Happy Wedding Day!

Happy Wedding day to my amazing friends Tim and Heidi
#biglove.

L5 S1

I feel so distant from the pain that was within me earlier this year; both physically and emotionally.

It’s hard to believe it was only nine months ago when I questioned if I’d be able to walk “normally” again- without pain, without limping. I wasn’t very good at listening to my body and would struggle explaining to my GP and neurosurgeon, where the pain was, how it felt and the severity of the nerve pain. I work with universities helping to train medical students in communication, by pretending to be a patient. You’d think after years of talking injuries, accidents, unfortunate diagnosis’ and death, I’d have a handle on the pain scale structure and what information is required for history taking. Yet when it’s happening to you, well, what is real feels very different to what is not.

The medical team suggested I make pain notes. Pain is a strange thing, hard to control, hard to process and at times hard to heal.  I made a conscious effort not to let this pain be a vocal point in my life. 

“This is not going to become part of my identity,” I thought, so only in the margins of my diary I wrote out my pain in red pen:

2.3.15

+hurts

+hurts when I sleep

+hurts when I wake

+when I walk

+standing hurts

+bending down hurts

3.3.15

+same as the day before

+hurts when I cough

+after walking for a while I forget the pain

4.3.15

+a little better when I stood up this morning

+still hurts when I cough

5.3.15

+sore all day, filming all day  = standing all day

6.3.15

+hurts getting up

+cried at the physio

+hurt all day

+pain killers not helping

7.3.15

+hurt in the morning

+hurts holding things

+hurts to walk

+couldn’t pick up car keys off the ground

+new pills from GP

+getting older tomorrow

8.3.15 [#birthday]

+hurts when I sneeze

+hurts when I cough

+used heat patch

9.3.15

+left sign school early because of pain

10.3.15

+NO PAIN IN THE MORNING!!!

11.3.15

+woke in pain

+hurts when I cough

+got sent home from work

+cried on the floor

the following was a ‘to do’ list I had written at the time:

-sleep

-cry

-listen to records

-lay on the floor

-cry

-sleep

-walk

-repeat

I’m glad that I wrote these things out because I’d forgotten, not necessarily the effects but how it felt. It was terrible but I couldn’t be as thankful as I am right now, if I were not able to re-read what I’d gone through. I made a decision to take time and write the specifics about what I was going through at that time in my life and I’m glad I did.

It’s a process and I still have to be careful. Now there are days when I have no pain. I remember thinking “if you can’t feel your spine, it’s a good time”.  I’m hopeful that in time I will be closer to that point.

This morning I had physio-pilates at 7:20am on a pain scale where 1 is the least amount of pain I’ve experienced and 10 is the most; I would rate this mornings session at 2. Earlier this year I would say I’d hit a 10 for sure.

Throughout this year, even when I was on 4 different medications and my health needed to be a priority more than ever; I was still able to finish all my assignments and graduate sign school. I had my first composition performed live, I moved house, continued to work and support myself, drove a bus to Alice Spring, started taking piano lessons and got my taxes done. We are capable of some much more that we think we are.

To my GP, neurosurgeon, psychologist, physiotherapist x2, my sister and my dear friends; to whom without their support, the struggle would have been so much more real, I thank you.

So much has changed and I’m so thankful.

What did you learn?

• -     Healing is a mystery; it can happen over time or can happen in a moment.
• -       Writing is a great way to process what you’re going through.
• -       Don’t let the biggest pain in your life be the biggest thing in your mind.
• -       Sometimes really hard things happen and all you can control is your response to these things.
• -       You need other people, you can’t do everything on your own.
• -       One of the most important things in life are the choices that you make.

#likeyou

There are still times when I question what is going on in my life- 

"What am I actually doing with my life, with this time i've been given!??"

Soon after that thought, that slightly irrational crisis,  I stop, I calm down and I remember my purpose- #LOVE. I believe if everything thing I do, the way that I treat other humans and the words that I use all come from a place of love, then I am living with meaning. 

Love is complex, it is many things and is represented in various ways and today I was thinking about how love is brave...

#todayithought...

#oneyearagoinvietnam

and when i was alone and said to myself out loud- "it's hard" i also thought "beautiful things can come from difficult times"

#mondays... am i right?

