souls who operate in the world based a lot on how all those ingredients have been fused together.

Some families manage to function and operate well together regardless of life’s ups and downs and each individual’s short comings and strengths. Somehow, someway a bond is formed and no matter what at the end of the day when all is said done, you know that your family have your back, your best interests at heart and that even with all their dysfunctions and eccentricities there is room for love, forgiveness, understanding, support and most importantly respect. Sure they might driving you screaming mad but you know who you are and where you stand because of your family, because you are part of family.

Sadly not all families come together well. Somewhere along the line, something happens. I am not sure what but that unit, that collective group of people bound by blood and genetics brings out the worst and the hardest lessons of life. They take us to the edge and not in a good way. We crawl out on the limb of life only to look back and see the trunk we thought solid, sheltering us and supporting us is not really there. We are on are own. I come from one of those families. It is tough lesson to accept and absorb and on many days it breaks my heart. I have lived for many years now knowing what my family are. The depths to which they are capable of when it comes to disloyalty, lies, secrets, disrespect and the general failure to be able to love on some level all that is unique about each and everyone of us that makes a family.

I nearly drowned in the depth of not only their denial but my own, however something in me refused to me become another soul lost in our dysfunctional dynamic. The voice in my head that cried out “I do not want to be like them” got too loud and I grew to weary for one still young, from the games, so I decided to change. I rocked the boat, refused to sweep things under the carpet and pretend that certain things never happened. I spoke the secrets, broke the silence, questioned the past, asked the hard questions and confronted the denial. They branded me “that bloody girl” and shook their heads at me. “What good can come of all this” they asked. “Can’t you just leave the past alone, why do you have to do this?” my mother wrote.

It was not an easy or quick decision to break ties from my mother and brother, to cut them from my life but I knew that my survival depended on it. It has been many years now since I last spoke to them or had anything to do with them. My two sisters I stay in touch with but deliberately and intentionally I have kept them at arms length. Talking infrequently with them, not sharing the big stuff and seeing them only occasionally. It took me many years to find peace within me about my family and all the while I knew in the background one day it was possible the biggest secret and so called shame of our family might come walking back through the door. I thought that that secret coming to the surface, showing its face in the light of day would be what broke the few worn and strained threads of what was left of our family. I was wrong.

A couple of months ago, one Sunday night my phone rang. There was urgency in its tone and when I picked it up and heard my sister (Dee) on the other end of line my heart stopped. In a second my mind reeled and I expected her to tell me my mother was on her last breaths and was I sure, one last time that I did not want to see her. Again I was wrong. My sister broke. She cried and wailed for three hours down the phone that night. Betrayal, secrets and disloyalty. I knew it well and whilst part of me was not surprised that once again my kin had turned on kin I did not think that of all the people to break it would be Dee. But broken she is, shattered. Her world and what she knew gone within the space of 48 hours. Every barrier and wall ripped away from her. Every emotion and obligation she has controlled for so many years in pieces lying on the floor beside her denial.

My heart bled for her. I cried with her and felt her anger. Yes I confess it would have been easy to tell her “well what did you expect” and hang up the phone leaving her deal with it all on her own. In my mind it would have been simple to justify; no one had backed me all those years ago so why should I stand beside her now. I also knew that once it got out Dee had turned to me it would only serve to feed the repercussions and bullshit that was coming from rest of the family. I would be blamed for putting thoughts in her head and encouraging her in all the wrong ways. So for maybe two minutes I ran that round my head on that night and then I threw myself off one of those metaphorical cliffs that appear from time to time. I extended my hand to Dee, with my heart and my life. I opened up the door that is me to Dee and invited her in. All the while knowing full well it was possible it could all get thrown back in my face but I decided not to care. It was worth the risk and if one more person in this crazy screwed up family of mine had a chance to find freedom and peace and honesty of self and life then it was worth whatever was coming at me.

And so it has gone these last two months. There is a part of me that is very vulnerable and raw right now. I have learned it is easier being out there on the outer rim on your own, safer. Part of me is uncomfortable and unsure now that I have company. But Dee will make her own way, her own place, just as I did. It needs to be different to mine for she has a daughter (Hegs) to consider and protect. Hegs’ is it, she is the last, the one and only next generation of my direct family. (Well that’s not entirely true but we won’t go there today). So now more than ever I need to live me life as I choose, with conscious thought and intent.

But more than anything I want to say this: Embrace your family if you can. Find the time to talk the hard stuff. Make room in your life and your world for the past, not be afraid of it. Yep your sisters and brothers might be wacko and you might not get them but if their only difference is that they do not see life the way you do but are still at the end of the day a decent human being then get up and put your arm around them. I suspect it far easier to deal with one generation of issues than it is to deal with several that have been twisted with bitterness and hate and wars and god knows what else over far to many years because the primary operating gene is fear. Take the time to get know who your kin really are, hold close their uniqueness, love them because they are not like you and walk by side them in honesty. Do not let a horrid past breed into more generations and when life takes a shot at them get in there, get off the fence and stand beside them. The price being paid is too high in my family and it is wrong, pure and simple – wrong.

Some Final Words For You

Chased a million words around a page
Tried to put this all into perspective for a number of days
Sitting here in my favourite place
(you know the one, I told you about it remember)
With the crescent moon for company on this clear autumn night
I feel the surrender place its cloak around me
The letting go has arrived

And I wonder what Cummings and Carver and Thomas would say
How would they view love now
In this technology based age
What words would they use to sculpt and to paint prose on a page
About how some use love over cable and cam

I got taken for a ride but maybe I didn’t
Ahhh the deception of heart people play
Hear me call you my darling in these next few lines
(I know they were you words for me with a rose and a kiss)

To feel anger
To feel betrayed
That would be to easy my darling and perhaps was your aim
(Yes I concede you nearly had me - I have danced a little with anger in recent days)
Are you a misogynist or someone who just got burnt
And does not know how to blend life’s trials and pain
So now treats love with callousness and cold disdain

I am learning my lesson
Know matter what I or you or anyone says
You reminded me that clenched fisted hearts do exist
But are not worthy of my world and or my time or my soul
And as all my past makes me stronger
So you are now becoming another blessing
In this classroom called life
A willing student these days am I

And as you know
(for I spoke of my past to you in detail)
There have been much more malevolent souls than you
Who have tried to tear at my heart and my essence
And so this is the last of my moments I give you
Dramatic these words maybe but I can do darkness as good as you
I just chose to express mine then let it go
To fly free and not to chain or restrain or play heartlessly

So thank you, I had forgotten how to embrace my vulnerabilities

A part of me awakens again to resonate and soar

Be well and may the light one day touch you consciously