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Tonight is budget night in Australia, the local equivalent to the president speech on new year in France, or the prime minister speech to the queen in England.

A celebration of the great national achievements – allowing women to protests without being shot and all those things, alongside speech writing chest beating in a chorus of approving hear hears.

And the oh so important business of redistributing tax payers money in a way or another.

Tonight I still have the vivid memory of witnessing Archie Roach, and I will not spoil that privilege with nonsense.

For those with a Spotify account, I made a playlist that pretty much retraces the two sets he sang on that night.

Tonight is a night for beating my own drum, and celebrating myself.

Archie Roach and mothers day weekend have taught me very important lessons.

I have a new exercise routine, that involves swimming laps, a spa, and a sauna.

I watched the sun set over Leanganook.

Small steps.

“Archie aren’t you tired of singing this song? Hey not really because every time I sing it a little more of the pain is taken away.”

Archie Roach has this incredibly generous and powerful gift. Some survivors have that, sometimes.

Of describing the pain and the joy, the grief and the loss, the hope, the healing and the beauty of life, touching your heart all along the way.

Of unveiling the universal while recounting his own experiences and quite incredibly allowing you to meet him there.

It feels like a rare privilege.

He talks Ruby, and Ruby very soon becomes more. She becomes the past love every person in the room ever had, whose absence comforts and pains all at once.

“It’s not just about you, Archie Roach”, she told him, and those words convinced him to record his first album.

I cried. I laughed. I cried again.

We all did.

Nine songs. Many stories. Two sets. A sold out theatre. A long and grateful standing ovation.

I cried again when I left. There were so many red eyes.

Set 1

Charcoal lane
Took the children away
Tell me why
Open up your eyes

Set 2

Down city streets
Nopun Kurongk
The old days
I will always be there
The summer of my life

Another game, another selfie

(may the sun shine forever)

Some recent epiphanies.

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#1

What really aches is the memory of past hurts.

Unattended past hurts need attention. It is a slow and self dedicated process. If attended regularly, healing eventually will take place.

Past and present pain can be confusing, sharing the same level of intensity, and often triggered in patterns. Only present call for immediacy.

By dissociating the memory of past hurts from the actual ripples of present actions and events, we can recognize that the present hurt, if acknowledged, is often less acute than it first appear, and less overwhelming.

“When we deny our stories, they define us.

When we run from struggle, we are never free.”

Brene Brown

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#2

Some talks, encounters and events accidentally shift your ways.

By revealing your place on a bigger picture, by shining a new light on an issue, by uncovering a state of your mind that you didn’t know yet.

For this to happen some conditions need to be met: being open to it, and honest enough with yourself during before and after to face it.

“Showing up is our power.”

Brene Brown

Fier de mes vers de terre.

Il y a un an, un peu paniqué à l’idée de composter sur un espace de moins de 10 hectares, j’ai acheté un système bokashi.

Il y avait un seau.

Une poudre magique.

Et un sabot

Aujourd’hui j’ai préparé la plantation des Feijoa achetés Dimanche.

Au fond de chaque trou, il y avait ça.

Small steps.

Hanging home

Few things I learnt today, and a selfie.

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There seems to be a mercy rule in junior football. No goal can increase a ten goals lead. They will not be recorded, only behinds will.

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There doesn’t seem to be such a rule in netball.

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Flag people at the opposite side of the football oval wave flag at each other after every single score, goal or behind.

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The Carisbrook Redbacks junior football and netball team play extremely well at every level.

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Thursday afternoons.

Some train.

Some watch.

When the sun shines it feels pretty good.

Newstead V Dunolly

We all got up early. We organized our equipment.

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Zsuzsa’s team played first. I learnt timekeeping duties and blew the horn after each term. They won.

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Sid’s team played afterwards.

He kicked a goal. I think they won but I’m not sure. I had to leave, I enrolled to deep fry at the canteen. I cooked a lot of chips.

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This was my first time going to a Newstead local football /netball game. So many people involved, such a crowd gathered to witness local sport. Never saw so many cars in Newstead.

I’m very proud of us having played a small part in all of this. I’m starting to love it.

Zsuzsa on the passenger seat checks her texts while I’m driving. A couple in the park manages three young children. Innocent scenes make me relive the pain of loneliness within a relationship. Beneath the skin, tension still aches.

It is said one of PTSD symptoms is to relive the traumatic event, through unwanted and recurring memories. My psychologist during our first meeting told me it takes time to recover from a significant relationship breakdown, on average five years. I hope he is wrong and I hope he is right. I’ve done one. I can do five. It will be fine.

