by jsetc

On being Frau Schloss for the day:A brief note about a visit to the Landtag with my great aunt Ruth Weiss


It’s my last day in Germany. My last hours in fact. So, you’ll forgive my trepidation over the prospect of being caught up in a neo-Nazi rally. I’m told those things don’t happen here – not anymore. In retrospect it’s easy to see how I mistook an unfurling football crowd for white supremacists – despite the fact this entire orchestrated journey has been seamless and without incident.

I think back to a few days ago, to my hours spent as Frau Schloss, that day in Dusseldorf. A day spent in the company of my great aunt, who was a graceful dignitary on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, invited by the Landtag of North Rhine Westphalia. It was the day I was allocated a seat in the house of parliament, usually reserved for ministers. The day Prime Minister Wust promised me he’d email me his speech once it was translated into English. (Until then, I’d have to keep wondering what he said with such assertion.) The day distinguished opera singer Pumeza Matshikiza fused the Kaddish prayer with remnants of apartheid, in a room mourning those who perished in World War II, leaving her haunting sound for all to carry home with them, to ponder for a few more days about how, and why and where. The day the students from the Peace School stood in line, waiting to speak to Ruth Weiss – author, journalist, advocate – someone from that terrible period in the past. Yet they couldn’t comprehend how. How she, with so much time to give them, so many words of praise to say to them, so much hope in her voice, could still be here. Nor could I. Her body left Germany in 1936, yet her mind never did. Accompanied by her will, it has pulled her back countless times. For a period, she stayed to live. Now she returns to speak and spread hope.

As I sit here, contemplating how my heart started beating incessantly as I watched rowdy men dressed in black outside the Hamburg central station, gather to chant, letting my mind run to all sorts of places, I think of the words she spoke that day in parliament, to a standing ovation: “Ralph Giordarno has called the post-war silence the second guilt. The increasing hatred of Jews must not become the third guilt!” At age 98 she reads voraciously, writes continuously, thinks wisely, laughs cheekily and above all challenges everyone she encounters to give her a reason to stop. In the house of parliament that day she spoke unashamedly and without hype about the times in the recent past when Germans themselves claimed not to have known about the atrocities of the Holocaust. There she was, standing on the grounds of a country that had turned its back on her decades ago, to deliver her life’s motto: to live in a “world, to conclude with Adorno, in which all people can be different without fear.” That’s where she left her audience – silent, aghast, perhaps a little humiliated at the seeming simplicity of her request.

I remember her words today on this last stop of my trip and berate myself for thinking the worst of the overexcited football fans I saw. I want to keep the words in close reach so that the next time I make assumptions about gathering, noisy crowds, I think instead of the wishes for hope, tolerance, respect and equality with which my great aunt enters every room.


 Ruth Weiss is an author, speaker and fighter against racism in all its forms. Her book,My Sister Sara, is available in English. 

by jsetc

My incidental rainbow

A few weeks ago my family received the news of my brother’s engagement.

I have always found it frustrating having to point out the obvious so it is rare you will ever actually hear me explaining my brother’s sexuality.

I figure, I never tell people I am heterosexual upon introducing myself, so why should I reveal my brother’s status whenever his name comes up in conversation? I am often asked whether I have any nieces or nephews. My response is usually a simple ‘no’ but on the odd occasion I find myself caught in a web of ‘no…my brother’s not married…’

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A voice inside my head asks ‘does your brother need to be married to have children?’ And then ‘even if your brother were married would it necessarily imply he has children?’ These benign thoughts and more flutter through my head more often than you might realise. Because people ask a lot of stupid questions, and sometimes I find myself replying in embarrassingly similar ways. It’s often simply to make polite conversation.

My daughter in particular was thrilled with my brother’s announcement. She comes across as reserved at first but it’s only because she is planning her next move. She usually prefers to display her love and excitement with a physical hand-made gift. I could see her mind racing.

‘I’ll make eggs’ she announced. ‘Eggs?’ I asked. ‘For the party…people will want to eat and I can make them eggs – scrambled, or maybe omelettes’. ‘Ok’, I said, happy to appease her enthusiasm.

When it was decided that there would be a small gathering to celebrate the news I had to break it to my daughter that unfortunately eggs could not be on the menu. Aside from the part where I wouldn’t be able to cope with bits of egg shell all over the place, a regular afternoon tea felt much more doable from my perspective. So Mika began thinking.

