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As things do, it fizzled after a few months.
It’s high time for the bitch to come back.
Welcome to Muse Wars, round two, RRSAHM style.
And why yes, my own short story is coming- stay tuned for Friday, jellybeans.
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July 13, 2012 at 9:39 am July 9, 2012 at 8:59 pm Great idea! I've even dreamed about this photo … finally my story. http://sexymomgp.blogspot.com/2012/07/muse-wars-challenge-edition-one.html
July 6, 2012 at 10:26 am Oh my, the muse wars are back!! Woo hoo!
July 5, 2012 at 7:32 am Thanks Lori, my brain may start increasing in size now 
July 4, 2012 at 1:04 pm Hey Lynda- I read and love every single comment- I get them emailed to me so I don't miss them!! I will have to amend that to make it a bit clearer, thanks for letting me know xx
July 4, 2012 at 12:58 pm Lori, do you actually read the comments? I'm having trouble reconciling the two statements above: To comment divine & I rarely get around to replying to comments. Perhaps that means that you read them and yet don't reply to them. I hope so anyway.
July 4, 2012 at 9:00 am YES. I used to love this, but when I started my blog, I couldn't find it again 
Awesomely awesome Lori!
July 4, 2012 at 1:45 pm Will post entry soon, have put linky on blog.
I have a Muse Wars group on Digital Parents from 2010 too.
Are we going with first to link gets to choose pick for next one like before?
xx
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I’ve complained about this before, I know. I don’t know why I’m expecting it to suddenly get easier, for whole chunks of time to materialize from nowhere, an extra two or three hours smoothed into every day. Preferably into the kinks caused by those fast flowing hours between seven am and ten am, or the quieter and tougher but equally slippery minutes that leap across one anther as eight pm becomes midnight.
Not too long ago, I happened to be chatting with a few other bloggers who I love and admire when I made some half-joke about having my laptop set up in the middle of the kitchen, writing and editing and emailing with half my mind…. while the other half says,“Hold on kids, I’ll be with you in one second…”
I’m sure I expected laughter and concurrence. And there was laughter, polite laughter, and a decidedly polite and respectable pause in the conversation which I’m sure was to alleviate the guilt they suspected was about to fall my way. They agreed that this had, once, been their habit. However, since they’d managed some boundaries, some separation between their work from and their families- mostly by getting themselves some office space and some designated work time- they were more organized and everyone was happier.
Ugh. Excuse me while I mourn the mother I think I could have been, once upon a time.
I spend less and less time wondering how things might have been, picturing what would have been going on had Tony still been alive. I guess it’s just that the wonderment is now doused, as opposed to tinged, with shades of regret and remorse. Tainted with grieving for what could have been, for what my children should had. For how much ‘better’ I would be doing all this kid wrangling right now, ‘if only…’
Occasionally, when I’m being honest, and not quite as hard on myself as I usually am; I know that I’m either selling myself short in reverence to the job I’m doing raising my kids in the After- that is, the right now; or I’m over estimating how good at this at this I used to be.
The Sliding Doors Lori, the one living that alternate reality… in my head, she’s got it so much more together than she ever had it in Real Life. She’s much more secure and even tempered and confident than the Real Life Me will ever be.
I comfort myself with the knowledge (excuse?) that even when I was parenting as part of a twosome, things would still be disorganized and ramshackle. My kids would still scream at one another, and I am them. I would still sleep in, and we would still run late.
And would be just fine… mainly because there would be another person there, someone else to pick up my slack when I stumbled.
This way, it’s just tripping and falling, all bloody knees and humiliation, into the snares and potholes of parenting, with my children watching on.
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November 25, 2012 at 1:24 am You had to manage things in order to balance family and work. Do the right thing at the right place and at the right time with the right people around you. "Treasure your relationships, not your possessions." – Anthony J DVangelo on Relationship quotes
November 12, 2012 at 2:02 am You are more than good enough, your kids love you and you love them. I've always got my iphone in hand, checking facebook or the news . My kids are independent, happy and imaginative. Despite me and my parenting. Your kids are thriving, and you are surviving, one day at a time. You are my inspiration, you came out the other end of something horrendous and are offering others a wonderful chance to see what its like to walk thru the aftermath of suicide and survive. You go girl, love ya x x x
November 7, 2012 at 1:26 pm Oh, for fuck's sake! Perfect is boring and dishonest – because the 'perfect' are often hiding or even denying something. Something so important that it is part of us and part of what contributes to every day life.
Awesome book I just read about the creators of Google (I think) who are Montessori graduates. Montessori is all about going with what you want to do now. If you want to paint – paint. Don't wait until 2.30pm on your timetable to do so. Grab the inspiration RIGHT NOW!! Although we don't go to Montessori schools, I love the freedom of encouraging kids to do what they want when they want. And it's always best to practice your own rules on yourself. 
Tips are great, and advice is free. But nobody has the perfect tip for you. If I was ever going to be the tidy and organised girl, I would never be encouraged to suddenly create LEGO trebuchets
with my kids. I'd be too worried about rescheduling my tidying time afterwards. Organised workspace – works for some; not for me. Just like I know some who prefer putting all their money into a 5br house, while I prefer travelling and education.
Be PROUD of who you are. You are one of the last remaining honest bloggers, who is not trying to hide who she is to appeal to more sponsorships. Go girl. And I'll dig you out of your 'blog-cave' if I haven't heard from you in a week.
November 7, 2012 at 12:21 pm I can totally relate to the laptop set in the kitchen and the distracted emailing and writing etc…I don't believe setting up a designated 'work space' with 'work times' could work for everyone…what if inspiration strikes in the middle of cooking dinner or bathing the kids and you have 'finished' for the day?? I know I am the epitomy of disorganisation…I am trying to work full time, mother full time, cook, clean, write for pleasure, study for professional gain, find my own career path in the world…all in a 24 hour day…but I have never been happier amongst the chaos because I have taught myself to recognise when I need to re-balance things and also to know that sometimes I need to be selfish dammit and that I am doing the best I can. You are awesome Lori xox
November 7, 2012 at 9:46 am "And would be just fine… mainly because there would be another person there, someone else to pick up my slack when I stumbled."
or in my case: someone else to blame stuff on!
We all struggle, make mistakes and learn in the process that we are only human. Love your post.
November 7, 2012 at 9:05 am Lori, a great honest post. I'll let you in on a secret….all Mother's think like this! It's not just you, it's not because of what you have been through and it's not because you are doing it on your own. It's Mother guilt, so kick its arse and boot the ol' MG outta there. As Mother's we do what we have to do, we stuff up and we sometimes get it right! Hugs xxx
November 7, 2012 at 3:17 pm It doesn't matter how many hours there are in a day, there are never enough! It really depends on what you want/need to achieve each day. If you want to get a basket of laundry sorted, have the kids help; they can give you the clothespegs while you hang the laundry on the clothesline. Let them help you! All kids love to help & be made to feel important & needed. If you only achieve one "have to" & one "want to" a day, you have achieved!! (It's hard enough having to be a stepford wife & being compared to the mil). You do good!!!! I like that your raising the kidlets in "The Now". They will continue to fight & scream at each other, and then one day, they will stop & they'll be talking to each other. Hang on to "The Now" for as long as you can! Life is a roller coaster, it's better than the merry-go-round. Those mothers who are always on time, with perfectly dressed kids and beautifully styled clothes & hair… they're probably alocoholics or have prescription drug issues or they have help, or they're just very good at "faking" it. Focus on what's important – you have a roof over your heads, food in your tummies, clothes on your backs & you still manage to work, look after your kids & have a bit of a life. Hey, you've been on a trapeze & you've gone conyoning. WOW!! It's a tough couple of months for you. Be kind to yourself!! ((XX))
November 6, 2012 at 8:56 pm Loved this post, honey. Thinking of you and the weans.
November 6, 2012 at 3:59 pm I've never met the perfect parent and I've been teaching for 25 years! G.x
November 6, 2012 at 3:43 pm I'm a twosome and its pretty dishevelled over here. But fuck it! You wake up, do your best. Go to bed. Say your prayers and thank Sweet Baby Jesus you got through. Life should be simple. No one said it was easy.
November 6, 2012 at 12:00 pm As it should be. Watching us stumble and keep moving forward builds health and character in our children. It is the essence of good role modeling. I dream a future for you where you have let this self doubt and blame wash over you and fall away. Thank you for your beautiful, naked writing.
November 6, 2012 at 10:28 am "I comfort myself with the knowledge (excuse?) that even when I was parenting as part of a twosome, things would still be disorganized and ramshackle."
It's true. It's like we have this picture of ourselves in our heads, the 'what if' picture. In mine, If only I had done this or not done that or whatever, I would be in a better position now, with a more advanced career and perhaps my own house. I wouldn't binge eat or bitch about people behind their backs and I wouldn't get into awful black moods or backslide into terrible behaviours. In this idealised visage I also have far more awesome hair and possibly am taller. But if I had taken the 'right' path, I think I'd still be pretty similar – in fact, maybe I wouldn't have learned the valuable lessons I have learned.
I don't believe things happen for a reason, not at all. I think shit just happens. The only good thing that ever comes from it is that you learn valuable junk, for me it's not to make my myriad of mistakes over and over and over…
I can't offer anything else – I'm not a mum and I have no idea how it all works and how you possibly manage to get anything done at all (I have been a nanny, so I have a vague idea of what it's like to try to get things done while taking care of kids – almost impossible!) Suffice to say, you should be kind on yourself, if only because beating yourself up over it isn't going to get you anywhere but more frustrated.
Oh, and if you find those extra few hours in the day? Help a girl out and pass along the secret.
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I’ve been meaning to write this post, a post all about PND, for a week now… I juts haven’t had the head space to write about it, to go back to somewhere that was so dark. I need so much emotional armor and resilience to go back there… I just don’t have it right now.
Anyway, I’ve blogged about it in the Before. It remains one of my ‘favorite’ posts, though ‘favorite’ feels like a weird word to use.
I will say this… I thought I was so prepared. I thought I knew my own moods, the warning signs for the on and off depression I’d waded through for years.
I was wrong. PND is different. It blitzed past me, engulfed me without me knowing it. Because it’s different. It doesn’t feel like ‘regular’ depression. If you’ve suffered from depression before, you know you are at risk of PND. But you don’t expect it to feel so totally alien, so engulfing. It catches you, unprepared. All you know is something feels different, something feels very wrong… but it can’t be ‘depression’, right, because you know what that feels like, and this isn’t it?
It’s the tiredest, coldest, loneliest place in the world. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
If you have a tiny- or even not so tiny- baby, or if you’re expecting one, if you are a dad or a mum- PND can effect anyone. It comes in all forms, all guises. And it takes you by suprise.
Reach out. Speak. You aren’t alone, I promise. And it doesn’t have to feel this way.
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November 23, 2012 at 12:40 pm Thanks for showing that it's ok to talk about postnatal depression and helping PANDA spread the word that help is available now. It was lovely to spend an evening with you on Wednesday, talking PND, birthing babies in the backyard and blogging!
November 21, 2012 at 9:59 pm When I was pregnant with my second I worried about a relapse. She is seven months and I thank God every night for PND not returning. Stay strong, stay vigilant and relish in the little successess. And when in doubt use the "if this was one of my friends would I judge her as the bad mother I am calling myself. If you answer "ofcourse not!" Then THAT'S the voice you need to listen to- not the one talking you into packing it all in.
I'm sending nothing but anti PND love.
November 21, 2012 at 9:24 pm I had this nasty disease after the birth of my daughter, my first child. I'm due in Feb with her little brother or sister. I'm very scared about more PND…but I'm armed with my supports in place and know I'll get through it. I'm really bloody scared though.
November 21, 2012 at 8:24 pm I had the most vivid imagery with my baby, of picking him up by the ankles and hitting him against the wall. It took all my strength not to kill us both. More than all my strength, it went down past where strength was keeping me going and only chance kept us alive. Six of one, half a dozen of the other as to if we'd get through the day, and I didn't care either way.
But we survived. And it gets easier. And I am not as brave as you, not brave enough to risk another child. I don't know that I would make it this time, and I am so so scared of that blackness that I'm never walking back into it.
November 21, 2012 at 11:34 am so true. I was expecting PND because of my history, but I had no idea it would be that that. Also it was different with each child.
I remember reading your post, in the before.
xx
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*Yawn*,
‘Nother vlog, RRSAHMers. Vlogs, I think, are just perfect for Mondays, when no one can be bothered reading stuff anyway.Enjoy!
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November 16, 2010 at 9:35 am Night owl for sure. I prefer no on to speak to me before a cup of tea and the clock ticking over to 10am… which works so well as a parent!
I love the nana nap too but it does leave me up and awake for hours at night.
November 15, 2010 at 10:51 pm I don't watch these vlogs, I'm on dial-up and they take forever to load….
November 15, 2010 at 7:52 pm I am soooo jealous that your kids nap for so long! My daughter, Heidi (13 months), has never been much of a napper and after a lot of obsession and not much progress about the whole situation we have now only progressed to one 1.5 hr nap in the middle of the day which is at least better than two 30 mins which she has done pretty much since born. SIGH!!!! When she naps it's so sweet and fleeting that I don't like to "waste" it trying to sleep as I only just nod off and then she's AWAKE so I enjoy some blog reading time instead.
