When in turmoil, just smoke a ciggie, have a staunch bird on your arm and put flowers in your hair. We're all just as strange as each other, some of us just hide it better.
I moved house in a heatwave which I do not recommend. Sweat dripped on my glasses and I cried because obviously I did most of it myself and realised how hard it was, despite so many offers of help. Help ugh get it orf.
I can't show you any photos of my new beautiful 1900's miners cottage because a bomb has gone off in here - but I have a backyard, beautiful verandah, A WHITE PICKET FENCE complete with white matching swing on the porch. Like Anne of fricken Green Gables. And aqua splash back tiles in the kitchen. And stepping stones (symbolic.) I made it out of my prison flat alive. I'm one tough motherfucker.
A FUSE NEEDED CHANGING IN MY ELECTRICITY BOX AND I CHANGED IT MYSELF. THIS IS A VERY BIG DEAL.
I no longer live directly across the road from the charming police in the police station ... thanks for being SO considerate, fair, and understanding you guise!
I dreamt of a cemetery that was on fire - all of the graves got razed to the ground but I knew there were still rotting corpses underneath. I tried to tell people but they wouldn't believe me and I finally didn't care that I wasn't believed. I know death like the back of my wrinkled hands and I don't need to point it out to others.
I absolutely do whatever I like except there is no curtain of madness. Embarrassing but true. And I don't care anymore. I just. Don't. Care.
Oh where is my lover who takes away the lies, brings me hope and coffee and poetry?
Right here. I'm my own lover who refuses to settle for anything less than spectacular which won't be happening in this lifetime so I'll light up the sky myself. Write my own soothing words for me - and you. Kiss myself goodnight. Move out of a prison flat straight into the light. Blessed the fuck be.
As for you, Computer? I love you. Be careful .. for what it's worth I'll be having another crap christmas but it's just a day. Stay alive, stroke your hair, sweep your back deck, find at least two teeny things to be grateful for ... remember life ends eventually. Which is scary for some, relieving for others.
This last picture is for you. Swear on all the Gods if I can get through the things I get through then you can too and I don't promise anything these days but I promise you that.
Katoomba Street, November 2017
I'm taking Rocco and his mate to the movies tomorrow, somebody gave us Gold Class tickets which I'm inordinately excited about.
He's tired, and sensitive, and only nine. I've a long history of mothering boys .. you know how you finally learn how to do shit right on your last kid? Yeah. Tonight I cooked steak for dinner. We ate it while watching netflix. I introduced him to Fantales .. they are smaller than I remember? Or I've gotten bigger? All I know is, one of us has changed FANTALES.
Jokes we all change. You live long enough and life forces you to change. You live long enough and you see things in a completely different life (pun intended.) Last week mum and I visited the flat in Newtown that Cam died in. Mum took yellow roses and left them .. it was really peaceful, I'm glad we did it, and I only cried after I got home.
Missing U
How's the current climate of the #metoo campaign? Jaysus I've had to block out a lot of memories lately. If I had girls, I stand with Helen.
This week Eminem nonchalantly dropped his new single featuring Beyonce (her part sung here by Skylar Grey.) It's about not being who people think you are, second-guessing yourself, the wild ride of living a creative life. I've got a huge case of writers block which I've never experienced before. I think writers block - any block - is fear. I have a huge case of fear which is now dwindling because the tincture for that is love, truth, courage, etc. All the good marrow stuff.
I give life a seven and a half out of ten, this week. Not bad, all things considered.
The end of world has already happened many times and only those whose world has ended can understand. This morning I checked the news - guns, American flag, how could dozens of people die in church was it God's plan all along because the president himself tweeted (apparently you run countries by twitter now) to the Texas people yesterday "May God be with you."
Did I hear somewhere that St Peter has a big thick book of the day people are born and the day people die because if so then that's a heaven of a lot of people destined to die in a church I don't get and by the way pope (the vatican one not the kink one) you can jam your catholicism down your throat just like it was jammed down mine when I was a kid confessing all my dark deeds to the snake in the box.
The bag was next to the yellow box of Ratsack for a reason see drugs are poison but I was just trying to kill Kevin, the mouse. You can scroll back and see it in my dumb facebook videos if you want but you won't want and you won't believe me and I care what people think of me but I can't change that. I have the courage to change the things I changed and I have more to change because I'm changed but not everybody will see the changes in us but that's ok. Even if we show them Proof he died 2006. Doesn't mean Eminem will stop rapping about him.
Speaking of change I arrived back from Scotland with forty-seven one pound coins in a bright green purse I bought from H&M from a cranky sales assistant so I panicked and handed over a note I couldn't change the fact I couldn't understand their change. I flew across the world to feel the exact same things I feel in this Katoomba flat and when all the Scottish people asked me why I was there I answered all of them differently and never lied.
"Looking for my father." "Taking a break." "Checking out my roots." "I keep asking myself that question."
This morning my son cried at the school gates because it's changeover day so I told him in the rain that I'm right here and he knows where I live and when he cracked a smile and said of course I know where you live you're my mother? I knew he'd be ok.
Just once this year I was asked the four letters RUOK but it was followed by ".. you're sounding crazy again" but this time I didn't take the bait like Kevin because I don't take poison anymore irregardless of opinions. Turns out irregardless must be a real word after all because there's no red underline spellcheck underneath it.
