Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed

The more time that passes, the more I see through the pain and ugliness (which was not insignificant) to the things that remain. The way I changed and the things you taught me. The good things. The marks of love that aren’t scars.

And even though I don’t write this for you, I write it nonetheless. Because hatred never ceases by hatred. Because I want to chronicle the beauty. Because I want to thank you.

For the aversion to things that gather dust. For packing light. For minimalism.

For music with words: The National, and Ryan Adams, and Tallest Man on Earth, and John Legend.

For eye contact during intimacy. For never going to bed on an argument. For always saying goodnight.

For telling me to hold my power. To stop apologising. To pander less.

For showing me it was possible to never get bored of someone. That such relationships exist. That I should settle for nothing less.

For the joy, and terror, and challenge, and boredom, and sweet bliss of parenting. It may be the only experience of motherhood I have.

And the small things: for teaching me how to take a corner at speed, use cruise control to avoid a speeding fine, edit my own self tests, deal with shitty clients, negotiate a salary.

And above all…

For believing in my ability to make a living as a writer.
For pushing me through my own wall of fear.
For giving me this greatest gift. It changed my life.

And despite the cool touch of disappointment and regret that lingers, for all of this, I thank you.

The end of the thing that was

I think what you're looking for was me.
I think what I'm looking for was you.

(I worry we'll never find it)

I think you were a cunt.
I think I was too critical.
I think you could learn to not hear criticism where none exists.
I think I could learn to let things go.
And accept.

I think you weren't as bad as I thought in many ways.
I've realised you were much worse that I suspected in others.

I've been shown the things I needed. The things I kept asking for.
I've discovered the things I craved, in other people.
I've realised what I felt was missing really was.
I've realised what I took for granted deserved more acknowledgement.
I've realised just how extraordinary you could be.
But also how selfish. How cruel.

I wonder if I'll ever find the thing we had.

Maybe there are other ways to love.

That may lack the things ours didn't.
But have the things we missed.

Or I'll spend my life chasing after the perfection, without the pain.

And maybe one day settle for peace.

And be happy.

Without you.

On fear and racism.. and not texting at night.

A thing happened to me tonight walking home.  In the grand scheme of horrible things it’s not that bad. I wasn’t beaten or raped or stabbed. But I’m sitting here shaking and shocked nonetheless. Because I couldn’t get through to my boyfriend to pick me up. So I started walking home in the dark. And there were footsteps behind me. And I didn’t look behind me because I work so hard to not be that person. To trust people. To see the good in strangers, first and foremost. So as I reached a quiet intersection, and he came up next to me, and he was a tall, young, black guy in a dark hoody, I didn’t put my phone away because fuck stereotyping people based on their age, or skin colour, or what side of town they grew up on. And then I was crossing the road, in my naïve goodwill, texting my mum, and then he was sprinting up behind me, and he was grabbing my phone, and he was running away. And I yelled out. And then I froze. And I started crying.

And then, like the mad Polish woman I am, I chased after him in the dark. And a couple in their car heard me scream “you fucking cunt” and chased him down. The kid, and his mate. And the kids stopped and dropped my phone. And then ran away.

And I’m sitting here crying, shaking, in shock, with a weird ache in my gut, and I say FUCK THIS SHIT. Fuck the fact that they were black and that I can see how racism worms its dirty way in to people. Because people attribute the act to the skin, rather than the person. And fuck those two punks for killing my bravery. And fuck the world for bringing those kids whatever set of circumstances led them to that decision tonight. Because with the shock and the anger is sadness for those numskulls and their own life experience.

And all I can do is hope that my resolve remains. And that I will feel ok walking alone at night again. Because above all I say fuck you to fear, and its destructiveness, and I will continue to fight to the death for my conviction in the goodness of people.

On Step-Parenting

Falling in love with a man with children is not something I would have chosen for myself. But falling in love is rarely a choice. 

And the longer I’m in my current relationship, the more I’m able to look back on the past two years objectively and see that I’ve tried to fool myself into believing it’s no different to dating a childless man. But it is. Very much so.

And it has been difficult.

From that first awkward meeting in his lounge room being presented to an interview panel of two single-digit-aged boys, through fortnightly visits and school holidays trying to be friendly but unimposing, coming up with ideas of things to do, making them feel comfortable talking about their mum, and the girlfriend who came before me, it has been hard.

But it got easier. I told myself it did. And perhaps that’s true. Or perhaps I grew accustomed to the feeling of being a living reminder of what these boys would never have.

