my god!!
Yeah…so….life is once again fuckingamazingunbelievableincredibleastounding!
I was walking back from Tranby (the aboriginal college), with oodles of books on contemporary aboriginal writing and poetry on my back, and smiling like a complete fool! Seriously, I smiled at EVERY SINGLE PERSON I PASSED…which was a lot….b/c it is a long lonnng walk. I was just feeling so giddy from the culmination of the past 24 hours or so…and was completely overwhelmed with undiluted happiness, feeling so completely alive and aware and in love with it all….
Passed by this 6 year old boy that was dressed up as spiderman…he looked so proud to be walking around in his suit with his fake pecs…it was so cute….superheros come in all shapes and sizes…:-)
Ahhh…spent hours in the aboriginal library, chatting it up with the librarian (I feel a special affinity for them now..since having worked as one…libraries excite me, I’m a dork, I know. And the smell of libraries and books…mmm)…I was the only one there, had the whole place to myself…and she and I talked about aboriginal writing and its metamorphoses, and we both got really animated and excited about it….and she was sooo insanely nice. Their library isn’t supposed to lend out any books, but she made an exception for me (b/c she’s awesome!!!!)…I’ve never felt so excited to walk out carrying an armload of books, felt like I had just won the lottery!
Today was intense…we had another aboriginal lecturer who was absolutely amazing…she was part of the Stolen Generation (which was a policy that the Australian government practiced in which they would essentially steal young aboriginal children away from the families, try to assimilate them into “white” culture, under the pretense that it was in the best interest of the child to have his or her culture, family, and roots completely ripped out from under them…) Absolutely unbelievable…incomprehenseible…
This woman’s story had me in tears, thankfully I was sitting in the back row…she was stolen from her family at the age of 4…she said she remembered looking out the back of the car as they were driving her away, seeing her mother crying and waving after her…she said she remembered wondering why her mother was crying…b/c she was too young to understand what was going on…she spent years in an orphanage, was sent to a foster family (the belief was that a white Christian family would be better for a child than their original “savage and uncivilized” family)…complete bullshit. She was raped by her “white, Christian, morally superior" foster father for years…no one believed her…they wouldn’t let her get out of the house…the foster mother knew but didn’t do anything…she would get beaten and not know why, b/c she didn’t understand the language and the culture of punishment…she kept on asking when she could go home…b/c she didn’t understand that this was supposed to be forever, that she wasn’t going to be allowed to see her real family…the government child services listed her as being mentally retarded b/c she hadn’t accepted the fact that she was not going home…when she turned 18 and was released from being a ward of the state, she returned home to her family…only to find out that her mother had died (as she became an alcoholic after all of her children were stolen from her)…she met her father a week before he, too, died…and the moment he saw her, he looked at her hands to make sure it was her (b/c she had been burned as a baby and had scars on her hands-----before she told this story, I was talking to her about aboriginal women writers and I had noticed her hands and was struck by how beautiful they were…so at the mention of this detail, it gave me goosebumps…) …..watching her face and her eyes as she told us her story, I could see how she has had to distance herself from her story…I can’t imagine having a life story that is like that, and having to share it over and over again, having to find words for your life that will always be hopelessly inadequate…jesus!!! The strength of people amazes me… and the resonance of loss is terrifying.
But, the everyday injustice that is still running rampant leaves me absolutely breathless…it is unbelievable…it is un-fucking-real! ….and the ways in which people try to justify it by dehumanizing an entire race, is an age-old story…we talk about learning from our mistakes, but we just seem to be doomed to repeat them again and again…
Whew.
Well...on a lighter note, last night, yarrow and I went up to the roof and frolicked in the rain…it’s amazing to have someone who understands and shares the excitement of all the small things that people usually scoff at…people came up and asked us if we were drunk, b/c we were just smiling and laughing and letting it rain on us…but, no..had to assure them that we were just high on life…for some reason, it’s a difficult concept for some to grasp. But oh well…we had a fan-fucking-tastic time anyway! It’s amazing to just stop for a moment, to let the rain fall where it lands…we spend so much time (metaphorically and literally) dodging the raindrops…occasionally you just have to stop and let yourself feel it.
