XXXVI

"We need to find you a job"

"We need to find me a me"


The words just slip out, on a Wednesday afternoon.

XXXV

I dread the mornings because they're where your absence finds me. Like a dark bird, like a damaged nerve, the mornings are when I feel that you are not there. And I can over come, and I can soldier on, and I can get up and start my routine and busy myself and wait for your return - which is glorious, by the way, and sweet as strawberries, and delightful as anything else in the world - but the mornings will always come. And the absence. And the longing. And the aching effort of quashing my resent and distracting my mind and soothing my heart with other pretty and wonderful things. Always, the morning comes. Always the absence.

But then, in the same vein, always the coming home. Without the one there is no other. This is the perspective I try so hard to hold.

XXXIV

Age of Autonomy.

When you’re young and you make an outlandish decision, its funny how people can often assume you’re not acting autonomously. Because the youth are so easily swayed by the opinion of others. Because young minds are not yet so developed as to make such decisions with complete independence. I got married at 20, and despite every effort to prove otherwise, I know that amongst my family, distant friends, loose relations, there is an undergirding notion that it was because my friends were doing it (they weren’t) or because my church encourages it (it doesn’t), or because someone once told me it was a good idea (they never have).

Autonomy;    acting independently or having the freedom to do so; derived from the Greek word meaning ‘to have self government’; in Kantian philosophy meaning to act in accordance with moral duty rather than ones desires.

I have autonomy. At the age of 20 I do. I'm self governed – I live out of home, I make my own decision, I earn my own money, I believe my own beliefs. So why when I choose to get married – or had I chosen something else for that matter: to cut off all my hair in support of a charity, to become vegan in a plight against animal cruelty, to move to Tibet and live with the monks for a season, to become a missionary, to quit my studies and become a full time writer (oh, god forbid), to get pregnant on purpose – do I suddenly get misaligned with puberty-blues-ing teenagers who are only just learning to decide whether or not to take extension English in high school, or whether they want to try soccer instead of netball.

Ageism is a funny thing. The old have misconstrued ideas about the young, and it definitely happens vice versa. “Why cant we all just get along?”

Because we care. My elderly neighbour cares that my life is fragile, and one life-altering decision could leave me miserable or content for the rest of my life, and there’s a weight in the balance between those two possibilities. He cares that he made bad decisions in his life and regardless of the (lack of) proximity of my life to his, he cares enough to speak up in caution, lest he should save me making the one decision I would always look back on with regret. My parents care about my happiness. They care if I make the right decisions because – selfishly – they’ll have to be there when the fallout comes.  But – less selfishly – they only want the best for my life. Maybe if we all cared a little less the world would be a more peaceful place and people could get on with their shit and not worry about anyone else’s.

Oh wait… that would suck. Right. Well, bring on the caring then.

Autonomy is overrated. Hear that thirteen-year-old princess? It is. Make your parents proud, do well in school, be happy with your friends, do normal things, don’t go looking for trouble, live life to the full in a way that brings joy and hope and peace, not destruction and anxiety, and sobbing and moaning. Be happy. You are the master of your own happiness – that is the one autonomy we are all granted in this lifetime that no one can remove from our jurisdiction. That is ours. steward it well.  

XXXIII

When you’re trying to create something, weeks can fit into minutes and minutes into days, weeks and months. Time is of no consequence when you’re traversing the fields of your mind, trying, hoping, striving, thinking, praying for something to spark and catch and light and ignite. Inspiration is fleeting and the only way to find it is to abandon all notions of space and time and just be. Just exist. Just take in what’s around you without the constraints of organised life. But this is hard. When you’re paying rent this is hard. When you’re fighting for justice, or keeping another person sane or cooking meals again and again and again this is hard. It’s hard but it is worth it. Creating is worth it. What you create, the product, the end result, the light at the end of the tunnel – that’s worth it. Because creation says something about our world that you’re working, and paying rent, and cooking food, and taking care of others, and living the mundane could never say. It says something fundamental, and formative and important and something that needs to be heard. Whatever it is, whatever you create, if you created it, it is worth something. Even if no one will put a dollar sign in front of a number for it, it’s worth something. Because you are worth something. And that’s important too.

XXXII

Scott Schuman's black and white candids part II.