of where he used to be
© Melina Magdalena 2009
He
is breaking himself out
of the habit of having a mother
wants
no part of Kilburn
with its seething streets of neglect
its hungry, disaffected youth
and paths that glisten with broken glass
(although we
are better off than we have ever been before
in the short history of his life)
doesn’t come home
to our little house of colours
where his mother’s lover shouted at him once
in exasperation
at his abject refusal to be part of
what we’re trying to create here
precious boy
as if no one had ever shouted at him before
as if his own mother didn’t sometimes get angry with him, too
as if he had never shouted or even sworn at anyone
his whole life long
allows himself
no luxury of comfort
no occasional home-cooked meal
no night in the room he decorated, just to his taste
curt
on the phone as though split in halves by the wires that connect us
always rude all right now goodbye he says
and don’t fuckin’ text me ever again
loathes
me actively
with every fibre of his being
straining to get further away from me
at chance meetings when he’s visiting his grandparents
or ferrying his sister from place to place
What kind of withdrawal symptoms must he suffer?
All I sense is the negative space
of where he used to be.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Self Harm
Self Harm
(c) Melina Magdalena (2009)
Years ago when counsellors advised me to be “my own best friend” I learned to be kinder to myself. One counsellor suggested I seek out a teddy bear or stuffed toy to cuddle when I needed to, but this never appealed. My cats served this need nicely.
I go through patches of abject misery where I cannot bear the thought of remaining in this world, and I have learned to wait these out in the knowledge that they will pass over and through me and I will emerge out the otherside still breathing, still alive, still capable of creativity and joy, ever-tempered by my experience of their shadow opposite states.
I never talked to my counsellors about self-harming, though I know in some tense sessions they probably saw me rip and tear at my cuticles. And I never realised the impact that my self-harming habits have on me until I got to see them through the eyes of someone who loves me. She is horrified, terrified, repulsed and shocked that I could put myself through what I do.
It’s not necessarily good to decide to stop self-harming because of the impact it has on another person, but it has certainly been a wake-up call for me to think about the choices that I’m making. I know compared with others my level of self-harm is paltry. But I’m realising that any level of self-harm is potentially dangerous, because of the mind-set that it perpetuates.
When I was going through my worst weeks of sleeplessness these last months I wanted nothing more than to obliterate myself; failing that, to punish my body for its refusal to allow me the relief I required. I was sleep-deprived and dream-deprived. My spirit was parched, pursed, dried up like an old prune. I faced the prospect of and endless slide into physical deterioration – ageing, menopause, wrinkling, pain and more pain, losing teeth, infirmities, loss of functions left, right and centre. Nothing cheered me.
One night after things had already started to improve I fell off the wagon. We had had a late meal, or been up and out late at a party and my “sleep hygiene routine” had been disrupted. Frustrated because at that moment there seemed to be no cause and no effect to the senselessness of the of my sleep pattern, I got up and sat on the loo and slapped myself in the face, very hard, quite a few times. I hoped the pain would send me reeling into the sleep that I craved. I hoped that changing state from dull numbness into sharp pain might help change my wakefulness into sleep. I had thought about banging my head against the wall, but I thought it might hurt too much and damage my brain besides. I wasn’t after permanent obliteration – just a temporary whack from being awake, into being asleep.
That night, like so many others, I did manage to fall asleep eventually, after cocooning myself in a blanket on a pallet on the floor. My Beloved had rubbed my back and curled up into me, trying to soothe me into sleep, but I had crawled back out of bed and onto the floor where eventually the sweet joy of sheer relief took over as I rolled over and realised – I had been dreaming – therefore I had been sleeping. (Once that moment hits, I convince myself that I can fall asleep again. Doesn’t matter that there are only 50 minutes until it’s time to get up and start the day – 50 minutes is better than no sleep at all (and I speak from grim experience).
It wasn’t until several days later that I admitted what I had done that night. It hadn’t worked, and I’d felt foolish and betrayed by this fact. My Beloved said “I heard those noises and I didn’t dare ask what you had done.”
Other times when I self-harm are just at the level of consciousness. I would say they are long-entrenched coping mechanisms that comfort and distract even as they hurt physically.
For example:
Preparing and waiting for social occasions to begin I invariably end up with reddened, torn, searingly painful fingers, from gnawing, chewing and pulling at my cuticles. I can stop myself just before the skin tears, when I’m conscious of what I am doing, but this is rarely the case when the nerves take over. And the shame that wells up when I realise what I’ve done more than compensates for the self-belief that people don’t want to see me, won’t have enough to eat, may not like to be in my home. I’ve gone to job interviews in the same state and practically sat on my fingers to keep from showing them. Not a good look.
I’ve wondered why other people don’t seem to have the same problems with their cuticles that I do, and also why other people seem to have a greater tolerance for skin irritations such as insect bites, and manage to restrain themselves from picking them open until they bleed.
To some extent I know that I am formed and set in my ways of being as much as in my ways of doing. Whilst I believe in the capacity of humans to change and transform, there are some aspects of my identity that I doubt I am willing to give up. Negative and self-destructive though they be, they remain a part of me.
I hear the owl in the night
and I realise some things never are made right*
So I am thankful to have my Beloved, though I feel bad that she stands helpless to shift me when I’m relentlessly pursuing a course of self-destruction. And I never want to push the limits of her tolerance past the point of no return. Not only for my own selfish reasons, but it must be horrible for her to be able to do nothing but be
stacking sandbags against the river of [my] troubles* .
That is not a nice thing to do to another person.
*Saliers, E. (2004) Come On Home, All That We Let In.
http://www.indigogirls.com/home.html
(c) Melina Magdalena (2009)
Years ago when counsellors advised me to be “my own best friend” I learned to be kinder to myself. One counsellor suggested I seek out a teddy bear or stuffed toy to cuddle when I needed to, but this never appealed. My cats served this need nicely.
I go through patches of abject misery where I cannot bear the thought of remaining in this world, and I have learned to wait these out in the knowledge that they will pass over and through me and I will emerge out the otherside still breathing, still alive, still capable of creativity and joy, ever-tempered by my experience of their shadow opposite states.
I never talked to my counsellors about self-harming, though I know in some tense sessions they probably saw me rip and tear at my cuticles. And I never realised the impact that my self-harming habits have on me until I got to see them through the eyes of someone who loves me. She is horrified, terrified, repulsed and shocked that I could put myself through what I do.
It’s not necessarily good to decide to stop self-harming because of the impact it has on another person, but it has certainly been a wake-up call for me to think about the choices that I’m making. I know compared with others my level of self-harm is paltry. But I’m realising that any level of self-harm is potentially dangerous, because of the mind-set that it perpetuates.
When I was going through my worst weeks of sleeplessness these last months I wanted nothing more than to obliterate myself; failing that, to punish my body for its refusal to allow me the relief I required. I was sleep-deprived and dream-deprived. My spirit was parched, pursed, dried up like an old prune. I faced the prospect of and endless slide into physical deterioration – ageing, menopause, wrinkling, pain and more pain, losing teeth, infirmities, loss of functions left, right and centre. Nothing cheered me.
One night after things had already started to improve I fell off the wagon. We had had a late meal, or been up and out late at a party and my “sleep hygiene routine” had been disrupted. Frustrated because at that moment there seemed to be no cause and no effect to the senselessness of the of my sleep pattern, I got up and sat on the loo and slapped myself in the face, very hard, quite a few times. I hoped the pain would send me reeling into the sleep that I craved. I hoped that changing state from dull numbness into sharp pain might help change my wakefulness into sleep. I had thought about banging my head against the wall, but I thought it might hurt too much and damage my brain besides. I wasn’t after permanent obliteration – just a temporary whack from being awake, into being asleep.
That night, like so many others, I did manage to fall asleep eventually, after cocooning myself in a blanket on a pallet on the floor. My Beloved had rubbed my back and curled up into me, trying to soothe me into sleep, but I had crawled back out of bed and onto the floor where eventually the sweet joy of sheer relief took over as I rolled over and realised – I had been dreaming – therefore I had been sleeping. (Once that moment hits, I convince myself that I can fall asleep again. Doesn’t matter that there are only 50 minutes until it’s time to get up and start the day – 50 minutes is better than no sleep at all (and I speak from grim experience).