Hah…also…yarrow was trying to take pictures of the gigantic bats that always fly overhead at night…and she had a flash on her camera, and it completely threw the bats off, and their flying got wacky… it was an amusing sight…but next time we’ll have to be more careful…don’t want to make the bats run into a tree or anything. :-)
Last night, Aaron and I watched “City of God”…second time I’ve seen it…but I was still in tears, and he was so sweet and held my hand to make sure I was ok (Which was made even sweeter by the fact that he is one of the shyest boys I’ve met, so I know it took guts for him to reach out to me like that….people are constantly amazing me)…and it was the most bizarre thing to walk into the other room where everyone was watching “The OC” which is about the most pretentious, narcissistic, superficial show ever…talk about dissonance..wooboy.
Anyway…I am happy…just went to an aromatherapy shop…smelled sooooo good, I had to go in…you know I’m a sucker for smells…I ended up buying a bottle of jasmine extract which smells amazing…and I was just reading the bottle, and apparently it is an aphrodesiac…didn’t know that when I bought it…but it made me laugh out loud…I had been wondering why the scent made my knees weak. ;-)
Anywhoo…I have to skedaddle…off to seduce a flash-dazzled bat!
muah!
random fact: there is no word in any of the aborginal dialects for "death"...it doesn't exist...life is seen as a circular path, not a linear one...i leave you to ponder the significance of circles....
final random tidbit:....it is the aboriginal belief that if you're listening and didn't hear something, then that means that you either weren't ready to hear it, or weren't meant to.
and here is a poem by an aboriginal writer that struck me with its quiet sadness and simple beauty...
Song
Antigone Kefala
I long to find you
in the uncertain silence
of my evenings
when darkness comes
and when the streets
are desolately empty
when nothing speaks
only my need of you.
I was walking back from Tranby (the aboriginal college), with oodles of books on contemporary aboriginal writing and poetry on my back, and smiling like a complete fool! Seriously, I smiled at EVERY SINGLE PERSON I PASSED…which was a lot….b/c it is a long lonnng walk. I was just feeling so giddy from the culmination of the past 24 hours or so…and was completely overwhelmed with undiluted happiness, feeling so completely alive and aware and in love with it all….
Passed by this 6 year old boy that was dressed up as spiderman…he looked so proud to be walking around in his suit with his fake pecs…it was so cute….superheros come in all shapes and sizes…:-)
Ahhh…spent hours in the aboriginal library, chatting it up with the librarian (I feel a special affinity for them now..since having worked as one…libraries excite me, I’m a dork, I know. And the smell of libraries and books…mmm)…I was the only one there, had the whole place to myself…and she and I talked about aboriginal writing and its metamorphoses, and we both got really animated and excited about it….and she was sooo insanely nice. Their library isn’t supposed to lend out any books, but she made an exception for me (b/c she’s awesome!!!!)…I’ve never felt so excited to walk out carrying an armload of books, felt like I had just won the lottery!
