Hard times, Come again no more...

Late afternoon on Sunday. Sitting in my car...chatting on the phone to my friend...beautiful Perth winter afternoon, bright as bright could be...blue as blue could be...and warm in the sun.
I'm parked outside Nandos, Subway, Wok in a Box, Pasta Cup and Liquorland. Hungry Jack's is about 100 metres away. I'm joking with my friend about whether or not I could eat a meatball sub while driving and not get it all over my front and give the game away.
My window is down.  A man sees me and comes right up to the window and tells me that he's trying to get some food...could I help him? My Rick will tell you that I'm like the Queen in as much as neither of us carry cash. But today I have a $10 note and so I give it to him...he kisses my hand and God Blesses me and I tell him to never mind that, just go and eat. And that's exactly what he did. 

I don't want to make a drama out of it but I have to say that he and his situation has stayed with me. 

A comfortable suburb in the richest state in the Lucky Country. 

And a man finds himself in the situation where he has to rely on a stranger in order to eat. 

Before I jump to conclusions about how he lived I think it's likely that he didn't ever have enough cash to do what he needed to do in the first place. And I have to confess that I watched carefully to see that he did buy food with the $10 ($10!!! The princely sum...). The story I was telling myself about him was all about drink and drugs.

And he was hungry. 

To be honest with you, I'm not really that fussed about what the circumstances were that brought him to that point...I don't really care if he drinks or uses drugs or just squanders his cash. But I am bothered that, in the midst of all our excess, someone is hungry. And I'm troubled that the solution he finds for his hunger only serves to stigmatise him.

I hear my friends and family in the UK talk about how things are there. How tight it is with families relying on food banks for basic provisions. I hear all the stuff that's been said here about how we all have to share the pain that will result from the last Budget. But I know that we won't all share that pain...it will be the people on the edges who'll feel it most...the people who are already feeling pretty stretched and threadbare. That makes me angry and sad.

You won't be surprised to know that I don't have any answers, but here's a song that expresses my thoughts and concerns. Those of us not yet suffering might think on...

http://youtu.be/OKRYMZFwuzY

Where DO all the B'stards work? - R.I.P. Rik Mayall

A few thoughts that seem to have a connection for me...what anyone who reads this will make of them...well, that's for them to decide...

Last week I was doing some training. The group were lovely. Really lovely people, all of them working in services. All of them committed to doing the best job they can to support the people they work with. At the end of the 3 days, one of the participants remarked on what a great group of people they were. He went on to say that he keeps meeting really nice people who work in the disability sector AND he keeps hearing all these stories of bad things that happen in services. 
He asked the question, 'Where do all the bastards work?'

Today I watched one of the videos that regularly appear on my Facebook page  from Upworthy. This particular video had been shared by my friend Heather Anderson, a good woman upon whose instincts and judgements I would stake my life. I was thinking that if she was recommending this video it was definitely worth having a look. Although the talk is given by an actress playing a marketing consultant to the food industry, the facts about the produce and the marketing are 100% real. She talks about the tricks of the marketing trade and then lets us in to the great big secret weapon that marketers rely upon. Turns out that their greatest secret is us and our propensity to simply ignore what we won't or can't face. We just don't think about it. She calls it 'wilful ignorance'
The video articulates our unwillingness to confront the horror of factory farming and to change our behaviours in the face of unspeakable cruelty to the animals who end up on our supermarket shelves.  It ends with a damning quote, describing what occurs as 'systemised cruelty on a massive scale, and we only get away with it because we're prepared to look  the other way.'

If you changed the context and thought people and not pigs or chickens... and instead of factory farms thought institutions and group homes and day centres...and then asked yourself what you're prepared to turn from and look the other way...

And then later today my friend and colleague Margy Meath shares a post on Facebook...a quote by Jane Addams

"The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life'

Jane Addams

I think there's a thread runs through these ideas. At least, there is for me. Knowing what I know...what will I do differently?

When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer...

This is for all the people with lived experience of mental health or disability or just plain outright exclusion who give up their precious time to go along to conferences and workshops and consultations and whatever and are willing to participate in the debate...

Who hear eminent this, that and the next things talking about whatever it is they talk about while all the time missing the people at the heart of their curiousity...dismissing the evidence of their pain and frustration...pursuing models of science, neurobiology and medicine...losing sight of the humanity that their models impact upon...

For those who give up their time and their energy and, on an almost daily basis, experience their heart being ripped from their chest and squeezed tightly in the hope that it will bring about some change.

I know that it must be a temptation.
I know that you must feel that you cannot bear to hear another word,
I can see how it must must push you to the edge to experience the arrogance...the dismissals...the sneering...the patronising...

And I want to find a way to stand alongside you...
But I beg you to keep on going...to remember the stars...

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman When I heard the learn'd astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide and measure them,  When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander' d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

My own self...but not by myself...

These are interesting times that we live in. 
So many ideas...so little understanding.

