Category Archives: Not Acting

by

Being Silenced

I like to think of myself as a humanist. All people are equal in my eyes. Some I like, some I do not like, but in terms of race, religion, creed, sexuality, gender, or culture, I endeavour to respect that essentially everyone is the same and should be treated as such. If I don’t like someone, it will probably have more to do with how they treat me or others and much less to do with any discernible “difference”.

However, I am now going to vent my spleen on an issue that has been grating my goat for a while now. I grew up with two older brothers, one of whom would habitually talk over me, interrupt me, and contradict me from childhood all the way up to my late 20s. My father – until I pulled him up on it – would regularly respond to any opinion I had on any subject with “no” as the first word out of his mouth. I’ve had male partners tell me to shut up because I dared to intelligently argue against them and they couldn’t win said debate. I’ve had male bosses who hire male employees because they’re less likely to sue them for sexual harassment (this is not conjecture, this boss actually said that to me). I’ve had male bosses say to me that they prefer male employees because they don’t have “family problems” (my mother had just died and my female partner was unwell).

I’ve had male partners tell me what to wear, what to say and how to act in social situations. I’ve had male partners correct me in front of other people when I didn’t need to be corrected. I’ve had male partners undermine my intelligence in front of others, or make fun of me if I’ve said something funny (because women aren’t funny, apparently).

I’ve had teenage boys in classroom discussions challenge me on my feminist views of Lady Macbeth (“if she’s so happy being a woman and all that feminist stuff, why does she have to become a man to kill the king?” It’s called context, fuckhead. The play was written 500 years ago) just to get a rise out of me. I’ve had male directors dictate my actions to me, ignore my requests and concerns, and accuse me of bad acting because they’re The Boss, so I should just fall into line like a good girl.

I’ve had male partners rebuke me for crying, claiming that I’m trying to manipulate them with my tears. I’ve had male friends exclaim “that’s a big word for a little girl” if I use words with more than two syllables. I’ve had male police officers dismiss my claims of abuse because “women aren’t violent.” I’ve been told by more men than I can count to keep my mouth shut when opposing this treatment. I’ve been told to “go back to the kitchen”. I’ve been told to know my place.

Like many other women, I got used to it. I got used to it because it’s been happening all my life. My mother once said that she knew she wouldn’t have to worry about me in a man’s world because she knew I could look after myself. I shouldn’t have to “look after myself” in a man’s world. It shouldn’t be a man’s world. It shouldn’t be a woman’s world. It should just be a world, and I am really fucking sick of having to fight for my right to be treated like a human being in this world simply because I’m a woman.

The terrible thing is, most men don’t actually know when they’re undermining women. That’s because they’ve always done it and it’s never been a big deal and they’ve never been pulled up on it and that’s what they’ve subconsciously been taught to do since childhood. Fortunately, most of the men I know would be horrified to discover that they may have undermined a woman in their life. But there are some who get defensive or angry, even when they are gently chastised on their behaviour. There are some who even secretly believe that it’s their right because that’s just the way the world is.

The recent #YesAllWomen campaign (and the #NotAllMen response) is a clear indication on where the world stands. What I’ve described above has happened to every single woman I know, and I daresay it’s happened to every single woman on the planet, whether they’re aware of it or not. No, not all men are misogynist dickwads, but instead of getting all uppity and antagonistic at the women who’ve been subjected to this treatment, why not get angry at the men who are giving all the good guys out there a bad name? Tell them off for being the perpetrators instead of telling us off for being the victims. But that’s it, isn’t it? We live in a world that finds it easier to blame the victim instead of addressing the behaviour of the culprit.

Well, I’m done with it.

Look, I like men. I get on very well with most men. Most of my male friends like me because I’m upfront, honest, funny and open. But even those male friends fall into the trap of patronising me if I’m being a little too upfront, honest, funny and open. And I’m over it. I can take being treated like an arsehat if I’m behaving like an arsehat. If I’m not being an arsehat, however, I’d like very much to be treated like a human being.

My womanhood is not a disability. Neither is it a commodity, an affliction, a hindrance, or a hurdle to overcome. It is my strength, my mantle, my superhero cape, and my pride. I love being a woman. I love everything about being a woman. I reserve the right to defend being a woman until it no longer has to be something to defend.

And to the men out there? Treat me like a human being, whether you like me or not, and you will have my eternal respect. If not, well, be warned. I will not be silenced.

Fuck sexism.

by

The Lost Art of Compassion

My heart hangs low in my chest today. Eight people were killed by firing squad in Indonesia this morning as an attempted deterrent to drug smugglers everywhere. Eight people faced their killers, all of whom denied the offer of a hood. It is said they died with dignity, as dignified as being shot whilst tied to a plank can surely be.

I had a scathing post ready, full of zingers and well-crafted literary comebacks. I can’t do it now. My lowly opinion is nothing compared to the agony the families of these prisoners must be experiencing.

I have deliberately refrained from engaging in any online debate over the Bali Nine ringleaders and their fates. This is partly because up until recently I didn’t actually know a hell of a lot about it, and partly because I was afraid I’d end up getting into an argument with a friend or acquaintance which would eventually culminate in me losing respect for them and their opinion. But mainly, it’s because I can’t hide my disgust for the “average” Australian sitting in their comfortable suburban armchairs, yelling “kill the bastards” at their television. It hurts me how easily we can separate ourselves from others, how cozily we pass judgement, how ruthless we are in our dismissal of others’ pain, just because they broke the law. Just because they made a mistake. Who here on this planet has never made a mistake? I just wonder how gung-ho these armchair executioners would be if these men were their own family.

