Once upon a time there were two sisters: an older one, who knew most things and a younger one, who learned everything she knew from her sister. The older sister had lots of rules. She loved them. Rules made the messy world straight, rules kept everything to time and they made her feel happy. But no matter how much the younger one tried, she couldn’t quite keep to the rules. She tapped out of time to the music and ran late for the bus. She never sang the melody but would add her own harmonies, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. The older sister thought if the little sister just tried harder, she would be able to live by the rules. But she couldn’t.

The older sister had a red tricycle with a wagon on the back. Every day, she would ride around the lemon tree in their backyard on her red tricycle. She liked the younger sister to ride in the back so they could enjoy the journey together. But as the younger sister got bigger, she no longer fit in the wagon. Still, the older sister insisted, so she would curl her legs up under her chin and squash herself in and watch from behind as her sister pedaled her way around the backyard. The older sister was pleased and the younger sister was glad to make her sister happy, even though it hurt to squash her legs in, she was scared she might topple over and fall out and she couldn’t really see anything from the wagon.

One day, she had a graze on her leg and didn’t want to squash into the tricycle. She argued with her sister and her sister’s face grew red. Mum came out and asked what the fuss was about. The older sister explained that she wanted to ride around the garden together and Mum said, ‘That’s so sweet, let me get my camera.’ Now the little sister had no choice. The older sister smiled sweetly for the camera as she pedaled past, but the little sister, whose graze was hurting and whose legs were aching, couldn’t smile. She had a look of suffering, a look of defeat and a hint of defiance in her face.

The photo became a family favourite, the two sisters doing something together, one having a ball and the other grimly surviving. Everyone laughed at the little sister’s pudgy little body, the rolls of fat in her neck and her sulky face. The little sister never forgot the feeling of being pushed into the red wagon, knowing she didn’t fit, and having to do it anyway.

And because of that, one night when her parents and her sister were asleep, she stole the family photo album, found the photo and hid it in her sock drawer.

Until finally, one day, her family was looking through the photo album and wondered where that photo had gone. The little sister said nothing about where the photo was. ‘I hated that photo,’ the little sister said, and her family was very surprised.

It’s the close of the day and I’m already wrestling with those all too familiar messages that allow me to dismiss the call and the urge to write. It’s now a deeply embedded, well-practiced manoeuvre. One that I know doesn’t give me any satisfaction.

And yet – after all that I’ve experienced today – a day that came to me as gift – the temptation to let the old stuff have its way could, and might easily defeat me.

Except that Dev threw out a challenge to write something and send it to her tonight, and I took her up on this – knowing even as I heard myself say “I will” that I would struggle to follow through.

In that moment there was a bit of wind, perhaps euphoria, filling my sails after a day at the Gunners Writing Masterclass. But there was something more. And this was the depth of feeling I sensed in the recognition Dev and other people in the class gave to Helen’s gift. This acknowledgement startled me.

I loved that the gift Helen gave was, so thoughtfully, a gift just for me. A gently humoured encouragement from a wonderfully gifted and most impressive young woman to her mother-in-law. I know how much she savours words and how elegantly she uses language, gifts inherited from her own mother, and gifts she is passing on to her children.

But it was your insight into the deeper meaning behind this gift, and what it says about the giver and her relationship with me that shook me out of what I can see now was form of complacency. Hearing strangers react in the way that you did startled me into accepting that I am loved; loved for who I am; loved without any strings, demands or expectations. Loved even though I’m a “Gunna”.

Well – I’ve decided that, as of tonight I’m a “recovering Gunna”! I’ve decided it’s time to begin chipping away at the layers and layers of defences that I’ve allowed to accumulate over many, many years. And to make the most of this exciting gift and grab this opportunity to, at last, begin to tell my story!

“And here it is” he says to himself, shuffling the piano stool closer to the keys, knees almost touching the shiny black wood. Hands outstretched, two quick right left stretches of the neck and a long breath in.
Left hand octaves. Little finger and thumb holding down for four beats before changing. Laying a picnic rug of sound for the treats of the right hand to be arranged on.
“Here it is” a simple tumbling tune that holds no meaning bar that which the listener attaches to it. A ball falling down a flight of stairs.
And he’s crying now because it’s the best thing he’s ever done and it’s still an ants’ description of a sky scraper.
The right and left hand and the tumbling melody are like everything he’s ever attempted. Good but not… Brilliant.
He’s crying because he’s scared of this ordinary beauty. Scared of being satisfied with its round edges and pleasantness.
The tune revolves, coming back to the beginning which is really the middle which becomes the end.
It revolves like the hands of a child’s watch or… The moon.
He’s pretty messy now. Face covered with salt and snot and the sobs become giggles because who does he think he is? Who the hell is he to decide how good it is? How worthy? How meaningful?
The left hand makes its stately way through the pattern and the right hand runs about its legs like a puppy.
And that’s it.
That’s enough.
He wipes his eyes with the back of his hands and digs a tissue from his pocket.
“There it is” he says out loud to no one.

