The First Sunday of Advent

You do know, don't you, that this is nothing like Christmas...

The thermometer begins to rise and people start to divest themselves of their 'winter woolies'...(huh?)...it's warmer...the days are white bright...flies are attacking every moist crease on your face...the cat's too hot to be handled much and the first damp bath towel of the year is in the freezer waiting for the time when, at 3.30am I cannot sweat a moment longer and MUST HAVE SOME RELIEF...  

They've been playing carols in David Jones' for weeks now and I do believe that Rick and I spied the beginnings of the Christmas merchandise in Myers and September wasn't even over. Friends are talking about going to the beach and packing picnics for Christmas Day...or spending the day in the pool. It's just weird.

There's no way, either theologically or culturally, that this is Christmas. Whether your reason for the season is the birth of the Baby or a celebration of the Winter Solstice or whatever the reason...it just isn't Christmas...and actually, liturgically speaking, we're just breaking through into Advent and the preparation of our minds and hearts begins for Christmas...but it isn't Christmas...

This is the one time of the year when I feel like a stranger in a foreign land...well, except maybe at Easter when people start wishing you a Happy Easter on Good Friday...but that's a whole other story...

I am confused and...discombobulated...and I don't understand why it should be so...this is my 5th Christmas here...you'd think that I would be used to it by now... 

I suppose that I've had 53 years of seeing and understanding and experiencing it all in such a different way. However it works, I know that the idea of Christmas evokes images and words that I have stored up over the years and every one of my senses carries a code that the word Christmas unlocks for me. 

Words and music flood my ears - O Come, O Come Emmanuel; The Messiah; David Essex singing 'A Winter's Tale'...

Tastes and smells come flooding back to me - bread sauce; Christmas pine trees; the first G&T of Christmas Day; spice and cinnamon in Marks and Spencer's Christmas room spray; Bailey's Irish Cream poured generously over ice...

My skin tingles at the thought of cold, fresh air and remembers the suffocation of lots of people in a small room and the central heating roaring away...

My mind's eye is softened and brightened by candlelight and fairy lights and I can still see the faces of people who no longer share this space and time but who nevertheless come and celebrate with me.

The meaning and traditions have been etched onto my psyche in ways that I am barely conscious of and don't profess to understand. I just KNOW the difference between Advent and Christmas. I FEEL that it can't be right that we're into it all so early and somehow the meaning I ascribe to Christmas and tried to make a part of how I lived...not so much now but certainly for a long time...is a bit affronted by the commercialism and the excess...I'm constantly on the look out for other landmarks and indicators that this it Christmas but I keep finding a dissonance between what I experience and what I expect.

They say that what is known by heart is what the heart knows. I was first told this in Sunday School when I was trying to learn passages of scripture. 

What is known by heart is what the heart knows. 

I know about Christmas. Actually, I think this might just be that I believe some things about how Christmas should be celebrated.  But the truth is that's only my Christmas...one tiny part of the Northern Hemisphere experience of Christmas. And on the basis of what I believe...I'm prepared to declare a whole continent wrong. 

Australia...your Christmas story had been judged by me and found wanting. 

I think that might be described as prejudice on my part. Pre-judging a situation based on my experiences and preferences. And my prejudices run 53 years deep...not as deep as some but still enough to create a track that has ruts on either side.

What is the opposite of prejudice? Is it openness? I think it might be.
What can I do to open myself up to some different possibilities? I know that continuing to moan and complain about how it just isn't Christmas isn't working for anyone...least of all me. So what would happen if I chose to embrace a Southern Hemisphere Christmas (although not too tightly cause it is pretty hot here...)? Just see things a bit differently...be a bit more open to yes and a bit less closed to anything new...could my heart come to know some new truths? 

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent. The anticipation and excitement of a 'new thing'...a new way of being and doing...

Here we go...

http://youtu.be/Yv927QNtz78

'O Come, O Come Emmanuel'

Pelicans and Peace

I just couldn't write yesterday. I heard the worst possible news concerning a friend of mine back in Scotland and I felt haunted all day as I thought of all that she and her two teenage children will have to face as the days go by and they have to find a way to live without the most precious man in their lives. 

