Memories: 8 March 2023

8 March 2023

https://youtu.be/Jl1F-C-TQ18

8 March 2022

I woke up at 10 am and decided to mow the lawns with my new hardwon self-propelling lawnmower. It’s only the second time I have mowed my own lawn after many years. I forgot it nearly killed me years ago too.

I only managed to get half the grass done. I hyper-ventilated and had to stop and hold onto the fence and gasp for breath. My lungs don’t have the capacity for any physical or hard labour.

I was hanging onto the fence, crying in frustration, while my heart palpitated, red-faced and feeling like I might vomit or faint.

My neighbour Warren approached me and asked gently if I was all right? I told him that I feel like I am dying and I can’t even manage to mow my lawns as I lack the strength and lung capacity. That I have realised there is nothing wrong with my lawnmower but it’s me that lacks the strength. I was still heaving for air.

He told me to stop mowing immediately and to wait until it cools down in the late afternoon. It’s 34 degrees Celsius today! I had no idea it was that hot. There was a lovely breeze at least.

He told me to drink more water and forget about the mowing for now and said “I know you are a tough old Jew but you need to stop pushing yourself so hard, Tanya”. I had to laugh. I said “you are right. I have that ghastly German/polish ethic of ‘arbeiten machst du frei’ and that is just so monstrous and a lie. Work doesn’t make you free. It kills you!”

I took his kindly advice and went back inside to rest until the next onslaught in the afternoon as I literally physically cannot cope with the lawnmowing. Gahhh! But I am proud of myself for trying so hard to keep my home and garden maintained so I can live in relative safety and peace.

Even with my useless lungs. (All this without having contracted Covid or submitted to being vaccinated. I would not have survived either of those things!)

I am strong in mind, with an iron will. Perhaps like my ancestors. But my body is failing me as I age. The declension is not coming gently. I am fighting it tooth, hair and nail. Every.single.day.

8 March 2019

Here she is. Asking to not be forgotten. Die Mutter von den Alte Hexe. (The mother of the old witch) Giggles. The power is in us all. To be better, not bitter. To overcome. To love. To Live. To Become.

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Today marks the 70th year of my grandmother Eva Auguste Meyer (Kissau)’s suicide.

A beautiful but disturbed woman. A brave woman who hated the Nazis but in her own home was a violent harridan, almost worse than any Nazi. A street angel/home devil that spawned another one.

Intergenerational trauma, compounded with war trauma, compounded with loss of country, home, safety, culture. Domestic violence spawned a mother and grandmother that although my mother proclaimed to be a staunch feminist and a labour supporter and a unionist was a monstrous hypocrite when it came to protecting or defending her own daughters.

Although my grandmother kept a wireless radio tuned to BBC (a capital offense in Nazi Germany!) and went to the holding camp in the middle of Hamburg and threw wurst and bread to the prisoners there, screaming “Down with Hitler!”, opened the door to a family friend, a communist who arrived gaunt and broken, all his teeth smashed out by the gestapo for not ceasing to distribute communist propaganda.

It was he who informed my shocked grandparents about the concentration camps and “the final solution”. Eva begged him to stop. He had been imprisoned and was barely alive. But he refused to stop fighting for freedom. He lost his life in a concentration camp.

But at home my grandmother beat my mother (my own personal monstrosity!) with a cast iron belt buckle and she was constantly covered in bruises.

My mother escaped to the South of Germany (Bavaria) by signing up to look after orphans bombed out in the many blanket bombings of Hamburg. That was how she survived, not just her own precarious violent crazed domestic situation but avoided the white phosphor bombing in July 1943.

She saw this in a dream only weeks before and begged my grandparents to leave the city. Which eventually my grandparents did, sleeping on the outskirts. Both sick with tuberculosis but it was a searingly hot summer so they were safe, sleeping in a farmer’s field while their entire neighbourhood was a molten inferno from the heat of the white phosphor. The roads melted and people threw themselves into the river. Bodies shrank as my mother had witnessed in her dream.

So my daughters and myself (who never experienced WW2 firsthand but inherited plenty of war trauma from my paedophile concentration camp survivor de facto stepfather and my Nazi-regime surviving mother) are alive only because of my mother’s gift of precognition, and courage and determination. Guts, if no glory.

I am a Jew. In spite of my ancestors and their predelictions to genocide and child abuse. In spite of my domestically perverted upbringing. In spite of what? A G-d who rarely had my back, as a child, growing up with 5 inadequate monstrous caregivers. Predators and their protectors.