It wasn’t until several days later that I admitted what I had done that night. It hadn’t worked, and I’d felt foolish and betrayed by this fact. My Beloved said “I heard those noises and I didn’t dare ask what you had done.”
Other times when I self-harm are just at the level of consciousness. I would say they are long-entrenched coping mechanisms that comfort and distract even as they hurt physically.
For example:
Preparing and waiting for social occasions to begin I invariably end up with reddened, torn, searingly painful fingers, from gnawing, chewing and pulling at my cuticles. I can stop myself just before the skin tears, when I’m conscious of what I am doing, but this is rarely the case when the nerves take over. And the shame that wells up when I realise what I’ve done more than compensates for the self-belief that people don’t want to see me, won’t have enough to eat, may not like to be in my home. I’ve gone to job interviews in the same state and practically sat on my fingers to keep from showing them. Not a good look.
I’ve wondered why other people don’t seem to have the same problems with their cuticles that I do, and also why other people seem to have a greater tolerance for skin irritations such as insect bites, and manage to restrain themselves from picking them open until they bleed.
To some extent I know that I am formed and set in my ways of being as much as in my ways of doing. Whilst I believe in the capacity of humans to change and transform, there are some aspects of my identity that I doubt I am willing to give up. Negative and self-destructive though they be, they remain a part of me.
I hear the owl in the night
and I realise some things never are made right*
So I am thankful to have my Beloved, though I feel bad that she stands helpless to shift me when I’m relentlessly pursuing a course of self-destruction. And I never want to push the limits of her tolerance past the point of no return. Not only for my own selfish reasons, but it must be horrible for her to be able to do nothing but be
stacking sandbags against the river of [my] troubles* .
That is not a nice thing to do to another person.
*Saliers, E. (2004) Come On Home, All That We Let In.
http://www.indigogirls.com/home.html
Sunday, August 30, 2009
The La La La Factor
The La La La Factor
(c) Melina Magdalena (2009)
I heard a while ago about a method of taking one’s mind off the ickiness of what one is having to witness or having to do. Whether it is dealing with excrement, or other gunk in unwanted places, or trying to mask the sound or the smell or the sight of something unpleasant, all you have to do is loudly say “La La La La La” repeatedly until the distressing phenomenon has disappeared or finished.
This is what I wanted to do a week ago when confronted with blatant rampant heterosexuality being flaunted in my face. I was in somebody else’s house and there was nowhere I could go really, to escape it. I tried to be polite and simply turn my attention and my gaze elsewhere – certainly there were more than three people in the room. The man seemed to take possessive and powerful pride in his chosen mate and she was all wrapped up in adoration of his person. Really it’s quite boring put into words, but all I could think was La La La La La let this stop and let them go be private someplace where I don’t have to see.
It’s not so much the sour grapes factor. I didn’t wish to conduct myself in a similarly amorous manner with my chosen mate. Conscious that we were already on enemy territory, taken in as a matter of duty more than because our hosts wanted us to be there, we were very careful not to draw too much attention to our deviant state of homosexuality. I did start to wonder why I was being treated to this lavish display. I suspect part of their enjoyment was in making me feel uncomfortable.
La La La La can you imagine what would have happened had I reached out and taken up her hand in mine for simple comfort? If she’d gathered me up into her arm or kissed me for heaven’s sake, on the cheek if not the lips? We’d have been accused of flaunting our degenerate state and we’d have been asking for trouble.
Of course I didn’t say anything audibly. I just kept thinking La La La this is so gross La La La take me away please La La La why are they so unspeakably selfish and so unspeakably rude and La La La what am I doing in this place? I don’t belong here.
I began to analyse their (hetero)sexual behaviour in the context that these two young people are not married and perhaps were putting on this elaborate and La La La La disgusting display in public because of their cultural context. Perhaps they were carefully going just as far as they could go in front of us to prove that they weren’t breaking the covenant or breaking the unspoken expectation that premarital sex is a no-no? Perhaps this was all they could do for want of privacy to enjoy themselves and their unmarried state?
I may have it all completely wrong. To some extent it also felt like everyone there was in La La Land. No one was real. No one was engaging with another person on a deep and thoughtful level – we were all skating along the surface like small water bugs who fear getting sucked under and losing our ability to escape into the blandness of two-dimensions.
Anyway it’s all beside the point really. Maybe everyone there around the dinner table was going La La La La La about the fact that I was sitting there with the woman I married in their presence several months ago? We were of course there because we’d invited ourselves over to try to break through the rejection and the silence enforced by an older generation unwilling to even grudge us room to breathe, space to exist, a chance to prove ourselves…
I tried to raise this over dinner – tried to turn the conversation to a topic that I thought was relevant to everyone present. At that point every person at the table except my Beloved turned to the person next to them and went loudly La La La La – or at least that’s what it sounded like to me. No one acknowledged what I had said, let alone engaged with it. I had broken a rule without even thinking. What was that rule?
You shall not challenge the older generation for fear that they will be driven out of their comfort zone. We must at all costs preserve their comfort for fear that otherwise they shall make things very uncomfortable for us.
You shall keep yourself small and meek because you are not deserving of attention or care or kindness.
You shall not speak of matters that concern you because if you do speak of these matters others will be forced to either take positions against you or to be complicit and culpable in your wrongdoing.
You shall above all be nice.
La La La La
(c) Melina Magdalena (2009)
I heard a while ago about a method of taking one’s mind off the ickiness of what one is having to witness or having to do. Whether it is dealing with excrement, or other gunk in unwanted places, or trying to mask the sound or the smell or the sight of something unpleasant, all you have to do is loudly say “La La La La La” repeatedly until the distressing phenomenon has disappeared or finished.
This is what I wanted to do a week ago when confronted with blatant rampant heterosexuality being flaunted in my face. I was in somebody else’s house and there was nowhere I could go really, to escape it. I tried to be polite and simply turn my attention and my gaze elsewhere – certainly there were more than three people in the room. The man seemed to take possessive and powerful pride in his chosen mate and she was all wrapped up in adoration of his person. Really it’s quite boring put into words, but all I could think was La La La La La let this stop and let them go be private someplace where I don’t have to see.
It’s not so much the sour grapes factor. I didn’t wish to conduct myself in a similarly amorous manner with my chosen mate. Conscious that we were already on enemy territory, taken in as a matter of duty more than because our hosts wanted us to be there, we were very careful not to draw too much attention to our deviant state of homosexuality. I did start to wonder why I was being treated to this lavish display. I suspect part of their enjoyment was in making me feel uncomfortable.
La La La La can you imagine what would have happened had I reached out and taken up her hand in mine for simple comfort? If she’d gathered me up into her arm or kissed me for heaven’s sake, on the cheek if not the lips? We’d have been accused of flaunting our degenerate state and we’d have been asking for trouble.
Of course I didn’t say anything audibly. I just kept thinking La La La this is so gross La La La take me away please La La La why are they so unspeakably selfish and so unspeakably rude and La La La what am I doing in this place? I don’t belong here.
I began to analyse their (hetero)sexual behaviour in the context that these two young people are not married and perhaps were putting on this elaborate and La La La La disgusting display in public because of their cultural context. Perhaps they were carefully going just as far as they could go in front of us to prove that they weren’t breaking the covenant or breaking the unspoken expectation that premarital sex is a no-no? Perhaps this was all they could do for want of privacy to enjoy themselves and their unmarried state?
I may have it all completely wrong. To some extent it also felt like everyone there was in La La Land. No one was real. No one was engaging with another person on a deep and thoughtful level – we were all skating along the surface like small water bugs who fear getting sucked under and losing our ability to escape into the blandness of two-dimensions.
Anyway it’s all beside the point really. Maybe everyone there around the dinner table was going La La La La La about the fact that I was sitting there with the woman I married in their presence several months ago? We were of course there because we’d invited ourselves over to try to break through the rejection and the silence enforced by an older generation unwilling to even grudge us room to breathe, space to exist, a chance to prove ourselves…
I tried to raise this over dinner – tried to turn the conversation to a topic that I thought was relevant to everyone present. At that point every person at the table except my Beloved turned to the person next to them and went loudly La La La La – or at least that’s what it sounded like to me. No one acknowledged what I had said, let alone engaged with it. I had broken a rule without even thinking. What was that rule?