Yes, these people broke the law in a country that upholds the death penalty. Yes, they did the crime therefore they should do the time. I’m not arguing against Indonesia’s laws although I vehemently disagree with them. What hurts my heart is the callous indifference to the fact that these men are now dead. Dead by the hands of other men. Up until their execution I heard people give me all sorts of reasons why the Indonesian government should “kill the bastards”, including that the heroin they were trafficking would have claimed lives here in Australia. Okay, fair enough. But it didn’t. No lives were lost at the hands of Andrew Chan or Myuran Sukumaran with that heroin. (And please don’t lecture me on how heroin destroys lives, I know more about that than I care to. Even after my experience watching a loved one mess herself up with that drug, I still wouldn’t want anyone else’s death to be a payment for her life.) When discussing it with a friend few months ago, she told me she had no sympathy for Chan and Sukumaran because, irrespective of her own feelings about the death penalty, they broke the law. Pure and simple. I then said to her, “can you imagine what it would be like knowing you’re going to be shot in the heart by twelve faceless people?” She said she didn’t want to think about that. That made her feel horrible.

Yeah. Me too.

Truthfully? I don’t know what I want to say, other than I’m grieving for those men’s families. I grieve for those men who were by all accounts successfully rehabilitated and who took ownership of their crimes. I grieve for those countries who utilise state-sanctioned murder as a punishment, and I grieve for those who have died for their crimes in those countries. I grieve for those people who separate themselves from their compassion and empathy because it’s easy to do so from the safety of their own home. I grieve for those who are victims of crime and are still hurting so much that they feel someone else’s death will lessen that pain.

Sometimes people do stupid things for stupid reasons. They still do not deserve to die. To quote Professor Jeffrey Fagan who appeared as an expert witness for Chan and Sukumaran in 2007: “Executions serve only to satisfy the urge for vengeance. Any retributive value is short-lived, lasting only until the next crime.”*

That’s all I have to say.

*Quote from Fact check: No proof the death penalty prevents crime, published on 2 March 2015 on abc.net.au

by

Pain For Art

Around September of last year, one of my closest friends was hit by car in Berlin. I got the call early in the morning from his boyfriend, the words crashing into my head and bouncing around inside my skull.

“What? Oh my God, what? Are you okay?” It was all I could say, over and over again, my incredulity belying my shock. This doesn’t happen. This stuff happens to other people, not to my friends. I start to cry. My friend – the boyfriend – starts to cry. The voice in my head utters one word:

“Nope.”

That’s the thing about being a close friend but not the best friend. I couldn’t do anything except ineffectually offer consoling words and lots of ‘I love yous’ to my friend’s family and partner, and sit and wait to find out if he was going to come through the coma, then the brain injury, then the rehab, then the trip back home. Other friends wanted to send care packages full of cards, letters and photos; I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound trite and disingenuous, when all I wanted to say was “don’t die, okay?”

He didn’t die, and he has recovered like a boss, the only signifiers of his accident being the corrective glasses he has to wear (because one of his eyes was knocked out of place by the car) and two scars on the back of his head. He jokes about his accident all the time. It tickles me that he got hit by a car whilst very intoxicated, running across a Berlin road to reach an after-hours bakery. He almost died for cake. My kind of guy. He can still walk, talk, be funny, and most importantly, he can still write.

I’m rehearsing one of his plays at the moment, and, as always with his work, there’s something in my character which challenges the fuck out of me. The particular challenge of this play I’ll discuss later, but there’s an important piece of information about “Carol” that really didn’t hit me with any sense of brevity until last night: she suffers a brain injury. My friend, who’s directing, gave me a note about playing a particular scene in which Carol is on her journey of recovery, and he said dryly, “as someone who has a brain injury …” I must admit I stopped listening after that because the actuality of his situation smacked me in the face with such force that my mind went blank. And I felt ashamed. I felt ashamed for being a wanky actor trying to find the authenticity of this woman’s situation, congratulating myself on being such an intuitive and sagacious artiste that I could just pluck her emotions out of thin air, and here was someone I loved who experienced this thing sitting in front of me, all matter of fact and candid and non emotive and I had no idea how he got through it all, much less how I was supposed to convey that on stage. I was awestruck, and sad, and grateful all at the same time. I was humbled. Not only did my friend survive this incredible thing, he humbled me with it – no mean feat, let me tell you.

As an actor, my job is to reconstruct, represent, recreate, interpret and narrate a story; a journey, if you will, that one character goes through. This character is a fabrication, even if it’s based on an actual person, therefore one has license to embellish, colour and adorn that character’s personality. My goal with every character is to try to find the human in the fabrication. I try to make the character relatable, if not likeable (because sometimes I play really unlikeable personas), and I’m good at it. I know that. My wife tells me I’m a little conceited about it, and she’s right, but that’s only because it’s the one thing in my life that I’m 100% certain about. I know I can do this, whereas with everything else I only have a vague, hopeful surety that I’m kind of getting it right at least 50% of the time.