My heart went out to them and all of yesterday's work and business was conducted against a hollow, empty sound that was sadness and disbelief. The day came and went and it was good to go to bed last night and put it to rest. It will be a long time before my friend and her family can lay their head on their pillow with the thought ( and now, never the assurance) that the night time's sleep will give way to a new day and an opportunity to start afresh. However, that is the very gift that I was given. 

I woke up to a fine West Australian spring morning. The sun was shining and a breeze was blowing. As I organised myself for the day ahead I was able to see all the work done in our garden yesterday. I'd been too distracted to take it in then but it was wonderful to look with fresh eyes this morning...to realise how much they had done and see again how fortunate we are to live in this particular spot. 

My working day almost always includes a drive along Canning Highway over the bridge across the river. Even on the wildest of days I think how fortunate I am to have this every day...the river snakes out on either side of the highway and I catch sight of the city and almost have to pinch myself to believe that I. Live. Here. 

And I live a life I could hardly have imagined back there in Wishaw...

It was particularly beautiful this morning. 

The pelicans had come out to enjoy it. They sat on top of the lamp posts preening themselves and then a squadron performed some aerial manoeuvres before bringing their huge bodies to a graceful landing on the river...like Lancaster bombers flying in formation...

Exhilarating and calming all in one swoop.

I've not always appreciated it in my life, but truly, there is nothing quite like the gift of a new day. Another chance at this business of life and living. 

And although it's not a custom we practice here in Australia, in this season of Thanksgiving I am grateful for another chance.

And I am mindful of those for whom the day wakes to pain and sorrow. I wish them pelicans and peace.

Just keep writing...

Ah! My blog...I've missed you...

I've grown used to emptying my head at the end of the day. Just using you to help me sort my thoughts out and sometimes to help me know what I think about some things.

You've been great...so much more helpful to me that a diary or a journal. Anytime I've tried to keep either one of those  I've found that I've started to disappear in a cloud of pomposity and introspection. I've been so busy trying to instil some weight or meaning into every day and it has been ponderous and turgid to write. So much of my life is very ordinary and mostly lived in a superficial way. It's just not really that big a deal, so trying to capture it in writing seemed really...pointless...

But somehow you are different.

At first I used you. Your purpose was simply to get me into the habit of writing and you did just that. Every day, sitting down in front of a blank screen and writing. 

Sometimes the words would just tumble out...often shouting and noisy. At other times I've had to sit for a bit, writing the same thing over and over again until something caught. 

Sometimes I was mesmerised and knew the pleasure of crafting words in order to have them say just what I wanted to say in the way that I wanted to say it. 

It didn't take me long to enjoy the hours we spent together...I anticipated eagerly the hour when the house was still...no more needed to be done...and I could just write. If it was all flowing well then I felt as if the house breathed in and out with me. For the times of writing the same thing over and over again the doors and walls and windows held their breath and seemed to sigh with relief when I eventually completed what felt like a task. 

Never. In. My. Life. have I been so committed to seeing something through. Never.

It may be true to say that writing for those days kept something alive in me...some vague notion of worth and purpose. I felt as if I was writing because my life depended upon it.

The fact that it seems that people read it and talk about what I've written is pretty amazing to me and I can't deny how much it pleases me. But I can't think about that too much because then it will become a worry about who reads it and what do they think and is it better than...? I know that will spoil this unexpected little pleasure for me...our relationship will change and there will be pressure about how I perform.

And it seemed that the purpose was to get beyond that...the purpose was to get to the heart of the thing and not get caught up in the frills and folderols...

To say how I saw it and to let everyone else think what they think and do what they have to do.

I've missed this sanctuary. This place of safety. This place of the heart. This place where I can be me...

So... I'm going to try and keep on going. Every day. Some small word. 

My word. 

Take it or leave it. 

“Because no matter what they say, you always have a choice. You just don’t always have the guts to make it.” 

― Ray N. Kuili, Awakening

In which the writer makes some uncomfortable personal revelations...

