Hard month...
Dec. 7th, 2003 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
logansrogueIt's been a very challenging month for me, but God told me it was coming when Tina did a reading for me. I know it's not going to stop, there's going to be a lot of hard stuff ahead.
I have been unwell for three days, suffering from bad period cramps. On the first day I felt so bad I nearly spewed. I didn't let myself cause I had to keep the yarrow tea and the disprin max pills down. I won't take Disprin again, it made me feel sick.
I've had a lot of time to sit around and think, probably too much time. I read a book called "My Place", and I was very moved.
I wish I could tell the author what the book meant to me, but I really feel stupid about that, because the book is about the Stolen Generation here in Australia, about Aboriginals, and part Aboriginal children who have no idea of their heritage, that feel lost and abandoned, and here I am, a painfully white girl, relating to the book so strongly and finding a message in it that helped me. Anyway, I really felt for her, for all of the native people of this country and their descendents. It makes me feel so mad that they are never given a chance, that all people can bitch about is 'how they take money away from us' and how they get all the benefits. I get so mad because it's not fair. They're in need because of *us*, because of what our attitudes and behaviour has done to them. I get mad when I hear people say, "I never did anything to them, why should I say I'm sorry?" If you walk down the street, and you try to avoid walking near an Aboriginal coming the other way, you're contributing. If you get nervous having an Aboriginal even near you, it's contributing. For that you should say sorry. I get rather annoyed when people get nervous around Aboriginals cause, while I know there are some that are dangerous, and some that are drunk and ask for money off you, not all of them are like that, and by treating them that way, you make them feel worse about themselves. I'd rather have a strange conversation with a drunk old Aboriginal (they're usually nice anyway) than avoid them and make them feel any worse about their cultural identity than they do already.
I don't know, I just feel that we should be sorry for all that's happened. Not apologising because any one of us personally did something, but because we as a nation relied on that cruel treatment to get most of our work done, and for all those years never cared that it hurt people. Apologising because we brushed the tragedy of an abused and hurt people under the rug and hoped that it would go away if we just ignored it. Anyway, I'm just rambling now. The book affected me, and it's a story and a message I'll never forget.
I'm proud to say that whenever I've socialised with people of native descent, they've always liked me a lot, and they knew I didn't care what colour skin they were. I'm grateful that I live in this country now, and I deeply admire and have great affection for the Aboriginal people, more-so than I had before. The culture is a special treasure, a legacy, and it should be preserved and most importantly, kept alive.
~~*~~
Another thing that struck me in the book, the thing that bound me to it and really helped me relate, was the strength of family bonds within the people in the story. When they cried for the daughter they lost in their community, I knew it would be the same way with my family. We often laugh and call ourselves 'white boongs' (with affection and pride), because we're so very close, and our family bonds are almost tribal (that and we have the habit of standing around on the front verandah drinking coffee and smoking and looking like a bunch of hicks, but I digress). A lot of people I meet don't understand the bond I have with my family.
I hate it when I don't see my sister Helen at least once a week. I love her baby Ruby as if she were my own. I love her children, I love my nieces and nephews, every single one of them. I talk to them when I see them, want to know how they're going. I love nothing more than talking to my sisters and my brothers and laughing with them. When one of us falls in love and brings home that lucky person, we invite them in with open arms. People find it intimidating and frightening, and we don't know why. That person becomes blood, and Peter, Garry, Petina, Rachel and Rolf are like sisters and brothers to me. It doesn't even occur to me that I've only known them for the past fifteen years. When it's just us seven, Cati, Helen, Lisa, Paul, Me and Tina, it all seems too small, like someone's missing, and I suppose there is, really. Their loved ones, our little ones. When the house is full of my family, and we're laughing and singing and sharing our time, there's nothing that makes me happier.
My siblings are my best friends in the world. No one understands me like they do. When I invite someone into my home, to share my family with them, it's a very precious gift, because my family is the most important thing to me. I'll admit, that when I brought my boyfriend Adam into my home and introduced him to my family, and he acted negatively, it hurt me very deeply. I knew they overwhelmed him and he didn't know how to deal with them, but they were ready to accept him for the time he would be with me, and whenever anyone considers my family strange, bizarre, or mad, I get very upset. When my older siblings went to school, there was a lot of negativity associated with the name, "Lorenz", because everyone thought we were strange and odd people. I'll be keeping my name when I go out to perform, because I'm proud of my name, and proud of my family.