Mental Health Week runs from the 8th to the 14th of October. My brother died on the 15th of October. He was always quite polite but I care less, now. I accidentally put the last t-shirt he wore in the pile of dirty laundry in my hallway and even though I know I won't wash it I still care less, there's other people to grieve now. Grieving is a state of heart but it is no longer the only emotion that I feel and if you hate yourself that's good! There's still something left of you to hate.
The world will end for all of us for real one day but until then I text my grieving friend that she should have called me when she was crying lord knows she's heard me cry the ocean enough.
In the meantime I'll write literal literature bask in the heat of my fire eat properly after I edit even though it's Monday. Poor Monday telling its therapist it's hated just for being Monday. I'm sad for Mondays I'm a sad woman but sadness isn't the only emotion I feel anymore it's taken me a life to realise you don't just feel one thing all the time. Sometimes you feel everything all at once but I still won't take the poison bait if I did I wouldn't be feeling like this I'd be feeling nothing at all.
No news is new news - we're doomed to repeat our same mistakes until we're so fed up to the back teeth we change. I got forty-seven pounds of change and the weight of what you think of me weighs heavier than what you think but today is Monday and yeah I really do have writing to do clothes to wash and just because I've already made my own bed doesn't mean I'm lying in it.
::
I watched this and laughcried from pure resonance and I felt happy because I wasn't alone in not feeling happy or also having a broken headlight. So many #meetoos never whispered only thought but chicks like this remind me all over again that if you tell the truth in public, the world doesn't end.
Shout-out to the donut icer person at the local supermarket in Katoomba for knowing they had WAY too much leftover pink icing. Obviously they just thought "fuck it."
THEY WERE DELICIOUS!
Shout-out to Ragnar Lothbrook do not even get me started about Lagertha this season.
Shout-out to Halloween being finished this year, I'm not used to it and it will never not be embarrassing asking for lollies.
Him: Holding a plastic bloody scythe. Me: Holding the machete I smuggled back from Africa.
Shout-out to these tables I saw the other week.
Shout-out to Mark from Glasgow who made me laugh SO HARD and I'm sorry for asking you to repeat every third word. (No nothing happened - he already has what they call "a bird" and when you say "bird" you have to roll your R's. (Not your arse.)
Mark said he never wants to come to Australia ... "I HATE THE SUN. AND SPIDERS." #istandwithmark
Shout-out to my cousin Marina for MAKING A HUMAN CALLED HARVEY.
Shout-out to both me and Rocco for having EXACTLY the same facial expressions when we first held him.
Shout-out to Dumbo Feather Magazine for re-subscribing me for another year just because I was on their cover wearing no makeup that time.
Shout-out to ATARI FLASHBACK WHUT
Pitfall. PacMan. Defender. Space Invaders .... even Chess. I been gaming since 1981. When Rocco saw my reaction to this he said he's going to save up and buy it for me for Christmas. We're currently in the throes of the new Crash Bandicoot how HARD is it also deeply satisfying when we finally, finally beat the level.
Shout-out to Rocco just for being his incredible, surreal, deep-thinking wise little self.
Shout-out to this cup that just makes me feel happy especially at the moment when I'm writing a book and script at the same time. "Bite off more than you can chew and chew like crazy!"
Shout-out to Uberkate Jewels who gave this to me for free even though I didn't even ask for it. I'm never taking it off and I'm never losing it. Cried when I opened it.
Shout-out to the lyrics and video of this Tori Amos song that never ever ceases to blow my mind and build me back up again.
(COMMENTS OFF STILL SORRY)
Shout-out to you and me for still being here let's keep that shit up.
My secret plan to fly to the other side of the world to escape the feelings of the four-year anniversary of my brothers suicide? Foiled. CURSES. I don't want to think about it and I don't want to write about it. I don't want to live it and I don't want to feel it.
Yesterday I had a great lunch with a huge bunch of Glaswegians - literally had to start lip-reading them when they spoke. They were so funny, I'll never see any of them again even after their (drunken) promises to keep in touch. I wasn't drunk well kind of - I can get so far down I get drunk purely on sad. ANNOYANCE for the ten millionth time I wish I didn't feel too much.
Thought I had to check out of my Zed's Dead Hotel today but it's tomorrow! Then I'm off to Edinburgh which I keep saying "Edinberg" in my brain. Heh.
The world's still the world wherever you are but I'm too far away from Katoomba and pining bad for the boys. Need to get back stat. So I will. My sons will always be the axis of the world to me, as it should be.
Love, straight up.
Holding his brand new second-cousin Harvey last week.
Off to go for one last walk around the city. It's been real .. I might come back one day, might not. I just know I am so, so much more Scottish than I am Aussie. FINALLY understand why I'm a loud abrasive crude hilarious politically incorrect human. As my brothers father used to say: "Wouldn't trade it for quids."
::
Wrote this post called "Eraser" in 2013, the year Cam died. Inexplicably feel like re-publishing - it's not cheery, it's not a happy ending. it's just what happened oh sweet mystery of life. ERASER.
The very first photo of us together. Me in year three, wearing a green t-shirt and blue tracksuit top. Him in baby white, smiling because he recognised a kindred.