On the day of the party I watched as she ran around, still trying to figure out what she could contribute. She was not going to rest until she had thought of the perfect hand-made gift. As the time passed we were all so busy with our own little setting-up jobs that we hadn’t realised the unintentional brilliance of her final idea until the guests had already arrived.

My little girl had placed rainbow chains, made with cut-up coloured pieces of card and stuck together with sticky tape, all around our living room.

It was only once most people had left that it occurred to me: these rainbows were completely and beautifully incidental. Growing up with a gay uncle means that homosexuality has never been reduced to pretty rainbows for her. So when I exclaimed ‘oh my goodness you made rainbows!!’ she had no idea what my excitement was based on and gave me a confused look in return. ‘I thought they would be colourful’ she replied. At that moment I felt so grateful that her understanding of how the world works is so profound that she doesn’t need reductive explanations or insulting definitions. I also felt a little superficial and silly.

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At a time when the stupid noise of news threatens to drown out the clever thoughts of the future leaders of this nation we live in, it will clearly take more than rainbow chains to make people see. For now, my confidence is restored in the actions and words of so many children all around me, who thankfully do not understand the premise our postal vote is based on. Too young to execute their opinions, we need to do it for them.

Let’s hope in the not-too-distant future we can throw a party for the wedding, covered in paper chains – whatever their colour. Until then, we still need to point out the obvious for the grown-ups– love is love and rainbows mean all the colours of the world are acceptable, whichever combination they are in.

by jsetc

Every life

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A few months ago my daughter sent me a photo while I was away from home for the weekend. I opened up the file to find her and her friends sitting on the grass. The caption she sent with the photo said ‘look closely’. There beside her, laying on the grass calmly and contently, was a pigeon. I knew straight away why my daughter would have sent me this photo in particular. Most people who know me well understand I do not usually have time for birds. In fact, they scare me in a way that reaches my primal core. It scares me how much birds scare me, let’s put it that way.  My daughter was teasing me.

A few minutes later I received a text message from her saying ‘we have a new pet. Can you guess what it is?’

Upon my return I learnt all about our new family pet, how Mika had found her injured out in the yard, how she rallied to call for help and nursed her for two days. By the time I had arrived on the scene the pigeon was a little better for wear, her strength somewhat grounded again while she attempted to fly. She stayed on our deck for days, enjoying her safe haven our kids had created enabling her to access food and water at her leisure. Each day I found myself checking on our pigeon in the morning, to see if the kids had remembered to leave her food and water. One day I came home and it wasn’t more than a few minutes later that I realised our pet had vanished. Suddenly I felt panicked. What could have happened? Had she been re-injured, killed by another animal, taken? How did she manage to get away?  It was at that moment I learned something new about myself: it was possible for me to care about a bird. Was it possible I had begun caring about a bird? Yes indeed.

A few more weeks went by and our pigeon returned at her leisure. She made it clear she wasn’t interested in her cage or anything that would try and entrap her for that matter. And then one September day our resident magpie returned to the scene to reclaim her territory. She eyed off the pigeon and began squawking. I watched in dismay, full of fear and anger I did not know what to do with. With one deep scoop the magpie had scared the pigeon out of her whits and right away from our garden. She stayed away for days that time. We noticed her returning, cautiously and briefly at first, then gradually more frequently. Until one day it was safe to admit our pigeon had returned. Bits of stale bread peppered the grass once more. And then yesterday happened…

My partner went for a jog around our block. As he turned the corner of our street he noticed some birds, mainly magpies, seemingly fighting with something on the ground. It would have been towards the side of our property.  As he approached he realised it was our poor pigeon caught in the fight. He immediately shooed the magpies away and grabbed the injured bird. He brought her home and the kids hurried to set up the cage in the garage one more time. They fetched her water and food. She was mostly silent with her eyes wide open. There she sat, staring out at us. I found myself talking to her. Yes, me talking to a bird, telling her I hoped she would be okay. This morning when we woke up she was dead. On her back, peaceful, alone and gone from this world.

IMG_2207 (1).JPG‘How did you know it was the same bird?’ people asked us? We just knew.

I would never have expected to have had a pigeon for a pet. Nor would I have ever expected to have felt sadness the way I feel it now at the sight of a pigeon laying dead. It has been a lesson in kindness, compassion and love for our whole family. If I can find a place for a pigeon in my heart anything is possible.

