My Giant Friend

I wish I had a Giant friend. She would clamber through the city, punch a whole in my tenth story window and gingerly scoop me up from my desk. Cradled in her palm, all soft and pillowy, we'd amble away, my handbag swinging from her pinky finger. Detour via ocean and she'd dip me in and spin me around, salt cleansing my tired limbs and eyes. Then as we moseyed over to Enmore she'd dry me with warm breath. My Giant friend would lift the roof on my little mansion and push back my bed sheets. Ever so softly, she'd drop me in and cover me up, smiling from above as roof was lowered back into its place. And there she would stay, singing lullabies, watching over me and blocking my windows, making temporary night with her shadow so that I may sleep easy in my bed and dream of peaceful slumber.

Important point to remember if you are fearing for your safety:
- My Giant friend would have tiny feet which she balances on as if by magic. All reasonable scientists would not be able to explain how she balanced on such tiny feet, but she would say she was made that way so as not to crush the little people.

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a story for the writer

I have an old friend. She is an old friend as we have known each other for more than a third of our short lives. And she is old because of her insides, all they have seen and felt, both throughout these later years and in those that came before.

I love my friend. I don’t tell her often. I still have scars she dug in my heart and so it tries to keep her at a pretty distance. But I think, deep down, she knows she is one of the most important people in my life. I see her fight and struggle to be better. To be strong. To heal the scars cruel people etched in her. The scars she suffered and the scars she made when all alone. I see her fight and fall and crumble and break and it makes me so sad. But it inspires me too. To watch her grow. It makes me believe in healing and friendship and all the others things I call my religion.

I wish I knew a way to wrap her up, warm against the night. These women see the fire in my eyes and think it’s their reflection. They see my love and think that I want sex and ownership, that I want to keep her for myself. But that is so very much not it.

I have been through their fire and have come out the other side. I broke so completely and rebuilding took time. And even in my most recent loves I see her shadow, wrapping round me and holding me back from letting go. The memories we made taught me to protect myself and keep cool; to hide from those I love lest they smash my trust to bits. And in those moments, I hate her for what she showed me. I hate her pain and its ravenous depths, and I hate myself for falling in and believing I could save her.

So when I see them try the same, it makes me rage with pity and frustration. Because they can’t save her. And now I see that she needs to save herself. And these distractions and blows to her self-worth set back this process so thoroughly.

I know my friend is difficult. I see her myriad flaws. And she sees mine. I see her hurting others and I understand their anger. I remember it well.

In public and in future, I will tease her, poke and prod. Sometimes for humour, sometimes in retaliation, sometimes just because I can. People will call me bully and I won't deny it. They will laugh at our clowning and wrestling and strange attacks. But today, I’d like her to know that I believe in her, that I think she is amazing and brave and has so much to give. That I know she can’t see a future for herself, can’t muddle through the vast unjustness the world has given her. But that I do see her future. That it is bright and big and not as lonely as she thinks it may be.

Today, I want her to know that I love her, not because of what she gives me, but for all of who she is. That I am not asking her for anything except the trust, respect and friendship I intend to keep giving her for years to come. I think she needs to hear that this week.

...

creatures

I dreamt on Saturday night that I was in a strange dusty town and it was the annual, terrifying day when strange creatures came from beneath the soil to hold the town to ransom. These creatures wanted money and food from the townsfolk and would stream out of the drains to attack passing cars. They trashed the joint.

I was trying to convince the town that if they just gave the creatures food and money in small amounts, regularly, they would need to complete the annual attack. And at least the buildings wouldn't be burned. But the people didn't listen.

Last night I dreamt Amy and I were singing the theme tune to Captain Planet. I woke up thinking The Planeteers would be a good name for a band.

I love that moment of waking when the dream reality is more real than the present. I grieve the loss of my dream memories every day, as the working week wears on and odd imaginings are replaced by filing and train trips.