We were brought up to believe that family came first, to look after each other, to love each other, to be good people and to be loyal to each other to the end. We were always different from the kids at school, and it was odd... we didn't *look* different, like the greek kids or the chinese kids. You couldn't look at us and call us wogs or chinks or boongs. We had blonde hair, brown hair, white skin, bright blue eyes. But our mother was Scottish, and our father was German. Dad didn't like strangers, didn't like having visitors in the house, he was very insular. Mum didn't like us kids going walkabout in the neighbourhood - we had to stay at home and weren't allowed to leave the yard till we were fifteen or so (fair enough, really, it's dangerous out there). (And her girls had nearly been snatched and flashed at before). So it made things hard, and people thought we were all a bit odd, especially with the different ideas of manners. (We didn't answer other people's phones, we didn't go into their kitchens for food. We waited for the host or hostess to offer us food and we stuck to the entertainment areas. We were reluctant to go into people's private rooms, like kitchens and bedrooms and the like). In Australia, my place is your place is my place. It took me a long time to realise I thought of things differently, and even now I get uneasy walking into my friends' houses that I've not been in before.
I've got a very challenging time ahead of me. To succeed, I MUST travel. I will travel. I'll do a lot of things and go a lot of places. Always I'll miss my family though, because they're a part of me, like - they're a part of my own flesh and body. I can't explain what they mean to me, it is so strong and deeply spiritual. I really do feel like we're almost a tribe, and you know, sometimes when we're all in the garden hanging out, playing music, drawing pictures, one of us weaving things out of dry grass, another watching the little children they made play in the beautiful open yard under the towering eucalypt trees, exploring the wonderland we used to revel in when we were kids ourselves, I can almost see a few freakin' huts around the place, you know? Anyway, it's good to know that I'll always have that to support me whereever I go, and that I have that family to go back to after my travels.
I feel sad when people say they're an only child. Most only children I've met have been utterly glad they don't have to worry about in-fighting or sharing with other people. It seems to me though that they don't know what they're missing out on. They don't know what it is to know that your sister will know what it is to be a person like you, because she's a lot like you herself. It's the security of knowing there's a bunch of people that *know* where you're coming from. I guess family doesn't have to be blood, and that only children make their own family of friends and so forth, but there's something special about sharing your life. You share a mother, you share the knowledge of what it's like to grow up in a certain situation, and there's an understanding there that's unequalled. But then again, I'm sure there's a lot of people that would disagree with me, and there might be situations that I've not heard of that would make me reconsider that thought. I guess what I'm trying to say is family is family, however they became so, and the more the merrier in my frame of experience. I guess when only children say, "God I'm glad I don't have siblings" I feel sad. Siblings are wonderful. I know I'd be lost without mine.
~~*~~
I'm worried about my manager. I sometimes worry he's not all that great, that he's hiding things from me. I feel like it's all taking far too long to happen.
I guess I'm very impatient. But at the same time I don't have time to waste. I want to make my music. I don't think I can convey in words the utter desperation I feel, the deep need inside of me to give of myself with music. Sometimes I think I would shrivel up and die if I couldn't do this, if my song wasn't heard. I always feel as though it's why I'm here, and if I'm not here singing I'm no good for anything. Maybe that's why I haven't been writing as many stories or drawing as many pictures as I used to. Singing is all I want to do anymore.
Sing, and hope that for one tiny moment, someone knows that they're not alone, that what they feel has been put into song, and that something precious has been captured in song. There is nothing more fulfilling to me than someone hearing my song and saying, "It says how I feel", or "You put how I felt into a sound." In that moment, (and it is such a rare moment), I know I'm doing the good work I was put here for. I know I'm doing the right thing.
I have been unwell for three days, suffering from bad period cramps. On the first day I felt so bad I nearly spewed. I didn't let myself cause I had to keep the yarrow tea and the disprin max pills down. I won't take Disprin again, it made me feel sick.
I've had a lot of time to sit around and think, probably too much time. I read a book called "My Place", and I was very moved.