So excuse me if I might have to scream now. They all got away with it. As did my abusers and slanderers in the Jewish community.

Good and evil. I have danced amongst the most utter shitstains of humanity and risen above it, barely keeping my own mind and soul intact. But I did it. Fiercely, courageously, lovingly guided and protected by good kind people.

The banshee can wait... my other ancestors.... slavishly drooling underneath my window. If there will be screaming, it will only be mine. Screaming for vengeance, for peace, for healing, and for the sweet sweet release of Eternal Love and Light.

I have seen it coming. The rising of the Divine Feminine, the Shechinah, for she holds me precious, soothes my inner wounds, staunches my fear and horror and mollifies my fury. She gifted me Rabbis who fought for my honour, and my humanity. Not one, but three!

The power of three. The irony not lost on me. She gifted me good strong loving friends. Two daughters. And myriads of unconditionally loving pets who saw me and cared for me when no human could.

She gifted me spirits and dreams and hope for another kind of existence. Free of my abusers. And so it is. Thank you Schechinah.

Now the “great work” continues... get everyone else safe and free too, please. No fucking cognitive dissonance here. I operate in a society that is still highly abusive and murderous: to women, to asylum seekers, to children. That still turns its back on the disenfranchised, marginalised, the vulnerable. That is still funding wars and other atrocities.

Well we all know how that turns out, those of us who survived the broken and the damned.

So breathe. We got this! Let us rejoice in creating a new paradigm. One soul at a time. Switch on their light and see...the immense beauty and goodness still out in the world.

Even if it is only the size of an Angel, dancing on the head of a pin. Exponential potential, magnified a million trillion times is still real, authentic and sanctified. Hold on! We got you. You there, lost in the terror, in the loneliness, in the false façade they force us to embody.

Psychedelic dreamer sees all. Her prayers reach the heavens and HaShem in His own Timing (grrrr so bloody frustrating but always, always miraculous when you are on the perfectly folded seam of time and space when confluences occur that heal and bring magic back to our lives) has always, always come through for me.

It took 47 years to cast out the daemons of my own suffering: personal and interpersonal. And like a dickhead Hag I did attract some new ones but I am learning to disconnect from evil attachments, much much quicker.

The false lovers can only turn up to watch me, swirling in their own dynamic light. Quantum entanglements. They cannot quite let me go. For I loved with all my Being and I love him still. I grew sick and tired, desolate and broken, lost and forgotten but Love grew back, again and again. Until I distrusted even my own heart.

That is when G-d stepped in. Showed me who is real and true and reminds me still...who and what is truly mine shall always find their way back to me. But I shall accept no further abuse. No further betrayals...so boruch haba’a.

But beware...The Tanya has ancient Viking bloodlines, Jewish angels and who knows how many other ancestral warriors, mages and true lovers guarding her now. So The One who is meant to be my partner better not bring any further shit with him. I am not afraid to remain Alone. It’s not-so-bad! 😉

8 March 2018

Happy International Womens’ Day.

Today is the anniversary of my grandmother Eva Meyer’s suicide in 1949. She was brave and audacious. Kept a radio tuned to the BBC in her apartment during WW2 in Nazi Germany. Threw food over the barbed wire to a camp in Hamburg. But she was also a Home Devil with severe proclivities to violence and frequently beat my mother Gisela black and blue. A severe agitated depression? Schizo-affective disorder? Complex ptsd? I will never know. But she was much loved by my mother in spite of her violence.

My mother spoke of Eva taking her foraging in the forest, and gleaning from the edges of farmers’ fields, then making preserves for the German winters. Of her sewing her own corsets, and brassieres and my mother’s very early memory (aged about 2) of rocking inside the case that covered the Singer sewing machine, while singing to herself while Eva sewed.

Eva had several Jewish friends before the war, some were opera singers. Eva was born illegitimate in the Charité Hospital so I believe (but cannot prove) that her biological father may have been Jewish. Her mother later married and had more children.

She visited Eva and Gisela a few times during her childhood but Gisela said she believed them both estranged.

So goes the long history of violence, betrayal, estrangement in our female line.

Women! Need to love and support each other as many of us were Unmothered, Unwanted, and neglected and/or abused.

If we don’t reclaim our Divine Feminine then we are doomed as a society.

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Today is the last day of my personal

10 days of Awe-fullness (the conglomeration of yahrzeits and birthdays of ghouls from my past).

Zombie Tanya is gonna shake it off. (Oops, there goes a flying fuck!)

