Together

I just finished watching a Chinese movie called "Together". I had no idea what it was about when I started watching it. I just turned on the TV and it started and it caught my attention because it was based in China and I was wondering if it was from Shanghai which is where my Father grew up.

It was about a boy and his dedicated Father (who turns out not to be his natural Father) and the love between them and their honesty and goodness in a not always honest and good world. At the end of the movie I couldn't help but cry. The movie was so moving.

I now wonder why I cried. Do I relate to the boy or the Father or both? Or are the boy and the Father objects/symbols/tools to express the thing that really moved me which is love. Is love a chemical reaction in the brain? a movement of electrons causing an emotion? Or is it something that is like a spirit that moves in us and around us and connects with other spirits in and around others?

This spirit of love controls us in an unconscious way making us do things we do not understand, things that are illogical like crying over a movie. Doing things that dedicate us to our children and family and if we find the right person our lover.

We travel around the world for love. We work for love. We do everything for love. Love is the most powerful force in this world. We can touch it and see it and feel it in our interactions with our loved ones.

I suppose I could see love and feel love in the movie and that's why I cried.

Mahatma Gandhi

I was sitting in a cafe having an ice cream with my daughter yesterday and I noticed a poster on the wall. It said that happiness happens when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony. The words were by Mahatma Gandhi and I think they are very wise words.

It Seems We Do Not Change

It seems we do not change. I am now 39. I found some more writing scribbled in an old school book that I wrote when I was 16 years old.

The words are pretty much the same as I write today. It seems I have always seen myself as struggling against some difficult circumstance. In truth it is a struggle against myself.

I could sum up the parts of myself that I have always struggled with as fear and lethargy. In the past I have incorrectly labeled them as external challenges imposed on me, with the current external challenge being my ex-wife. The truth is though that the only thing between me and the best possible life I can live is myself.

The words I wrote back then in that school book were:

"Your life you can make it what you want. Don't waste time, life doesn't last forever. Don't be lonely. Always have someone. Be with someone who makes you feel good. Love is the maximum, always look for it. Time is all you've got. Do what you want, make yourself into what you want to be. Don't talk about it do it. Don't be so scared of dying that you never learn to live."

What I need to say to myself is that "I am in control of my life!!" again and again like a mantra. I will make it a prayer like the Muslims praying 5 times a day. Maybe that way I can change my internal way of thinking and be brave and make the most I possibly can of this short life.

Home

I left my childhood home 18 years ago and have now returned.

I have lived away from home for almost as long as I have lived at home. There is no place like home and there is no-one like my Mum. It is so great to reconnect with the place of my childhood and to reconnect with my Mum.

She is an incredibly warm, soft and strong person. There will be an emptiness in my heart and my life when she eventually dies. Hopefully that will not happpen for a very very long time. But it is great to have this opportunity to really get to know my Mum again and for my children to really get to know their Nan. These are precious times. All time is precious.

I returned home once before for 6 months after my dad passed away. My childhood home is a refuge, a place where I can feel safe and secure and rebuild myself in a world that has greatly changed for me.

There is something here in my childhood home. It is not just wood and bricks. I can not describe it yet but this house is part of me. I am part of it, along with brothers and sisters and my Mum and Dad.

I want to give my children what I have. A home, a place where they will always feel safe and secure and a place where they can rebuild themselves again when the inevitable tragedies of life happen to them. They can be away from home but always know that their home is there ready to heal them at anytime.

The Smell of Home

As I walked from the train station to my car I walked down a nice little residential street in the cold early evening darkness. Nice neat gardens were in front of nice neat houses. Warm soft light emitted through curtained windows. As I walked the smells of the home cooked dinners entered me and took me back in time.

I wished I was coming home from work to one of these houses and my happy children would excitedly greet me at the door and my beautiful wife would smile and kiss me as I walked into our warm home.

I had that life for a while but now that is gone. My life is now very different.

I feel glad that my Dad had that life. But then remembered that before I was born his life was also very different. Maybe like him this life will return to me.

Long Distance Relationship

How can it work? She literally lives 10000miles away. I must stay here to look after my kids. Could I leave my kids for 2 weeks? Would that be abandoning them? 2 weeks of fun with her but what would the impact be on my children? But maybe she will become my wife. She seems perfect.