November 15, 2010 at 3:33 pm Love it!
I'm a morning person – I'm happy to be up at 5 or 6 am (hubby's already left for work and toddler is usually still asleep, so that's my peaceful time), but I want to be in bed at night by 8.30 or 9.30pm. I KNOW! That's super early, and unfortunately doesn't always happen, but that's my ideal. My little one hasn't napped since she was 18 months so I'm pretty knackered by the end of the day, and love that quiet time to do a few things before she wakes in the morning!
November 15, 2010 at 1:15 pm I'm a bit of both, morning and night person. And you're right, there's something special about being the only one awake in the wee hours of the morn.
My little one doesn't have a day sleep anymore but I'm lucky in that the hubs is home for me to have a nana nap if I feel the need.
Oh and at 2am, you still look gorgeous!
November 15, 2010 at 1:05 pm I'm a BIG nightowl and I prefer not to nap during the day as it keeps me up even later that night. I don't know how I'm going to cope when the kids get older and need to get ready for school first thing in the morning!
November 15, 2010 at 12:55 pm You are tooo cute!
Me, I'm a morning person – hard for me to think straight late at night. And not much of a napper, but not for lack of trying. I'm just a light sleeper and there's always so much to do I can't close my eyes and stop thinking about it all long enough to nap.
Well that was probably the world's most boring comment. And that's why I don't vlog.
November 15, 2010 at 8:49 am I am a morning person 100% in the sense of i usually wake up happy and ready for my day. Since my pregnancy with Master D something clicked in me and instead of being an early to bed early to rise girl i am staying up later and have been hit with the dreaded insomnia bug. So i'm often up until midnight, or later, but mostly i am in bed around 10 and lay there awake for hours.
Naps i do not do. They always leave me feeling blah when i'm woken.
but like you i'm lucky enough that both my kids have a 2 hour nap a day. Yes even the 4 and a half year old, who happily naps. I use that time to watch trashy TV, eat my lunch IN PEACE and just be really selfish for an hour surfing the net.
November 15, 2010 at 4:49 am Well it's almost 2am here and I'm awake… I'm dead tired but cannot sleep. Pre-Tricky I was a night owl and would sleep in – these days I don't get the sleep in… I don't get any sleep cos Tricky just aint a sleeper! Luckily I'm pretty good with the concealer to cover up the bags
November 15, 2010 at 12:52 am First of all I love the fact that you Vlog at 2am because that means I'm up and awake here in Johannesburg, South Africa and I get to be one of the first to comment.
I LOVE my sleep. I am an early-to-bed kinda girl (always have been) and I could sleep my life away if I had the chance. Then my girls came along…
Sleep deprivation hit me hard and I became the BITCH FROM HELL. When my kids were really little, friends and family gave me advice to "sleep when they sleep". I could never do that because I battle to switch off and fall asleep during the day. Secondly it makes me incredibly grumpy….
Now I dream of lie-ins and Sunday afternoon naps. My girls haven't had an afternoon nap since they were 2 years old!
November 15, 2010 at 1:34 am I occasionally napped during the day when my kids were little, too. Now I'm old, and I've been known to take a nap during the day sometimes again!
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They say that taking time for yourself is essential.
I know that, in theory. It’s just that in reality it doesn’t work so well. It feels selfish and self indulgent to take twenty minutes out to get a massage, a facial or a manicure. I used to do it, back in the BC (Before Children) when things were different. I used to wear jewellery and make up every day and even dress up sometimes. Once upon a my mid-twenties I actually used to get false nails done.
But that was two kids ago. I went from being Lori, a kinda hot actual grown up woman… to ‘Mum’. And so I have remained. From the moment my son was born, I just never seemed to have enough time for me.
And besides that, long acrylics make nappy changes extremely difficult.
Without fake nails- even with them, if I’m really honest-, I bite my real nails atrociously. All the way down to nothing. It’s a vicious cycle– I’ll file and paint them and grow them for a few weeks. Then I’ll get stuck in traffic or have an argument with my mum or start stressing about my overflowing email folder, and I’ll shear strips off keratin off my fingers, ripping my nails back to the already stinging quick. On top of that, washing my hands continually after rounds of nappy changing, cat-wrangling and food preparation leaves them dried out the point where they are cracked and bleeding.
I’m ok with that, most of the time– amongst all my other bad habits, anxieties and issues, biting my nails is very low down on the scale of stuff to worry about. The only time it really worries me is on the rare occasion I get my nails done.
I was treated to a day out not long ago thanks to Dettol’s new Touch Of Foam hand wash, which kills 99.9 percent of germs. In honour of a little foamy luxury every day, they took me to the Sheraton On The Park for a manicure and lunch. Between manicuring, lunch and just general ‘how many people have touched that lift button?’-ness, I washed my hands five times in a row. I can tell you, quite honestly, that even using the Dettol Touch of Foam five times over didn’t leave my hands the way they normally are- swollen and sore, feeling as though I’m wearing gloves two sizes too tight.
With that kind of invitation, it’s slightly easier to find five minutes for myself.
It was also fundamentally embarrassing, being confronted with a gorgeous French beauty therapist named Angie. She was very polite and didn’t laugh too much at my teeny, tiny, bitten off fingernails.
I sat and stared at the window. Soaking up the view. It looked something like this…
…with Hyde Park and some gorgeous cathedral in the background.
And I tried to find five minutes of quiet in my mind. Taking deep breaths, concentrating on them. Seeking a point of solace with myself.
I’m not entirely sure I was successful. I seek silence and my mind is going “Lalalalalalala” in the background. Making noise just for the point of it.
Five minutes of quiet can be a very difficult thing to find, when your head is such a noisy place to be.
***
{ 4 comments }
They ran themselves ragged at the beach. Ate ice cream and drank lemonade and played at the park and argued and fought and had the most awesome time. I think you only have fun like that as a kid, really. You spend your adult life smiling on at it, or, if you happen to have kids of your own, facilitating it.
And I took photos and slept and relaxed and slept more. And I missed my husband with this big, aching chasm of grief that I’ve been unable to shake for weeks now. I don’t know… but the the last month I almost miss him as much as I did the first month. (And I tell myself that, knowing it can’t possibly be true…)
I find myself talking about him more and more, reminiscing over what we did and how we did. And I find myself confronted more and more with big gaps in things I should know. Things I used to know. Little things. The things that make up life (We drive past a bush walking spot on our way to Paradise, and I say to Chop “We went there, your Daddy and I, before I was even pregnant with you. And we saw.. I think… I can’t remember. Was it a wombat, or an echidna…?” And I still don’t know, of course, because there is no Tony here for me to ask.)
Maybe– probably– I’m missing him because the festive season– our festive season, all our birthdays and Christmas rolled into a few short mmonths– has officially already begun.
I’ll be thirty one years old this week.
Or maybe it’s not that. I always prefer to think poetically, it seems to make life prettier... maybe it’s to be blamed on all these holes that seem to forming where memories of him used to be. They have to be filled with something. So it’s layers of tears, a swath of deep blue. All the pain of wishing he were here funneling into them to fill their empty space.
{ 8 comments }
‘Abseiling and Canyoning in the Blue Mountains’, says the RedBalloon website. Without thinking about that phrase in too much detail, I decide it all sounds really cool and click the box. I’ve been abseiling before, caving too, and I loved it. That may have been years ago, before that awful vertigo and fear of heights kicked in… But, honestly, after swinging from a trapeze and having flown in a plane more times now than I can count, I thought I’d kicked my big irrational fear.
After all, what do I have to be afraid of…?
If that sounds cocky and overconfident… it is. If you think I’m a bit of a noob for confusing ’canyoning’ with ’caving’…. you are correct.
I had no idea what I was I for.
I met up with Scott The Canyon Guy, the tour leader, and Barry, the other amateur adventurer, at 9am in Katoomba last Sunday morning. The canyoning school kitted us out completely with harnesses, safety gear and helmets, wet weather gear, wet and dry backpacks, canyoning shoes and a super sexy, high fashion canyoning wetsuit (even at that point, after being fitted for a wetsuit, I still didn’t quite get it… The way my mind just leaps entire tracts of logic alarms me sometimes.)
Then we pile into the coolest, ricketiest old van you’ve ever seen (on par with the wine tour bus of days Before), and cruise on up to Mt York for abseiling practice.
As we drive, the conversation naturally turns to fear and psychology. ‘It’s a good thing’, says Scott. He is some kind of crazy person who does this stuff for fun. ‘When I stop being afraid, that’s when I stop doing this.’
It’s his favorite part of the job, he says, working with people and getting them to face the things they are afraid of. He must have a sense for people, an empathy, I think, being able to read their emotions like a barometer. It’s only later on in the day I find out exactly how true that is.
I confess to him that I am afraid, I’m scared of heights. But as we set up- step into harnesses, tighten buckles, run through safety mantras- I discover I’m nowhere near as afraid as I thought I’d be. Maybe it’s the desensitization I’ve been doing for a while now. Maybe it’s the simple fact that, abseiling, you don’t look down– your eyes are almost always looking at up at where you’ve come from, not where you are dropping to or exactly how far away that is.
But I think a lot of it is just that this, climbing over rocks and traipsing through bushes… this is what I do. Give me a pagoda of sandstone rocks with gum trees sprouted firm between crevices, and I’m fine– my footing is solid, my balance almost perfect.
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| The largest ‘practice’ drop. Heh. |
We abseil down a three metre drop, then move up to a fifteen metre cliff face. I surprise myself with how ridiculously easy this is– abseiling, it seems, is quite like riding a bike, an intuitive skill once learned. Even the final ‘practice’ cliff (heh) a thirty metre drop of uneven, beveled sandstone, is pleasant and we conquer it in the space of forty minutes, dropping into the fern covered bed of the gully three times over. My burgeoning overconfidence grows and grows.
Scott the Canyon Guy unpacks a picnic basket and we feast on cold meat, cheese, dips and rice crackers. There’s even a packet of Tim Tams for Barry, who’s here on holidays from the UK (just for the record, not backpacking. And he was nonplussed. Something wrong with the man.)
We pile ourselves, our gear and the picnic basket back in the van and head back to the other side of Katoomba and the amazin- and quite aptly named- Valley of the Waters.
This is, absolutely, one of the most beautiful places on earth.
We follow the bush track down, down, down; and after ten minutes the path spikes off to left, a slightly less worn-down and cleared-out combination of wooden logs, carved sandstone and the occasional metal tract that make up the route to the beginning of the Empress Falls canyon. It’s an eternally popular route– people have been canyoning through here since the 1890′s when they used to ‘wear woolen clothes and go really fast,’ Scott tells us. There’s only two anchor points to abseil out of the canyon once you’re in, so the council quite sensibly makes canyoning groups book in and stagger their times, lest there is a bottleneck of freezing people waiting for their turn to slide down a rope suspended over the Falls itself.
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| Canyon sign in book, to prevent bottle necks at the exit. Photo pinched from here- cheers. |
I think you might be stating to catch on now…? I really, really, really don’t like the cold. I don’t like being cold. I don’t like being wet. Cold and wet… that
‘s torture for me. That has the ability to revert me to vulnerable six year old Lori, probably at the snow for the first time (and one of the only times) blue-skinned and miserable and crying.
Being cold brings out the big sook in me. But I’d never considered as a ‘fear’, listed it as one of those irrational things I was afraid of. Who’s afraid of being cold…?
It dawned on me that I had grossly underestimated myself, my threshold for discomfort, and exactly what ‘canyoning’ involved as we sat on sandy, pebbly stretch of sandstone ‘beach’ next to a small running, gurgling stretch of water. In fact, I think it was right about when Scott started saying how cold the water actually was (between six and eight degrees, Celsius) and what to do if we started to get really, really cold. Not just hands and feet and face– that’s unavoidable, he says– but your insides, your stomach or your chest.And the thing to do is tell him about it- “Once your body reaches a certain temperature, there’s not much I can do to bring it back up.”
Ahhh… awesome.
I can hear the group just ahead of us, just around the bend where we can’t quite see them. I can also hear running water and splashing and the occasional swearing. Terrified doubt, as cold as the water I’ve just popped the (very ventilated) toe of my canyoning shoe in, begins to creep into my stomach.
It’s OK, at first. It’s cold, so cold, and my ankles ache before we’ve even gone two metres along the river bed. The scenery is amazing- Jurassic, lush, green and overflowing with dense foliage. It smells of that vivid emerald heady rainforest scent, the tiniest hint of decaying sulfur beneath moist earth. The water, continually flowing from it’s mountain home through the bed of the canyon itself, is cold and crisp and almost perfectly clear.
Twenty metres in, and we reach the point of no return– the real beginning of the canyon. It’s an open topped cave, two giant walls of rock on either side, and we’re standing on a huge boulder. In front of us, inside the ’cave’– which I later learn is giant mill well, a massive smooth circle ground from the rock by millions of years of swirling water and debris– is a pool of water, ten foot across and, Scott the Canyon Guy tells us, ten foot deep. Far too deep to touch the bottom. This deep pool of murky water laps at a smooth sandstone shore on the opposite side of the pool– that’s where we’re headed.