And then the youngest came to live with him, when we still lived separately and my struggles involved remembering to pack spare clothes for work and sharing his towel and always forgetting where I’d left my shoes.

And even though I knew it would be hard, that it would change him, that it would mean making lunches and supervising homework and trimming toenails and steaming vegetables, I supported the decision. I encouraged it. I reassured him that it wouldn’t scare me away and that I wouldn’t love him any less. That it was the right decision. Because I wasn’t one of those heartless women who turn a man away from his children, distracting him with a shiny new brood.  Because I wouldn’t deny a son the chance to live with his father. So I told him it would be fine.

And it was. In a way.

And it wasn’t.

Because four months later we decided to move in together, and in one weekend of removalists and delicate negotiations about interior design, I became the woman this child would see more than any other. His city-step-mum. The primary focus of his attention.

And I’ve welcomed it, and loved him, and worked hard to fill the gap left by not having daily access to the things only a mother can offer. But I wasn’t prepared for the sheer relentlessness of his need for attention. And despite my best efforts to remain disinterested, an instinct I can only classify as ‘maternal’ has doggedly put down roots in my cynical soul and I feel as if, in that weekend, I leaped from carefree kidulthood to middle-age, without any say in the matter.

Because whilst I’ve grown to love my boyfriend’s son and treat him as if he were my own, the fact is he isn’t. Not only because that position is already filled but because he was not a choice for me. He was a choice made by the man I love and another woman in another time and though I will continue to love and care for him as long as I’m afforded the privilege, I can’t help but be reminded of their love and failed hopes every time I look at him.

Which, I get it, isn’t really a big deal. Except that it denies me the bliss of ignorance. It reminds me that what you are certain could be the one thing that will carry you through the rest of your life in a cocoon of awesomeness is actually just as likely to turn out to be horseshit.

But the worst part is that I’ve begun to question whether I actually want to have kids of my own, when I’d never had any doubts about their inevitability, and I feel as if I’m in mourning for my own children. 

And that’s a feeling I don’t quite know what to do with. 

He built his wife a nest on the ground

The power of true love: a stork goes against instinct and builds a nest directly on the ground, because his partner can no longer fly.

The couple met in the Fedaczynski Rehabilitation Centre in the Carpathian Mountains in Poland. She came in with a broken wing; he with severe poisoning. Although the birds were emaciated and had very little chance of survival, the doctor managed to save them, and through the long months of rehabilitation they slowly fell in love.

"The love of storks is great," says Dr. Fedaczyński. "Birds are very attached to each other and when they couple, it is for life.”

When it became clear that the female would never fly again, her fully-recovered partner chose to remain with his new wife and spend the winter in Poland, not departing for warmer climates. And then in the Spring he began to build a nest, collecting sticks and laying them directly on the ground, so that his wife would not have to suffer. Mrs Stork sits by patiently and clatters her bill in happiness while their new home grows bigger every day, and in a few weeks it should be home to a couple of chicks.

The unusual pair have become a great attraction in the area. People are watching the behaviour of the birds in disbelief; nobody has ever seen a stork building a nest on the ground like a duck.

And now there are signs that the pair's inventive solution is being adopted by other couples. The clinic is home to other sick birds, including those who had lost the ability to fly years ago. To date not one of them had made attempts at building a nest, but seeing the actions of the devoted couple they too have begun to tackle the construction of nests directly on the ground.

Source: fakty.pl

My people

are cleaners, taxi drivers, waitresses and strippers.
They bathe the elderly and repair potholes in roads.
They pull (heart) strings to send their children to schools that they can’t afford,
because “education is everything”.
They swallow their pride, forget their egos, grow skin thick as bark, and learn not to fight back.
They smile rarely but laugh easily.
They skype home.
They pray to a God who doesn’t speak English.
They drink home-made spirits and eat white pork-meat sausages. Around tables covered from centre to stomach in make-do food over white lace tablecloths.

My people
held onto their language
through a hundred-and-fifty-years of not existing as a nation.
They rebuilt a city from war-ravaged rubble into an exact replica of its former glory.
They are fathers of modern astronomy, Nobel-prize winning physicists and poets, world famous composers, novelists, film directors and Popes.

My people are my blood.
My blue eyes.
My bone structure and my ashen hair.
My beliefs.
My weaknesses.
My fire and my fight.

My people.

My Poland.

I love you.