This post is shit already. If anybody has a problem with me talking inappropriately about suicide, I ask you, is suicide appropriate? When is the appropriate time?
"Hey how you doin' today? "Actually quite suicidal thanks for asking."
The suicidal among us don't like to admit that we're suicidal because we're scared of getting locked up, scared of stigma and shame, scared of what people will say or think. You know why I was in the mental health ward at Katoomba this year? Twice? Suicidal. Most people in there are. And now here I sit drinking a fucking latte and my brother's dead because he killed himself early morning three weeks ago on Tuesday, 15th October 2013. He didn't want to get help. He didn't want medication. He didn't want to go in anywhere.
Cam told me the internet was a bad place for people who want to die. He said there were so many options for painless suicide. He talked to me frankly because that's how we always talked to each other. We were friends - really fucking good friends. <-- right then when I wrote that sentence? I got up from my chair howling, pacing the room in a circle with my hand on my hip like I was in labour. Death labour.
He was so fucking smart. And funny. And gorgeous. And talented. And lived with an ache inside him since his father killed himself 25 years ago. I keep thinking, well I'm still living Cam you prick. I've entered the anger stage, which gets briefly washed away by missing and grief and yearning for him so bad. The people I love, in order: My two boys, Dave, Cam.
Cam hired a large cylinder of nitrogen which he kept in his Sydney flat for about a month. Gas mask, long hose, clips. He was also going to work, doing Crossfit, seeing his best mates, and bought a nice car. The suicidal among us, scurrying, still living, still deciding.
A few days before he did it I finally got hold of his friends who'd see him often. I was so worried. I knew there was a very big chance he was going to do it. But the same could be said of me at varying times in my life, you know? All I think now is. "You knew you knew you knew."
I've talked him out of it before. Guess I couldn't this time. That last weekend I kept waking up thinking he was dead, so I'd text him about some dumb tv show and when he text me back I was relieved. Momentarily. He kept calling me "Eden" when he only ever called me "Eed."
I should have driven down to his flat and barged in and done something. Nobody can tell me any different at the moment. Maybe in time that will fade .... but in time, HE will fade. It hurts so much I can't stand it. It burns. The more you love someone, the more it burns.
I keep going through my head how he would have done it - laid the tarp down, then his pillow, turned the gas on, laid down, and put his gas mask on. Pure nitrogen tricks the body, because we all have nitrogen in us. So there's no fighting. It takes three seconds to render a person unconscious, one minute to kill. Apparently there's a chance that right before death the person feels an overwhelming sense of euphoria. I hope so. I hope he left earth with a big fat massive boner.
Cam murdered himself. Extinguished. Euthanized. Fucked off. He gave us all the finger with a 'seeya cunts I'm outta here.'
And I completely understand.
The first sentence of his suicide note -
"Eden .... well, this was not totally unexpected."
No. BECAUSE I KNEW.
I took a photo of the tarp and tank. I took a photo of him in the morgue. And I don't give a shit how inappropriate those things are. I look at them to try somehow get it in my head that he is gone.
I taught Cam how to write his name. And now with all these meetings with my legal people, dissolving and dividing Cams assets, I'm helping him erase it. Death is everywhere but we don't seem to talk about it.
I stand at my sons school and I am the recovering alcoholic drug addict with three dead dads, bipolar II, and my brother just killed himself hi nice to meet you.
It's beyond a joke. It's easy for me to slip into "nothing is real." (Because it's not.)
The very last photo of us together, taken on Fathers Day 2013. (I'm never celebrating Fathers Day again.) Me 41, wearing a black top and my convict scarf. Him 33, in one of his good shirts and pants. Talked non-stop for almost five hours, just outside here on the back deck. He came up to say goodbye. I knew it then and I know it now.
Flew to Scotland, panicked BAD in Glasgow airport toilet, got it together, stood in the rain and chose a hotel called "HOTEL Z" purely because of the "Zed's dead, baby" part of Pulp Fiction.
Feeling a bit heavy and stressed like this guy except he looks like he's sulking. I'm not sulking, I'm just Panic McStressorty from WTF did I do now.
Tell you what I didn't do: eat this.
... just held it towards me like an offal weiner.
Staying around the corner from this lion lying' around. Is not that golden sword the best tattoo idea EVER!?!
Seriously - a lot of me is homesick but I was sick of home which is why I came, had to get away, now I wish I was back, etc. I'll go to Edinburgh soon and find Nessie. Or a red-haired Scot Viking holy CRAP ... it's like Eminem in that video clip with a thousand clones and he's rapping:
".. and there's a million of us just like me Who cuss like me who just don't give a fuck like me who dress like me Walk, talk and act like me it just might be the next best thing But not quite me."
I walk, look, and carry myself like most Scots. Upright, same bone structure, same attitude. I belong here. My father was William James Barrie born here in Glasgow in the 30's. Apparently he was a paratrooper in the Red Berets .. trying to find out more info on that, any ideas?
Heh.
Literally an hour after I arrived I went to the library. Soothing. Hi Megan.
