Away

 

“Ready?’

“Ready!” comes the excited, whispered reply.

I fumble for matches in the warm dark.  The air smells of spices, wood and the sea.  It is filled with the far-off sounds of creaking ropes, splashing waves and the chatter of a thousand languages.

My match flares, then candlelight shines in my daughter’s wide eyes and illuminates a world reeking with mystery and adventure. With huge grins and her small hand clasped in mine we sneak onboard a ship that sails the Seas of the Universe at the speed of imagination (so much faster than boring old light…).

In a land looking suspiciously like a Minecraft Realm we build magnificent castles and dig for emeralds, fighting off zombies and running from skeletons – escaping their arrows with gleeful shouts and sailing on...

We find a place where dragons live with people in huge, deep caverns.  Flying on their backs we whoop with delighted fright as they soar and swoop through the sky, the wind chilling our faces and tearing at our hair.

In a fortress made of huge tree trunks and clay, in the middle of a desert kingdom, we feast on far-away foods and dance with nomads wrapped in their bright, desert cloaks as a sandstorm groans around the walls and rattles the big wooden shutters on the windows.

…and then we’re climbing the tallest tree of a vast jungle to watch rainbow birds fill the sky with noise and colour, joined by a troop of chittering monkeys who sit on our shoulders and steal things from our pockets.

Finally, after sailing through outer-space watching the gas of nebulae curl from our outstretched fingers we arrive, exhausted and happy, at a ramshackle cottage on dunes near the sea.  We curl up on the back porch in a nest of cushions and soft ancient blankets.  After sipping hot chocolate and coffee from chipped old mugs we close our eyes and drift with the sound of the waves.  My little girl falls asleep with her head on my shoulder, one small hand wrapped firmly around my index finger…

………………….

“Hey.  Time to go.” A kick to my foot wrenches me back into hard, electric light - the candlelight had been pushing back a darkness of an entirely different kind.  My daughter’s Mum jerks her head toward the bedroom door.  I carefully extract my shoulder from under my little girl’s head and gently unwrap her fingers from around mine.  With a final kiss to her forehead I fetch my shoes and head out the front door, into Reality.

The Real World is nothing like the one my daughter and I keep in our heads.  In the real world, people fill the seas with rubbish, burn down the jungles, blow up the desert fortresses and kill all the dancers inside.  Stupid fights happen over stupid things.  Diseases kill, pain really hurts and everything can feel hard, indifferent and alien.

Colourful people can be forced into gray, colourless lives; trudging head down on a treadmill year after year until, old and exhausted, they sit in Death’s waiting room watching telly and wondering what happened to their dreams.

It's a place where relationships break and little girls are swept up in events beyond their control, but which hurt them to their core nonetheless.   It grates and screeches around us with all the charm of a fat man flopping on a prostitute’s bed and saying “Come over ‘ere darlin’…”.

I know our world is imaginary.  I know we are supposed to embrace, face and deal with the real one and it is silly to think we can escape it for any length of time at all, but I yearn for ours still.  I know she does too.  She tells me sometimes in those rare, quiet times when it is just us.

So. 

We will endure this place of Reality like a student sitting through a boring lecture.  We will do our best.

...but all the while we’ll be staring out the windows, waiting for our next precious moment.

...and when it comes, we will run.

…straight for that warm, dim corner smelling of wood smoke and cinnamon and the Seven Seas of Adventure where, with her small hand clasped tightly in mine…

…we will light another candle.

From a Father to his Daughter

Dear Madeline,

When you were first born I was scared shitless.  I sat with you in the hospital room, alone, for an hour or more while they stitched your Mum up.  I wondered “What the hell have we done?”.

You were lying on my chest, very small, bundled in blankets.  You looked up and regarded me with huge, calm blue eyes that said “Don’t worry Daddy.  I know…”

It seems you did too, because over the next few months love for you grew inside me until it seemed to fill every available space.  That was totally unexpected.