I wish I could tell the author what the book meant to me, but I really feel stupid about that, because the book is about the Stolen Generation here in Australia, about Aboriginals, and part Aboriginal children who have no idea of their heritage, that feel lost and abandoned, and here I am, a painfully white girl, relating to the book so strongly and finding a message in it that helped me. Anyway, I really felt for her, for all of the native people of this country and their descendents. It makes me feel so mad that they are never given a chance, that all people can bitch about is 'how they take money away from us' and how they get all the benefits. I get so mad because it's not fair. They're in need because of *us*, because of what our attitudes and behaviour has done to them. I get mad when I hear people say, "I never did anything to them, why should I say I'm sorry?" If you walk down the street, and you try to avoid walking near an Aboriginal coming the other way, you're contributing. If you get nervous having an Aboriginal even near you, it's contributing. For that you should say sorry. I get rather annoyed when people get nervous around Aboriginals cause, while I know there are some that are dangerous, and some that are drunk and ask for money off you, not all of them are like that, and by treating them that way, you make them feel worse about themselves. I'd rather have a strange conversation with a drunk old Aboriginal (they're usually nice anyway) than avoid them and make them feel any worse about their cultural identity than they do already.
I don't know, I just feel that we should be sorry for all that's happened. Not apologising because any one of us personally did something, but because we as a nation relied on that cruel treatment to get most of our work done, and for all those years never cared that it hurt people. Apologising because we brushed the tragedy of an abused and hurt people under the rug and hoped that it would go away if we just ignored it. Anyway, I'm just rambling now. The book affected me, and it's a story and a message I'll never forget.
I'm proud to say that whenever I've socialised with people of native descent, they've always liked me a lot, and they knew I didn't care what colour skin they were. I'm grateful that I live in this country now, and I deeply admire and have great affection for the Aboriginal people, more-so than I had before. The culture is a special treasure, a legacy, and it should be preserved and most importantly, kept alive.
~~*~~
Another thing that struck me in the book, the thing that bound me to it and really helped me relate, was the strength of family bonds within the people in the story. When they cried for the daughter they lost in their community, I knew it would be the same way with my family. We often laugh and call ourselves 'white boongs' (with affection and pride), because we're so very close, and our family bonds are almost tribal (that and we have the habit of standing around on the front verandah drinking coffee and smoking and looking like a bunch of hicks, but I digress). A lot of people I meet don't understand the bond I have with my family.
I hate it when I don't see my sister Helen at least once a week. I love her baby Ruby as if she were my own. I love her children, I love my nieces and nephews, every single one of them. I talk to them when I see them, want to know how they're going. I love nothing more than talking to my sisters and my brothers and laughing with them. When one of us falls in love and brings home that lucky person, we invite them in with open arms. People find it intimidating and frightening, and we don't know why. That person becomes blood, and Peter, Garry, Petina, Rachel and Rolf are like sisters and brothers to me. It doesn't even occur to me that I've only known them for the past fifteen years. When it's just us seven, Cati, Helen, Lisa, Paul, Me and Tina, it all seems too small, like someone's missing, and I suppose there is, really. Their loved ones, our little ones. When the house is full of my family, and we're laughing and singing and sharing our time, there's nothing that makes me happier.
My siblings are my best friends in the world. No one understands me like they do. When I invite someone into my home, to share my family with them, it's a very precious gift, because my family is the most important thing to me. I'll admit, that when I brought my boyfriend Adam into my home and introduced him to my family, and he acted negatively, it hurt me very deeply. I knew they overwhelmed him and he didn't know how to deal with them, but they were ready to accept him for the time he would be with me, and whenever anyone considers my family strange, bizarre, or mad, I get very upset. When my older siblings went to school, there was a lot of negativity associated with the name, "Lorenz", because everyone thought we were strange and odd people. I'll be keeping my name when I go out to perform, because I'm proud of my name, and proud of my family.