My soccer team doesn't have a game this week and I am sad because playing soccer still fits into a bit of a dream reality to me. I still don't quite believe I had the balls (teehee: pun) to take it up, when for 25 years, sport /health / exercise have been so bound up in pressure and failure and a devastating awareness of my size. The fact that I have pushed myself to do something foreign and exposing gives me the same thrill as awaking after dreaming I could fly. I am embarrassed a little by my childlike response to this new hobby, but there you have it. Despite being really quite a terrible sportswoman, I am still giddy with pride each time I manage to go out in public wearing those shorts.

Travel had a similar effect last year, though much, much more so, and when I am trying to press my insomniac body into sleep each night I catalogue each day of my trip, committting small details and feelings and fears to memory, trying to lock in that sense that I was invincible. Trying to recreate that dream. And each week when I am paid for my filing and train trips, I get a thrill in clicking the transfer-to-savings-account button as, slowly but surely, I build the possibility of setting off again. I can taste my savings as icelandic geysirs and french romance, turkish delight and slovenian mountains, a cosy bulgarian hostel and thumbs-out adventures round Ireland.

Until I can afford that dream I will settle for soccer, strange creatures and the planeteers.

...

strange contentment

When I was little(r) I always always always wanted to be older, to have more responsibility, to be taken as an adult. - (To me, older was about 17) - So desperate was I that I chased worshiped "older women" (read: 16) and felt consistently distressed at having been born to late. I should have been the oldest. I came too late.

I was convinced 17 was an appropriate age to start having children called Eliza (named as a nod to Pride and Prejudice) and that I could totally manage study and child rearing at the same time. Thank God or Science I'm a homo or I'd have been barefoot and pregnant as soon as you could say "oops I skipped that sex ed class to go practice for the Shakespeare Festival."

I wanted respect which I didn't know how to earn and I wanted to grow into a person my childhood self would chase and worship. I wanted to look after people smaller than me or weaker than me, as evidenced by a saviour complex that gets me into trouble some days. "No, Maeve, you can't go punch that homophobic boy who called your friend a faggot. He's twice your size and you like your face a lot," she said last week.

This year, for the first time in my life, I feel content with the age I am. I am in my skin and while it is not entirely as I would wish it, it feels more right than it ever has before. I am flirting with having a sense of my place in the world and I feel...dare I say it...content. I have what I need. And it is leading me terrifyingly towards writing a blog that is neither funny nor angry. Panic Stations!

And yet there it is. My strange contentment. My small and colourful home littered in memories of houses spanning Sydney to Bathurst, family to friends, happiness to rage and pain. Vegetable garden. Flowers in tupperware vases and the most delightful, thoughtful musical housemates who bring the ice cream addiction and dance off madness I had always dreamed of.

I miss my drama though some days. I just can't invoke the misery or fear I used to run to. I can't hate quite as I used to or scream like I did. I yearn for the days when I could throw a lovers belongings at her doorstep and yell bloody murder. I don't think I could do it with a straight face nowadays... I am loving with a force field to protect me from past ills repeated and I am burying deep my guilt at this happiness. I have watched some of the most important people in my life crumble and fall so many times and I often wonder what I have that saves me from their fate. Am I foolish to not see the chasm of disappointment they find in the world?

I have rage, oh how I rage. But I don't convert it into the depths of sadness my loved ones tend to find. Sometimes I think the rage is so huge I can't fathom it so I ignore it like other terrifying unknowns which don't fit into my realm of understanding. Like outer space, how the internet works and why people find men interesting.*

*(excepting my beloved male folk who defy this generalisation and know who they are)

I ignore the fear that my family will never truly heal itself. I ignore my sorry conviction that I will, in fact, spend my life without ongoing romantic love, not because I think I am unworthy, but because I don't know that I have the staying power. I ignore the concern that I don't know what my contribution to society must be, that I have left it too late to create a career, that I still don't know what that career should be. I ignore the devastating awareness that I will not see, in my lifetime, a world I would be proud to live in. A world where I don't have to be scared walking alone at night just because I am a woman. Where we can sit safely in the front seat of a taxi. Where governments work for good not votes and the earth isn't dying.

I don't write about my personal personal life on this little blog too often. It's for rants and foolish musings. I find it painful when others do, airing the laundry of the inner west for all and sundry. I'm a talker. If you want to know what I think, I will, 99% of the time, respond frankly (ok tactlessly). I don't need this for an outpouring.

