Where Is The Love?

(I wrote this last week, before all the Oms and the Desiderata.  Would like to post it as a reminder to myself; first that I DO care about it even if I am able to be at peace about it, and secondly, that if I am ever going to be able to do something about it I should concentrate on my writing, on writing something that makes people think about it, maybe even sing about it, rather than making them sad and angry and alienating them.  Working on it, really I am!)

I'm still worried about that child abuse stuff.  I'm still bothered that it's all around me, that it is people I sat next to and spoke to and acted as if nothing was wrong.  I'm still bothered that the government seems to be able to do nothing about it.  But I'm more bothered that I sat next to these people and treated them as people.

When do I draw the line at treating someone as deserving of happiness?  When they rob it from their children.

I'm still disturbed.  It seems I can do nothing about it.  I can't change the world; I certainly can't save it. 

But I also can't ever sit next to these people again.  I can't do it.  I just can't. 

But I will stop trying to hit you over the head with it.

Because the Black-Eyed Peas say it so much better than I ever can.

"Where Is The Love?"

What's wrong with the world, mama
People livin' like they ain't got no mamas
I think the whole world addicted to the drama
Only attracted to things that'll bring you trauma

Overseas, yeah, we try to stop terrorism
But we still got terrorists here livin'
In the USA, the big CIA
The Bloods and The Crips and the KKK

But if you only have love for your own race
Then you only leave space to discriminate
And to discriminate only generates hate
And when you hate then you're bound to get irate, yeah

Madness is what you demonstrate
And that's exactly how anger works and operates
Man, you gotta have love just to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate
Let your soul gravitate to the love, y'all, y'all

People killin', people dyin'
Children hurt and you hear them cryin'
Can you practice what you preach
And would you turn the other cheek

Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questionin'
Where is the love (Love)

Where is the love (The love)
Where is the love (The love)
Where is the love, the love, the love

It just ain't the same, always unchanged
New days are strange, is the world insane
If love and peace are so strong
Why are there pieces of love that don't belong

Nations droppin' bombs
Chemical gasses fillin' lungs of little ones
With ongoin' sufferin' as the youth die young
So ask yourself is the lovin' really gone

So I could ask myself really what is goin' wrong
In this world that we livin' in people keep on givin' in
Makin' wrong decisions, only visions of them dividends
Not respectin' each other, deny thy brother
A war is goin' on but the reason's undercover

The truth is kept secret, it's swept under the rug
If you never know truth then you never know love
Where's the love, y'all, come on (I don't know)
Where's the truth, y'all, come on (I don't know)
Where's the love, y'all

People killin', people dyin'
Children hurt and you hear them cryin'
Can you practice what you preach
And would you turn the other cheek

Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questionin'
Where is the love (Love)

Where is the love (The love)?
Where is the love (The love)?
Where is the love, the love, the love?

I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder
As I'm gettin' older, y'all, people gets colder
Most of us only care about money makin'
Selfishness got us followin' our wrong direction

Wrong information always shown by the media
Negative images is the main criteria
Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria
Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema

Yo', whatever happened to the values of humanity
Whatever happened to the fairness in equality
Instead of spreading love we're spreading animosity
Lack of understanding, leading us away from unity

That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' under
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' down
There's no wonder why sometimes I'm feelin' under
Gotta keep my faith alive till love is found
Now ask yourself

Where is the love?
Where is the love?
Where is the love?
Where is the love?

Father, Father, Father, help us
Send some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questionin'
Where is the love?

Sing with me y'all:
One world, one world (We only got)
One world, one world (That's all we got)
One world, one world
And something's wrong with it (Yeah)
Something's wrong with it (Yeah)
Something's wrong with the wo-wo-world, yeah
We only got
(One world, one world)
That's all we got
(One world, one world)

Desiderata

The Desiderata

 

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,

and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,

even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter,

for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble,

it's a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;

many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.

Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love;

for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,

it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,

gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.

But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.

Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive him to be.

And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life,

keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann was an attorney turned philosopher-poet who live in Terre Haute, Ind. He spent his life wrestling with the realities of making a living and following his personal calling to a life of poetry, literature, and thought. He wrote A Prayer, which became a message of hope for thousands, but he is best known for Desiderata, which he wrote for himself, "because it counsels those virtues I felt myself most in need of." Max included this work as part of a personal Christmas greeting in 1933, and Desiderata's power and appeal have continued to reach out to and significantly affect readers ever since. He died in 1945.

Desiderata is copyrighted and is displayed here (http://www.sfheart.com/desiderata.html) with permission from Bell & Son Publishing, LLC ,
1301 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10019-6076.

Open Your Heart?!

Every now and then I get a very private yoga class.

