#exploresmallworlds

[exploresmallworlds]

A Mothers Heart

A Mother’s Heart

TW: domestic violence

Fiona gripped the edge of the barrel. Deep in the cellar of the winery that she was visiting with her friends. Suddenly she was concentrating on more than the wine terroir and its mouth feel. Her phone had vibrated earlier today but she'd ignored it. Now that it seemed to be insistent she was mildly anxious to pick it up.

Her anxiety piqued when Gemma's frightened voice was floating through the phone, a little garbled on the tone but the message was clear. She was being stalked.

"He's driving past my house, like, a million times. And he's sending me tiny bits of money with threatening messages. Some of them are about Leah."

Fiona knew with a heavy heart that if she knew something is that Gemma could be headstrong. She was surprised it had taken this long to escalate to this point. Peter had...tendencies. Gemma interrupted her point. 

"I don't want to chat to my pastor, I know what he's going to say, that I stay with him and that we need to work it out. This is usually good for most couples. I don't know mum."

Fiona was suddenly sober despite the couple of glasses at lunch and the tasters since then. With this sudden rush she also realised that she couldn't drive down and save her baby. She wasn't sure that she was even ready to give advice down the phone. Her inability was masked by the flow of words.

"I don't want Leah to grow up in a broken home. It's technically not broken yet but if I decide to go to the police station it will destroy it, then what will I do?"

Fiona finally got the chance to squeak a sentence,

"Darling, you know what I taught you, about this sort of thing"

"But I wanted to be different and now we are in the same situation; broken homes and divorce."

She couldn't have thought of a different circumstance, although Gemma had been a similar age to Leah, her situation had been amicable. And what Gemma was forgetting was the fact that she'd been parented better when they were apart. It wasn't the time she realised but separation and divorce wasn't as tragic as it seemed. Although it was a similar level of daunting at the beginning.

"Just need to get yourself to the police station and keep everything. It'll be useful."

[exploresmallworlds]

The rush of Sydney communters as they got off at each successive retreated although the biggest surge was always at Central. Getting on at the Ashfield station meant that she mostly stood on these journeys and she was keen to get off.

At the train, having extracted herself from the carriage and moving towards the escalate up to the grand concourse, there she saw her colleague who standing with a coffee cup in hand and she waved, trying to remember her name.

"Annie" the woman was heading towards her and she was still stumped on the name. She smiled and then proceeded to get her own coffee from the stand.

From there she would cross through Belmore Park and then across George Street and then onto Elisabeth Street. Chatting about the cases and how they would do. It was warmer in the CBD and she loosened her scarf.

Once in the office she looked at her emails. There was some work to do before she could start.

"Coming, Willehemia," a voice of the partner, Annie was only required to brief the documents not talk to the client directly.

Accompanying the dowager was her son Rueban and a small child that she assumed was Reuben's son. He apologised that he was here for the legal proceedings because he told everyone in the room that he was the main carer.

The meeting started and Annie stuck around to occasionally provide appropriate pieces of paper. Although she was familiar with the legal documents and their contents she was hoping to get out and start on the next set of documents. The partner had given her a discreet hand signal to stay. She seethed inwardly and felt like it was wasting her time. The principal had a notebook and could write it himself. He was just trying to exercise his power. She watched the scene placidly.

The child squirmed throughout the meeting even though there was adequate activities overflowing from the off the shoulder bag. She saw that there was the bright colours of a puzzle or something like that. He sat on Reuben's lap and then moved over to the Grandmothers lap. She practically flung him back onto Reuben's lap and proceeded talking. She was sympathetic to this feeling because she felt the same when she interacted with children and why she'd decided to be child free.

The outcome of the conversation was that there was a problem with the will. The proceeds of the family business had originally been designated for Rueben and his sister Louise. Rueben had stopped suddenly and he'd developed a perturbed face. Before Annie had to figure the source of this change, his voice rang out.

"What about Frankie?" The mood shifted in the room and threw the whole negotiations into a new light. This was news to Annie. Annie hadn't seen anything to do with this person. Willehemia's face changed with the mood. Although frail and sick, she'd exuded a strength and dignity but caught in this moment was a naked vulnerability as this name seemed to take their countenance.