Such be life

A recent avalanche of significant events has me feeling discombobulated. I’m fluctuating between sickening bliss, terror, fury, and fervent motivation of a kind usually reserved for evangelical extremists.

Here are the reasons:

1. First of all, there’s the problem of dating one person exclusively, and seeing them every day for two three (holy shit) solid months. Not only has my hard-earned independence disappeared, but so too my ability to be alone without pining for my lover’s company.  I mean, seriously, who am I? The saccharine quality of the time we spend together is so cloying I’m getting diabetes. But I CANNOT. KEEP. AWAY. Heroin would consume less of my time.

2. Then there’s the housemate who refused to leave when asked to do so. And who has become so Dexter-like in personality that I’m finding it difficult to physically and emotionally manage the level of terror, dread and fury she elicits in me.

God help my filthy pride, which would serve me better by shutting its dirty mouth and just letting me give in to all her unreasonable demands.

3. It’s three days until Polish family Christmas. Enough said.

4. And finally (well not quite, but some things don’t bear mentioning, even by one as honest as myself) there is my desire to finally get the theatre work up that I’d started planning 6 months ago but haven’t made any progress on since August, due to a combination of point 1, and fear. As well as my almost fanatical desperation to be involved in a film project with someone I consider an inspiration and (reluctant) mentor. Which, incidentally, I’ve already been told I can help with and which I’ve already put a little time into but which my impatient personality won’t allow me to stop obsessing over.

So.

No, wait. Hold up. I just thought of another thing.

5. That thing where when you start to love care about someone, you involuntarily begin to take on all their stress and pain as if it were your own. That thing’s happening to me too. 

So. That’s where it stands with me right now. Can you see why stuff be crazy in my head, heart and stomach?

Yeah...

So.

Such be life.

Afterword

I’m aware that as my readership slowly grows, and inevitably amongst people who actually know me, some of the life facts that I choose to disclose may seem overly candid. If that’s the case, I apologise. Albeit insincerely. If I can live with it, so can you.

The Unbearable Weight of Staying

I have discovered, recently, an overwhelming and almost uncontrollable urge to escape any situation that makes me feel anything too strongly.

Because I am terrified with my current situation. With the potential for hurt, and disappointment - both my own and his. And the possibility, or inevitability, of the discovery of ugliness. And the future realisation that we are not perfect, neither individually nor for eachother.

And I wonder what the fuck I am doing here.

And I am reminded once again why I chose a solitary life.

On such a full sea are we now afloat

Why am I feeling so lost and discombobulated? Is this how it’s meant to feel when you meet a person you are attracted to and enjoy spending time with? Because if so, I think there may be a terrible flaw in the way our emotions develop and someone needs to say something about it.

I feel excited, scared, distrustful, happy, beautiful, anxious, exhausted, nostalgic, uncertain, protective and confused. In equal parts.

I mean seriously.  How is that a positive combination?

I’ve lost 3 kilos and I haven’t been to the gym in weeks. My room is a mess, I've got almost no clean underwear, I haven’t changed my bed linen and my dogs have forgotten what the park looks like. My parents are permanently annoyed with my lack of communication, my housemate is pretty much living alone, I have done no work on either of the theatre projects I had in planning, and I spend my work days writing about and reading up on things completely unrelated to work. I am, in a word, distracted.

And the most disturbing thing is that it’s gotten increasingly worse until today my head has screamed with the hurtful thought, “What am I doing?” and my instinct is to cut and run before I lose the wonderful relationship I’ve cultivated with myself over the last 3 years. But then what is the purpose of life if not to love and what will my life be if I forever run from that?

Well, peaceful for one. And lonely. Productive. Focused. Centred. And safe. Safe. 

Safe.

That's it isn’t it? Safety.

Predictability and equilibrium. Things I have chased my whole life and will continue to chase because that’s the legacy left by my childhood. But with that emotional security comes self-doubt, and longing, and nights curled up in bed with a Kelpie and an old teddy bear wondering what might have been had I not made the choice to live my life alone. Because I had made that choice. Whole-heartedly. And now the chipping away at my resolve is something terrifying and disorientating. And I long for my boring solo existence when emotions were rational and linear and my own company didn’t feel like there was someone missing from it.

So.

Peter Temple via Jack Irish

He can write. The man can.

From the novel Black Tide by Peter Temple, soon to be made into a telemovie starring Guy Pearce.

Oh, That Way Madness Lies

A friend recently asked me if I have a “list” of dating non-negotiables.