Twice a month Ian and I have been going down to the State Library of Queensland in Brisbane and attending Mother and Baby Yoga classes in the Childrens' Corner there.  (Brisbane ROCKS!)

Sometimes none of the babies are interested and we end up focusing on the mommies while the babies safely toddle around the play area.

This leads to some very long poses.

Eyes closed.

Muscles slowly relax.

The body - and mind - move to where they are meant to as they follow (subconsciously sometimes) the instructor's spoken suggestions.

"Now bring all that tension deep inside yourself."

What?  Wait a minute.  Aren't we releasing and untensing?  Aren't we letting it all GO?

"Bring all the negative feelings, the bitterness, the frustration, the anger, the unhappines, discomfort, whatever is bothering you, into your core."

Uh lady.  Aren't we supposed to get GETTING RID OF those things?

"Bring them into your core, into your inner heart, into yourself, so that you can deal with them and then let them go."

Oh.

I'd never heard that before.

It comes back to me now, months later, because I am going to try to do just that with my anger over the next few weeks.  I am going to accept it and let it in instead of exposing it and spewing it all over the place.  (You're welcome!) 

Releasing it into the universe isn't making it go away.  I'm not a "forget about it" kinda gal.  (As if that wasn't patently obvious!)  Let go?  Who am I kidding?

Maybe bringing it into my heart and accepting it will help.

Funny thing is, that when I told my instructor how much her words had meant to me, and how different I found them from what I usually hear at yoga, she told me that she didn't remember saying them.

"Sometimes I just go into this place and the words come from their own, almost as if they are meant to be heard by a specific person in the class."

Open my heart.

Oh God, I really am sixteen again.  Now I'm singing Madonna songs!

Long-Winded Apology (All about ME!!!)

Over a month ago, when the shit hit the fan with Aidan back at our old school, I sat up nights listening to 10,000 Maniacs (oh, oh, oh, what's the matter here, I'm tired of the excuses everybody, uses, he's your kid, do as you see fit) and Suzanne Vega (my name is Luca, I live on the second floor) and writing really bad poetry.

I don't post ALL the crap I write up here.  My poetry is really bad.

I was also reading the Wicked series by Gregory MaGuire which discusses, among other things, the nature of good and evil and the role of individuals in resisting the state.

This was unintentionally bad timing.

Then the Julian Assange story came out on TV here.

That one still has me feeling a bit ambiguous.  Has he done some good?  Sure.  Is he brilliant?  Undeniably.  But is he also working from a broken inner core of bitterness?  Uh, even the documentary seemed to think so.

Would he have been able to do more good - say, Bill Gates good, funding a global research and relief organization that is bringing some positive change to the world - if he had been able to work from an inner core of peace?  Who knows. 

I do know that part of what has been bugging me the last two weeks - and I do apologize for this - is not doing anything about some of the terrible things I see happening to children around me. 

I turned that guilt into anger.  Like Julian Assange.  He was angry that the Australian government did nothing to stop his Aryan supremacist ex-step-dad from abusing children.

So that even as I was getting messages from God (via Neil) telling me that He had it all under control, I was still feeling guilty.  Julian would be so mad at me for not making MORE waves.

Someone even whipped out the old classic for me.  Have the courage to change what you can, the serenity to accept what you can't and the wisdom to know the difference.

I don't think anyone has ever called me either serene.  Or wise.  Let's friggin' change things then.  I'm gonna save the world,!

And I'm Catholic.  And German.  And American.  I mean, where will the guilt stop if I don't speak up and do something about the evils around me? 

Oh yeah,  I've just stopped breastfeeding the baby too.  Now I'm listening to Pet Shop Boys..at school they taught me how to be so pure in thought and word and deed, it didn't quite succeed....and Black-Eyed Peas...people dying and children crying.  Oh yeah.  I got a whole post on that one.  I'm telling ya, you haven't even seen the really angry stuff!

All of a sudden I feel like a teenager again, full of self-righteous anger and energy and ready to take on the world.

I'm telling you man, not a tattoo on me, but I'm a bad mother-fucker.  (Look, I even typed a really bad word!!!  More on WHY I have to do that every now and then in another blog...I learned why at a writers' conference...really)

It took a text from a friend telling me I had hurt her feelings with what I had written to make me think about all this again.

Did I want to offend someone?  Yeah, I'll be honest, a bit.  But not my friend.  I want to piss off the establishment, rage against the machine, you know dye my hair pink and go punk.

Do tell me it's not all just the hormones. 

But then I thought, well, if I offend the very people I want on my side, then I'm not really doing any good. 

Well, first I thought, if I offended my friend my writing couldn't have been very good, because she missed the point (the intended sarcasm and self-belittlement) I was aiming at the establishment.

Which establishment?  Not quite sure.  Take your pick.  Who is it that allows social inequities in general and abuses to children in particular to exist?

