jihad & people smuggling

my enforced absence from the immigration detention centre ended last week and i managed to find my way there on saturday. in a sense i felt that i was going home and i was welcomed that way, too. it was nice.
it would seem that i havent been the only one attempting to break rules: two of my guys had been subject to extra security due to minor misdemeanors in the preceeding weeks and we all giggled conspiratosubversively, bonded by our naughtiness.

australia has around sixty people indefinitely detained because they qualify as refugees but fail security assessments and are therefore not allowed to join the community but neither are they able to be resettled or deported. it's a very vexatious situation and the people involved are usually not told why they failed a security assessment so they tend to feel picked on as well as suffering dreadfully from the general uncertainty of it all.

so, two of my guys are in that situation and during an appeal process have, after over four years in detention, finally found out the reasons for their failed security assessments. i must say, i dont know whether these guys did what they are accused of and ultimately i care very little about their guilt or innocence because i believe them to be innocent enough. guilt and innocence are so dependent upon situation and interpretation that innocent enough is about all we can expect of anyone (and in fact, the idea of innocent enough is enshrined in law, where we talk not of absolutes but of reasonable doubt)
at the time i visited there was another visitor there who insisted that they must be innocent and i surprised myself because i was (still am) disproportionately outraged at that simplistic attitude.

i'm not sure exactly why i was so irritated except i suppose that human nature is a complex beast and for people all over the world "desperate times call for desperate measures" is not merely an adage but a lifestyle. i find it entirely possible that my friends have some level of "guilt" or an appearance of guilt because after all, every freedom fighter is somebody's terrorist, every people smuggler is the saviour of some unwilling refugee and the truly evil must recruit and use the disadvantaged.

an assumption of total bright white innocence demeans us all. it diminishes the visitor who can cope only with a sanitised, caricatured, comic book view of the world; it demeans our security organisations who make daily decisions on the threat posed by every type and expertise level of criminal, from utter evil dressed as innocence personified, to vague grubbiness; finally, it belittles the achievements of so many people throughout history, who have retained goodness and humanity while having to bend or break rules and make impossibly ugly decisions for the good of themselves or of others.

not for me the image of pure, unsullied perfection, not for me or for anyone around me. there can be no light without the dark and there is very little indication of depth without shade.

what i'm thinking about these days

life goes on, the same as always but different: i keep trying to build my profile as a doula and i think i am succeeding in creating an online presence, people do sometimes refer to me with questions about babies and children, but it isn't translating into work.

i've written a couple more blog posts for a parenting magazine, one about vaccination and one about....well, about waiting i suppose. i'm happy to do it and i've had nice feedback and heaven knows i like nice feedback but it doesnt put crowns on teeth, shoes on feet or food on the table.

my husband isnt working at the moment and is contracted not to discuss that situation so i guess i wont, except to say it has all been a bit of an adjustment. we are living on savings and my question is, for a normally conservative person, how much more conservative do i need to get? or do i just go on my normal way and work on the theory of abundance?

i continue to shop at sydney's major fruit & veg market most fridays and i enjoy that; if i was a bit less reserved i would ask some of the stall holders if i could take their photos. each and every one of them is larger than life, my absolute favourite is a guy who wears a hat made from apple cartons, i laugh every time i see it but now that autumn has arrived i wont be seeing it until next summer.

i've managed to lose some weight, not sure  how much because i dont really know what i started at but it is at least 3kg which is great. if weight loss was linear i would be on track to lose 10kg this year but of course, weight loss is not usually linear so we will see what we will see. i have become a lot more aware of what i put in  my mouth and that is a good thing. i'm considering it all to be a win.

the family has expanded by a factor of two rabbits. honey and django are sisters, 9 weeks old, rather adorable, permanently hungry and razor sharp of claw. the name honey is up for review. rabbits are a delight, even when they make ribbons of one's skin.

my visits to the immigration detention centre are at a temporary standstill due to a ham fisted and ill advised attempt to supply contraband. i did know at some level that alcohol was not tolerated in that place but i didnt really think about it. my six week exclusion will end just in time for my birthday. it's all a bit silly considering that my identity was not even verified at the time, it could have been one of my many enemies setting me up. it's all tragically funny or funnily tragic. or something.

i'm having a bad run with my back at the moment, i've probably been to the chiro five times already this year and i have a wicked stiff neck again now. i want a personal chiropractor and i keep suggesting it as a possible career path for my kids but they just roll their eyes and talk of music, science and cake making.

aside from all of that, what i think, feel and experience is all the normal stuff: what will i make for dinner? why are we out of milk? is there fresh bread for tomorrow's sandwiches? why are there four used tea towels in the kitchen? why doesnt anyone but me notice when the bins need emptying? all the big questions, you know.......

Baby Steps

It's February tomorrow and I promised a *weight loss* update on the 5th but I thought I might do it early.
I'm not at all sure how this blog turned from a forum for all sorts of discussion to an e-diary and I dont really like it but everything evolves, right?
So, for those who aren't connected to me via facebook the picture is the baby born of my first solo doula-ing effort on the day she turned a month old and became officially ready to be presented to the world in the culture of her family. It was a delight and an honour to be there both when she was born and for the debut, if I may call it that.
I had another client who I ushered through days of pre-labour, even attended a "false alarm" but was eventually barred from the birth: there was a need for security at the birth and despite my requests I didnt get security clearance to be present so I spent the day sending good birthing vibes (as they say in this granola world) and the wee boy was born on the day Liam turned 18. January 15 is a good day to have a son :)
The weight loss program has resulted so far in not an ounce of discernible loss but also no gain, which is probably an achievement years of gradual porkiness. Apart from a night out with a girlfriend, when I thought it sociable to have one drink, I have managed to stick with the program, drink-wise. The breakfast thing still needs some attention but I'm doing better than I did and I am resisting cakes and ice creams some of the time. Baby steps!
After a few episodes of extreme wheeziness and lot of episodes of lesser wheeziness I figured out last week that Briony has a corn allergy. Corn allergy is a terrible allergy to have because there is no legal requirement that it be identified in labelling as things like nuts, egg or shellfish might be labelled and there is corn or a derivative in every imaginable product from toothpaste to shampoo, processed foods, disposable cutlery, medications.......and the list goes on.
I was a little overwhelmed until I realised that not every corn product is a problem for Briony and in fact, it is probably GM that causes the problem so we just need to be a little judicious. I told her that slurpees are probably a bad idea, due to high levels of corn syrup. Her response: "Oh yea, I knew I couldnt have slurpees, I react every time but I told you it was from running"
You gotta laugh, dont you?

The brief but steep learning curve over the maize thing has led me to reassess some of the products that come into the house and even though it's not as bad as I first thought, it has inspired some extra care over food. In line with the "baby steps" idea, I started to make my own muesli. It's good and really a lot better than what I used to buy. The only problem is it's too hot to be running the oven to make it so today I'm going to experiment with cooking it in the slow cooker. I'm looking forward to that!

So....there you have it, the run down of my little world and I'll finish with a pic of my new adult, cos he's irresistible.