We will miss you dear pigeon. We gave you a dignified ending at least.

by jsetc

On making peace with Michael Leunig and other bits of wonderment

When I was approximately fifteen years old and still rehearsed in the art of collecting daily newspaper clippings, I found a poem by a cartoonist called Michael Leunig. It struck me so hard I became an instant fan of his. I grabbed a scissors, cut the poem out, framed it and hung it on the wall above my desk.

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As years went on I realised I was not alone in my awestruck innocence and that this man had clearly touched the souls of numerous likeminded individuals around me. Time went by and my need to idolise slowed down. Thus Leunig became one of many people I admired rather than followed conscientiously. My thoughts about Leunig the cartoonist and the man dwindled down to perhaps a handful per annum, although my original self-framed Leunig went wherever my desk did.

 

It was some twenty-five years later when my Facebook feed began filling up with Leunig hate mail that Leunig the cartoonist and the man both crept their way back into my personal backdrop. My soul soother had suddenly become a soul breaker, slowly entering the space of my collective enemies – the space from which it is difficult albeit impossible to be relinquished. I found myself being sucked into this collective place and eventually I conceded – Leunig was no longer on my people of note list. I grappled with this decision internally. It upset the order of things the way my youth had arranged them and it did not feel right, yet somehow it no longer felt right to argue either. I had no choice but to live with the decision to dislike the man that set off one of my nascent sparks and it troubled me deeply.

 

It came to pass that due to the unfolding of different events in my life Leunig the name and the man meant less and less to myself as a person. Until a few days ago. I had so clearly blocked his name from my thoughts that I did not even register when I saw it on the list of authors to be appearing at the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival – an event I attend annually and soak up avidly. So when a friend brought his name up in reference to the session he would be appearing in I was honestly surprised to be caught unaware of his presence on the guest list. ‘Leunig’s here?’ I thought to myself. Right away I felt an internal divide between temptation and obligation. I felt the pull both ways. No I will not go to his event…but it could be really interesting to hear what he has to say…and the interviewer is a curious choice as well…but I cannot go and publicly show my support…but on the other hand…And so my head went back and forth.

 

‘People are often particularly beautiful in their sadness…’ As I sat down I landed in the mire Leunig had thrown the audience and relished in it from the first second of contact. With a lump in my throat I watched as Leunig unravelled; part duck, part curly man, part lost boy. There he was before me – the revered person of my teenage years in the flesh as I had never seen him before. Laid bare, talking about the wonders of sitting in a chair with a cup of tea, openly admitting ‘everybody is uniquely stupid…every culture has its own stupidity; it’s own virtue of delight and its own ugliness too…’ and then further, deeper down into the hopeless pit of his dark, dark mind. He kept going and I kept listening until I saw what I needed to see. ‘In every human being there’s something we’re not seeing…down there in the muck this ugly little duck.’

 

I was lost to my own temptation the moment I saw the muck for myself. I made peace with Leunig and in doing so I made peace in myself. I lined up in the snake-like queue of people; old fans, new disciples, grandparents, friends, psychic believers and then me. People who almost didn’t turn up; people who didn’t want to hear; people who had heard enough. Leunig the person, not Leunig the name, is who I met on the blusterous last day of the outstanding Byron Bay Writers’ Festival. It was that unforgettable exchange, that moment when I saw in his eyes that he truly did appreciate my words, my waiting in line, my honesty and my simply showing up at all.

 

Immediately after my brief words with Leunig I was overcome with emotion. I felt this inkling to shout out loud my new revelation – we are all just people trying to find our way in this world! I realised they were words I had stolen from someone else years ago and wondered why I still obviously needed to be taught this lesson – why I hadn’t already heeded the cry and learnt the simple truth. I felt like finding my inner duck and staying there for a long, long time.

 

The words of Winston Churchill that Leunig had recalled echoed in my head – ‘when you’re going through hell just keep going…’ He followed them shortly afterwards with ‘the realm of possibility is one of my favourite realms.’

 

Thank you Leunig, for the part you played in helping me find my way back to wonderment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by jsetc

Crying in a different language

Reposted in memory of Danya

“I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.”

― Banksy

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Today I woke up to some awful news that made me cry tears I didn’t know what to do with or where to put. Where do we put the emotion that erupts when life gets a bit too much to take? How do we wear them so as not to seem shallow or fake? When the world around us has gone crazy where can I put my tears cried for someone I knew such a long time ago?