You shall not challenge the older generation for fear that they will be driven out of their comfort zone. We must at all costs preserve their comfort for fear that otherwise they shall make things very uncomfortable for us.
You shall keep yourself small and meek because you are not deserving of attention or care or kindness.
You shall not speak of matters that concern you because if you do speak of these matters others will be forced to either take positions against you or to be complicit and culpable in your wrongdoing.
You shall above all be nice.
La La La La
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Knife's Edge
Knife's Edge
(c) Melina Magdalena 2009
I sit poised and frozen
Astride that cruel steel blade
Awaiting the split
Second when everything
Changes and nothing
Can be reversed – ever!
Dividing then from then
Transient as a chalk circle
Eternal as an inscription
On the book of life
Acceptable as is anything
When one lacks the choice
Even to imagine another outcome.
My hands already rubbed raw
From futile clutching
At saltwater currents
Which bear away
Irretrievably those golden
Grains of sand
That represent time – my time
Spilled wastefully
Like milk across a dirty floor.
Inside my chest
Behind my breast
My heart beats strong and slow
No nervous flutter
Betrays my inner disquiet
Mistrust, fear, despair, hopes concealed
Within the golden egg
Of my heart’s desires.
What will be
Gory mess, scattered scales,
Broken bones, sliced muscles
Severed vessel
Will be that’s all there is.
That’s all there ever was.
Longing for quick resolution
Transformation without pain
Is a cheat’s way out.
To gain legs
I must go through this
Have legs, will walk
Means accepting the price,
Heavy though that price may be.
What I wanted
What I want
What I worked towards
For so long
On the wisp of pure conjecture
For a promise now
Emptied of fulfilment
Like the rainbow filament strand
That connects my DNA
With past present future
Figures only slightly
In the equation
Of what I might attain.
Who do I think I am
– God – ?
(c) Melina Magdalena 2009
I sit poised and frozen
Astride that cruel steel blade
Awaiting the split
Second when everything
Changes and nothing
Can be reversed – ever!
Dividing then from then
Transient as a chalk circle
Eternal as an inscription
On the book of life
Acceptable as is anything
When one lacks the choice
Even to imagine another outcome.
My hands already rubbed raw
From futile clutching
At saltwater currents
Which bear away
Irretrievably those golden
Grains of sand
That represent time – my time
Spilled wastefully
Like milk across a dirty floor.
Inside my chest
Behind my breast
My heart beats strong and slow
No nervous flutter
Betrays my inner disquiet
Mistrust, fear, despair, hopes concealed
Within the golden egg
Of my heart’s desires.
What will be
Gory mess, scattered scales,
Broken bones, sliced muscles
Severed vessel
Will be that’s all there is.
That’s all there ever was.
Longing for quick resolution
Transformation without pain
Is a cheat’s way out.
To gain legs
I must go through this
Have legs, will walk
Means accepting the price,
Heavy though that price may be.
What I wanted
What I want
What I worked towards
For so long
On the wisp of pure conjecture
For a promise now
Emptied of fulfilment
Like the rainbow filament strand
That connects my DNA
With past present future
Figures only slightly
In the equation
Of what I might attain.
Who do I think I am
– God – ?
Friday, May 15, 2009
Of Dead Cats and Getting to Know the Natives
Of Dead Cats and Getting to Know the Natives
(c) Melina Magdalena (2009)
I am enjoying living in Kilburn. Outside our kitchen window is a large grevillea tree. When we first moved in we were a little dismayed by the tree. It is large, and was dominating the lemon tree which we considered to be of more use. We were not even sure what kind of tree it was, until my father took a cutting to a local nursery and returned with their verdict. A grevillea tree is a native and – what’s more, it is a flowering native. Clearly it does well in Kilburn. Soon after we moved in, small clusters of red blossoms began to appear as if at random, along its branches and at the tips. There is a small colony of honeyeaters (also native) which make their home in the grevillea tree. It is pleasant to stand at the sink and gaze at them as they flitter confidently about in the tree.
We did prune it back considerably during the last school holidays, mainly to give the lemon tree some chance at revival. It did the lemon tree no end of good and we even have lemon blossom at last, as well as a few ripening fruits. All is well, in our back yard.
Last Thursday we were sitting on our IKEA lounge under the window, yawning and chatting and generally winding down for the day. A knock came at the door, and it was our neighbour – two houses down. He brought us the unwelcome news that there was a dead cat on the corner. We looked out and saw the soft, dark heap. My heart gave a leap – after having already lost one of our cats since moving here, I hoped it wasn’t my Ripple. We walked over and saw a large, soft black and white cat, and I recognised it (I thought) as belonging to our across the street neighbour. We didn’t know what to do, and decided in the end to leave it until the morning for identification purposes. It seemed to have been struck by a car and to have crawled across to the safety of the street corner.
The neighbour who brought us the news is a native to Kilburn. He is one of those people who makes it his business to know what is going on in his street. He has a wealth of knowledge and a kind heard to go with it, so we don’t feel too impinged upon by his visits. His long experience in the area has given him a healthy perspective on what to expect from those of his community. This is useful for us, as we try to eke some credibility as new residents of Kilburn.
I spent some time next morning out by the back gate with the handy pruning saw, chopping up the grevillea and lemon tree branches that we’d removed from the trees several weeks earlier. They were too long and unwieldy for the bin, and we had nowhere to store them. So I reduced them to usable lengths – we have an 18th birthday bonfire coming up in October, stored them in the shed, and tidied up the area around our back gate. The cat was still there.
With no excuses left, I took my fork and went into the front yard to continue weeding our flower patch. Most of our front yard will be nativised (take a look at this website: http://www.backyards4wildlife.com.au/index.php?page=butterflies), but we’ve already planted a frangipani tree and some mint in the square outside the lounge room window. It’s a long job, clearing grass, and I want to try digging it out first, before simply poisoning the stuff. We’ve already got poppies and cornflowers sprouting in the area I cleared a couple of weeks ago.
Our across the street neighbour came out of her house, through her gate and across the street. My heart sank. “I just wanted to let you know,” she said, pointing to the cat, “that’s Nemo.” She had arranged for the council to pick him up and take him away, and turned down my offer of burying him in her back yard. I kept on digging until the council man came, and then I abandoned my silent vigil and put away the fork for another day.
We took this neighbour a home-decorated Easter egg several weeks ago. And she brought me some homegrown chrysanthemums out of her garden on Mother’s Day. Very sweet.
We were rather selective about whom to give our Easter eggs to. The Afghani family with whom we share a party wall, received some, of course. We’re hoping that over time we will get to know them and that they will become confident to share some of their culture with us. And our two houses down neighbour as well.
Since moving here, we’ve become aware of some of the issues that embroil this community. Groups of shiftless youths, some white, some black, some multicoloured, roam the streets from time to time. Clearly, they need something to occupy themselves. Our house was home to a drug-dealing prostitute before the public housing people put it on the market. There was a shooting here a while back, and there have been several murders in the suburb over the past couple of years. It’s generally been from native Kilburnites that we’ve received the response – you bought a house in Kilburn? Why?! Didn’t you know what it was like?
Our yard – front and back – is infested with couch grass. I think it is couch. My son scoffed at me recently when I mentioned it. Did he say it is kikuyu? I always imagined couch grass to be the sly, narrow-leafed grass that creeps its way in and takes hold before you even notice it. That’s not what we have. We’ve got the bold as brass bright green thick-leafed runner grass that pokes its nose out of freshly-weeded soil hours after you put away the fork. It is thriving here, and its long runners and juicy roots seem to be everywhere I stick my fork in and pull.
People do think we're a little crazy to think we can eradicate this grass by manual labour. My father has said patronisingly that we need to be left to make our own mistakes. He, like others is a keen promulgator of poison. We may yet need to resort to that.
There is a different ground-cover that we’ve noticed in the neighbourhood. It appears on the odd nature strip, as well as in our back yard. I was worried at first that it was three-corner jack, or some other kind of thorny creeper. It looks a little like creeping thyme, with small dark-green leaves a little grey on the underside, and tiny pink and mauve flowers. I think it’s very pretty actually. We took some to a nursery for identification, only to be told it is a weed and nursery folk are not interested in weeds. We tried again at another nursery and after asking friends, have decided it is a kind of saltbush, and does not produce thorns. So we’re keen to help it take over the areas where at the moment, the grass usurper reigns supreme.