I remember a life before you came along.  It had good bits in it for sure, but nothing can compare to the calming joy I have always felt just spending time with you, no matter what we happen to be doing. 

You barrel through my days like a little sunshine cannonball, warming everything you touch.

At night your snuffly breathing and small (but growing!) body curled in mine for warmth soothes fears and makes me smile as I sleep.

The things you give me may be intangible and hard to describe, but they are no less real for that.

But parenting seems to be a constant process of letting go – from the little things like dressing yourself or wiping your own bottom through to big things like letting you fight your own battles and find your own friends – so you can Become.

I am incredibly grateful this process takes place slowly, day by day.  If it had to happen all at once I don’t think I would be strong enough to do it.

We are on separate roads, you and I.  We must live our own lives.  This is right and good.  Our paths will meander along together – weaving toward and away from each other as we both find our way in the world.

But they will never be as close as they are now.  It may be right and good, but that does not mean it is easy.  The temptation to hold you close, protect you from everything and keep you with me forever is incredibly strong; but, like crushing a butterfly in your grip for fear it will fly away, would ultimately destroy the very thing I am seeking to preserve.

So, while we are here, in our quiet together space, let me tell you a secret…

Way down deep in my heart I have a room.  It is warm, cosy and dim.  It has a comfy old chair in it. 

The walls are lined with shelves and they all hold boxes, full of special, heartfelt memories.  I visit whenever I can to add new ones or just rummage through old ones, sitting happily in my comfy chair for hours sometimes.

One box looks like all the others (perhaps a little less dust), but I never visit without opening it at least once.  It is uniquely special, this old cardboard container.  Whenever I open the lid, what is inside spreads a magical, golden glow around the whole room.  It lights up my face and reflects in my eyes.  Why?

This is the place I store every memory I have of you.

The past is gone.  The only place it exists now is here in this box, and that makes it precious indeed.

Everything is in here.  Carrying you to the end of our street to watch the diggers before you could walk.  Dropping stones in the grate in the gutter.  Teaching you how to change batteries in your toys.  Bouncing on the trampoline.  Swinging you until we’re both dizzy.  Just little gems, but so lovely and so many!  I am a lucky man.

No matter how long our roads, and how far from each other they are at times, I will always, always have this small box of treasures tucked safely away – and that is a comfort as I go about the process of letting you live your life as the bouncy, gleeful, stubborn, kind, thoughtful, loving and fiercely independent young lady I know you to be.

One day (hopefully after a VERY long time) this old heart will cease to beat.  It happens to everyone and it is inevitable.  I don’t think it is fair but that is another story entirely.

Now, when those boxes fall away and the memories they contained float off into the ether – becoming no more than whispers to entertain spirits – your memories will burst forth with such a light my chest will glow, warm and gold.

Whoever is there – doctors, nurses, strangers – will wonder what is going on!  They will have no idea.

…but if they ever ask you, or I am lucky enough for you to be there holding my hand when it happens – you can just regard them with your huge, calm blue eyes and tell them

“Don’t worry, I know…”

All my love Sweetheart,

Daddy.

Daddy, please don't leave me...

"Daddy, please don't leave..."

They can be difficult words to hear sometimes - when your 4 year old is hanging from your leg like a pleading koala and you are running late for your train to work.  There's guilt and frustration mingled with a sprinkle of yearning...

Other times not so difficult - like at 3am last night after answering a call, pulling her doona up over her chilly body and doing the old 'hand on the back' routine until her breathing became slow and steady.  Thinking she was asleep I turned to walk out the door when a tiny, sleepy voice said those 4 little words.

Then, with time a-plenty, it was a pleasure to say "Sure, Sweetheart, I'll be right here." and climb in with her, snuggle up and doze for an hour or so while she slumbered contentedly in the crook of my arm. 

Another of those beautiful little gems I string on the thread of my life that make me happy to be a father.

My own father is dying.  He has been for some time, but has entered the final phases now.  He rarely eats more than soup and has wasted away to where I can circle my hand right around his arms and even legs (If I chose.  I choose not to.  That would be creepy.).