Having said that, even in the face of my own arrogance, I am humbled and blessed and thankful that my friend trusted me enough to give me the assignment of representing a small part of his story. He didn’t write this character based on himself, the play is based on several other true stories, but as fate, or divine will, or just a happy accident would have it, here is another opportunity for me to delve further into the mires of the human psyche and therefore learn more about myself.

So thanks, friend, for getting hit by a car so I can know myself better.

Christ, I’m such a wanker sometimes.

My friend has a blog. It’s very good. Check it out.

https://eisforestranged.wordpress.com

by

Love Isn’t Enough

Trigger warning: contains references to drug use, violence, abuse and rape.

I remember the first time it happened. We were in St Kilda East, opposite the cemetery. Stupid idea for two energetically sensitive people to live opposite a massive cemetery, but there you go. We were breaking up for the second time. I had confronted her about her return to drug use, and by confront I mean scream “fucking junkie” in her face. She punched me in the mouth, held me down on the bed and raised her fist to punch me again. She called me a dumb fuck, ugly bitch. I muttered for her to get out of my house. She did. I cried. I went in to work at the parlour the next night, my lip swollen and a blood blister forming. The girls took care of me, but all I wanted was her.

I begged her to come back. She did eight months later. By this time I had spent a few months living in a factory cultivating an amphetamine habit that I didn’t have to pay for, I had worked in Sydney for the first time and been anally raped by a client whilst there, and had been homeless for a while, bouncing from couch to couch. I had finally found a little flat to call home in St Kilda, and she came back. And then she left. And then she came back. Even when she was with someone else, she came back. This was to be the final two years of our relationship, this push me/pull you bullshit.

The second time it happened was at the flat. I had found needles and poorly written love notes from another woman. I confronted her again, this time adding “whore” to the well-versed “fucking junkie” routine. I slapped her because she called me stupid. She doesn’t remember this, but I do because she fractured my nose in retaliation. She slept in my bed that night, while I lay on the couch, sobbing. She was gone in the morning.

I punched the wall next to her head once because she stole my entire $700 pay packet to score some heroin. Then I took her to a Buddhist temple to be cleansed. She thought I was taking her somewhere to kill her. I guess she didn’t know how much I loved her, that regardless of how many fantasies I had of beating her up and throwing her off the balcony, I could never harm her. Love does that.

The last time was the last time anyone ever laid a hand on me again. I forget now what the argument was about. Probably drugs, again. I goaded her, that I remember. I pushed her hard with my words until she snapped. She held a knife to my throat and tried to smash my head through the kitchen window. Fuck, she was strong. I have strength, yes, but she was propelled by something more forceful. I couldn’t push her away. She suddenly let me go, grabbed her things, and stumbled out the door. I didn’t see her again for years.

I grieved for her for a long time. I thought she was The One for me because I felt so strongly for her. I didn’t realise until years later that the physical stuff was not the only abuse we heaped on each other. She lied to me constantly, about stuff that she didn’t even have to lie about. I called her names to hurt her because I couldn’t touch her. She stole money and jewellery from me. I read her private phone messages. She took drugs and worked at the parlour one New Year’s Eve instead of spending it with me, so I cheated on her with another woman – I was free to sleep with whatever man I wanted to, but I broke our one rule in spite. She shot up anything she could get her hands on. I cut myself. She’d proposition men for drugs. I laid on my back for her habit. We played stupid games with each other, her using, me enabling until we burnt ourselves out. We were like a supernova that imploded into a black hole.

The funny thing is, we loved each other fiercely. That’s probably why we lasted for five years all up. She still says that I was the perfect girlfriend. I beg to differ, but I loved her, there was no doubt about that. Sometimes, though, love isn’t enough. We were bad for each other. She lost herself in drugs and I lost myself in her. While we were together, terrible things happened to us and we weren’t in the frame of mind to get help. Our network was sex workers, brothel managers and drug addicts – people who had their own stories and horrors to contend with. We removed ourselves from our respective families because toxic relationships tend to make their inhabitants do that. Oh, there was love. In retrospect though, looking back years later, it is so clear that it wasn’t enough.

Ten years later, we’ve reconnected and we’re friends. Good friends. Some people raise their eyebrows at this. I guess I wanted her friendship because I refused to be the victim and I refused to make her the perpetrator. I’ve told very few people the particulars of this story because I still refuse to be the victim in this. I spent a lot of my life victimising myself because of the things that happened to me at the hands of others. I needed to, and identifying as a victim of abuse is very important for the healing process to begin. But by the time she and I were finished I was done with it, I was done with being the person bad things happened to. Therefore, I think, I was able to forgive. She and I have talked and talked and cried and talked about that time. She has apologised again and again, still does, to such an extent where I have to tell her to stop because she doesn’t need to anymore. I can see by simply spending time with her that she’s a completely different person now, as am I. I said my sorries to her too, as one thing this relationship taught me is that things are rarely one-sided.

I’ve suffered abuse. At the hands of my mother, at the hands of a child molester, at the hands of a few rapists, and at the hands of a lover. It does not define me, but I know more of this subject than I care to. No one can tell me otherwise.