However, the vegetable patch must naturally take some precedence, even over the native saltbush. It was while trying to dig up a patch of the stuff that I discovered its rooting nature to be quite different from the runner grass. Like everything else, our vege patch is a work in progress. At present it is comprised of two long and narrow beds (1.5m x 2.5m), with sleepers on either long side as the borders. The first one runs East – West, parallel to the side fence in the back corner. The second is splayed a little, running North-North-East – South-South-West, with the western end meeting at the corner of the first. Eventually, there will be six beds, each with a triangular path separating them, like a semi-circle.
Instead of sending out runners here there and everywhere, as the colonising grass does, the saltbush seems to grow from one very long, very thick, deep taproot. It spreads above the surface, but not below. I didn’t realise this until after cutting it back with the secateurs to make room for the vege patch, I realised I would need to dig one plant out completely. The fork, alas, was not much help. I got out the spade, but it would not cut that root. So I found myself on my knees with an old, blunt hatchet, chipping away at this root. The root was twisted and fibrous. It felt rather awful to be destroying it with such a blunt instrument. Perhaps next time I’ll sharpen the hatchet before I try this.
While digging and chipping and planning, I began to think about the process of developing our yard and creating our home. We have fairly clear ideas about why we chose Kilburn and how we hope to live here. We don’t mind at all, becoming part of its living history, as the colour of the community changes and transforms. We don’t mind coming into contact with its past history and the characters who inhabit its past. We are keen to be part of its future. We want our back yard to be productive, colourful and vibrant – to reflect in short, our inner lives, which is no small ambition.
I keep thinking about the native saltbush and the runner grass invader. It’s interesting that the native can survive and spread over the surface of a large area, through one large root. It’s almost as though this plant does not want to affect the soil beneath it, but just live cautiously, quietly, mindfully upon the surface. The grass on the other hand, behaves in a very different way. It pops up continuously, and sends its roots wastefully, capriciously in all directions, as though by doing so, it is guaranteed that part of it will succeed, somewhere, even if the rest is dug up or poisoned.
It reminds me of the different ways of different peoples. Some peoples recede into the background, doing their own thing, quietly getting on with life in an undemanding way. Others are much louder, more flamboyant – not only giving of themselves unasked and often unsolicited, but unaware of the impact they are having on their environment.
Where do we sit, along that continuum of extreme opposites? Are we not the enthusiastic invaders of this neighbourhood, determined to move in and make our mark? I’ve long considered myself to be essentially homeless as far as having sovereignty over a little piece of earth is concerned. I’m still getting to know myself as a homeowner. At the same time, I’m a homebody, and I enjoy pottering about, working on our garden, setting up and keeping house. I am drawn to my metaphor of living quietly and gently – not impacting or damaging this place that we have moved to. Perhaps it’s just one more thing to keep in mind as we continue our work in creating our home.
(c) Melina Magdalena (2009)
I am enjoying living in Kilburn. Outside our kitchen window is a large grevillea tree. When we first moved in we were a little dismayed by the tree. It is large, and was dominating the lemon tree which we considered to be of more use. We were not even sure what kind of tree it was, until my father took a cutting to a local nursery and returned with their verdict. A grevillea tree is a native and – what’s more, it is a flowering native. Clearly it does well in Kilburn. Soon after we moved in, small clusters of red blossoms began to appear as if at random, along its branches and at the tips. There is a small colony of honeyeaters (also native) which make their home in the grevillea tree. It is pleasant to stand at the sink and gaze at them as they flitter confidently about in the tree.
We did prune it back considerably during the last school holidays, mainly to give the lemon tree some chance at revival. It did the lemon tree no end of good and we even have lemon blossom at last, as well as a few ripening fruits. All is well, in our back yard.
Last Thursday we were sitting on our IKEA lounge under the window, yawning and chatting and generally winding down for the day. A knock came at the door, and it was our neighbour – two houses down. He brought us the unwelcome news that there was a dead cat on the corner. We looked out and saw the soft, dark heap. My heart gave a leap – after having already lost one of our cats since moving here, I hoped it wasn’t my Ripple. We walked over and saw a large, soft black and white cat, and I recognised it (I thought) as belonging to our across the street neighbour. We didn’t know what to do, and decided in the end to leave it until the morning for identification purposes. It seemed to have been struck by a car and to have crawled across to the safety of the street corner.
The neighbour who brought us the news is a native to Kilburn. He is one of those people who makes it his business to know what is going on in his street. He has a wealth of knowledge and a kind heard to go with it, so we don’t feel too impinged upon by his visits. His long experience in the area has given him a healthy perspective on what to expect from those of his community. This is useful for us, as we try to eke some credibility as new residents of Kilburn.
I spent some time next morning out by the back gate with the handy pruning saw, chopping up the grevillea and lemon tree branches that we’d removed from the trees several weeks earlier. They were too long and unwieldy for the bin, and we had nowhere to store them. So I reduced them to usable lengths – we have an 18th birthday bonfire coming up in October, stored them in the shed, and tidied up the area around our back gate. The cat was still there.
With no excuses left, I took my fork and went into the front yard to continue weeding our flower patch. Most of our front yard will be nativised (take a look at this website: http://www.backyards4wildlife.com.au/index.php?page=butterflies), but we’ve already planted a frangipani tree and some mint in the square outside the lounge room window. It’s a long job, clearing grass, and I want to try digging it out first, before simply poisoning the stuff. We’ve already got poppies and cornflowers sprouting in the area I cleared a couple of weeks ago.
Our across the street neighbour came out of her house, through her gate and across the street. My heart sank. “I just wanted to let you know,” she said, pointing to the cat, “that’s Nemo.” She had arranged for the council to pick him up and take him away, and turned down my offer of burying him in her back yard. I kept on digging until the council man came, and then I abandoned my silent vigil and put away the fork for another day.
We took this neighbour a home-decorated Easter egg several weeks ago. And she brought me some homegrown chrysanthemums out of her garden on Mother’s Day. Very sweet.
We were rather selective about whom to give our Easter eggs to. The Afghani family with whom we share a party wall, received some, of course. We’re hoping that over time we will get to know them and that they will become confident to share some of their culture with us. And our two houses down neighbour as well.
Since moving here, we’ve become aware of some of the issues that embroil this community. Groups of shiftless youths, some white, some black, some multicoloured, roam the streets from time to time. Clearly, they need something to occupy themselves. Our house was home to a drug-dealing prostitute before the public housing people put it on the market. There was a shooting here a while back, and there have been several murders in the suburb over the past couple of years. It’s generally been from native Kilburnites that we’ve received the response – you bought a house in Kilburn? Why?! Didn’t you know what it was like?
Our yard – front and back – is infested with couch grass. I think it is couch. My son scoffed at me recently when I mentioned it. Did he say it is kikuyu? I always imagined couch grass to be the sly, narrow-leafed grass that creeps its way in and takes hold before you even notice it. That’s not what we have. We’ve got the bold as brass bright green thick-leafed runner grass that pokes its nose out of freshly-weeded soil hours after you put away the fork. It is thriving here, and its long runners and juicy roots seem to be everywhere I stick my fork in and pull.
People do think we're a little crazy to think we can eradicate this grass by manual labour. My father has said patronisingly that we need to be left to make our own mistakes. He, like others is a keen promulgator of poison. We may yet need to resort to that.
There is a different ground-cover that we’ve noticed in the neighbourhood. It appears on the odd nature strip, as well as in our back yard. I was worried at first that it was three-corner jack, or some other kind of thorny creeper. It looks a little like creeping thyme, with small dark-green leaves a little grey on the underside, and tiny pink and mauve flowers. I think it’s very pretty actually. We took some to a nursery for identification, only to be told it is a weed and nursery folk are not interested in weeds. We tried again at another nursery and after asking friends, have decided it is a kind of saltbush, and does not produce thorns. So we’re keen to help it take over the areas where at the moment, the grass usurper reigns supreme. However, the vegetable patch must naturally take some precedence, even over the native saltbush. It was while trying to dig up a patch of the stuff that I discovered its rooting nature to be quite different from the runner grass. Like everything else, our vege patch is a work in progress. At present it is comprised of two long and narrow beds (1.5m x 2.5m), with sleepers on either long side as the borders. The first one runs East – West, parallel to the side fence in the back corner. The second is splayed a little, running North-North-East – South-South-West, with the western end meeting at the corner of the first. Eventually, there will be six beds, each with a triangular path separating them, like a semi-circle.
