Anzac Day

 

For some time now I have been of the opinion that we need to be very careful of Anzac Day. I am all for honouring the sacrifices made by all kinds of people in all theatres of war, in peacekeeping missions and those who kept the home fires burning.

I am not for nationalistic jingoism. I am not for the propaganda machine glorifying "service" in the hope of influencing coming generations to serve. I am not for honouring one type of trauma over others. I am not for hypocritical displays of reverence for people who we don't support very well when they arrive home broken. 

And now I can add that I most certainly am not in favour of small minded people having a platform they can use to harass and belittle our first nations people.

Aboriginal people fought for Australia at a time when they were not even given the dignity of citizenship. They came home not as second class citizens because they were not citizens. They offered their lives and their health just as others did. 

At this year's Anzac ceremonies around Australia, the Acknowledgement of Country was boo-ed.

I find this behaviour repugnant at any time. Acknowledging traditional owners costs us nothing and actually gives them nothing but acknowledgement. Just words. Acknowledgement of Country does not and can not impoverish anyone and still the haters must boo and jeer.

If a remembrance of our servicemen and women (and others) is going to become an opportunity to grind people down, we have lost the plot. 

It is, for sure, an unpopular opinion but I think Anzac Day has almost had it's day.

The nylon python

 Ever since I can remember, I have been afflicted with the kind of shoulders a bra strap must slip off. It's annoying, so annoying in fact that I recall my sister-in-law schooling my niece on how dreadful my slipping straps are and how she must take care not to be like Aunty Kylie. If I have had no other use in life, I have demonstrated the sartorial horror of the falling strap.

In order to combat this problem, I sometimes wear a racer back sports bra. Now the issue with these is that they don't have any clips so they have to go on over my head.

Forgive me the technicalities but I need to set this scene.

Even though it is now April and officially mid-autumn, Sydney is still warm and humid so sticky skin is very much a normal state of being.

This morning I was already running late for work when I finished showering. I knew it was going to be tricky getting a bra on so I left it to almost last, trying to make sure I was at the lowest possible level of clammy.

I dragged it over my head and immediately knew I was in trouble. It was twisted and coiled like an old telephone cord. The band, which should sit flat against ribcage was twisted and stuck and the rest of the fabric was twisted and stuck with it. At the front I could drag it into a semi-correct position but the tension caused by the twisting pulled it up so that it was cutting under my arms and barely below my collar at the back.

I twisted and squirmed, arms reaching over my head then up from my waist. I couldn't reach it with more than a finger tip. I just could not get the thing unstuck. Then more I twisted, the sweatier I got. It was a losing battle. Should I take it off and start over? I was already late and there was no guarantee I would be any more successful.

No, I would gather my stuff and head off. Maybe I could wiggle it down in the car. 

At the first set of lights, which can be a long, long wait I dragged my shirt up a bit to try freeing the dreadful fabric coil from my armpits. I wasn't exposed in any indecent way but it was still pretty awkward when I made eye contact with the young tradie in the ute next to me. 

Onto plan B.

For the rest of the drive, the nylon python coiled around me, cutting in oddly to make new asymmetrical shapes of my body, rolling itself tighter and creeping into positions bras should not go.

When I pulled up at work, there was just a small chance that I could clock on in the five minute grace period. Ignoring the nylon python and the synthetic uniform shirt clinging and creeping up my back, I grabbed my stuff and high tailed it to the clock, hoping not to meet anybody in the lift.

I clocked in and said a very quick hello to my office buddy, hoping my clattering bags would distract her from my appearance, then back tracked to the bathroom.

Now that I had calmed down, clocked in and cooled off in the air conditioning, it took just a quick hook of a finger and a little smooth down to restore comfort and shape.

The body strangling nylon python had been subdued into boring bra-dom.

Good Friday 2026

Easter will forever be imprinted in my mind as the time when Dad suddenly became entirely different to his usual self. Looking back there had been more of a slow decline than I had realised but it was almost Easter when he raised a walking stick threatening to hit someone and it was Easter when he stopped answering calls and text messages. I was remembering all of this yesterday and had a wee cry. The first in many months.

This morning, Mum called at 6am to tell me her call bell wasn't working and despite my tiredness I didn't go back to sleep, instead I pottered then went to church and drove somebody home. 

Given that it is Good Friday, church was solemn. In addition I am sore with a nagging back issue and maybe the grief glitter is being blown around at the moment.

With this mild irritability as my background state today, I was mighty surprised to find my self singing a children's song I must have learnt 45 years ago:

I am a promise, I am a possibility,

I am a promise, with a capital P

I am a great big bundle of po-ten-ti-al-ity-y

.......

I am a promise to be anything God wants me to be.

The song is completely incongruent with the day and honestly, with the trajectory of my life.

The happy little children's song was soon pushed aside when I arrived to find Mum had been given an "analogue" bell, the type you might see on a shop counter, and was hitting it madly:

ding ding ding

ding ding ding

ding ding ding ding ding ding ding

God Bless the carers.

On that long ago execution friday, nobody knew what would happen on Sunday and today I am reminded that nothing is over until it's over.