Sensing an important piece of information she wrote it down. Frankie? Then after a few moments she added a few more question marks.

If she had been disinterested before she was alert to the whole scene. Even the child who had taken this moment of vulnerability and had crawled back onto his grandmothers lap. Now in a state she just seemed to pat him gently.

From her countenance, Annie was sure that this Frankie was something unfinished and raw. It was raw enough to change her touch with her grandchild.

Weeks later, when the cancer had taken more of her and she was frailer and more gaunt, she had made some changes and made sure that Frankie was in the will. She never showed another raw moment in Annie's presence and overall she felt like it was something as a outsider she shouldn't have seen.

[exploresmallworlds]

Frankie waves all the time. Right now he is waving to the gentle rain on the roof making putter patter, like some kind of nut. Gemma stands at the door of the bar under insanely bright and blaring VIP room. There were three golden cows but now it is two. She waves at Frankie waving at the rain and he turns around and smiles. Everyone loves Frankie but she has a particular soft for his antics and she often 'forgets' to get him to pay for the habitual three cans of coke he always has.

Frankie wanders over today, he's waving at the postie as he stops to put some mail into the mailbox but it's a different postie than the usual one and he doesn't wave back.

"Who's that?" Frankie asks Gemma as she is just about to pick up the keg sitting on edge of the road.

"Dave's off on holiday,"

"So now we have a grumpy pants."

"We do indeed."

Gemma wonders if she could get around with calling someone a grumpy pants and Frankie strides into the bar. She can see him talking to the new bartender whom she's already forgotten his name. Taking a mental note to ask him and then hefting the steel case into the slightly too warm room. Someone walks past her letting the noise of the pokies machine and the incessant tapping. Then the door closes and she notices there is something happening because there is the sound of voices raised.

"Gemma, he is asking me to pay for the coke."

"Just get a coke," her voice has gotten harder and she almost croaks with disuse.

The bartender is looking over at her and then over at Frankie. He's back to waving at the rest of the regulars. Some of them notice but Frankie is unperturbed.

A new person comes, new to Gemma because he seems familiar enough to Frankie because he was addressing him but name.

"Frankie, I'm Peter from Yani Kostos law firm."

Seeing his face screwed up let Gemma know that there was something up.

Like a prophecy the next words fulfilled the second part.

"The last will and testament of Willehemia Wallace will be heard in the next seven days."

Gemma didn't know much about Frankie but his brother was often in his life and he'd told Gemma across the bar when Frankie wandered off to wave at the others to tell her that his mother had disowned him and put him in an institutions. He'd found him later when he was a adult, going off the last vapour of a memory of when he was five. Now she was dead and he was a beneficiary.

Frankie approached the bar having heard the words and somehow had pieced together that he had some more money than his merger disability pension.

"I will buy that coke, because my Mother has died."

He proudly opened his usually unused wallet and pulled out enough change for the drink and exchanged it over. The bartender was shocked now, having moved onto cleaning the glasses.

Frankie moved away without considering the change and sat proudly out the window to wave some more at the people who would walk past going to lunch.

[exploresmallworlds]

I am notoriously with trying to save plants, so much so that I cannot look at new plants without a chaperone. I can walk past the dying plants and see a plan to save them. A little bit of water, a little of sun and a fair amount of TLC and they’ll be right as rain.

Right?

Right?

That’s where the problem is. I am good at formulating a plan for these plants but much much less invested in enabling the plan. And often I’ll bbe stuck with these plants whom I really did have a plan to save them but couldn’t get to implementing the plan.

So in short I am a failed plant person.

Sometime, a few months ago, I can’t exactly pinpoint when, I was left alone with two enablers, my housemate and her nonna. And without appropriate chaperoning I bought a rose plant. I’m a basic bitch and love roses, And the idea of these beautiful rose plants just wilting away and being sold at a discount was too alluring so I had to save one (I had a hard time at just one).

I really thought I had not implemented the plan like always, the rose bush had no real discernible growth. I had haphazardly given it some food and it stood out in the months of rain, and once I got it into my head to prune off the dead parts of the plant but otherwise I was neglectful.

I rationalised it to myself. The neglect came from the need to look after myself and the fact that I was so busy and occupied. I was writing a lot and doing more things somethings just drop to the wayside.