Instead of sending out runners here there and everywhere, as the colonising grass does, the saltbush seems to grow from one very long, very thick, deep taproot. It spreads above the surface, but not below. I didn’t realise this until after cutting it back with the secateurs to make room for the vege patch, I realised I would need to dig one plant out completely. The fork, alas, was not much help. I got out the spade, but it would not cut that root. So I found myself on my knees with an old, blunt hatchet, chipping away at this root. The root was twisted and fibrous. It felt rather awful to be destroying it with such a blunt instrument. Perhaps next time I’ll sharpen the hatchet before I try this.
While digging and chipping and planning, I began to think about the process of developing our yard and creating our home. We have fairly clear ideas about why we chose Kilburn and how we hope to live here. We don’t mind at all, becoming part of its living history, as the colour of the community changes and transforms. We don’t mind coming into contact with its past history and the characters who inhabit its past. We are keen to be part of its future. We want our back yard to be productive, colourful and vibrant – to reflect in short, our inner lives, which is no small ambition.
I keep thinking about the native saltbush and the runner grass invader. It’s interesting that the native can survive and spread over the surface of a large area, through one large root. It’s almost as though this plant does not want to affect the soil beneath it, but just live cautiously, quietly, mindfully upon the surface. The grass on the other hand, behaves in a very different way. It pops up continuously, and sends its roots wastefully, capriciously in all directions, as though by doing so, it is guaranteed that part of it will succeed, somewhere, even if the rest is dug up or poisoned.
It reminds me of the different ways of different peoples. Some peoples recede into the background, doing their own thing, quietly getting on with life in an undemanding way. Others are much louder, more flamboyant – not only giving of themselves unasked and often unsolicited, but unaware of the impact they are having on their environment.
Where do we sit, along that continuum of extreme opposites? Are we not the enthusiastic invaders of this neighbourhood, determined to move in and make our mark? I’ve long considered myself to be essentially homeless as far as having sovereignty over a little piece of earth is concerned. I’m still getting to know myself as a homeowner. At the same time, I’m a homebody, and I enjoy pottering about, working on our garden, setting up and keeping house. I am drawn to my metaphor of living quietly and gently – not impacting or damaging this place that we have moved to. Perhaps it’s just one more thing to keep in mind as we continue our work in creating our home.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
birthday (2009)
Birthday (2009)
© Melina Magdalena (2009)
1.
Gestation
becoming
rotating
nesting
listening
growing
moving
beating
beckoning
being
2.
Birth (one)
Shocking, bleeding, mess
Sucking, pulling, contracting
Bones shift, so that I become
Time stops – until
I arrive
Heart pumps
Lungs fill
Mouth opens
3.
Enslaved
Coming to was like
A growing awareness
Of a gnawing pain
So chronic it had passed unnoticed
As we had passed our years, our lives, our every days
In bondage.
Awareness changed to shame
Stripped to bare bone
Naked indiscretions exposed
To all and sundry
With nothing at all
To clothe ourselves
Or hide our shame.
No dignity
No shelter
No pride
No selfhood
No safety
We strove mightily
Under these conditions
Until
One magical day
Shame changed to rage
Anger stirred our hearts
We rose up as one
And departed from that place.
4.
Birth (two)
The Red Sea was no easy passage.
Wild waters rising up on either side,
Meeting far above our heads.
We ran for our lives
Through the narrow strait
Never questioning
Our final destination
Never stopping
To look back
At what we were running from
We lost our breath
And still the pressure
Of all that weight of water
Pushed us further in, further out.
Our blood drained of oxygen
We breathed water once more
Until, reaching the distant shore,
Every bone softened,
Every sinew stretched to breaking point,
Every muscle burning,
Drowned of thoughts and understanding,
Collapsed amongst the reeds
Allowed our lungs to fill
With the dry desert air
The taste of freedom
Reborn
Despite our never having planned this, either, of course
These things just happen.
But why do they happen to us?
5.
40 years of wandering
And now…
wandering
for forty years
through this desert
calling, calling
knowing this for certain
that all my plaintive melancholy
is all for this – for I am homeless
Wandering for forty years
fording creeks of fire
wallowing through quicksand
begging it to pull me
Down Down Down
into the bowels of the earth
where my skin might disappear
and where my bones might melt
into some form of someone else’s making
wandering for forty years
without guidance
without language
without purpose
without direction
without companion
without –
whilst within dull numb deadness
grappled in vain with turmoil and chaos
wandering wondering wandering
lack my defining characteristic
6.
This desert
This wondrous desert sand
red of the blood in my body
yellow of my skin
sticks to the hairs on my leg
creating friction between me
and the world that I live in
This miraculous desert sky
enfolds me in its depth
shelters me in peace
creates a veil that hangs between me
and the world I live in
This mysterious desert water
fragrant and life-giving
a well-kept secret
nourishes me
comes up and goes under
And around the world I live in
This treacherous desert path
wending and winding
un-mappable and mutable
a bridge that is teaching me
about the world I live in
These desert stars are music makers
moving of their own accord
offering hope amidst an inky sky
illuminating sternly,
the world in I live in
This unforgiving desert sun
casts shadows
makes wrinkles
causes thirst
a necessary solo star amidst a cast of millions
makes possible the world I live in
7.
Death by dessication.
Death by dessication.
Is this not what each of us faces?
Climate change our collective doom?
Souls shrivel, ideas wither, feelings die
Without lifegiving water to nourish them.
Death by dessication.
It’s a slow and painful attrition.
From the inside out,
Marrow crumbles to dust
Creative juices evaporate into thin air
Air cuts its way in and out of our lungs
With no attenuating moisture
to soften the blow
of every breath
Blood ceases to flow
Tongue loses its saliva
Eyes lose their tears
We have nothing left to give.
But before the death comes the living.
Nourished by means
We are unable to comprehend
Manna falling from the sky
Like snowflakes raindrops hailstones
Bringing us briefly to life again
Each time, each time, each time.
Life of dubious value
When it is borne of sameness
Repetition hones the senses
Until senselessness becomes our only escape.
But life nonetheless
Is what propels us
Footsore
Heartsore
Longingly
And clueless
From one end
To the other
And back again
We dared not leave the desert
For fear that what lay beyond
Might be even worse
Than the nothing that we had now
Or what we had left behind.
Fear marked us out
Drove us on.
8.
Letting Go
Fear and love
The driving forces
Loving nothing
Keeps us in limbo
Fearing
Keeps us in stasis
Fear and hope
Dichotomous poles
Hoping for something
Propels us to strive
Fearing
Renders us invisible
Fear and anger
Two sides of the same coin
Anger’s energy
Can bear poisonous fruit
Fear
Remains barren
Fear and Joy
Cannot co-exist
While joy
Banishes fear
Fear
Destroys all joyous potential
Sooner or later
We all have to choose
Fear
Or
Love
9.
Promised Land
I never dreamed of riches.
I never dreamed of love.
I never dreamed a wet, tropical night,
Lying fertile beneath a sky
Spread with sparkling jewels
Of promise, of hope, of a future
Crowded with possibility.
I never dreamed of those high places.
I never dreamed of climbing down.
I never dreamed of pointing out the crevices
Neither crushed, nor giving in
Each holding for dear life, what we consider precious
Reaching for a place of mutuality
In this process of transformation.
I never dreamed of strength.
I never dreamed of giving back.
I never dreamed that being intertwined
Mingled, nested, overcome by togetherness
Could feel like a new kind of freedom
Each of us in loving one another
Thereby loving ourselves.
I never dreamed of a companion.
I never dreamed her sweetness.
I never dreamed a partnership so vital,
With liveliness and laughter
Of unexpected pleasures and discoveries
Of family, of friends, of a lifetime
Of growing into one another.
10.
Decades
0-10 Birth growth movement food family friends language love wonder child
11-20 Teenage alienation depression aloneness school travel stain mark fail work
21-30 Growing learning cooking cleaning driving making moving sewing talking mothering
31-40 Resources choices support companion network prayer garden work loving life
© Melina Magdalena (2009)
1.
