I walked to the
closest café, my spine won’t take me far; I feel slow in all ways, since august,
if im honest. I know it’ll pass, these things do, it’ll just take time. Time
being something I always have plenty of and not enough simultaneously. And I
remember writing “I’ve been trying to push the days out the window; to make
them jump. I feel like the quicker they come and go, the closer we’ll get to
each other” #time
While my sign school
class took holidays, I took to Phillip Island, working two weeks on camp. Camp
is a complex beast; something hard and beautiful and worth it. I don’t want to
over think it but must always find a way to process the experience by the end
or I don’t know how I’d go back again.
In some ways normal; cabins, a lake, canoes, a giant swing, coffee, laser tag, calling the police on
a kid, watching the blue penguins come to shore for the evening, sunrises,
sunsets, coffee, a butter knife thrown at my face, camp food, orange t-shirts, a long
drive and questions…so many questions.
Why do you have a boy
hair cut?
How long until we’re
there?
Why can’t we go to the
Melbourne show this year?
What’s ‘will you be my
girlfriend’ in sign language?
What’s ‘you’re a dump
****’ in sign language?
You taught us the
colours, why won’t you teach me that!?
How many penguins are
in Australia?
Why is the ocean blue
and why do the waves do that?
Is that the time
coming in?
Where are they going?
Can I take one home?
Do I have to do home?
How may sleeps until
camp again?
Who started the world?
If I wanted to go to
heaven, whats the best way to get there?
Why don't you have a boyfriend?
Why doesn’t my dad
love me?
And so many more. And
I find I’m naturally very honest about how much I do or don’t understand. Kids
respond to honesty. These kids do.
I have been doing this
for over 2 years now and I would say this camp was the toughest yet, and yes,
having a knife thrown at me was terrible experience and calling the police in
wasn’t great either. It moves me every time and I have a heat patch on my spin
and tears fall from my eyes sitting here, at this café from all kinds of pain
but I will keep going back as long as I can because when im with those kids, I
feel I am really living. If I can give them a glimpse of hope that suggests they
can grow into a decent human, a positive contributor to society and someone
they can look at in the mirror and think ‘today I like you’; then in my mind
that’s worth it.
The reality is these
kids come from very difficult situations and they’re not in some distance, far
away place; they are in our backyard.
My housemate said it
“might be time to look for another less dangerous holiday job” and the physio
said “you’ve been accepted for the 12 month health plan, usually I only have
people with obesity or lung problems; normally heavy smokers- so that must be
some kind of pain you’re in.” to which I replied “it’s not the worst pain I
have...”
It’s only a small
window of time I get to spend with these kids and I believe that hope is so
important and I see unique potential in each child I interact with and I’m so
far from not caring. When it comes to camp I think “I can’t just do nothing
about it, when I can do something about it.”
And so I’ve decided
I’m willing to take whatever life throws at me… literally.
I woke before sunrise
one morning, while everything on the island was still new and unfamiliar. I
found my way to the beach to watch the sunrise. Upon reflecting on that
morning, I wrote the poem below, in case my writing is illegible, here it is:
“Remember early when
your colours called my name.
Breaking into dawn,
spilt in,
old from new.
Darkness before me; I walked the field.
Dew and grass and mud on boots, I
didn’t mind-
in fact the opposite.
All the sounds of children, even in my
sleep, never ceasing and
I climbed the restless night wide in thought.
Now with
one simple step in front of another; I anticipate your next move.
Chasing down
your mystery with a ‘why’
and many
and always seeking.
Content but never
satisfied until I know.
And I see you in the water, in the sky, in the eyes of
others.
If a howl,
if a whisper
or in the silence breaking through;
your
colours always calling me, drawing me to you.”