I was working with a team staff and we were trying to figure out the service response to ideas like self determination, personalisation and individualised services. This team works for an organisation that is committed to striving to provide excellent services. They wanted to wrestle with the gap between some of the rhetoric that's around and the failure of most services to deliver on what they say they do. So, self determination came in for some discussion and we were trying to figure out what it means. We started with ourselves...what does it look like for us and then moved on to thinking about who or what supports us to be self- determining. 
There was a long list...partners...family...colleagues...faith...experiences, good and bad...some money...work...to list but a few.
So we recognised that this self-determination thing actually hinged on relationship and experiences and was rarely a solitary act. Major decisions are frequently made in consultation with others. Advice is frequently sought and given and, depending on the relationship, it is sometimes given without being asked for.
It seems that we come to know ourselves best in relationship to others. We figure ourselves out in the conversations and the interactions and the falling outs and the making ups and the whispers and the shouting and the tough talk and the gentle whispers. They mould and shape us.
It seems too that knowing what we want for our lives and deciding the course we will take involves being out there and trying things out and letting things go and adventuring and sitting still and wondering and taking action.
It is hardly ever about being left to your own devices. Sinking or swimming. Waving or drowning. 
There's a delicate and gentle balance in being who you are in your own way and remaining connected and influenced and watched over.
It can never be enough to say to someone in a potentially tricky position, 'That's your choice.'

Choice. Control. Self-Determination. Self Direction. 

They often take a bit of practice. They often require just enough support.
They always need relationships and experience.

'You can't make positive choices for the rest of your life without an environment that makes those choices easy, natural, and enjoyable'

Deepak Chopra

For Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day today. At least in Australia and the USA it's Mother's Day. Not sure about anywhere else in the world. 

Truth to tell, it would be pretty hard to miss the fact. The great commercial machine revved up and got going. The Sentimental Fairy came and threw magic dust in our eyes so that we could only see mothers through a golden light and only speak of them with honey in our mouths. 

It's all good...Mothers deserve all the slippers and scented candles we can shower upon them. It's a job I was never up for. Too hard. Far too hard.
Sure...there is joy. At the same time, and with the best Mothers, there can be a complex tangle of conflicting emotions. Sometimes difficult to sustain. Often hard to do without.

My own Mum passed away almost 6 years ago. She'd been ill for a few months and I left for Australia knowing that it would likely be the last time I saw her.
Six months later I was on a plane flying back to Scotland, hoping that I would have a chance to see her again before she passed. It was one of those journeys that always seems very grown up and somehow romantic when you see it in the movies but is the worst kind of awfulness in real life. I touched down in Glasgow at 12.30pm. I immediately phoned my sister from the plane to hear that Mum had slipped away at about 8 o'clock that morning. The whole world blew apart for me. I was on a plane, in the middle of a few hundred people who were busily retrieving their carry on luggage and duty free. And I had just heard that my Mother had died. It seemed the loneliest moment of my life. I was 48 years old and my first conscious thought was, 'Who's going to look after me now?'.

After the funeral I came back to Australia. No-one here knew my Mum. No-one else was missing her here. No-one else was sad. I wasn't aware of being any more tearful than usual. Apart from a few days, I didn't even really feel that sad and anyway...life goes on...

There have been a few things that have happened when I swear I have heard her voice. One day, after boiling eggs to make egg sandwiches and trying hard to boil and peel the eggs without getting that horrible black ring around the yolk (one of Mum's pet hates) I sliced open the first egg, delighted to find that I'd managed, not only to avoid the black ring but to keep the yolk just sllghtly on the creamy side and I heard her voice in my right ear saying 'Perfect'.

And then there was the weirdly inexplicable text on our wedding day...

Lots of people really liked our Mum. They talked about how kind and generous she was. Lots of people had loads of really good memories of her. Whenever I think about her, or her outstanding feature, I think about her hands. She never really liked them. She said they were too thick, too broad, too coarse. There was nothing elegant or refined about them.

In a way she was right. Her fingers were short and the veins on the backs of her hands stood out. Her palms were lined. She said that her hands were gnarled. They were not pale, white hands. Years of scalding hot water - 'How do you expect to get anything clean? That water's freezing...we'll all get polio!!' - had given her red, asbestos hands. 

Mum's hands were strong, working hands...washing...wringing out cloths and mops...cooking...cleaning...baking...ironing...working...
Her hands didn't do anything fancy. She didn't sew or knit...nothing fiddly or fancy...unless you count changing babies' nappies on your lap with one hand holding their wriggling legs out of the way and the other expertly wiping, folding, pinning or taping...without dropping a single one.
Good, honest, straightforward, hardworking.

All the ways her hands were described spoke of work. Our Grannie Ritchie used to talk about her Number 9 shovels when she was giving us a clip. She definitely subscribed to the adage that if you spared the rod you spoiled the child and she was always proud of the fact that there were 5 children in her family and she could have taken us anywhere! Mostly, her hands did acts of kindness as she looked after my Dad and the 5 of us.