When we visit he just wants to hold your hand while you talk about the inanities of daily life.  He drifts in and out of the conversation, but never lets go.

When it is time to leave I can see in his eyes the words "Sonny, please don't leave...", but he never says it.  He just says "Goodbye Sonny.  Goodbye."

It's hard to go.  His nights are lonely.

I'm 50 years old, and as a grown-up I feel sad for my Dad, am confronted by mortality, feel for his suffering and can accept the only way past that suffering for him now is to die.  To move on to whatever it is we move on to.

But if I'm honest, inside me somewhere there is a little boy staring in dismay at the skeletal figure lying curled under a blanket and who sees there the shadow of his big, strong father; remembers his warm, work-thickened hands carrying him and who still feels the security of the big man's hug.

...and who can't help but plead in the darkness "Daddy, please don't leave..."

The Getting of Confidence

I’ve been getting fitter and healthier lately.  Having finally established eating and exercise routines with some consistency I am beginning to feel the results.

Energy, strength, that sort of thing.

And confidence, as self-belief begins to bleed back into my being.

That’s a problem.

As confidence creeps up on me, I start Wanting what I Want.  I am confronted by my life and my fledgling self-belief starts asking “Is this what you want?  What about this?  And this?  And this?”…

I have developed enough belief to express dissatisfaction with facets of my life, but not enough (yet) to know I can overcome them.

It is rather like stretching your leg after sitting on it for hours.  The tingling starts and you know you are in for some pain before the blood is flowing freely and your leg finally gets back into full operating order.

At least with a leg you know the pain is temporary and you know you want to use it again.

As I ask questions like “Do I want this job I have?  Am I satisfied in my relationship?  Can I do better?  What would I rather be doing?” I honestly have no idea what the answers will be, how long they will take to come and how much pain I will have to endure to get there.

The choice is to let my life stretch out and regain feeling, or squash it again until it is numb and I am safe from painful, disruptive change.  I wonder how many people cycle, as I have done over the years, through those tingly first tastes of self-confidence before letting fear squash them down and numb them again, round and round…

The squashing can be done in all sorts of ways.  Drugs, alcohol, overeating, addictions are all the obvious ones.  Others are more subtle; burying your own life under the lives of your family, for example.  That’s a good one, because you can actually be receiving praise (“Oh what a nice man!  Do anything for his family.”) while submerging your self, your dreams and your goals under a cosy, safe blanket of sacrifice…

They all achieve the same goal though – safely putting you back into a place where you feel you don’t deserve anything better, protecting you from all the pain of achieving transformation and success.

Sigh…

Something inside me knows that whatever I do or don’t deserve, I still WANT.  I want to be a stronger, more decisive, happier, more engaged, motivated, inspiring kinda character.  I want to go to bed each night feeling successful, loving and loved.  Looked up to.  Respected.

That something is stubborn and keeps driving me out of the numbness, no matter how many times I succumb.

Confidence.  Belief.  Pain.  Change.  They’re coming.  I can feel them.  Time to try something new.

“Persistence”…

Letter to Bill Shorten...

Dear Bill,

Words cannot express the depth of derision and disillusionment I feel for the current government and its policies.  I don’t need to go into detail here - there are more than enough examples of their ignorance, cruelty, hypocrisy and injustice published daily.

But I do have a request for you.  Please do not wander down the same road.  Don’t take the easy route of automatically deriding anything the government does.  Quite frankly, that is like shooting fish in a barrel.  We can do that ourselves. 

Instead, provide us with a real, actual alternative. 

Communicate to us a vision for this country. 

A vision that recognises the Free Market’s Equal Opportunity For All depends upon everyone having access to quality education and health care, no matter how poor their beginnings, so they can make the most of those opportunities.

A vision that sees Australia as a world leader in the innovation and adoption of clean, renewable energies.

A vision that sees our employment coming from smart thinking, cutting edge technologies, intelligent infrastructure projects and promotion of (and care for) our stunning natural resources.

