COMMENT
Oh. Please note: I have no reliable idea of what is meant by “real talk”. I have simply observed youngsters employing the term. It possibly denotes a popular dance, or it may refer to discussions about grocery shopping. Dunno. However, I believe there’s a good chance it means “open conversation”, so I took a risk. If this risk was rewarded and “real talk” does mean honest discussion, please immediately consider me Lit AF. No. I don’t know what that means, either. Perhaps something to do with lighting fixtures.
Anyhow. Let our candid conversation games commence! Everything from this point is truthful. AF.
I know something about you: you are very tired of people, such as me, writing about the year of 2017, and getting it all extraordinarily wrong.
You know something about me: this “Helen” person knows nothing about my life, or my 2017, but it is her job to appear just as though she does.
Well, my real-talking comrade, you’re correct. I do not know you, even as I write to you directly. I cannot know the pain you endured in 2017, let alone feel it. I know nothing of the joy that came to you in this or any other year. Your losses, your gains, your missteps and your longest leaps will all remain as mystery. The moments you will never forget are those this “Helen” character could not remember, even if she tried. I wasn’t there for your moments of 2017.
Having had this “real talk” with you, I now am rather torn. I want to give you an account of 2017 that rings true to your memory, but, as we both know, I can’t. So, I give you compromise instead: ten public moments from a 2017 you may remember, set alongside my private moments of response. My hope is that somewhere, between the public and the private 2017, you will catch a little glimpse of yourself. And you just might be able to say: yep. That’s what I look like, in certain moments.
Unable to shake the sense that I was not conscious but enduring a very detailed dream inspired by The Simpsons, I took a 1.3 kilometre “run” and was shocked to learn just how unfit a lady of my advanced years could become in one week. Which is the maximum amount of time I am able to spend on an uninterrupted Simpsons binge.
I felt a little depressed that day, which I had not in some years. This had nothing to do with the identity of the US President—all the Presidents of my lifetime have done awful stuff; it’s just that some of them are better at selling their program of cruel domination.
I am quite depressed. I do not want to leave my comfortable bed at all, but know that if I do not seek care, even my bed will become uncomfortable.
I cry for Palestinian people. Then, I just cry for myself.
I am much more manageably depressed. Today, I can spot the difference between a reasonable and contained emotional reaction, and one that feels as though it’s never going to quit.
Decide to celebrate (a) feeling somewhat better and (b) my gender through online purchase of a crop top.
On March 10, I acknowledge that my crop top wearing days are over.
I’m running again. I sign up for the half-marathon. I celebrate this through online purchase of a crop top.
I yell at pictures of Scott Morrison.
I grieve for the victims. I despair for the climate that makes such acts of war inevitable. I call my friends Amal, Shakira and Tasneem. I pretend I am calling just to say hi. But, these ladies are savvy, and they know I call every time Western media starts raging about the evil of Islam. “Yeah. You’re just checking in to make sure I haven’t been arrested on charges of Muslim-ness,” says Shakira. Who is a smartarse.
I have a psychiatrist as well as a psychologist, now. For some reason, I laugh at this knowledge in a waiting room. Inside the psychiatrist’s office, I am asked to promise not to follow any news about the Rohingya people.
Honestly, I’m relieved. I run 12 kilometres.
Got a new book out on the topic of How Rotten The World Is And How To Possibly Fix It. The book disgusted a few people, which is fine, of course. Controversy around a book is a very posh problem to have. Nonetheless, I was angry with myself for weeks after a lady on the telly told me, “”. That I didn’t respond with, “We both are, we’re on the effing telly” is to my unending discredit.
Go see the new Blade Runner, which was awesome, and forget about it.
This is a good day. I feel something close to patriotism for the first time in many years. I talk to a lady I know who had helped kickstart ICAN in Melbourne. I tell her “congratulations!” She says, “the struggle continues!” This is a good day.
This is not a good day. I feel something close to national shame for the first time in many years.
No, Madame Butterfly! Don’t make me worry about you, whom I worship as a queen among queens.
I listen to Music Box as I run, just 3k today. I return home, and I wonder about you, and your 2017.