The man was going to a Turkish barber in a nondescript northern German town. He had heard that in this establishment, he could get all of his hair needs met, right down to his nasal hair, and cheap at that. Not that he particularly wanted his nasal hair messed with. As he was about to enter the place he, literally, ran into an expensively dressed young woman who was so intensely staring at her mobile phone that she paid scant attention to either him, or the uneven footpath, partly covered in dirty, icy snow. The action of the physical meeting of the two bodies caused the aforementioned phone to fly out of her hand and into a pile of less dirty, but no less icy snow, now on the side of the footpath. Unfortunately, both parties dived for the phone at the same time; the young man out of an apologetic attempt at recovering the situation, and the young woman in an attempt to quickly regain her most important possession, and this resulted in their crashing heads and her falling awkwardly to the ground. In this she was aided by the overly high, spindly heels of her rather white boots.

Every day she tried to talk herself out of wearing these boots, and into something more practical. But as a result of the most uncomfortable and embarrassing situation she currently found herself in, she felt that something more than her head had been knocked. She sat there for a while, no longer trying to reach for her phone, and looked at her shoes- those white boots she was wearing. One day, actually, today, this had to stop. Gingerly she reached down and slowly unzipped each boot. Whilst the young man fussed around, talking rapidly and generally trying to help, she slowly pulled off the boots, and let her feet out into the cold. She slowly wriggled her toes. The young man’s frantic attempts to talk to her made little effect, as they didn’t have his language in common. Still dazed, and in English, she looked up and asked him if he knew where in this town she could find a sensible pair of shoes. And thus, the man never discovered the potential joys of a Turkish barber.

Once upon a time, she thought she understood the ground was solid. That life had an arc, a flow that could be relied upon. Like the rising of the sun and the afternoon sea breeze that moved her mother’s sheets on the line. The air contained the sweet smell of the honeysuckle that grew on the fence along the shipyard. Would it forever hold her in this place, in this moment? A sense of sadness. A feeling of being alone. Of being left. The smell of his aftershave was leaving her, she felt around the back of her neck where his hand had been as he drew her towards the ship porthole to kiss her. He said he would write as soon as he got to Fremantle. She knew everyday, as she walked to the post office to see if there were mail, she would be here again – alone watching the ship move out beyond the headland. She would feel this mixture of loss and anticipation. Fremantle. Fremantle. It was an unknown word, in another language, it was a place she could not know. It was time to be getting back home. There was the normal life of the house to continue. Her mother, her father, the family business. The bigness and smallness of her life – the only arc she had known.

Days alone, amongst the normalness of her life, turned to weeks. Each day she carried the hollow of loss and anticipation somewhere in her chest. He would write. He would write soon. One day, when walking along the cliffs, she thought she saw him, his shoulders, walking along the road into town. She called his name and in her mind she started to run. He Turned. She wasn’t running but standing, fixed, not breathing, her hand in the air. He smiled, but it was not his face, his smile. Embarrassed she dropped her hand and turned. Because of that moment, the next day she couldn’t bring herself to walk the familiar path of her childhood to a town, which was all she knew – her life had gotten smaller.

She’d taken the sheets out of the copper and was adjusting the posts that held the line up. Nick, the young constable from town, appeared at the fence. He looked down at the ground and asked would she come into town. There had been news. But he didn’t really know much about it. If she could just come with him, everything would be explained at the station.

The ground, her new ground, was gone now. Because of that news she would be in black now. She would not know Fremantle. Her hands would grow old here and finally she would be buried on this island, like her mother would be buried here and all the mothers before. Men left the island. They were poor, but a window on the world opened sometimes, just a slither, and it allowed a man to squeeze through if he was game. Sometimes the world just swallowed them whole. Sometimes they found new land, a new place to bring others too. But this would not be her story now.

What does the phrase Fully Sick bring to mind for you? Is it the frightening call of 90’s youths, or some bozo in a KFC ad trying to be cool? Is it outdated? Offensive? Did it make you feel something? I hope so.

Fully Sick is the name of the podcast I’m developing at the moment. I’m a community radio nerd of ten years experience both in broadcasting and pain disorder. You may refer to it as feeling like crap every day or chronic pain. This is not a sad story, but bear with me while I approach my point. Imagine feeling jetlagged every day and then stacking it on your pushbike and rattling your bones. That’s sort of how I feel most days. A few years ago I saw Stella Young’s show at the comedy festival and since then I proudly call myself a crip. Rolls off the tongue far more nicely than the long, boring scientific explanation of what’s going on.

Last winter I had interactions with two separate young women in similar rowboats who asked the pertinent question ‘how the fuck do I get through this day let alone this bullshit winter?’ One woman and I sorted out the woes of the world on a Facebook chat thread, the other I went to visit. We sat in her lounge room with the heater on and gabbed away the afternoon. We both have The Chronic Pains, we’re both pretty young, we’re both in creative fields and have a lot to make and give and bucketloads of kisses (etc.) to dispense. Fuck me if we both didn’t feel like a million bucks after talking to someone who gets it. It was a million miles away from whinging and whining. It was a fizzy, upbeat conversation, ripe with common ground, handy hints, lightning flashes of “I never knew anyone else would understand this weird thought/way I do things/system for living”. I drove away wishing I could bottle that feeling, and badda bing badda boom the podcast was born.