As time went by her hands became a bit arthritic ...the joints knobbly and painful...she said that she had an old woman's hands and yet, I'm here writing this and she never really got to be an old woman.

I came to love her hands. I quite envied them. No-one would look at my hands and say that I've worked hard. 

You can see her in our hands...I've got the arthritic lumps and bumps...Elaine has the shape of Mum's hands and some of the characteristics. My niece Niamh has also inherited them and perhaps in time she'll wish that she had Irene's long, tapering, slim, white hands or Lorraine's smooth skin and shapely fingers.

Hands - they are like a visual aid of what's in your heart. 

Our Mum thought that you shouldn't have to tell people that you love them you should just show them. I don't agree with her...she wouldn't be surprised to know that...I believe that people need to hear that they are loved...and that it needs to be said to them often otherwise it can be just too difficult to believe.

But I've come to believe this...if your hands are a visual aid of what is in your heart then I have been well loved.

It's Mother's Day today. I wish she was here.

"Thanks for everything that you have done for me, and all that you are still doing."

What does good look like?

There's a word on my mind. An old-fashioned, Biblical word that I don't seem to hear much these days. It occupies a huge space in my mind because it denotes a quality I always aspired to and frequently failed to demonstrate. I admired the people who were thought to have it. It seemed a mark of maturity. A grown-up, careful, serious word which also carried with it a touch of mystery. 

The word is discernment.

As I've been thinking about the word and this post I've engaged in the time-honoured practice of googling for definitions. At least 90% of the definitions I've found relate discernment to faith and the religious life. I'm particularly struck by this definition,

'Discernment is the trait or process of exhibiting keen insight and good judgment...it is the ability to see, find and recognize the truth and then know what to do with it. A lack of it has resulted in continuous amounts of false teaching, foolish fads, experiential thrill seeking and distracting doctrine... '

I like the point that it makes about doing something with the truth when you see, find and recognise it; understanding translated to action.

So, why am I thinking so much about discernment?

I just got back from a trip to San Diego where I was invited to be a key note speaker at the annual conference of the Californian Supported Living Network. It was a big deal for me, not just because it's like, totes amazing, man, to have the opportunity to travel as part of my work but to travel there...to California...to the place that, early in my career was the pioneering place...a massive honour and opportunity for me. Like, super far out...
I stayed with the gorgeous Beth Gallagher and her family and completely appreciated their generous hospitality and kindness. Meeting her team at Lifeworks was encouraging. It was so great to see a team trying to put into practice all the things they talk about; celebrating what goes well and sucking all the learning out of the things that don't go according to plan.

I've never been to the USA before...Canada but not America. I was looking forward to the experience and it didn't let me down in anyway. San Diego is a beautiful city. It reminds me of Perth: all the advantages of a big city but still feeling liveable. Beautiful place...wonderful weather...different enough to be interesting but not so different that I was lost and overwhelmed. 

There's something about West Coast people I really like. Sweeping generalisation coming up, I know, but there's an attitude on the West Coast. It's laid back, relaxed, gentle, open. It's one of the things that drew me to Perth. I really liked the people I was meeting. The same thing was true in San Diego, perhaps even more so. For all the 'have a nice day!'s I was hearing, and expecting to find phoney, I just never caught that hollow ring. I met all sorts of people; encountered all kinds of family configurations; celebrated diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, religious and political affiliation. I was struck by a genuine openness and acceptance. I'm sure everyone has their prejudices but  the desire to be open and accepting was there. Everything was cool...everyone was awesome.

The presentations came and went at the conference. Everyone like totally hit it out of the park...they were awesome and we loved them. Everyone. All good. All awesome. Every comment and appreciation heartfelt. The love was real.

And now I'm thinking about discernment. Because, at the risk of sounding...whatever it is I sound...it wasn't all awesome. In fact, lots of it was completely average and some of it was garbage...there...I've said it...
And not just in San Diego...not just at the conference but here in Perth and around Australia...I hear it in the UK as well...
(I'm not going to post a list here but come and talk to me and I'll give you examples of what I mean)

I would love to just surrender to the power of awesome and not have to think so hard about some of the stuff that passes as good...in life and work...(is there a difference?)

I want to absolutely appreciate people's efforts and commitment...their outputs are often astonishing...their outcomes lead me to suspect that people are working on the brick...

I keep finding myself in situations where people have no filter or framework for measuring one thing against another and deciding if it's good. They seem to have nothing external they can refer to to act as a guide - or maybe they do have it but don't feel like they have permission to use it.

In our work we have people who have all sorts of experiences - the people being supported and the supporters. Not all of them good, positive, healthy experiences. People are acting them out and people are working them out...except it's the same thing really, just one group get paid for it. When all of that woundedness and hurt and anger and frustration and lack of love and understanding and poor choices...when all of that swirls around then you can be sure that it can be hard to think straight, to know which way is up, to know the right thing to do. 
The more I write about this the more there is to write...and I might have a go at some of that in subsequent blogs when I've given it a bit more thought and maybe heard from some people about what they think of this...
I truly believe that there are times when we need something outside of ourselves to give us clues about what to do next. Something that has some heft, that's stood the test of time and practice. Not some abstract theory, full of big words but something infinitely practical...not simple but certainly clear. Something that's not a guarantee of doing the right thing but which, if we apply it, might make it more likely that a right and good thing happens and less likely that we simply repeat our old patterns of oppression and discrimination.