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| For reasons obvious, I didn’t take my camera… this pic from RedBalloon |
But to get there, we actually need to get in to the water first. Apparently, the best way to do that is to jump off the boulder were standing on. Fling ourselves- preferably backwards so our backpacks don’t drown us– into near freezing water from an almost totally dry, wetsuit–clad position.
This is my worst nightmare.
Barry does it with so much ease and grace, not a moment’s hesitation save a heavily accented hut resigned “Sh*t”, that I want to kick him. I approach the edge of the rock, look into the water… and I can’t move. I want to– Barry is standing on the other side of the pool by now, totally wet and shivering. We have to go fast from this point, Scott had said, so no one gets cold. I know this– my head is repeating it to me, over and over, and causing hypothermia to a British tourist isn’t really on the mission statement for today… I still can’t move.
This isn’t like me and I know that, I’m angry and frustrated with myself just standing there. I’d only said to Scott the Canyon Guy two hours beforehand that I didn’t usually let myself get into that state, I normally just closed my eyes and jumped before that kind of panic of anxiety could take hold.
And I wasn’t lying at the time– that is what I ‘normally’ do. But my God, I think I’d forgotten or my mind had blocked it or something…. I despise being cold.
I really don’t think I thought this through properly.
So I stand there, shaking my head, eyes piped wide with fear. “I can’t do this.”
“Sure you can.” Says Scott.
“No…” My bottom lip trembles and tears rolls down cheeks before I realize I’m crying, “I really can’t”.
I don’t remember much of what Scott said after that, or what I said. I know I stood on a big rock, wrapped in an unflattering wetsuit, sobbing and shaking while Barry shivered and silently cursed me from ten foot away and the crazy guy who does this for fun tried every psychological mind play he knew to entice me to jump.
In the end… I jumped. I took a deep breath and silently asked my husband to hold my hand and jumped as far as I’d could, tucking my legs up and bombing, butt first, straight into the coldest water I’ve ever felt. The second my body breaks the surface my lungs constrict and if I could gasp, I would. Every muscle in my body clenches, cold water shoots up my nose and will remain there, an annoying not quite salty freshness blocking my sinuses for days. I instinctively open my eyes to look for ’up’ and it’s all murky, tealish green light and bubbles and when my head breaks the surface my chest muscles feel frozen, too cold to make my lungs draw in air. I scramble, an ineffective dog paddle of frozen limbs going almost nowhere, and I’m not even aware Scott the Canyon Guy has jumped in behind me until he grabs my backpack and helps drag me up onto the bank.
“F*ck you!!” I yell at, irrationally, then, “Sorry…”
He grins. I think he may be laughing at me.
And we’re off again.
To be entirely honest, I don’t remember the next twenty minutes or so of the journey through the canyon. I know we did at least one more jump like that first one, that we swam for metres, climbed up and over rocks. I remember shivering to Scott at one point that I was “too–ooo–oooo–ooo cooo–oooo–ooold alreee–eeaaa–dy!”
Then we came to a tiny ’beach’, a two metre square stretch of sand that is, thank the canyoning gods, our halfway point. Scott passes me a orange therma–fiber wrap and opens a packet of lollies, telling us to keep moving, move our hands and feet, to chew and swallow– moving and eating are the only things that can increase your core body temperature. We rest and warm ourselves in the sun like pussycats for a good ten minutes. The spot we’re standing, Scott tells us, is called Heeby’s Beach. He points behind us, and written in thick white paint high into one of the small caves in the wall of the canyon it says ’Mr and Mrs J Heeby 1931’. They were married here. Their graffiti remains, as does namesake of this tiny, secret stretch of sand.
That’s so damn cool it makes jumping into that bitching cold water almost worth it. Almost.
Scott hands me his own fleece jacket to go under my wetsuit and asks if I’m ok to keep going- no more big water jumps until right at the end, he promises. It’s all ‘only’ knee to thigh deep freezing water from here on in.
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From RedBalloon- no, that’s not me.
That… I think I can do. I don’t want to– ever fibre of my being just wants to stop, to go home, to change back into my warm clothes and have a hot shower and hot chocolate and a cry. But, dammit, I also really want to do the huge abseil over the waterfall at the end– that’s the good bit. And damned if I’m slinking away, humiliated and too sacred to see something to it’s glorious end.
Besides that… I’d have to confess, here on my blog. And you lot would be so dissapointment in me.
So we’re moving again. And I’m freezing and I hate it but I remind myself it’s almost over, twenty more minutes and, anyway, the worst of it is done.
And the worst of it was done. The next few hundred metres were still cold and uncomfortable… but so, so worth it. The scenery was un–freaking–believable. More of those giant mill wells lined the sides of the canyon. Ancient trees sat diagonally across massive moss covered rocks. There’s a slippery slide made from a thousand years of funneling water pushing hard over soft rock, and we slip down it on our bums, water pushing us as much as gravity.
We come to another massive mill well cum open cave, another cold pool of clear water at the bottom. There’s another stone slide to drop us into it. I spy Scott, who’s gone ahead, monkey climb the rock face rather that swim the pool.
“Can I do that?” I ask “Climb the rock instead of going into the water?”
“You will fall. Is slippery. I guarantee it. You’ll end up in the water anyway…”
“I won’t. Ill take the chance. Please” Anything to avoid another muscle-clenching dunk like that first one.
“OK then.” Scott shrugs and I clamber across, sure of my footing, fingers tucked into crags in the rock. And I make it across dry.
Only to have wade through waist deep water to reach the top of the waterfall anyway. Dammit.
I’m so cold when I get there, I barely even notice where I am. I wish I had of paid more attention- how often do you stand on top of a waterfall…? I wish I’d been more observant of my awesome self, abseiling down over that waterfall. I actually piked out halfway down– swinging over to a rock perch that led back to a bush track rather than dropping right down into the huge, clear pool of water the waterfall ran into. As gorgeous as that looked, I was just so glad to be back on dry, solid land and able to get out of that soggy wetsuit and into my own clothes again (kept toasty by the awesomeness of canyoning dry bags)… I really wasn’t too fussed at having missed out.
And then there’s all all this other stuff to deal with.
I now know what it’s like to be ‘that’ woman, standing literally petrified, too terrified to move. I know the tunnel vision that comes with it. The guilt that eats at you knowing you’re making other people uncomfortable, the embarrassment of being so afraid that it becomes debilitating.
I’m still working against being annoyed with myself.
“I’m cranky with myself,” I tell Scott, fighting the mounting exhaustion that’s attempting to lull me into sleep during the bus ride back to Katoomba’s quiet, quaint Main Street. “That’s not like me. I’m not used to be so unprepared, being caught out like that. I’m ashamed of myself for being so scared.”
“Why?” Replies Scott, and he seems genuinely surprised. “You did it. You were afraid… But you still did it. Honestly, I’ve beer seen anyone get cold that quick– I’ve never seen anyone start to shiver with their whole body that quickly. I really thought we would have to bail at the half way point, I didn’t think you’d make it.”
“And”, he finishes, “you did.”
And that, I guess, is the truth of it. I’m always saying ‘be afraid and do it anyway’. I’ve gotten so used to doing that maybe I’m not as afraid as I though I was, of the things I used to be.
It takes me days to recover, physically– I’ve never been so exhausted– and my poor wounded pride is hurting frightfully, bewildered at crying like a big girl instead of being the tough one for a change.
I have to hand it to RedBalloon– this one quite literally pushed me out of every comfort zone I thought I had, and broke that fug of boredom that’s been following me around in the most kick arse way.
That has to be a good thing.
Know what you’re in for. This is hard core. While it actually didn’t require the physical strength of the trapeze, it takes endurance, a certain amount of agility and– to put it frankly– a lot of balls.
Consider making it a weekend away. Depending on how far you live from the Blue Mountains, consider spending the night there, especially the night of your adventure, if not the night before as well. It’s a two hour drive from Sydney and I promise you will so exhausted that driving anywhere will become a monumetous task. At $150 of the entire day’s abseiling and canyoning– including all your gear and a yummy picnic lunch– you can afford to stay the night. Really.
Take spare socks. And lots of clothes that are warm but relatively light to carry. You will thank me. I (almost) could have kissed those warm, dry socks that where waiting for me in the van at the end of the day.
{ 14 comments }
Take me away from here for a night… I’ll tell you the basics of who I am, but other than that, I can play pretend…
(Pretend I’m OK, pretend I’m just fine. Pretend my life is secular and I need no one. Shut myself off from the screaming five year old in my mind who will, if I allow her to, burst into sobs and beg to be held…. I’m not her, we don’t even share the same name. I am separate from myself, separate from my responsibilities, separate from my life… tonight I am a painting of myself, I am a filigreed version of my nightmare… I can’t do this for long, it’s a heavy mask to wear and it feels as if it will send me insane…. but while I can hold reality at the length of a tight skirt and heels, I will).
Lay me down and make me purr. As a lover I am submissive in a way I never used to be– the effort is yours, the seduction on your part– that is why I am here. I am strength personified, sun rise to sunset, every day I live now in the After… instruct me, make me feel vulnerable and feminine, lush and objectified; and we’ll play.
Run your hands down the length of the skin I wear like a coat of steel, remind me it’s soft and it can feel sensation as light and pleasant. As a lover I am selfish… I will lay down, smile on my face, and languish in sweeping waves of pleasure for as long as you’ll allow me to. I feel no obligation toward the other psychical being I am clasped with– their pleasure is derived from mine or not at all, and I’ll admit that, gluttonous.
I will lay for hours in the warmth of touch and anonymity… I’ll be a pussy cat stretched out, limbs flayed and vulnerable, stomach warmed by bright morning sunshine and taking warmth greedily; no shadow of guilt, without the slightest inclintative thought of giving any touch, any kiss or caress of my lips, in return.
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
July 16, 2012 at 7:48 pm Hell, I get it.
My trauma was way different, and many would say I ought to never even dream such a thing, because of IT.
Well, they aren't me.
Or, you.
Bravo.
July 3, 2012 at 4:07 pm A woman talking about and ENJOYING sex? Oh dear … the horror! /sarcasm
And actually anyone who is a simpsons fan will totally get what Im about to say… "Won't someone please think of the children" LOL
Beautiful post Lori! ENjoy xx
June 30, 2012 at 7:44 pm June 30, 2012 at 4:36 pm Lisa, I assure you, I'm safe.
We all take risks, all the time… It's just a matter of making sure they're worth it.
June 30, 2012 at 2:06 pm Brave and a GREAT read.
Totally enjoy the adult and sexual self that you are!
June 30, 2012 at 3:03 am Not to offend, but I kinda agree with Matt too. Lori you deserve more than random, anonymous sexual activity. If you think it is making you feel better, you are an adult and can make your own decisions obviously. But you could end up in a bad situation that you do not want. And be physically harmed, and that would be just awful. When I was younger I also did crazy things like you have described, I think most of us did. But you have 2 small kids and they need you. Do what makes you feel better, but please try to be selective and super careful. We all want you to be happy. And safe. Lisa
June 30, 2012 at 12:30 am Perhaps this is part of Lori's journey from grief to healing. Accepting that we each have our own preferences, needs, wishes, wounds, tastes and desires gives us the ability to separate people’s choices from their value and worth as individuals.
June 29, 2012 at 9:10 pm Beautifully written, as always.
June 29, 2012 at 3:34 pm Isn't it great how you're always supposed to be protecting someone's delicate sensibilities? Never mind that they are dead, or can't yet read,or hell may not even exist except in the faux-concerned mind of the scandalized commenter.
Pix
June 29, 2012 at 3:33 pm I totally understand that while you are purring you are escaping and that is what you need to do at times.
I am so happy you do not feel shame from others words and you feel confident in your self and your words.
Big hugs love.xx
June 29, 2012 at 3:11 pm Matt, as much as everything else on this blog is my honest, multi-faceted truth, written without the censorship of what other people may think, so is this… why is there shame in this, any more than any other human emotion or action I've written?
My children will know the truth of this as much as anything else- I'm OK with that. They'll know I was real and fallible with needs and wants and that's OK, too. I hope that my children will grow up confident in their own sexuality, and if that means being empowered enough to speak freely about it, then so be it.
Matt, my husband was very comfortable with my sexuality, and I can only imagine that whoever I choose to have a relationship with will be the same. No offense, but you're not exactly the type of person I'd want to marry either Any future relationship would have to be someone who's comfortable with overt expressions of sexuality… a woman can be sexually confident without it destroying future chances of a relationship.
June 29, 2012 at 2:24 pm I merely meant that the way a person acts outwardly is going to dictate the type of people that would take notice and be "attracted" to you. So if what Lori wants is a man that will treat her like a princess and adore her (which I think she absolutely deserves) then a post like this one won't attract that sort of man.
Just my opinion. You don't have to agree
Matt
June 30, 2012 at 12:09 am I don't think Matt was trying to be rude or anything. He was putting in his own two cents, of what he felt/saw when he read the post. Something that Lori encourages.
June 29, 2012 at 1:23 pm Wow… matt, really?
I cant help but take offense to your judgement and presumption…
Worring about what some future man might think? WTF!! really?!!
June 29, 2012 at 12:24 pm I totally get the wanting to be held, loved, touched, pleasured…….but what you describe in this post is painting yourself as a cheap tart. You are worth more than that.
If your daughter held these same values for herself when she's older, what would you think?