THIS POST MAY LEAVE YOU WITH SOME TROUBLESOME IMAGES...APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE

The past couple of weeks have been tricky in our house. There's been some stuff happening with doctors and hospitals where the imagining has been much scarier than the reality...but it's pretty much all good now and there doesn't seem to be too much to worry about...for which relief, much thanks.

So...nothing serious to deal with but a couple of things going on nevertheless, one of which has been, quite literally, a pain in the ass. A very ordinary pain in the ass...experienced by many people if the array of preparations to deal with said pain is anything to go by, and actually, it might explain the apparently random crankiness and incivility that makes up a lot of the our day to day exchanges. Lots of people walking around with a pain in the ass...that would explain it. 

I've been toiling with this pain full on for the past week...previously it had been intermittent and much more manageable but, this week...oh boy! 
I've been distracted from my day to day work and really just...consumed by it. 
At first I ignored it and just thought that it would go away but I should have known better because since I turned 50 nothing in my body snaps back or sorts itself in the way it used to. I would say that this pain has become more intense as the week has gone on and I've just about run out of strategies for dealing with it. I've hit the point at which I'm ready to get someone with some expertise on the case so I've got the Google thing going...

My poor, long-suffering husband. If I'm not ranting about one thing it's another but this has been a bit different because it's really only today that I've felt that I wanted to 'fess up to what's going on. Call me a prude or any other kind of uptight that you like but I'm not really accustomed to having bum conversations...with anyone...and Rick already accepts and accommodates a great many of my physical...idiosyncracies...so I'm not in any great hurry to discuss this latest but really...it is just so freakin' SORE...and I am so...out of sorts...

Because of it that I felt that some explanation was due.

OK...so I've set the scene...and there is a point to this blog...

At 2pm this arvo I took 2 Panadol and went to BED...honestly, I felt so bad. 
I was hoping that I might sleep for an hour and it magically resolve (it didn't). So I moaned and complained and described and hypothesised and cursed and paced and...you get the idea...I did go on about it...and I felt a bit better for that and also much better that Rick knew the extent of it and at the very least, I wasn't alone.

But I did start thinking about how it would be if I didn't have language...how on earth would I ever have been able to deal with this? How would I explain about the pain and where it was? How long would it take the people around me to work out what was going on? And, given where the pain was and all of the taboos we have about bums, would we ever get there? Without me acquiring a grubby reputation?

It's another one of those moments of epiphany for me...I thought I understood this...

Just like I thought I understood about what it meant for families to negotiate support in their homes...
The theory is a shadow...the reality comes at you in technicolour and stereophonic sound...

It's hard for everyone concerned...Rick just thought that I was cranky because I was too hot...and, since this is Australia, it's going to be hot for a long time! And you know, I'm cranky anyway...would anyone notice the difference? What would I have to do to help them see it?

I'm not making any judgements about what people do or don't do as they support a person who doesn't use words to speak. But I also know that they are among the most vulnerable and worst served within the system. I believe too that there are good people working in agencies, often doing their best in difficult circumstances.

But, I tell you something...if I had to put up with this for too much longer without being able to talk about it or having the wherewithall to get help then someone would get hurt...

I suppose I'm just asking people to consider that before they write someone off as a pain in the ass they might consider that their ass (or any other part of their anatomy) is in pain.

A deep sigh...

Today has been a day full of good things...

Good news. Good times.

Balmy, beautiful, spring weather. 

Good work done in a place where I could look across the river to the city all lovely, dressed in her best bonnet. 

Jacarandas bursting blue and the white gums moving gently in the breeze, sighing with the burden of being so beautiful.

After a frantic week, time with the one I love the best...

Just when I thought that the day could not get better I am reminded of this...

“Nothing is so beautiful as Spring-
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

(From "Spring")” 
― Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and Prose

Wishing you an evening '...all in a rush with richness...'

In which the writer goes off on one...

I'm about to have a bit of a moan so if you're looking to read something with a sunny outlook then this is not the place to be!