I believe that there are some ideas around that really fit the bill...Wolfensberger's ideas...not necessarily his writing because, on occasion, what my Dad would have called a 'Philadelphia Lawyer' is required to understand what's going on...John O'Brien's 5 Service Accomplishments and the 5 Valued Experiences and anything else John O'Brien thinks about or writes - you may not see the application immediately but if you live with the words and ideas they will bear fruit...anything written by Michael Kendrick, John Armstrong and Kristjana Kristiansen...Simon Duffy writing about Citizenship...the Values of Inclusion are useful too ( I didn't write them so I feel OK about mentioning them here). There are lots of other people that I find helpful but without these folks I would have no content in what I do.

So...enough of this...I started talking about discernment - 'the ability to see, find and recognise truth...'. It's not the same as some sort of magical thinking. Awareness, knowledge and understanding lead to discernment. If we stop learning, if we fall asleep, we're in trouble...

I feel that it's time to go back to our books...not simply doing in order to justify our wages...but thinking...discerning as we go...adding value to our work.

And a final thought...

To think is excellent;

To pray is better;

To love is everything

Elisabeth Leseur

There's more to life than this...

I did some exciting work to day. 

There have been some changes around funding for young people moving from school into adult life. Decisions about funding will be influenced by the young person having a plan for their future.With this in mind and with the young people from the leaving classes of 2 or 3 of the local schools and a group of Local Area Co-ordinators from the Northern Suburbs of Perth we embarked on a planning process called 'Moving On'. 

The idea was to build up a picture of the participants; learn something about how they saw themselves; pay attention to their gifts and dreams and gather some clues about the kinds of things we needed to work on to prepare them for leaving school. We would then take time to work on some of the practical details of what it would take for the young person to experience the good things of life.

We did this in 2 sessions with a fortnight in between the sessions to give the young people time to think between sessions. On the 2nd day we invited their parents to join us  and think about how they could help to support their son or daughter's aspirations for the future.

The first session was just a joy to be part of. The young people were making bold and audacious statements about how they saw themselves, free of the limitations that the label of 'disability' imposed on their lives. They thought about their identity, their gifts, their dreams for a good life. They were spectacular; throwing themselves into the tasks with gusto and imagining fabulously ordinary, teenage things for their lives...

Homes. Jobs. Relationships. 

It was great to be part of it. 

I also did some deeply upsetting work today.

Their families came along on for the next session which was today.

I had very intentionally made a place for families. I believe in the natural authority of families...I believe that no-one gets through life on their own and that it makes more sense to work within the system that is the family than to treat families as some kind of irrelevance to a person's situation. I believe that, by and large, no-one loves more than a family...that families are in for the long haul...that families 'know stuff' about people that it would take a well-meaning human services professional years to learn...I. Believe. In. Families.

AND AT THE SAME TIME...

I know that living in a family can be difficult. I know that it is often difficult for family members to give up having their say in people's lives and letting them live the life they choose. I know that being different from everyone else in your family can be tricky ( and I'm also sure that it is tricky to live with other people's differences). I know that it can be hard to escape from your family's experiences and perceptions of you - a clean slate is not often a gift shared by family members.

I believe that there is nowhere quite like a family for being loved...and being misunderstood.

When families came along to the session today I saw all of the above being played out. The young people got shy and reluctant to share what they were thinking. Families got into command and control mode and insisted on appropriate behaviour. They declared that there were no second chances for children who could not behave appropriately (really?). They argued for special and segregated and the merits of being with their own kind. They embarrassed, emasculated and infantilised young men who were in 'showing off to the ladies' form. They burst the bubbles of young women who dreamed of modelling careers or a lifetime at the beck and call of a boy band. 

They seemed to have lost sight of their own teenage hopes and dreams and had forgotten that there was more to life than clean bedrooms, appropriate behaviour and staying at home with Mum and Dad.

I don't believe that they did it out of malice. I don't think that they take their young people seriously enough as people to think that there was a problem.

I think that many of their reactions spring from that complex place of love and fear...

Huge love for this young man or woman...heartbreakingly intense, terrifying in its vulnerability...profound in its joy... 

And at the same time...

Visceral, sweaty, heart pounding, screaming, animal fear...too frightening to face...fed daily by stories and experiences that confirm the dangerous nature of the world we live in and the communities we inhabit. Petrifying fear for the future; turning opportunities to stone and eventually constricting hearts so that they can only beat but cannot feel.