If you know more of abuse than you’d care to, please get help. Talk to someone. Recovery is not about being angry at the person who hurt you (although that helps for a short time), it’s about finding a way to move on with love for yourself. Talk therapy helped me immensely. Maybe it can help you too.

This post is dedicated to this year’s Australian of the Year, Rosie Batty, whose strength, resilience and bravery is an inspiration to many.

CASA
Support for victims of rape and sexual assault

http://www.casa.org.au

Family Drug Support
For families and loved ones of those with addictions

http://www.fds.org.au

ASCA
For adults surviving child abuse

http://www.asca.org.au

Victim Support Australia
Help for victims of crime

http://www.victimsupport.org.au

Child Wise
Help for victims of child sexual abuse

http://www.childwise.org.au

Domestic Violence Resource Centre
A very helpful site for those experiencing domestic violence, also caters to LGBTIQ

http://www.dvrcv.org.au/support-services/national-services

1800RESPECT
https://www.1800respect.org.au

Scarlet Alliance, Australian Sex Workers Association
Although there is no over-reaching national association, this page has links to other organisations that offer support and help to current and ex-sex workers. (Based in NSW)

Home page

Aside by

I’m sitting at the Rosstown in Carnegie listening to my friend Meg sing her Sunday sesh, and I’m reminded of my years of playing gigs with my band Tempest in days gone by. Oh, those were the days. 3 hour gigs every Sunday afternoon, residencies, getting that elusive gig at the Espy, recording, rehearsal, APRA, all that fun stuff.

Honestly, it was actually fun. I look back on those times with a great sense of nostalgia. The band ended badly, as such things do when ego is involved, but it was three years of awesomeness, singing and playing the music we had written, entertaining people, having all types of music lovers come up to us afterwards telling us they loved what we did. I remember one gig when a punk gentleman approached me after a set saying our music wasn’t usually his thing, but he really enjoyed what we did. Those were the moments we lived for.

Watching Meg sing, watching her revel in the magic of song made my heart ache – gladly. Music has something, an unnameable thing that automatically lifts the spirits. God, that sounds so conceited and wanky, but it’s true. Mind you, I’m writing this after two bottles of vino, so really, everything is a wank. But back on topic, I reckon every artist is inspired and gratified by another artist’s work. Seeing people do the thing they love is infectious. The energy of watching that act of art awakens something in an artist’s psyche. Art begets art, always and ever, and thank God it does, otherwise I’d be lost for inspiration.

I want to write again. I want to compose music just for the hell of it, just for the fun of it, for the joy of creating. I have no plans to record and release, or even to perform, but just to write is enough. Meg awoke that within me, just through the act of singing. Crikey, it’s powerful stuff, art. The cool thing about Meg is that she’s a life coach. Like, she actually gives a shit about helping people be better people. And you can hear that when she sings, that care. That’s the power of art.

Now, I’m no sycophant, I don’t believe in blowing smoke up anyone’s arse (what my ex-girlfriend used to call a trick with a packet of cigarettes and a length of hose), but I’m an advocate of helping people be better people, whether it be through art, or therapy, or group discussions, or education, or psychics, or psychotherapists, or whatever. Bettering oneself is bettering oneself, however which way you butter your bread. Therefore, I’m including a link to Meg’s website ’cause I think she’s great, but also because I believe in supporting fellow artists in whatever they do.

We’re at a point in existence in this world in which we’re on tenterhooks. There’s war, there’s death, there’s man’s inhumanity to man all over the damn place. Any chance we have to find our inner truth and have better relationships with other people on this earth, we should take. So here’s my unabashed plug of my friend Meg, singer, event planner and life coach extraordinaire.

Peace to you all.

http://www.startingtodaycoaching.com.au

Music Gets The Best of Me

by

Of Loss, Lying, and Love

Seven years ago, at the age of 30, I did this crazy nutso thing and went back to University to finish my degree. I was nervous as all get out as I knew that coming in to complete my third year I would be interloping on an already established network of student artists and theatre makers – most of whom would be 10 years my junior. How on earth was I going to fit in to this group of people who already had two full years of experiences and bonding and getting drunk together and all that? Could I still write essays? Did I know what ‘pathos’ meant (I reckon I still don’t know what ‘pathos’ means)? Would people want to work with me? Could I match wits with my classmates and teachers? Would I pass my degree? It was scary and intimidating, but given I had spent the previous year in a depressed, stoned and fat state of self-loathing, I needed to jump right in and swim.

Within the first week, I was pretty much accepted into the fold, probably because I have no problem making a dick of myself to get people to like me. I was also fresh blood. Within six months, I had a whole new group of friends, had come out as an ex-hooker, and had earned a reputation for being unapologetically honest, accepting and funny. The age difference meant little, the laughs were a-plenty, and new theatrical exploits were planned and executed with aplomb and alacrity.

Cut to seven years later, most of these friends are gone. I must admit that the majority of them I chose to step away from, mainly because I didn’t like who I was around them, but a few kind of forced my hand somewhat. Some of them were my closest friends that I had spent the last seven years forging deeply important connections with. Seven years of cheap hair cuts, and tea, and hugs, and listening ears, and the keeping of their secrets, the countless tarot readings, the acceptance and non-judgement, the theatre, the wine and the laughs. All gone because they believe my wife abused her ex, because that’s what my wife’s ex told EVERYONE. That and many other lies that manifested silent judgement in my friends’ eyes when they looked at me, when they looked at my wife. I want to scream at them “FUCK YOU! How dare you! Damn you for abandoning me, for not returning the faith I had in you, for believing the worst, for not talking to me because it’s ‘none of your business’, but let’s face it, you make it your business because you talk to everyone else except me about it. Fuck you and fuck the high horse you rode in on!”

