Selected Writings from my website “Anything but Bland”

“Anything But Bland...”

Gratitude

Of beauty rich and rare and treasures everywhere.

The gift of life and love, showers down from above.

The inner dwelling of spirit, in radiant glow doth shine,

Effervescent, thrilling, bounteous joy and love do flow

Through all the Sefirot, from Ain Sof to Malkuth and back again,

In infinite swirls of energy.

Believe and what you give comes back to you,

Know before whom you stand, trust in Hashem always

Grief and joy are mirrored as two sides of the golden coin,

Know which way to flip, accept the flip side as it comes.

Love your friends and know your enemies

And treat them with equal care.

Your friends can oft times, be your enemies

While your enemies can, unsuspecting, often be your friends.

Human Nature is a fickle thing.

The Great Master gives and takes away but always in His own season.

Those who worship Him and know Him shall trust that He will

Bring forth the bounty, so richly deserved, from unexpected sources.

Blessings follow curses and even curses can sometimes be a blessing in disguise.

Be grateful for all that you receive, and live with joy as comfortably

As you live with despair.

The wheel of fortune turns and with centrifugal force

Will cast off that which is unnecessary in your life.

Don't tarry too long in despair or dwell too long

In the illusion of everlasting happiness.

Both are needed for growth and both are pruned

In the garden of our cultivated souls.

Copyright: Tanya Désirée Arons 2000

Little One: Survivor

To be a little girl in my family home was to live in a house of secrets. To live a shadow life, of denial, shame and regret. To know that no matter how many times they told you they loved you, it was all lies. They did not love or protect you.

From a very young age, you were a whore, to be sullied and disgraced; not just sexually but emotionally as well. For shelter, clothing, for food, toys, books and trinkets, you sold yourself, piece by piece to the highest bidder.

Your mother's boyfriends came and went and you were the prize, the drawcard, the “bonus” as one of the partners so proudly and openly referred to you. I was the bonus. I was the little extra on the side, for slap and tickle and moronic dirty little sexual fantasies, when I would tolerate no more abuse!

I had courage and determination. I survived, how, I don't know, but I'm here.

Copyright Tanya Désirée Arons 9 February 2001

Tales of an Emancipated Woman (and how the unevolved wanted to clip her wings!)

Scene opens on a carriage of a train in-bound for Brisbane City . It is a morning train packed full of office workers and students and other members of the general public.

A woman sits reading a book, there is an empty seat beside her. She is absorbed in her novel. At the next stop, a younger Japanese woman slides into the seat beside her. She waits for the woman to acknowledge her.

The woman is still absorbed in her book but she becomes increasingly conscious of the young woman beside her. The young woman waits for her to glance up and wishes her "Good Morning". The woman smiles and returns her greeting, then returns to reading her book.

The young Japanese woman patiently waits for further acknowledgment. She indicates this by leaning forward slightly, as if to read over the woman's shoulder. An intense energy develops, wherein the woman feels an unbearable urge to close the book and converse with the younger girl. She does so, and an interesting dialogue takes place.

Topics covered were: the climate in Queensland, how she enjoys living here, she has also come from another country to live here, for better health reasons, how she admires the peaceful, easygoing people.

She shares with the Japanese girl, personal information, such as, divorce, poverty, employment. She encourages the girl to study hard to be financially independent before considering marriage and selling herself off to a man for security as she had done in her youth. She advised the girl to enjoy life to the fullest, every day of her life but to maximise her potential while young.

The girl is delighted and interested in everything she has to say. She is also aware that other passengers in the carriage have also been listening to her conversation with the young girl.

She feels slightly bemused and embarrassed that she is, in effect, delivering a lecture on her perspective of the meaning of life to a group of people, but she hopes that, if they were listening that they will benefit from her world-view, to give them something to think about or to remind them of things they need to hear.

She feels slightly like a mad guru or prophet disguised as an ordinary woman, on a train. She wonders what it is that brought this young woman to her this morning and what it is that made her open up to her so unexpectedly.

She blushes with the knowledge that she has probably made a fool of herself with a complete stranger by sharing so many of her thoughts in a 20 minute journey on a very public train.

She feels vaguely amused at her own 'crazy' behaviour, but she remembers how she initially tried to keep the girl shut out of her world, to avoid the encounter in the first place and that it was the girl's determination to befriend her that had brought her to this open dialogue.

The girl departs the train at the same station as the woman. They walk together to the top of the escalators. The woman bids the girl "Goodbye" and smiles.

The girl grabs hold of the woman's hand and tells her that she will never ever forget her. The woman, thinking that she has mistranslated, tells her, "Yes, it was lovely to meet you, also". The girl shrieks in a desperate manner, "No, no!! I will never, ever forget you!"

The woman is startled, looks around, there are people darting in all directions, towards the escalator. She moves away from the escalator, the girl still clasping her hand.

She pats the girl's hand, calmly tells her, "It's all right, dear, we'll meet again one day, perhaps on the same train one morning!" The Japanese girl is soothed and smiles happily and departs with this promise of friendship.

The woman is overwhelmed by this emotional exchange with a stranger. She steps onto the escalator and bursts into tears.

The tears flow uninterrupted, all the way down the escalator - where she tries to contain them, before walking through the Subway and into the Arcade which is usually crowded with people at this time of day.

After the tears, which freely express her surprise and anxiety and the overwhelming feeling of being so unconditionally loved by a total stranger's unequivocal interest in her, a feeling of exuberance follows.

She literally floats into work and feeling joyous, shares her experience with her work colleagues, who also feel freaked out by the strangeness of it. She feels strangely uplifted and validated.

The encounter changes her world-view of herself and how she fits into it, her little place in the Cosmos.

Copyright: Tanya Désirée Arons, May 2001

Strange Encounter No.3

16/5/2001 5.45 pm Midway between Central Station and home.

My life is speeding up, gearing up for massive change - not known whether for good or evil but I feel the churning of the jet-propeller engines deep in my inner gut. Not a physical churning, but of a spiritual/psychic knowing, growing like a foetus in my soul.

A new unfoldment is about to begin, a new direction…The biological clock is also ticking - a rhythmic beat joining with the "knowing" in an orchestrated blended beat. Which way will Destiny lead me?

To a new career or study, or to impending motherhood with a stranger or a long-term loving partner? Which reality will I choose? Which reality is truly mine?

Why do I feel this strange yearning? What is growing inside of me? Not a child, not yet, but a belief in a new birth of some kind, whether physical or spiritual.

I sense anxiety and fear of the future. Today I have wrestled with my inner conscience, with reference to feeling a need to seek counsel with David. (Or do I require revenge, or just mere acknowledgement of my never-ending pain?) Why do I feel the need to grasp on to the ugliness of dead relationships, when there is so much beauty and potential in the world?

Today I met a "crazy" Irishman named Noel. He reminded me so much of David that I fear that I was again programmed by Spirit into seeking justice for myself. Not necessarily penury justice, just the kind of peace and harmony that comes from exorcising old devils and setting free the negativity that continues to have a hold over me.

Last night I was robbed of my car CD player, yet I was serene in the face of this violation. I have been violated in so many other ways, that the intrusion into my personal space seems almost insignificant in comparison. Am I ill? Or insane?

This Irishman, Noel, tried to psyche me out by staring into my eyes. I matched his gaze, unwavering, even managed to smile, both with my soul and my mouth. I sent warmth out to him, but still protected myself as much as possible. He felt uncomfortable, and David-like, he abruptly left.

Then like a strange calling, he waited for me to leave the American Book Store, then proceeded to follow me. Unafraid, I proceeded to walk down the street but after about ten feet, I turned and asked him if he was following me? He repeated the same back to me, utilizing bizarre mirroring like David used to employ. I smiled.

He asked me where I work? I said, in Brisbane. He asked me for my email, I said I had none, I was filing in a shit job. We parted then, with him insisting that he was going to become a Buddhist monk (something he'd used to attract my attention initially).

