Let the kids play footy, the parents begged in another lockdown.
Netball is good for the well-being of the kids. Yes Please let them play!
But when I was growing up my feet tangled, my knees buckled and my self-esteem plummeted.
You have such long legs they said you should be good at…
Basketball, my fingers are bent as a reminder of my very poor coordination.
High jump, Oh I would get over, and then my toes would smash the bar. Scissor kick and I kicked the bar flying. Same problem with hurdles. And forget running, if I was a horse I would be dog meat!
I am not happy at the moment, I drink too much, life is not living, I lost myself and the word broken is running through my mind.
I am broken, is going around and around on the record player. It’s on my mind when I wake up when I make a mistake when something goes wrong, and it’s the last thing on my lips as I go to sleep. I am broken and I don’t want to be.
I started building a ladder, and I started to climb.
I rubbed my eyes and so I can see the world again.
I closed my eyes and believed in meditation and more importantly I believed in myself.
I gave myself permission to dream a dream when the walls were put back up around me.
A message from a friend about an online exhibition lit a spark.
So imagine. A world where art was seen on the same importance and level as a sport.
When I create, paint, draw, listen to music or even write freely I feel myself.
Let’s get out of this darkness, this hole, this shit show, and take the right step forward.
Over and over words have created fear and I have felt words have held me back. Then I wrote a little piece where the words flowed and flowed, they moved and danced over the page. Feelings leaping, my beliefs lighting up the page it was beautiful. It was not normal text, it was the artist’s words. I have taken away the rules I was taught, which made me scared to write and I just write. In writing my spirit is talking, she is reaching out and she is being stronger. It was a fear and I have tackled it like a footy player. And it feels so good.
Would you believe people, read my ramble, and they loved it? They felt it. So I am rambling again because it moved people it moved me I spoke the truth. And I loved it.
Words are making me accountable - and I need to be accountable. I have left myself behind, and not looked after myself.
Right now in my low, These words are just a step on my ladder. STEP added to the ladder.
The first step is taken.
Music. I can not sing or dance or play music. But I can feel the music. The good thing about not learning how to sing or dance or play music allows me to accept music for pure enjoyment. No reading into it - I like it because I like it.
There’s a beat that reaches my heart. That feeling when your toes start to tap, it’s your spirit shining and she is holding my hands and I dance around the kitchen, dance around the paint brush or my words.
Music can take a hold of my erratic mind and change a room filled with darkness and fill it with sunshine.
Music is always on in my home.
Live music, oh it fills me, it’s the happiness, that is like a drug. When I drink way too much I am looking for this form of happiness.
I can see the music, the base, the joy floating around the crowd. My ear hears and my heart is full. It is like incense dancing in the air.
Do you see music? Feel it?
Turn it up, turn it up, turn it up until you feel alive.
Another step appears in the base and the beat. I add it to my ladder out of the depression.
And the ladder will form so quickly, every mark I make. Every splash of paint. This is not new for me. The charcoal on my face, every pair of jeans have a splash of paint. It’s magic.
No words work when I am talking about art. So I am going to leave it and let the art do its own talking.
I have seen the magic of drawing. The universe knew that in the low of lows, a mother, a friend of mine sent me 3 photos. These 3 photos by her daughter were magic, not because of the way they were drawn, not the shapes she created. It was her sole talking, she was not just drawing she was now able to speak, sing and talk through her art. I was so proud, my heart sang. I cried, and I had goosebumps because I am a part of the jigsaw puzzle, I opened my heart to her and showed her my art and she showed me hers.
These 3 drawings reminded me of something that is really important. I am special, I am important and I am changing the world! I gave a girl a voice when she felt like she could not be heard. Oh, love I see and hear you.
This is massive!
My art on people’s walls, in the exhibition, my words being shared, loved, spoken about. It’s when someone else shows me what they have created and that they are proud of because I gave them a little bit of rainbow courage. In a way, I am making art cool, when it was never not cool.
It’s bigger than me and I now see this.
So when the world is too hard, too dark, horrid, stinky, or shit. Scribble, write, sing, run, jump, play.
Sports is being supported in Australian society, but it’s not the only answer. The arts have gone missing in the schools, and the government funding has been mashed with pot holes in the roads.
The children are painting and colouring between the lines. Oh but what if we let them slip, mess, and make. I am sure the room would lighten and giggles would fill the room. Let them feel the music, tell their stories in ways they can feel it, not just between the lines.
The aged care can’t play footy or netball but they can still love music, drawing, oh they love storytelling. It’s the arts that are there to make the eyes light up. Fill the spirit.
The ladder is fully intact, I can reach out again. Hello Me