Maybe I'm being melodramatic here, but it felt today as if there was a great battle going on. It felt Narnian...as if the young people were destined to live where it was always Winter but never Christmas, unless someone understood that there was some deeper magic that could be worked and believed that it might be possible to unwrap the gifts that these young people are and make a celebration of them in our lives and communities.

My strong belief is that the deeper magic is Inclusion...'the means by which we set the stage for people to be successful together' (Kendrick)...'People being at ease in the presence of difference' (Ritchie)

I'm not sure about how to go forward with families except maybe slowly and kindly...I don't know what to think about it...

I just can't shake the feeling that we've got to do better...I've got to do better.

We've got to do better...we have wasted too much money...too much time...and we are wasting too many lives...

Just make sure that you have something to say...

To Be of Use...

In my youth, and for my sins, I trained as a Deaconess of the Church of Scotland. Hard to believe now, but I did.

It was an experience given to me when I was too young to really appreciate it. I was an earnest, bible believing, conservative evangelical Christian. I actually fancied myself as a bit of a martyr as I, armed only with the sword of truth, cut a swathe through the heinous wishy washy liberalism that beset the Church. I revelled in the good wishes of the people in my home congregation who prayed earnestly for me as I battled Satan on a daily basis to defend the faith.

I wanted to become a Deaconess because I didn't believe that women should be preachers. To my extreme embarrassment now, I saw the Diaconate as a way of 'freeing up' the minister to get on with the important work of praying and preparation for preaching the Word while the humble Deaconess mopped up the mess of the Parish.

Anyway...all of that is ancient history and probably best discussed over several bottles of wine. For a long time I was tempted to just write it off as a major disaster in my life but as time has passed I can see that I learned some major lesson there. 

On a practical level, the course was quite prophetic...it asked the questions posed by Eric Schumacher in 'Small is Beautiful'; wondering what would be the future of our planet. We pondered what technological and medical advances would mean for the population in the 21st century. We thought about liberation theology and we welcomed Robert Mugabe. 

Lots of the issues I rudely dismissed have come home to roost in the past 10-15 years. But at that time I was utterly convinced that it was all rubbish...what a clown I was. If ever I needed someone to tell me to wind my neck in it was then...

One of the great things was the teaching method...I thought it was rubbish at the time...

Every Monday morning we would have a briefing session where the topic for the week was introduced. We would then be divvied up into groups and each group would have an area of the topic to explore for the remainder of the week and to present back on the Friday morning, as creatively as we liked. Each group would meet, decide on a course of action, divvy up the tasks and then meet again on Thursday to put our presentation together. Invariably, I would have thought that the question was rubbish or would have found some narrow theological area to object to...'can't do that because it will require you to eat oranges on a Wednesday and it is expressly forbidden to eat citrus fruit on a day that has a 'w' in it...and so essentially I would do nothing and then wing it on the Friday morning with the little bit I did know. I really thought that I was getting away with it until one of the tutors, after a particularly vacuous presentation said, ' You're a good communicator, just make sure you have something to say...'

OOps...rumbled...found out as a fraud and a charlatan...all smoke and mirrors.

A yawning chasm of an integrity gap...

When what she's said really dawned on me I was gutted. All that stuff from my childhood...being called a hypocrite...'empty vessels make most noise'...clanging cymbals...all of that... It has had a profound effect on me and I sort of laugh at it but I do feel deeply embarrassed.
I am terrified of just entertaining people and having nothing to say. Telling me that you thought I was great or funny means absolutely nothing to me. It just means that I've entertained you for an hour. What I really want to ask you is to tell me what you've learned...what made you think...what do you disagree with and why...and can we work it out?

I've spent the day today talking. I've spent the past 20 years talking and I wonder what anyone has learned. They probably know lots about me and how I like my washing to be hung out but what has anyone learned that has made a single bit of difference to how they work? How has anything that I've said improved the experience or the conditions of anyone who uses services?

Tomorrow I'm going to spend the day talking to people about how they should talk to other people and I can't quite believe I'm doing it. I cannot help but worry that some little kid somewhere is going to announce that we are all naked and that the work we've done up until now has really only served to blind up to our true predicament. Because, really...what has changed?

I'm asking the question not because I want people to rush to reassure me. I'd like to talk to other people who share the question.

I want to find work that is useful. Work that makes a day to day difference to the people in our communities who are excluded and marginalised. Whose difference means that they are less than the rest of us.
It's hard to come by because most of our efforts seem to be directed at organisations in  the hope that it will 'trickle down'...and we've all seen the cartoons about what really trickles down.

To be of use...What a joy!

 To be of use 

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge 

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest 

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy

30 days hath...April!

April...come she will

Only who would have believed 

that she would come around so quickly. 

It feels like she just turned up on my doorstep; 

an unexpected guest, taking me by surprise. 

Truth to tell, 

I was only just dusting February out of the door, 

planning on turning the mattress and airing the bed

and here's April

with her best bonnet on, beautiful in the sunlight, 

trailing a gentle breeze 

to quieten the roaring exit of March. 

I am glad to see March go. 

Too hot. Too soon. Too busy. Too long. 