My work for the past almost 20 years has been mostly about trying to figure out what it means to work in a 'Person Centred' way. I moved through the stages of thinking that a plan was the answer to everything; to realising that it wasn't enough to say that I was being Person Centred to understanding that I needed to have actions and attitudes that matched what I was saying. I came to understand that to be serious about being Person Centred meant that I couldn't just apply a formula and be certain that it would work out fine. What I needed to do was take seriously the person standing in front of me - I remember being profoundly moved when I heard John O'Brien talk about seeing people's faces - and alongside that, Simon Duffy's definition of Person Centredness guided my thinking and gave me some words to articulate this profound idea.

'Attitudes and values that honour a person's unique individuality and perspective and are concerned with their full inclusion.'

Over the years I've had a growing awareness of the complexity and the nuance in what I do. I stopped looking for standardised answers...in fact, I've actively distrusted the work of people who have tried to tame the individuality of a person. I don't think that people are standarised or uniform and I suspect that this 'tidying up' has more to do with meeting the needs of the service system than meeting the needs of the people concerned. I've given up on trying to create one, big, happy family of people with disabilities and I've come to an understanding that they are as awkward, co-operative, difficult and delightful as everyone else, each requiring a bespoke response to their situation...

All of this makes the work difficult.

All of this makes the work wonderful.

I've brought every bit of me to this work...my mind...my heart...my hands...

I think about it...puzzle over it...I have been know to cry about it and there have been times when the joy of this work has completely overwhelmed me and I can think of nothing better to do...

So you might forgive me then when I react personally to an attitude that seems to be in the air at the moment. A feeling that somehow, this business of being Person Centred has had its day...its old hat...it's very 90's...and that this work to which I remain deeply committed is now an irrelevance...

It seems that we've moved on now and we're talking about Citizenship and different kinds of Capital...ideas of community and rights and personalised, self directed, self-determined this, that and the next thing are all the rage...

But y'know what...I can't understand any of these ideas except through the lens of being Person Centred. If I take Simon's definition seriously then Person Centredness is the prerequisite. Any understanding of a person's right's and entitlements as a citizen is predicated on the idea of their full inclusion. Any serious intention around the work of personalisation or self direction must take into account the unique individuality and perspective of that person. The shape that self direction will take in my life will be heavily dependent on my perspective on the world...it is my life as I see it...not as the service system thinks it should be.

I KNOW that it hasn't all worked out the way it should. I KNOW that there is the worst kind of indifference and neglect occurring under the banner of Person Centred working. 

Almost every single day of my working life I hear stories that make me want to weep about what  I hear is done in the name of being Person Centred...lazy, sloppy, thoughtless care and support given by staff who've maybe, if they are lucky, had a couple of days of some sort of training that's called itself person centred...in organisations where there is no culture of ongoing learning  and development for staff and the prevailing attitude is 'What's the least we can get away with?' They are being supervised by seniors who've done maybe half a day of training because they already know what it all means and they are doing it already. However, ask them to articulate the issues and explain a better way to staff and they fall back on cliches and slogans and their own prejudices and preconceptions. 

Often these organisations are being led by CEO's who don't feel that they need to explore or examine their own attitudes and who give little in the way of Values leadership. But they will proclaim that they have done Person Centred...here's the thing that I know...you're never done figuring this out...saying that you've 'done' Person Centredness is a bit like saying that you've done God...

It seems to me that the problem continues to lie with the System...and that the System does what it always does...it takes a good idea and turns it into a monster. Just the other day Simon Duffy wrote that we had confused being big with being good...apologies if that's not the exact quote...
The System stretches the idea to breaking point and then blames the idea for not being robust enough. It's one of those things that 'everybody knows'...and we all collude with it...

There's nothing wrong with the idea...

People get confused and think that because the idea of Person Centred work has a simplicity about it then those of us who do the work must be naive about the complexity of the practice. It isn't true. We understand that it is the starting place for all good work. It's the place from which it is possible to hear the need for other interventions...to ponder what it would take for the person in front of you to live their life in their way...to be moved to action by the injustice and pain already experienced. To try and try and try again...

We're not daft, y'know...we are not stupid...we know how difficult it can be...

Please...do not dismiss this work as one dimensional...outdated...yesterday's ideas...

The truth is that Person Centred working is an idea that we have not really tried yet. It has a depth that we have hardly begun to imagine never mind explore.

Do not write it off...