*rage!*

…

By gods, I miss them. There’s a hole in my life created by their absence. There are comments and messages missing from my social media page, texts unreturned and unread, conversations that I can’t have with anyone else. I feel lost. Bereft. My heart hurts and I cry often, usually alone. My pride will not let me reach out to them, my fear warning me that any attempt to connect will be rejected. I don’t cope well with rejection so I don’t try. I’m pig-headed like that.

I know it’s my own fault. I walked away. I made a choice and I stuck to it, as righteous and indignant as it may have been at the time. I still believe it was the right thing to do, because I do not believe or give any credence to what my wife has been accused of. I didn’t believe it before she and I began our relationship and I still don’t. I will choose her time and again because it’s the right thing for me to do. Yet, I still grieve what I have lost.

Wikipedia defines friendship as having the following characteristics: affection, sympathy, empathy, honesty, altruism, mutual understanding and compassion, enjoyment of each other’s company, trust, and the ability to be oneself, express one’s feelings, and make mistakes without fear of judgement from the friend. For once, Wikipedia can be relied upon as being fairly accurate. That aside, I cannot deny that I do still have friends that offer me the aforementioned things, and I can requite them the same. But the connection I have with those friends differs from my Uni friends, and I can’t quite identify why. It’s a feeling I guess.

This too shall pass, as all things are ephemeral. In closing the doors to those people, I have manifested the opportunity for other avenues of connection to open. This is exciting and different, my life has changed immeasurably, I feel there are magnificent and wonderful experiences to come, and I fully believe that all has happened just as it should have happened.

it still sucks, but. And it will suck for a while. I hope they’re okay. I hope they achieve all they desire. I hope in time I will see them again and all will be fine. I hope they miss me as much as I miss them.

by

I Do

I got married yesterday. As with most things in my life, the act was non-conventional and probably quite impulsive. I proposed to my girlfriend a couple of months ago whilst visiting my family in New Zealand with the idea in mind that we’d travel to New Zealand to marry for legals while the Australian government continued to waffle and be embarrassingly reticent to allow the same civil rights for all their citizens. It was our government’s failure to recognise the rights of homosexuals that precipitated our decision to participate in a marriage equality rally yesterday. The date marked ten years since the Howard government amended the Marriage Act to state explicitly that legal marriage is ‘the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others’. Ten years. Why the hell are we still having to protest this discriminatory and archaic ruling?

In reality, I believe that marriage equality is essentially a non-issue. It’s a no-brainer. Why are we wasting energy, time and money on something that is a given – human rights, hello! – when there are children dying in Gaza, passenger jets being blown out of the sky, and Yazidis reportedly being killed in Iraq for refusing to convert to Islam? It’s ridiculous, frankly, and insulting.

Yet, this is where we are. Speakers at the rally yesterday told stories of getting married overseas and the sinking feeling of knowing that as soon as they disembarked from the plane on Australian soil they were longer married. A woman, our marriage celebrant, told of dedicating her life to bringing people together in love since her gay son passed away before fulfilling his dream of marrying the man he loved. An intersex person told of their experience of having to lie on official marriage documents in the past about their gender so that they could marry the person they loved, the only options being ‘male’ or ‘female’, not ‘both’.

I am fortunate enough to have a relatively simple gender identity and sexuality, my sexual preferences being quite fluid. It has always been about love for me – it’s the person, not the gender that I have been attracted to. Growing up with a gay dad and being exposed to ‘alternative’ sexualities in the sex industry has afforded me a healthy, well-rounded acceptance of who I am sexually. My coming out was non eventful, I have experienced little discrimination due to my preferences, and my family has always been accepting of my choice of partner, their only concern being my happiness. Even so, I feel marginalised and restricted (not just for being a little bit gay but also for being a woman, but that’s another post at another time).

Our decision yesterday to get ‘illegally married’ – as the celebrant put it – was mainly prompted by circumstance. At the rally, it was announced that any couple who wanted to make a commitment to each other would be given the opportunity to do so. As we were marching towards parliament in Melbourne, my partner turned to me and asked “do you want to marry me?” The decision was easy, given that I had already declared my intention to her in New Zealand, and quite simply, because I love her. I adore this woman, and can’t imagine my life without her. The act of getting married itself, grounded in complete acceptance of and adoration for each other, was a kind of protest. Our own protest against the friends we have both lost due to the circumstances of our relationship, against those who think we have moved too quickly, and against our stupid, myopic government who doesn’t think we have a right to share our lives as a married couple. Who knew a commitment to the person one loves could be so politically charged and powerful?

It has been a stupidly hard, yet wonderfully magical few months. My life during that time has been perfect in its imperfection. Every loss, every gain, every tear shed, every note of laughter has enriched my soul and made me love my life, myself, and my wife. We will wed legally, whether it be in the country of my birth or here if and when the law finally changes. Until then, love well, dear readers. Be as you are, be with whomever you choose, and trust that the Universe will always provide as it has done for me.