I told him, "Whatever space you're in mate", and left. I felt amused and amazed. Another unexpected connection with a stranger, a potential relationship that I smothered because of the bizarre nature of the encounter and the reminder of David, who seems to have left his mark on me still, in that I have been attracting strange and often unwholesome men. Men pretending love, and this Noel pretending friendship in potential, or spiritual enlightenment, whatever his game is.

He asked me "What is your game?" I answered "I have none, I am devoid of games, what's yours?"

A very strange encounter indeed

© Tanya Désirée Arons 16 May 2001

Lovers leap like lepers.

Have you ever experienced real love? Felt the bliss and exhilaration of falling in love, perhaps for the very first time, only to discover that the one you felt all this emotion for, is false; is seeking your destruction; is colluding with your enemies to bring that destruction about.

That even with this knowledge, you persist in loving this person, because the awful grief and emptiness that is left in your soul is unbearable.

So you cling to a distant memory- a smile, a touch, an aroma, snippets of conversations shared with your lover - things that made you feel warm and loved and protected, things which dissolved like acid rain on parched earth, in the harsh dawning of reality.

The reality that you were cheated on, and objectified, that your lover did not want a relationship with the real 'you', that his fantasy of unending self-gratification without the structure of a long-term relationship was destroying you, emotionally, mentally and physically.

The rejection of your individuality, your beauty and your love was so devastating that you thought you would never recover or learn to love again.

Copyright: Tanya Désirée Arons 13 August 2001

The Jacob's Ladder Syndrome.

A poor woman climbing high, being crushed by "angels" in disguise, then falling, falling into the abyss of confusion and despair, then rising, rising to the heights of human yearning.

The unending desire to overcome, to succeed and once the pinnacle of success is reached, to nurture and protect, to love and to teach the stragglers that follow- to complete the cycle of healing the sick and protecting the innocent; of advancing the cause of human rights, animal rights and environmental rights.

To go where the over-educated and the selfish have never gone before, to create a new paradigm of peace, mercy and justice for all future generations to follow.

Copyright: Tanya Désirée Arons 22 August 2001

COSMIC DREAM WEAVING

Shadow dancing down parquet floors

Heels clicking staccato fashion

Intrinsic pattern blending into Life.

Sunshine-speckled glistening kaleidoscope

Crystal meridian, spectrum of light and shadows

Creating harmonic illusions.

Play of light, mysterious shadows

Disguise the quintessential truth.

Darkness and light make strange bedfellows

But bring order and tone and depth,

To the creative artistry of the Universe.

Copyright: Tanya Désirée Arons 19 August 2001

The Schreckler

The blue askew visor

Squashed on the bewildered,

Dishevelled hair,

Attached to the low-noise tolerance

Scrambled brains

Totalitarianist,

Heckling, antisocial

Critique of music and sound

At the Brisbane Writers' Festival.

Or is she just mad?

Copyright: Tanya Désirée Arons, September 2001

Permanent Writer's Block

Where is the child of Creation who lived inside me so long ago? She effervesces with the outflow of energies and words and emotions. She absorbs the sights and sounds around her.

She feels the pain and angst, the comedic tragedies and the foolish petty simplicities of the human experience. Yet she refuses to yield the golden fruit of her ripening wisdom.

Why? Why is she keeping her truth locked inside? It is time to release the knowledge, the product of her imaginings, the compilation of her life experience, to the world.

The world needs affirmation and guidance; love and wisdom; truth and comfort. Why does she refuse to yield? Who is ready to share her truth? Who can tap into her shields of protection and gently extract her over-burgeoning creativity? Or can she only achieve this from within herself?

When can I tap once more into the fountain of all blessing and creativity, that represents my inner child? When I can reunite my etheric bodies and reintegrate into my physical reality, will I then burst forth with all the vitality of my life-force, with inspiration and love?

How did I separate myself from my inner child, and why has she blocked me? Who is she still trying to protect? Who is the nurturer of secret places of the soul? Me or my inner child?

Come to me, my sweet, my innocent, my little one? You and I are one. We have a responsibility to the world to project our unity, our unsullied energy and our talents.

We need to survive in a different way. We need to stop denying our talent, our desire for success and prosperity. Hiding our light under a bushel will only keep us trapped in poverty and oblivion and we deserve so much more...Think about how wonderful it will be to reveal your inner light and receive admiration for it, accolades even.

Come out from under the stairs of your psyche, you are no longer safe there, you are denying your right to shine and to glow and to effervesce. No-one can stop you from expressing your ultimate Self, but you. You are free!

They told you, you were stupid and insane. They made you block your beauty from their sight, because they did not deserve you. You know the healing is complete.

Your time is now, to carry on the work that you began so long ago. The work to live an exuberant life and to spread joy and love and peace, wherever there is sadness.

To show the world the art of living with Grace and dignity and honour and to impart forgiveness on those who sought our destruction, to bury our hatred deep in the cleansing waters of love and spirituality, so we can heal ourselves and others.

Copyright: Tanya Désirée Arons 23 October 2001

Big Brother Watching

Do you ever get the feeling that someone is sitting behind your shoulder, steering you in and out of weird situations in life? Do you look around, after some event, to see if they are there, or if it really was yourself that contributed to the weirdness?

Do you almost hear a bemused chuckle in your ear, when something that you thought would take all your courage and resources to endure, goes off rather well, against all expectations?

Do you know when you are on the right pathway, when doors of opportunity open wide and even unwanted traumatic events, seem in the long term, to have been gifts of wisdom and redemption? Do you know in your heart and soul and mind that you are in your bliss and everything is perfection for you?

Or do you battle this ease and comfort because most of your life, all that you have known perfectly is grief and failure and betrayal and disappointment, and you cling to these illusions of permanent unhappiness because they are like a pair of well-worn high-heeled shoes?

You are always teetering somewhere, off-balance, uncomfortable, but you like how they make your lovely legs stretch, and give shapely contours to the muscles, and offer you a feeling of height and power, when in reality you are being tortured in a crippling sort of way.

Negativity and misery which is kept around as a crutch for a person who avoids their own capacity for joy, cripples the soul in the very same way. Lose it!

You have a whole new learning to discover when you release the pain, sorrow and anger and the frustration. Forget the creep who stole your joy. You gave it to him, when you perpetuated his memory by pining and crying and yearning for a better relationship.

Form your own relationship, with yourself. Be your own best friend, be the one person in this universe who is uniquely you, and give no credence to those who wish to undermine or destroy you. They will never succeed unless you let them.

Rediscover your joy, your strength and independence. Show the world that you are back on top of things. Smile, make a fool of yourself, make mistakes, but go on, go forward and never look back on those who only brought you negativity and sadness.

If they truly loved you, they would desire only the best for you. They did not, so give the best to yourself.

Copyright: Tanya Desirée Arons 23/10/2001

The Guru Files

Once I met a strange Indian lady, called Gita. She was so excited to meet me. How do I know this for a fact? She didn't leave me in any doubt of it. She told me, “It is so special to meet you!”

I was flattered, naturally, since I have an ego, like any other human being on this planet, and have not yet subjugated my sense of self into selflessness, therefore I am easily entranced by anyone who shows me the slightest kindness.

I decided that she wanted something from me (don't they all?) so I kept my distance for a few months, but then curiousity and boredom got the better of me.

Hence, all these wasted months that I could have been friends with her. So I spent four hours with the woman, who was so enamoured of me, (or is it my energies?)

After a while, I found her guru-like ravings boring, so I went home, feeling tired and drained. There is nothing new under the sun, just ask King Solomon, of blessed memory. I am so hard to entertain these days. Or am I cynical?

I guess what I've really learnt from the whole experience is that people can fall in love with another person, quite irrationally and without any forethought. A woman, can become besotted with another woman, just because of the clothes she wears or the way she carries herself, when she's inside those clothes.