Truth might be simpler though, and the cause of my unease more immediate. I might just experience a temporary and very transitional kind of anxiety. From a break, to back to the routine.

Mine has now been disturbed for three weeks, the last ten days filled with children talks, children love, sibling tensions and constant asks for guidance.

School is back now. I’ve been happy returning to work, enjoying some adult equal footing conversation. And will get back to my well adjusted weekly routine like in a comfortable old skin.

A change in focus needing some time for adjustment.

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routine

[ roo-teen ]

noun

1. a customary or regular course of procedure.
2. commonplace tasks, chores, or duties as must be done regularly or at specified intervals; typical or everyday activity:the routine of an office.
3. regular, unvarying, habitual, unimaginative, or rote procedure.
4. a rehearsed act, performance, or part of a performance: a comic routine; a dance routine.
5. an unvarying and constantly repeated formula, as of speech or action; convenient or predictable response:Don’t give me that brotherly-love routine!

adjective

1. of the nature of, proceeding by, or adhering to routine:routine duties.
2. dull or uninteresting; commonplace.

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transition

[ tran-zish–uhn ]

noun

movement, passage, or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept, etc., to another; change:the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

Music.

1. a passing from one key to another; modulation.
2. a brief modulation; a modulation used in passing.
3. a sudden, unprepared modulation.
4. a passage from one scene to another by sound effects, music, etc., as in a television program, theatrical production, or the like.

verb (used without object)

1. to make a transition:He had difficulty transitioning from enlisted man to officer.
2. to change from one gender identity to another or to align one’s dress, behavior, etc., with one’s gender identity:My friend is transitioning without hormone therapy or surgery

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adjustment

[ uh–juhst-muhnt ]

noun

1. the act of adjusting; adaptation to a particular condition, position, or purpose.
2. the state of being adjusted; orderly relation of parts or elements.
3. a device, as a knob or lever, for adjusting:the adjustments on a television set.
4. the act of bringing something into conformity with external requirements:the adjustment of one’s view of reality.
5. harmony achieved by modification or change of a position:They worked out an adjustment of their conflicting ideas.

Sociology. 

a process of modifying, adapting, or altering individual or collective patterns of behavior so as to bring them into conformity with other such patterns, as with those provided by a cultural environment.

Year 1.

I awoke to the sound of four children and very soon they became five. The weather is bright.

A year ago I did the entry report inspection in this new place during a nationwide lockdown. Police stopped me on the move, asking me all sorts of reasons for my whereabouts, warning me about lines crossing and unorthodox car parking.

A year later I’m feeling a mixed bag of emotions, pride, regrets, gratefulness and anxiety intertwined. I don’t feel the need to untangle these in any way. They all make so much sense, sending important signals to self.

This day belongs to children and their friends, the sun is shining, and surrenderring is the only way.

I learned I am more comfortable playing with a soccer than I am with an AFL football. Re-learning the obvious. Seems like a fitting lesson for the day.

Sid is having a friend over.

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Girls have gone into town.

More words from Ros Moriarty, Listening To Country.

Meanwhile in a dark corner of the laundry, the funghi do their funghi thing.

Garlic, a hate/ love story

I hated you when I grew up. Raw in salad dressing, rubbed upon my thumb, probably keeping me healthy.

It’s all forgiven now and every year I look forward to those two days. Planting, and harvesting you six month after.

“I looked uncomfortably for cues of inclusion, and swallowed the loneliness of cold, silent nights in my tiny hut. People were not unwelcoming. They were just going about lives which were unfamiliar to me. I quickly understood how alienating such an experience of dislocation from culture could be.”

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I, Benoît Oury, son of Pierre & Sylviane, brother of Chantal, Jean, and Vincent, grandson of Emile, Jeanne, Marie Thérèse and Jean, nephew and cousin of many, former partner of Claire, will honour their stories, aknowledging the cultural background, understanding and sense of belonging they provide.

I will transmit them to Zsuzsa, Sidney and Jean. I will do this in whichever language seems appropriate, without feeling guilt or shame if that language isn’t my mother tongue at that time.

I owe it to my creators.

I owe it to myself.

I owe it to my children.

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Yes. We had another train ride. Melbourne won by four goals.

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A first glimpse of winter.

Zsuzsa went on her own today to Bendigo, taking the train with some girlfriends to go the cinema.

We leftoverz went to jumpz.

Some of us jumped.

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More Jean.

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More Brené Brown, sounding familiar.

“I’m good at anger and only so-so at vulnerability, so armoring up before a vulnerable experience is very attractive to me.

Luckily, my work has taught me that when I feel self-righteous, it means I’m afraid.

