On Rejection

Last night I dreamed I was new arrived again, and fell to weeping in my sleep. Those who welcomed me, rejected, accepted, attacked, tolerated or disapproved of me: I’ve forgiven you all. Some indeed have by now forgiven me.

     Why then do tears run down in sleep? Sleep, the alternative world, is peopled with the past, a treasure-store of memory:  prop-room, wardrobe, prompt-box, rehearsal space for life’s cautionary dramas.

     Proust says a cast of divinities inhabits memory: those people who have made us suffer. Recollection comes through the senses, an uneven paving-stone, for instance, and Venice appears. For me the question ‘How d’you like Australia?’— once a common expression — awakened memory to work again in sleep.

     All this was decades ago, many have died, and died heroic deaths, too. Yet in memory, in sleep, they live to perform their roles. As Proustian divinities, they’re only a metaphor: they point to the joy received when they embrace instead of doubting.

     Is life so personal? The rational mind would allow, explain, excuse, comprehend. In sleep, though, the mind recounts its private story. What I’ve learned is this: for the love of God, treat your immigrants well. The marks are indelible.

On Charlie

I miss Charlie. Sometimes I attend city hospitals for treatment, when I’ve seen Charlie, sitting on the pavement with her crossword puzzle, passing the day. I saw her tent once, pitched in St. Peter’s grounds, because homeless shelters are not felt safe for women.

     Charlie, a polite, well presented young woman, says the city is better for her than the country town. It keeps her away from bad company; she’s here to put her life together again.

     I haven’t seen her lately. Nor the man I greeted on Bourke Street, who has such terribly swollen, shoeless, blue-purple feet. The city is closing in. Some things happened. Boarding houses shut, for why? Did the land become too valuable, or were they just such unsound premises? Facilities fenced out at night, due to fights over limited resources. Flinders Street Station featured the police, who as in the times of the English Poor Law, moved people on. A better place to sleep, crowded, lighted, food and water nearby? Better than a dark lonely alley?

     I’d miss Charlie less if I knew she was in a warm, dry, safe place. I can’t forget her little fingerless gloves, her courteous conversation, her half-finished crossword puzzle.     

On Superstition

Excess fear of the gods. I’ve experienced, and others do report, an absence or shunning (friends, colleagues, even family) in the presence of misfortune, especially death: more particularly sudden or violent death. Where some respond generously, others flee through superstition.

 ‘They need rest and quiet’ (assumption never plumbed); ‘I wouldn’t invade their privacy: so, so private’ (imposed, unrequested isolation); ‘I wouldn’t know what to say’ (unspoken words protecting self-esteem). Superstition is located low in the brain; I liken it to fear of contagion, following an epidemic. Death is the ultimate malady.

            Superstition is concerned with luck and the means of controlling fortuitous events. Where there’s no rational way of confronting chance, deflecting randomness, becoming safe, quite unconsciously I have no doubt, minds turn magical: feelings freeze.

            The gods that are feared, of fate, destiny, circumstance, attract these silencing prayers although one hopes for help from gods and not rejection. The Beatitudes say mourners will be comforted, but Beatitudes may be expressive of all the opposites. In the Kingdom of God, comfort will come.

            These gods of superstition are not the God of truth and justice, of living water that flows and is not still. That’s my personal observation.