I can’t remember my exact reaction but it was probably somewhere between a cringe and a guffaw. To me, the idea of making a checklist of desirable qualities seems prescriptive and calculating. It takes the one thing in my life that I approach spontaneously and instinctively, without much thought for my well-being or future, and turns it into something controlled, angst-ridden, and safe… which is how I handle almost every other aspect of my life.

So when it comes to men, I don't have a type. Or a set of requirements that must be met.

But.

There are some things I find very difficult to resist…

Like checked shirts. Blue eyes. Black-framed glasses, and bed hair.
Tattoos.
Hyper-intelligence.
Extensive music knowledge and a Penguin classic beside the bed.
Being good with children. Old-fashioned manners. The ability to fix computers or cars.
The courage to sometimes tell me what to do.
An uncontrollable urge to throwdown(1). 

Any one of these things in someone will immediately get my attention. A handful may start to overtake my thoughts. But all these things in one person aren't perfection, they're madness.

So no, I have no list.
But... if a man in a check shirt and messy hair, with tattoos and glasses, doing the cryptic crossword with a Bulgakov sticking out of his bag on the way to a gig, were to stop and open a door for me?

Well, I may just disappear forever.


1. throwdown
an act of sexual passion in which one of the persons involved is so overwhelmed with the urge to makeout/hookup/have sex with the other person that he or she loses control, taking passionate, almost aggressive charge, and intensely makes out with the other. this act may involve pushing someone against the wall or onto a bed and may also include grabbing of the face and hair.
Source

For my birthday I would like...

full-body hugs, Aesop products, the end of animal suffering, Body Type tattoo books, clear skin, gin & tonics, no anxiety, the DJ to play Moloko, a self-cleaning room, all my friends within arms length, this book, love.

Thankyou.

the reasons why

That night on Russell St when you offered me your jacket, even though you were only wearing a T-shirt underneath
The evening you took my hand and kissed my fingers after I told you something sad about myself, even though we'd only known eachother a couple hours
That time you lay back on your bed with your eyes closed and played your guitar for me
The way you gently, relentlessly and passionately challenged my views on religion and God every time we met
How you would mimic my voice whenever I said anything you thought was cute
The time you used a whole tray of ice on my body to slowly cool me down, in the hot bedroom of your house during that never-ending, Perth Summer
The text message you sent me when I was living in New York that said I was the coolest girl ever to breathe the mix of gases that enables a human to live on this planet
The cupcake you bought me that I never got to eat
That day I forgot my lunch and you made me a toasted cheese sandwich and brought it all the way into the city on the train so that I wouldn't go hungry
The time you dragged me through your front door and into your bedroom, leaving your friends standing in the hallway, because you couldn't wait another minute to have sex with me
The YouTube video you made me
That heartbreaking day we spent together after our awful choice that you somehow made into something wonderful and fun and full of joy
The way you would prepare my dinner every Saturday night, while I was sleeping, to help me get ready for work
That horrible night you got blindingly drunk and called me saying you'd kill yourself if I didn't go out with you
The flower you left on my windscreen after I broke your heart

I don't love you any more.
But I did.
For a moment, a few months, years.
And these are the reasons why.
Thankyou.

My heart belongs to

It takes a lot to win my heart. This'll pretty much do it.

A letter to Janelle Monáe

Dear Janelle Monáe,

I love you.

I have watched this video 15 times tonight.

That bit at 1:37, just after you sing the line "I was made to believe there's something wrong with me" and you turn to someone off camera and say "I'm gonna cry" while laughing, breaks my heart.

I wish I could dance like you.
Or have the tenacity to be who you are in the industry in which you make your living.

But it makes me happy just watching.
x


WORDS:
So you think I'm alone?
But being alone's the only way to be
When you step outside
You spend life fighting for your sanity

This is a cold war
You better know what you're fighting for
This is a cold war
Do you know what you're fighting for?

If you wanna be free?
Below the ground's the only place to be
Cause in this life
You spend time running from depravity

This is a cold war
Do you know what you're fighting for?
This is a cold war
You better know what you're fighting for
...

Bring wings to the weak and bring grace to the strong
May all evil stumble as it flies in the world
All the tribes comes and the mighty will crumble
We must brave this night and have faith in love

I'm trying to find my peace
I was made to believe there's something wrong with me
And it hurts my heart
Lord have mercy, ain't it plain to see?

This is a cold war
You better know what you're fighting for
This is a cold war
Do you know what you're fighting for?

KELLINDO!

