#todayithought

intsagram: ifoundmish

#contrast- one of my favourite things...

#todayithought

                                                     http://inanystillmoment.tumblr.com/

#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

#humantravel...

An extract from my note #abouttoday...

"#imangry about the amount of water I've already had to leave behind at security check points, I let go of the full- unopened bottle of water, went through the body scanner thing- it beeped- he directed me to her- she felt me up or patted me down [or whatever it's called] and I'm not sure why but I laughed and she said sorry... 
I like that the sounds are foreign, that english is not the first language heard over the speaker and the music is not familiar. It's strangely comforting to me that the majority of us sitting here don't seem to be from western countries. You'd think I might feel out of place but I just feel like another human and I like that..."

#welcomtovietnam...

an extract from my notes #abouttoday...

"Anh asked around to try and find witnesses while i sat in silence at the police station. no one saw anything or as he put it "they only see what they want to see"...
while the bare footed police men were smoking and laughing and questioning, Anh, a Vietnamese stranger i had met through our common enjoyment of bubble tea, sat with me for hours translating my iphone theft report. i spent the majority of the time in silence and there were moments of complete silence- the police officers looking at me and me looking back at them and in those moment we all thought alike and our thoughts were loud and i knew what we were all thinking "what are you doing here?" 

Yet none of this was enough to make me feel as uncomfortable as to get upset about it- i find its not so much the physical thing that gets taken from you that effects you but the experience that is given in exchange that stays with you; replying that moment over and over in your mind, wondering what you could have changed, wondering why humans do these things to each other.
Realizing that although you're just trying to be a human someone will always see you as a number or a piece of paper, a rain drop or a tiny needle and then you feel the weight of being nothing and it makes you forget for a moment why you try...

i looked at flights to hanoi, i dont know what im doing or where im going and my only plan is to continue to let myself be moved by #thehumanexperience... #whoneedsaniphoneanyway right? [i really miss my music...]