It’s a way to puff up and protect myself when I’m afraid of being wrong, making someone angry, or getting blamed.”

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More Jean.

They’re back.

The last of the garden blooms.

Easter, 2021.

The children are in Sydney, and I in Castlemaine. It feels a bit out of context, abstract, spending Easter without them. A disembodied experience of sorts.

The Castlemaine festival is wrapping up beautifully, the weather is heavenly, the town is bursting with actions and opportunities: giant Scrabble battles and epic theatrical performances here, open studios and exhibitions there, music, free and not, appearing regularly. Every pub has a few gigs, unusual stages appear in parks, reserves and streets.

We played a concert on a reactivated car park, the warming up looked like this, was joyful and the general feel was extremely positive.

Yet I feel unsure.

Warm feelings give place to confusion, and the need to brace myself for any self confidence bubble to be busted. What did I miss, what did I not pay attention to? Joy seems a somewhat selfish feeling.

Brene Brown writes about foreboding joy, bracing ourselves for disaster as a classic armor strategy. We refuse to express and experience joy because joy, and the inescapable loss of it, exposes us as being vulnerable. When joy leaves, or is taken away, it leaves us vulnerable to disappointment. Hence, when experiencing joy, we’d rather brace for disaster. It seems safer.

Could it be the other way? Could the longing, the pursuit, and the experience of joy be a diversion from exposing ourselves to our own vulnerabilities, a fragile attempt at avoidance? Are those two propositions even any different?

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The antidote to foreboding joy, she suggests, is to practice gratitude.

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I feel grateful for my children to be safely celebrating Easter with their mother in Sydney.

I feel grateful for a beautiful evening filled with support, talks, walks, random encounters and wholesome connections.

I feel grateful for my parents, calling me from France, and loving me.

I feel grateful for a different Easter experience.

Gouttes d’eau & feuilles de Songe

Obsessions

La Incondicional, de La Dame Blanche. En boucle depuis 24 heures. Over and over and over.

Certains morceaux me touchent droit au coeur. La dernière fois que j’ai ressenti ça, c’etait en écoutant Beautiful You, de Bumcello.

En remontant le fil des ans j’ai retrouvé MC Solaar, Caroline

Je me suis souvenu avoir enregistré Love Street, des Doors, cinq fois de suite sur une cassette. Les obsesssions a l’époque c’était beaucoup de travail.

Après, bien sur, on pourrait parler de Renaud, Brel, Bob Marley, Miles Davis, Mickael Jackson, Manu Dibango, Fela Kuti et tant d’autres, mais pour une raison ou une autre, ce sont ces trois morceaux qui me sont revenus aujourd’hui.

L’avenir nous dira si La Incondicional passe l’épreuve du temps.

Time will tell.

The Disengagement Divide

“Here’s my theory: Disengagement is the issue underlying the majority of problems I see in families, schools, communities and organizations and it takes many forms, including the
ones we discussed in the “Armory” chapter.

We disengage to protect ourselves from vulnerability, shame, and feeling lost and without purpose. We also disengage when we feel like the
people who are leading us -our boss, our teachers, our principal, our clergy, our parents, our politicians aren’t living up to their end of the social contract.

Politics is a great, albeit painful, example of social contract disengagement.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle are making laws that they’re not required to follow or that don’t affect them, they’re engaging in behaviors that would result in most of us getting fired, divorced, or arrested.

They’re espousing values that are rarely displayed in their behavior. And just watching them shame and blame each other is degrading for us.

They’re not living up to their side of the social contract and voter turnout statistics show that we’re disengaging.

Religion is another example of social contract disengagement.

First, disengagement is often the result of leaders not living by the same values they’re preaching. Second, in an uncertain world, we often feel desperate for absolutes. It’s the human response to fear.

When religious leaders leverage our fear and need for more certainty by extracting vulnerability from spirituality and turning faith into “compliance and consequences,” rather than teaching and modeling how to wrestle with the unknown and how to embrace mystery, the entire
concept of faith is bankrupt on its own terms.

Faith minus vulnerability equals politics, or worse, extremism.

Spiritual connection and engagement is not built on compliance, it’s the product of love, belonging, and vulnerability.

So, here’s the question: We don’t intentionally create cultures in our families, schools, communities, and organizations that fuel disengagement and disconnection, so how does it happen? Where’s the gap?

The gap starts here: We can’t give people what we don’t have. Who we are matters immeasurably more than what we know or who we want to be.

The space between our practiced values (what we’re actually doing, thinking, and feeling) and our aspirational values (what we want to do, think and feel) is the value gap, or what I call the disengagement divide.”