We were brought up to believe that family came first, to look after each other, to love each other, to be good people and to be loyal to each other to the end. We were always different from the kids at school, and it was odd... we didn't *look* different, like the greek kids or the chinese kids. You couldn't look at us and call us wogs or chinks or boongs. We had blonde hair, brown hair, white skin, bright blue eyes. But our mother was Scottish, and our father was German. Dad didn't like strangers, didn't like having visitors in the house, he was very insular. Mum didn't like us kids going walkabout in the neighbourhood - we had to stay at home and weren't allowed to leave the yard till we were fifteen or so (fair enough, really, it's dangerous out there). (And her girls had nearly been snatched and flashed at before). So it made things hard, and people thought we were all a bit odd, especially with the different ideas of manners. (We didn't answer other people's phones, we didn't go into their kitchens for food. We waited for the host or hostess to offer us food and we stuck to the entertainment areas. We were reluctant to go into people's private rooms, like kitchens and bedrooms and the like). In Australia, my place is your place is my place. It took me a long time to realise I thought of things differently, and even now I get uneasy walking into my friends' houses that I've not been in before.
I've got a very challenging time ahead of me. To succeed, I MUST travel. I will travel. I'll do a lot of things and go a lot of places. Always I'll miss my family though, because they're a part of me, like - they're a part of my own flesh and body. I can't explain what they mean to me, it is so strong and deeply spiritual. I really do feel like we're almost a tribe, and you know, sometimes when we're all in the garden hanging out, playing music, drawing pictures, one of us weaving things out of dry grass, another watching the little children they made play in the beautiful open yard under the towering eucalypt trees, exploring the wonderland we used to revel in when we were kids ourselves, I can almost see a few freakin' huts around the place, you know? Anyway, it's good to know that I'll always have that to support me whereever I go, and that I have that family to go back to after my travels.
I feel sad when people say they're an only child. Most only children I've met have been utterly glad they don't have to worry about in-fighting or sharing with other people. It seems to me though that they don't know what they're missing out on. They don't know what it is to know that your sister will know what it is to be a person like you, because she's a lot like you herself. It's the security of knowing there's a bunch of people that *know* where you're coming from. I guess family doesn't have to be blood, and that only children make their own family of friends and so forth, but there's something special about sharing your life. You share a mother, you share the knowledge of what it's like to grow up in a certain situation, and there's an understanding there that's unequalled. But then again, I'm sure there's a lot of people that would disagree with me, and there might be situations that I've not heard of that would make me reconsider that thought. I guess what I'm trying to say is family is family, however they became so, and the more the merrier in my frame of experience. I guess when only children say, "God I'm glad I don't have siblings" I feel sad. Siblings are wonderful. I know I'd be lost without mine.
~~*~~
I'm worried about my manager. I sometimes worry he's not all that great, that he's hiding things from me. I feel like it's all taking far too long to happen.
I guess I'm very impatient. But at the same time I don't have time to waste. I want to make my music. I don't think I can convey in words the utter desperation I feel, the deep need inside of me to give of myself with music. Sometimes I think I would shrivel up and die if I couldn't do this, if my song wasn't heard. I always feel as though it's why I'm here, and if I'm not here singing I'm no good for anything. Maybe that's why I haven't been writing as many stories or drawing as many pictures as I used to. Singing is all I want to do anymore.
Sing, and hope that for one tiny moment, someone knows that they're not alone, that what they feel has been put into song, and that something precious has been captured in song. There is nothing more fulfilling to me than someone hearing my song and saying, "It says how I feel", or "You put how I felt into a sound." In that moment, (and it is such a rare moment), I know I'm doing the good work I was put here for. I know I'm doing the right thing.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-07 05:54 am (UTC)I think your family and their support of you will be the foundation of your success. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-07 08:28 am (UTC)You could write a book about my family, they're so quirky and strange. One day I think I might, just cause they're too hilarious not to share. My sister and I have embarrassed ourselves in public so many times, and just stuff that happens, I think it's not that funny, just funny to us, and I share it and people bust a gut. How can a painfully German man, a half-Scot half-Maltese woman (That's broguing AND hot-blooded temper rolled into one) alone not be funny? I don't know, they crack me up that's for sure. (It's bad enough the shit he says to her when he gropes her. Fucking hell, they've been married for thirty-eight years or something now, you'd think they'd be sick of pawing at each other huh? It's kinda cute, I guess :) )
Tina is playing the Scarlet Letter. I'm off to perve at Gary Oldman! Raaaw!