Please don't get me wrong, I think if this is what you want then fine – do it without the advertisement. Imagine your children reading this when they're older. Also imagine the type of man you are attracting with this behaviour? I can tell you from my own perspective (not all men are the same) that a woman with loose morals wouldn't be who I see as my wife and mother of our children..
I guess what I'm trying to say is see yourself in the future – if that's with a man who will love you and respect you, treat your children as part of his family and perhaps even have more children with you – do you think portraying yourself in this light will attract that sort of man? I think you are worth a lot more than that.
Matt
June 29, 2012 at 10:36 am Enjoy it, hun. You deserve it. x
June 29, 2012 at 5:42 pm This is not about the future & what that holds. This is about 'now'! About skin & warmth & just being. It's about being outside of your head, for as long as it lasts, as long as it can be made to last. Enjoy this for as long as you can! xx
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I never know what to tell people, I am never sure how to answer that question. Because Darrell is OK. In all reality, Darrell is doing a kick–arse job of taking care of himself and recovering from a chronic illness. He’s also attempting to return to work.
Still ‘attempting’… months and months after initially liaising with CommCare and his superiors and management at DFAT. Having been copied in a lot of Darrell’s correspondence with his union, CommCare, his superiors and various media representatives, I am confident that the verb ‘attempting’ is the most appropriate word to use. From the evidence I’ve seen, Darrell has made every effort to return to the ‘exceptionally performing’ employee he consistently was before he applied for, and took, medical leave. Or challenged the status quo and spoke up against bullying and stand over tactics within his workplace, and was awarded compensation for what has happened to him.
There’s just so much going on here… I’m not even sure where to begin.
Among other issues, there’s the ongoing problem of DFAT failing to provide a workplace that’s safe and secure and caters to an illness that was, in the view of CommCare, exasperated by the sufferer’s work conditions in the first place.
Then there was, a few months ago now, a bizarre incident where three anonymous workmates of Darrell’s reported seeing ‘Anti–Islamic’ content on Darrell’s FaceBook page. It took weeks before Darrell could even pinpoint the source of the offending content– a comment he had left on a media file that someone else in his timeline had posted. Given FaceBook’s random and confusing sharing settings, the comment posted publicly on Darrell’s feed.
But they must have been looking awfully closely. A few days after the complaint was made, I personally went back through six months of Darrell’s FaceBook feed. And I could not find the comment in question. (Which, by the way, had definitely not been deleted, especially at that time. And a discussion about our civil liberties, or BookFace sharing setting and what to do with them, is just too much for my slightly exhausted brain right now. Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves in the comments.)
A month or so after disciplinary action was effected for that offense, Darrell’s supervisors requested a meeting with him. In which they told him that other staff were worried that, because he suffered depression, he may ‘become violent in the workplace’.
Again, I don’t even know where to start with that. I’m so disgusted at that level of stigmatization and stereotyping that I’m ashamed. It feels akin to sitting in the Government Inquiry Into Workplace Bullying and feeling sick, wholly saddened by the crass uncaring quality of those responsible for taking care of us.
If this was, honestly, a valid concern held by Darrell’s workmates about a man who has never shown any violent tendencies, nor has any history of violence whatsoever; then one would imagine that the ideal course of action would actually be some training in mental health and supporting a fellow employee returning to work after an illness. Ideally, you would hope that management would use such an obvious display of ignorance and intolerance to educate their staff and promote safety and harmony within the work environment.
Not order their employee into a meeting where he has no union representation and use claims such as these as just another reason to break him down, make him feel like sh*t and make returning to work full time just that little bit more difficult.
Tuesday night, as the state burnt like a huge, dry box of RedHead matches; I got a text from Darrell to tell me this…
“… Had my performance review today. Basically told that because I had (sic) depression and was at work I can only get a satisfactory rating. If at work your (sic) expected to be 100 per cent healthy… Kind of hard when you first get depression as you don’t know it’s happening, etc.”
And I responded with a whole string of swear words. Because, honestly, what the hell is that? Why, in light of such an excellent employment history, is an unavoidable illness that could happen to anyone at anytime being used to create a disadvantage against an honest, hard working man who just wants to return to the job they’ve lived and breathed for over ten years now?
If it were cancer, or MS, or a bad case of the chicken pox… would the outcome be the same?
I doubt it.
To compound all of that is the wall of all–consuming silence that seems to eat Darrell’s story before it gets too big, before it goes too far. I watched it roll over, like a big fat cloud on a sunny day, obscuring the last post I published concerning DFAT and Darrell.
I watched thousands of people hit the page, but so few share it on their social medias. I watched traffic from the ACT go up by over 200% as people searched for the story that many of them already knew… there are so many government employees who have been there themselves, only in different departments, playing different roles.
And I watched various media outlets I once considered to have some balls ignore me– in one case, actually block me on Twitter after I pinged them a single time– when I tried to pull their attention toward Darrell’s story. I witnessed one reporter who actually is gutsy take me on, allowed me to tell my story; but told me in honesty it would be near worth her job to discuss Darrell’s story on air. I watched as private messages of support came in from people too apprehensive to publicly promote what I’d written, lest it effect their own employment. I took a phone call from another blogger, also employed in a government role, who recommended I take down the post lest I be accused of ‘whistle blowing’.
To be very clear- ‘whistle blowing’ is exactly what I’m trying to do here. It’s what Darrell has, in a way, been attempting to do for months. Forget your inquiry into Workplace Bullying… it is a widely held opinion that government departments are, by far, the very worst place for bullying and stand over tactics to flourish and pulse.
Even the process of writing this post is frustrating. I want to scream words at my computer screen, make someone with a voice bigger than mine listen and take note and be brave.
I’ve watched, sadly, as Darrell has searchd for someone, some publication, some media outlet– someone– to tell his story. I read an email a few months ago now that almost reached out and caressed me with it’s opaque vulgarity.
This email contained an exchange between Darrell and a journalist at a large–ish newspaper who had become interested in his story. The first email was bubbly and enthusiastic, an air of indignation regarding Darrell’s treatment almost glowing from the edges of the journo’s words.
After a period of silence on the newspaper’s side, Darrell had responded. A follow up– I haven’t heard anything from you, what goes on?
The reply was everything
that’s wrong here, every infuriating back–down that’s every happened in every school fight against bullies who are big and strong and use that to their advantage. It was apologetic but defensive, and summed up pretty much said…
“I’ve talked to my editor. We agreed that, perhaps, you shouldn’t pursue this story any further. It could lead to very unpleasant ramifications for your job. You have a family to think of.”
What utter lay–down–and–be–a–doormat–to–the–world crap that is. It’s fairly obvious, to Darrell and anyone else playing this game, that future advancement in this job is not going to happen. The journalists who have said ‘no’ to this story aren’t worried about Darrell…. they’re worried about themselves.
Darrell has not got a lot left to lose.
Really, this is getting beyond the point of being ‘unfair’ or even ‘hard luck’. This is inhumane. This is torture.
I am worried about Darrell. Because he is a friend of mine, and every time I hear his voice there is just that little bit more desolation in the middle of it. And his mum is worried about him, too. Her name is Aaimi, and she is lovely. She sent me an email just before Christmas that said this…
Read that without your heart breaking for a mother screaming tears of frustration for her child. And sit on your hands and do nothing.
I fucking dare you.
I am pissed off. I’m angry and it scares me that at our highest level of government, in a country that’s apparently so free and democratic, this kind of thing can happen, repeatedly. In deathly silence.
So let this be a challenge to you all… be you man, or mouse? Will you share this post, help me spread the word?
I am not a journalist… I’m just a blogger who writes pretty things occasionally. I don’t understand all the elements here. This needs someone who does. This needs to be picked up, and this story told. So that the right people will listen, and be forced to act.
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
January 11, 2013 at 6:55 pm Oh, and WorkSafe are a joke. I went to them and they said there's no proof. It was all documented with my written warnings etc, but not enough for them. Pathetic.
January 11, 2013 at 6:53 pm Something similar happened to me at a well known gym chain who is known for being "first" in fitness *ahem*
They got into my Facebook, quoting anonymous witnesses who I could never find. They took any post I'd made where names aren't used (like you Lori I use code names) and twisted it that I was writing about a manager. I was done for online bullying and 2 years of them then bullying me as a result. This is a chronic problem, online activities should not reflect on the workplace. I feel for Darrell I have been in his shoes.
January 11, 2013 at 10:41 am As a manager, I've had to back down and be satisfied with sending a warning letter to a staff member rather than sacking her for the blatant, ongoing and shocking bullying of a 16 yr old trainee under her charge. I was absolutely flabbergasted with my organisations lack of balls when they constantly tout a Zero Tolerance stance on workplace bullying. All i could do was take the poor girl under my wing and remove her from the situation, which took a lot of time, money and resettling into a new work environment. Completely shits me even thou the eventual outcome was good. Our society has lost sight of basic manners, respect and decency. Shared your story on FB.
January 11, 2013 at 10:41 am As a manager, I've had to back down and be satisfied with sending a warning letter to a staff member rather than sacking her for the blatant, ongoing and shocking bullying of a 16 yr old trainee under her charge. I was absolutely flabbergasted with my organisations lack of balls when they constantly tout a Zero Tolerance stance on workplace bullying. All i could do was take the poor girl under my wing and remove her from the situation, which took a lot of time, money and resettling into a new work environment. Completely shits me even thou the eventual outcome was good. Our society has lost sight of basic manners, respect and decency. Shared your story on FB.
January 10, 2013 at 4:55 pm I am putting this on my Face Book wall. I am saddened to know that this goes on. My own mother had simmilar issues with "Officeworks" She eventually had to leave a job of 10+ years that she loved in the begining and loathed by the end due to poor management and work place bullying. Having to go to a therapist for the first time in her life. Having to take medication that she should never have needed to take that causes other health issues, just to deal with the shit that was going on and to stay employed. Why do people have to go through this?? I wish my voice was loud enough but I am sure if we join many voices togeather we can become a roar. Say NO to discrimination and Bullying in the work force. Thank You Lori. Darrell I hope that your stroy will be told.
January 10, 2013 at 1:22 pm January 10, 2013 at 10:07 am Shared on my FB. As a little girl, like so many, I wanted to be a journalist. I wanted to blow open my own watergate, right the wrong, expose injustice and be a part of the solution. I'm a year away from finishing a degree now, and to be honest I find modern Journalism just a bit distasteful… It can't be ALL of them, but it's enough.
January 9, 2013 at 11:03 pm Awesome story thanks Lori. Journalists are so much a part of the problem. They ignore the problem and refuse to do stories. The APS loves this kind of journalism – it lets them off the hook. Unions do the same thing. But the question is why?
January 9, 2013 at 7:37 pm Oh wow, sorry… totally went overboard with my rant. Here's the relevant bit.
It seems we live in a society that only allows completely healthy people any claim on dignity.
And those people who are sick but can manage to work part-time are apparently judged to be doing a not-good-enough job because they're not working full time? This really takes the cake! I am appalled.
It seems that Darrell is fighting an up-hill battle. I wish him strength and a lot of helping hands. Most of all I wish for the layers of darkness to lift from his soul. I hope he'll feel better soon.
January 9, 2013 at 7:29 pm This comment has been removed by the author.
January 9, 2013 at 6:42 pm Another site is http://www.apsbullying.com – may be useful.
January 9, 2013 at 6:40 pm There is a Facebook group called Dignity for all Australian Public Servants. Your friend may want to raise his issues, or you may want to post this link there. There are a few former APS staff in a similar situation on the page.
Sorry I cannot help further.
January 9, 2013 at 4:03 pm FB shared it Lori.
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I never know what to tell people, I am never sure how to answer that question. Because Darrell is OK. In all reality, Darrell is doing a kick–arse job of taking care of himself and recovering from a chronic illness. He’s also attempting to return to work.
Still ‘attempting’… months and months after initially liaising with CommCare and his superiors and management at DFAT. Having been copied in a lot of Darrell’s correspondence with his union, CommCare, his superiors and various media representatives, I am confident that the verb ‘attempting’ is the most appropriate word to use. From the evidence I’ve seen, Darrell has made every effort to return to the ‘exceptionally performing’ employee he consistently was before he applied for, and took, medical leave. Or challenged the status quo and spoke up against bullying and stand over tactics within his workplace, and was awarded compensation for what has happened to him.
There’s just so much going on here… I’m not even sure where to begin.
Among other issues, there’s the ongoing problem of DFAT failing to provide a workplace that’s safe and secure and caters to an illness that was, in the view of CommCare, exasperated by the sufferer’s work conditions in the first place.
Then there was, a few months ago now, a bizarre incident where three anonymous workmates of Darrell’s reported seeing ‘Anti–Islamic’ content on Darrell’s FaceBook page. It took weeks before Darrell could even pinpoint the source of the offending content– a comment he had left on a media file that someone else in his timeline had posted. Given FaceBook’s random and confusing sharing settings, the comment posted publicly on Darrell’s feed.
But they must have been looking awfully closely. A few days after the complaint was made, I personally went back through six months of Darrell’s FaceBook feed. And I could not find the comment in question. (Which, by the way, had definitely not been deleted, especially at that time. And a discussion about our civil liberties, or BookFace sharing setting and what to do with them, is just too much for my slightly exhausted brain right now. Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves in the comments.)