Be blessed.

by

Love’s Labours

She burst into my life like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky. I stole that line from Christopher M. Cevasco who said that in reference to reading Tolkien for the first time, but it’s accurate. It was unplanned, unexpected and unsought. I had thought she was beautiful from the moment we met a year ago, but she was in a relationship, about to get “married” – as much as lesbians can get married in this country – and I don’t mess around in other people’s relationships. I kept my friendly distance, stayed acquaintances with her and her wife, and continued my lonely journey.

Six months after the wedding, the marriage soured. Gauntlets were thrown, mud was slung, feelings were hurt and names were besmirched. It was ugly. Ugly and painful for all involved, I’m sure, but the only people who know what truly went on in that relationship is her and her wife.

Five weeks later, I took her on a date, simply because I wanted to give her a moment of sanctity, maybe even a little bit of joy. It had been a long time since a woman had elicited such feelings in me, and it may have been a long time before I met someone who did again, so I took my chance. I saw her more often, my heart growing larger every time. We spent hours talking, kissing, laughing and enjoying our connection. I believed at first that I was a band aid, a means to mend a lacerated heart, and although the thought saddened me I accepted the possibility that this was my only role in her life. I honestly felt privileged to be that momentary salve for her soul. However, despite our best intentions, and even against our own wishes, we fell in love.

We celebrated, publicly and privately, this new discovery of love. We took photos, we shared photos, we accompanied each other to significant events simply because we just wanted to be together, experiencing each other in these moments, as people in love do. Within a month, we became official. We’re in a relationship.

And then the knives came out. Some were sharp, keen and loud; others dull, silent but no less painful. Opinions were formed by those ill-informed, unsolicited advice was delivered with the arrogance of those who have not yet learned to let others be as they are. People started telling us what to do, using mutual friends as catalysts, suggesting that we might perhaps think of others and not be so “cutesy” quite so publicly. We were accused of using social media to be spiteful, of manipulating others’ emotions for our own gain, and for proving nasty accusations against my partner as fact through our inappropriately timed relationship.

And I snapped. I ranted and raved. I lost my temper and my ability to be understanding and compassionate. What we were being charged with sounded juvenile to me. I am capable of being an arsehat, but vindictiveness is not in my nature, so being reproached for that offended me. It angered me, for one very simple reason:

I am happy. And people I barely know are sitting around talking about my relationship like it’s an episode of Game of Thrones and coming to the conclusion that my happiness is objectionable and should not be displayed in a public domain.

I have no shame in declaring that my life has been difficult. I have had many moments over the last 37 years in which I felt I was existing in some circle of Hell. I have fought, and struggled, and heaved my way out of that pit time and again. I have been sexually, emotionally and physically abused by strangers and by people who claimed to love me. I have put myself through trial after ordeal whilst stumbling around in the dark trying to figure out how to be human. I have suffered indignities, sorrow and pain, and through it all I still found the ability to breathe, to find joy where I could, to love as much as my battered heart would allow. And yet I was never really happy. I didn’t think I could be.

She came into my life at a time when I had resigned myself to a continuing reality in which I existed alone. Rather than being a depressive, self-pitying realisation, it was an understanding of who I was and where my existence was at. It wasn’t a reflection on who I am as a person, whether or not I was loveable or worthy, it was simply an acceptance that perhaps my life wasn’t about experiencing that particular kind of partnership, that it was more about my spiritual development, and my art, and my friends, and the more I searched for that elusive love that I craved so much, the more miserable I would be. The thought also occurred to me that perhaps I was simply too damaged to ever be completely vulnerable and let someone else in. So I let it go with an abeyant sense of sadness, and told myself I didn’t like who I became in a relationship anyway, so I wasn’t missing much.

Then she entered my field of vision and everything changed. We are unflinchingly honest with each other about everything: our pasts, our expectations, our faults, the things we don’t like about ourselves, the things we do, how scared we both are, how cautious we know we should be, and how quickly we fell for each other anyway. Maybe it’s a lesbian thing, I don’t know, but I can’t deny that I am in love. So utterly, overwhelmingly, scarily in love.

For the first time in any relationship I’ve had ever, I feel like myself. I am comfortable and relaxed, and I have so many moments where I am present and content. I don’t feel the need to impress her, to compete with her, to hide my crazy, or to be right all the time. I don’t feel the need to be thin to be attractive to her, and I don’t need to play the femme fatale to get her attention. She thinks I’m funny and sweet and beautiful and smart and a dork and clumsy and she loves me for all of it. At last, I think I’m having the relationship I should be having. I’m actually happy, not because she “makes” me happy, but because I like who I am around her.

It’s happened very quickly, and if I’d had my way, I would have preferred her to spend more time single. But it is as it is, and being the sort of person who takes risks for love, art and experience, I have accepted this path that the Universe has put me on. It’s hard, though. Staying vigilant amongst the well-intentioned but ultimately hurtful “advice” that has been sent our way is difficult. Doubt is always a factor in new relationships, but it usually comes from within, not from external sources. Many of her friends believe she has moved on too quickly, but what they don’t know is the hours of discussion between us and our close friends over what went wrong, the times she has wept in my arms over the end of that relationship, her sorrow at the loss of her wife who was her best friend, and her fear of fucking up her time with me. Of course no one else knows this, it’s private. I understand the concern of her friends and mine, and I begrudge no one the right to have an opinion, but I do draw the line at imposing that opinion as fact onto my experience. I would never dare tell anyone what they should and should not say, do, think or feel. It’s insulting.