No Good Friday to make a pause for sadness and contemplation. 

No Easter to raise the spirit and encourage hopefulness in the midst of...March. 

I had plans for March but they evaporated with the steaming hot days. 

Here in the Southern Hemisphere it isn't August that has the monopoly on wickedness but March.

To be endured, sweated through...

To make way for April.

Now that I am over my surprise I am glad to greet her. The cooler air has brought some clarity and energy in its wake and so I welcome April...all 30 days of her.

It seems that April is NaPoWriMo...National Poetry Writing Month. The challenge is 30 poems in 30 days...
I am no poet but I'm going to pick up the challenge and write 30 entries in the blog in 30 days...
I need to write because I'm not sure what I'm thinking these days. Maybe seeing the words on the page will help me know. 

Miss April, you are welcome here. 

Take off your bonnet, stay awhile.

Some of us could use your beauty.

photograph by the amazing Diane Lowrie

http://www.australianpoetry.org/2013/11/22/vic-napowrimo-poetry-prompts-the-moat/

http://youtu.be/V_fK1riKv8g

Cats and Kindness

Cat story No 1

Meet Sol. He's our neighbours from across the street's cat. It's Christmas morning. He's not looking too happy in this photograph because I have shamed him by insisting that he wore the very cute, pink, Christmas bow. He mostly just wants this photo opportunity to be over so that he can go back to doing what he does best which is simply being a very cool cat.

Sol kind of adopted us almost 5 years ago now.  I first saw him casually strolling up our garden path one day. The next door neighbour's cat was also in our garden and had come over all territorial; hissing and spitting for all that she was worth. Sol's response was to throw her an over the shoulder look that said Really?...Calm yourself...and he just kept on walking. The other cat skulked away on her belly, somewhat embarrassed by her crass display. I smiled at his cool...

He became a regular in our garden and made his way into the house. We bought him biscuits...and then a bowl...and then a bed. We fed him when his people went on holiday. I loved him...Rick came to love him.

He is the easiest cat to get along with. A lovely sweet temperament. 

Likes to be handled...will even let you rub his belly...he doesn't bite or scratch or do that rabbit kick-thing that cats do. 

He sits on my lap. In the winter he comes in to sleep for the night and will snuggle up real close under your chin with one paw slung across your neck as if to cuddle closer. 

When I was sick he was my constant companion at the bottom of the bed, coming up every now and again to bump heads with me and offer a reassuring little miaow...his presence was a balm to me.

A few years ago he disappeared for over a week. The street was in mourning. He was all we talked about. We were happy when he was found and returned to us.

Not so long ago his family moved to the next street. I was devastated to think that he might not find his way back here. He did, but his visits were less regular and they felt more like he was fitting us in or had just got hungry on the way to his next sleeping spot. Gradually he developed a new routine. Sometime between 5 and 6 am he would appear on our front doorstep. He'd come in...have some breakfast and then, depending on what was happening he'd either spend half an hour snoring on my lap before Silver Chain arrived or he would find a spot on the sofa in the front room and settle down there for a nap. He'd head off on some adventures, maybe calling back around teatime...another snack, another snooze and then he's disappear for a while until around 9.30pm when a bite of supper was called for and,  because it's summer and the garden holds more reasons to be curious then a cat can bear, he'd head out on the prowl until the morning.

The neighbourhood bush telegraph was hard at work...have you seen Sol? Is he OK? Where and when did you see him last? 

His family missed him terribly. Everyone worried about him. We all reassured his family that we'd make sure he was OK. And we have. He's in good form. He's being fed. He's being loved. He's OK.

He's had another big change in his life. His family now have a dog and on the first night of meeting the dog he arrived at our house...all theatrical, throwing himself around, talking ten to the dozen, milking the situation and all the sympathy from us as much as he could. Funny old cat. Poor wee Sol.

I love Sol. He isn't my cat. I have no responsibility for him. But I love Sol (and I like to believe that he loves me best of all the neighbours) but if he doesn't, that's OK because I like cats but I love Sol and I'll do whatever it takes to look out for him.

And anyway...he's my way to ease in to...

Cat Story No 2

Through my friend Julie Barclay's Facebook page I read a little cat story earlier in the week which really warmed my heart and set me thinking. Here's the link to it...

http://laughingsquid.com/kids-read-to-cats-with-the-book-buddies-program-at-the-animal-rescue-league-of-berks-county-pennsylvania/

I loved the idea of kids reading to the cats and the mutual benefit there is for the cats and the children. The photographs that accompany the story are so lovely...and the kindness behind the idea...the understanding that the shelter is a stressful, difficult place for the cats to be and that, as they wait for adoption, it would be A. Good. Thing. to soothe and comfort them...well, I was really moved by that.

I also had a bit of a knee jerk response. My high horse is never too far away and I did my preachy thing on Facebook...'compare and contrast the treatment of people in the locked wards of our psychiatric hospitals...'
Heather Simmons - no point left unmade. Indignation is Us.