The first time I realised that emotion was something I could never control was when I cried in a different language. The tears ran down my face and I wasn’t even sure why. The words that I could only grasp on the surface  had touched a place inside me that I immediately understood was a domain I could never completely comprehend even though it lived inside of me.

Something similar happened this…

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by jsetc

Bored stiff humanity

My eyes wince with boredom at the news again today. A bird trapped inside a cage drawn by a juvenile asylum seeker in detention adjacent to a report of a mother who died during childbirth in detention. Oh no sorry, that was last year. This year it’s a formulated table of the data collected, complied from the findings found about the juveniles in detention centres (who also drew pictures). The phone rings and I’m zapped into another place. There’s a crisis at work and I need to come in as soon as I can. I am me but I could just as easily be you. I get inside my car and by the time I arrive at the place I’m going to my mind has been adequately numbed by the inane chatter on the radio, my thoughts scattered across the world by various lyrics on the selected playlist. Asylum seekers? Where? Not here. I have forgotten what you were talking about. Bring it up again in a few months’ time on my Facebook feed and I’ll have another look.

I once came home to find a Somali woman and her family squatting in my flat. My bleeding-hearted flat mate had given them the keys and told them to make themselves at home. By the time I arrived every single cushion and mattress had been put on the floor in the living room and placed against the skirting boards to form a circle.  The middle of the circle was filled with every single pot in my kitchen. Some of the pots had food in them and others had been turned into food waste bins. The smell that pervaded was untraceable in my recent memory yet it rekindled times tucked deep away in my collective unconscious and somehow made me feel alive.  After an explanatory phone call from my flat mate I learned that the woman and her family had been asylum seekers, that her daughter was born in detention and that she had spent three years at the Maribyrnong facility.  Wow, I thought to myself. We are good people. We care. We make an effort. We go out of our way. We read the news and get angered by it. We stand up and protest. We sign petitions and write newspaper articles. We encourage others to question.  We drive asylum seekers to doctors’ appointments. We do a lot.

A few weeks later I found myself inside a detention centre for the first time in my life. I was only allowed into the reception area. My flatmate had become a regular visitor of asylum seekers so people smiled politely at us as we waited. Once our assigned asylum seekers arrived we were allowed to sit with them for half an hour. We could chat, play games and share food after our parcels had been scanned by security. Then we were told to leave. Each visit added to the growing collection of pictures drawn by some of the children inside the detention centre that my flatmate started gathering. I can do something with these she thought aloud.  If people see these, they’ll do something. They’ll cry. They’ll be disturbed. They’ll sit up and start demanding answers. That was in 1998. In Melbourne, Australia.

Those pictures became a whole ‘government’ inquiry, leading to hours of interviews, research, analysis, examination of the system, involving many whose names have now become well respected and household when it comes to this topic. The drawings were published – trickle by trickle. And people sighed, cried, frowned and looked aghast. People questioned, wondered and grew frustrated.  Then they woke up and got dressed for work, school, university and kindergarten. And the pictures kept piling up together with all the reports and files and inquiries into inquiries. Every so often a few pictures would be released into the public again and people would see them and say ‘oh no!’ and ‘oh how shocking!’ and ‘how sad!’ Then a little while later a few more pictures would slip out and people would see them and say ‘oh, yeah…I’ve seen that before. It’s awful.’ And then after a while someone would decide to publish a couple more dusty pictures drawn by children in detention centres and people would see them and say nothing at all. That was a few years after 1998.

Today there is BREAKING NEWS about pictures drawn by children in detention centres. But I’m already fast asleep. How can I admit that? You ask with disgust. How can I be so apathetic? You wonder.  When was the last time you checked how many official submissions there have been on the topic of asylum seekers over the past fifteen years? I have come to realise that  my apathy is a result of watching the well-rehearsed play of media, politics and tactful spin that churns out images and by-lines at its discretion and then presses auto-repeat until we have seen the same sight ad nauseam to the point that it sends us unconscious because we begin to feel the heavy weight of the fact that nothing will ever change. And how can I tackle that problem? It is so vast I cannot even see where it begins let alone where it may one day end.

I am not sure what sickens me more – the whines and groans of people who keep repeating ‘how terrible!’ and ‘how wrong!’ or the excruciating silence of the people who don’t even pretend to care. And as the world turns each day, growing more and more toxic, the resultant apathy is the malaise that keeps it there.