Pffftt

I have a dilemma and I'm going to try and state it simply. 

I absolutely believe that people should be able to be whoever they are...be their unique selves...make sense of the world in their own way regardless of how much sense that makes to anyone else. 

AND

I also absolutely believe and KNOW through my own experience that much of the quality of people's lives is influenced by how other people perceive them. In SRV terms the imagery surrounding people and the competencies they display influence how people see them and create opportunities for them to experience what we would typically describe as a good life. 

In my mind these two ideas sit in conflict. I want to make them either/or but I think that the truth is 'and/both'. And I'm not sure what that would look like.

Pffftt...that was the sound of my mind being blown...

And this is something to help soothe it back together again...

http://youtu.be/V7KsDv1K8-k

What the Butler saw...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that I have terrible taste in films. 

I frequently fall asleep in the middle of a movie...often sooner than that...so if I stay awake all through then I suppose that's an indication of something. 

I don't get 'clever' films...I don't see, never mind understand, cinematographic nuances. I like a good story with interesting characters...anything else is wasted on me. 

It doesn't take much to stir me up in a movie...I'm easily frightened...easily delighted...easily inspired. The scene in The Dead Poets' Society in which the boys stand on their desks and declare 'O Captain, My Captain' can still bring tears...

I say all of this to let you know how little discernment I bring to any film and how much I am swayed by the emotion of it all. And I say this because today I saw a movie that had a profound effect on me.

Rick and I went to see The Butler. Forest Whitaker is the star of the film with Oprah Winfrey doing a fabulous job as his his co-star. It tells the story of a young boy growing up in the Southern states of America whose life is turned upside down by the abuse of his Mother and the terrible death of his father at the hands of the young plantation owner where the family worked picking cotton. A series of events bring him to a position in The White House where he works as a butler. The story then reflects different perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement in America. Sorry...sketchy description in case you want to go and see it. 

I stayed wide awake all through the film and I've been deeply affected by what I saw. I had a bit of a glimpse...all be it a Hollywood glimpse...of what it meant in terms of sheer physical courage to take a stand against racism and discrimination. 

Insults of all sorts...rough handling...beating...dogs...water cannon...vitriol...hate...petrol bombs...fiery crosses...white hooded assailants..the weight of the law against you...rape...spitting...lynching...burning...death...

That people would run that sort of risk for something they believe in just astounds me. I am in awe of that courage. Courage that hurts and bleeds.

It is still required today. The hatred isn't over. It may have modified somewhat but the world still lives with the struggle of being at ease in the presence of difference. Every minute of the day, someone, somewhere is summoning up the courage to put themselves on the line...to act...to speak out...to face and bear the consequences.

As I've said...it was a Hollywood glimpse of things...it will be imperfect and incomplete. It won't have told all the sides of the story and it will have exaggerated some things and wiped a slick of vaseline around the lens of others. But whatever the whole truth, it took...it takes...courage to stand for what you believe in.

Respect to all who find it.

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” 

C. S. Lewis

Could someone bring a cold flannel?

The theme of having fallen asleep has been recurrent for me over the past year. It started through hearing Beth Mount and John O'Brien's words captured on video for the course on Citizen Centred Leadership developed by Carol Blessing at Cornell University. Part of the course involves participating in a weekly webinar which took place at 3am Perth time...I was often, quite literally, falling asleep! But when Beth and John talked about Person Centred Planning and wondered how we had come to this state of affairs in which planning seemed to have been colonised by the service system and lost its power and direction and purpose, they both described it as having fallen asleep.

I was deeply challenged by that. I feel sick about the many ways in which I have contributed to the sleepiness and have been wondering what I could do better. A few things have wakened me up a bit and then, this morning, another call to be awake and watchful from Simon Duffy at the Centre for Welfare Reform. 

If you don't know the work of the Centre then you really need to check them out at www.centreforwelfarereform.org

Simon posted a quiz on Facebook this morning - here's the link

 http://www.slideshare.net/simonduffy/welfare-reform-true-or-false

'We fell asleep. We forgot that they don't take care of us, we take care of each other. We forgot that it's the rich who need the poor, not the poor who need the rich. We forgot that politicians work for us, we don't work for them. We forgot that government doesn't innovate, people do. We forgot that government doesn't create wealth, people do. We forgot that government doesn't know best, people do. We forgot about citizenship, we forgot about families, we forgot about community. We confused good with big. We confused achievement with wealth. We confused love with control. We forgot that the Welfare State was made by us, that it belongs to us and it needs to work for us. it's time to wake up.'