Gestation
becoming
rotating
nesting
listening
growing
moving
beating
beckoning
being
2.
Birth (one)
Shocking, bleeding, mess
Sucking, pulling, contracting
Bones shift, so that I become
Time stops – until
I arrive
Heart pumps
Lungs fill
Mouth opens
3.
Enslaved
Coming to was like
A growing awareness
Of a gnawing pain
So chronic it had passed unnoticed
As we had passed our years, our lives, our every days
In bondage.
Awareness changed to shame
Stripped to bare bone
Naked indiscretions exposed
To all and sundry
With nothing at all
To clothe ourselves
Or hide our shame.
No dignity
No shelter
No pride
No selfhood
No safety
We strove mightily
Under these conditions
Until
One magical day
Shame changed to rage
Anger stirred our hearts
We rose up as one
And departed from that place.
4.
Birth (two)
The Red Sea was no easy passage.
Wild waters rising up on either side,
Meeting far above our heads.
We ran for our lives
Through the narrow strait
Never questioning
Our final destination
Never stopping
To look back
At what we were running from
We lost our breath
And still the pressure
Of all that weight of water
Pushed us further in, further out.
Our blood drained of oxygen
We breathed water once more
Until, reaching the distant shore,
Every bone softened,
Every sinew stretched to breaking point,
Every muscle burning,
Drowned of thoughts and understanding,
Collapsed amongst the reeds
Allowed our lungs to fill
With the dry desert air
The taste of freedom
Reborn
Despite our never having planned this, either, of course
These things just happen.
But why do they happen to us?
5.
40 years of wandering
And now…
wandering
for forty years
through this desert
calling, calling
knowing this for certain
that all my plaintive melancholy
is all for this – for I am homeless
Wandering for forty years
fording creeks of fire
wallowing through quicksand
begging it to pull me
Down Down Down
into the bowels of the earth
where my skin might disappear
and where my bones might melt
into some form of someone else’s making
wandering for forty years
without guidance
without language
without purpose
without direction
without companion
without –
whilst within dull numb deadness
grappled in vain with turmoil and chaos
wandering wondering wandering
lack my defining characteristic
6.
This desert
This wondrous desert sand
red of the blood in my body
yellow of my skin
sticks to the hairs on my leg
creating friction between me
and the world that I live in
This miraculous desert sky
enfolds me in its depth
shelters me in peace
creates a veil that hangs between me
and the world I live in
This mysterious desert water
fragrant and life-giving
a well-kept secret
nourishes me
comes up and goes under
And around the world I live in
This treacherous desert path
wending and winding
un-mappable and mutable
a bridge that is teaching me
about the world I live in
These desert stars are music makers
moving of their own accord
offering hope amidst an inky sky
illuminating sternly,
the world in I live in
This unforgiving desert sun
casts shadows
makes wrinkles
causes thirst
a necessary solo star amidst a cast of millions
makes possible the world I live in
7.
Death by dessication.
Death by dessication.
Is this not what each of us faces?
Climate change our collective doom?
Souls shrivel, ideas wither, feelings die
Without lifegiving water to nourish them.
Death by dessication.
It’s a slow and painful attrition.
From the inside out,
Marrow crumbles to dust
Creative juices evaporate into thin air
Air cuts its way in and out of our lungs
With no attenuating moisture
to soften the blow
of every breath
Blood ceases to flow
Tongue loses its saliva
Eyes lose their tears
We have nothing left to give.
But before the death comes the living.
Nourished by means
We are unable to comprehend
Manna falling from the sky
Like snowflakes raindrops hailstones
Bringing us briefly to life again
Each time, each time, each time.
Life of dubious value
When it is borne of sameness
Repetition hones the senses
Until senselessness becomes our only escape.
But life nonetheless
Is what propels us
Footsore
Heartsore
Longingly
And clueless
From one end
To the other
And back again
We dared not leave the desert
For fear that what lay beyond
Might be even worse
Than the nothing that we had now
Or what we had left behind.
Fear marked us out
Drove us on.
8.
Letting Go
Fear and love
The driving forces
Loving nothing
Keeps us in limbo
Fearing
Keeps us in stasis
Fear and hope
Dichotomous poles
Hoping for something
Propels us to strive
Fearing
Renders us invisible
Fear and anger
Two sides of the same coin
Anger’s energy
Can bear poisonous fruit
Fear
Remains barren
Fear and Joy
Cannot co-exist
While joy
Banishes fear
Fear
Destroys all joyous potential
Sooner or later
We all have to choose
Fear
Or
Love
9.
Promised Land
I never dreamed of riches.
I never dreamed of love.
I never dreamed a wet, tropical night,
Lying fertile beneath a sky
Spread with sparkling jewels
Of promise, of hope, of a future
Crowded with possibility.
I never dreamed of those high places.
I never dreamed of climbing down.
I never dreamed of pointing out the crevices
Neither crushed, nor giving in
Each holding for dear life, what we consider precious
Reaching for a place of mutuality
In this process of transformation.
I never dreamed of strength.
I never dreamed of giving back.
I never dreamed that being intertwined
Mingled, nested, overcome by togetherness
Could feel like a new kind of freedom
Each of us in loving one another
Thereby loving ourselves.
I never dreamed of a companion.
I never dreamed her sweetness.
I never dreamed a partnership so vital,
With liveliness and laughter
Of unexpected pleasures and discoveries
Of family, of friends, of a lifetime
Of growing into one another.
10.
Decades
0-10 Birth growth movement food family friends language love wonder child
11-20 Teenage alienation depression aloneness school travel stain mark fail work
21-30 Growing learning cooking cleaning driving making moving sewing talking mothering
31-40 Resources choices support companion network prayer garden work loving life
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Or Forever Hold Your Peace
Or Forever Hold Your Peace
(c) Melina Magdalena 2009
I’m writing today from within the eye of the needle.
What is a needle? A needle is a tool. I use needles for sewing, for knitting, for mending, for weaving. I have used a needle to apply paint to a tiny surface. I have used a needle to prise a splinter out of my daughter’s foot, to scrape grime from beneath my fingernails. When I was ten or eleven a doctor used a needle to stich my lip in three places where I had bitten through it during a somersault on Kathryn Turner’s trampoline. After giving birth to my son, two surgeons stitched me up down below because I had torn myself badly in my haste and inexperience.
When I contemplate needles, the point of the needle comes immediately to mind. However, the last few weeks has also brought the eye of the needle to my attention, when I was able to assist three dear friends with threading their needles for sewing projects, including the chuppah we created for our Promise Making Ceremony and Celebration.
That’s another nice metaphor; gentler than pushing someone’s barrow for them. Used without literality, I am sure I have helped many other people to thread their needles so that they could get on with whatever projects their life journeys had laid out before them. I know many people help me to thread my needles, too. The magic of this metaphor lies in the possibilities not only of what might be done with that thread once it’s in the needle, but what kind of thread it is in the first place. I could for example, use a golden thread to sew a silver lining to the clouds that beckon on the horizon, for example.
I’m wondering what a needle has to do with gaining access to heaven.
To a micro-being, the eye of a needle must seem vast. Poking the point of a needle around in a Petri dish teeming with micro-organisms must be the equivalent of dropping bombs on fragile human communities. It wreaks death and destruction. This hardly evokes an image of heaven to my mind.
To a human being, whether she is rich or poor or somewhere in between, the eye of a needle is tiny.
In any case, we none of us gain access to heaven through the eye of a needle (Mark 10:22-25). A needle binds two pieces of fabric together, allows us to make things of function and beauty. It’s not a means for gaining access to heaven, and I will always prefer the concept of using the tools we humans have at our disposal, to create heaven on earth. It’s that old Tikkun Olam again.
I’m wondering about the meaning of life.
It’s a frequent preoccupation of mine, but I have reached my own conclusions and beliefs. They are not incompatible with those of some mainstream religious – at least where they are concerned with the implications for how I choose to live my everyday life.
I believe that life goes on before, during and after. I believe there is much more to Life than what we conventionally acknowledge – perhaps there are many more kinds of life which are distant from the narrow focus that human beings on this planet choose to include within the concept.
As to the belief that my actions today will determine my future – I have seen this enacted time after time within my present, so I do not discount the idea. However, I don’t have a strong or rigid idea of where “I” will “go” after “death”. I do not believe that my life journey is leading me either to the door of heaven or to the gates of hell.