A month or so after disciplinary action was effected for that offense, Darrell’s supervisors requested a meeting with him. In which they told him that other staff were worried that, because he suffered depression, he may ‘become violent in the workplace’.
Again, I don’t even know where to start with that. I’m so disgusted at that level of stigmatization and stereotyping that I’m ashamed. It feels akin to sitting in the Government Inquiry Into Workplace Bullying and feeling sick, wholly saddened by the crass uncaring quality of those responsible for taking care of us.
If this was, honestly, a valid concern held by Darrell’s workmates about a man who has never shown any violent tendencies, nor has any history of violence whatsoever; then one would imagine that the ideal course of action would actually be some training in mental health and supporting a fellow employee returning to work after an illness. Ideally, you would hope that management would use such an obvious display of ignorance and intolerance to educate their staff and promote safety and harmony within the work environment.
Not order their employee into a meeting where he has no union representation and use claims such as these as just another reason to break him down, make him feel like sh*t and make returning to work full time just that little bit more difficult.
Tuesday night, as the state burnt like a huge, dry box of RedHead matches; I got a text from Darrell to tell me this…
“… Had my performance review today. Basically told that because I had (sic) depression and was at work I can only get a satisfactory rating. If at work your (sic) expected to be 100 per cent healthy… Kind of hard when you first get depression as you don’t know it’s happening, etc.”
And I responded with a whole string of swear words. Because, honestly, what the hell is that? Why, in light of such an excellent employment history, is an unavoidable illness that could happen to anyone at anytime being used to create a disadvantage against an honest, hard working man who just wants to return to the job they’ve lived and breathed for over ten years now?
If it were cancer, or MS, or a bad case of the chicken pox… would the outcome be the same?
I doubt it.
To compound all of that is the wall of all–consuming silence that seems to eat Darrell’s story before it gets too big, before it goes too far. I watched it roll over, like a big fat cloud on a sunny day, obscuring the last post I published concerning DFAT and Darrell.
I watched thousands of people hit the page, but so few share it on their social medias. I watched traffic from the ACT go up by over 200% as people searched for the story that many of them already knew… there are so many government employees who have been there themselves, only in different departments, playing different roles.
And I watched various media outlets I once considered to have some balls ignore me– in one case, actually block me on Twitter after I pinged them a single time– when I tried to pull their attention toward Darrell’s story. I witnessed one reporter who actually is gutsy take me on, allowed me to tell my story; but told me in honesty it would be near worth her job to discuss Darrell’s story on air. I watched as private messages of support came in from people too apprehensive to publicly promote what I’d written, lest it effect their own employment. I took a phone call from another blogger, also employed in a government role, who recommended I take down the post lest I be accused of ‘whistle blowing’.
To be very clear- ‘whistle blowing’ is exactly what I’m trying to do here. It’s what Darrell has, in a way, been attempting to do for months. Forget your inquiry into Workplace Bullying… it is a widely held opinion that government departments are, by far, the very worst place for bullying and stand over tactics to flourish and pulse.
Even the process of writing this post is frustrating. I want to scream words at my computer screen, make someone with a voice bigger than mine listen and take note and be brave.
I’ve watched, sadly, as Darrell has searchd for someone, some publication, some media outlet– someone– to tell his story. I read an email a few months ago now that almost reached out and caressed me with it’s opaque vulgarity.
This email contained an exchange between Darrell and a journalist at a large–ish newspaper who had become interested in his story. The first email was bubbly and enthusiastic, an air of indignation regarding Darrell’s treatment almost glowing from the edges of the journo’s words.
After a period of silence on the newspaper’s side, Darrell had responded. A follow up– I haven’t heard anything from you, what goes on?
The reply was everything
that’s wrong here, every infuriating back–down that’s every happened in every school fight against bullies who are big and strong and use that to their advantage. It was apologetic but defensive, and summed up pretty much said…
“I’ve talked to my editor. We agreed that, perhaps, you shouldn’t pursue this story any further. It could lead to very unpleasant ramifications for your job. You have a family to think of.”
What utter lay–down–and–be–a–doormat–to–the–world crap that is. It’s fairly obvious, to Darrell and anyone else playing this game, that future advancement in this job is not going to happen. The journalists who have said ‘no’ to this story aren’t worried about Darrell…. they’re worried about themselves.
Darrell has not got a lot left to lose.
Really, this is getting beyond the point of being ‘unfair’ or even ‘hard luck’. This is inhumane. This is torture.
I am worried about Darrell. Because he is a friend of mine, and every time I hear his voice there is just that little bit more desolation in the middle of it. And his mum is worried about him, too. Her name is Aaimi, and she is lovely. She sent me an email just before Christmas that said this…
Read that without your heart breaking for a mother screaming tears of frustration for her child. And sit on your hands and do nothing.
I fucking dare you.
I am pissed off. I’m angry and it scares me that at our highest level of government, in a country that’s apparently so free and democratic, this kind of thing can happen, repeatedly. In deathly silence.
So let this be a challenge to you all… be you man, or mouse? Will you share this post, help me spread the word?
I am not a journalist… I’m just a blogger who writes pretty things occasionally. I don’t understand all the elements here. This needs someone who does. This needs to be picked up, and this story told. So that the right people will listen, and be forced to act.
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
January 11, 2013 at 6:55 pm Oh, and WorkSafe are a joke. I went to them and they said there's no proof. It was all documented with my written warnings etc, but not enough for them. Pathetic.
January 11, 2013 at 6:53 pm Something similar happened to me at a well known gym chain who is known for being "first" in fitness *ahem*
They got into my Facebook, quoting anonymous witnesses who I could never find. They took any post I'd made where names aren't used (like you Lori I use code names) and twisted it that I was writing about a manager. I was done for online bullying and 2 years of them then bullying me as a result. This is a chronic problem, online activities should not reflect on the workplace. I feel for Darrell I have been in his shoes.
January 11, 2013 at 10:41 am As a manager, I've had to back down and be satisfied with sending a warning letter to a staff member rather than sacking her for the blatant, ongoing and shocking bullying of a 16 yr old trainee under her charge. I was absolutely flabbergasted with my organisations lack of balls when they constantly tout a Zero Tolerance stance on workplace bullying. All i could do was take the poor girl under my wing and remove her from the situation, which took a lot of time, money and resettling into a new work environment. Completely shits me even thou the eventual outcome was good. Our society has lost sight of basic manners, respect and decency. Shared your story on FB.
January 11, 2013 at 10:41 am As a manager, I've had to back down and be satisfied with sending a warning letter to a staff member rather than sacking her for the blatant, ongoing and shocking bullying of a 16 yr old trainee under her charge. I was absolutely flabbergasted with my organisations lack of balls when they constantly tout a Zero Tolerance stance on workplace bullying. All i could do was take the poor girl under my wing and remove her from the situation, which took a lot of time, money and resettling into a new work environment. Completely shits me even thou the eventual outcome was good. Our society has lost sight of basic manners, respect and decency. Shared your story on FB.
January 10, 2013 at 4:55 pm I am putting this on my Face Book wall. I am saddened to know that this goes on. My own mother had simmilar issues with "Officeworks" She eventually had to leave a job of 10+ years that she loved in the begining and loathed by the end due to poor management and work place bullying. Having to go to a therapist for the first time in her life. Having to take medication that she should never have needed to take that causes other health issues, just to deal with the shit that was going on and to stay employed. Why do people have to go through this?? I wish my voice was loud enough but I am sure if we join many voices togeather we can become a roar. Say NO to discrimination and Bullying in the work force. Thank You Lori. Darrell I hope that your stroy will be told.
January 10, 2013 at 1:22 pm January 10, 2013 at 10:07 am Shared on my FB. As a little girl, like so many, I wanted to be a journalist. I wanted to blow open my own watergate, right the wrong, expose injustice and be a part of the solution. I'm a year away from finishing a degree now, and to be honest I find modern Journalism just a bit distasteful… It can't be ALL of them, but it's enough.
January 9, 2013 at 11:03 pm Awesome story thanks Lori. Journalists are so much a part of the problem. They ignore the problem and refuse to do stories. The APS loves this kind of journalism – it lets them off the hook. Unions do the same thing. But the question is why?
January 9, 2013 at 7:37 pm Oh wow, sorry… totally went overboard with my rant. Here's the relevant bit.
It seems we live in a society that only allows completely healthy people any claim on dignity.
And those people who are sick but can manage to work part-time are apparently judged to be doing a not-good-enough job because they're not working full time? This really takes the cake! I am appalled.
It seems that Darrell is fighting an up-hill battle. I wish him strength and a lot of helping hands. Most of all I wish for the layers of darkness to lift from his soul. I hope he'll feel better soon.
January 9, 2013 at 7:29 pm This comment has been removed by the author.
January 9, 2013 at 6:42 pm Another site is http://www.apsbullying.com – may be useful.
January 9, 2013 at 6:40 pm There is a Facebook group called Dignity for all Australian Public Servants. Your friend may want to raise his issues, or you may want to post this link there. There are a few former APS staff in a similar situation on the page.
Sorry I cannot help further.
January 9, 2013 at 4:03 pm FB shared it Lori.
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I don’t even realize I’m avoiding Christmas until it’s right on top of me, suffocating me with it’s false pretense of family and happy. The Road Trip helped immensely– rushing around at a hundred clicks an hour is fantastic for ignoring whatever happens to be bothering you. Our Christmas tree goes up on our return, half–heartedly and just one week before Christmas Day, and I begin stripping it down again on Boxing Day. For every decoration I remove, I feel lighter– thank God this over, thank God I survived, thank God it happened before I realized it hurt so badly.
’Wrap presents’ has been top of my to–do list for the last month, and every day I’ve found myself some reason not to do it, some reason to put it off for another day. And again, while I tell myself it’s a matter of not having time, always a lack of precious time; I know that’s a lie. But not until its done and over. Not until I’ve cleared the boxes of a years worth of piled up gifts.
I think that part may finally be over now, too– I won’t have to repeat that process, exactly, ever again. The last of the stock of presents that Tony bought for our kids before he died have been wrapped and unwrapped again, added to the pile of listless stuff that people begin collecting in early childhood and very few of us ever give up completely.
I wrap two toy Ferraris and a packet of Thomas flash cards, all purchased by Tony and put away by me, for when our son was older. Never, ever imagining that Tony would not be here to give to him.
It takes me until the night of the 23rd to begin wrapping, and I’m fifteen minutes in before I realize that I have a three storey wooden dollhouse to assemble… sh*t. It takes me an hour just to get the frame together, and I cry and curse sole parenting and my husband and my life in general. Then something clicks– a screw slides into place where before it just kept threading itself– and the rest of the flat–packed panels shunt together smoothly. It’s 5am by the time I’m finished, and I write sleep off for the night.
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| Dollhouse. May we never speak of it again. |
I wonder, later that night, if that’s my subconscious practicing guerrilla warfare on my cotton–wool wrapped psyche. I am so tired from my all night Elfing, I sleep right through Christmas dinner at my Mum’s. I wake for long enough to drive home; to bath, book and bed my kids; play Santa. I even remember to leave out an empty glass of milk and a plat of cookie crumbs– the poor reindeer got nothing, though, I’m sad to say. Then I crash again; a deep, warm slumber plucked straight from a year or so ago. I wake again at six am, still tired and bleary–eyed but conscious enough to construct gifts, referee sibling fisticuffs and point out those cookie crumbs. The kidlets way–layed with new gifts and DVD’s and a definitive parental–enforced absence of elf–delivered sugar; I return to my comatose state on the lounge.
My children are picked up by their maternal grandmother Christmas afternoon. It’s the first time in six years I’ve spent any kind of time by myself on Christmas Day. I’m sad for all of five minutes. Then the delusional satisfaction of a long, hot, uninterrupted shower washes that sadness, and most of the guilt, away; and I thoroughly enjoy the quiet stillness of my house.
Christmas dinner at my my mum’s is quiet and low key– Christmas Day would have been my Gran’s 81st birthday, and it’s strange to feel the absence of a birthday cake on Xmas Day. I miss the ritual of slipping her a second present, wrapped in birthday paper, with a card attached– a tradition I’d begun for myself ten years earlier, when she told me how awful it was as a child, being born on Christmas Day and only ever getting one present for both, where everyone else got two gifts a year.
I return home early and sleep again on the lounge, reading longform articles on my phone until I can no longer keep my eyes open. I wake twelve hours later, my mind swirling with strange half dreams where I mend the lingering loose ends in my life, attend to things I should be doing. It takes me an hour or two to wake completely and when I do it’s with another light relief– Christmas is over. I feel as though I’ve run a huge stretch through waist deep water, flailing in big strokes with my arms to get as much of this behind me as quickly as possible, eyes shut tight for most of the way, only opening them when it’s desperately necessary to adjust my course.
It’s over. But I feel like sh*t. I haven’t taken a single photograph. We did not do Carols by Candlelight, or Santa photos… I even forgot a carrot for Rudolph. I am that mother– the one who hates Lego because it’s too much effort. The one who sleeps through most of Christmas Day. The one with a lopsided, half hearted Xmas tree without a single string of blinking lights. The one who doesn’t bother attaching all those tiny stickers that come with every toy, all the printed line markings and shop signs and other details– why they can’t just put the bloody things on in the factory is beyond me.