Today I'm forcing myself even more out of my comfort zone - yesterday I tried to get a red double-decker bus but I couldn't understand the guy so quickly walked away. Walked up to Central Station, looked at the train timetable, couldn't get on a train to save my life. Walked back forlorn - looked down. It's ok, Scottish Guardian Angels exist too.
Then I did what anybody in my position would do - got a manicure, obvs. Headed back to my hotel, cried, ate two juiciest nectarines ever while hunched over the garbage bin and the juice ran all the way down my face and I didn't wipe it off until I'd finished both.
It's the Viking way.
It's now 5.30am I WILL CONQUER TODAY IF IT KILLS ME. Which it will but it's cool because the sun keeps rising, regardless.
::
SPEAKING OF EMINEM - you all know how rap battles work yeah? Marshall Bruce Mathers III turns 45 on Tuesday oh and he's now the President of the United States.
"In the video, he’s looking directly into the camera—and into their eyes—as he raps. “If you can't decide who you like more and you're split On who you should stand beside, I'll do it for you with this: Fuck you.” This is Eminem wielding his privilege as a weapon, taking on the president in the culture war he’s currently waging against the progressive majority. His freestyle is remarkable in that it’s relatively unique among music’s white superstars. Fewer than you’d think have spoken out so publicly against the horrors of this administration, let alone called out their Trump-supporting fans on record. If we’re lucky, he’ll inspire other successful mainstream musicians to consider confronting their fans over what they believe. Either way, it was worth the effort." - Piece by Pitchfork
::
PS Ok time to go almost at the bridge. THEY KNOW WHAT A FLAT WHITE IS HERE!!
PPS Scotland is its own country. Just so you know. (I googled it.)
The most unadulterated raw thing I've ever out on the internet .. but I feel the people who need to see it and resonate it with it need to see it. I've reached out today, spoke to people, did my washing, coped.
But it's hard - life is very hard for most (all?) of us, whether we show it or not. I'm showing it. Pretty brutally honest but it is what it is. Please share it with people you think might need to see it. I'm here, waving not drowning. Sometimes it's the other way around but people who I let in get me through. A lot of the time I don't let people in until after WOAH YOU GUYS I JUST BEEN THROUGH HELL!
I started praying for strength today but realised - I've already been given it, I was born with it, in abundance. The world is so frightening it's heightening my senses. Especially now. How will our children do this life and will change for the better? I hope so, oh my guys.
But hey - hello. My name is Eden, if I can do this I swear to heavens you can to.
(Am also sharing this on my Edenland Facebook account if you care to share ... am turning my computer off for a while because I'm so very embarrassed. Too truthy ... is there such a thing? Yes.)
"The human race is the most stupid and unfair kind of race. A lot of the runners don't even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water. Some runners are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side. It's not surprising a lot of people have given up competing altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk and shout abuse. What the human race needs is a lot more streakers."
- Image and words by Banksy
- Post originally written by me in March 2011 - APPLICABLE AS EVER!
10) Go to your computer, write out a big, swishy, important blog post. The marketers and advertising networks and Important People will be happy. Then delete it. Now write what's in your heart and publish it. That will make you happy.
9) It's not a race. You may sense jostling of position ... (I'm looking at YOU, Australian blogging scene) ... a changing of the guard. Bloggers competing and crapping over other bloggers. Don't do that. Don't get involved in the politica of blogging. Stand to one side and smoke your imaginary cigar, then go home and write a post about that time you were twelve and tried to test God by setting traps in your bedroom. God failed, yet you still believe. Odd.
8) Make up your own words. I meant to write "politics" in the point above but like "politica" better. Make up your own scenery, your own language, your own pace, your own creative force. Your blog is a blank canvas. An empty page. A lump of clay. If there is a God who created mankind in His own image, then that makes you a creator too. (HINT: When you create things in life, a river trickles in your heart. If you keep doing it, it gushes into your secret underground trapdoor heart spring that you never even knew was there.)
7) If you want to build up your blog to get a lot of comments, or make money, or get famous ... that's fine. Do whatever the hell you want. It's a free world. (Is it?) Just remember that all good things take time. How connected are you to other bloggers? Do you really read their words and comment on their blogs because it resonates with you, or do you just want them to comment back? If you stop hiding and start write yourself into your blog, people will "see" you and be drawn to you. What are you so afraid of?
6) You don't owe anybody anything. Don't explain yourself ... if you haven't blogged for a while because Life Itself has torn you open and you're laying weeping on the ground - don't worry about backtracking and explaining every little thing. You don't have to! Just come to the page and open up a brand new post and start talking. About anything. People will follow wherever you lead them. It's like, you're the boss.
5) YOU'RE THE BOSS. You are in control. It's your blog, nobody elses. No rules, man.
4) At the beginning of every single blog post, picture inviting ten of your closest friends into your living room. And you say, "Now that I've gathered you all here ..." and start writing. Launch into a fantastic film you saw with your friend last night and it rained or a soliloquy on how you can't believe Japan has so many nuclear reactors or how mortified you were the first time you ever got a pedicure. Make it interesting. You must have interesting thoughts and ideas all the time. Notice them more. My sister Leigh said to me just this morning, "Eden, I often see things and think ... if I had a blog, I would take a picture of that and post it." How cool is that? She doesn't even have a blog but is seeing the world through blog-coloured glasses.
