It has being very much a limbo time for me. December was a hard month. January is looking brighter; but I am waiting for some dots to connect.

I’m waiting for a space with a new specialist. Looks like I’ll be waiting till May, which kind of means that I can’t really start the rebuilding project that I committed to before Christmas.

A home care service has started; personal care and house work. It’s interesting having my time managed by somebody else to the extent that it has happened. I think they have the impression that because I don’t work I don’t really have a life. I hope these are just teething problems.

After watching previous seasons of The Biggest Loser over the last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking more about my body and fitness. I wasn’t really given a lot of information about or options as a child and teenager about what to expect from my body or even a clear sense of fitness options beyond standing frames. I wasn’t involved in sport (even wheelchair sports). This is no one’s fault, but I do feel like I’m missing out on getting the most out of my body in terms of the strength that it has and weight loss options. Yes I do have a belly! Fitness is also a good distraction and stress management tool.

So I did a bit of digging and found this. I am ashamed to admit that I don’t even remember being told what sort of cerebral palsy I have, so I guess I need to start there. I could make a guess but given I’m going back to see the GP on Friday I’ll ask.

For example, I’ve realised as I written this using voice recognition software again, how much of a tactile person I really am. I’m impressed with how quickly I can get things “down on paper”, I do miss typing. So I think exercise will be good for my head as much as anything else. It might also help me reconnect with my form and stop feeling like a head on a stick.

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Dear All,

I’m sending this out on a personal note.

In simple terms this email is a thank you. It is international Day of People with Disability. I refuse to deal with Christmas till after today every year!

Regardless of how stage managed events around it need to become to raise the profile, IDPwD is intensely personal and profound for me.This year it is quite emotional for me. For me it is an opportunity to take a big breathe and acknowledge the journey, the wins, the losses and the inevitable work arounds. This starts with looking at my own life and using that reflection to look outwards. It involves giving thanks to all the powers that might be and to those in my circle who give me strength and courage and other resources to make “it” happen. You are each getting this because you have personally helped me “run that gauntlet”

Interestingly, looking out for a minute I see a big disconnect between parts of the messages that are being sent out this year. Domestically we are being told to celebrate the successes and the achievements and while fighting for the NDIS, keep it light and fluffy and a-political, This is even though there are enough people with disability to fill Victoria and we are under-utilised and more likely to be in all sorts of other not-nice minorities as a result .

On the other hand, the United Nations who proclaimed the annual observance in 1992 still tell us that:

“Persons with disabilities make up an estimated 15 per cent of the world’s population. Almost one-fifth of the estimated global total of persons living with disabilities, or between 110-190 million, encounter significant difficulties. Furthermore, a quarter of the global population is directly affected by disability, as care-givers or family members.
Persons with disabilities encounter many disadvantages in their societies and are often subjected to stigma and discrimination. They remain largely marginalized, disproportionately poorer, frequently unemployed and have higher rates of mortality. Furthermore, they are largely excluded from civil and political processes and are overwhelmingly voiceless in matters that affect them and their society”

I think this is a call to action if ever I heard one!

I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle and that for those of us who are “active participants” have the balancing act ongoing. It is because of people like you that I find the strength “to run the race before me”, even if we never talk about disability! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. . It takes courage to be sit on the margins. The marginalisation may have have changed but it is still present and I still feel it so thanks for the gifts of courage I am given in the big and small ways..

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I’ve always wanted to be a writer. A good writer. Partly because I love words and the way they can move both writer and reader of all types. But partly if I’m honest ( the new me now) because when well done, it seems it can be portable.

I want to write because I want to hope that I’m half good at it. I want to write because I feel safer behind my words. But in the same breath I don’t think I’m that good at it. Or at best good enough to do the dream.

I don’t remember the small things of my life, my real life. I promise myself I will, but I don’t. I also don’t really remember the details of good enough stuff I read.

I’m listening to Geraldine Brookes giving the first of her four Boyer lectures. It is broadly speaking on the environment and having a sense of place. I usually get turned off by environmental activism as much of it seems to be anti people, anti relationship and anti balance and full of guilt mungering and but you must know generalizations

I like the way she put her acknowledgement of country neatly within the context of her lecture; where it made sense and resonated with the rest of the points she was making. I believe her. I join her in that sentiment wholeheartedly as opposed to watching it sit there like a sixth digit.

I now at the end of that lecture want to go and check that the wheelchair charger that keeps me disabled and handicapped from having any sort of real wilderness experience is off and run the handwashing load that is due as early as possible to make use the natural sunlight to dry things in air.

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Yay

Congrats to Tony for getting there too. At least he had the manners to warn his readers.

The voice dictation software helped somewhat as did good ol’ pen and paper.

I have promised to let people read at least extracts but I must clean it up first!

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Whoa what a strange week. Global and local highs and lows. Not sure what the parallels are if any but I think there will be some.

It was a really personal time me, it was my birthday.
It was a time for new technology, my own and others.
It was a time for the best shower of my life, when I had been ready to accommodate and adapt.
It was a time for good friends from near and far.
It was a time for new barriers and new vision.
It was a time to mourn and celebrate.

Whole chapters of this blog  could and might yet be written about any one of these lines, but the need to say a lot has paralysed me from saying anything and so I post.

