Breathing in and breathing out

Watch the movie Australia. Afterwards research Australia's lost generation and read about the relocation of the aboriginals and the mixed breed children. The research will give more depth and meaning to the story.

I mention the movie because of a particular scene that touched me. An aboriginal man has been locked in a jail for days maybe weeks. The Japanese (WWII) begin bombing the city of Darwin where he is being held. The air strike is wiping out the city and the guards receive an order to release all the prisoners from their cells. There is chaos everywhere. All the white prisoners bolt from their cells into the night running for their lives and being caught up in the carnage. The old aboriginal man simple walks out of his cell and begins to look around. He watches the bombs exploding around him, the fires, the planes circling overhead, the mass destruction taking place in split second time. He never looks alarmed or afraid he just observes. At first you think he might just be ignorant of such things but then you realize that there is a very deep wisdom in his behavior.

I thought about this movie scene for days. How he quietly walked through the city never seeking shelter or help. Something about it seemed familiar to me and later in the week I spoke to Clem about it. We have been locked in a cell for seven months now. Bombs have been falling all around us. Every day we see illness, dying, and people struggling for their lives. Like the Aboriginal man we too have developed a calm observant acceptance of our situation.

It is much like a beautiful patina that develops on a piece of metal that has spent years being assaulted by the elements. The last seven months have changed us and what we have now is even more beautiful that what we had before. Because of our shared adversity we seem to be living in our own alternative reality. Personally I do not feel a part of the world as I knew it before. So many things seem petty and unimportant. I have spent the last few cold dark months of winter attempting to free myself of fear, anger, and sadness in order to reach a place where I could get up every day and be a person of strength and hope for my husband to lean on. I have not always succeeded but I have tried.

I have rejected/pushed people from my life in order to create an environment where Clem and I could be in a quiet, calm, and healing place. I have thought about the people that mean so much to me everyday but I could not find words to communicate to them what was happening. Consequently I have not read email, not answered texts, or phone calls for weeks maybe months now. I would like to say that I am sorry for this but I can't. I had to have the solitude.

This post is my attempt at letting my friends and family know that I am and that we are okay. We are actually better than okay. Clem's health is a day by day thing still but our heads and our hearts are rock solid. All of your words of encouragement and love have fueled us on and have meant much to us. He is grunting through some tough territory right now and all my attention is on him so I may not post again for a while. Just know that we love you all and know that you love us too. In our alternative reality that means everything.

Pam