Brené Brown, Daring Greatly

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And this, too.

The sounds and coulours of an illuminated building and a park submarine.

Deep in the night something happened in Castlemaine.

Reactivate the night, Castlemaine Fringe Festival, 2021

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Fruits de la passion

We spoke for ages about retrofitting an old dishwasher in my pastry section at work.

All along I was reticent to the idea.

It finally happened, this morning.

I really didn’t like it, then I really loved it, then the machine broke down. All within my five hours work shift.

Here’s from R. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, on machines and peace of mind:

“Peace of mind isn’t at all superficial, really,” I expound. “It’s the whole thing. That which produces it is good maintenance; that which disturbs it is poor maintenance. What we call workability of the machine is just an objectification of this peace of mind.

The ultimate test’s always your own serenity. If you don’t have this when you start and maintain it while you’re working you’re likely to build your personal problems right into the machine itself.

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The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn’t any other test. If the machine produces tranquillity it’s right. If it disturbs you it’s wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed. The test of the machine’s always your own mind. There isn’t any other test.”

A pretty fitting take on this story, to be continued.

Some pumpkin pride.

Brené Brown, Daring Greatly

Sidney’s moods.

Saturday, march 20th.

I asked him who those moods were, but I forgot his answer.

I will ask him again, hoping he remembers.

EDIT

He remembered.

Cheecky. Grumpy. And Bored. There are just days like this.

Back door ideas

The last seedling I saved from the compost pile yielded this.

Will I get lucky again this time?

I shall hope so !!!

Friday night footy

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What this doesn’t show is the effort every single person put into making a junior football game happening.

The coaches, the families, parents, siblings, the driving, the organising, the waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

This is a new world to me.

It feels quite daunting to be honest. I always struggle with new things.

I will love it, eventually, as much as they do.

Sid is number 13.

Women’s march.

En réponse à une succession d’abus & aggressions sexuelles au sein même du parlement, et de la réponse, ou plutôt de l’absence de réponse appropriée, de la part du gouvernement, les femmes australiennes ont marché à travers le pays aujourd’hui, notamment autour du parlement, Canberra.Pour exprimer leur ras le bol du déséquilibre du pouvoir, toujours en faveur des hommes. Pour revendiquer un ensemble de réformes, allant de la parité, égalité salariale, réforme du code pénal pour faciliter les investigations relatives aux aggressions sexuelles, entre autres.En réponse, LE premier ministre offre une audience aux représentantes & organiatrices de la marche dans son bureau, si elles le souhaitent. Mais refuse l’invitation de venir à leur rencontre, juste dehors, à l’exterieur de l’assemblée.Puis à l’assemblée, se réjouit de vivre “dans une vibrante démocratie libérale.” Puisque, “pas très loin d’ici, de nos jours, de telles manifestations se font tirer dessus, mais pas ici, pas dans notre pays. C’est un triomphe de la démocratie.”Ambiance…

Natural sweets

Up and down.

Skate boarding trials, more needed.

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Home

Melbourne. Reverse chronological order.

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Melbourne

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On the way down I ponder the vacuity/vanity of trying to keep hold of a moth when a light is on. It takes a long time to let go. Will I forgive, will I forget, what is desirable, and what does one ever do?

Thinking these confusing thoughts I am getting out of my comfort zone. A used rectangle trampoline is sitting in the bush, underneath a wattle tree.

Train voyage carries some of my memories.

Saint Mathurin. La Bohalle. La Daguenière. Angers.

Angers. La daguenière. La Bohalle. Saint Mathurin.

In Gisborne, New Zealand, my friends awoke to an earthquake earlier today. They probably still worry about a tsunami. In Gisborne, Victoria, our train journey ends. A replacement coach awaits.

A red sign on the freeway reads WRONG WAY GO BACK, and I wonder if I should heed that message.

Dry artichoke flowers light up the roadsides, sprouting everywhere. We enter the suburbs. Melbourne a few towers on the horizon.

Water gardens. Footscray. Melbourne.

I experienced two separations over the last twelve months, and feel now a bit rattled, experiencing maybe a mild form of PTSD. I initiated both of them, feeling bereft of choices. Not all stories are equal but their repercussions can sometimes merge.

“Is our stop the next stop?”, Jean keeps asking me. WRONG WAY GO BACK, the red signs keep showing. This landscape is so ugly.

A few taxis, a few sirenes. The cheese sticks. The big wheel. A lot of cranes picking a lot of shipping containers. We’re entering Melbourne. I feel grateful for the journey.

Learning fast

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An afternoon trip to Bendigo.