I find it hard to define myself, by the clothes I'm wearing, since in my heart of hearts, I prefer it when I am naked and when I am clothed I try to wear something unusual or ethnic, because, if I must project an image, it will be of individuality and freedom and carefree happiness, rather than that of conservatism.

Gita would like to be my guru, but it is difficult for me to sublimate my own need to transmit occult knowledge. She is a Hindu, I am a Jew, yet we both have so much we can teach one another.

We are equals on the axis of human existence. Both women, both mothers, both spiritually developed, although in different cultures and systems of thought.

Both free, yet both survivors of suffering inflicted by life and unworthy people, which has its own unique sense of freedom. (Not sweet, innocent, carefree freedom as experienced by small children, or wild lion cubs frolicking in the veldts) but a freedom that is bought and paid for and worn as a badge of honour, or as a symbol of rejoicing.

I am known by those who have learnt the meaning of suffering, and of blessing. They see it in my eyes and the way I watch them. You are known to me, before I even choose you as a friend, or lover. I await your interaction, through this lifetime, or several lifetimes.

The source of love is eternal and will always attract the components of existence into its orbit. My love has been spilt on men who were not worthy, or gilded on those who loved me in return, but in all the good and bad experiences, that my heart has laboured over, there is the knowledge that it had to be, and will be yet again.

Copyright Tanya Désirée Arons 2002

The Princess Searching

Not very long ago in a far away place lived a princess longing to meet her prince. Well it didn't pan out that way, as fairy tales tend to do, no she pined herself into a frazzle of a wreck of a woman and went on a journey to find 'the one'.

The journey was long and arduous and fraught with dangers at every turn. She persisted though, cos the alternative for her was loneliness and despair...so on and on she went dragging her feet and keeping her nose pointed forward, seeking out her destiny.

On the road she met many shadow men...ones that promised her the world but did not have the world to give. So she sojourned with them for a while, each one bringing a lesson and a time of pleasure and pain.

Many moons passed and the time of her dreaming slowly came to the end. Her travails upon the road ceased and the road became smooth and her steps were firm upon the road, and she knew she had gained in wisdom along the way.

So her heart once more beckoned to go home and she followed her desire with all the remaining strength left in her. She gave up her traveller's rags and donned her robes of royalty once more.

She no longer looked frazzled or despaired of being alone. For she had seen the real world and all its cruelties, yet hidden within it, all of its beauty. How could she fail to find such joy in self hood after the wonderful journey she had been on?

What of the prince, you ask? Well, in time, all good things come...it is knowing how to recognise them when they are there. The shadow men were not the prince...but the princess no longer needed to feel she needed a prince to feel whole either.

Copyright Tanya Désirée Arons

Female Freedom Fighter Follows Foolish Heart

I walked on the beach, feeling sanctified and happy, the purifying sea soothing my feet and ankles, the salt spray in my hair and face, the healing, the joy of reveling in new-found freedom.

The freedom from longing for love to turn the corners of my wizened heart and replenish it with new delights, new beginnings, new life - the life force of my soul.

Drumming, rhythmic, flowing, convulsing, physical embodiment of spiritual energies, attuning, vibrating, building, convoluting, expressing. A yearning, a gathering in the fissures of my soul.

I feel I am being summoned, by whom, I do not know? I sense the overwhelming emotion of love being sent to me in waves of time and space. I wait, patiently counting the ocean's rhythmic depths and orgasmic sighing that follows each crash onto the beach.

When I finally returned to the carpark in Byron Bay , I saw that someone has tried to call me, on my mobile phone. I retrieved the message and discovered that it is the one, who I have come here to find release from.

I felt amazed and bewildered, that his connection to me is so strong that in all the drumming on the beach, and all the crashing of the waves, and all the gentle whispering of the sea breezes caressing my lost and lonely face, there had been his voice, his yearning, searching for me, wanting me.

My foolish vanity got the better of me. I drove home, and two and half hours later, returned his phone call, left my kids and went to him, for a night of passion and mystery. So much for freedom and release and embracing the newness of my life of independence. So much for all my higher ideals. A blink, a nod, a sigh, and I sold myself to the devil of love.

© Tanya Désirée Arons 17 April 2002

Attack of the Zine Makers

Publications free or cheap, leaving a smoky aftertaste in the thought processes of the brain-dead (or cerebrum-dying), starved of intellectual stimulation that the proletariat exemplify.

Give us a cheap thrill or a sacrilegious satire, turn our minds into more than grey papier machéed pulp, make our brain stems throb with excitement, titillation and interest, or coax us into a state of enlightenment as opposed to the acknowledgement of the mundane.

Ordinariness, contrariness, homelessness, classless, ovoid-less, “…ess”...essence, essential, esteemed, estranged, estrogen.

Testosterone, preposterous prose, polite polemical poetry, zine masters unite, in obscurity, and perpetuity. Light, darkness, divulgent blends of shadows and speckled light, grey and lovely and lonely in the kaleidoscope of my awareness.

Open oneself to the imagination of the spirit and the flawlessness of the Eternal Muse, the creative nature that rebuilds and procreates anew, like the serpent that swallows its own tail. The eternal juxtaposition of life and spirituality, health and disease, knowledge and ignorance.

Copyright Tanya Désirée Arons 5 September 2002

Burnt Out Ends Of Smoky Days

Feeling horny, I sat on the floor and thought about all the things that I used to adore.

Sunsets on smoky hot days in Brisbane City, purple, pink, chartreuse, colours that even I found hard to describe but nevertheless, there they were, effulgent in the horizon.

Sunsets, for the broken hearted, brought me a kind of comfort in knowing that, just as the sun will set, it will also rise again. Just as I have loved and lost, I will heal and blossom out again, in love with someone else one day. Maybe someone who returns my love with equal passion and admiration and especially, respect, and even maybe, friendship.

Feeling horny, sitting on the floor, wishing I had someone to share my excess hormones with. Someone who would understand my predicament and would like to help me out. A simple fuck for a simple girl.

Who knew I would ever get like this? To miss the intimacy of a kiss, a caress, a look in the eye. I sit and ponder, why? I've had the best and been torn apart by the phallacy of their lies, their need to move on, leaving me behind with the rumpled sheets and cast-off underwear. Why do I miss this, most bestial, most lonely of relationships, that between a man and a woman?

Aren't my pets more faithful, more loyal? What possible good is a man to me right now? They've only ever used and betrayed me, soiled and despoiled me. Where is the love, I was promised by the mythology of my youth? Where is the union of bliss that is shared between true lovers?

I have tasted the ambrosia of the gods and lusted after the ecstasy of understanding true union, only to be cast aside like the afternoon shadows. Left with a distant memory of a touch, a yearning, and an aroma.

Feeling horny, sitting on the floor, I think about letting go of this life, and all its miseries, the regrets, the humiliations of it all, but I cannot. I have loved too well and wisely know that although they have gone, and left me feeling hollow and frustrated, there will always be another means to fulfil me.

I will reclaim my inner innocence, my sense of wonder and mystery. A sunset before dying. A million sunsets will not negate the pain I have felt and the losses I have suffered. But each one will fill me with a beauty unimaginable, and a promise of a future, unexpressable.

Another and another sunset will bid me goodbye and in the morning, I will awaken late and go about my day, with the knowledge that a miracle will occur, with or without my help, even if I do not notice.

A thousand days and an eternity of living will not take away, who I am and who I have been, and who I may yet become. A warm and welcome comfort for my weary and worrisome soul.

Copyright: Tanya Désirée Arons 9/9/2002

Mr Magoo

Once I knew a man, in the biblical sense, who made my neurons, go zing a zing zing, wackadoo Mr Magoo. In a chemical sense, he was my physical complement. Yummo and whacko. Pity he was not my spiritual compadré.