The reason I can not go is because my children may not be safe with my ex-wife even though my mum will look after them for half the time. My ex-wife is crazy. I have separated from her but she is still controlling my life. I am letting her control my life. It must stop. I need to gain control over my life. She needs to get off the drugs or I want the kids full time. Then i can have control over their safety and then control over my life. If she is off the drugs then hopefully she will be able to act responsibly enough to take proper care of them when she has care of them.

Look at this. This blog and most of my blogs are centred around my ex-wife and the negative impact I continue to let her have on my life.

Perth Streets

After leaving the gym tonight I walk to the train station in the City. There was no-one around except drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill and fanatical religious worshippers. They all either wanted my money or fo me to follow Jesus. As I walked I chatted with a nice Christian who had found god and Jesus and he prayed for me that Jesus would enter my life in the next 24 hours.

After leaving the Christian I plugged my Ipod in and could only hear beautiful love music as I passed stumbling drunks as they put out hands in front of me begging for money. I looked straight ahead as though they were not there and felt a little annoyed with them. Why are they throwing their lives away? They could have so much in this Australia the land of plenty. People from other countries die trying to escape to Australia.

I then also wondered I am I bad for ignoring them? Heartless? Perhaps one was even Jesus testing my compassion for the world?

Vagina with Teeth

Sometimes I feel that my ex-wife can best be described as a vagina with teeth.

His Baby is Gone

She stared angrily yet blankly through her Father's arms as he hugged her head. To him this 37 year old women was still his baby. A sixth month old needing a hug because she had fallen over and bumped her head. She felt a twinge of comfort in his arms, some inner distant emotional memory, somewhere deep inside there was a faint stirring. But it was just a fleeting stir. Just a fly brushing her skin. A very small and momentary lapse to the love that could save her and the love she had lived by for the 35 years before she became a drug addict.

Now her overwhelming drive, a drive that could not be stemmed, a drive that occupies her every cell, that motivates her every action is the need to satisfy her unsatisfiable drug habit. Her ex-husband looking across the neat wooden dining room table cried as he imagined himself hugging his 7 year old daughter. The hugs that for the time being at least could always comfort her, a hug that eventually quells the sobs, a hug that turns the sobbing into a teary smile.

Not for her Dad though. He has lost his baby.

She ate the wonderful curry that her mother had cooked. A recipe passed down through the generations of a poor but happy family village life in Bangladesh. As she ate she hissed abuse at her mother and father and ex-husband. She was oblivious to her children crying on the lounge room floor.

Her father a poor pensioner, emotionally and physically frail and close to death gave her what money he could. Emotional pressure inside him overflowed as blood oozed from his stomach bag staining is white, old worn t-shirt. She hissed abuse at him for being so stingy. Only enough money for a few hours of drug supply. Her ex-husband also gave her money but he asked for a receipt. She hissed abuse at his coldness. Her mother offered her food to take. She hissed abuse at her for not offering money.

Her head nodded uncontrollably with anger, the finger of her lifted arm pointed and her top lip curled as she hissed abuse at her mother, father and ex-husband for looking at her with judgemental eyes and talking to her in soft, calm condescending voices. "How dare you judge me like I am just a junkie."

She wanted the gold that her mother kept in her safe for her. Gold passed down to her from generations from that same poor village. Priceless sentimental heirlooms that were acquired at huge cost, long ago through years and years of her ancestors hard work. Enough to buy her drugs for a week.

She yelled at her ex-husband. Can you give me 5 fucking minutes alone with my kids!! He said sure and opened a door for the children to go with her alone into the formal lounge. She hissed again. "You see what I have to do!!! Instead of spending quality time with my kids I have to be fucking arguing with you. See what you fucking do!!! You fucking cunt!!!!" Her ex-husband stood at the door trying not to look too calm and condescending but yet also submissive and not say anything that might enrage her. An impossibility.

Her 6 year old boy and 7 year girl attempted to comfort their sobbing and crying mother. An honourable yet impossible task. She cried into their arms. You two are the only reason I live. Without you I would kill myself.

Famous Writer

I became a famous writer by writing about an evil woman. Now my ex-wife is claiming 95% of my earnings from writing because she was the inspiration for my work.

Rosey Coloured Glasses

Some people say that I see the world through Rosey Coloured Glasses. I think I am very lucky that I see the world through Rosey Coloured Glasses.

Happy to be alive

I only need to be alive to be happy.