3) There will always be somebody doing it Better. Bigger. Stunning photography. Beautiful children. Getting swanky invitations to things. I get jealous of other bloggers .... mostly because I wish I were more normal and stable. (Sometimes I really wish I were a prolific, stunning Mormon blogger in Utah with a delightful etsy shop and children who I homeschool. Alas.) Somebody's got to be the unmedicated Australian lunatic who stalks Bono, writing strange things on the internet and yet somehow connecting with other people's Spirit while trying so hard to connect with her own. WHEW.
3b) Be happy for another bloggers success. If a blogger is "getting somewhere" ... it means they are raising awareness about all of us other bloggers. It's win-win. It's cool. Don't sweat it.
2) One day, you'll find that you have developed a Voice that you never knew you had. This is your very own Voice. Blogging with an open heart gave it to you. You begin to suspect that this Voice came from a deeper place - because seriously, blogging? Pfft.
You now have a duty of care to use your voice in the best possible way that you can. I can't tell you what that is, you must find that out for yourself. (HINT: Ever get the feeling that living this life with all these unanswered questions is like walking around with a treasure map but no idea where to dig? Dig inside yourself. It's the last place us humans ever look.)
1) Blog like a streaker, man. Blog like a streaker.
"I dreamt that one of your legs - I think it was your right - was burning in the firebox in my house and I was so excited calling everybody around to take a look. "You guys! My brothers leg is in here! Come and have a look my brothers leg is on fire!" Nobody wanted to look. I was the only one looking at your burning leg because it was the last time any incarnation of you would be in this world and at this point I'm grabbing at straws holding on to crumbs and letters and mugs and any fucking remnants of you I need to have and I am So. Sick. Of this. Shit. So I have decided .. I am done with the grieving now. Nobody wants to watch a mans leg burn in a fire I mean I didn't want to see it either but I loved you so hard I had to look it was my duty because I was older than you and older sisters are supposed to care for the ones that come after. I don't have to kill myself anymore. You did it for the both of us."
This was filmed in 2014, almost a year after my brother Cam left. I was sitting in the exact same place he sat with me for four hours on stupid fucking fathers day. My ex got pissed off so drove down to our (his) beach house while Cam and I talked and talked and talked and he left and the next time I saw him he was in the morgue all spongey.
Today is 31st August 2017 - the last day of winter, I haven't noticed winter much because one of my best mates Dan died suddenly four months ago and the weather means nothing in Grieftown. Do you know Grieftown, probably. We all know it some much more than others. I know it like the back of my weathered winter hands. I've cried lately (just the once, Ede?) so I get out my handy-dandy Crybook to pinpoint the cry ahhh that's it - step right up soon to birthdays and death anniversaries and another year clocked up since I seen Cam and surely I'd be over this now? (No. And don't call me Shirley.) You never get over grieving it gets woven encompasses embedded into the fabric of who you are. All the things of who you are - you're more than your grief but sometimes you are your grief. Makes no sense to some, makes dollars to others.
This piece of here writing is a mash-up of stuff I've written before but it's still applicable. The death of somebody you love is always applicable. Tick. I miss my confidante. I can't be who I was with my brother to anybody else in the whole world. I miss how he made me feel. I miss who he could have been. Most of all I just miss who he was. I used to perform Camerons autopsy to find the cause of death SCALPEL over and over and over again. And over. And over. I don't even get paid for this shit. Grieving is all-encompassing. It is exhausting. And I am tired. So are my sons. We are hurting and we are tired from this. My brain will not stop its futile search and rescue operation.
"He should have gotten help he never got help why didn't he get help? The help probably wouldn't have done much anyway why couldn't he just have kept going? I kept going? Why do I keep going? There is no point in keeping going. Life is meaningless. He should have kept living anyway nothing means anything Cam where are you?"
And my Cam is nowhere to be found. My Cam is gone. I was standing very close to him when he departed so I've been hit pretty badly by the shrapnel. I was complicit in his death, see. He begged me on the phone, a few weeks before he died. I have talked him away from death so many times in our lives, so many times. I would tell him how suicidal I was too. And I was, am. I'm all suicidy and I can't wash it off. Please god higher power nature do not let my sons feel this. Other things .. but not this.
I feel like I aided and abetted his suicide, because I understood so well why he would want to go. He struggled with this whole "life" business, so hard. It's a hard life, I look at my children and I just think oh you guys, I'm so sorry I brought you into such a crappy world. They have no idea how hideous and intense and awful the world can make a person feel. No idea.
I have a feeling of a tidal wave forming, of a richer and more substantial dialogue on suicide. Which is great! But too late, for my brother. I see a video of beautifully groomed celebrities talking about how we must just hold on I want to reach through my screen and muss up their hair, swear at them a bit. Unless you have personal experience of suicide, you do not get to speak for me. I've been called "the suicide expert" by somebody online being nasty, who didn't mean it in a nice way. I happen to agree with you, motherfucker. I AM a suicide expert!
I told my therapist that the only, ONLY times I have felt any semblance of feeling ok about my brother not being in the world anymore is when I'm driving in my car next to some railway tracks and there's a coal train travelling in the same direction as me. Then it happened and I just exhaled for the first time since that awful Tuesday and for 0.04 of a second I was ok with my brothers death. It's happened a few times since, and I've felt that same teeny, tiny smidge of peace.