As the week has gone on, I have pondered my response and gone back a few times to the story. And I KNOW that it is such an obvious thing to say but I think that there is value in the call to consider what we do for those in our human family who are most distressed. The wards are bleak, soulless, tortured, painful places. And when your heart and soul and mind are sick or spinning wildly it is difficult to know how such an environment helps restore a sense of well being or some equilibrium. Not much happens in them that would be considered kind. There certainly isn't any kindness built into the system. 

When I had my sojourn in a psychiatric hospital I used to wish that someone would come and sit with me until I fell asleep at night. Just the kind presence of someone to see the end of the day with me and maybe somehow help fill the night with hopes for a better day the next day. I never ever felt like I could ask for it. It seemed at the the same time so trivial and yet so huge. But I think that, like the children reading to the cats, it would have soothed me.

There's not much that soothes on a psychiatric ward in the public health care system. More that angers and provokes. And really, I could go on about the system and the staff. I could lay blame and point fingers and express outrage. But I can't get rid of the question that holds a mirror up to me, inviting me to take a look at myself and face the question...what am I doing? How do I help?

Mental Health Matters 2 auspice a group called Families 4 Families. If any group of people understand the urgent need for us to find a way to weave kindness into the work it is this group of people. For the most part, members of each family represented experience what they describe as the 'pointy end' of mental health services. They know real distress  At the times when what would be most soothing would be practical action and helpful 'help' they engage with and endure a system that is in general, intransigent, rigid and cold. They have stories to tell that shame us all. It was their 4th birthday earlier this week and, as part of their celebrations they hosted a discussion evening on Creating and Strengthening a Culture of Kindness in Mental Health. I was so sorry to miss it. And in the light of this blog I feel shamed that it was not a priority for me.

So...where am I going with these stories and thoughts? Nothing subtle about it...

Our whole street looks out for Sol...even the people who don't like cats very much are fond of him. We feed him. He hangs out in our gardens...on our porches...in our cars...on our beds. And we smile and laugh and say sweet little nothings to him.

We read to cats because we believe it soothes them and it's a good way for the children to practice their reading. Can I just say that again...

We. Read. To. Cats. Because. It. Soothes. Them.

We take our husbands, wives, significant others, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters, cousins, friends, neighbours...at the time when they are most distressed...we frequently control them by drugging them until they are unable to walk or talk or stay awake and we put them in austere,  soul-less places where they have to fight over chairs, where they are observed through toughened glass and practically ignored until it's time for more drugs. We lock them in and expect frightened families to have meaningful visits in small rooms with no windows and a panic button. We don't let them smoke and we worry about how much caffeine they take. Nothing hangs on the wall or beautifies the environment. The food is...food...

There's a song that I just can't get out of my head. It's called 'Hands' and it talks a bit about doing what you can do.I've included the link to the song...

http://youtu.be/uPa-ClbzhYE

I wish I knew what to do. How to be balm. If anyone has any ideas then I would be glad to hear them.

We read to cats because it soothes them.

Everyone in that system could do with having someone read them a story.

'...in the end, only kindness matters...'

Jewel

What do you love most about Australia, Heather? Part 2

People often ask me what I like about Australia. My reply is usually a very long list. I'm not trying to disrespect Scotland in any way. There are parts that are very beautiful and the less than lovely parts have a way of making up for that by being home to some funny, generous, kind people.

The thing that drew me most to Australia was the white light and intense colour - red earth, deep blue skies, garishly coloured plants and birds; a child's paint palette daubed on big and bold. It was SO different from the life I'd known in Scotland...I couldn't wait to get here and be part of it. I also really loved Australians, especially the Australians I was meeting. Positive, 'have a go' people. Generous spirits, open to difference. Of course, when I got here I quickly realised it wasn't the case for everyone. But that was OK, there was more about Australia that I loved and there was nothing that bothered me here that hadn't bothered me in Scotland. And whenever I was in Australia I felt as if I was a better person.

In the 6 years that I've been here I've got to be more specific about the things that I love. I've realised over time that my love of the country has really morphed into the form of a person.

Here he is...

He's a bit like the country...larger than life...very different...a positive, generous spirit who'll give things a go. From time to time he brings out the best in me (occasionally he brings out the worst) but, just like coming here, being with Rick has opened up a life for me that I just could not have imagined.

I've had the best birthday of my life today. And it is thanks to this man. Not just because the house is now full of Lana Turner roses, or because I've been wined and dined in style for the past couple of days. It's because of the loving kindness he has showered on me today and has shown me practically everyday we've been together.

He's not a saint and neither am I. We're hardly a perfect couple. But our life together works and seems to me to be richer, fuller, kinder and more lovely than the sum of its parts.

I've had the best day today...and the past 6 years have been the best time of my life...thanks to this man...

That's who I love most about Australia xxx

Tick Tock, Tick Tock...

Well...Happy New Year everyone! Actually, I really ought to be saying, 'Goodbye January...Hello February' and then pausing so that we could all wonder how it could be February already and Christmas only just gone. 