Our relationship is not a “fuck you” to her ex, a woman who whilst hurting hurt others, including two of my closest friends. Our time together is about us, not about sticking it to anyone else. We share our adventures with our online world because this is the age of the internet, such is the time we live in now. The only person who has any conceivable right to be offended or disaffected by our public declarations of mutual admiration is her ex, who has blocked us both on social media (such is her privilege) and has no access to our private lives. Her name is not mentioned in any of my posts, and I try very hard to be respectful of her perspective of her relationship. But this is mine, and I will not be shushed.

Look, at the risk of sounding overly poetic, love will not be denied. It demands attention, expression and celebration. We as humans need to hear “I love you” as much as we need to say it. I love hard and I love well, and the opinions of a few is not going to stop me from rejoicing in my happiness with the many who have been waiting to see me in that state for decades. If that means I alienate some acquaintances then so be it. I personally think it’s sad that someone’s happiness can be the cause of so much disdain in others.

I love her. She is my illumination, my muse, my paramour, my biggest fan and my greatest ally. She is graceful and erudite, she is considerate and charming, she is accepting and reflective, and is one of the most brutally honest people I know. I admire her strength and her vulnerability, and I hold in high regard her ability and willingness to take responsibility for her own life, to seek help, and to own her mistakes.

She makes me laugh. She makes my heart sing. And yes, she may one day hurt me just as much as I may hurt her, but I choose to take the risk because I’m an adult and have the competence required to make my own decisions.

What makes me laugh is that none of this is actually anybody else’s business, not even remotely. The only people who know what really goes on in our relationship are her and me. The reason I share this now is because I want to. I have nothing to prove and nothing to justify to anybody. This, what you’re reading now, is about me. Little ol’ me, finally receiving the love I’ve always wanted.

by

Little Fat Flying Cherub Day

Lupercalia

Valentine’s Day, eh? Geesh, when I think of Valentine’s Days past, I am reminded of two years of working the phones at an international flower delivery service and that day being the day to dread. 12 hours of frantic, last minute orders, angry customers, overworked and stressed florists, and my frayed temper. Honestly, if your entire relationship rests on whether your uninspired choice of a dozen red roses reaches your beloved by closing time, you’ve got a huge fucking problem.

Oh my gods, customers would get so infuriated if anything occurred that was not within their expectations, as if theirs was the only order/relationship/existence of importance. The experience of working at that place greatly opened my eyes to the absolute absurdity of this annual “holiday” and the lengths people will go to to conform to an accepted display of affection on this consumer-driven, banal day of twaddle.

Now, you may be forgiven for thinking that my enmity for the 14th of February actually stems from a lack of romantic attention on this day in the past because you’d be partly right. The only Valentine’s Day present I’ve ever been given was a rustic CD stack from my ex-fiancé. One year, he took me for lunch at Arthur’s Seat which would have been lovely if we had not had a sotto voce argument in the restaurant that I started which consequently left me in tears, which was the regular occurrence in our relationship. He gave me beautiful gifts for Christmas and birthdays, but Valentine’s Day was a fizzer always. I bought him a Valentine’s gift once, I’m sure. I just can’t remember what it was. Obviously, it was so much from the heart that my blinding love blocked out the memory of its physical form.

Ha ha.

Subsequent relationships garnered little in the Romance Day of Gift Buying department mainly because my ex-girlfriend was too wasted to notice that it was THAT DAY (or any day, truth be told, bless her cotton socks) and therefore was oblivious to any of my romantic overtures in celebration of the day, and the most recent ex was so busy trying to prove that he didn’t love me, like me, or even particularly want to be around me that I’m sure a failure to acknowledge the Day of “Love” was yet another attempt to wound me with his indifference.

Here I am, talking about Valentines past as if I actually care. I don’t really. I mean, whether or not I get a gift or a card or a gesture remains relatively unimportant in the scheme of things, but in the midst of my crusty cynicism, I do have occasional, private wistful wonderings of what it would be like to have an unexpected romantic surprise from one’s paramour. I also ponder why it’s so important, why this day is so bloody significant to the general unwashed masses.

Being slightly pagan in my world view, and knowing that Valentine’s Day has some basis in pagan history, you’d think I’d know the history of this day. Well, I don’t, but I did some hasty research and found out (woo, internet!).

This day of mass-produced love has its origins in the festival Lupercalia (which I do know a little about as it turns out), which is the ancient Pagan, possibly pre-Roman festival of fertility, or as the right-wing Christian fundamentalists like to call the “festival of sexual licence”. Apparently, celebrating our fertility is a sexual perversion (rcg.org). Go, you crazy Christians!*

Oh, you crazy Christians!

Oh, you crazy Christians!

Lupercalia is actually a ritual involving the twin founders of the city of Rome, Romulus and Remus, who were fished out of the River Tiber and raised by a she-wolf in a cave at the base of Palatine Hill. The cave was dubbed the Lupercal (from the Latin lupus meaning “wolf”), and became the sacred site of future rituals in honour of the twins and the wolves who raised them, represented by Lupa, the she-wolf, and Faunus Lupercus, the alpha-male wolf deity.