I still have snippets of newspaper articles gathered over time about this topic I was introduced to so many years ago. I recall an article by a well-known Australian author who has taken a vested interest in the subject of children in detention in Australia. As I read through this now old news clip I realise that one of the children he talks about is the same little girl I used to visit with my flatmate:

“I first met the girls in the centre in January 2001. They had already been there for 15 months. Among the horrors they had endured was glimpsing the body of a detainee lying in a pool of blood on a basketball court. He had jumped to his death from the hoop after an eight-hour stand-off with centre guards. Days earlier, a 17-year-old asylum seeker had attempted suicide. He could be seen pacing the courtyard with strips of bandage plastered on his throat. ” (The Age, July 17 2010)

Three words stick in my head  –  ‘17-year-old’. What constitutes a child? Does it make any difference that this boy was 17 years old? His data would not have made it into one of the countless submissions about children in detention but perhaps it appeared in a different report, or inquiry. And if it did, what difference was made, I ask myself. The author mentioned above hasn’t tired of his pursuit, so why have I?

As I skim further down the text I feel goose bumps forming. Suddenly I read my flatmate’s name. Seeing her name in print reminds me of how involved she and others were; how devoted they were and so certain they were that they would be able to change things. How passionate they were… I suspect that  now with the passing of time, over a decade, all that I would need to alter would be the names of the detention centres and the professionals employed to investigate the situations there. Every other detail that she and other professionals gathered in their inquiry would remain the same and still be just as relevant. Is that possible? Can it be? Nauru substituted for Woomera? Are we all fools at the hands of our government who treats us accordingly?

“Every time I started an interview, I would ask for their names. They all responded with their number. For example, ‘I am 1427’. The implications are frightening.”(The Age, July 17 2010)

Now that I have reached the end of the article my head is full of questions: Are asylum seekers still referred to as numbers? Are there still children in detention? Are there still incidents of self-harm and suicide? If one or more of the answers to these questions is yes it will not be good enough. With all the therapists, lawyers, doctors, teachers, activists and dollars we have thrown at this situation, where have we arrived? What have we achieved? If even one of the answers to my questions is yes the answer is nothing. I squeeze at the memory of that time in my flat with those wafting smells of a faraway place. I want to believe that those moments can make a difference; they can lead to change, they can inspire and ignite hope. But the pressure of the next day is already dawning on me and my eyes have caught the title of the 2010 news article – Birds in a cage. Am I imagining it or are we all being put to sleep on purpose? My eyes close and slumber takes over.

If I leave in two minutes I will make the 7.30 am train and arrive almost a full hour early. That will give me some quiet time to figure out a solution to the problem before the masses arrive. I glance over the news. Tony Abbot asks:

“Where was the Human Rights Commission during the life of the former government when hundreds of people were drowning at sea?” (The Sydney Morning Herald, February 12 2015) I laugh to myself but really we should all be bawling our eyes out. And the questions swim around in my head: What did I do, what am I doing, did I do enough, am I doing enough.

And so we go. I am you and you are me. On a train, in a car; in an office or in a cafe. It makes no difference. What will I put in my sandwich today? Or maybe I’ll eat out and avoid the lunchtime conversations altogether.

The names of the people discussed in this piece have been withheld due to privacy.

by jsetc

The accidental terrorist and other tales

I can hear my mum saying it – ‘what has Lindt chocolate got to do with the price of fish?’ Whenever she used that particular saying it would always make me stop and consider what, in fact, the price of fish had to do with anything and how it found itself in the middle of so many of our family squabbles. We really weren’t and have never been such big fish eaters anyway.

When Man Haron Monis woke up on Monday December 15 I wonder what he was thinking. Having slipped from the collective memory of Australians almost completely, their memories were unfortunately jogged when it was already too late. Monis did not wake up on December 15 and transform from a peace-loving person into a hateful man ready to kill. Even if he was, as some have called him, a lone wolf his actions sprang from somewhere – his hate didn’t simply appear. People don’t merely become life-loathing. As the Iranian refugee chained to the New South Wales Parliament in 2001, insisting the Federal government bring his wife and children to Australia, we are justified in allowing this man to have slipped from our view. When he later became an unsavoury Muslim cleric who many wanted stopped due to the damage he was causing with his spouting, we can once again be forgiven for not having imprinted his name or actions into our memory. When he became accessory to the murder by setting alight of his ex-wife this incident did not get the coverage required to make a dent in our day. So it passed us by.