THAT establishment.

Which is really very much bigger than my old school, this state government, any state government at all.

Funny, I've been doing a lot of running lately too.  Really running.  I thought if I tired myself out enough I would get away from the thoughts of injustice and inequity and the pictures in my head  and the ways that I could change it all and......I'm pretty fit now.  I think I'm going for 10 kms next weekend.

By Friday I thought, this is ridiculous, I am so wound up and so angry, and really, is it all just the hormones coming back because I feel like I did when I was sixteen, let me try yoga.  (What I tried as a sixteen year old wouldn't work, too many kids, not enough time to recover!!!)

Om.

Although I did run 5 kms first.

Om.

Stretch and bend.

Om.

Stop thinking about THAT and focus on the twist.

Lengthen the spine.

And then I felt it, just for a teensy moment, the barest millisecond, a glowing warmth (that was not a torn muscle!), a presence, a message from the universe.

"Don't worry Christine,"  it said.  "I got this one."

And somehow it came to me  - midpose - that all the injustices in the world aren't my problem to fix.  That I don't have to feel guilty about not doing anything about them.  (Give up GUILT?!  But what would I replace it with?!)  That all I have to do is worry about my life and my children and take it from there.  Give up the control over anything but MY OWN circumstances.

This all sounds so familiar.  Maybe if I repeat it enough I will finally get it right.

The feeling I had - for a barest of a flicker - is that the universe is just fine the way it is.

Oh.

You mean, I don't have to do a damn thing about any of it?  Give up the guilt and the anger and the need to do something about it?  And it's not quitting or selling out?  What a relief. 

Thanks, friends, for the texts and emails and the messages.

Max Ehrmann said it best in his poem, Desiderata.

"With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world."

I wanna be able to write like that.

And it won't come from a core of anger.

Namaste.

New Boyfriend

It's like finally breaking up with that bad boy who really wasn't doing you any good and going out with that nice boy from Harvard. 

This week I've gotten the passwords for Aidan and Matthew to get online access to classroom work from home.  Andrew's homework is also to be done online.  Today, when I went in to get his password because he is home sick, his teacher already had it ready for me on her desk.  She had meant to give it to him today.  All three boys have free access to online learning programs as well as assignments from their teachers.

 

I've got the swim schedule for later this month,  an invitation to school skating night on Saturday, an invitation to the drama and glee club's production of The Jungle Book next week, and the biweekly newsletter telling us about a writing competition I'd like Andrew to enter.

Andrew also received a note confirming that a child in his class has been found to have lice.  While this is no shocker, at our old school we just assumed at least a handful of kids from each class had lice at any given time and checked daily, what is surprising is that the school IS allowed to inform parents when another child in their class has an infectious disease and that they ARE allowed to ask parents to check their child, clean their home, and not have their child return to school unless their child has been treated. 

Oh.  Turns out just the poor kids are held to lower health and hygiene standards. 

Why this should surprise me is a mystery.  I've lived all over the world.  I've seen worse disparities between rich and poor - way worse, in Africa, in India, and daily in the USA - than in southeast Queensland.  Way worse.  Which is maybe why it took this long for me to figure it out here.

I guess I just still thought this was wrong.  I was still all gung-ho bent on fighting for equity for everyone. 

Proof maybe that I belong in the little rich white girl caste.

The truth is - and I see this now -  that most people from our old school wouldn't even want to go to our new school.  It would blow them away. 

The truth is that they are happy where they are.

And my job is to learn to let that be. 

What still annoys me a bit is that it took me this long to figure out where I fit in.

Honestly, we would have ALL saved ourselves a lot of trouble if someone had just said, really early on, listen Christine, you are so not meant to be here, take a left onto Gympie and head over the AJ Wylie bridge.

You'll find YOUR tribe there.  (Tribe is a much more acceptable word that caste or socioeconomic class, isn't it?!)

To be fair, someone WAS saying it last year already.  I just couldn't figure out why he kept telling me where he sent HIS kids to school.  (And I really couldn't figure out that everyone was saying "Kurwongbah" last year either!!!  Maybe if they'd written it on a slip of paper!)

So, the boys are up at 6 AM, dressed and fed, beds made, teeth brushed, lunch made and bags packed, waiting downstairs to head to school.

They liked the old boyfriend all right, but they are super psyched about this new guy!

And oh.  I've figured out the parking!

But The Parking Sucks!!!

It's been a tough week, not so much for me but for the people who have had to hear about how fantastic the changes in our lives are going.

Like Claire said after our move from Germany,  "oh oh oh, the weather is nice all the time and the beach is great and....."

Lori added.  "uh, some of us still have to live in Europe you know, so please tone it down a little."

So that, out of respect, I am going to tell you all how much the parking sucks at our new school.