I hate being the mother who just survives, instead of the one who does all the right things, the one who makes every single Christmas with her kids one to enjoy. After all, there is not that many of these Christmases left, with my children tiny and still very much in belief of the fat man with the red suit and the warm white gloves and big, bushy beard.
But, really… f*ck it. It’s the second Christmas in a row where, against the screaming centre of my mind’s better judgment, I have not been committed to the local psych hospital. That’s something.
And I think I can take stock of what I have done– right now, there’s two little children watching cartoons on the lounge. Both of them are happy, both of them still believe. They have been screaming at each other all afternoon– that, if nothing else, tells me they are as normal as children come. And, against all odds, sitting in our playroom right now there’s a three storey, pastel–decored little girl’s dream house I constructed all by myself, like a lonely elf the night before Christmas. Because Santa promised my Bump a dollhouse for Christmas Day. And, come high water or sleep deprivation, adult temper tantrums or 4am; she got one.
None of that is much at all, really; compared to most peo
ple’s celebrations- compared to my own past festivities- it’s nothing consequential. But it will do, for now. Christmas number two of the Strange Unpurple After is over… and all of us survived.
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| Tandem skydives with RedBalloon |
The free-fall was an uncomfortable, bursting spit of adrenaline; ears exploding with pressure, wind chafing and tearing against skin, the salt from the ocean below us stripping all the moisture from your pores. It seemed to go forever. You’ve been told that fall will only last for sixty seconds, just one minute of plummeting toward the surface of the earth. But my tandem instructor– the madman who does this for a living– tells me that if the chute fails to open, it’s just ninety seconds- a minute and a half- before we hit the ground. The last few seconds of free-fall– the roaring density of the air pressure as you tear through it making any verbal communication impossible– are excruciating, the discernible absence of a time keeping device allowing a deep, primal panic setting in. ‘This has taken too long, this has to have been more than a minute, and the chute has not opened, and we are going to die‘.
And then, of course, we don’t die– the instructor pulls the golf ball attached to the rip cord, and the roar is replaced with the most intense inertia. Your body is a rag doll, limbs flailing as you suddenly change direction from down to up, and it takes a moment for your velocity–addled mind to adjust.
As per my status quo when I’m caught up in that greasy mix of trailing adrenaline and sickening relief, I swear like a truck driver at the person who appears to be directly responsible for the overkill of chemical cocktails– the instructor I’m strapped to. While he laughs hysterically as if this is his favorite part of the profession. Which it probably is.
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| Free-fall. |
The float down is amazing, incredible… ecstasy. It’s the most incredible view I’ve ever seen, presented with the full tableaux of its surroundings. Sounds, scents, the movement of a populace below you… it’s intensely real. I’m sharply aware of feeling alive right now… just. It’s alarming what it takes to break through the numbness.
My instructor is gorgeous, tall and tanned with sun bleached hair. His American accent causes him to naturally pronounce my name ’Law–ree’. He walks up to me, shakes my hand and introduces himself. “My name’s Tony.” I stare at him for a second. Life, serendipity… these things rarely surprise me anymore. “Of course it is.” I answer bluntly, and the instructor looks at me oddly. As he should.
But Tony is good fun, thinks of himself as a comedian; and it all just adds to the feeling I’ve had since this sky dive was tentatively booked for December. This is a cleansing, something ritualistic. My husband is here with me… but something about floating down through the clouds, through a whole level of stratosphere… it’s leaving him there, too.
My Tony had been skydiving just a few months before we met, and desperately wanted to go again. I meant to, planned to, send him on another jump for a future birthday. One of those dozens I was positive he had left, we had left.
But I swore blind I’d never, ever go with him. F*ck that. Jumping out of a plane, not my style at all.
I’m a different person, now. I confused myself with how zen I was on Tuesday, strapped to a different Tony, climbing through the air in a tiny plane. Reality only really kicked when the roller door slid open and I took my eyes off it for just a few seconds… only to look back and discover that half the people who had been on plane were already gone, silently flinging themselves into the atmosphere below.
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| A tiny tin can full of people. |
Halfway into our floating, heavenly descent– once I’ve stopped flinging obscenities into the wide blue sky sky around us– Tony hands me the loops attached to the parachute canopy and shows me how to steer. Pull one down toward your waist, bank left; tug at the other and you veer to the right. Pull both evenly down in front of you and suddenly you stop, a sense of quickly buffered, blunted air pressure caught in fabric above you. And, just for a moment, you are suspended in mid air, crystallized above the earth, a perfect sense of nothingness and nowhereness.
It was the most amazing, weightless, almost celestial feeling I’ve ever experienced. Forget trapeze– this is flying. It almost– almost– made that initial free-fall through the blistering cold worth it.
Minute after we’ve left the plane we’re cruising toward the drop zone, and theground rushes up to meet us alarmingly quickly. I use neglected core muscles to pull my legs upwards, lift my heels as high off the ground as possible in order to land safely. And I laugh, exuberant, almost ready to kiss the
ground I’m standing upon. Proud of myself, but in an oddly muted way I know all too well- aware that I’m using this experience to feel alive, rather than enhance the essence of living.
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| The most amazing view |
But it’s something, and that’s better than nothing. In terms of a whole body experience that crackles with adrenaline and exhilaration, what they say is true– you really cannot get anything more intense than a skydive. Guaranteed, this is something you will remember until you are old and grey and surrounded by granbabies, should you be blessed enough to exist for that span of time.
The lovely Iznaya commented, via BookFace, “You just keep happening to life.”, and I take that as the highest possible compliment. It even feels that way, sometimes– as though I’m repeatedly smacking life in the face, again and again. Just when it expects me to go quietly.
Just when it expects me to lay down and rest.
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I know, I keep saying that… but really, that’s what lies at the truth of the matter. Mention that you’re driving up there, tell a story of some odd sight you’ve seen amongst the winding roads, tiny creeks and sandstone caves; and I can almost guarantee you that someone will chime into the conversation with that very sentiment– “You never know what you’ll find on the Putty Road.” Which will be accompanied, probably, with a small bemused smile and a slight shake of their head. This long, lonesome drive was the route we built our Brilliant Road Trip around.
There is just over one hundred kilometers of the main stretch of road, no mobile phone reception, no service stations. Houses are very few and far between– the numbers on letter boxes seem to jump from 340 to 8769 with alarming lengths of isolation between them. The Grey Gum Cafe (last food for 66 km’s, or so the sign says) boasts not only air conditioning that barely tempers the 35 degree heat, (and I say a small prayer of thanks for the air efficient iciness) but also wifi. Which apparently hasn’t been working for a week or so now. And I find myself thinking “How do you live up here…?”
At the same time, I get it. The air is crisp and clean, the sky seems to stretch for miles. Craggy bush rock cliffs are dotted with precariously perched gum trees clinging to sandy soil with an astonishing persistence. The rocky cliffs are pocked with caves, large and small. One huge cliff we cruise past sports dozens of them, room for a bustling community of hidden rock people, and I, so briefly I barely realize it, wish my son years older so stopping the car and facing uncharted bushland on a trek to find a network of natural caves was yet another bizarre activity his mum could strong arm him into. Low topography and lush greenery provide visual markers for the veins and rivulets that make up the Wollemi’s knotted river system; and we pass over rickety bridges with signage that announce the names of tiny creeks, only to be unable to see any water– just a deep, green crevice that winds and swirls back across paddocks or bends out of sight behind lichen–coated canyons. (The infamous Wollemi pine was, they say, discovered quite by chance by someone who happened to be… canyoning. The bravery)
The thing about the Putty Road is, it takes you completely by surprise every few kilometers. While you’re still marveling over the last oddity– an overgrown, abandoned junkyard,perhaps, or the vibrant Batman symbol painted on corrugated iron and attached to tree on a bend in the road, not a driveway or property to be seen nearby– you’ll suddenly spot something else by the roadside, a licker of oddity at one hundred clicks. The remains of a an ancient house, only the chimneys and foundations surviving; a face painted onto a tree; a set of massive brick and stained glass gates adorned with pristine white crucifixes and flanked by acres of manicured lawn.
Auntie Mickey pulls the Elantra over as we spot, a few hundred metres ahead, what seems to be a whole abandoned village, there are so many buildings set at varying depths back from the road, but too clustered together to have been even the smallest of towns. One of my BookFace likers suggested that perhaps it was abandoned camp, and the first two or three buildings– those closest to the road– do look like dormitories, rectangular and squat with rows of doors on one side. One structure seems to have been, maybe, a store at some point in the past, a tiny one like the Grey Gum, with ice creams and milkshakes and friendly staff who know all the truck drivers and tradies that take this road on a regular basis.
But the further in I venture, through knee high bracken fern spring from sandy, gritty soil (snakes… it’s so hot today, and my God I hate snakes with a seething, slinking disgust), the more out of sync the ruins become. A tiny house, a low lying shed. A car with its paint still intact, but huge clumps of moss growing from the windows rotted rubber seals. A rusted out bus– not the one we’ve set out looking for– is flanked by occasional piles of metal oddments rusted a deep ocher red, stark contrasts to the oceanic fields of short, scratchy green ferns. Beyond the bus, over a rise, is what appears to be a bunker, next to rusted out water tank on creaky, rotting wooden stilts. There’s another tiny cottage, and this one seems older again, a small verandah off it’s one room, climbing ivy threaded through the unboarded window. Leading past the tiny house (someone’s first home, quite possibly, the home someone’s first baby was bought into the world in) is a corridor through the scrub and pitted piles of metal debris. It leads to a graveyard, an elephant ceremony full of rust–ridden, disintegrating cars. Every make and model, vans and sedans and old steel cruisers in varying faded shades of original paint, only the tiniest sparkling tinkles of chrome left among them.
Returning to the car and looking back into this deserted camp–place, everything appears green– the moss and lichens and moulds coating the walls of each building are almost the same murky color of pond water brimming with tadpoles as the bushland that’s slowly eating them. It’s as if the entire place is trying to camouflage itself, to disappear back into the foothills of the Yengo National Park that it’s set in.
There’s a payphone close to the road, next to the car with my sleeping child inside. Taped to the payphone’s perspex outer wall it is a hand written missing persons poster, with a photo of a man about the same age as me. Last seem a few weeks ago, somewhere on the Putty Road.
“He’s not missing,” says Auntie Mickey, and I know her well enough to know she’s only half joking, “he’s somewhere in there.” She nods towards to the maze of overgrown life I’ve just returned from, and I shiver involuntarily. She may just have a point.
Back to the car.
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| The Wo-Man. |
It’s maybe another twenty minutes of driving before we turn a corner and, entirely unannounced, a massive, ,gleaming silver sculpture comes into view. “Oh wooooowwwwwww…..” breathes the Chop from his backseat view, just woken up and totally entranced by this completely bizarre spectacle, exactly the way I hoped he would be. This is the relatively new pinnacle of the Putty Road drive– the burnt out Halway RoadHouse, now home to the Wo–Man. And the rather eccentric bloke named Dave who built the steel him. Her. It. Whatever.
The HalfWay RoadHouse was, only ten years ago, the only petrol station on the Putty Road and– oddly enough for a structure that houses litres upon litres of fuel beneath it– the skeletons of not only the roadhouse but even the bowsers remain. The front facade of the building and the covered petrol filling area remain, as do most of the interior walls. But the roof is entirely missing, and the edges of everything that does remain are charred and blackened, one large room missing almost it’s entire wooden floor.
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| The RoadHouse, from the inside, with the Wo-Man in the background. |
Not that Dave seems to mind. He bought this place two years ago, he tells us, and is gradually, slowly fixing it up as he goes. For now, he mans a small shelter tucked into the side of the roadhouse. He’s got an Esky full of cold drinks for a dollar a pop. And he sells sausage sandwiches and bacon and egg rolls that he cooks, as you watch, on the barbecue he has welded himself from scrap metals. The barbecue has a horse head for a chimney.
There’s more metal creatures and sculptures dotting the picnic grounds next to Dave’s barbecue and the ghost of the roadhouse– a massive spider, twin Futurama Benders, a family of emus with a plaque that reads ’emulation’. Beyond the picnic ground is a huge field that Dave tells us is filled with roos on dusk. He also points out his house, a tiny one room shanty shed. And his boat– a massive, sixty foot sail boat dry docked at the top of a mountain, behind a burnt down building.
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| ‘Emulation.‘ |
We chat and take photos and Chop examines an exquisitely crafted metal hand and a troop of squat, welded Ned Kelly’s, their bellies and helmets made from cut down LPG tanks. As we’re leaving– really, once you’ve taken in the brilliance of a fifty wo–man gleaming silver in the afternoon sunshine, there’s not much to do here but relax and shoot the breeze–Dave hugs us goodbye and reminds us to pass the word on, to tell people about his metal artwork and his business atop the Putty Road. “And, if you know any ladies who’d fancy coming to live out here… let them know, too”. And with that sentence I get a funny pang. It’s the first time the dusky, ethereal, weirdly romantic cataract is removed from my mind’s eye since our car pulled to a stop here. The whole place suddenly seems just a bit lonely, like clouds coming over to chill a warm summer’s day. It tugs at me, desolate and sad.
