Sand in my hair

"In moments of discouragement, defeat, or even despair, there are always certain things to cling to. Little things usually: remembered laughter, the face of a sleeping child, a tree in the wind-in fact, any reminder of something deeply felt or dearly loved. No man is so poor as not to have many of these small candles. When they are lighted, darkness goes away-and a touch of wonder remains."

"These Small Candles" …tombstone inscription in Britain

 

I took out my little brother (that I volunteer with) yesterday that I spend time with every Sunday. I took him from the outer suburbs in my car through the city to Bondi Beach. We drove past a juvenile justice centre called YASMAR. He had remembered that I had told him that I had been successful in getting a job at when I was only 21. I had grown up with a group of brothers whose parents were hopeless alcoholics and each one of the boys ended up there in detention. My friend Jim had told me that it was a despicable place, that the guards emotionally and physically abused them regularly. He said the whole time they were there they had little social contact, no personal possessions, the only entertainment were school classes and that they spent most of the time in queues waiting for Godot.  

My little brother asked me lots of questions. We talked about how those kids might have come to be in a place like this. The majority of the inmates were indigenous Australians or Pacific Islanders, the rest Asian or Anglo Australians. I told him about the generational circumstances people find themselves in. The kids either did not have parents, or are with parents that aren’t their biological parents, such as extended family or foster care or living on the street. I talked about the impact that drugs might have had on theirs or their parent’s mental health and how this prevented them being able to function within the accepted confines of society. I told him that I walked away as I couldn’t stand the way they were treated. That I believed in love over punishment in every situation when it comes to kids.  

 

I had said to Jim, as the wise 21 year old that it was the nineties and it couldn’t possibly be as bad as that. Plus, they had hired me to be a social worker (without any training or qualification) to teach them activities such as art. I turned up, all 5 foot 2 of me, looking about 16 myself and the kids inside asked me what I was in for…

 

I remember seeing kids queued as I walked in and they were queues that did not move. I walked past guards that were swearing at the kids and putting them down. They had no personal possessions. The only entertainment room was a TV room where all of the chairs were bolted down to the ground all facing in the one direction, towards the TV. I was scared and appalled. I called that afternoon to say that I had changed my mind about the job. Never in my life have my values been torn. On one hand, perhaps I could make a difference, despite the stories the guards told me about letting the kids get close only to have them manipulate and attack you. On the other hand, I could not stand by and watch the way they were treated and hear the way they were spoken to. I felt guilt then tucked into my secret long term memories. 

 

My little brother’s mum is unemployed and I suspect sells and takes drugs to get by. She loves him. She does not neglect him.  Hopefully I can give him one other perspective on how life can be, without judging his circumstances.

 

We lay down on the beach after he went for a swim and he asked me to cover him with sand. We laughed. He skated on the promenade and inside the Bondi Pavilion. Then I bought him fish and chips for lunch. I came home with sand through my pristine car and sand in my hair. For once my perfectionism relaxed and I liked that fact that car and my newly washed bed linen were covered with sand. Through this friendship I am learning that neither of us is perfect or even alike but we do enjoy spending time together. 

 

I came home in such a shitty mood from work tonight. I had experienced pathetic politics and I felt sick. I went to the Dendy cinema at Circular Quay after work at 7:30pm and watched an Inconvenient Truth with Al Gore. I came home and felt let down by my flat mates for different reasons.

 

My mum called and said, "How are you darling?". I told her I was feeling crap and that I didn’t feel like talking about it. Then she told me about my life long friend Ben. Ben had been my brother and my best friend when we were growing up. When I was 18 we began an affair. However, I stopped spending time with him after his father died and he became further and further embroiled into every drug imaginable. He sold himself for drugs.

 

I have continued to love him and have referred to him as my best friend throughout this time. We only see each other about twice a year, sometimes he has been lucid, others not. However, he has been the person who has understood me the most. He was by far the most academically and creatively brilliant person before he started to take drugs. He is the one person on this earth that truly gets me. 

 

In the most recent years he has been living with his girlfriend who has also been a heroin addict and they have a child together. Ben has died many times through overdosing and has been con

victed for stealing in his early drug taking years, trespassing as he aged (which is code word for overdosing on public property). He worked for over ten years 7 days a week in a fruit shop, doing long, long hours. He has only recently given this up and undergone rehab and has been off drugs for a couple of months, having left his girlfriend. 

Mum told me that he was required to go to the dole office today to register to get a job. She said, he cried throughout the interview, clearly overwhelmed by re-entering the harshness of reality. He is 34 and has only ever worked in a fruit shop. How do you get a job with a criminal record and no experience and a history of severe drug abuse? Then she said that the counselor suggested he call me. I asked, "How did I come up in the conversation?" She said, "He is extremely depressed. I presume that the counselor asked if he had a friend he could talk to".

 

All of my crappy feelings in that moment were put into perspective. I felt as though you do when you have been dunked in the deep end of the ocean, standing back up, washing the salt out of your eyes and spitting out the sandy water. Just as you recover, you get dunked again when you least expect it. The wind was taken out of me but I felt exhilaration. 

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."

George Eliott