Centrelink

Centrelink is a terrible place. Knowing I have to go there I remember it is a terrible place. Approaching it from the street, seeing the small insignificant people waiting on its monolith stairs I know it is a terrible place. It brings back memories of poverty and dependence and looking over my shoulder even when I have nothing to hide.

In those days it was the Department of Social Security. The name has changed. The people have not. They wear society’s rejection all over their clothes, tattooed into their skins with blue ink and smeared on their children’s chocolate faces.

The bureaucrats, blank and bland laugh with customers. (Or are they clients these days? I have lost track.) They joke through necessity to show they are human too. That at home they have children and dogs and dishes to do and money in the bank and bills to pay.

The line is anaconda long. The air conditioning is set at ‘bake the dole bludger.’ Ahead in the line is a tall dark haired woman. She is wearing sandals with white stockings. This seems weird. She waits her turn. The closer she gets the heavier she breathes. Holding her stomach to keep the butterflies from escaping. Her eyes are damp with retracted tears. She is personal pain facing government money.

She gets the bureaucrat with the bulldog face.

“You’re being evicted”

Could she say it any louder?

“You can’t see the social worker unless you have an appointment. Do you have an appointment?”

It is a one sided conversation. The clients’ requests and replies are whispered into the counter.

The bulldog starts waving a piece of paper. She is resenting difficult people with difficult lives. “I can only give you this. It’s a list of all emergency accommodation. You have to go and ring to find a vacancy”

I know. I know so unequivocally from my own professional work that she will find dead end after dead end. The ‘Social’ Housing System is a constipated fat man. Private rentals are as expensive and rare as water in the desert.

In the end bulldog gives white stockings an application to get an advance on her pension. “You understand this means your income will decrease while you pay this back?” She says this five times. Less money to pay market rent.

White stocking lady nods and nods. In her mind she begs bulldog to stop shouting her misfortune to the anaconda line of eavesdroppers.

My turn comes. I get the bureaucrat just off her break. I have an easy middle class question. She has answered before I finish asking it.

Where I live

I've done this walk before. A little tipsy, the dust covering my cracked nail polish. Invariabily I am walking home to get more wine. This time I will also get some home grown tomatoes someone gave me, and some parsley and basil from my own garden. We will feast on this with BBQ Mullet, eggplant and zucchini. But that is later.

It is a bit of a walk. We all live on over two acres and my friend is two doors away. I have to walk up her long drive, along the grassy footpath, and down my own long drive. It is much closer as the crow flies.

My children come with me. My 10 year old daughter wants to change into play clothes. "Do I even have any black clothes?" Our red dirt notoriously seeps into all our kids clothes. My 9 year old boy is coming home to get some "accessories." I ask him if he means a necklace and earrings. No.

I pluck the pungent herbs from the garden and leave the kids to organise themselves. I can trust them to come back on thier own. I can also leave the house unlocked. As it turns out accessories means most of my son's bedroom. Pillow, blanket, waste paper basket and chair. All neccessary for the toad hunting camp they are creating. And toad hunting sticks of course.

We don't live in flash houses. My friends house has peeling paint and tattered curtains. Her front door is blocked by a desk covered in hand painted ceramic buttons. My house is a tiny relic to the early 80's. Brown brick and orange glass.

But this is us. Take us as we are.

I have been lying on the grass eating raspberries straight off the bush. Is this usual for a woman my age? Don't care really. I have been asking my puppy to explain Violet to me. Violet being a 19th Century ghost who has been haunting me for the last 6 months. It would be much easier if Violet was not from the 19th Century. Unfortuneatly this is the only place I can see her. Puppy had no answers. She was more interested in dry avocado leaves.

Dead

I can't breath
I can't move out of this timeless endless rut
I am bereft of the stinging needles of life
I feel nothing
I feel no skin stretching over my bones
I feel no life pumping into tingling fingertips
I feel no ache
no enthusiasm
no movement of the breeze

Tonic

"My feet are dead, my heart is dead, my brain is dead"
This is why my friend has rejoined out yoga class after a years break.
A tonic for body and soul.

Pure Vanity

A Blog is pure vanity.
It is based on, for most of us, a misguided belief that someone, somewhere cares to read what we write. That our thoughts and experiences are worth sharing.
A vanity required for writers.
Just as well for those who love to read.