There are so many deplorable killings that happen everyday in every corner of the world it has become almost automatic for us to think they are the result of some grand master plan of global terrorism. In fact, when we do think in this way we unwittingly brush aside any other factors that might be involved so that we can make way for the flurry of fear, further hatred and anger that are so ensconced with the phrase that making room for any other emotions or considerations would be futile. We are so locked into this mindset that we cannot even see what we have become – collectively.

As each day starts we race to see what horrors may have occurred overnight. We pour through news feeds in case we may have missed something in our rush. We sigh and moan collectively. We mourn – collectively. We complain, groan and become infuriated at the world together. Our pain and anger is felt from every corner. We scratch our heads and wonder how it could be possible that they – the perpetrators – could be blind to their actions, could be humans like us. Over the course of a few hours, sometimes even a day, we let our feelings stew together in one big pot so that they become so twisted and complicated, layered and spread with all our anguish that it is absolutely astonishing how at the end of it all we can equate it to one simple phrase; call it one thing and be done with it. Global terrorism has become our laughing stock. Not only as a nation, as a world. What happened today? More global terrorism. And yesterday? Another incident of global terrorism. Why? Because we are all in this together, we must all unite against it, we must encourage division and embrace war. We must start a campaign and band together and put all our energy towards it.

Yet what it is really called is violence against women. Whichever way you read the news, however you turn it or twist it violence against women is at the core of almost every act of so-called global terrorism today. If it is not directly there it is lurking so close by you can smell it. It has become so engrained in the background it might as well be invisible. The male who beheads another male has a bevy of females who have been made to be his slaves. The men who have been shot and killed have lost their lives so that their women may be captured. The man who senselessly killed two innocent Australians had also sexually assaulted countless women and inhumanely murdered another. The list goes on and on ad nauseam. This is not coincidental. That Man and others have been labelled terrorists is accidental, convenient, neat and morbidly comforting. That Australians have since been accused of being Islamophobic and racially vilified is predictable and tedious.  In reality it only distracts us from the heart of what is really the matter with our country and our world. Just like the price of fish.

by jsetc

The ghost town of childhood

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Yesterday was a day I didn’t see coming. Little did I know that on the way to the House of Raw Women I would find myself face to face with my childhood.

As I drove towards the said location I was hit with the familiarity of the things you stare at so long they become part of you. And then one day suddenly they are not part of you any more. Life goes on and you don’t have time to question why you parted from them, why you don’t miss them, how much they gave you and why you never said thank you.

The familiarity hit me so hard it grabbed me. It overcame me as I looked out the window and saw everything I once knew so well which now seemed strangely hollow. I kept driving as the tears streamed faster and faster out of my eyes at the sadness outside – at the sight of my childhood that had somehow become an empty scene on a movie set. Where did it go? Where did the people and the memories go? Where did the smells go?

The sounds of familiar voices? So much looked exactly the same – the houses, the streets, the shops and the style. Everything else was absent. Especially my mother.

I arrived at the place I had been aiming to get to and as I opened my car door and stood up I broke down and cried. I was here but where was I? Where am I now?

I managed to pull myself together and knock on the door of the House of Raw Women. Inside I had a fabulous time, the details of which you will find at the end of this post – please check it out!

About an hour later, as I sat draped in black satin, wearing red lipstick and rocking on a wooden horse my mind drifted outside to the house across the road. I fought back the tears as I realised where I was. I was standing in the middle of the ghost town of my childhood.

Across the road it was late one Saturday night. Two boys who hadn’t hit puberty yet were fast asleep as their babysitter watched television. She knew the family so well; their parents were the best of friends and she loved babysitting their children. She heard something at the window and went to look outside. She peered at the house across the road. The house was dark and it looked as if everyone inside was asleep. She gazed at the house one more time and then went to sit back on the couch again. She was fifteen years old. Little did she know.

Follow this URL to learn more about Raw Women and their latest Stay Campaign

http://rawwomen.com/

by jsetc

Simple pleasures

When does childhood leave you? Does it leave? How much notice do we get? If you could request it how much notice would you need?