A vision that recognises equality of rights no matter what religion, ancestry, gender or gender preference.

A vision that says to those who sacrifice everything and risk their very lives trying to escape horrific persecution by travelling however they can to our shores “We will welcome you, incorporate you into our society and allow you to contribute your skills and talents to our ever-growing, smart economy."

We don’t need another politician Bill.  We have far too many of them already.

What we need is a Leader.

Lead Bill.  Grow some big ones and challenge us to be better people in a better, smarter, more humane country. 

Appeal to our better sides rather than our self-absorbed greed and xenophobia. 

Demand our sacrifices be for greater good rather than to line the pockets of those already wealthy.

Demand our society give helping hands to those needing a lift rather than ruthless smack-downs.

Lead Bill.  Lead this way and I for one will be right behind you.  I honestly believe many, many other Australians will be too.

All the best,

An Aussie.

Changing Creeds...

For the past few years I have labelled myself an Atheist.  I still am, since I do not believe in a god - but the problem with identifying as an Atheist is that it defines me by what I DON'T believe.

Not much good, that.

So I thought I would try talking more about what I DO believe...

I believe we are here for a very short time - and regardless of what does or does not happen after we die, we are here once. That's it.

I believe the worst thing you can do to a person is rob them of their life - either all at once by killing them or in smaller chunks - via repression, abuse, gossip, exclusion, judgement.

I believe we could build a much better society than we have.  We have made up all these rules and patterns of behaviour and are living with them as if they are universal, immovable axioms.  They are not.  If they are not working for us, we can change them because we created them in the first place.

We have the knowledge, skills, resources and tools to make our lives so much easier than they are. 

We can live more simply, with less "things" but all of higher, lasting quality - without sacrificing anything of any importance.

We can live more socially, with less fences between neighbours and more sharing of time, resources, tools and buildings.

But we don't.

We don't because we listen to greed before we listen to generosity.  We listen to fear before we listen to courage and compassion.  We prefer to stuff ourselves absolutely full - until we in the West are dying from habitual over-consumption - then throw the rest into huge, stinking piles of polluting rubbish - rather than share any of it with the majority of the planet's population - who starve while watching us die of gluttonous obesity.  Just in case we have to go without the tiniest, tiniest portion of What We Want.

We don't run this world very well.

But we could.

We can already feed everyone on this Earth.  We can have the power, the tools, the past-times, the fun, the freedom and the food we have now but without sucking the planet dry and then burning it.

We can - but we need to look at things very differently.  The world and our place in it.  The things that can make us truly happy vs what simply satisfies us temporarily.  We need different disciplines.  A different attitude.  A different outlook.  A different framework.  A different base to work from (and all them other "paradigm shifting" sorta statements...).

These are the things I would like to talk about now - not simply what I don't believe but what I do believe we CAN do.  Outlooks on life that DO work.  Attitudes and habits and behaviours that DO help.  Ways to live a life that is still joyful, adventurous and full but may not have in it every silly little trinket ever to find its way out of a sweatshop.

I have lots of ideas and would love to hear from others.  Let's start Something.  Something happy and fun and sustainable that works.

If you would all please bow your heads, close your eyes and join me in some quiet contemplation.

Now, Let Us Play...

The Tale of Clive Pepperfield...

“So, what happened here Miss?” Officer Boucher eyed a broken window, an overturned desk, scattered computer parts and a nervous receptionist who had introduced herself only as Amy.

“Um, it was Mr. Pepperfield. He kind of… went… nuts.”

“Mr….?”

“Oh. Clive. Clive Pepperfield. He’s our Auditor.”

“Okay. What exactly did he do…?”

“Um…”

“He kissed me.” An older lady declared, approaching the policeman from the tea room.

“And you are?”

“Jessica Powell. Accountant.”

“Right. You say he kissed you.” Boucher made notes. “Erm, so you want to file some kind of complaint or charge?”