He was just not on my wave-length. He had to play around to sort out all his energies. Mine were twanging out to the Universe for a while, singing a strange cosmic song. In a way I miss him.

He made me feel things on a different level to anything I've felt before. Not necessarily things that were good for me to feel. Maybe he was an alien. Sparked up my electromagnetic ectoplasm and discharged me out into space, where it was safe for me to explode like a firecracker.

Unfortunately for him, I was only a human girl, looking for love and a little excitement. Needing commitment to really spark, and fizzle and glow. (Sigh) you get that.

Copyright Tanya Désirée Arons 9 September 2002

The Violin Case Escapade

Once I was given an old battered violin case. I had always wanted to learn the violin, but being neither mathematical, nor musical, I had demurred. So having a violin case in my possession gave me an artificial feeling of being musical and cool, and arty, in a far out way.

So I was quite fond of this violin case. I painted it and découpaged it, with weird pictures that I'd gleaned from Art Gallery catalogues etc. I glued some photos of my kids, discreetly hidden in it, and a calligraphic initial, to make it a really personal art piece. I was so proud of it.

One day I decided to put my Tarot cards in it, and go to my old shop, which was operated by my ex-husband, and have a meal there, with my kids. I didn't think there was anything wrong with that, since I technically still owned the shop, and was entitled to meals each week.

So I sat outside, and waited for our meals to be prepared, by my staff. I opened the violin case, and took out my Tarot cards, and shuffled them and did a quick spread. I didn't like what I saw, (it was a messy ugly divorce) so I put the cards back.

I had created quite a stir. My ex-husband thought I had brought in a gun, in my violin case, since he obviously thought of me as some kind of gangster guru, machiavellian and thuggish.

Interesting, since he was the one committing fraud and running my business, (and therefore the money from my house etc), into the ground, driving me into abject poverty. Maybe, if I'd known that for certain, at the time, I would have found myself a weapon, but I don't think Tarot Cards really class as a dangerous weapon, except to a fool like the man I'd married.

So I looked up to see the looks of horror on his face, and the faces of his so-called freeloading friends and associates, who also happened to be there, and whom I had chosen to ignore.

They were only eating my livelihood and profits, but live and let live, they would find out one day what a low life my ex really was, so I'd simply got on with my reading and my dinner.

It was almost comical to see the fear, distrust and loathing in their eyes. I'd had a wonderful Public Relations expert in my husband.

He'd done a terrific job of convincing everyone, including himself, that I was a homicidal maniac. (What a lovely sounding word, h-o-m-i-c-i-d-a-l maniac, so much more satisfying than suicidal loser.)

How easy it would have been to fall into the trap of killing or be killed. How delicious the sense of gratification, to have got one in before the bastards got me.

But I really am a lovely, decent girl. Sure I get angry, real angry, who wouldn't with the PR rap I'd been given by a vicious pathetic, money-grubbing man, but it's not worth languishing in prison for. No, no man is going to steal my freedom, not in marriage, not in divorce, not in life and certainly not in death. Let them rot, I say, I will triumph, I will overcome!

So I got up from the table, noticing the nymphomaniac that hoped to steal from the devastation of my life, by sucking the corpse of my marriage and fucking the Neanderthal. I almost felt pity for her. After all, I thought, she'd get everything I walked away from, but my God, she'd have to earn it.

It came to pass that she took him to the Industrial Relations tribunal for incorrect wages. So you see, there is divine retribution in everything. Who needs a loaded pistol in a decorated violin case?

I think Neanderthal man, called the Police. It would have sounded rather trite.

Ex-husband : Sergeant, my wife is trying to kill me.

Sergeant : What gives you that idea?

Ex husband: Well, she visits the shop and eats dinner and is totally unintimidated by my hostile, leering friends and paranoid staff, and she brings a violin case, and I thought she had a gun in it, but she carries her Tarot cards in it, but you never know when she might actually bring it in with a gun, or some other weapon tucked away inside, so I'm afraid of her.

Sergeant : You need a life, go and see a doctor and stop wasting my time. In the meantime we'll keep a record of your complaint on file, so we can laugh at you in our coffee and donut break.

Unfortunately some moron took him rather too seriously, because shortly after that he slapped a restraining order on me. How demeaning for sweet little me…:-/

Well, the Court Registrar had the good sense to laugh when I came in to receive some paperwork, and declared myself to be the ‘defendant'. They had a good time at my expense, but when you think about it, my ex is 6 foot 3 inches tall, and I am 5 foot 3. Quite a difference in might versus right, don't you think? What a whining crybaby bully he really was!

I suppose there is nothing more threatening in this alpha-male dominated world, apart from a Beta male, than a woman who refuses to be afraid, and refuses to give up on her human rights. Sad but true.

So, girls, if you think you're being punished for leaving a bad relationship, for having the guts and determination to start a new life for yourself and your children, then you probably are. Don't worry, time heals all wounds.

May you live long enough to see your lousy exes, get what they really wanted in life, and then not know how to handle it. For me, the ultimate revenge was seeing my ex marry a woman who treated him as shabbily as he treated me, and see him dependent on her financially.

It really is a beautiful world, if you have the patience and the cunning to wait long enough to see how justice always prevails, one way or the other. Sure he got all the money, but I got something much more precious, freedom and self esteem.

Copyright Tanya Désirée Arons 14/9/2002

The Purple Pube Prank

Once there was a new age, almost middle aged, wannabe hippy. Well, maybe her kids thought she was a Wannabe Hippy, but I reckon she really was one.

All the time she'd played the rôle of straight-laced, middle class, conservative mother/ex-wife/friend/lover, she'd felt like her soul was in an old-fashioned Playtex girdle, all strangled in the middle with her flesh squishing out the extremities. How comfortable would you be?

So she shed her excess baggage, and the latex layers of old skin, she became a bit more creatively co-ordinated. “Dress conservative, so you can get a job!” said one friend. All she could think was why? Why bury your identity to get and keep a job? She wasn't that weird, what the hell?

She dreamed of growing dreadlocks, becoming really feral (in a clean way). She dreamed of living an alternative lifestyle, far away from her so-called success-oriented peers. She wanted her freedom, an expensive experience for a one woman/two children family of impoverished gypsy-like wanderers.

One day she met a ‘conservative' man, a very dark man, a culturally different man, a weirdly enamoured man. He rocked her world. He didn't like ‘hippies'. He didn't like a free woman either. It threatened him.

So after an afternoon of passion, she drove him to work, went home and dyed her pubic hair purple. She was a wild-eyed, purple pubic people eater, that's what it's all about, dum de dum, biddy bum, Oh, yeeeeeah!

She felt rather wild and exotic. Outrageous, even. Then she realised the dye didn't take too well, and she looked more like the geriatric blue rinse brigade, only upside down, of course. Very surreal. Like she couldn't even succeed at being wildly provocative and outrageous.

She shelved the special dreadlock wax. After all, she needed someone to dread it for her, as it would definitely be a two person job. Her accessory to the fact of her desire for weirdness, baulked at the idea in the end.

Probably terrified she would change her mind and go berserk when she realised how weird, feral and dysfunctional (or should we say, functionally fashion non-conformist) she really looked. With respect to her fear of being really different for the first time in her life, claiming her right to individuality and all that jazz, he was probably right. Still she felt frustrated in her plans to achieve ‘uniqueness'.

She thought about getting a tattoo, but it was against her religion. More repression for the masses. But then a conformist needs to conform to something, to anchor them to the ground.

Old conditioning is hard to break but a burial for a Jewish renegade is still a Jewish burial. A tattoo, still a tattoo. She could plead insanity of course, write it in her Will.

“I was temporarily insane with the desire for primitive and extroverted expressions of freedom, so this tattoo should not prevent me from having a sacred burial. After all, my temporary insanity only lasted most of my adult life so why burden this soul with more tzores?

