October life notes.

Stuff. Books. Podcasts. Music.

“It's hard to walk with ghosts on your shoulders, but when you learn to listen to what they're saying, you realize that they're telling the story of who you are.”

-Kai Cheng Thom

Gumnut blossoms.

I’ve been…

• Navigating 30 hours of air travel and airports with an infant.

• Doing jet lag because I’m in the future and spring and upside down and the other way down the toilet.

• Spending quality time with family. It’s been 5 years, a global pandemic, and a lifetime of changes.

• Enjoying gum trees and Australian bird sounds.

• Drinking all of the coffee because GOOD COFFEE!!!

• Scarfing down rocky road chocolate like it’s nobody’s business.

• Explaining the difference between the bush and the outback to my friends back in the U.S..

• Also explaining to my friends back in the U.S. that yes, it gets cold in Australia.

• Saying words like ‘no’ (nohrrrrrrrr) and always being understood.

• Despondently answering, ‘I don’t know’ every time everyone here asks if he’s going to win the election again.

• Feeding my babe solids… she bloody loves a good airplane sesh.

• Feeling annoyed that they celebrate Halloween in Australia now. Halloween is a seasonal holiday. There is nothing spooky about spring and summer.

• Driving mum to radiation appointments, changing sheets after sweaty chemo nights, preparing simple non-vom worthy foods that are also stoma safe (cheese jaffles on white bread are most certainly on this very small list), going on driveway walks, and generally just trying to be of some help during this very shitty time.

• Sitting with my need to be in complete control whilst knowing that most things are very far out of my control.

• Learning to simultaneously be with hope and despair and chaos and calm and beauty and all of the icky gross hard stuff that life serves up.

• Listening to THIS episode of the Mother is a Question podcast, which honours the role of grandmothers.

• Listening to THIS episode of Prentis Hemphill’s Becoming the People podcast where they interview Alexis Pauline Gumbs about survival and Audre Lorde.

• Reading The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde.

Also, I know that there are so many shitty things happening in the world right now and that there are so many causes to give your hard earned money too… but if you do happen to have some extra monies to give, my dear friend is raising funds to cover the legal costs for a family from Afghanistan who are seeking asylum in the U.S.. There is a GoFundMe. You can donate HERE.

Me and the baby on the streets of Carlton. My back hurts.

And here’s a playlist…

The books that my family have given my American daughter so far. The top book is not Australian, it’s British… but a classic. In order from top to bottom: Guess How Much I Love You, Welcome to Country, Bluey:Mini Bluey, Bluey: The Pool, Wombat Stew.

Here are some reads and writers:

• I’m loving and appreciating People with Inconvenient Truths about Transphobes [PITT].

• The glorious

  Kai Cheng Thom
  critiques bigotry and the gender critical movement in The Snake That Eats Itself.

• My dear friend

  arielle reyna
  has a beautiful Substack about desire and longing and sexuality called A View From Venus.

• Robert the contemplative
  wrote a beautiful piece called, Keep me Safe From Harm.

• Last week I wrote about my decision to quit my job to temporarily care for my daughter and Mum in Australia. Whilst staying at home and providing care to your kids can be extremely rewarding and enlightening, it’s important to consider the ways it can also be detrimental.

  Zawn Villines
  often writes about why, if you’re a woman in a heterosexual relationship, you shouldn’t be a stay at home mom. I highly recommend reading and considering the ways that you can protect yourself.

Also, I want to share the following quote from a recent post by

Roberto Che Espinoza, PhD

:

I think we all need to become doulas for another possible world.

Thanks for being here with me.

Cakes in an Aussie bakery. The apple turnover was my fave as a kid.

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I HOPE THAT YOU ARE TAKING CARE OF YOURSELVES
AND YOUR COMMUNITIES
LOTS OF LOVE XX

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This email was composed where I am currently staying, which is the region now known as Central Victoria. I would, therefore, like to acknowledge the people of the Kulin Nation (in particular the Taungurung Nation), Traditional Custodians of the land for which I am on. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present.