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Is there an alert in your head that says ‘better enjoy this mud-squelching now, because next summer you’ll be way too busy to get to a dam. The summer after that you’ll be way too exhausted to even consider it. The summer after that will slip by without you even taking note of the changing seasons. And a few summers later, when you do find yourself staring into a dam you’ll be wondering about what else is lurking in the water, how clean it is, what happens if some of it is swallowed either by mistake or on purpose, why you didn’t think to bring a change of clothes for your children who are already sopping wet, how quickly you can jump in and save one of them, fully-clothed, if need be and whether leeches prevail in the area you’re standing in.’

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Adult and child. Rope puller and pullee. Giver and taker. Receiver and giver. Need and want. Do and say. Say and do. Mirror and face of time that trickled by. A puddle of water left under your feet that lets you remember when you used to jump without thinking, go without asking, live without resisting.

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Yesterday I was a child again. I watched my two children run, splash, explore, discover and bask. And even though my adult mind was racing at a faster pace than usual with all the could-be and might-be scenarios that an unknown body of water in the country can induce I let the rope go.

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I let it go limp. I even let it get wet and a tiny bit lost in the mud of the day. To be a child. I let myself remember as I watched them, soaking up every bit I could before little bodies grew cold and it was time to pull the rope back in.

by jsetc

Imagine

It’s been a while between posts. I’m almost ready to share what’s been happening in my head lately but until then this old piece will have to do.  It was John Lennon’s birthday yesterday. Before the date fades again for another year I decided to drag this old piece out, which was inspired by his memory. It was written so long ago, in another country and what feels like another lifetime ago. Re-reading it now, it’s still relevant. Sadly, not much has changed. So happy birthday John Lennon, 74 year-old that you would have been had our world not have been so fucked up. Let’s be reminded – today, tomorrow and again the next day –  to try and stop fucking things up any more than they have already been. Imagine away people x

I only managed to see about 15 minutes of the 11th memorial for Yitzhak Rabin’s murder. I had confused the starting time with the time of Aviv Geffen’s appearance…so made it just in time to watch him sing the same song he sang 11 years ago, minutes before Rabin’s death. The words came on as I made my way through the crowds. This year, the Clintons weren’t invited to speak. Neither were any politicians. They could come to participate, but not to take advantage of the crowd in order to spit meaningless promises at their audience, whose patience and energy were dwindling. As I moved towards the front of the stage I noticed the people around me. Last year, at the 10th anniversary of Rabin’s death, the city square was packed with 250,000 bodies; international journalists, people of all ages, cameras, banners, balloons, candles…this year it was as if only the real stayers came; only the ones who really meant it, with or without Bill Clinton’s speech. This year there was a lot more space to move around, and a chance to really see the faces of the people. As Aviv Geffen left the stage and a young girl came on to sing the national anthem, I realized that I had missed David Grossman’s keynote address. He is a well known left wing author, whose son was killed in Lebanon the day before the cease-fire… I realized I’d almost missed the most intense dose of peace and love available in this country. The presence of the people around me (singing the anthem) has been growing thinner and thinner with every year that passes. It is so hard to talk about peace here, to still believe that it may happen one day. But thank goodness for these people who still manage to find a way to believe. I looked around and understood that the future of this country depends on them; nothing else would make a bigger difference. The memorial ended. People kept standing. No one wanted to leave. The song that Rabin himself had sung at the peace concert 11 years ago came on in the background – Song of Peace. Everyone seemed to be in a sort of daze. They slowly started dispersing, miming the words of the song to themselves, as if in some weird kind of dream state. Then groups of people began moving faster and dancing to the music. It was over, for another year. Lots of people kept standing there, staring at the crowds, not wanting to go anywhere. And then there was what Alanis Morrisette may have described as an ironic moment (but I would just call it a strange coincidence)…Imagine by John Lennon came on. People quickly swapped the words they were mouthing for the words to Imagine. I was still taking it all in in the background. Suddenly, the CD started jumping. The words became muffled and twisted and broken. Then, just like that, the song died…just stopped!!! I burst out laughing, along with a woman who was standing next to me. She read my mind and said “It’s too hard to even imagine it anymore huh?” On that note I turned around and started walking home. I’d caught a glimpse of the peaceful people in this country at least. I’d get home to see how many people in Gaza had been killed over the weekend. I’d have to watch the once centrist government slowly but surely turning right wing again. I’d have to keep wandering what would happen next for the rest of the year…but I would have in my memory all those people who turned up in the cold and the rain to give peace a chance once again. And if David Grossman, who had lost his son to war, could still stand up there and plead for it…maybe, maybe – I thought – others could be convinced to do it too.

(2006)