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The Children by Charlotte Wood

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

View all my reviews

Saturday was a nice start to the Labor Day long weekend. A lowish tech day, but I was pleased to discover that it wasn’t hard to be low-tech.

I read “The Children” by Australia author Charlotte Wood. I had read The Submerged Cathedral when it first came out a few years ago, and liked it and although the back cover indicated that “The Children” was going to be a sad read, I picked it up in a local bookshop after lamenting my lack of fiction reading and reading in general.Of paper books at any rate!

The premise of the book is roughly thus:adult children who; let’s just say have their differences, gather from the four corners in the small country town of their upbringing round the bedside  of ageing father who is suddenly in a coma and try to deal with stuff, including, of course family politics and a local stalker!

I read all 300 ish pages in the space of say 6 hours. I certainly didn’t read it non-stop but in two or three longish stints. It was part of my vaguely successful pre-birthday retreat thing. As it has since emerged I need whatever respite I was given.

It was a good read – insightful without being too profound so that I didn’t feel taught but more “included”. I laughed and sighed as if I was part of the family. The dying man was there but as a facilitator and the use of foreground and shadow settings made it all more ok

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This happened on my mothers local radio station.

He’s a happy little vegemite, that’s at least a good sign for a foreign minister sprooking a “once Australian” production.

Not that anyone will ask my opinion on the matter but for what it’s worth I think that the only “reasonable solution” (the time has passed for a “good” solution) is to have a challenge. Do it openly, loudly even. Plan it, book it in. Just have it. Have anyone whose name has been mooted by the media make a “real” statement as to status.

Then you have two options, just two I figure.

1. Kevin wins,well  so that the electorate’s original wish is respected. He might lose the election but he can push it back a bit at least . Then when you lose you can play swapsy if you like. If he wins and keeps winning he needs to talk succession. But if he wins in the world outside the cabinet room, then in one sense, the cabinet needs to suck it up. The people have spoken. Democracy has then done its job.  If he’s that bad at internal consultation there’s always Dale Carnegie! But I doubt they will win again.

2. Someone else wins and everyone else shuts up and winner gets given three clean news cycles. Yes I know technically the media decides that. But the party PR machine needs to cheer loudly. Keep all the news coming from the Government, Party and Country coming from this mouth ONLY. I think there are too many egos for this to work. But it must, because the Party can’t afford a bi-election. Nor can the liberal-minded of us all migrate to New Zealand quickly enough!

Even people I know with little interest in politics are taking bets on Julia remaining PM. Lets deal with it.

Why one might ask is this still an issue. Why is Kevin Rudd still on the front page of the paper every time he coughs?

Despite the carbon tax Copenhagen/mining tax mess up, I think that the polls that resulted were only meant as a slap. A punishment, not an execution. We figured he’d get the message that he had upset us and he’d have the time to kiss us and make up. He was still charming to us. So we didn’t know that he was hard to work with. But that wasn’t our problem. The spill made it our problem because it happened quickly, but not cleanly. and neither the mining tax, nor the carbon tax have looked like clear and clean wins for Julia Gillard anyway.

You turned our slap into your execution, without asking us. Clearly we don’t like that type of responsibility. We are happy enough (or not) with the responsibilities we have, thank you very much.

So now we are nervous about why the choices we make mean. Some are learning what the rest of us knew; you elect a local member and the rest happens in green and red rooms elsewhere.

But, even to those of us who do intellectually understand that though, you do sell the leader you have as prime ministerial candidate versus “other guy”. It’s not “our prime-ministerial candidate” versus “other guy” versus “whoever else we might like later”. Not in the first term.

However and whoever might lament  the Americanisation of politics; it is done as I have just described. Both sides have used this method. It is how it is. Yes we all need civics class to learn more about what our election day choices really mean and all the green and red rooms involved, that will have to go into an education package later on.

In the meantime you have two choices. But first have the challenge. Then decide and make sure everyone gets the memo this time

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As I write this I’m listening to problogger interviewing Seth Godin on productivity and blogging. Is an interesting interview.

The concept that is speaking out for me is talking as a solution to the writer’s block. He mentioned that the solution to his writers block is to write like you talk. Learn to talk in full sentences (with something to say!) And then write that way.

As one who wishes she wrote more, thought deeper and broader etc etc this might be useful advice. Particularly in my case because I use voice recognition software, which works better if you can think at least in phrases–or at least not turn the microphone on until you know vaguely what you’re going to say. I get complimented on my writing when I talk it rather than typing it.

It may not have been how I was taught to write, sentence structure parts of speech and such. But it does work.

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This was a Facebook meme style update from a friend. It was too clever to just leave on Facebook particularly give it is something I’ve noticed,

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as: – Knowing when to come in out of the rain; – Why the early bird gets the worm; … – Life isn’t always fair; – And maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies, don’t spend more than you can earn and adults, not children, are in charge. His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition. Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion. Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault. Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife Discretion, his daughter Responsibility, and his son, Reason. He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame and I’m A Victim Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, do nothing..

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My recent readings having included re-reading Socrates’ Apology (as reported we think by Plato).

A passage has struck me: — apologies for the gendered language

 

“You are mistaken, my friend, if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider in performing any action; that is, whether he is acting rightly or wrongly, like a good man or a bad one” 27B-28C

 

 

 

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