I'm grateful for this powerful statement...a blow of sea-air through my foggy mind...

In his poem 'A Ritual to read to each other', William Stafford says that 

'...it is important that awake people be awake

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give - yes or no or maybe - 

should be clear, the darkness around us is deep.'

I don't really know how to finish this post...it's not for me to say whether or not you're snoozing gently or are sound asleep...

But I'm off to wipe my face with a cold flannel, sit up straight and pay a bit more attention...

Maybe that will help...

A Question...

A question.

Whose needs are being met?

In the arguments for and against building new institutions...
In the calling out for more respite care...
In the wrapping in cotton wool...
In the blindness and thoughtlessness...
In the policies and procedures and the risk assessments and the job descriptions...
In the ticking of boxes and filling in of forms and the meaningless plans and the intrusive questions...
In the assumptions made and the knowing what's best...
In the endless talk about funding constraints and block contracts and whether it's shared or self determined...
In the narrowed horizons and lowered expectations
In the search for the next model...

Whose needs are being met?

You don't have to be bashed and battered to experience abuse and neglect.

Invisibility will narrow your options and opportunities.

Indifference will kill you every time.

Whose needs are being met?

“A lot of you cared, just not enough.” 

Jay Asher - 'Thirteen Reasons Why'

A small, shy truth...

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

       love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

In the face of all my bluster and ranting I'm glad of this quiet and joyous word...

Here's the truth...life goes on...beautifully...and somehow, we belong...

The post in which the writer spontaneously combusts...

Apologies...life is what happens when you're writing blogs...some of the life going on around here has meant that I may be the only person for whom this makes sense or who can follow the flow of it...
Good Luck!


I started working with people who were labelled as 'intellectually disabled' in 1994. 

After a very lacklustre University experience I left Edinburgh without a degree, my hopes and dreams for the future in tatters. I needed a job but I couldn't think of many things that a failed Church of Scotland Deaconess who'd had a nervous breakdown; a long-ish psychiatric hospital career; crises of faith and confidence and a reputation for 'never sticking at anything' could do. It all seemed a bit bleak and my old patterns of failure and flight were cranking up nicley...

I've known a few miracles in my life and at Algrade in Humbie, a small village at the foot of the Lammermuir Hills in the Scottish Borders another miracle occurred. 

Algrade was a originally a school, set up in the 1960s...so named because it took 'All grades' of people with disability. (Not actually true...most of the people there had very moderate degrees of intellectual disability). In it's time, it was regarded as a very fine school with an emphasis on giving people an education.  

Over the years, the attention to learning waned and instead Algrade became a holding place for the people who lived there. They became increasingly isolated and trapped within the very conservative Christian ideology espoused by the owners. Eventually, after 12 YEARS of suggestions, requests, instructions and then warning from the Registration and Inspection body of the Department of Social work the Certificate of Registration was withdrawn. The Church of Scotland Board of Social Responsibility moved in as Caretaker Managers and I got a job there. Within 24 hours of the Church taking over, 11 of the men who lived there made allegations of sexual abuse against a former member of staff. Everyday there were new stories of abuse and neglect, bullying...the list was long...
The physical condition of the place was bleak...cold...run down...not very clean...some of it just not safe...This was in stark contrast to the outward appearance of a country idyll...whitewashed cottages dotting the green hillside...whited sepulchres...disguising abuse and corruption and just plain old meanness...

In the beginning, I was outraged...openly, often incoherently, frequently 'inappropriately'...I was consumed by it. It leaked out of me, sometimes through tears but mostly it was a story that I couldn't stop telling...I told it everywhere, to anyone who would listen...

I just couldn't get over what had been done to this group of people. I couldn't believe that we'd had concerns for 12 years  and we'd managed to hold on to them...12 years...and I was about to spontaneously combust because the pace of change and improvement for them was glacially slow...