A tattoo is only a doodle scratched on flesh, after all. It is no more permanent than the living flesh of the living person, and now I'm dead, who cares what weird and wonderful things I might have had inserted into it”. I wonder if the Rabbinate will see the common sense of it?

Then after the desire for a tattoo, came slowly creeping and insidiously overwhelming, the desire to grow her own marijuana in her laundry, and perhaps, dry it and smoke it in the event of an emotional emergency. (Like when she needed to chill out from the stress of two teenage daughters almost killing each other on a daily basis.)

Then of course, she would acquire a drug habit that would need to be satiated on a daily basis. So she hesitated. A drug addiction, on top of all her other problems, was not a particularly good expression of independence. In fact, it would involve Dependence on a substance she could not afford and not trust (unless she grew her own).

She had never smoked marijuana anyway, so it was hard to understand the hankering after something she probably wouldn't like anyway, and probably would never miss. She was too old to be acting like an experimenting teenager.

What was wrong with her? Maybe the thought of impending middle age, menopause and compounded effects of sleep apnoea etc were taking over her mind/body/soul. Sometimes she felt as though she were dying and she was afraid to miss out on all the good things in life.

After all, her life had been dedicated to trying to raise two children, on her own, with no family support and no money, driven from house to house, and often in a constant state of despair over ex-lover's, or ex-family's evil machinations.

It was time she had a little bit of fun. Lived a little. Let her hair down, (even if it still cried out to be purple from time to time). Blew off the cobwebs. Well, okay, this is not about soft porn.

We mean, blew off, took off, travelled, saw new places, met new people, had new experiences, chilled out. Regrouped, reconfigured, recognised herself in the buzz and hum of society's depressed and repressive mores.

Well, maybe later, when…

Copyright: Tanya Désirée Arons 12/9/2002

My Viking Funeral

Make me a boat to lay me down in for my final journey into the void of reason and the dawn of enlightenment.

Let those who knew me and loved me the most, each carve a design of homage to my life and loves. Let the greatest artists among my friends and peers, create the most intricate design, and the simplest of you, create whatever you can achieve, be it only your own initials, to show you remember me.

Keep a template of the design you choose for my funeral, as the boat will burn with a magnificent blaze, taking all your dreams and visions of me with it.

Cry not, but rejoice in my release into the welcoming light of the discovery of the next dimension. I shall rejoice with you, my friends and fellow travellers on this ship of human existence.

©Tanya Désirée Arons October 2002

Happiness

Time passed on and the feeling of displacement hit her square on the jaw. She lay down on her bed, and contemplated the meaning of the Universe. The tests that she had been given, and whether or not she had passed or failed.

It was difficult to decide which way the coin had fallen. She lay still, warm and comforted in her bed, and knew that she must have made some right choices or she could not be here, snuggled so safe and sound at last. An unknown feeling crept into the edges of her psyche, and before she knew it, spread like melting butter all through her mind and body.

Happiness. It was an alien sensation, and she still wasn't quite prepared to deal with it. Happiness, joy and contentment, flowing through her veins, inside her very life force.

The shock of it soon followed. If she were to be happy, what must she release? What payoffs did letting go of pain have? But she decided to stay in the moment and go with the sensation, rather than fight it, as it was happiness well-deserved, and hard won.

The moment soon passed, but left her invigorated with hope and positivity once again. She might experience that feeling more often, it might visit with her again, and she might even learn to contain it somehow, make it stay more permanently within, and conquer any vestiges of despair, disappointment and depression that she had cloaked herself in for so long, so long.

She was tired and worn out from her constant battles in previous months. She still reacted strongly to triggers, such as seeing doppelgangers of her ex boyfriends, which filled her with fear.

So far they had only been false alarms but she lived in fear of what might happen if she accidentally bumped into either of them. It was an irrational fear based on the damage done to her emotionally, by being embroiled in a long standing battle with her family and ex boyfriends.

Even though she had long ago escaped them, she was still on constant alert, and felt constantly threatened by them, whether she heard of them, or saw them anywhere, or not.

© Tanya Désirée Arons 6 June 2004

The Island Of Tears

There came a time and not so long ago, when the fantasies lived out in the Purple Pube Prank story actually came to be. Who would have thought? The middle-aged Hippy finally rebelled and got her dreadlocks.

The catalyst was that some women at her Shule had a go about her hairstyle, so she decided to hell with it…if they don't like the way I wear my hair, I'll go the whole hog and really give 'em something to freak out about. Anyway, the time had come to integrate her exterior weirdness with her interior weirdness.

It felt good too and it had another side effect. She'd been invited for coffee by a mutual friend of hers and an ex lover. So she wanted to shock him out of ever thinking she would take him back. He'd once told her, (after he saw her belly piercing) that if she ever got dreadlocks that he'd never speak to her again.

She wanted to make sure of that…so she asked her best friend Jarrod to dread her hair. That was an event in and of itself. Jarrod spent the whole day backcombing her hair in preparation for the coffee evening. His arms ached and he was quite exhausted after spending the whole day doing her hair. But he did it.

Her hair was really wild…and stood on end. It looked really crazy in the afternoon, when another friend saw the not-quite-finished dreads…and freaked out!!! So she knew she was on to something. Jarrod ended up getting quite hysterical, every time he looked at her, he burst into peals of laughter. That's how bad they looked the first day, even the first month or two. But she was determined.

She went to The Three Monkeys, dressed flamboyantly and Dreadfull. The ex lover was so shocked he didn't speak to her at all…no great loss there. The mutual friend, Judith, took it all very well and made no comment on her appearance.

They drank their coffees and another friend from shule, Ron who was invited also, talked with her animatedly, his only reaction upon seeing her dreads was a deep crimson blush. The ex lover got quite jealous, or so she thought as he kept watching her chatting with Ron. They discussed sanding down of tables, a project she was working on at the time. Ron promised to lend her an orbital sander.

Anyway the coffee evening went off rather well, and she felt triumphant and lightheaded. She even got a really big mug for her hot chocolate whilst the other two women got small cups. She was spoilt just because of her dreads…Cool!!!

Well she was so certain that she had got the ex out of her life forever. So some months later it was a huge shock that the friend, Judith, invited her to Russell Island for a rest. She had been through some major trauma with her mother again…after 3 years of no contact, and she was in the middle of a nervous breakdown, so she agreed to go to the island.

At no time did Judith tell her that the ex lover would be there. So it was a shock to find him waiting at the ferry with Judith. She didn't want to make a scene and she was curious enough to see if they could be friends again, that she decided to go along with them.

Big mistake. She spent the first day under control and was civil and friendly towards the ex. She thought, well, more people are coming tomorrow, so that will be a distraction and she won't have to spend so much time with him and Judith alone. But the next day the others didn't arrive, and so she began to unravel emotionally.

She tried hard to control herself, to be adult, mature and handle her emotions. By that evening, she was openly crying. Judith told Tekeste, the ex lover, that she was on the island for healing and this was part of the healing process!

The whole holiday was weird and spiritual. Compounded by the fact that when Judith, Tekeste and herself went to hire videos…well, a young good-looking man came into the video shop and approached her.

He told her how gorgeous she looked with the dreads, and struck up a conversation with her about Byron Bay. She was so flattered and impressed, she felt like running away with him, until she saw his car outside, was full of yobbos. Otherwise she might have done it.

Anyway, Tekeste looked suitably amazed and it was the Universe's way of once again showing him that other men might find her attractive and approach her. Might love her even. Hmmmmmm.

The next morning, she and Tekeste got into a fight. She got to tell him that he had only lied to her and cheated with her and he had not even been honest about himself and who he really was, so he had no business trying to form relationships with women.

Then she told Judith that she wanted to leave the island. So then the weirdest thing of all, they both decided to see her off at the island ferry. They had to wait ages, for the lunch break to be over, so the ferry would resume service. Tekeste and Judith made idle chatter. He actually made an effort to be friendly…a goodbye gesture.