My birthday next month so I need to focus on that. (I must always have something to look forward to!). Also Pesach and Easter. (I missed out on celebrating Purim, although I might have had a drink at the casino to mark the occasion).

8 March 2017

Pinched sciatic nerve in left butt cheek. Hmmm. Ouchies.

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I keep smelling cigar smoke today. It is not my Dad. He was a virulent anti-smoker. Weird!

Perhaps my Pop. He was known to smoke a cigar at Xmas. But I don't know why he would be here, except to help my dad cross over? Funeral today.

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Heidi (my half-sister's half-sister) sent me a message that Angela thanked me for letting her know that my father who seriously damaged both of us, is dead. She can have her closure too. It won't make me want contact with her as she was yet another abuser but at least I can do the right thing and give her a measure of peace.

Doing the right thing by my family of origin bloody hurts but that is my path. I stand up tearing off my hair shirt with bloodied knees and with a scarred heart and a mind delusional with grief and horror and I scream "Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord" because in many many ways those evil Bastards don't matter anymore.

I am Free. Oh, how Daddy absolutely Feared my Vengeance. It has never fully manifested. Life, the great teacher, brings the mighty and the cowed to the dust of the earth and ploughs us as equals into the ground. Levellers. Have no fear. Karma is real. Love is real. Peace that comes from watching one's abusers be smited one by one. In only a span of 9 years!

So welcome and so beautiful.

Thank you God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. For hearing my prayers and blessing me with your Great Abundant Love, raising me high on your shoulders so I could see the end of my story and the tying up of loose ends and the Natural Justice.

Forgive my fury, my pain, my shame and degradation, my inability to thrive and bless me and all those seriously good kind people who Loved me and kept me alive and sustained me on a milk and honey cocktail (jack daniels libations, ahem!) of Hope.

Who inspired me to live another day, another decade and whom were also inspired by my determination to find my tribe, to be loved, know love and give love in a world gone mad and rotten that is slowly being healed and ascended into a new paradigm of bliss for all our inhabitants.

Evil shall never win while we turn our hearts and minds to Love and walk our walks, limping, dragging but with nobility and sanctity. So bright and beautiful that evil dare not even look at us but will shrink in the shadows and even there we will cast it out and drag, one by one, the lost, lonely and broken and Shine the Light of their intrinsic beautiful highest Self so they too, can be free.

(Hahaha my Daddy wanted me to be a Guru when I grew up. How am I doing??? Lol).

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Today is the Yahrzeit (anniversary) of my grandmother Eva's suicide. She died in 1949.

This is living proof (although I came close a few times myself) that you should never let the BASTARDS grind you down.

The once young handsome man that is my half-sister's father, that told Eva "to hurry up and do it" is now 90. But he had to live with that vicious comment for the rest of his life. In fact only a few years later the mother of his twins also killed herself.

We are all held accountable for our cruelties in this life or the next.

Yes I come from a long line of lunatics, narcissists, psychopaths and double-whammy Narcopaths. But they were created that way by abuse, wars, poverty, rape, torture and hatred. No excuse for bad behaviour but I can comprehend their life choices even if I would not want to exemplify them.

May all my former family of origin find peace and may they never return to me in future incarnations by the Will of G-d as I am so tired of their evil selfish bullshit. Amen.

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My mind and body has been so exhausted. Last night I went to bed at 10ish but awoke at 3 am so crystal clear that I lay in bed and read articles on Facebook until 4.30 am then passed out again. I woke at 10 am this morning.

Wow! Am I finally blossoming into a productive person? Dare I even hope so? Time will tell. I have slipped and fallen a million times into that Black hole gravelly abyss of depression, PTSD and interminable grief.

But soon I will have a life I always prayed for. A comfortable happy life. A safe life. Then I will have to put the ghosts of my past to bed, with silver bullets and 9 inch wooden spikes but it will happen.

Bring me my Broom, Sisters (and Brothers!) for tonight (and every night!) we RIDE. On storms, into sunsets, on dewy dawns of crystalline promise, on a wish and a prayer, mustang kwes will gallop across the sky.

We have so much Light to spread, so much joy. Midwives to the middle aged middle earth-folk. Come away with us. Leave the porky forked tongued Orcs behind in our dust. And laugh!

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8 March 2016

Today marks the Yahrzeit of my grandmother, Eva Auguste Meyer's suicide in 1949. I never met her but her imprint loomed large in my life. My mother's stories of her own mother's violence towards her, yet her acts of valour and insane bravery (throwing bread and wurst to the prisoners in a holding camp in Hamburg, keeping a radio tuned to the BBC in their 3rd storey apartment, her friendships with a famous Jewish opera singer and other Jewish people, owning a tiny Chanukiah).

