"Australia" Day

      Before I start, I recently made an unwitting but still casually racist mistake responding to a tweet about more women/people of colour being killed in Joker than women/POC directors nominated for best film (one each). I said Sophie didn’t get killed, but forgot about the nurse at the end. I am sorry.

      Hi guys,

      I haven’t gone to write in Parramatta Park in ages. Named after the Burramattagal people of the Darug lands, who fished for eel in the Parramatta River – hence the NRL footy (football) team, the Eels – I was driving through once and saw a person of colour, and had an unbidden, racist thought.

      These things are hell, and I fight them off; I bent this one positive and thought of this man, “You’re welcome in my country.”

      Then I stopped, and realised this isn’t my country at all. This is, was, and always will be Aboriginal land. And here I am claiming it, relatively speaking.

      Many decry the black armband view of history. These people either don’t care, or worse, celebrate the insult of colonialism. They look at January 26, Australia Day –the first day white people

moved to Sydney; the First Fleet landed in Botany Bay on the 21^st – as the day of the invasion. And yes, white people invaded.

      Sure, we have Gov. Phillip, who came to make peace, who ordered his men not to return fire when attacked by men from the Eora, who befriended Bennelong. Yes, still invasive. But not as vicious as the guy called our greatest governor, Lachlan Macquarie – he and his wife are remembered in every Lachlan, Elizabeth, and Macquarie Street in Australia.

      Let’s just say there are more injustices that need apologizing for, and a lot of streets, halls, suburbs, rivers, a shopping centre, and a regional area, that need to be renamed for what he ordered to be done to the traditional custodians – put short, wiping them out

      Yep, you heard me right. I’m pro-Change the Date, or at least change the name of the day. I want the office of Governor General to be an aboriginal office, and the aboriginal voice to parliament – in my view, the speaker of the house and senate should be an officer for the GG.

      I wear that black armband. Come at me, denialists and terra nulliusites. I won’t be standing up for an anthem about a “young and free” ex-colony when it’s actually a murderous, child-stealing icing on a 60,000 year old cake – no matter how much the words “girt by sea” resonate. But change Advance Australia Fair to one that recognizes how old this country is, and keep girt by sea, and I will.

      I guess I wanted to share that traditional custodians have been greatly harmed by white people, some of whom won’t welcome a person of colour to the countries stolen by their forebears. Traditional dance, song, art has been decried. Christiandom has gone so far as to steal kids away to raise in a “traditional” way.

      But people go on and live. The old ways are kept alive. And corroborees, smoking ceremonies, traditional stories, the forebears of modern religion, are as much a celebration of what I call God’s green earth as people who care about keeping the environment clean.

      This modern colonialism, it’s here, let’s claim it and do what we want with it, is 1788 continued. And for that I’ll wear the armband, wish for a better 26th January, and say this isn’t a good one.

      T. M.

Gifts

      Hi guys,

      Well, it’s midday, the sun is over the yard arm, and the gift of Pilsener Urquell is in reach.

      I’ll bet you didn’t know the Pope wanted to ban beer. And if you’ve wondered why King Wenceslas was so good, it’s because he petitioned the Pope not to ban beer.

      Gifts. Golden liquid bread. Reconciliation. Recovery. That sneaky pagan ritual called the Eucharist. Everybody loves to give and receive, but some gifts have a meaning beyond what you’d expect, even if you might spit at them but begrudgingly crawl back. Like me and reconciliation, going from shame to grace again after I messed up my recovery last night following a bad experience.

      Long story short, my boundaries were ignored, it triggered things in my past, and I went and self-medicated. I was going to hide in the bushes and leave church for a week, but I’ll go get myself back in touch with the guy upstairs, and Thursday I’ll share with the group, and see about contacts and sponsors.

      Gifts. Donations to bushfire appeals for people, firies, and koalas. Church goes into Ordinary Time on the back of J’s baptism; while people in affected areas go into a darker time on the back of devastation. I won’t say more, here’s the reflection where I saw this point (scroll to the bottom of page two), but many of us, nones and religious, are doing the self-humbling to serve the human need.