Many people do believe this of course. They purport to know with maximum efficiency and minimum effort, just what rituals and choices they must make in order to determine their eventual destination. And this leads me to a whole set of other questions.
For people with such beliefs, just how does a person gain entrance to heaven? Apart from the gauzy gaudy idea of a reward for hard work and difficult choices, what purpose does heaven serve, in the life of a person here on earth?
Does one gain entrance to that heaven by hurting … judging … rejecting … through bigotry … building walls to separate … burning bridges to enlarge an already existing divide … directly condemning … explicitly refusing to affirm other people’s endeavours?
Is the quality of being saved more about belonging to a special chosen group of people, or is it more about the moment of salvation, which propels one’s feet upon a journey to seek commonality and to foster inclusion amongst those whose eyes remain closed to the possibility that they themselves are valued and loved, as members of the human family?
What people can be so arrogant as to assume that their feet alone keep to that true path, whilst simultaneously claiming that it is their mission to serve? How can they live lives of questioning, judgment and rejection; blinded to the fact that in doing so, they project their arrogant, parsimonious and uncaring attitudes onto everyone who is different, and on those who had believed that they were loved?
What kind of life is it, to be ever blinkered by the shadow of heaven hovering above, beckoning one away from temptation, removing from one’s gaze, every possibility that might lead one from the path?
I’m wondering about the rigidity of people’s beliefs when they encounter the truth about the nature of homosexuality and same-sex unions.
In the lead up to our ceremony, more and more people began to refer to it as our “wedding”. At the beginning, I was uncomfortable with the idea that we were going to “get married” – I preferred to mask reality behind the euphemism of making promises to one another. It felt good to be defiant in the face of the legal and religious opposition to our union. This awkward position between a so-called lifestyle choice that is too often linked with promiscuity, and a social convention of mandated coupledom was certainly a queer position for us to take.
I grew to accept that what we were doing was the same as what other couples choose to do – to seal our bond by openly and publicly stating our intentions to nurture one another within a life long partnership. I also grew much more comfortable with the idea that we were getting married, and I felt excited that we were having a wedding to ceremoniously celebrate this deed.
Although I had felt a little unhappy that “my” guest list was so much shorter than my beloved’s and that the distance most would need to travel precluded their attendance, the irresistible urge to be part of our wedding drew people from my circle into our lives with an ever strengthening undertow, the closer we came to January 17, 2009. It was so affirming for me that so many of my invited friends and family members made the effort to attend. I felt surrounded by their well wishes, love and support.
I’m wondering why someone who refused to make a square for our chuppah, and refused to give an rsvp to our promise making ceremony, on the basis that she believed that what we are doing is against god, might still choose to attend.
My beloved and I are the kind of serious people who practise liturgy often in our daily lives. We took a long time and expended a lot of energy in writing our promises, and in working out the logistics and specifics of our ceremony. This was important to us.
We wanted, for example, to welcome everyone who came to be part of our day. We specifically wanted to rejoice in what we were choosing whilst affirming the choices that others have made and the places they find themselves in that are different from ours. We have both spent large portions of our adult lives as single people. We know that this can often feel like a contested and defensive position. We know that people move in and out of partnerships and likewise feel ousted from the norm because of these circumstances. We know both first and second-hand how it feels to live under siege because we are in a minority. In a world where we as a lesbian couple are not always welcome and free, we wished to extend an open-handed welcome to others.
We had worked from the assumption that those who had chosen to be present had their reasons for their presence. Equally, we reasoned that people who chose not to attend had reasons for their non-participation.
It never occurred to me that people might choose to attend and stand in open judgment as witness to what they label as being “against God”. I can only ask what they hoped to achieve in so doing. Was their God paying attention at the time? Did they receive extra Brownie points in their favour? Or was it their intent to cause harm to the people who had invited them to be part of our special day?
I wonder whether they can understand that the fact they were invited points to the value we place on our relationship with them; the esteem in which we hold them; and our hope that this may be reciprocated. Certainly from my side, I chose not to invite people who have attacked me in the past, just because they happen to be family members.
I’m wondering about the motivations of someone who would place responsibility for attending our ceremony on those who invited her, rather than being accountable for her own uncomfortable feelings. If we hadn’t wanted her to attend, than surely we would not have issued an invitation?
I get, that it’s not pleasant to be the bearer of unwelcome news. I get the moral courage that it takes to stand against something that seems to be receiving overwhelming support from all other quarters. This ought to be obvious to anyone who changes his or her vantage point from that of rigidly religious righteousness to that of renegade.
It is my contention that people who fail to act upon that moral courage, as we did, for example, in celebrating our union and inviting our friends and family to be part of the occasion, can’t really claim to possess that moral courage.
It pisses me off that the rigid religious fail to acknowledge the effects of their actions and beliefs upon those they judge. They either fail to recognise that their choices are hurtful, or act in full knowledge that their actions will cause pain and distress. They fail utterly to stand in the shoes of someone else, and are incapable of contemplating how hard it is for others to stand up and be counted in the face of their implacable hatred and homophobia. This seems blatantly hypocritical and prideful, when the message they speak from the other side of their mouths is a message of love and acceptance.
The commonalities between our two positions are clear to me. Both of us feel we must defend our positions in the face of hostile or indifferent opposition. Both of us feel that it is only by digging in our heels and refusing to bend that we are being true to what we believe about ourselves. The difference lies in whether we choose to interact with and embrace our antagonist, or whether we hold ourselves separate and aloof in disapproving judgment.
I never imagined someone might offer to turn her back at any portion of the ceremony that she could not bring herself to affirm. Such rigid judgmentalism had no place in my thinking about our day.
I’m wondering why someone would explicitly choose his view of morality over his relationship with a person he had known all of his life.
On the one hand the stance this person chose shows integrity of the upright, courageous kind.
Never mind the fact that as the unknown member of this couple, I was automatically placed under suspicion and judged to be of dubious character and reputation before I had even met any of these people – I am used to being cast in that role. Yes, it hurts. And no – I felt no compunction to overdo my niceness and prove them wrong. I was quite willing to crawl into my shell and give nothing away.
I wonder how much it cost him, to make this stand, and to hammer in this point of contention, dismantling with hard intent, every point of connection that had previously existed between him and my dearly beloved?
I think this was perhaps the easier moral position to take. Facing the situation openly and honestly would have taken a different kind of courage, and would have been less destructive. He was not even willing to test the waters and seeing whether indeed any connection of value remained between them.
There was no specific place in our ceremony, where we demanded that those present affirm our relationship. We never asked for anyone who disapproved to make his or her disapproval known. Ours was a rewriting, a reframing and a refashioning of a traditional wedding ceremony. As women standing openly and proudly outside the laws of our religions and our country, we felt no compunction and little desire to adhere to traditions and forms that hold no meaning for us. We chose to develop a ceremony whose every facet would hold meaning for us.
I’m wondering whether any of them got it at all on the day, at the park, amongst the crowds of rejoicers.
(c) Melina Magdalena 2009
I’m writing today from within the eye of the needle.
What is a needle? A needle is a tool. I use needles for sewing, for knitting, for mending, for weaving. I have used a needle to apply paint to a tiny surface. I have used a needle to prise a splinter out of my daughter’s foot, to scrape grime from beneath my fingernails. When I was ten or eleven a doctor used a needle to stich my lip in three places where I had bitten through it during a somersault on Kathryn Turner’s trampoline. After giving birth to my son, two surgeons stitched me up down below because I had torn myself badly in my haste and inexperience.
When I contemplate needles, the point of the needle comes immediately to mind. However, the last few weeks has also brought the eye of the needle to my attention, when I was able to assist three dear friends with threading their needles for sewing projects, including the chuppah we created for our Promise Making Ceremony and Celebration.
That’s another nice metaphor; gentler than pushing someone’s barrow for them. Used without literality, I am sure I have helped many other people to thread their needles so that they could get on with whatever projects their life journeys had laid out before them. I know many people help me to thread my needles, too. The magic of this metaphor lies in the possibilities not only of what might be done with that thread once it’s in the needle, but what kind of thread it is in the first place. I could for example, use a golden thread to sew a silver lining to the clouds that beckon on the horizon, for example.
I’m wondering what a needle has to do with gaining access to heaven.