“What? No! No, of course not. We just want you to find him.”
Jessica smiled slightly. “No. He just flipped you see. One minute he was here, typing up his report. Then all of a sudden he jumped up, yelled ‘Fuck all this for a joke!’, grabbed me, threw me backward and planted a big kiss on my lips!”

The austerely dressed accountant seemed more amused than alarmed at her ordeal.

“I see.” The officer scribbled madly.

“Then he stood me up, grabbed a fork from his desk – he always ate at his desk you see – handed it to me and said ‘Here Jess. I’ve always wanted to give you a nice long fork…’”.

“A nice, long, fork?”

“I do believe it was a euphemism, officer…”

“Ah.” He made a note. “Anything else?”

“Well yes. He ripped off his shirt, threw his chair through the window and followed it out!”

“What? From up here?”

“Indeed officer. From up here. He leapt straight out to that light pole, slid down and was off. Who’d have thought he’d be that agile at his age…?”

“How old is Mr. Pepperfield?”

“Fifty-nine.” Jessica answered promptly. “Some of us ran downstairs to find him, but he was gone by the time we got outside. We called you.”

Great. Another nutter. Thought career policeman Steve Boucher. “Well, don’t worry.” He said aloud “We’ll find him just as quickly as we can. He can’t be too far away. C’mon Ollie.”

“Yessir.” Junior Constable Oliver Bridges replied, and followed him down the stairwell.

“Just when you think you’ve seen every fuckin’ nutter in the world.” Steve muttered as soon as they were out of eashot.

“Yeah Sarge. How do we find ‘im?”

“Hah! Just follow the chaos, son. You’ll see.”

The two officers emerged onto the busy street and almost immediately spied a mobile auto-repair truck next to a car parked at a crazy angle a hundred yards up the road.

“So what happened here?” asked Steve as the two policemen approached.

“Mate! Some half-naked freakin’ idiot jumped on the bonnet of my car! He broke the friggin’ windscreen!”.

Sergeant Boucher glanced knowingly at J.C. Bridges. “Which way did he go?” he called.

“That way! About 30 minutes ago.”

The policemen headed in the direction of the pointed finger.

“Some bloke stole a bunch of flowers from my stand!”

“Yes, he gave them to me. He was sweet. Bloody crazy but.”

“He waltzed my girlfriend!”

“This nutjob challenged me to a duel, then ran off yelling ‘Woohoo! Woohoo! Woohoo!’”

“Yes, he said to me ‘You look ravishing, my dear!’ And gave me a rose…”

They followed the chaos, until eventually a man ran out of a nearby park. “Hey! There’s a half naked old man sitting on top of the swings in there yelling ‘Ahoy!’ at everyone. He’s scaring my kids!”

“Bingo…” Steve observed cynically, and followed the man into the gardens.

“Ahoy there my good fellows!” Clive Pepperfield greeted the approaching policemen with enthusiasm and an affected English accent.

“Mr. Pepperfield!” Steve called. “Can you please come down from there?”

“Oh no! I’m afraid that is quite impossible!” came the cheerful reply.

Steve weighed him up. Wayward, graying hair topped a face that, while madly cheerful, looked older than fifty nine. Much older. Somewhere along the line his trousers had gone missing as well. All he was wearing was an old pair of underpants. He was slight of build, with a paunch and scatterings of hair around shoulders, chest and belly. He was crouching on the swings’ crossbar like a balding chimp.

His eyes though. Mad as a bloody Hatter.

“Please Mr. Pepperfield. We need to get you down…. Yes? What?” Steve answered a tug at his sleeve. It was the receptionist.

“Sorry. I followed you. Jessie didn’t tell you, sir. Mr. Pepperfield has been under a lot of stress…”

She stole a glance at her former boss, amused, shocked and worried all at the same time. Clive saw her and called “Hello my dear Amy! You are looking beautiful I must say!”

“What sort of stress?” the sergeant pulled her attention back to him.

“His wife died two weeks ago. She had been very sick…”

“Okay, I see… Mr. Pepperfield!” he called again.

“Alright! Alright!” Clive called. “Coming!”

