in detention

a couple of times lately i have spent two to three hours in sydney's villawood immigration detention centre, as a visitor to the detainees there.

villawood, as we know it, is the holding centre for people who are awaiting processing either in an attempt to get australian residence or while awaiting deportation.

visitors are security screened in the same manner we may be screened at an airport, personal items are placed in lockers, wristbands are issued and gifts scanned.

i have only been to one section of the centre which, on first appearance is pleasant enough. detainees are called to the visiting area which consists of an outdoor grassed area with picnic tables and soccer playing males as well as an indoor lounge area, for want of a better word, where there are plastic chairs, a sink and microwaves, a couple of large TVs, a piano, plastic tables and "coffee" making facilities with styrofoam cups.

it is all very clean and newish, tidy and respectable. there are ramps catering for mobility problems and large windows. it is all quite pleasant, not at all the cold drab place i imagined until you start to notice some odd little things.

it's summertime and visitors bring watermelon, the skins are left on picnic tables with the flesh scooped out because there is only plastic cutlery.

the bathroom has no mirror and there is no kettle, hot drinks are made one by one in the microwave.

detainees talk about missing family, not knowing what the future will bring, strange curry not at all as curry should be, the stupidity of blunt razors that dont work but could still be used to self harm.

today i talked to a man who is 39, has been in transit across the world as a refugee for the past 17 years and feels that he has lost his life. he became a little agitated that his younger sister is soon to be a grandmother and he has no family, no country, no trade (though he has skills) and no life. i felt bad about discussing things that were so obviously painful and diverted to my great default conversation, which is food. i didnt know whether or not food would be a good topic with him and the old sport stand-by doesnt work for me so i was on a limb for a second there but it worked like a charm until i realised we were the only people left at the table and i had no idea what to say next......

visiting those people feels so useless and i wonder if they ever feel like monkeys in cages obliged to feel grateful for the peanuts from the visitors.

" Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

We all wear masks at times, i suppose, at the very least we extend and reduce aspects of our personalities to fit various situations: conscientious at work, funny with our friends maybe, sexy for the online dating profile, caring with the kids.....you know the kind of thing.

I have often pondered on these multiple personalities and wondered what is real and what is not. Interestingly enough the answer is only just now, as I write, clear. The work persona is as conscientious as a person is able to be because we want and need our jobs. The funny persona (if we have one) is as funny as we are able because who wants to be unfunny?

Our situation specific personas are real because they are limited by what is really there, who we really are. These personas are not exactly masks but more like caricatures.

All of this ran through my mind when the title quote (from Oscar Wilde) was drawn to my attention. Do these personas reflect a person's truth or do they function as a mask of sorts?

The quote says "Give him a mask..." does a mask have to be provided by a third party in order to reveal truth? Is it possible for an individual to create their own mask at all? What kind of masks are there? and

Is it true that we tell our truths more fully when we are masked?

I only have the most basic of ideas in possible answer to these questions and I would love for you to throw in your thoughts so please do that....

What I will say is that stage personas as adopted by actors or musicians sometimes reveal a more complete picture of the person than their everyday personality which is reserved and muted. The stage provides the mask of an adopted character maybe? which i would best express in an imaginary statement "I can be who I am because everyone thinks I am being somebody else"

Following the same example, the actor doesnt create their own mask, we might think they do, but in fact we confer it on them when we become audience and permit them to experiment with truth.

Alcohol tends to make people tell their truths but it couldnt be called a mask. Alcohol is more like an eraser that converts the caricature to a true to life image (the metaphor is falling apart but you get it, right?)

If we allow our religion, our prophets and our holy books to justify bigotry or a desires to repress others is that a mask? Do we use religion to tell the ugly truths we could not otherwise utter about ourselves?

Tell me what you think.

It's nearly One am....In The Morning

and yes, the "in the morning" is redundant, that's why i put it there! i'm relaxed and chatty and thought i would do a post regardless of the hour.

I finished my Christmas food shopping today, spent a minor fortune in my favourite fruit market come deli. I have become so caught up in silliness that i havent been to that shop in a very long time and i wonder why on earth not. It's a fantasia of good, honest stuff: vegetables and cheeses and biscuits and pasta......
we have a box of my favourite mangoes: calypso; we have halloumi and feta and peaches to grill with brown sugar, we have mushrooms and zucchini, potatoes to roast, broccoli and asparagus. we have turkey and camembert and the makings of punch.

we also have my katten, oscar, soon to be mum & dad's cat. she will provide Christmas-day-pouncing-on -wrapping-paper entertainment. i rescued oscar as a two week old kitten, crying and drenched on a rainy day, no mama in sight. she nearly died of flea anaemia and cost me another minor fortune but she is now seven weeks, doubled her weight, behaving like a cat and worth it? you bet!

i have gifts for all but my wee nephew, as a male he is already impossible to buy for, even at the age of three and the local toy store has closed it's doors. there would have been something there for him but now there is a scourge of the earth dollar store.

i seem to have left the grinch behind, which is easy really, when one is blessed as i am. the greatest gift for me in this season of gifts is the knowledge that the universe truly is unfolding as it should. i dont always like it but who likes whats good for them?

i thank you for keeping on reading and commenting, even when i rudely neglect to reply. i cant explain why i do that except to say that life has taken on a different rhythm lately and a girl has to roll with the punches.

thank you, thank you, thank you for your input to my blog and my life. i wish you joy today and enough other days to make the crummy ones worth fighting through.


" The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness the prisoners" Isaiah 61:1