I had looked at the plant and decided that probably was going to be razed to the ground, I had gone and killed another plant. But I didn’t have the energy to do that. I was still trying to look after myself and my health and it just sat out there.

This week, at the end of May and into June, I realised that it had put out a flower, and it was a strong one. And to make sure that its not faffing about, on closer inspection, on another branch there is another bud.

To say that I’m stoked is a understatement. I hastily found some compost and some water to make sure that it would have more nutrients and hoped that would continue its streak. I am not sure that I am so convinced that I can’t look after other things and maybe there is a way to do all the important things and invest in making sure I get to see roses more often. Its a little window of joy in the cold. I just wanted other people to see the joy as well as the other things that tend to pop up here in this place.

[exploresmallworlds]

the quiet affirmations of public transport

If you read last weeks post, you’ll see that I freely wrote my thoughts about disability and this piece won’t be as serious, gotta balance it all out in the end. This week is more in line with the concept of exploring small worlds around you and hopefully giving you the space to see your experiences with new eyes.

This week I want to concentrate on the changes I made to my commute. While I was taking a private vehicle due to the fact that the public transport journey was going to be fifty minutes longer. Due to an incident I was motivated to change this and I have been taking my public transport to work again (having done this for other jobs in the past).

It has hit me how different this all is. The upsides of not having to deal with the anxieties of other people on the road and having to make decisions all the time, the money is less than the fuel which always seems to be going up and the fact that I could have a quiet time before I went to work that you can’t really have when making decisions on Sydney roads.

But there is something interesting from a small worlds perspective, and this is what compelled me to write this piece and to find new things to think about. A strange experience to watch similar people get on and off buses. Although I don’t know them I am connected, seeing the same people do the same things with you can have that affect. A sense of consistency of sorts.

It has me more connected with the things on my walks around and to my workplace. I see the subtle changes, the blooms and changes of colours. It has made me appreciate the things that seem to be moving and just waiting to be seen. The heat and rain of late summer has beautiful displays to enjoy.

It has also connected me in an unexpected way to some of the people I work with, a fifteen minute bus ride has been the space to deepen any kind of relationship even if it remains one of acquaintance. It has meant that I feel more confident asking how they are when we are both at work and that has made me feel less anxious in small and significant ways.

I’ve been effusive in the benefits but the more sobering thoughts are the fact that evidence of homelessness and impacts of economic realities are more visible with my sudden change to using public transport. These are also the small worlds that others embody and they are part of the whole experiencce, and not to be shied away from despite the perception that they are not attractive. They deserve to be a part just as much as the more attractive parts.

If you read last weeks post, you’ll see that I freely wrote my thoughts about disability and this piece won’t be as serious, gotta balance it all out in the end. This week is more in line with the concept of exploring small worlds around you and hopefully giving you the space to see your experiences with new eyes.

This week I want to concentrate on the changes I made to my commute. While I was taking a private vehicle due to the fact that the public transport journey was going to be fifty minutes longer. Due to an incident I was motivated to change this and I have been taking my public transport to work again (having done this for other jobs in the past).

It has hit me how different this all is. The upsides of not having to deal with the anxieties of other people on the road and having to make decisions all the time, the money is less than the fuel which always seems to be going up and the fact that I could have a quiet time before I went to work that you can’t really have when making decisions on Sydney roads.

But there is something interesting from a small worlds perspective, and this is what compelled me to write this piece and to find new things to think about. A strange experience to watch similar people get on and off buses. Although I don’t know them I am connected, seeing the same people do the same things with you can have that affect. A sense of consistency of sorts.

It has me more connected with the things on my walks around and to my workplace. I see the subtle changes, the blooms and changes of colours. It has made me appreciate the things that seem to be moving and just waiting to be seen. The heat and rain of late summer has beautiful displays to enjoy.

It has also connected me in an unexpected way to some of the people I work with, a fifteen minute bus ride has been the space to deepen any kind of relationship even if it remains one of acquaintance. It has meant that I feel more confident asking how they are when we are both at work and that has made me feel less anxious in small and significant ways.