Once it happened with Max next to me in the car so I asked him to take a photo and he didn't even ask why. We are kindreds.
There are trees that exist in the Scottish highlands that are balanced precariously on the edges of cliffs and all they need is a few drops, a few centimetres of water each year to survive. Gimme a smidgen of hope and I can make it last for weeks, months, years. I read recently that "strong storms make oak trees dig their roots in further." (Roots lol)
The thing that confuses me the most is that I am alive and my brother is dead and we were both so similar. He wrote in his suicide note to me: "Eden you're the strongest one out of all of us!"
I highly disagree, it's just - maybe I dug my roots in further? Cam told me in the last year of his life that he'd like to build his own house one day and now I think what an utter tragedy it is that he can never build his own house. He didn't know how to lay the foundations. He tried. But nobody taught him properly, he couldn't teach himself he was so arrogant, stubborn and now dead. Will never realise his potential.
My therapist and I could not quite work out why I feel a sliver of peace when I drive in the same direction as a coal train. Maybe it's because I used to read a big purple hardcover book by Richard Scarry called "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" to my brother so often when he was little that the cover almost wore off. Everybody was always so BUSY, in that book. They had places to go, people to see. They had PURPOSE. And Goldbug would be hiding on every page and before I even turned the page my little brother, my little blonde-haired delightful guy who I now see in my children .... he'd sit there waiting with his finger pointed, ready to find Goldbug before I did.
I always let him find Goldbug first. I always gave him the prawns from my fried rice. I always listened to him, always tried to make him feel worthwhile and valued and important and beautiful and clever because it was all true. It was all true.
Buddy Wakefield says that the moon does not have to be full for us to love it. Cam, you did not have to be whole for us to love you! You didn't have to be anything other than who you were. You didn't like who you were. I wish you knew you were enough. I wish you kept going - for YOU, not for me or for anybody else. I wish you weren't in so much pain. I wish I wasn't in so much pain. I understand why you left. I hope that when you spoke to me on those last phone calls, my understanding and empathy of where you were and how you felt - bro I hope it gave you comfort. But god help me I wish you knew how much I didn't want you to go. I'm so sorry my Bam-Bam. I fucked up. I would've done it all differently I DEMAND a do-over you would still be alive and be able to grow and evolve and know that you are enough and worth enough, to stay.
He made me promise that if he did it I was to fight anyone who tried to hold a funeral for him and he did it so I made sure there was no funeral. But we all needed your funeral, brother. And it's too late for you to realise that this wasn't just about you. Shrapnel got a lot us over here.
I wished I'd done more, told you I needed you more, fixed you more but it's really really hard to fix somebody. Especially when you are actually legit a bit broken yourself.
Labia Minora have rights too!! Tell your girlfriends, daughters, nieces, sisters that we don't want a flapless society .. we need vulvas of a different variety.
(And if anyone mocks your vag tell them to go buy one of those new $10k sex dolls that are basically bendable corpses that don't talk because it's all about the holes amirite? Or a warm apple pie.)
Remember Barbie's mons pubis? That mound always so round? Neat. Nuh. Embrace our delicately different flower openings. Embrace vulva diversity.
Here's me a few years ago talking about my own vaginal fears which I have since gotten over in the past few years.
What must it be like, to feel invisible in the world?
This was Mary and her niece, begging for money on the streets of downtown Manhattan. Pretty sure they don't like begging. I like their painted toes.
Steve is one of the critters who come out at night. Scavenging through the hundreds of dumpsters that line New York City.
At 5c a bottle, he can make $80 a day. He said he's happy. He lied.
Steve lives in a flat over in the Bronx, barely affording rent and food. "I'm my own boss ... if I need a day off I take it. I gotta listen to my body. It's hard work."
He knows he's doing an important job. "People don't care. They don't recycle." We shook elbows. Later I lay awake in my hotel bed with garbage air in my lungs. Thinking.
I loved that Dan was reading a book. A western. "It's a true story 'bout the Indians and how they got slaughtered. It's pretty sad." He isn't scared of living on the streets. Says the shelters are disgusting. "Full of crazy people!"
I said man, I wish I could do something for you Dan. He looked me square in the eyes.
"Take me with you back to Australia."
I wished I'd asked him back to our hotel room for a shower. Instead I ran back to give him more money. As I threw the second twenty in his cup, he didn't even care. Looked up briefly from his book with a "Thanks babe."
I like that he called me babe. With a shower, good feed, and a sleep? Homeless Dan could start reaching some of his potential. Get a job, probably pull some chicks. He has a spark, you know?
One night in Times Square we came across a guy taking a breather, sweat riveting down his face. I paid him for a photo and asked him not to pull his headpiece down. It's a "thing" for people to dress up in cheap polyester character costumes and pose for photos with tourists.
A picture really CAN speak a thousand words.
Maybe it's because I've walked around in such profound deep emotional pain for the past few weeks, or maybe it's just the travelling making me notice things more .... but man the invisible people were in rich abundance.
A dazed chick in a bikini top with her sign just saying "hungry" ... would've been safer in a brothel.