To a micro-being, the eye of a needle must seem vast. Poking the point of a needle around in a Petri dish teeming with micro-organisms must be the equivalent of dropping bombs on fragile human communities. It wreaks death and destruction. This hardly evokes an image of heaven to my mind.
To a human being, whether she is rich or poor or somewhere in between, the eye of a needle is tiny.
In any case, we none of us gain access to heaven through the eye of a needle (Mark 10:22-25). A needle binds two pieces of fabric together, allows us to make things of function and beauty. It’s not a means for gaining access to heaven, and I will always prefer the concept of using the tools we humans have at our disposal, to create heaven on earth. It’s that old Tikkun Olam again.
I’m wondering about the meaning of life.
It’s a frequent preoccupation of mine, but I have reached my own conclusions and beliefs. They are not incompatible with those of some mainstream religious – at least where they are concerned with the implications for how I choose to live my everyday life.
I believe that life goes on before, during and after. I believe there is much more to Life than what we conventionally acknowledge – perhaps there are many more kinds of life which are distant from the narrow focus that human beings on this planet choose to include within the concept.
As to the belief that my actions today will determine my future – I have seen this enacted time after time within my present, so I do not discount the idea. However, I don’t have a strong or rigid idea of where “I” will “go” after “death”. I do not believe that my life journey is leading me either to the door of heaven or to the gates of hell.
Many people do believe this of course. They purport to know with maximum efficiency and minimum effort, just what rituals and choices they must make in order to determine their eventual destination. And this leads me to a whole set of other questions.
For people with such beliefs, just how does a person gain entrance to heaven? Apart from the gauzy gaudy idea of a reward for hard work and difficult choices, what purpose does heaven serve, in the life of a person here on earth?
Does one gain entrance to that heaven by hurting … judging … rejecting … through bigotry … building walls to separate … burning bridges to enlarge an already existing divide … directly condemning … explicitly refusing to affirm other people’s endeavours?
Is the quality of being saved more about belonging to a special chosen group of people, or is it more about the moment of salvation, which propels one’s feet upon a journey to seek commonality and to foster inclusion amongst those whose eyes remain closed to the possibility that they themselves are valued and loved, as members of the human family?
What people can be so arrogant as to assume that their feet alone keep to that true path, whilst simultaneously claiming that it is their mission to serve? How can they live lives of questioning, judgment and rejection; blinded to the fact that in doing so, they project their arrogant, parsimonious and uncaring attitudes onto everyone who is different, and on those who had believed that they were loved?
What kind of life is it, to be ever blinkered by the shadow of heaven hovering above, beckoning one away from temptation, removing from one’s gaze, every possibility that might lead one from the path?
I’m wondering about the rigidity of people’s beliefs when they encounter the truth about the nature of homosexuality and same-sex unions.
In the lead up to our ceremony, more and more people began to refer to it as our “wedding”. At the beginning, I was uncomfortable with the idea that we were going to “get married” – I preferred to mask reality behind the euphemism of making promises to one another. It felt good to be defiant in the face of the legal and religious opposition to our union. This awkward position between a so-called lifestyle choice that is too often linked with promiscuity, and a social convention of mandated coupledom was certainly a queer position for us to take.
I grew to accept that what we were doing was the same as what other couples choose to do – to seal our bond by openly and publicly stating our intentions to nurture one another within a life long partnership. I also grew much more comfortable with the idea that we were getting married, and I felt excited that we were having a wedding to ceremoniously celebrate this deed.
Although I had felt a little unhappy that “my” guest list was so much shorter than my beloved’s and that the distance most would need to travel precluded their attendance, the irresistible urge to be part of our wedding drew people from my circle into our lives with an ever strengthening undertow, the closer we came to January 17, 2009. It was so affirming for me that so many of my invited friends and family members made the effort to attend. I felt surrounded by their well wishes, love and support.
I’m wondering why someone who refused to make a square for our chuppah, and refused to give an rsvp to our promise making ceremony, on the basis that she believed that what we are doing is against god, might still choose to attend.
My beloved and I are the kind of serious people who practise liturgy often in our daily lives. We took a long time and expended a lot of energy in writing our promises, and in working out the logistics and specifics of our ceremony. This was important to us.
We wanted, for example, to welcome everyone who came to be part of our day. We specifically wanted to rejoice in what we were choosing whilst affirming the choices that others have made and the places they find themselves in that are different from ours. We have both spent large portions of our adult lives as single people. We know that this can often feel like a contested and defensive position. We know that people move in and out of partnerships and likewise feel ousted from the norm because of these circumstances. We know both first and second-hand how it feels to live under siege because we are in a minority. In a world where we as a lesbian couple are not always welcome and free, we wished to extend an open-handed welcome to others.
We had worked from the assumption that those who had chosen to be present had their reasons for their presence. Equally, we reasoned that people who chose not to attend had reasons for their non-participation.
It never occurred to me that people might choose to attend and stand in open judgment as witness to what they label as being “against God”. I can only ask what they hoped to achieve in so doing. Was their God paying attention at the time? Did they receive extra Brownie points in their favour? Or was it their intent to cause harm to the people who had invited them to be part of our special day?
I wonder whether they can understand that the fact they were invited points to the value we place on our relationship with them; the esteem in which we hold them; and our hope that this may be reciprocated. Certainly from my side, I chose not to invite people who have attacked me in the past, just because they happen to be family members.
I’m wondering about the motivations of someone who would place responsibility for attending our ceremony on those who invited her, rather than being accountable for her own uncomfortable feelings. If we hadn’t wanted her to attend, than surely we would not have issued an invitation?
I get, that it’s not pleasant to be the bearer of unwelcome news. I get the moral courage that it takes to stand against something that seems to be receiving overwhelming support from all other quarters. This ought to be obvious to anyone who changes his or her vantage point from that of rigidly religious righteousness to that of renegade.
It is my contention that people who fail to act upon that moral courage, as we did, for example, in celebrating our union and inviting our friends and family to be part of the occasion, can’t really claim to possess that moral courage.
It pisses me off that the rigid religious fail to acknowledge the effects of their actions and beliefs upon those they judge. They either fail to recognise that their choices are hurtful, or act in full knowledge that their actions will cause pain and distress. They fail utterly to stand in the shoes of someone else, and are incapable of contemplating how hard it is for others to stand up and be counted in the face of their implacable hatred and homophobia. This seems blatantly hypocritical and prideful, when the message they speak from the other side of their mouths is a message of love and acceptance.
The commonalities between our two positions are clear to me. Both of us feel we must defend our positions in the face of hostile or indifferent opposition. Both of us feel that it is only by digging in our heels and refusing to bend that we are being true to what we believe about ourselves. The difference lies in whether we choose to interact with and embrace our antagonist, or whether we hold ourselves separate and aloof in disapproving judgment.
I never imagined someone might offer to turn her back at any portion of the ceremony that she could not bring herself to affirm. Such rigid judgmentalism had no place in my thinking about our day.
I’m wondering why someone would explicitly choose his view of morality over his relationship with a person he had known all of his life.
On the one hand the stance this person chose shows integrity of the upright, courageous kind.
Never mind the fact that as the unknown member of this couple, I was automatically placed under suspicion and judged to be of dubious character and reputation before I had even met any of these people – I am used to being cast in that role. Yes, it hurts. And no – I felt no compunction to overdo my niceness and prove them wrong. I was quite willing to crawl into my shell and give nothing away.
I wonder how much it cost him, to make this stand, and to hammer in this point of contention, dismantling with hard intent, every point of connection that had previously existed between him and my dearly beloved?
I think this was perhaps the easier moral position to take. Facing the situation openly and honestly would have taken a different kind of courage, and would have been less destructive. He was not even willing to test the waters and seeing whether indeed any connection of value remained between them.
There was no specific place in our ceremony, where we demanded that those present affirm our relationship. We never asked for anyone who disapproved to make his or her disapproval known. Ours was a rewriting, a reframing and a refashioning of a traditional wedding ceremony. As women standing openly and proudly outside the laws of our religions and our country, we felt no compunction and little desire to adhere to traditions and forms that hold no meaning for us. We chose to develop a ceremony whose every facet would hold meaning for us.
I’m wondering whether any of them got it at all on the day, at the park, amongst the crowds of rejoicers.
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