I’ve been effusive in the benefits but the more sobering thoughts are the fact that evidence of homelessness and impacts of economic realities are more visible with my sudden change to using public transport. These are also the small worlds that others embody and they are part of the whole experience, and not to be shied away from despite the perception that they are not attractive. They deserve to be a part just as much as the more attractive parts.

[exploresmallworlds]

The Nuance of Social Cohesion

I’ve always wanted to explore Sydney as part of a blog called Explore small worlds but as I was writing my last piece in which I discussed social cohesion and it did give me serious (traumatic) flashbacks to belonging for HSC.

The previous piece talks about the reality of macro social cohesion, something that is evident in the micro scale. After a spike of social cohesion over the period of the pandemic, rates of social cohesion has dropped below 2019 levels. I think that it doesn’t consider the micro experiences that make up the wider macro trend. Although that piece identified that economics.

Sydney has always existed on some version of segregation, being a colonial outpost first and then nexus of that colonial empire and finally resting in it’s current state as the global city rife with the stashing of expensive properties of foreign nationals. A friend quipped that Sydney isn’t a fruit salad but rather it is is fruit bowl. And that rang true. Telling somebody where you live is built in with assumptions about your place. And often describing unfamiliar places is accompanied with quips like “that’s where x lives”. And the discussion that Melina Marchetta makes in Looking for Alibrandi where people live in Sydney and they never interact.

I’ve come from a small world and its one that I didn’t fit in. My beliefs eventually made me more different although it was ongoing trend. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the treatment of women in that place. And although I know many strong women, they were not acknowledged in leadership and that showed me their patriarchal underpinnings. Although some were able to square the circle of this I was not able to. This world was stifling small, although I acknowledge very comfortable for others.

When I left I was so keen to find new bigger worlds, and in the seven years that I have left this world I have been reminded that although this is small and I didn’t fit in, there are many small worlds that exist in similar ways. I’ve come to understand that the world is small and Sydney is even smaller as I find mutuals in the most disparate of places. I’ve been given a unique perspective as someone who has explored more a than few small worlds, and I have concluded that the problems that have been identified as problems of small religious communities are found in many different small communities. And similar processes about effectively shielding those with serious concerns.

There is a underlying fetishism that with the ongoing crisis, small communities are the way that we support our out of these. It’s one that I still believe with caveats. Although I know that in times of crisis there is increased social cohesion as reflected in the increase over lock downs, when the immediate crisis goes away like it has now, then we are left without similar levels. The problem is that the affects of climate change are evident but they aren’t being felt in the small communities that most Sydney-siders reside in. Although with the outer rim of Sydney being more prone to bush fires there is less necessity overall.

The segregation in Sydney is now pushing its residents to be pushed out, and this dispersal of real options for younger people is fueling their lack of social cohesion. The reality of needing any kind of intergenerational wealth is becoming more and more relevant. And those who set policy controls are those who have benefited from stability and security in housing and work in a way that we can only aspire to.

I think that sitting on the marginal space, although now I am an adult I now have a solid network and community. For people like me who have this marginal experience I think that there is implicit exclusion that doesn’t allow grace or any kind of space for difference. Although some of those who reside in those small worlds, are not terrible people but the cultures that are preserved in those small worlds are ones that need to retreat harder in the face of insecurity and instability. Although an understandable position, its one that doesn’t seek difference and diversity of though to expand the resonance chamber. Often the only time that people interact with people with people who are different would be in a fleeting way and when it goes negative, it is final. Although, my generation has been traditionally understood to popularise the concept of “if it doesn’t serve you, leave it”. And that kind of attitude doesn’t sit in the discomfort, despite the understandable concerns that it responds to. There is a space in the middle that establishes good boundaries and expects them to be firm but also is concerned with developing stronger cohesion by allowing a greater communal experience.

[exploresmallworlds]

5 posts!

[exploresmallworlds]

Introduction to @exploresmallworlds

I'm going to write a small introduction to why I would start an Instagram and blog. In this economy. So here are some of the thoughts rattling around in my head.

I’ve been watching the space between suburban mums and their fantastic gardens, and the imminent failure of life as we know it gets closer. I’ve lurked on forums giving advice on what to do with gardens and try and give away things so they don’t go to landfill. These small moments of generosity are almost always interspersed with posts about crime rates and ��dangerous youths’ in my area. The ecologies of humans are complex.