She shook his hand, but didn't make eye contact, and got on the ferry and looked away from both of them. After a long while she realized they were both waiting for the ferry to leave and were watching her. So she waved again, with her heart in her mouth and feeling very strange.

She had a sudden mad thought that she should just jump off the back of the ferry and swim to the mainland but resisted the impulse. It was a hell of a long swim in shark-infested waters and she'd never make it.

She resigned herself to the fact that the love affair was well and truly over and she had done well to stay as long as she did, had tried hard to resuscitate at least friendship. Felt certain that Judith had intended exactly that, and was misguided enough not to trust her judgment. At least she had got to say what was on her mind, to inform him why she was so hurt. She got to say goodbye.

The dreads stayed for a few more months, until they started growing out of her scalp all straight and lank and crazy looking, and she decided to cut them off. One thing for certain, that six months that she wore dreadlocks was the best and worst of times for her.

She felt really integrated and liberated. She had never been treated so well and found so many people so friendly and outgoing towards her as when she had worn dreads. She would always have happy memories of her dread phase.

A few days after she got her dreads, she went and got her nose pierced. She also bought some cherry red Doc Martens in a secondhand shop, which were brand new and only $65. So she had the whole grunge look and felt really fantastic and cool. Some of her daughters' friends saw her new look and unanimously agreed that she was cool.

So she felt really uplifted and excited about her new change of direction. By the time the dreads had grown out and she had resigned herself to get rid of them, she had already been through so many emotional changes that she was ready for anything the future might bring her.

She still battled depression on and off again, but she felt stronger now than ever. Safe and secure in her home and with a new found mental clarity that meant she coped with life better.

During the 'dread period' she finished sanding down her computer table and a staff. So she went through a creative phase as well. Unfortunately she didn't continue with the creativity, but she achieved something at least.

© Tanya Désirée Arons 17 June 2004

An Authentic Life

Writers, Directors, Producers, Artists…you name it, if they are in the entertainment industry or have any connection to the Arts…they've been plagiarizing from my life, bits and pieces of my life turn up in the media everywhere…like the angst and struggle of a single mother as portrayed in Absolutely Fabulous, or the reminiscences of lovers gained and lost, like the African Guy in I love Huckabees, who happened to be a coincidence as experienced by the main character.

It is no accident that as in the Huckabees not all coincidences are meaningful…but if that is true then why do so many similar relationships or connections or turns of events that happen in my life, turn up inevitably in a movie or play or in a song? I mean…I want to be an original…in fact I do believe I AM an original. But how are these things being plucked from my experiential memories and being stolen by other writers?

What is it that I have in common with all these other so-called creative talents? What is at the core of my inner essence that they are able to tap into? Or is it just an accident, that every TV show, every movie has some element of my LIFE in it?

Is this why I am always tired and drained of energy…because my life is being sucked through some kind of Black Hole and analyzed and edited and reproduced in Digital sound and technicolour on some screen somewhere?

Is this paranoia that I am feeling? I doubt it…my last lover was an Ethiopian Jew (hence an African Guy). How many people in the Western World outside of Africa can actually say they had an African guy for a lover? Surely not many. Or is it popular in America to adopt an African to live in their house or to make lovers of them?

I think not…but I am confused…perhaps it is why the writer of the Huckabees movie and I are bonded by a shared experience…perhaps fictional for the writer…but very real and very much an experiential memory for me.

So now I am in doubt of my very sanity…well let me be honest with you…I am not well, would you be? If every time you watched a movie something or some part of it resonated with you completely? I mean does this even happen to other people?

I want Royalties…I want my money…I've earned it in blood sweat and tears…while some nimble astral traveler with wit and the sitzfleisch to sit for long hours at a keyboard, hammering away my life…steals precious moments from my ever-sleeping brain….(why am I ever sleeping? To give them that chance to "download" my memories from the creative sphere of my brain…to unplug me from the Matrix of all experiences…to rip me off and make my surrealist angst-ridden life into a parody or a comedy of errors).

As already stated…I want to be paid…I want to earn, for a comfortable lifestyle the money that should have come to me in the first place…how do I do this? Ha, ha, ha, I will beat them at their own game…I may not be able to unplug the Matrix but I can write my own experiences and my own subjective reality and show the world that I am no idle prattling fool…that I do know that my life is Meaningful and in that one small validation, can finally let go of the dross and turmoil of living a vicarious existence, and return to the original source, a vibrant vivacious vexatious and verified Life Of My Own.

Not stolen, not B-Grade, not an alternative reality to hide behind and place blame on…MY LIFE. Moi. Me, Myself and I, and my place in this crazy fucked up world. And why I am the way I am, and who made me and who played me and who loved me and who failed me and what then? What then? A comedy of errors.

So here we go again, just to remind you…Garden State…fabulous movie…consisting of yet another African guy, this time adopted and living with the American family as a son. The mother of the main character 'suicided' by drowning in the bath…and quote 'had been depressed for years' which also struck a chord because of my interminable struggle with major depression myself…I'm sure my kids will only remember me after I am long gone for being ill and depressed.

So it was like a blow to my head. The truth in it was like….wow! Mind-bending even. The scene at the funeral with the guys on the earthmover…ready to dig the mother in… straight out of my life with my poor mother in law being dug in after the grave caved in after the night's rain before. Well you get my drift. Sorry bad pun.

So my real life is blurred into images created by contemporary media, and then there is my tendency to dream in psychedelic, technicolour, surround sound and even occasionally olfactory responses as well.

Two nights ago, I dreamt I was in Madagascar with a newborn baby boy and we frolicked in a muddy river and played with the mud and smeared mud all over ourselves. We had a fine old time!

Then we were in a boat and sailed to another island and I told the nurse (my baby was apparently sick) that they could not baptize my child and the nurse didn't want to take care of my baby until he had been baptized. Fortunately the child recovered quickly cos I had an argument with the nurse and I didn't like the primitive conditions of the hospital there anyway.

So I am about to go to hospital for a D & C tomorrow so I can see where real life and fantasy have blurred…what with the new Madagascar movie and the hospital issue. And babies represent new beginnings…and the muddy water…troubles and worries…but we were playing in it so I shall overcome! Well here's hoping anyway.

This morning I dreamt I was in Fiji, and in a beautiful house…I keep dreaming of beautiful homes that I would dearly love to own or live in…this one was of large high ceilings but several levels, and had beautiful handcarved wooden doors, and carved ornate furniture piled up to the ceiling…I climbed the furniture and then worried how I was going to get it down, or transport it to Australia. But I was so happy in this house in Fiji.

I remember a month or so ago, dreaming of a fabulous mansion in South East Asia, perhaps Bangkok, belonging to my sister and was impressed by the fabulous spa pool and swimming pool.

So I am not sure what dreaming of these different houses means, considering I am quite comfortable in the house I am living in and have security here. Perhaps I am astral traveling while I sleep or perhaps my brain cells are dying from untreated sleep apnoea.

More reason to write everything I know down…while I still know stuff, before I follow my mother's descent into Alzheimer’s. My luck I will get it too and then I will be really screwed.

© Tanya Désirée Arons 13 July 2005

The Sacred Island

The sacred island…calls me from the mists of time, calls me with a certainty that I will return some day, the cool breezes in my hair again, the ocean spray in my nostrils, the wildness, the primal dichotomy of life and death, ebb and flow, of eternity resting gently upon the waves.

The island, wow, how I've missed it. Rowing with our dinghies out across a wild channel of sea. Dangerous work for 12 year olds, hard work for 7 year olds…across to the island, to discover, what? Just an island, a few seagulls, a cormorant or two standing proud upon a sea-washed rock. What magic does this island hold for us, the children of the past?

What is it that calls me back….calls me back….calls me…calls…what do others feel for this island, this heart of Island Bay? Artists capture its natural beauty on canvas or write about it on paper, but it is etched indelibly in my heart.