But I thought, maybe, if I acknowledged the fear and celebrated the contentment, I could get a handle on the balance of the two. Either embrace the simmering terror in my belly, or calm it with a good dose of 'my what a beautiful day it is how much do I love bagels and cheese.'

I'll see how I feel in an hour or so.

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The Beast

In years gone by I could safely say that I had very low self-esteem. I covered this well - sometimes well enough to be accused of arrogance. But beneath the banter and sarcasm was your average teenage self-hating ball of fear and self-loathing.

But recently, thanks to some amazing women and a life changing Euroventure, I've begun to...well... like myself. I know it sounds cheesy, and I rather avoid writing blogs-about-my-feelings, but something must be said.

You see this newfound confidence has an unfortunate side effect. One brought on by that old foe, alcohol. We shall call this side-effect... The Beast.

The Beast thinks she is all that. She firmly believes she is the sassiest woman at the table and that everyone wants to hear what she has to say. While this may sometimes be true...it's never flattering to show that you know it!

The Beast is also an incorrigible flirt. Yes, in The Beast's mind, fat is IN this season and every woman in the bar wants her. The Beast thought it appropriate to go boozing last night with a bunch of co-workers. She regaled her audience of public servants with her political opinions, and tales of amateur theatre success. Humility was nowhere to be found. And she flirted. Appallingly.

This is not good. Because do you know what isn't attractive? The Beast. The lovely little Maeve that I have come to appreciate in recent months bears little resemblance to The Beast, who speaks like a trashbag, spills her wine on you, steals your belongings for giggles and hits on straight women. The very qualities that gave me to confidence to create The Beast, if you will, go out the window after the sixth sauvignon blanc... ok the fourth...

So what to do about The Beast? Drinking less could be a start... Or maybe I need to bring myself down a peg, remember all that teenage angst and rediscover my flaws. C'mon kids, insult me, bitch to me, tell me you hate me!

Help me slay The Beast!

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sweetness

I have been feeling a bit low on the body image front. But nothing makes a girl feel better than the following compliment:

"No matter how fat you got I would still love your teeth. I will only stop loving you if you get so fat that I can't see your teeth."

I am the luckiest woman alive.

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nearly there / a little late

On the weekend the Labor party gave us a taster of equality with the recognition and a promise to register same sex couples. But marriage, that institution that so many inexplicably crave is still out of reach.

I feel like we are coaxing a child towards its first steps, "nearly there, Kevin, nearly there, you can do it..." You can recognise that fixing this same sex marriage storm isn't about finding a way to appease both sides of the argument, it's about standing up for what is right and good and acknowledging that all couples should be equal in every way possible.

There are small celebrations on the blogs of friends and in photos from Saturday's protest - action which may not always influence policy, but sure does empower community. With the ousting of Howard and the inevitable chug chug of progression, we are getting closer, little by little, to a society I would be proud to live in.

But the only relationship I would ever have wanted recognised and registered - that of my Mothers' - has ended now, recorded in photo albums and childrens' connectivity, but not written down or named outside of our little world. It is not etched into my chest as it should be.

"too late, Kevin, too late."

And when I think of my future, I do not see marriage. Community and love and friendship pushes my day to day and makes me care about the world, but not this institution of broken promises and tradition.

I was not at the protest on Saturday. I did not don a veil or kiss a girlfriend or raise my hands with pride, though I thank and congratulate those that did. I was busy rehearsing in a small, overheated room at the Conservatorium with a funny bunch of talented odds and ends who have made me smile and laugh and cry in the past few months of preparation.

And we are nearly there too. Opening next week, we will sing out to friends and family - and hopefully others... I will stand on stage and sing songs that cut to the heart of my love and hurt and play and happiness. It will not be subversive or outrageous or make statements about the world. But it will be celebration and community.

And my unregistered, unrecognised Mothers will attend on separate nights and sit proudly (even if I fall off the stage) as I share what they taught me: that pride and love and community cannot be validated by a government nor taken away by prejudice. They exist in celebration.

...