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| The Chop in Dave’s backyard, with the giant sail boat behind him. |
Before we hit the road again, I make inquiries of Dave regarding this bus, the one I know is down here somewhere. The one were looking for, an urbexing holy grail road tripping. Dave, with the knowledge of a local who enjoys a chat, gives us directions that are accurate almost to the metre. A woman lived there, he tells me, Up until just a few years ago. She had a life set up in that stationery bus, a virtual paradise by a tiny creek. She was ninety four years old when she passed away, and they found her body in the creek that runs just metres from the vehicle in which she lived. The bus has sat there, unclaimed, on what is, I suppose, essentially unowned land, ever since. I’d spotted it, just a flicker of it, as a pillion passenger on the Black Dog Ride… I think. But the bus I remember seeing was pale yellow, not blue like this, and it was parked much closer to the road. Maybe it was a different bus, broken down by a different creek and towed out of the gully by now, six months on from the last time I came through here. Or maybe human memory is just a funny monkey thing, substituting images from it’s stock footage to fill gaps in the internal sequence.
We would have missed this bus entirely, passed by without even knowing it was it was there, especially travelling North as we were. After doing a quick u–turn the mammoth, unmoving was easier to spot… but still barely more than a flash of blue and white in the greenery as you passed by.
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| The bus. |
This bus been vandalized, this funny, almost cheerful vehicle secluded in place where no one lives now on this land that no one really owns. The contents and furnishings of the bus, left behind when their owner died, have been spread across the grassy plateau behind where the bus sits. The ground seems it drop away in levels– the first the road. Parked on the second step down is the bus itself and what was once the small, and seemingly w
ell tended, courtyard that framed it’s two doorways. Another drop in levels, a steeper and higher slide down across damp soil rooted with low–growing foliage and the occasional biting stinging nettle– all three of us cop sharp, sudden burning lashes on our ankles (”Why do they sting?!” Asks my little man through his tears, “Because, honey, it’s to protect themselves. So animals won’t eat them.” “But we weren’t going to eat them!!” “The nettles didn’t know that, baby…”)– and you find yourself at a creek, a trickle of clear water to the left that gathers into a tiny, crystal millpool on the right. I can’t help but wonder where they found her, the lady who was here, and exactly what she would think of her possessions, scattered and scorched and laying about on the ground, with the lush cold climate growth slowly gathering them as its own. I wonder, too, what happened to the dog she must have kept as a pet, the animal who’s dish and bowl still sit on the edge of the vandal’s leftovers. I do hope someone took him home with them.
It’s almost always fascinating, seeing what’s left of something’s life that stopped, one way or another, not long ago. The bus is gutted. It’s traditional fittings– seats, steering wheel and so forth– were, I suspect, pulled out by it’s rightful owner before she installed her own creature comforts, the ones that now lay abused and disrecpted over what once was her space, her tiny garden. We spot a mattress, a microwave, a chest of drawers, glass bottles, a radio. The remains of a small portable pool, mostly stil intact but the walls sagging sadly inward– it still has a hose running into it, and it’s only later, after we’ve driven away, that it occurs to me that we didn’t look to where exactly the other end of the hose was connected– surely, there was no running water to this makeshift caravan in the middle of nowhere…?
Looking back at the bus from a distance, my imagination fills in the blanks, sorts the visual clues, to spot where a veggie patch once resided– a metal trellis for climbing beans and snow peas still exists, suspended between the trunks of two close together gum trees. And the bus itself was a permanent fixture here– it wasn’t intended to be moved, it seems for quite a while. There’s a concrete step at the front door, it’s formation also, oddly, still intact. The back door also features a concrete step, but not so conventionally made– this step is not molded carefully like its fraternal twin. This step simply three bags of concrete mix stacked atop each other. They’ve been here so long, exposed to so many freezing Hunter winters and so much run–off from torrential rain pour being pulled down toward the creek, that they’ve solidified completely, still in their original bagged shape.
There’s even a car here, in this unofficial allotment, parked a little while up from the bus, on a concrete slab to prevent it becoming bogged in the same heavy wash–off rains that sent the concrete solid. Nothing it a rusted out body atop a chassis remains. It’s obviously been parked here much longer than the bus. I stare at it, entranced, realising there is a set of rusted number plates still attached.
We hop back in the Elantra, even the Chop (blessedly) silent for a little as we continue our cruise along the Putty Road. This isn’t the last time I’m going to be doing this drive, I’m sure of that… I know that before we even turn off onto the New England Highway. There are so many more places to explore here. I’m to even sure why, but this road is a very strange place. It’s got so many secrets to be found.
{ 6 comments }
We seem to be missing a few words, in the English language. Other cultures have developed words and phrases specifically for feelings and events that we only vaguely identify.
‘Esprit d’ escalier‘ is French for “Dammit, that would have been the perfect come back but it is far too late to say it now!” (erm… literal translation “the spirit of the stairway“. I don’t know why, either.) The Scots use the word ‘tartle‘ to describe that awkward moment when you’re expected to introduce someone but can’t remember their name. And any good Simpsons fanatic knows that ‘schadenfreude‘ is German for shameful joy- the bitter happiness that comes from watching another fail.
And, as Homer says.. those Germans have a word for everything.
I discovered ‘weltschmerz‘ recently, and it’s a word I’ve been seeking for years now. It describes that feeling I’ve helplessly tried to articulate previously here- a depression caused by the weight of the sadness of the world.
The feeling of a whole Universe spread around you, and everyone suffering, everyone hurting.. and wondering what in God’s name the point of living is, if everyone just hurts and then dies again.
I like to name things, clarify them… there is a strange power in finding the perfect word for what you mean. The pen that is mightier than the sword.
Speaking of words…. I write and publish, on average, about 4000 of them a week. And I do my best to weigh every one of them, to own everything that rests on the pages, and I try to be aware of what I’m saying in the spaces, too- or what I’m neglecting to say at all.
But words are funny things… one of them, written late at night (massive) changes the whole context of what you were trying to say. (Mind your language… we’ve played this game before, folks.)
I’ve been meaning to write a post about how strange it is, being Professional Blog Lori, answering emails, submitting posts, putting myself out there. Rejection of any form In Real Life crumples me into a snotty mess of warm tears. Rejection online, professionally, barely causes me to blink- it doesn’t seem to bother me, and I don’t know why; but it’s such a relief, to have a small space in my conscious mind that isn’t a pressure cooker all the time.
But yesterday, I just didn’t have my thick skin on. As Maree says… it’s a heavy thing to carry. If I don’t feel like I need it, I put it down. Some comments felt like an actual physical dull thud in my abdomen.
I’m tempted to write a whole new post about breastfeeding, outline my beliefs (again)… but, quite frankly, I’m bored with it and can’t be fucked right now.
So I’ll just say… as someone who is fortunate enough to earn money off my writing, I’m more than aware of how careful I should be with every word I type, and how much potential scrutiny it’s under.
You will have to forgive me if, out of four thousand words a week, I fuck up one or two of them.
And now, onto the words I didn’t fuck up.
As part of my bid to dominate the world through pro blogging, I’ve contributed to an e-book. It has exclusive stories- meaning the only place you can read them is in the book– from all the best Aussie parenting bloggers; and includes such topics as school lunches, replying “In a moment, dear” to inanimate but noisy toys, falling in love with your newborn and quenching the urge to strangle your three year old.
Things They Didn’t Tell You is $.4.99, which you could probably raid from your kid’s money boxes right now if they’re at school, and all profits raised go toward getting a different type of kid to a different type of school altogether- Foundation 18 is an Aussie funded orphanage in Bali, started from the ground up by the arse kicking Cate Bolt– she’s got a story in the e-book too.
E-book? Check. The only drawback is- I’d actually forgotten all about the somewhat distressing incident I described in the Things They Didn’t Tell You, my memory being like a pair of trendy jeans with rips right up and down the front for things to fall out of; right up until I read it back to myself two weeks ago.
Memories, words, e-books… all those conceptual realities. They are strange and interesting things.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
May 30, 2012 at 1:24 am I'm a german and I must say that I hardly ever heard the word Weltschmerz… but it's such a touching word.
May 29, 2012 at 11:31 pm Lori, look up the German word "sehnsucht". I think this is an even more important word for you to know.
May 29, 2012 at 11:14 pm I guess the nearest in English would be Lifeache, as explained by Leunig…
May 29, 2012 at 7:12 pm its "Weltschmerz"
May 29, 2012 at 1:44 pm Um wow, did I miss something you wrote because I read that post and commented, and I didn't see you writing anything anti-formula. Just that you liked that they had changed the wording from "Breastfeed" to "Breastfeed if you can."
Really people need to get off the wah wah everyone hates a forumla feeder train. It's getting old.
May 29, 2012 at 10:56 am Thanks for standing your ground regarding your previous post. If we wanted to read our own opinion spouted back to us we would read our own blog… Although I have my own opinion on SIDS guidelines I respect yours and the reasons behind it.
Xxrah rah in Melbs
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Hello ladies,
Look at your blog. Now back to mine. Now look at your blog. Now back to mine. Now look at your blog. Now back to mine.
This is the blog your blog could smell like. If you link up to FlogYoBlog Friday.
Or something.
Oh my. I am sorry. I have a thing for the Old Spice guy. Don’t tell anyone. The Man finds him incredibly intimidating. I like that. If you don’t know the Old Spice guy, have you been living under a rock? He’s on a horse. click the link. Get thee to YouTube. Get cool and with-it.
We’ll all wait here a minute while you catch up.
Swandive!! Into the best night of your life!! *Ahem* There I go again. Sorry.
You back? Excellent. Now we can continue.
Someone who evidently shares my love for the Old Spice guy alerted me to this epic awesomeness a few days ago. Watch it. I promise you, your life is not complete until you have watched this clip.
I’ll give you another moment, this time to compose yourself, shall I?
Moo.
*Ahem* Now, before we go on- please, reassure me- it’s not just me, right…? The Old Spice dude (not Grover, really) is a dead set spunk…? Or am I getting old or warped or something…? (Remember, if you can’t say anything nice, please swandive off.)
As usual, enough of my drivle. It’s FlogYoBlog Friday. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, all the finer points can be found here.
Get ready, get linky… flog!!
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May 21, 2013 at 12:52 pm Just by running this simple test, you can drastically improve the profits of your trading system.
The rules are that you must be the creator, it must
be handmade, it cannot be food or beverages, you have to
submit a quality photo of your work, it must be brand new (not used), and your work will be reviewed for quality.
And so i think playing computer games is something that brings a thrilling time and pleasure to a
lot of people , doesn’t matter on what console they are playing (Play Station, Xbox 360 or simply laptop computer).
Charles recently posted…Charles
November 6, 2010 at 1:20 am Yes, I've seen it – I love grover!
November 6, 2010 at 12:05 am He looks nothing like me
November 5, 2010 at 9:15 pm You are too funny! Im a huge fan of both the sexy and the spoof versions – and by association, your blog post :0)
November 5, 2010 at 9:09 pm What a nuts advert! We have not got that one in the UK! Mich x
November 5, 2010 at 8:42 pm November 5, 2010 at 6:21 pm sorry but the spice man is MINE!!! he is too hawt! I love sesame street version too, they do heaps of parodies
November 5, 2010 at 6:07 pm Moo! That Grover clip is hilarious! Love the OSG's work.
November 5, 2010 at 1:54 pm I don't know, I can't get over the fact that the Old Spice guy would smell like a horse. Is that wrong?
November 5, 2010 at 12:45 pm Mmmmmm, Grover!
November 5, 2010 at 10:05 pm Is it a little freaky that I got no 69?
November 5, 2010 at 11:03 am That video is hilarious!
November 5, 2010 at 10:13 am I'm on a horse!
November 5, 2010 at 10:09 am Yep, he's the kind that you dive into, but Grover is pretty awesome too
November 5, 2010 at 9:26 am Go Old Spice Guy! Sorry for blatant plugging, but I had an address change and I want people to be able to find me!
Here I go again… Same blog, different address:
November 5, 2010 at 9:08 am I LOVE the Old Spice Guy. He is amazing! And Grover, well, he's pretty fantabulous too… have you seen the pro-gay marriage one too? That's good and certainly makes a point. Now, back to FYBF… Have a great week! xx
November 5, 2010 at 8:51 am I never get tired of the Old Spice Guy or the funny Grover take on it all.
Saw that in a theatre with my husband and like most men, he didn't get it.
November 5, 2010 at 8:08 am I have heard the name "old spice guy" bandied around a fair bit lately but only just youtubed it now. Thank you – funny and quite yummy really.
grover however has been on repeat 17 times this morning because my son thinks it's hilarious.
November 5, 2010 at 7:58 am Yes, yes, YES! Oh, sorry… was thinking about the OSG. x
November 5, 2010 at 7:40 am you make me laugh. charmaine
November 5, 2010 at 7:31 am erm susie, I think YOU lost or gained a day.. : werid.
November 5, 2010 at 7:15 am LMAO-love the commercials and loved the monster one.
And btw it says Friday november 5th. Nope thursday is november 5th. LOL-lost a day when the clocks changed?
November 5, 2010 at 7:12 am I'm totally going to go fire up our media PC and watch the old spiceon the BIG screen. Mmmmm drool
November 5, 2010 at 6:57 am I can't stop laughing ….lucky I'd finished my cuppa #groverisaspunk #oldspice man what a hunk
November 5, 2010 at 6:46 am I wouldn't kick the Old Spice guy out of bed if he happened to accidentally wander my way.