I called the RSPCA. the machine lady [who I named Joan] informed me that after recent budget cuts- they no longer do call outs. Then Joan began to list names and numbers of 24 hr emergency vets throughout Melbourne in alphabetical order. After writing out 6 numbers that are within a reasonable distance to where i live, I said "thanks Joan" and hung up [it was 5:32am and I talk to machine voices when I'm tired, stop judging me]

When I rang the first number, a real lady answered. She said that vets also don't really deal with this kind of - possum stuck in bathtub situation and that I had two options:

A- go online and report said situation to the Victorian wildlife rescue, put some fruit and water in the tub for Bambi [yes I named the possum, he was cute and fluffy and couldn't get out of the bath... And that was 5:17am] and wait to hear back from the humans that read reports...
B: get a blanket or rug, throw it on Bambi and scoop him up with two hands and carry him to the backyard- basically kidnap him, give him a cuddle and set him free.

Well, even though I'd already put fruit in the bath and was pretty much half way there on option A. I decided to go with the freedom and the cuddly. He must have been in there for a while already, as some crashing sound had woke me hours earlier...and i was determined to ignore it.
He was scared, I was loosing sleep-I think we both needed freedom and a cuddle.

It didn't exactly work like that. I'd thrown the blanket over him a few times without the bravery of acting on the cuddle part- which was imperative to the freedom. He realised he could attach himself to the blanket and just as I was trying to get brave, with my two hands on the blanket, he came out the top and I'd given him just enough effort for him to now get out of the tub.
He scurried and slipped on the top corner and fell to the floor. We both looked at wide open bathroom door... I throw the blanket over him, slammed the door shut and with my heart racing said out loud "I'm just trying to help you live your life Bambi!"
My courage came to me; I held him firm in my arms, while also trying to open the door and walk him down stairs and let him leave from under the blanket. I put it all on the ground and pulled the blanket from him. I'm sure he was shocked with gladness, I could see it in his big eyes. He was still for a moment and then moved slowly toward the tree, he was free ‪#‎byebambi ‬‪#‎happymonday‬

‪#‎ps‬ Lou he broke your pot plant, it's in pieces all over the bathroom ‪#‎sorry‬

#whenisee

i've been working on the thank you parcels for my past pozible campaign. These gifts include: 

"+ Hugs

+ A thank you! 
+ I will make you a button [made with love]
+ A personalised instagram photo posted by me for you 
+ A personalised note 
+ A 'today i thought' print 
+ I will draw you a picture 
+ A gift from the Alice Springs Adventure 
+ A poem of sweet goodness

+ Other creative secrets that are too secret to write here"

i still find it hard to believe that project was successfully funded. Its amazing the support that you can feel just through stepping out and trying to achieve something. I am so thankful for the encouraging people of the world. We really need them, don't we. My time in Alice Springs was very impacting and in many ways, im still process the whole experience. This "when i see" is part of the thank you package.

i want to share more about that experience but im not sure what to say and im not sure im ready... this is an extract from what i wrote in August while i was there.

Aug 2nd 2014

Saturday, Day four

"i feel like i don't have time.. its true- i've never had time; time isn't mine- it never was mine but here... i want to take everything in and take it away with me, like a badge to wear, like art inked in my skin for the worldly forever. I don't even know if i've learnt but i want to remember- i must have learnt, i must have, right? I'm thankful for this Australia, i've seen more of it now and love more of it now and im still so far from understanding. But i get a little closer and i find happiness in good conversation and peace in quite spaces and Jesus in other people's eyes and for now, this is enough; just for now. I'm thankful to be part of this land and this beauty and this call forward, take one more step, keep being; be human, come closer... He is always calling and i now with open heart, hear and move. How could i not be moved by such love, such splendid love."

above is a raw file from some footage i shot while being there... and after someone in our crew said "this really is the middle of nowhere" one man who lived there replied "this is not the middle of nowhere, for some, this is the middle of everywhere" i think i'll always remember that.

today i thought...

#almost...

#camplife

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.”

#todayithought

#justfortoday...

#abouttoday...

"i decided to indulge myself into a false sense of security by being herded like cattle on one of those classic tourist tours, for a day trip to My Tho and Unicorn Island. A two and a half hr journey from Ho Chi Minh by bus. The landscapes i saw were colorful and disturbing and stunning and since mental pictures where now the only way i could capture moments, i was attempting, more than ever, to just be there and take it all in. The herd was made up of 3 Germans, 4 English, 2 Israelis, 3 Americans, 2 French, 4 Vietnamese and 1 Australian [#me]. After 2 bus trips, 6 wooden boat rides, a canoe trail, 3 islands and not one unicorn in sight...[clearly false advertising] i agreed that to be herded was exactly what i needed #justfortoday..."