The old guy outside our hotel every night. Every time he'd split the money with the person next to him. The attendant in Balthazar who wakes up every morning, puts on her uniform, and goes to work. In a toilet. Handing people paper towel, wiping their skid marks for the chance of a dollar.
Last night we walked past a tittie bar and this really angry, young drunk guy was refused entry and shouting at nobody. He was FURIOUS and I wondered if this is how mass-murderers are made, isolated and ignored.
This is Gloria. She cleaned our hotel room every day.
Gloria is from Jamaica. She's been a maid at that hotel for 24 years. If there's a power outage in the city, she walks from her place in Brooklyn to work midtown and back. She told Dave and I to have safe travels home. To keep talking to people. She said that some people were so lonely in the world with nobody to talk to, and I said I know, Gloria. I know.
"My sister - she die. My brother die ... and then my uncle? He die. They all die in the past few weeks."
We said we were sorry. That my dad died a few weeks ago, and then our dog died. Straight away she nods.
"Yes. When a dog dies in a family, it is to help guide the dead person across the way."
We walked off and had to put our sunglasses on quickly. When I get home I'll sign up to some kind of community thing to visit people. The people who have no people ... I'll take my boys in and watch strangers faces light up and Rocco will careen down the hallways and Max will sit and soak it all in.
This one person did me undone ... I didn't catch her name. Just walked passed her in the high end of town. Her hand was in a splint, sat there with a puny sign saying "Every little bit helps." Her face was stony. It only changed when she realised it wasn't one dollar I pressed into her hand, but twenty.
"Oh my god thank you so much, oh thank you." She cried from relief and I cried from something else. Told her to take care, told her that people care.
I walked off and imagined a tidal wave of water suddenly cascading through all the streets and fancy shops, sending clothes and shiny stuff swirling.
Cardboard signs getting ripped from grubby hands. Chanel earrings getting ripped from ears.
(This entry was first written in New York, August 2012.)
"So I’m walking around Westmead by myself at 12am sorry mum and dad). As I was standing outside I saw two young men walking towards me and me being the scaredy cat I am ran towards the hospital back dock crouching behind a van and the first thing I though was “please God don’t let me be raped tonight my asshole couldn’t handle something like that”. I shit you not that was my first thought because that’s the first thing on my mind living with Crohn’s, whether my poor asshole could handle anymore trauma 😂"
Check out my cousin Morgans brand spanking new site.
"My name is Morgan Taylor I'm 20 and I've been suffering from Crohn's disease since I was 12 years old. Ive decided to start writing my story because there isn't very much support for people out there living with ibd. I'm going to be open and raw with my writtng and tell the truth about what it's like living with this disease. I hope to break some boundaries and get people to talk about these kind of topics becasue let's face it, it's a part of life. I hope you stick around."
I'm so, so proud of my girl. So proud. We talk a lot about both physical and mental illnesses and the similarities between the two - especially when what you're battling is invisible. Morgs just got out of hospital (again) and sent me through her first blog post to check out.
Oh. My. God.
Laughing and crying in one paragraph, I read it and was so blown away I was speechless. "MORGIE IT IS INCREDIBLE YOU ARE INCREDIBLE." And I wasn't just saying that because she's my cousin I'm saying it because what this human has gone through is too much, not fair, ongoing .. and the way she handles it with extraordinary humour and grace. Rocco recently asked Morgan if he could see her bag? (Of course he did.) And Morgie showed him without hesitating. He was fascinated as she explained how an oestomy bag works. Maybe one day in the future he'll meet an amazing chick who happens to have a poo bag. And he really, really won't give a shit.
All I wanted to do was show you my boots but Siri had other plans and now I'm going to leave myself over-exposed online oh dear like I've never done that before. WHEN will the big blackout come and erase all of the internet? I'm waiting. But before that, here's this .. the mustard boots on the left were bought on eBay about 12 years ago, wow time flies when you're not having fun. These mustard ones clop like there's no tomorrow. They're the heaviest boots I own when I need to be REALLY tough like stomp into the cancer ward demanding a bed for my stepdad. Who died in the bed I demanded him to be in. I also wore them the day I was discharged from the maternity ward and my sister drove me straight down to the cancer ward where my ex-husband was dealing with cancer so awful the doctor told him to put his affairs in order. Which he did, he's in Greece at the moment. What are these boots, fucking cancer boots?
The next ones are my red ones from New York and people always always comment on them, probably because of the lipstick red colour. They're my strength boots. They look sad in this pic because they're sad, still recovering from my friend Dans funeral whereupon I wore a black clingy dress showing my cleavage and I was all "Sorry Dan but today I'm #sluttypallbearer in a black dress and red boots with NO stockings." He would have approved. Especially when I walked his wife aka Megan down the long driveway following the stupid hearse. Hate the word hearse, too hearsey. There's still funeral in my red boots which I have to walk off. I will because they're one one of my favourites but they'll always remind me of that day we had to say friggen goodbye too early.
The ones next to my red ones are my poetry slam boots standing straight and tall waiting for my next poetry slam. I don't know how long they'll be waiting. I bought them in 2014, the year after my brother died and everybody close to me were scurrying to help but I ran away. Wish I could run back. His death took me away from everything safe.