Though I live far away from home, in another country, another world, another environment, my heart still yearns for the island of Island Bay or Tapu Te Ranga as the Maori called it…sacred island.

I have a painting of the island in my house. So I can see it any time I like…but it's not the same as seeing the real thing, with the waves crashing down upon it, the salt smell in the air, the calling of the sea birds, the wondrous swishing of the kelp.

The whole coastline used to fill us kids with delight. Not a moment was ever spent lost in boredom, we had the whole ocean at our feet. As a young girl I used to ride my bicycle, freewheeling through the icy sea breezes, straight off the Cook Straits, which are fed by Antarctic streams.

The cold air in my chest used to grab my lungs and squeeze them tight and I would gasp out for more of the fresh but cold air. The feeling of exhilaration this gave me was one of delight, and battling the cold weather, made me feel powerful and strong.

Often I would ride my bicycle with my older friend Lynne, and we would ride a long distance, over 5 kilometres to the Red Rocks, which were so named because of their red colour. Red Rocks was another delight because of the seal colony which lived there and certain times of the year, if we were really lucky, we might come across the occasional fairy penguin travelling who knows where, maybe on their way to Phillip Island in Australia where they traditionally breed.

Often on the ride we would be treated to the sight of migrating whales, frolicking in the summer waters. I never forget the day, our family were standing outside on our deck and watching the whales, blowing and breaching, frolicking and quite obviously courting their mates.

My halfsister said in awe, "What are they doing?" I said, being the youngest, "having sex of course", and my brother in law without missing a beat, very dryly commanded…"Don't look!" We all burst into laughter.

Beyond Red Rocks, much further riding along the coastline were old miner's or fishing huts…as children we could never figure out which they were. We used to go inside them sometimes to shelter from bad weather or to look for treasure, which of course we never found, but those huts were always exciting, dilapidated as they were.

My most favourite part was when Lynne would bring matches and potatoes wrapped up in Alfoil, and we would have sausages and start a fire and cook them…food like that never tasted so good. Out in the wilderness, we two kids…far away from adult supervision, we felt free and independent.

We were never home much, coming from such dysfunctional families, that we escaped together as often as we could. We had a close bond and were as close as sisters, Lynne being an only child, and my own half-sister being 15 years older and married, I felt like an only child too. So we had each other to lean on and thank God we did!

At Red Rocks the kelp was brownish and very thick and swayed over and under itself. Then there was the seaweed shaped like strings of pearls and when dried you could pop each 'pearl' just for the pleasure of hearing each pop!

One day we rode there and there was a sea lion basking in the sun on the rocks quite close to shore. So we slowly and cautiously approached it. When I was only a metre away, it eyeballed us quite hostilely, and let out an unexpected BARK!

We both jumped into the air and ran for the safety of the beach, our hearts thumping and hoping the wild seal with the yellow teeth and wise seafaring ways wouldn't come after us in a flux of temper. Then with beating hearts we laughed out loud at our folly. To think we ever thought we could have our own pet seal!

There was another favorite secret place we loved to go to. We called it Spooky Creek. It was nestled between hills and halfway up someone, probably the council had built a small dam. But that didn't stop us. We used to leave the track that lead to Red Rocks, just after the Quarry and head to the right to our special place.

We'd follow the creek some distance, slipping on the mossy rocks, sometimes on hot days we'd actually let ourselves fall in…laughing with glee. The water was crystal clear and sparkled like diamonds around our feet, cooling and titillating at the same time.

One day we discovered to our horror that there were eels in the dam, and I never felt quite the same about swimming in it after that…ewwwww, too scared I'd get bitten. Anyway we'd travel on up into the hills past the dam, and Lynne would make sketches of the landscape for she was a talented artist and I would sit and dream or watch her, or talk of important things, like school or other friends or family matters.

After what would seem hours spent in the idyllic hills, listening to the tinkling of the stream that fed into the creek, we would make our journey home, tired, covered in scratches from the ubiquitous gorse bushes, but content, with the summertime scent of the gorse in flower, wafting down the hills.

Then would come the long ride home and the inevitable jealous and hostile questions from my mother. Where were you so long? What were you doing? But our mothers never seemed to overly worry about our safety so in one respect we had an idyllic childhood.

Besides, the dangers we faced were most often from our own homes. But that is another story and one I prefer not to tell right now.

Behind our homes was a cliff-face covered in flax. Flax is a kind of flat, shiny leaved bush with long straps but quite sharp edges. The Maori used to use it to weave baskets, by beating the fibres and letting it dry in the sun. It is a strong plant and holds tight to the cliff. So another favourite pastime was flax jumping.

We would scale the cliff face, climbing from flax bush to flax bush, pulling ourselves ever higher, then we would literally jump and slide down each bush. Which was great fun as long as there was ground at the bottom to jump down to!

On one occasion, we kids went to the Quarry and were about to jump in the flax when we realized it was a 20 or 30 metre drop down, with nothing to hold on to. If we'd continued we'd probably have fallen to our deaths. The funny thing is, we had no fear and would try almost anything.

When I was about 16, I tried climbing the cliff behind my house, and got a few feet up and simply froze. I had lost my ability to shut off the fear of heights and loose ground under my feet. I also had lost faith in the strength of the flax to support me! So I gave up and came back to solid ground and have been stuck to the Earth ever since.

I hate amusement park rides and thrills and like to have my feet firmly planted, thank you very much! So it was then that I realized that I had lost my childhood sense of wonder and risk-taking. Yet I have fond memories of summer days spent flax jumping, swimming and snorkeling in the first and second channels at Island Bay.

Copyright Tanya Désirée Arons 2004

The Psych Hospital Escapade

There was a time that I went a little bit insane and spent four hours at the Princess Alexandra Hospital proving my sanity...or what was left of it. It was the strangest and most comical experience of my life, throw in lashings of high drama and romance and you have the story of my life encapsulated into one evening.

My story begins with a paedophile...who managed the unit complex where I lived. He used to parade around all us single mothers, perving on our womanly flesh and quite obviously salivating around our children as well.

One night we women had a bit of a street party, to which the paedophile invited himself to, by sauntering down the road and hanging around us girls. My daughters aged 11 and 9 were with me, having fun too. It was 8.30pm in the evening. He approached us, looked at my daughters and said out loud..."You can tell when a woman comes, cos her anus puckers up".

I looked at him in disbelief, then flew into a psychotic rage, bundled my children up and went home to my unit immediately. I slammed the windows shut to show my further disapproval and started packing.

The next day I continued packing and worked myself into a greater frenzy. I spent the day packing, digging up the garden of all my most favourite plants that I had put in. As a consequence I was covered from head to toe in my terry-towelling hausfrau dress with mud. A so-called friend came over to see me...I took a break from the gardening to chat to her about what had happened.

I found an almost empty bottle of vodka, drank the lees. Then I threw a plastic water container into the sink. To my surprise it shattered everywhere, and I bent down to pick the pieces up. The young friend left suddenly. I later found out she told the Police that I had smashed a glass bottle and had cut her foot, and that I had drunk a whole bottle of vodka!

Then I left the children alone in the unit while I drove to my mother's home in Wellington Point to offload belongings. I was gone about an hour at a time but figured the kids were safe locked in the house.

After the 4th or 5th trip to my mother's...I got anxious about the kids. It was getting late in the evening...6 pm ish and I was worried about leaving them alone too long. So I rang them on my mobile.

Crystal was quite distressed and said "Mummy, the Police are here!" I was shocked but said put them on. I said "What are you doing in my house?"

They asked me where I was and how long would it take me to get home? I said "I'll be home in 10 minutes". Freaking out as to what was going on, thinking something had happened to my kids, and blaming myself for leaving them while I packed up and delivered stuff to my mother's house.

When I got home to the Unit...there were people everywhere, and suddenly Jenny, Tracey, Kylie etc the other single women I thought were my friends all disappeared into Kylie's unit which was opposite mine and looked out into my front windows.