#thesoundtrackofnam...

#abouttoday...
"Reflecting on today i should have eaten more than bubble tea, pineapple and an airplane "meal" [its not really that bad, i don't know why airplane food gets so much hate...] it had been 12 days and the police still hadn't finished or rather- hadn't started the insurance report for my stolen iphone. Anh said its because it got taken from your hand, in daylight, at the same intersection that the police station is on- so it makes them look bad and lazy... which is what they are! he said.
i sat in the police station for too long again, one of the girls who run the hostel translated for me; a whole lot more aggressively than how i put it and it worked. she added things like " she'll call the australian embassy and report you... if she misses her flight tonight you'll be paying for it etc etc" i was very thankful that she was there with me.

before this experience began, i wondered what the soundtrack would be and since my chosen music was removed from me on the first day here; the soundtrack naturally became the experience itself...
the lyrics are foreign, the melody- both haunting and playful. sounds cut in and out of each other but with a sense of belonging; traffic- motorbike horn, a stream of flowing water, the sound of children playing, bricks falling down, someone coughing up, an old woman weeping and begging, weeping and begging, a dog and a chicken, a man laughing and still laughing, layers of silence and if every shade of green had one sound- that... and a woodwind instrument and my beating heart...

The album art would be something like a collage of motorbikes colliding around a monument of earthly significance made of buffalo-head triangle cheese and everything would be drowning, sinking into the ocean but in a hopeful way... with yellow flowers in there somewhere. 

and that is the soundtrack of my #namtownadventure"

#abouttoday post nam...

#abouttoday...

"I feel so much older #thatsalie or though my body aches at times and then I tell myself "you've got the heart of a youth and the bones of an ancient egyptian mummy #dealwithit" and then I remembered those lyrics by The Cure, "yesterday I got so old I felt like I could die, yesterday I got so old it made me want to cry..."
Sometimes their lyrics are so serious and honest but its hard to take it seriously because the melody is so playful. Their music has this ironic way of making me feel good about things. 'The Cure' are great.

Today, walking by the maribyrnong river, to the shopping centre to keep my "genius" appointment at apple and I thought of all the things inside me that I want to get out. All the things I want to say, want to communicate to the world before this ends for me. And I can't work out how, in any kind of way. My eyes glazed over.
Isn't that all we're all trying to do; isn't that what we're doing here? Trying to express this experience of being human and what that means and how it feels. And maybe that's one reason im studying sign language, find as many ways as I can to communicate; just to get it out right... 

im always asking why, too curious and for my birthday, my sister gave me a book called 'Why? Answers to Everyday Scientific Questions' 
"because you're a scientist now" she said.
I am always amazed by her insight of me. She said "I worried about you almost every day but I knew being in Vietnam was good for because of what you were going through. You never talk about how you feel to get approval or reassurance or some sense of direction; you've never needed that from people. You just need to get it out".
I was silent for a moment and then said 
"I feel good when say things like that" she laughed
"why? Because it shows you that I know you?" she asked
"yeah...and you know me and you still like me" I said
"I like you even more because of it" she added

My old iphone4 [replacement of my stolen iphone5] has issues- no safari [internet], no wifi and no app store and the off button doesn't work... They asked me if it's ok to reset the phone, which I agreed to, though it was not backed up- I figured i've been getting good at letting things go. Well they couldn't reset it anyway because you need the 'off' button to go off for that...they apologised and in the end i don't think the ''genius'' felt so genius. I said
"don't worry about it, genius is a pretty lose term these days"

sometimes I wonder, how I got to be so deeply effected by things. Maybe going through my whole life sober is part of it; I have never known what it's like to numb whatever it is I feel. When I cut my leg shaving I thought maybe I should allow myself to be upset [about other things that aren't shaving cuts] and not constantly analyse myself as to why... And just be ok with that.

I keep thinking about that missing airplane; I was flying with that same airline, in that same area last week. And I don't think, "what if that was me?" I just think about the purple blanket that's waiting at your seat, when you board and the endless cups of bad coffee with the weird powdered milk and the eye contact I made with the air hostess and the rows of seats in front of me, filled with strangers, all going the same direction and wondering- only for a moment "who are you all? Where are you actually going?". And the friendly voice that began with "this is your captain speaking..." First in a foreign language, then in English. It all seemed so ordinary then one moment changes the 'ordinary' forever."

'the cure'- in between days:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scif2vfg1ug&feature=kp

#todayithought

#todayithought

#todayithought