Last ones on the right I have no idea where they came from they just appeared and feature in my blogheader. Jeff my photographer neighbour snapped that photo with my feet slung out my window defeated. Someone said to me "Eden you can tell you're off your face in that photo just not giving a fuck" and I said "Hey, I wasn't giving a fuck ... but I wasn't off my face! Just defeated." The boots are made from Mexican cowhide and I've trashed the toes I don't know how. I just trash shit.
There's a pair missing from this photo ... my beloved Africa boots I wore in Africa which had Africa dust on them. But I needed a new pair and have vowed to not keep getting pair after pair like Imelda because I've only got two fucking feet. So I sold them ... to a woman with the coolest style who came to my door and loved them instantly, took them away so you know what time it was? New boot time. Not just any old new boot time but NEW BOOT TIME I NEED NEW BOOTS IMMEDIATELY. I used the money from my Africa boots to buy these ... my favourite boots of all time, sorry all you other boots I'll still wear you! These babies are distressed black like me. Also featuring raised gold brocade with wings and crosses and silver stitching in there as well.
The furtherest I've worn these boots so far is out on my balcony to take this photo. Do these boots know I'll be ok anyway? Do they know where they'll take me, who I'll meet, and what I'll be doing in them? Are they magic? (Yes.) Do they make me feel .... something better? (Yes.) I haven't walked up to the bakery in these boots or gotten up to no good in these boots or walked in Athens in these boots or run across the road during a red light light in these boots. I don't think I'll be arrested in them, these boots for they mean no harm. They're good boots. Protective and hugging my massive feet, whispering me on, telling me they don't even NEED spurs they're that good already.
So that's my boot story but today didn't end there, today still hasn't ended. This afternoon is better than this morning when I posted this on instagram stories because so help me GOD I can't pretend and will rabbit on until the great big blackout how important it is to share our shit pain on social media too, not just our good/fun/holidays/newclothes/happyhappyjoyjoy
IMPORTANT NOTE: I have washed the sad out of my hair since that video a couple hours ago. I wish I didn't feel so deeply but I do, my mood has incrementally gone up about two degrees but I'm fucked. There's no mo in my jo, my get up and go got up and left, let's start a conversation around mental health OK KIDS AND THEN WHAT PEOPLE ARE WAITING. (I'm so going to regret posting that vid so I'll say I don't give a shit but I really do. Sucks to be but I'd hate to be you.)
Ever ask Siri stupid shit? Like:
"Siri are you happy." "Siri what time is love." "Siri what's the point of existence." "Siri I'm so sad what are my options." "Siri what are you thinking." "Siri I'd like to speak to the person in charge."
This morning I said "Siri I miss my sons." Because my sons are in Greece with their dad and his girlfriend and her three kids. But Siri kept replying that she doesn't understand "Siri I miss my songs." I kept saying "Siri I miss my SONS" and three times she said said she didn't understand "songs" until I yelled at her "SONS!!! SIRI I MISS MY SONS NOT MY SONGS YOU STUPID FUCKHEAD ROBOT YOU WOULDN'T KNOW WHAT MISSING YOUR SONS EVEN FEELS LIKE."
She must have sensed my ire because she finally got it even though she still asked if she could search the web for "missing my sons."
Immediately, IMMEDIATELY after Siri answered with the above, a random son (omg best typo ever) started playing on my phone. I didn't recognise the song. But the song was playing, I didn't ask Siri to play the song but the song? Was amazing to hear right in that moment with the lyrics oh my goodness. I cocked my head to one side (cock lol) and kind of acknowledged who or what put the song on. Because it wasn't me and it wasn't Siri. There was a ghost in the machine .. I wondered which ghost put the song on there's a lot to choose from. (Ghosts, not songs. Siri, I have too many ghosts what to do.)
Hey before I tell you what song it was I need to take this juncture to say: thank you and I'm sorry. I'm sorry for not replying to messages in all social media areas, particularly email. I'm sorry if you're waiting for a poem that will come to you - it was nearly worth a lot of money there at one point. I'm sorry for not replying to your thank you's and your pain and everything anyone has ever said it's just I haven't been waving I've been drowning. With boots on. And thank you for resonating and seeing you when you see me. Most times I am the biggest ghost in the machine of all. I don't like social media anymore but some of us have to show our fuckedness - it's important.
The song was "Gotta Be Better" by Shelby Lynne, with such lyrics like: "Been chasing my tail for years
Flying by running from terror and fear
Time to think clearly for the place I've been holding out for
My feet are getting wetter
It's gotta be better over there."
"Press home to unlock" Ha. Exactly. Help. Go away. Where's my person. Where's home. Where do I take a flat tyre. I'm scared .. aren't you if not why? I've never ever heard this song in my life until this morning so thanks Siri, thanks new boots, thanks Instagram people, thanks this life will not go on forever, thanks for the day I see my sons again, thanks for the kettle and the cup of tea, wish I was better but for now I'm just me.
Off to do writing on My Other Writing Thing because these posts are just snippets, I've held most things in my life back on here but now they're pouring out. The most frightening filthy raw awful beautiful sublime keep-walking-in-your-fucking-boots writing ever. So embarrassing. So needed.
I know you hate new music but seriously, turn this shit UP. It ghosted me, maybe it wants to ghost you too.