Today was intense…we had another aboriginal lecturer who was absolutely amazing…she was part of the Stolen Generation (which was a policy that the Australian government practiced in which they would essentially steal young aboriginal children away from the families, try to assimilate them into “white” culture, under the pretense that it was in the best interest of the child to have his or her culture, family, and roots completely ripped out from under them…) Absolutely unbelievable…incomprehenseible…
This woman’s story had me in tears, thankfully I was sitting in the back row…she was stolen from her family at the age of 4…she said she remembered looking out the back of the car as they were driving her away, seeing her mother crying and waving after her…she said she remembered wondering why her mother was crying…b/c she was too young to understand what was going on…she spent years in an orphanage, was sent to a foster family (the belief was that a white Christian family would be better for a child than their original “savage and uncivilized” family)…complete bullshit. She was raped by her “white, Christian, morally superior" foster father for years…no one believed her…they wouldn’t let her get out of the house…the foster mother knew but didn’t do anything…she would get beaten and not know why, b/c she didn’t understand the language and the culture of punishment…she kept on asking when she could go home…b/c she didn’t understand that this was supposed to be forever, that she wasn’t going to be allowed to see her real family…the government child services listed her as being mentally retarded b/c she hadn’t accepted the fact that she was not going home…when she turned 18 and was released from being a ward of the state, she returned home to her family…only to find out that her mother had died (as she became an alcoholic after all of her children were stolen from her)…she met her father a week before he, too, died…and the moment he saw her, he looked at her hands to make sure it was her (b/c she had been burned as a baby and had scars on her hands-----before she told this story, I was talking to her about aboriginal women writers and I had noticed her hands and was struck by how beautiful they were…so at the mention of this detail, it gave me goosebumps…) …..watching her face and her eyes as she told us her story, I could see how she has had to distance herself from her story…I can’t imagine having a life story that is like that, and having to share it over and over again, having to find words for your life that will always be hopelessly inadequate…jesus!!! The strength of people amazes me… and the resonance of loss is terrifying.
But, the everyday injustice that is still running rampant leaves me absolutely breathless…it is unbelievable…it is un-fucking-real! ….and the ways in which people try to justify it by dehumanizing an entire race, is an age-old story…we talk about learning from our mistakes, but we just seem to be doomed to repeat them again and again…
Whew.
Well...on a lighter note, last night, yarrow and I went up to the roof and frolicked in the rain…it’s amazing to have someone who understands and shares the excitement of all the small things that people usually scoff at…people came up and asked us if we were drunk, b/c we were just smiling and laughing and letting it rain on us…but, no..had to assure them that we were just high on life…for some reason, it’s a difficult concept for some to grasp. But oh well…we had a fan-fucking-tastic time anyway! It’s amazing to just stop for a moment, to let the rain fall where it lands…we spend so much time (metaphorically and literally) dodging the raindrops…occasionally you just have to stop and let yourself feel it.
Hah…also…yarrow was trying to take pictures of the gigantic bats that always fly overhead at night…and she had a flash on her camera, and it completely threw the bats off, and their flying got wacky… it was an amusing sight…but next time we’ll have to be more careful…don’t want to make the bats run into a tree or anything. :-)
Last night, Aaron and I watched “City of God”…second time I’ve seen it…but I was still in tears, and he was so sweet and held my hand to make sure I was ok (Which was made even sweeter by the fact that he is one of the shyest boys I’ve met, so I know it took guts for him to reach out to me like that….people are constantly amazing me)…and it was the most bizarre thing to walk into the other room where everyone was watching “The OC” which is about the most pretentious, narcissistic, superficial show ever…talk about dissonance..wooboy.
Anyway…I am happy…just went to an aromatherapy shop…smelled sooooo good, I had to go in…you know I’m a sucker for smells…I ended up buying a bottle of jasmine extract which smells amazing…and I was just reading the bottle, and apparently it is an aphrodesiac…didn’t know that when I bought it…but it made me laugh out loud…I had been wondering why the scent made my knees weak. ;-)
Anywhoo…I have to skedaddle…off to seduce a flash-dazzled bat!
muah!
random fact: there is no word in any of the aborginal dialects for "death"...it doesn't exist...life is seen as a circular path, not a linear one...i leave you to ponder the significance of circles....
final random tidbit:....it is the aboriginal belief that if you're listening and didn't hear something, then that means that you either weren't ready to hear it, or weren't meant to.
and here is a poem by an aboriginal writer that struck me with its quiet sadness and simple beauty...
Song
Antigone Kefala
I long to find you
in the uncertain silence
of my evenings
when darkness comes
and when the streets
are desolately empty
when nothing speaks
only my need of you.
posted by heather at 9:44 PM
1 Comments:
Sounds amazing... and Yarrow is fucking awesome, I must say... can totally picture you two in the rain, appreciating life together!
Bring a flash-dazzled bat back for me, k?
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