Do you know it's a cold, cold war?
Do you, do you,do you?

Bye, bye, bye, bye
Don't you cry when I say goodbye

M.B.

I would walk barefoot (in pantyhose!) in the rain, if only you'd reply to my email.

I would eat a non-vegetarian burger.
I'd give away my Leonard Cohen tickets.
I'd shave my legs and paint my nails.
If you'd acknowledge that I still exist.

I'd update my blog at night, in a dress which you've never seen, if I thought it might make a difference.

And I'd still think about you.
.............
And think about you.
...................
And think about you.
.........................
And date other men who looked like you.
If it'd maybe make you notice.

But you don't. And you won't. (And it doesn't and you haven't).

And it's taking every piece of my feeble motivation to stop me from contacting you again.

The Most Beautiful Woman in the World

Feed Me with Lights

At the age of 25 I left the city in which I'd grown up, knowing that I would never return. In the years that have passed from then to now, I have never once ached for it so intensely and completely as I do for New York.

It is an all-consuming, palpable yearning not dissimilar from the pain of a broken heart.
It buzzes in my chest and knocks the breath out of me.

What kind of magic does this city command that it has so utterly taken over my soul?

On Men and Parallel Parking

So.
Men.
I don’t get them.
And lately I’ve found myself more and more attracted to the kinds of men I’ve always reviled. The tattooed and the dirty and the drug addicted. Is this the after effect of a six-year relationship with a ‘nice guy’ (who, as it turns out, wasn’t so nice anyway)? Or is it a rebellion against my Eastern European, Catholic, clothes-freshly-washed-and-ironed upbringing? Whatever the reason, I find myself being inescapably drawn to the suggestion of a no-strings-attached liaison with a man who will expect nothing of me but simultaneously shower me with attention. “Fantasy!” I hear you say. Very possibly so, but a girl can dream can’t she? And by God I have been.
But dirty men aside, what I really don’t understand is the whole courting ritual. Once again I blame my LTR* for my complete lack of dating savvy but really, if a girl is interested, but not overly so, why must men make everything so complicated? Is it that they believe all women want to marry them? That every interested girl automatically thinks of nesting down? Because I can truthfully say that in my case this isn’t so. So why the hot and the cold? The on and the off? The furtive glances across a crowded room and the arrogant attitude? I mean for God’s sake (should I believe in him, which I’m not sure anymore that I do), just tell us what you want and be done with it. But I guess that’s asking too much. After all, I have a 6-month-old secret crush that I express by being openly rude and hostile, so what can I really expect in return? And, deep down, at the very core of my subconscious mind, I don’t actually believe that any man is really capable of loving one woman for the term of his natural life, nor that he really wants anything more than sex, so what am I getting so upset about anyway? If only I could, a) become emotionally self-sufficient and actually stick to my resolve for more than a day; and b) train myself not to view every man through the relationship filter left for me by my parents.
If only.
But if I am to be completely honest - and I always am with you, my reader - what I really want, really truly want, is someone to be nice to me and make me cups of tea and kiss me on the forehead and hug me when I have a bad day and come to me with their sorrows and tell me jokes that aren’t funny and buy me clothes I’ll never wear and speak to me in languages I don’t understand and wave their smelly socks in my face and be impressed by my parallel parking and play with my dog even when I’m not around to see it and watch disgusting zombie films with me and listen to me talk about books they’ll never read and show me work of theirs I don’t care about but will pretend to anyway and, and, and… make me feel like their day is that much better for having had me exist in it.
Is that so much to ask for?
Is it?
Perhaps.


*LTR - Long Term Relationship

You know what is wonderful?

... not knowing how much I weigh and not caring because noone else does. You know what is exhilarating? Riding my bike through the East Village in cut-off 501's with my hair blowing in my face and no helmet. You know what is delightful? Getting a text message that says "You are the coolest girl ever to breathe the mix of gases that enables a human to live on this planet." You know what is astonishing? Dancing at a dive bar to cheesy 80s music and poking a munchkin in the back who turns out to be Mary Kate Olsen. You know what is magic? Sitting in Doma Cafe in the absurdly beautiful West Village eating breakfast at 9 o'clock at night and listening to Bjork's All is Full of Love. You know what is breathtaking? Walking through Central Park on a sticky July night and watching fire flies light up the hillside. You know what is unexpected? Meeting amazing, inspiring people who completely change the way I look at life. You know what is gut-wrenching? Knowing that in less than a week it'll all be a memory.