He leapt…

Straight up, grabbing a branch of the overhanging tree and scrambling nimbly into the leaves.

“Yarooo, suckers!!” he called, and began to sing…

“I’m alive! And the world shines for meeee today!”

“ELO.” Constable Bridges answered Sergeant Boucher’s unspoken question.

Clive was on the move. He scampered through the branches of his new refuge before leaping again…

“Oh, fucking shit…” Steve observed.

Clive seemed to soar in the air for an instant before reaching…

And grabbing a branch on the next tree before changing songs. “I don’t feel safe in this world no more! I don’t want to die in a nuclear war! I wanna sail away to a distant shore, and make like an Apeman…”

“The Kinks.” It was Steve’s turn to educate Oliver. They both moved to the next tree. There was, by now, quite a crowd – all with heads upturned in bemused wonder.

The two policemen took a little time to summon firemen and an ambulance.  Above, the singing continued…

“I’ll be your Tarzan, you’ll be my Jane.
“I’ll keep you warm and you’ll keep me sane.
“We’ll sit in the trees and eat bananas all day,
“Just like an Apeman…”

A few braver souls in the crowd joined in the chorus “Nana nana nanananaaaa! La la laaaa…”

“Clive!” Steve shouted again.

“I say, what!?”

“I’m sorry about your wife, Clive. I’m sorry. Please. Come down and we can talk, okay? We need to get you safe.”

“Meredith? My Meredith? Yes. Do you know what happened to my Meredith?” Clive had dropped the English accent. Even from this distance, Steve could tell his eyes were suddenly lucid. Shit. He thought. If I’m not careful, this will end badly…

“She was very ill. She got the very best of medical care. Oh yes, the best money could buy. They were very good. But do you know what happened? Do you know officer?”

“Come down and tell me Clive. Just come down.”

“She DIED officer! She.  Fucking.  DIED!! Oh but she was SAFE! My Meredith died in hermetically sealed, temperature controlled, air conditioned, isolated FUCKING SAFETY! Thank CHRIST she was SAFE, eh officer!?”

The tree shook with the madman’s rage, then he slumped wearily and stared into the distance.

“The sun still shone. The wind blew the trees outside. People were walking past. Cars drove by. Nothing stopped. Nothing even noticed. Only me…”

The comforting madness returned, and Clive grinned crazily. “In man’s evolution he has invented the city and the motor traffic rumble. But given half a chance I’ll be taking off my clothes and living in the jungle…”

“He really likes that song, doesn’t he sir?” Oliver commented. The crowd was silent.

Clive had cheered up. Then he heard sirens. The Fireys were coming. Thank fucking Christ! Thought Steve.

“Woooooooooooooowoooooooo!” Clive began mimicking the sirens, and moved again. Climbing rapidly through the branches he suddenly leapt. There was a collective intake of breath from the crowd. 

Their Apeman clasped the limb of another tree and the crowd let out their combined breath in relief.

There was a snap.

Clive Pepperfield dropped thirty feet to the ground with astonishing speed.

...and there was another, muffled snap.

Clive lay on the grass, head tilted at a horrible angle, and stared through the trees to the sky above. Steve and Oliver rushed to him and while Oliver kept back the crowd, the crusty old sergeant bent to assess the damage.

Bugger me! He thought The old bastard is still alive!

“Don’t worry sir.” He said out loud. “Help will be here soon. You’ll be okay.” He lied, seeing the struggle for breath and the futility of it already.

Clive’s lips moved. Steve leaned in, barely able to hear.

“Sorry for all the trouble…"

“Just hang in there for me Clive…”, but Clive's eyes were already focused on another world entirely.

“I’ll keep you warm and you’ll keep me sane…”

...and Clive left to go find his wife...

From somewhere in the sudden, shocked silence Amy began to cry.

Beyond the ring of onlookers, a breeze blew the grass and rustled through leaves in the trees.
 
Cars drove by.

Across the road people sat in offices and typed up reports.

The sun shone.