The Cerebral Mum

I’ve been meme‘d again. This time by Joh. I’m one of the chosen ones she would love to learn more about. How flattering is that?

So here they are, Ten Random Facts About ME…

1. When I was little my Mum had really great jobs. She worked as a live-in cook in a monastery so I used to skite that I had 12 brothers. She owned a general store so I used to steal all the lollies. And she was a Play School presenter (but in New Zealand) so I got to play with Big Ted and Little Ted on set. Could your Mum have a better job than that?
2. I hate ants. I’m not freaked out by snakes or spiders or any other creepy crawlies. Just ants. I once had a dream where I saw a little girl and as I got closer I could see her slowly turn into a doll and there were ants all over her, coming out of her mouth. Yup. I hate ants.
3. I have had platinum blonde hair and pink hair and purple hair and black hair and no hair but never red hair. That would just highlight the freckles which I loathe.
4. I “failed” Year 10 but never repeated it. We moved to Melbourne and my new school let me go on to Year 11. I still think the numbers didn’t add up to failure. They just didn’t like my attitude. Trying to make me repeat the year that was too easy to bother with? Way to challenge a smart kid, people!
5. Okay, now this one is going to sound really, really bad. I’m just warning you. Once, I slept with 3 different guys all on the same day. Now, I’m pretty stingey with my sexual “favours” but I just happened to get 3 random visits from 3 different ex’s, all of whom I still love and adore. The first 2 I can discount as a consequence of residual feeling. The 3rd one was just because I thought it was funny.
6. I like to have painted toenails at all times but hate painted fingernails. They just look tacky.
7. I haven’t travelled much, even though I’ve always wanted to. I’ve only been to New Zealand, Cyprus and Italy. I feel envious when people talk about their travels. This really sucks when my Mum has spent the last 10 years living and working all over the world. She blogged here. Go give her a kick in the pants and tell her to start writing again.
8. I am privately vain.
9. I’ve just applied to get back into university to finish my history degree. This freaks me out. I am horrified by the idea that I might not get in and feel like a teenager whose life will be ruined if she can’t do want she wants. I am so freaked out I think I may have missed some forms I had to fill out. I really need to chase that up. Today.
10. I have never had a job that utilised the best of me.

I won’t tag anyone because I don’t know that many bloggers yet but if anyone would like to be tagged, let me know and I will add your name here.

Thanks for the meme, Joh.

We ask ouselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?… Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t be insecure around you. _{Marianne Williamson}

Bec left this quote for me today on my post, Imagine if… and it says far more succinctly and purposefully one of the things I was trying to say. It says something I have known for a long time and that knowledge has kept my head above water through some dark days.

But knowing it and living it are two different things.

There have been times in my life when I have lived it; when I’ve spoken with the courage of my convictions, when I’ve given my feelings and ideas the respect they’ve deserved, when I’ve revelled in my own existence. Memories of those times have been sustaining while living as a shadow of myself for the last few years but they have also been a temptation to regress.

You can’t go back to the girl you were because you are now so much more! Mourn her if you must, but don’t let her keep your eyes closed to a new world. _{Rob on Minutiae… or I am nobody…}

I started this blog as a lazy way to stay in touch with the diaspora of my family and in the process I remembered the power of writing. Not just the power of writing, but the power of my writing. I remembered my ability to write myself into existence. I remembered the fullness of words and faintly heard my forgotten voice.

I changed the subtitle of this blog to thinking my way back to myself… and took my first steps on that journey. Yesterday, when I wrote Imagine if.., those first steps became a stride.

Often in life it is when someone else’s needs are greater than your own that your potential becomes your reality. Often, when you can not care enough about yourself to be fully present in the world, you can find a reason to in others.

Yesterday’s post was difficult to write but not because it was deeply personal or painful. I have been at peace with the ugliness of my history for a long time. My childhood is a part of what made me who I am. I have learned many things, things that I am proud to have learned, not because of my experience, or in spite of my experience, but through my experience. I don’t wish anyone to have to learn those things the way I did, but I would not change my history if I could.

The reason yesterday’s post was difficult to write was because it would be confronting for those reading it. I had to overcome the hurdle of that social taboo that tells us we cannot talk about politics and religion at a dinner party, that tells us we cannot discuss subjects that cause controversy, that tells us we will make people uncomfortable.

I wrote about child sexual abuse and it is very common for victims to fear speaking up. In many cases they have been living with a “behind closed doors” and “keeping up appearances” mentality for a long time. The power of that taboo keeps them silent and they minimise their experiences in order to contain them, making them mistrust themselves.

But the reason I wrote what I wrote was not just to speak out against child sexual abuse, even though that issue is of enormous importance and needs to be written about over and over until it no longer exists. The issue is broader.

It is not just victims of CSA who live under the weight of this taboo. How many things do we stay silent about in this world? How many people learn to live, like myself, as shadows for fear of offending?

Self-censorship is a social disease.

I cannot attribute my own self-censorship to that specific part of my history. It may have been one of the paths which led me to it but I am an adult and I believe that I am free. Knowing that I made myself who I am, I am able to take credit for who I am. And when who I am falls short of my own aspirations or my own principles, knowing that I am free allows me to accept the imperfection of my humanity without ever seeing it as the final measurement of my self.

Yesterday, outside events moved me to overcome that taboo which I gave power to. I am proud that I did.

And I like talking about politics and religion at dinner parties.

And I choose controversy over Let’s agree to disagree…, which is a noble sentiment only when not used as a coward’s weapon to shame others into silence.

And I like it when I make people uncomfortable. Writing Imagine if… was an uncomfortable process for me and I am closer to my aspirations and my principles because of it.

I like being brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous. And I am grateful when other people are.

Those people light the way. And I can be one of them.

It’s too long since I’ve written. It was never this hard. It was never this hard knot in my chest that feels like tears. I’ve have too much to say. I have forgotten how to say it.

It was never this hard when I made myself jugs of coffee and brandy and typed through the night with the city lights creeping through my apartment, knowing all the while there were people still awake, still out in the streets, still living. It was never this hard when I was sitting in a corner of the Supper Club at 3am with my notebooks and a Pedro Ximénez, surrounded by people, alone but never lonely.

I hate living in the suburbs. When did I decide to stop being? I didn’t. It just came creeping and that’s far, far worse. It’s easy to live with the consequences of decision. You have answers to all your whys; you can respect your choices even when they’re wrong. But this creeping passivity, this loss of passion, this degrading slide into conformity…

I hate living in the suburbs. I hate this lack of will in me. I hate this non-entity I’m trapped inside. I hate being surrounded by clean concrete and new bricks and people who speak in nothings. I hate my hollow voice.

I guess there are things that have happened in my life, there are people, I could blame for where I am and I see the temptation but I refuse attribute my life to others. I refuse to abdicate. So instead, I don’t like myself. I am ashamed.

And after stating so categorically that I am a writer I cannot find words. There are times when reading breaks me down, breaks through that barrier freezing my fingers at the keyboard, but today was not one of them. Today, reading Girl’s Gone Child’s past and present futures, reading that she’s on the road again with a Kerouac quote in her pocket, I saw the sad echo of myself and had to face my stasis. Even her predilection for guitarists and Henry Miller was a mirror, an accusing reflection of who I am, or who I was, or that person I’ve failed by no longer being.

But the future is tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and life doesn’t have to creep in this petty pace from day to day. Somewhere in me there is a breath. It is a hard knot in my chest that feels like tears and I will write it until I am no longer a walking shadow.