Never mind that the staff is so organized that they were telling ME about report cards at the end of term, ten weeks away, on the first day of school.  Both teachers. 

The boys were on the weekly "Show and Tell" roster within three days of showing up.  They had homework the first day back.

I have their school books ordered for January.

I've had the author visit permission slip for Andrew, the swim forms for the twins, receipts from camp and a back-ordered pair of shorts from the uniform shop all delivered to the classrooms and taken care of immediately. 

Although I do have to park a block away to pick them up in the afternoons.

Mornings, there are over a hundred children sitting quietly on benches in front of the Tuck Shop until the bell rings at 8:30.  Then they are allowed to play handball quietly.

There is a woman with a bull horn enforcing this.

If I get there early enough, I can sometimes park close enough to the school so that I don't have to walk up the hill.

Kurwongbah DOES appear to have students from a higher socioeconomic group than our old school.   (Hiding behind the big words, always hiding behind the big words!)  Some.  There are plenty of us from Lawnton there too!

But I don't think that's why the school has such a great reputation. 

They have higher expectations.

And they enforce them.

It helps that they have over 900 students.  They have more resources, more teachers, more money, more programs.  They even have a school song!!

The uniform code is more stringent.  (I meant, honestly, if you are going to have a uniform policy, enforce it.)

Discipline, organization and communication.  I am happy.

I dropped into our old school this week too, to drop off some things we had managed to take home with us.   ( I was able to park right at the school entrance.)

It was hard to walk in, the way it sometimes is when you return home after a long time away.

But once there, I felt among friends.  I do miss the staff from our old school.  It is like going from a Thanksgiving dinner with family (with all the dysfunction that accompanies it but also all the love) to being part of a well-oiled corporation.

Leaving was so hard just because our old school was family.

But just think of all the friends I am going to make circling that two block radius around Kurwongbah, marching up that hill and down, twice a day, five days a week.

Rest assured folks, the parking sucks!!!

Milestones: Two Years

We're reaching milestones faster than I can record them. 

Perhaps I can be forgiven for missing the date of the first anniversary of our arrival here; I'd just had a baby barely six weeks before.

(Insert inappropriate comment about immigrants!)

But now we're going on year two and the merry-go-round isn't slowing down. 

We left Altdorf, in a hasty scramble of madness that involved a crooked landlord and unexpectedly euthanizing the dog in the middle of packing the car, on September 30, 2010.  Need I mention it was raining?

I've tried to blot out the pain, remembering only Andrew's comment, after hearing my anger at Damon for the umpteenth time. ( I swear, the man was scanning paperwork in the computer while I was simultaneously cleaning the kitchen, painting the bedroom wall, packing and hauling suitcases down the stairs to the driveway; I can't remember it too closely or I will divorce him even now.)

"He's doing his best Mom,"

Which is why I wanted to kill him.

(Only a few days later, on the backroads of Bayern, we had the "I'm thinking out the other end" comment and the tension lessened.)

I remember Tracey in the rain with all the kids, Lori and Dominique running up and down the stairs with half-packed bags, and feeding Wolfy Lynn-Anne's fabulous South African stew as his last supper.

Lynne- Anne's phone call at the right moment also saved my marriage.

"Just get out," she told me.  (She meant the apartment, and Altdorf and Germany and the situation we were in and not the marriage, I presume.)

The woman is brilliant.

We spent the month of October, 2010, homeschooling and vacationing in Bayern. 

Left Germany on November 3 and landed in Brisbane on November 5.

The staff at A-Mart still remember us coming directly from the airport to buy mattresses for our apartment.

Which is all the furniture we had until after The Floods when people around us realized we really WERE living on mattresses only and started donating chairs and tables and sofas. 

Two years.

Since then we've moved house, found a better job, bought a car,  had a baby, and now recently changed schools and started homeschooling.

The boys play soccer and baseball, during rugby and cricket seasons respectively.  Ryan rides.  Andrew has a motorbike.  I work out, do yoga, have run in a few fun runs, joined a writers' group and spent all night at a literary event in Brisbane recently.  (or should I be saving the drivel for my American Christmas letter this year?!)

The baby is walking. 

We have friends that are family.

And, in the constant cycle that is change, we have started all over again with a new school, and new routines, and meeting new people, all within two years of starting out with barely enough to live on.

I wasn't in the market for new friends.  I fought with everything I had to not switch schools.  I hoped Ryan would change her mind about homeschooling.

Honestly, I'm still exhausted from the move here.

It's the first time in my life I have made such major changes without an accompanying physical move across state lines, countries, continents, oceans or even hemispheres.

Everything is new again.    Everything out of kilter,   a bit out of whack,    full-on as the Aussies say.

I'd say I'm too old for this, but I have a funny feeling this is just the beginning.