Eve of a New Day

I am Dr. Tiller

I am Dr. Tiller is a website that was created as both a memorial to the lifework of Dr. George Tiller, the Kansas physician who was shot dead by an anti-abortion sociopath, and as a living testimony to the courageous lives of abortion providers.

Here you will find stories of individuals who have dedicated their lives to making abortion safe, legal, healthy, and accessible to women and girls. These people may be nurses, counselors, escorts, volunteers at abortion funds, or abortion doctors themselves. We share our stories in hopes of ending clinic violence, to alleviate the shame associated with the abortion experience, and as an homage to Dr. Tiller's outstanding and courageous life work.

(Thanks for the link, Dr P.)

The P's Knees

It's been nearly a month since PJ cut his leg with his chainsaw. It has been healing beautifully, though on Sunday evening when Z and I returned from Melbourne, he could barely walk. His kneecap was all swollen and inflamed.

He had to spend last night in the local hospital where they fed him antibiotics intravenously. At dinnertime, Z and I brought in a thermos of chicken soup and an apple cake, which Z decorated with birthday candles. It's not PJ's birthday for another couple of months, but I don't think he cared.

Introducing

In Melbourne the other night, my grandfather went to the ballet with one of his sisters. It made me feel uncomfortable to imagine that strangers might think they were husband and wife. The next day I heard that a woman had said to my great aunt how lovely it was for my grandfather that he was dating already, so soon after my grandmother passed away.

I would be shocked if my grandfather did meet somebody else so soon, but if he did, I would of course be happy for his happiness.

I am happy for our happiness today, though we are all still rather hesitant and detached. We need eggs and it makes no sense to buy them, so we went out to a guy named Neil's place and picked out three new hens. Z's is the small black 12-week old Australorp and mine and PJ's are the 16-week old Light Sussexes. As yet unnamed. As yet unknown to us. 

In an attempt to recognise our chickens' place in the local ecosystem, tonight we read to Z the first half of Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox.

The Lucy Boot

Our town awoke inside a wintry mist this morning.

But when I opened the front door at 7am to go and let the chooks out of their coop, I realised that it wasn't fog at all but the frightening smell of smoke from the bushfires.

In the city on Wednesday my relationship to the fires was about the individual people who had died or were effected. Now I am back home it is about the people still, but in relation to their families, communities and to the land – the practicalities, not just the emotions.

O came over last night and we talked about fire behaviour and CFA recommendations and what we are going to do if our dry surrounding bush goes up in flames.

So many shops have charity tins for the bushfire appeal, so many local venues are having fundraisers. Momentous events such as this tend to bring out the best in people in the most surprising ways.

Since my grandmother died I have received emails and messages from people in similarly unexpected ways.

My friend Gil for example who runs a successful leather goods business came over with her man on Saturday. She reminded me that a few years ago she named a boot Lucy after my grandmother. At the time that range came out I knew, but didn't think twice about it. 

Now I see though that the individual ways people experience the world affect us all.

Fighting For It

This morning on my walk I listened to a podcast interview with Emmanuel Jal, who at aged 8 was a child soldier carrying an AK-47 rifle in the Sudan People's Liberation Army. (He was later adopted by a British aid worker and is now a rising international music star.) 

The interviewer said that by 18, the usual age for conscription, people can determine right from wrong, but at aged 8, you haven't yet developed a conscience.

I heard this and thought nothing of it. Until Z saw this poster and asked what it was.

PJ and I explained to him that Fair Trade empowers farmers in developing countries, (though we left out that John Pilger has an argument against some Fair Trade agreements, saying they are constructed by the privileged).

In response Z said he wishes he were a policeman. If the greedy people are mean to the farmers, he would put them in jail for one day. If they do it again, he would jail them for two days. And if they do it again, in they go for three days...

I look at a lot of the injustices in the world and the generation of the perpetrators and I think: up until what age can our behavior escape scrutiny?

Off the Rails

Before we trained to Melbourne this morning, PJ and I went to Z's school where we met with his mum and three of his teachers to discuss Z's bad behaviour - his preying on vulnerable kids, his smashing of a window, stealing knives, drawing on furniture.

As we drove from the school to the station, we saw a car had gone off the road. We pulled over and ran down the scrubby embankment to see it. It had ploughed right through the top of a T-intersection, right through the middle of a long sign held up by two poles and off the road, just missing a big old sentinel tree. White airbags lay limp and unfurled on the front seats, though the car was empty.

Two other cars stopped while we were there to ask if everybody was ok.

Later, when we were seated on the train, I thought about Z and the car - reckless behaviour and reckless driving - and I thought about the fact that we had stopped, along with two other cars, and I wondered how and at what age, what stage, a human being learns empathy.

Two Ducks

Remember this album from 1998 - Fatboy Slim's You've Come a Long Way, Baby? The cheeseburger eater with a cigarette in his hand, his watchband tight around his wrist. The stretch of highway beneath him. The traffic lights to one side. 

Aah, the glory of the civilised. Look how far we've come indeed.

It was this cover that came to mind this morning as I walked past a creek with two ducks swimming in it. They paid me no mind as I stopped to admire them quietly going about their breakfast forage. 

All of a sudden I found myself crying, begging forgiveness of these two creatures for what we have done to the Earth, for how far we have strayed from what's most vital. I am not an animist or a pantheist, I am just acutely aware of how entangled we have become inside our civilised praxis: like a duck with its neck caught in a plastic bag.