The ritual included the sacrifice of a goat and a dog, “the killing of a herd animal and a herd defender presumably echoing the feral days living in the Lupercal” (manygods.org.uk) by two young men representing, I reckon, the twins, who then led the Luperci – a gaggle of priests formed for this particular ritual – down the street, thwacking women, men and children with a bits of dead goat in an attempt to cleanse out the bad juju of the previous year and promote fertility.

Goat spanking. It's the new ... um ...

Goat spanking. It’s the new … um …

As is the way with the crazy Pagans** the ritual ends with a big feast (presumably of goat meat) and lots of sex.

This all happens on the 15th of February. The 14th of February is the eve of Lupercalia and was the day of the love lotteries as it was also the day of Juno, the Queen of the Gods and big fan of marriage. According to witchology.com, unmarried women wrote their names on bits of paper which were tossed into a jar and chosen at random by unmarried men. The couples then paired up for the remainder of the festival and could remain together and marry if the partnership worked. How this fits in with the tradition of anonymous and perhaps slightly stalkery love note-giving of today’s Valentine’s Day is perhaps due to the Lupercalia custom blending with folklore beliefs in Britain and France that the 14th was the day the birds started their bonking season, so everybody thought “let’s get bonking too!” and it persisted as the day of love.

But then the early Christians came along and spoiled all the fun. “Now stop this, we can’t have blood sacrifices, that’s just not on. And we certainly can’t have all this rampant spanking, bonking and carrying on, it’s so undignified. I know! There were two martyrs called Valentine killed on this day in different years sometime in the 3rd century by that Emperor Claudius II person, let’s give one of them, oh I don’t know, the second one … let’s give them this day and we can get back to some sort of decorum … oh, the people want to keep frolicking? Oh, all right, just keep your bloody clothes on!”

Or something like that.

And so it evolved, as these things are wont to do, into what it is today. Some Christian groups have distanced themselves from the supposed religious aspect of the day admitting that it really has nothing to do with a couple of dead saints, and claiming that it is against their God to celebrate it.

But really, in my humble opinion? It’s a day that celebrates love. Yes, it’s consumerised (just made up a word there) to buggery, yes it causes more stress in relationships than it should, yes it may have lost its true meaning somewhere in the works, but so what? We celebrate birthdays, we celebrate our national holidays, we celebrate Christmas and Easter (both with their roots in Paganism), why not celebrate a day of love? Forget the sappy bullshit that accompanies it, Valentine’s Day is a great day to remember, reflect, and bask in the warm-fuzzy glow of romantic love or platonic love or familial love or any kind of love because love is pretty awesome. Hey! It looks like I care after all.

So, Happy Valentine’s Day to all my readers and their loved ones. Go have some chocolate covered candy hearts.

*No disrespect to sane Christians anywhere.

**No disrespect to sane Pagans anywhere.

Aside by

What the fuck is wrong with people? From our myopic Prime Minister here in Australia inciting the country into “war with the boats” to stop “illegals” from entering our country, to twits in the US throwing up their racist arms at a multilingual ad campaign by Coca Cola featuring different coloured Americans singing in different languages, it seems that the people of this world are fuelled by malice.

I’m a big fan of Lorde, the singer/songwriter from New Zealand, not just because she’s a Kiwi, but because she’s a talented young girl who writes interesting and well-considered music who doesn’t have to twerk in order to make an impact. I watched her performance at the Grammys on YouTube and then made the mistake of reading a few of the comments. It was like watching a car accident, I couldn’t look away. The amount of hate-fuelled, vile taunts that were pitched this young girl’s way were astounding. Comments ranged from “is she having a seizure” (in reference to her dancing) to “she’s ugly,” “what’s up with her hair,” “she looks like a witch” through to “I hate you, you bitch.” I was gobsmacked. Here was a young, smart, talented young woman who I would consider to be an excellent role model to girls everywhere being torn apart mainly by other women. I mean, if you’re not a fan, you’re not a fan, but where is this “haters gon’ hate” thing coming from? Since when is it good form to personally and vehemently attack someone you don’t even know on a public forum? I don’t get it.

My housemate says that this is the age of the internet, where you can write what you want, fairly anonymously without fear of recrimination. I get that, but why then, would one choose to express hateful remarks? What is it in the human psyche that revels in being nasty? When did we forget that we’re all the same? Did we ever know? Where did this separatist belief come from, is it just religion, or are the secret governments of the world conspiring to isolate us from each other? We are all of us made up of the same stuff, our bodies all have the same things in them, we all shit, we all cry, we’re all born, we all die, we all feel the same emotions even if we have different responses to them. In essence, we are all connected by this simple fact, therefore we are all one. I struggle with compassion for my fellow human at times, particularly if I think that fellow human is stupid, but hate? I can’t hate anybody, especially since I understand that my irritation with someone else is usually because I see something I don’t like about myself reflected in them. To hate on them is to hate on myself, and frankly, I’ve done enough of that. What a waste of energy.

I don’t know the answer to this one. It confounds me, it saddens me, and all I can do is shake my head in bewilderment and go listen to Lorde.

Rant