November 5, 2010 at 6:41 am I only saw this GENIUS yesterday on another blog. Since then, I have told everyone I know about it and some strangers too.
I love Grover's version but the MAN version? Um…yummy!
btw, I am trying to link up to FYBF but I am using a public library computer and for some reason I can't I keep getting a "website blocked" message when I try to post the link. It is making me very stabby.
I guess I flog in spirit only.
November 5, 2010 at 6:27 am Oh no, not for me, I am devoted to Davidoff , havent actually ever bought it, but love it for all the right reasons, lol. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLBw7VTfXVI
November 5, 2010 at 6:16 am I love Grover!
November 5, 2010 at 6:39 am LOVE the Old Spice guy and the Grover one is tops. xo
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I’m not sure if it’s the effect of Melbourne, making me feel like myself again, or if it’s the weather…
Spring has sprung here, it seems. A false spring, I think- I could not be that lucky. It’s going to get cold again. That’s the way life works.
Whatever it is, the numb bubble I’ve been living in since January has popped, leaving sticky shreds of sadness over everything that close to me.
The beach is no comfort, it justs hurts my heart. All I can think is there is someone missing here, someone who should be feeling the sunshine on his back and the wrmth in the air.
Instead, he’s out there, floating, in the ocean. And it’s cold out there, I know, I dipped my feet in the water just today…. somewher out there, it’s always cold.
Suddenly, all these things I was afraid of forgetting…. I can not get away from them.
I hear Tony’s voice in my head, talking to me, talking to our children. I heard him today, so proud of his son, who is toilet training hiself with minimal assistance from his mother….
It takes me by surprise, my children growing. Time passing.
The things Tony has not born witness to, piling up.
Why can I feel him so close, suddenly? It hurts. This hurts, more than being numb.
I’ve gone from months of not crying, a dry spell, to crying every day.
My internal voice has changed. Up until now, when I thought about my husband, a little voice in my head would scream to stop, that he was dead and he meant to leave me, he never loved me at all.
Something has changed. Now, I think of my husband and that little voice still screams ‘Stop!’, but only because it hurts. Because he loved us, and he should be here, watching his children grow… we should be a family still.
My Plan B, it’s not working. I am so desperately lonely here. When I came here, it was craving solitary healing and time away from everyone.
And now, I’m craving family and freinds and familiarity. To be closer to the people who love me, and my children, to be cosseted, if people will cosset me….
The anxiety attacks I used to suffer from, the hyperventilating, whooping panic attacks that have been so strangely absent since Tony passed away… they are back, almost every afternoon at 3 o’clock….
It’s the time of day Tony would have been home, you see. Would have walked in through our sunny back kitchen doors and given me a kiss and a hug, and I would have asked him about his day. We’d discuss the beautiful weather, how nice it was, how much we were looking forward to warmer nights and later daylight… our favorite time of year, when we’d sit together in our backyard courtyard and discuss our lives and kids….
And he’d delight in his children waking, take them swimming in our spa while I took an hour or so to myself.
And spring, this weather… it makes the memories so damn real, I can cut myself with them.
Fuck.
Right now… maybe the shock is wearing off. Maybe I’ve just un-numbed myself. Whatever.
But right now, I miss everything so much- my husband, my friends, my family, my life as it was…. I’m bleeding on the inside.
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{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
August 7, 2011 at 2:55 am hugs and love
August 6, 2011 at 11:03 pm Do you think you're ready to make connections, where you weren't before? I mean, I have no idea, but I'm wondering if it'd help?
August 5, 2011 at 6:03 pm <3
Fucked if you do, fucked if you don't huh?
August 5, 2011 at 4:38 pm no words, just a big squishy hug xx
August 5, 2011 at 4:23 pm I'm so sorry Lori. Grief is fucking hard work and there is little anyone can do but wade through it. Urrrgh. Sending you hugs.
August 5, 2011 at 4:07 pm Two things. Firstly, big big big LOVE to you. Secondly, I have no idea what cossetting means so am off to find out. xxxxxx
August 5, 2011 at 4:06 pm Sending warmth and love to you, Lori.xxxx
August 5, 2011 at 3:58 pm Sweetheart. Love love love, cossetting, love and more love. Wrapped up tight. XOXOX
August 5, 2011 at 3:58 pm The bottom fell out of my world between 8-12 months after Greg died. I went from coping to not coping. REALLY not coping. and I'm a coper. I have A1 mental health according to my psych, but I was a borderline D last summer.
I still hate birthdays and Christmas because they are just wrong and my mood takes a dive near those days. …
But that passed as well. I'm at 17 months out and life is …. OK. Not numb. Not crying ALL the time. But OK.
August 5, 2011 at 3:58 pm "Big squeeze" is how my daughter cheers me up. Here's a cyber squeeze for you… wish we could do more. PJ..xx
August 5, 2011 at 3:55 pm I'm sorry I haven't commented for a long while.
I'm reading, every post, every step of the way – just not feeling like I have anything helpful to say.
But please know that I am sending thoughts, and love, and healing energy your way. And wishing you peace, even for a little while, in this living nightmare you are surviving.
xxx
August 5, 2011 at 3:49 pm New seasons can bring with them the sharpest of memories. Can only imagine the jarring hurt, the fears, the pain. Only hope is that losing the numbness is making way to baby steps onwards, scary as that may be. And as always your blogging friends walk along side you every step of the way x
August 5, 2011 at 3:48 pm just big hugs and lots of prayers xx
August 5, 2011 at 3:29 pm Still here, still loving you & still willing to cosset as much as you need.
Love, love & more love xxx
August 5, 2011 at 1:33 pm Your story is a very sad one. In reading all the above comments you are showered in love and concern. May that help you in some small way…
August 5, 2011 at 11:27 am Echoing the others in the comment thread who express the love and caring that may help you when you feel rotten, I am so sorry this happened to you. It was a horrible event for which you will pay your whole life; I wish that weren’t so but the truth is that you will never forget. Hopefully the ups and downs will smooth out a bit as time passes. If I could reach you I would hug you and the kids.
August 5, 2011 at 8:29 am I didn't lose a husband Lori, so this may mean nothing. But I lost a 43 year old mother who lived with us, so a part of our everyday life.
And for me, it was around the 7 or 8 month mark that the shock wore off and the real pain set in for a while. The reality.
And the milestones. Every new thing Alexander learned (she died when he was 11 weeks old), every single thing, in the back (or not so far back) of my head was accompanied with "Stop. That's another thing she's missing".
This isn't advice or helpful or comforting. Just saying I understand, at least a tiny bit. I wish I had something better for you. I wish I could tell you it's ok. But it's not. There's nothing ok about Tony being gone, so there's no comfort.
So all I have is an "I'm so sorry. I think about you every single day, without fail. I have thought about you every single day since that first plea on your blog. I will continue to think about you every single day. I have no doubt of that".
My love to you, Lori. xxxx
August 5, 2011 at 4:28 am *HUGS*
August 5, 2011 at 1:50 pm Oh Lori, I am so torn for you – To be numb mean to get through each day but to feel again, process it all may mean that you are another step forward in the grief process. I have no wisdom for you but I am here for you in any way you may need, even if just for a visit one day to break the loneliness for a little while x
August 5, 2011 at 3:21 am Hi Lori,
I just recently found your blog, though now I can't remember through which other blog or maybe randomly, who knows, and I've now read almost every post you've written, and this is my first comment to you. I'm happy to finally speak to you.
I have never been through anything like this and cannot say that I understand or know what it feels like, but my heart goes out to you.
Although, as I understand it, grief takes on many forms, and to me, you're allowed to feel and express anything and everything you want. I hope you don't feel ashamed for you ups and downs of emotions and contradictory feelings about your new home, your family, or anything else. Feel free to let the tears run, as long as you'd like.
I wish there were words to comfort you, but know that I am sending love from the good ol' U.S. of A., chock full of hugs and warmth. xoxo
August 5, 2011 at 11:48 am Like some of your readers have said, crying is good for you. Think of yourself as a flower and your tears are watering the flower so you can blossom and bloom.
If that doesn't ease your pain, your bleeding, just keep breathing. In and out, in and out….
Thinking of you often and send you loads of love. Lori, you are worthy of being happy. xx
August 5, 2011 at 1:05 am Love, love and more love. xoxoxoxo
August 5, 2011 at 12:14 am Lori, maybe the reason you can suddenly feel him close by you now is that he is? I've heard that when a person passes there's a period of healing time for them and then they return to watch over you….I like to believe this is true. So please, in your heart, believe that your Tony is still with you in spirit, watching you and your babies and everything they do and learn. He might not be there physically and that hurts so much, but I'm sure he's there in spirit and not missing a single thing.
HTH *hugs*
August 5, 2011 at 12:14 am Oh Lori, I'm so sorry, Sweetie. I wish there was more I could do. I feel so helpless and my heart breaks for you. What I do know is that believe it or not, you will get through this. I know it's hard, but keep going. If you have to cry, just cry. If you're going to have a panic attack, prepare for it.
(I used to have really bad panic attacks that would last for hours, and I could sometimes pinpoint when they were going to happen, like a feeling or an aura would indicate that it was going to happen shortly. I would call my pastor or a friend that I could count on to talk me through it. Sometimes, I would have them in public. One time, I was in a restaurant, and ran and sat by the doors, leaving my family at the table, and a young man at the counter where people paid upon leaving talked me through it, just told me stories and got my mind off of what was happening to me. I was so thankful.)
Call someone you can count on to talk with you during the episode. Another tactic that can help during a panic attack is to focus on something. Some people concentrate on a scent (something you like, but not anything that will stimulate nervousness, such as coffee).
A smooth stone is another technique that can help. It will give you something to do with your hands.
When I panic, I usually try to lay down in a cool and comfortable area of my house. If there's a place you feel more safe or comfortable inside your home, if you can, go in that room or area, and take your phone or whatever else you need. (Sometimes during a panic attack, I'm afraid to leave the area I'm in. One time, this happened without my phone and I couldn't call for help. Very bad feeling.)
If all else fails, know that you have a network of friends here at rrsahm who care about you and who have been there through each and every post at one time or another. We're all here for you if you need us.
August 4, 2011 at 11:16 pm it is so hard when the numb fades and you can feel your grief, your loss, your pain so strongly. i am so sorry
August 4, 2011 at 10:48 pm And the next stage of mourning begins… Hugs to you Lori. xx
August 4, 2011 at 10:27 pm I wish I could cosset you. I mean properly, not this cyber-cossetting business that feels quite inadequate. xxxxxx
August 4, 2011 at 9:09 pm Its the pendulum swinging wildly babe. One extreme and then the other, on and on until with time it inevitably slows and finds its equilibrium.
Eventually you will find your equilibrium. In the meantime I think that feeling this is far preferable in the long run than feeling numb. If you are numb, you cant process your feelings and you cant move forward.
As much as it hurts, I think this un-numbing is a positive thing. 6 months after a trauma is a fairly standard time for feelings surfacing, triggers appearing and lots of self-questioning.
I'm so sorry you are missing everyone and feeling so alone. I hope you remember that you are not alone, you can get on the intertubes and there will always be someone here who will cosset you, from a distance.
August 4, 2011 at 9:06 pm Sending love. xxxx
August 4, 2011 at 9:00 pm oh Lori – hold on. I think grief ebbs and flows. Crashes and then recedes. I'm afraid changes (even just the change of season) will be hard for awhile – but I know you'll get through. hold on.
lots of love.
August 4, 2011 at 8:46 pm Hiya, I know it feels like utter shit at the moment but the unnumbing (is that actually word?!) is good. I like what your friend Vicky has said and it is all to true. The emotions are better out than in and you will get through it. You have got this far already. Take care of yourself xxx
August 4, 2011 at 8:44 pm In my time of the great sadness my best friend said to me, as I cried yet another bucket load of tears,
"Salt water is healing, be it from swimming in the sea or the tears that you shed."
Cry darling, let the tears flow, let them wash over you.
While we – your cyber family- aren't there with you physically, I know that we are there with you in spirit, wrapping our arms around you, holding you while you shed those tears. you are not alone.
xxx
August 4, 2011 at 8:43 pm Big fat squishy hairy hugs Lori xxx
August 4, 2011 at 8:37 pm Still wishing you peace. Still my … our wish for you. always an ear here, even if I'm silent.
August 4, 2011 at 8:34 pm I wish I knew something useful to say Lori xx
August 4, 2011 at 8:33 pm Ironic how beautiful warm weather can be such a bitch for memories.
Sending you love, Lori x
August 4, 2011 at 8:27 pm Numb can be a blessing xxx
August 4, 2011 at 8:27 pm We're right here with you xo
August 4, 2011 at 8:26 pm Oh hun.
August 4, 2011 at 9:49 pm I'm going to go ahead and agree with some of your other commenters here – your numbness going away isn't a bad thing. It's the first step to bringing the real Lori back. I can only imagine how much it must hurt, though. Just remember – you're never truly alone. We're all here, doing our best to bear witness and to help you through. Eventually the bleeding will stop. It has to.
HUG!!!!
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You'd better believe it pumpkin!! I AM excited, damn straight lol
Can't wait
Fun! x
Great launch date, can't wait to see xxx
Waiting to see how cool it looks, take care, thinking of you x o x o