The ecologies of the non-human are just as complex, and inextricably linked to the realities of the geographical spot that we find ourselves. Without accredited knowledge, there are no degrees or intensive study, I have been captured by the wonder. I have learnt a lot in my explorations and I have so much more to learn. 

I don’t think that I’m providing anything new when I write anything or take photos. What I want to explore is the things that the designation of small doesn’t mean important. That the small has an outsized impact on the world and how we interact, and importantly how it interacts back to us. 

Ecologies resist. They create niches. They get trampled on and survive. Sometimes they get trampled on and they don’t survive. 

@exploresmallworlds is about exploring what it means to embrace the world as one ecology. We have to live here. And if we don’t respect, admire and embrace we will be doomed. 

I’m not actually sure about what the @exploresmallworlds will encompass. It will be a glimpse into the small worlds that I encounter and document the way that I respond to them. I’m just a person who is trying to reciprocate and learn about the world around me in a world that seems built to resist wonder for people like me. 

I’m a small resistance but I’m here. 

[exploresmallworlds]

Weekly Book recommendation

After a bit of a hiatus, I’m back to posting. I’m going to be doing some new things with the page although its still going to be a discussion about my thoughts in living in Sydney and the realities of engaging in this world. I’m experimenting with new forms and ideas and so I hope that you can bear with me. I’m going to be doing some video content. I’m opposed to the concept that I need to show my face to have a voice so its not going to be high tech.

I’m starting off my first post, bright and early Monday morning with a check in with a book that I have read lately and have enjoyed and what I enjoyed about it.

I always read a significant amount of non fiction and quite frequently I’ll recommend that. But in my heart I love fantasy and sci fiction. In order to reduce my chances at doom scrolling I’ve been enjoying listening to stories and books and crafting and I’ve been especially enjoying Tim Curry in reading to me “The Old Kingdom series”. And the Magnus Archives. I’m currently on the third book - Abhorsen. Like other authors who take a while to develop style and skill, I thought that the jump in the writing from Sabriel to Lireal was noticeable. I am enjoying having a easy to read story and I’m keen as a been to see where it ends. I’m a little bit relieved that there are two more books, and that I don’t have to say goodbye for a little while.

I love supporting Australian authors. I’m so glad that I got to read this.

Enjoying literature and creating things in the process has been part of the resting and recuperating now that the weather has gotten a little colder and chillier now in Sydney. It felt like Autumn came with a terrible rush and now I am settled into the process of making and mending.

After a bit of a hiatus, I’m back to posting. I’m going to be doing some new things with the page although its still going to be a discussion about my thoughts in living in Sydney and the realities of engaging in this world. I’m experimenting with new forms and ideas and so I hope that you can bear with me. I’m going to be doing some video content. I’m opposed to the concept that I need to show my face to have a voice so its not going to be high tech.

I’m starting off my first post, bright and early Monday morning with a check in with a book that I have read lately and have enjoyed and what I enjoyed about it.

I always read a significant amount of non fiction and quite frequently I’ll recommend that. But in my heart I love fantasy and sci fiction. In order to reduce my chances at doom scrolling I’ve been enjoying listening to stories and books and crafting and I’ve been especially enjoying Tim Curry in reading to me “The Old Kingdom series”. And the Magnus Archives. I’m currently on the third book - Abhorsen. Like other authors who take a while to develop style and skill, I thought that the jump in the writing from Sabriel to Lireal was noticeable. I am enjoying having a easy to read story and I’m keen as a been to see where it ends. I’m a little bit relieved that there are two more books, and that I don’t have to say goodbye for a little while.

I love supporting Australian authors. I’m so glad that I got to read this. And in reading and enjoying it I'm thinking about my writing process.

Enjoying literature and creating things in the process has been part of the resting and recuperating now that the weather has gotten a little colder and chillier now in Sydney. It felt like Autumn came with a terrible rush and now I am settled into the process of making and mending.

I hope that you are enjoying media and taking a slow down to enjoy the things that speak to you.

[exploresmallworlds]

some of the photos that I took last year and some of the things that I have written about in the progress of my blog that I update every week exploring small worlds in Sydney (and occasionally beyond)