When I first converted to Judaism, my mother bought me my silver-plated Chanukiah. She bought it in a wholesaler where she bought much of her china. She said it reminded her of the little one that Eva had owned.

Eva was an elegant, sophisticated, beautiful woman. She gleaned food from edges of farmer's fields and took my mother mushrooming. She preserved all the fruit they gleaned. She loved to cook, was a capable sewer (made her own lingerie, both brassières and corsets). My mother's earliest memory was rocking herself in the Singer sewing machine cover which was placed upside down in the floor, while Eva sewed. She was about 2.

Eva was born in the Charité Hospital in Charlottenburg, Berlin in 19th July 1896. She was illegitimate. I think her father may have been Jewish. Her Polish mother had to work off her own Confinement in the hospital. The fate of many poor unmarried women.

Her mother later married and had more children but Eva was already an adult at that time. I don't know the names of the husband or children, only the surname Block or Bloch. My grandmother cut ties to her mother at that time.

My Polish great-grandmother visited Eva and my mother Gisela during her childhood. She spoke only Polish, and frustrated my mother inordinately by knitting woollen stockings which itched her skin like crazy. There was always tension between mother-daughter so Gisela dreaded her grandmother's visits. (This must have set a pattern in our own lives as well!)

Due to the custom of the times, (and due to her lack of a proper education, also her mental health issues, trauma and aggravated depression) Eva never worked. My grandfather Erich supported her and Gisela.

My grandmother was a heavy smoker. Which aggravated my mother's asthma who hated smoking and never smoked. I was raised to never smoke (especially with my weak lungs but my sister was also a heavy smoker). I sometimes bum cigarettes from friends, as very occasionally I enjoy a smoke. Maybe my two grandmothers are around me then, or maybe it is my tiny rebellion against my mother. Who knows?

Both my grandmother and grandfather smoked like chimneys and suffered Tuberculosis. From which Erich died on 12th April 1945, just before the war ended. 20 years later I was born on that day. My half-sister being born on 13th April 1950, 5 years and one day after his Yahrzeit.

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My pond is now so clear I can see the gemstones on the bottom. Woohoo!

8 March 2015

I am very tired after a great weekend. I do feel quite sad that I am destined to be single for the rest of my life. However, being alone is preferable than living with a person who doesn't love, respect or care about me.

I chased the dream of a happy partnership for many years now. It is liberating to know I can go to Byron or out to the casino, or anywhere and have a wonderful time with people I meet or with friends.

I have been through hell in my life, especially in recent months. Lots of fake Holograms pretending to like me while stabbing me in the back (or face!)

Slowly I am discovering who are real in my life and getting back my equilibrium.

I think I will be ok in the end. If not, then some things come down to Destiny.

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I am glad I went to Byron. My rego expires on the 12th March so I will have to rely on public transport until May when my next advance is due.

It won't kill me to park the car up for 2 months. Just frustrating.

I could sell it but then I would never be able to afford another car. So I must be practical.

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Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of Gisela's death. I can't say I miss her. She managed to derail my train of life so perniciously that I still can't think of her without pain and anxiety.

Today is the Yahrzeit of my grandmother Eva who suicided in 1949. She left an indelible mark upon my own mother. A part of the generational trauma.

I had a wonderful weekend. It took 5 years to come out from Gisela's Mushroom Cloud. A long long time.

I have eliminated 2 more toxic people from my life. 20 years of friendship each. After 3 weeks the radiation of their hatred and envy and callow disrespect is finally dissipating.

Immersing myself in my true spiritual Mikveh, the sea at Byron Bay has rejuvenated my soul, mind and body.

Thank G-d (G-ddess!) for places of Power, Bliss and healing. I am fortunate to have found my Zen Zone and recalibrated my meridians.

Life is a constant Flow, new places, new life, new people, new opportunities to love and be loved by manifestations of the universe.

Perhaps one day, I will live surrounded by so much genuine requited blissful Love that my family of origin barely blip on my radar of consciousness. Even though without them, I would not be the woman I am today.

I can be grateful for their building my character, tearing me to shreds and forcing me to come back from the brink of death and insanity so many times that I became Stronger, more loving, wiser and better than ever.

Honed like steel. I have the strike marks to show for it, but oh, how I shine! A back-handed gift from my tormenting Dementors.