They were obviously all watching what was going on with the Police. The policemen, were a Seargeant and a Constable, I don't remember their names now, but the constable was thick as pigshit and quite unstable himself...and the Sgt was given misinformation about me from my mother, who told him that I had a law degree and was a lawyer. So he gave me a hard time for a while until I laughed at him and told him my mother had made a fool out of him and it was my sister who had the law degree.

Anyway they followed me into the kitchen and asked me if I had screamed the neighbourhood down and threatened to kill myself. I said "I was a bit vocal yes, but I am not suicidal. Here's my psychiatrist's card (Dr Marshall at that time) and the medications I'm on".

They both looked at each other and said "We are arresting you under the mental health act and taking you for assessment to the Princess Alexandra hospital!"

I said "What for? I've done nothing wrong". They insisted. I said, "Please, if you're seriously going to do this, I need to get changed, I don't want to appear covered in mud like this, looking crazy."

I went upstairs, followed by the Sgt. In my bedroom I peeled off the dress, only to realise that the Sgt was right behind me. I said, "Excuse me but I'm getting dressed." He turned his back...I put on a pair of jeans and a bright coloured pink T-shirt.

Then I went back downstairs with the cops. Blossom, my white cat was in the lounge. The constable patted her. He turned to me and said, "Your white cat is skinny". I said, "no she's fine as she is"...all night long for several hours until they finally left me alone with the psych nurse...he kept repeating over and over again, "your white cat is skinny!" To the point where I wanted to throttle him but had to control myself cos obviously he was a policeman and I was waiting in a room with him with lino-covered walls, staring at his big feet in his big policeman shoes, in the psychiatric department of the hospital. But I digress...

My mother had earlier arrived at the unit, with a friend Trevor and picked up the children and Blossom, the white cat. My cat Taly was left locked in the unit.

On the way to the cop car, I noticed that the girls who were my so called friends were all watching from Kylie's house...so I said to the constable, holding out my hands to him, "so cuff me" and laughed. He wouldn't do it, stating that it was not necessary and opened the door for me to get in the back seat of the police car with him. It smelled of leather upholstery and of men's sweat.

The Sgt kept asking me how smart I was and where I got my law degree? In the end I told him he had the wrong sister. Laughing out loud…And the constable, you guessed it, did the whole “your white cat is skinny” routine...when we arrived at the hospital, they walked me past Outpatients and I could see the fear in people's eyes at seeing a woman being escorted by two policeman so I smiled broadly at them all.

I said I needed to go to the toilet. The constable said, it's just down the hall...so I walked down the hall to the bathroom. A person in a wheelchair was trying to wheel herself into the bathroom, which was just a small toilet cubicle.

I said, "You'll never fit in there, there must be a disabled toilet somewhere nearby" her carer agreed with me and wedged the chair out of the tight spot they had got into...by then the constable had freaked out that I took so long and came after me to see me dealing with the paraplegic and her carer.

I noticed the exit door was right adjacent to the toilet and I could have made a run for it in the carpark and split from the hospital grounds if I had wanted to. He also looked at the exit and looked at me and escorted me back to the interviewing room.

After about an hour alone with those two nutjob policemen, I got interviewed by a psych nurse called Tommy Lawrence. I thought he was a doctor at first, and was in awe of him for a few minutes.

Until he kept bullying me, and questioning me on how suicidal I was, out of 1-10 etc. I reached suddenly for a tissue to cry into and he got such a fright he recoiled backwards in his chair. Then I knew I had him.

I said, "Well I might not have been suicidal when I was brought in here, but I bloody well AM NOW", and screamed the last 2 words at him and glared at him furiously.

His whole demeanour and line of questioning changed and he mellowed and I could see he respected me for standing up for myself. He kept leaving the room to speak to someone else, who I later realised was the Resident Doctor on Duty. He also kept receiving phone calls...why he left the room.

During the course of the 3 hours that I was with him...I asked him if a blonde German woman had been phoning and pressuring them to keep me in hospital? He looked at me in amazement and said well I can't see her hair colour down the phone but yeah, an elderly woman with an accent has been phoning the hospital.

I said, "See, I am not paranoid, my mother is trying to commit me in order to get custody of my girls..she is dangerous and not to be trusted. Please take no notice of anything she tells you and if you want any information ask me...and I'll tell you straight what happened? I AM NOT INSANE, I AM JUST VERY VERY ANGRY RIGHT NOW".

Tommy reassured me that I was under assessment and it would be advantageous to me to stay in hospital for 3 days for a break. I said, "I can't do that, I have a house to move, children to look after and a cat locked up in my unit (the kids had taken Blossom but not Taly) and no one would feed her or give her water for 3 days and she would surely die without me coming home." He insisted that I stay in hospital and I insisted that I was in deep crisis and didn't have the luxury of a nervous breakdown.

After almost 4 hours of interviewing, the Resident Doctor came to speak to me. I told my whole story again, about the paedophile and about my reaction to what he had said. The Doctor looked at me in amazement.

He agreed with me that had he been in my position he would have packed up too, or even worse, beaten the unit manager up. I laughed. Relieved that at long last someone was seeing my side of the story made sense.

Finally he also tried to convince me to stay in the hospital for 3 days...I said "Look, if I do that, and stay ..what will happen to my cat, Taly, and also it will give my mother what she has always wanted, confirmation that I am insane, when I am not...and I can't afford to give her that win over me." Tommy and the Dr made eye contact and I knew that they agreed with me.

So finally Tommy showed me a taxi chit to get a taxi ride home to the units, and offered to walk me to the taxi rank near the hospital. I accepted gratefully as it was late at night, I was very tired and overwrought from the stress of it.

On the walk down to the rank, Tommy said to me, in his broad Irish accent, "You know, you have really had a rough time of it, you should come with me to Sydney and start a whole new life down there". I smiled, said that's a lovely idea but what about my children? He said, "Bring your children with you". I said "Look, I have animals and responsibilities, I can't just up and leave on a whim and go to Sydney, with you or anybody. Now go home to your ex wife who has just had a newborn baby and is probably exhausted and overwrought all the time and give her a kiss and make it up with her. She's not insane...she's a mother!"

He put me in the cab and waved energetically to me and blew me a kiss, smiling broadly. The cabbie saw the chit, the male nurse and freaked out. I could tell he thought he had an axe murderer in his cab so I kept quiet.

I was so happy to get home safely to the unit, that I went around to the girlfriend who had accused me of cutting her feet (unbeknownst to me at the time). She was having a party and freaked out when she saw me at the door.

I asked her if she had any boxes so I could keep packing. She said No. I said "ok thanks anyway" and sauntered off home.

I grabbed plastic bags, packed the car full of as much as I could get in...then I put Taly (who was very distressed about the move) in the car and drove to my mother's.

I arrived at my mother's at about 11.40pm. She was still awake and came downstairs when she heard me arrive. She said "What are you doing home? You're supposed to stay in hospital for 3 days!"

I said "Wrong mother, there's nothing wrong with me so they let me come home, anyway I was worried about the kids and Taly." "I'm looking after the kids", said Mum...I said "no I am, and the cats too, and I have a unit to pack up. You just stay out of my business and let me get on with what I have to do."

She asked me about the hospital so I told her what happened and how I had got the nurse to really listen to me and stop bullying me. She told me..."you really are nuts and should be in that hospital...I can't believe how you spoke to the nurse...where do you get the nerve?"

I said "Just because you would like me to be insane and to take my kids away from me, doesn't mean I am and that it will ever happen, so back off!" Then I was overwhelmed with a feeling of shock and exhaustion and went upstairs to bed.

My beautiful cat followed me and jumped on the bed and slept with me all night...relieved that she had not been abandoned after all. So in effect, I was saved by a cat. How cool is that?

Copyright Tanya Désirée Arons 2004