      Sometimes, we don’t feel we need a gift. Sometimes, we don’t feel worthy. Sometimes, we can’t give a gift. Sometimes, we don’t out of spite. And sometimes, we look like we give a gift, but there's strings attached. But receiving a gift with meaning brings us to an amazing place; to give one with meaning, perfect humanity.

      Gifts. Writing. Creativity. A Bipolar 1 brain gives awesome dreams and very strange humour. Okay that’s a curse, too. But I’ve wanted to write since I was in year four, and I believe I am called to write. The talent not to bury, but use with shrewdity for increase.

      As for it, The Ways In continues well. I’m at the fourth last chapter of my final rewrite, bye-bye exuberant, unnecessary dross - see what I did there? Not long to go, and its out into the world. With that done, it’s on to The Ways Out, then a dramatic story idea, a classic Hallmark underdog story, my burner project, and I just had the idea for a slasher story…

      The joys of being a writer.

      Thanks for reading, and as always, have a good one!

      T. M.

And a star shone and led them to... sadness and anger

   Hi guys,

   Didn't think I was going to blog today, or any time soon, but I'm having a dose of the imposed sads and angries. As for progress, 3W re-rewrites proceed slowly, only got another page done today, better than nothing, but its going to be a long slog to pare the writing back. But that's not the issue.

   I'm just back from church in 40 degree C heat. That I couldn't really cool down at church and had a hot car to contend with isn't helping the mood. And it began in sadness.

   Whether you think them helpful or not, I prayed for firies (that's firefighters for non-Aussies) tending our bushfire crisis - that the PM has finally gotten around to showing some leadership over, putting off a buy our coal trip to India. And I prayed for those who've lost lives, homes, livelihoods.

   That made me sad. Not just in the suffering, but in what could be done to minimise that suffering if the PM hadn't ignored expert advice last year predicting this season of crisis, fought by volunteer firies that, in NSW, had their funding cut by 75%. The common denominator? The "better economic managers" who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing... except those of high value.

   Why are we doomed to this nonsense? Why do enough of us back it up, buy into it, fall for BS, or just not give a toss? Either way, I'm still just about in tears, I think a good cry is in order tonight.

   Bit late for the anger, but oh well. And what am I angry about? Well, obstinacy. I have a conjured image from Shopsmas, customers who didn't want to follow my instructions to take another exit - never mind it was the manager's call. I stood my ground, though it was eventually the boss telling me to let them pass.

   Sometimes I don't get customer service, when customers are, well, flawed people like me.

   But it reminded me of my dark point - no matter how much I've sought, asked, begged, told, demanded, screamed for, or could force to the point of pain, there is one thing I'll never get that isn't given by those who make the market, even God, the king that does what they want. Care. And it could very well get darker if religious discrimination gets up.

   Yes, I'm waiting for the "I'm just sharing my faith," mob to arc up with Leviticus and Romans (and any other number of passages that are sometimes not even veiled hatred) - the Books are written by numpties just like us, really - but ignore "love your neighbour," "love each other," "judge not," "those without sin cast the stone," "render unto Caesar," and all that nicety.

   Fair justice. Mercy. Kindness. Going to understand people. Care. And it's killed by those who want the world to meet their needs.

   Yeah, this has gone religious. And it's personal - and it comes with the lament that there's one part of the world I'd like to meet my needs, because it has failed, and I just can't get through to it. Its heavy, and maybe I'm letting it bear me down, and maybe its not the price of caring. But goodness do I want to cry about it all, then go out and stop it.

   I don't know what I expected of this. I don't know if someone's going to have a whinge about my view - for being a bleeding heart lefty, religious nutter, what have you. And I don't know if its helped me.

   But here I am. Dissect, dissolve, and do away with me. Or listen to me and think. Either way, and though it feels empty to say this right now, have a good one.

  T. M.