What doesn't kill you....doesn't kill you. It makes you fight for your place on this planet. For your right to live a full happy and safe life. Zero tolerance for arseholes! :-).

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8 March 2014

DESIRE IS LITERALLY MY MIDDLE NAME, en francais! Desiree. I've been desired, desirable and I've even desired others a few times.

So far, No luck! I am the Cosmic ButtJoke of LOVE. Something my sister already knew when she named me after Napolean's friend, one-time Lover and Mentor, Desiree Clary who ultimately became Queen of Sweden.

My heart is still set on accomplishing its desires...True love and partnership, Freedom and a life of comfort....I'm happy with my freedom though, I fought long and hard for that, and when I die, I want to still be able to say I lived Free.

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I am feeling a little depressed. Must be the schmaltzy music I am listening to in a chatroom in paltalk. Grrr. I danced so wildly, even in pain in my tootsies that I am probably just a tad exhausted.

Time to buckle up my boots and shoulder my corset (or nice dress!) again, as I am going out for a friend’s birthday bash. Seeing all my beautiful friends having fun dancing and being wild is the best mood booster ever!!!!

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5.11 am. I have had a delicious shower to wash off sweat, makeup and pub spillages...ew! My feet are in terrible pain but my shoes were smoking Hot! Lol! When will I learn to wear sensible shoes????

I had a lovely time though. One sweet man even "gasp! Horror!" bought me 2 jack daniels. In bottles! He was very shy but generous and even more surprising didn't hit on me. Well, you could knock me down with a feather! He comes from Bundaberg. Obviously raised to be a sweetheart. A rarity!

The chappy that was "wooing" me 2 weeks ago was there too. He kept away though. Smart guy! I abhor gameplayers and timewasters! Pity as I had hoped he might have potential but alas, noooo!!!

I had fun dancing with my women friends so that is the main thing. Having fun and letting the men work themselves out. Not our problem!

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Home Safe! Awesome night! Rocked out with Jabba and my favourite Girls. I feel Great! (foot sore but great!)

8 March 2013

I feel frustrated and kinda depressed. No money, no money worry worry worry! I had a good long sleep today. Went to bed at 4 am. Was wide awake by 9 am. Chatted on Paltalk til 10. Went back to sleep but was woken by my lawnmower men so had to move the car in my dressing gown lol.

I went back to bed after moving the garden furniture, but woke up every 2 hours.. Exhausted! Slept til 4.30 pm.

Now I want to play and go out and run amok but can't so might as well keep cleaning I guess although I lost the impetus for that! Lol!

Shabbat Shalom you all!

Comment from my “Aunty” Sylvia:

money is the root of all evil.believe me sweetie,you sure aint the only one,that aint got any,so at least ,pick yourself up,go and have a nice dance and a little drop of that drink you like,and forget all your troubles. x x x

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Long day today..felt like moving through sludge. I had a nice time with Jarrod however. He gave me some duck weed and gudgeons for the back ponds!

I am stressed about money as usual. I find this very emotionally draining. Tonight, midnight I have finally vacuumed the floors, changed my bedding and cleaned the loo! It's not much but a start to regaining control over my messy house and sense of doom! Clean house, clean mind :-)

8 March 2012

8 March 2011

8 March 2000

Bad day at work. I cried a lot again, over trivia. Jerry gave me a rose because he felt sorry for me. I fell out of the Academy Bus when Clive took me to the mechanic to collect my car. I got home, had a nap. I woke up, and rang David. I asked him why he didn’t send the remedies? I told him, “I’m the woman you used to schtup between girlfriends, and you can’t even give me some lousy remedies”. Told him, “don’t you think I’m good for the $5?” He said, “They’ve gone up, GST!” I said, “I suppose they have…”

Anyway, he wanted me to go over to pick them up. I said, “What for? So you can abuse me and slam the door in my face…I don’t grovel and beg to anyone, anymore. A simple yes or no would suffice. You owed me at least the professional courtesy of returning my call, and telling me, rather than making me chase after you. You’re just a man, who do you think you are?” He said, “You’re always in the area…” I said, “I don’t have the time, I work full time, remember. I’m busy now, and I made a very reasonable request for you to send me the remedies!”

Anyway, he got angry and hung up on me. Oh well, it was worth it! When I mentioned how he used me for sex, he said, “More abuse, foul language”. I said, “I’m merely representing the facts of life, as they are..” He said, “The Status Quo…”. I said, “The reality of the situation between you and me…there’s no abuse intended, that’s what it was…”

Maybe now I can let go…

Copyright Tanya Désirée Arons