Where does the time go?

I've had occasion to think about 'time's winged chariot' over the past few days. My sister celebrated her 50th Birthday on the 29th January. She had a 'do' on Saturday which almost everyone attended, obviously not me because I'm here and not in Scotland and my niece Caroline couldn't be there because she and her husband are busily caring for the newest family member, Millie Isabelle, born at the beginning of January. She already has a story and is the loveliest baby I have ever seen. 

Anyway, photographs were duly posted on Facebook and it looked like a great time was had. One of the photographs was of another niece, Jessica, and the last time I saw her she was only a wee thing just started school but there she was, looking gorgeous and grown up. Her brothers, Rory and Rowan, have also grown - I would have been hard pushed to recognise them.

Between us, my sisters, my brother and I have two hundred and fifty three years. 

253 years...That's a lot of time. 

It started me wondering what we had done with that time. My sisters and brother can account for a lot of theirs. They've had families of their own and my nephews and nieces have carved out some interesting stories for themselves as they've grown up and into their lives. It hasn't always been straightforward for some of them. Others have been like golden sunshine, welcoming and warming, loved wherever they go. They are a decent bunch and I wonder what they'll do with the time they have.

I'm preoccupied with the notion of time and time-wasting for a couple of reasons. 

The first reason is that it's my birthday next week. I'll be 54 and it's really quite a shock. How did THAT happen? 

Feels like I just kept on going to bed at night and getting up in the morning. 

Nineteen thousand, seven hundred and ten times...maybe add an additional 13 if you want to take account of the Leap Years.

And now I'm 54.

I'm not complaining you understand...I'm just taken aback. I was 10 and then I blinked. 

And now I'm 54.

Of course, I have questions about what I've done. How have I used the gift I've been given? What have I made of this 'one wild precious thing' called my life?

As the answers come back there are some things that I'm proud of and some things I can't bear to think about. But mostly, my sense is that I just have not done enough. Sometimes there have been reasons for my half - heartedness but often there are not. 

The truth is that I simply have not appreciated what was there for me...the love; the opportunities to grow and contribute; the forks in the road that gave me the space to consider what I was becoming; the richness and plenty of my life and circumstances; the darkness that cast some long shadows but which also made the light precious...

So, where the time is wasted, I only have myself to blame. There is plenty that I regret but I still have today to make something count. I designated 2014 'The year of YES'...it's early days but I think it can be different.

I said there were a couple of reasons I've been thinking about time and time wasting and here's the second reason...

It's one thing to make decisions for yourself and to have to live with the consequences. It's quite another when the way the world works is organised against you and the capacity to fritter your life away is built in to the way you have to live. Through my work I've been up close to a couple of Services that provide day time activities for people with intellectual disabilities and I am bothered by what I've been learning. 

I knew that it happened. 

One part of me knew that people spent large parts of their day either hanging around waiting to go somewhere or for something to happen. When they were not waiting they were often travelling towards the place where the thing was about to happen. And then, if the thing ever started to happen or they got to the place where it was going to happen, they could never stay for very long because they had to get back to the waiting place so that they could go to the toilet and wait to go home. Not much happened there either. 

If they were lucky, they got to do it all again the next day...and the next...and maybe even the next...

When I think about my own life, I've least felt that I wasted my time when I was something that had a point to it. It didn't have to be that profound...cooking food to share with friends or keep me healthy...learning to drive so that i could have some ease of getting around...figuring out how my phone worked...reading, talking, engaging with people around a whole variety of issues...it all had a point.  It meant something to me in the context of my life and it gave me some sense of my purpose in being alive...
The occasions when I've most felt rootless and disconnected have been when I've felt trapped or like I'm treading water. Nothing's happening...nothing means anything...I'm going through the motions. I know that I've spent enough time just filling in days...waiting for the day to end and for sleep to come. It isn't good for me to have too many pointless days. That road leads me straight to the jaws of The Black Dog. Now, I reckon I'm fairly 'typical' and that anyone who's reading this will, to a greater or lesser degree, share my experience or know someone who does.

Meaning and purpose matter. 

If they matter to me, chances are that they matter to someone with a disability. Maybe differently expressed. But they matter.  
And so I don't think that it's good enough for services to organise to waste people's time. 
I don't think that it's good enough to be constantly focussing on filling up people's days without first considering why you what you do and do it in that particular way.  The activity needs to be designed and structured in line with the person's choices and wishes and with some idea of how this will contribute to the creation of, and the finding of, some meaning and purpose in the routine of life.
People shake their heads and accuse him of exaggeration when I talk about two of the consequences of Devaluation as described by Wolfensberger, '...a wasted life and an early death...'

It's sad enough to feel regret and frustration when your can see how your own choices have led you there. 

It is tragic and reprehensible that so many of us over so many years have colluded in the waste of people's lives.

The time flies by...and we don't get it back. 

Wasting time...

It has to stop.

If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.

Benjamin Franklin