The brief version of the ending to the Algrade story is that people were moved out to more individual accommodation...some are happy and settled...some are not...
As far as I know, no-one has been compensated for the shit their life turned into...

For me, Algrade was the experience of my life...it started me on a path that has led me here. It was transformative...I learned to think differently...to intentionally choose to see people and situations in another way. Through my work there (and at the risk of sounding really farty) i believe that I found my calling...my life's purpose...however you want to express that. 

I don't think that the call is about 'disability'.

I do think that it's about justice.

The injustice...the unjust - ness of Algrade consumed me for a very long time. And then I just seemed to lose the sting of it...there's so much of it around...in so many different places. I found my tolerance for injustice grew and I became adept at understanding and accommodating the reasons...the circumstances...the excuses for why things are the way they are.

It was as if the constant rub of it created a callous. A thick skin grew over the sore places and I got used to living with it.

Last week's experience on the PASSING course has wakened me up a bit. The fine detail of it has forced me to confront again the epic failure of most services to support people well. That realisation, combined with busted mattresses and dust under the counters and the expectations that people will just PUT UP with whatever crap gets thrown at them has just hit me between the eyes.

I'm mad at piss-poor performance from services that make money from people with disabilities.

I am beside myself at shabby, shoddy, won't close doors, won't wash pots, won't extend myself in any way type services where people just take the money and run out the door as fast as their legs will carry them...

I'm over condescension and patronisation (is that a word?) and I'm particularly over it from people who don't seem to realise that unless there's a verb in there...a 'doing word'...then there is no sense in their 'sentences' and that the empty string of words  with which they patronise and condescend is meaningless and offensive.

I am incandescent at the smugness of people who should know better, who dismiss people with a casual 'they just don't get it' and do nothing to explain or help understanding but only condemn and scoff (guilty as charged your honour...)

I feel exfoliated...all raw and pink skinned...plunged into a salted pool and just...stinging...

How this will work out as I try to do my work I have no idea...but at the very least I feel as if I have reconnected with my purpose or calling...I feel more alive than I have for a long time. 

So...just to close...

To all those people at Algrade...

to Margaret and Christine and Mary and Kay and Claudia and Helen and Ann and Charlotte and Jane and Crawford and Willie and Bryan and John and Garry and Thomas and Norah and Stuart and Paul and Peter and Meg and Billy and the woman with the bags whose name I can't remember, I think it was Irene...

Thanks for all that you taught me. I'm sorry for all the times I got it wrong.

I hope you're finding a good life somewhere. 

p.s. Her name is Irene

Ain't a feelin' like it in the world...

I'm not trying to shirk my responsibility or break my promise to myself. It's just that my head is full to overflowing after the past few days. Words and ideas are spilling out and are going to take a bit of time to be formed into something that is somewhat coherent. I had a bit of a crack at it last night and was full of good intentions to post something this morning but the morning brought a few disasters and I feel now like I'm herding cats in my head...

Saturdays and Sundays can be unpredictable in our house. We're very much a the mercy of some of the support we receive. Today, they broke the air mattress on Rick's bed. They did something they've been asked repeatedly not to do but they did it and bust the seal on the mattress. It quickly deflated and is now unusable until we can get someone out to fix it...can't get in touch until Monday...who knows when they'll come and do the repair. We're lucky because we have a Plan B...but it's not ideal and massively inconvenient for...ME...and unlikely to be very comfortable for Rick...not to mention hugely expensive (this company seems unable to charge an amount less than $300)

So I'm not happy and Rick is...well, Rick really... 

Then I was done out of $40 in my change at a vegetable stall in Fremantle markets. As if the injury wasn't bad enough I was about to add insult to it by getting into the most foul slanging match with the stall holder...

PLEASE NOTE...I walked away before I started...

Stealing money is one thing but I was off to a dark and ugly place that I didn't even know existed in the busy world of Heather Simmons...

All of this to say that there's stuff on my mind...hopefully I can lasso it into some kind of order...

In the meantime, here's a little something to make you smile...

http://youtu.be/Pk7yqlTMvp8