Late last year I started recording. I’ve got footage of conversations with people with skin disorders, mental health issues, painful vaginas, blood clots in the brain, feeling sick and tired all the time for no good reason and autoimmune diseases. I’ve been covered with goosebumps listening to these people as they hit that nail on the head of humanity. I don’t care who you are – we’ve all got something going on that other people don’t see. So what’s the answer? How do we keep going when the wind is blowing us sideways and there’s no way forward?

The one thing everyone ends up saying is that until they learned to give themselves permission to do what really helped, life was miserable.

Let that sink in for a moment. What could you be doing right now, that will help you to feel good? Or human, or healthy, or alive? Why won’t you give yourself permission?

You’re worth it, I don’t even know you but I do know that to be true. Except for you there, puppy murderer. Stop that this instant. You are not tough OR cool.

A lot of people reading this will need to write regularly to feel human. Are you doing that? You may need to hydrate more regularly. Or get into baking to express your creativity. Adopt a dog to have that level of companionship. Do some volunteer work to connect with your fellow whoa-man. Change your career if you’re miserable in your job. Eat more than two meals a day if you’re time-poor and lazy about your own catering situation. Get off the ciggies or the booze if they’re ageing you prematurely and you can feel it in your organs.

The people I’m talking to for Fully Sick have found that giving themselves permission to do things like: Take a hot water bottle to work and use it. Take ten seconds to breathe when feeling the stress rise. Work from home, in bed, in their jimmy jams. Work for an hour then rest for an hour; these choices make the biggest difference in the world. The difference between feeling alive or pushing it and feeling mostly dead and far away down a tunnel of illness. The world/society/Tony Abbott/whoever project this belief that to be young is to be healthy is to be a machine. It can feel embarrassing to need tiny things like this to keep going, so we ignore those needs and get sicker and sicker.

Crips like me can do a hell of a lot and have a lot to offer, as long as we understand what we need to pump it out. We’re not weak and damaged, we’re stronger than you could ever imagine.

Watch this space. Fully Sick will be out there as a podcast sooner rather than later now I’ve had a big kick up the bum from Dev at the Gunnas class!

http://www.joyfulceremonies.com.au

http://jennyojoy.tumblr.com/

jennyojoy@gmail.com

I never did the party thing – here in Melbourne or overseas.

I married at age 19. It was 1991 and it wasn’t exactly common though it wasn’t as uncommon as it is today. My eldest daughter is 18. Deep in my solar plexus I grow heavy if I think of her marrying. Only recently have I ever pondered my mother’s thoughts on my wedding at that age. My daughter is in a place where I have been. I can remember being there. I didn’t doubt myself then – now I’m not so sure. I know less at 44 than I did at 18. I don’t say this as a judgement on her or myself. The things that I thought I knew just no longer seem so concrete. That’s the way it’s been for maybe ten years or so.

I had returned from my first ever solo travel journey at age 33 and I realised that I had returned to a place where I no longer wanted to be. It was really tricky to know that although you still felt love for your nearest and dearest (well my children at least) , it no longer felt like home. I no longer knew where I belonged. It was the first time that I was searching for my home. There was a song popular on the radio with a line “a place like home”. I no longer knew where that was. It took me many many years to make my own “place like home”.

I couldn’t even take any solace in my parental home. They didn’t approve of my actions. He hadn’t physically abused me. He had financially provided for us. My spiritual and emotional growth wasn’t accounted for but that did not feature a tot. I no longer felt welcome in the home of my parents. There was no solace to be found anywhere with friends or family. That was new for me. I never felt so alienated.

So now I’m turning 44 and I no longer feel up to or have a desire to do the party thing – here or overseas. Don’t get me wrong – I like a drink or three as much or more as the next person.

In the recent past, I realised that I was living in the wrong place; somehow it just happened. One thing lead to another and there you go – I was living in a place to which I didn’t belong. Please don’t misinterpret me. I loved my house. I had friends in the local area. There were some great shops, cafes and public transport within walking distance. It’s visually pleasing, mostly quiet and I mostly had good neighbours.  It’s just that I didn’t belong there.

I didn’t feel like they were my people. I often found myself at odds when discussing ideas or issues. The main thrust of my artwork usually was greeted with raised eyebrows and an open mouth. Worse – I found myself censoring what I showed and (here’s the real kicker) even what I created.

It wasn’t where I wanted to be – literally.

So I moved. I upped and cut ties. Left my place of paid employment, changed Pilates class, found a new GP. More than that was I changed how I lived

Now I walk most every day. I listen to podcasts. I create more art and I’m much more experimental with ideas. I go new places. I walk sometimes with purpose and sometimes aimlessly. I drink coffee in cafes I’ve never before stepped inside. I look new people in the eye and have new conversations.

I don’t yet know if I belong here though.

https://www.facebook.com/amanda.kennedy.526438/

http://artbyamandakennedy.blogspot.com.au/