Batton down the hatches me hearties!

This morning I discovered that the neighbourhood pains-in-the-butt had decided that our house needed decorating sometime last night...or in the wee small hours of the morning. It's kind of a shame I don't share their artistic tastes. 

As a glass half full kind of a gal I gave thanks that it was just thick sharpie ink and not rotten eggs, grabbed a bucket of water, some Ajax, a scrubber and the hose and worked at clearing it off. It wasn't hard and the windows are once again sparkly.

As I was cleaning though I noticed that the window screens had dents and marks in them -  as though someone had dried to jimmy them off. This did disturb me, especially given that these windows are bedroom windows. 

So I went out to Bunnings and bought some lengths of dowel and wedged them into the window tracks so that they can't be forced open. I also went to the police station and filed a report. Honestly, I'm not expecting them to investigate it, especially seeing I've washed the windows, but at least I've filed the report, along with photographic evidence of the graffiti tag.

I don't necessarily think this is because it's our house as I've seen this particular tag around town quite a lot, but still I am shaken as I feel quite defenceless. I wonder what the statistics are regarding home invasions/burglaries and disability?

I guess all we can be is alert and vigilant regarding keeping our home secure. I've fortified the windows throughout the house, made others aware, notified the police. I'll leave outside lights on but the fact that this happened to the FRONT of the house which faces a busy road is quite disturbing because of the brazen nature of it. 

Still, I refuse to walk through life afraid. The numbers who are for us vastly outnumber those who would try to victimise us. I feel supported and cared for and feel confident they would fly to our aid if needed.

Light House

I've been silent on the blogging front lately. There's always a measure of guilt when this happens for the simple reason that I feel that if you intend being a blogger then you should commit to that somewhat and update at least once a week. Yes I do this for me, my own therapy...but I also do it to be read. I'm not going to deny that. Let's be honest, bloggers write to be read and if you're not going to write people aren't going to hang around waiting until you do - although I must admit I do tend to leave people on my blogroll even though it may be months before they update. I love their stories enough to hang around just in case.

Just because I haven't been writing doesn't mean I haven't been writing some kind of narrative in my head. I'm normally inspired when running. It's like my head clears out all unneccesary dross and begins to see things clearly. It formulates ideas and puts them into cohesive and interesting sentences, attaches photos and even films a video with accompanying inspirational soundtrack and VoiceOver. Silly really. 

Sometimes I wish I could be an observer of my own life, writing notes and putting them out there on this blog so that the "dwarfism awareness" message can be fully told. I guess I'm just busy with the actual doing of a very average life to spend much time documenting that for those people who have just given birth to a child with dwarfism. I know though that our stories - the stories of we adults with dwarfism living very average, "normal", happy lives - are vitally important to these people and their families. We are like lighthouses in the dark, showing them the way and assuring them that all will be well. 

And it's the fact that we live our "average" lives that is so reassuring. I don't really think they care about whether or not there are short statured people in parliament, or leading in their field of medicine or surgery, or the managing director of their Very Important Company. No. These parents want to know things like, "How did you learn how to tie your shoes, negotiate the playground, cope in a public restroom, drive a car, cope with people staring, conduct yourself in an interview?" They want the daily things, the mundane, the things that most people take for granted day by day. They're interested when I post a picture on Facebook showing the type of seat that I find the most comfortable on a train. They feel reassured when they read about me participating in a Fun Run along with 22,000 other Melburnians. They want to know where I buy my clothes and who alters them to fit me.

Over the past few weeks I've been reflecting on my past tendency to almost withdraw from life simply because I was tired of being noticed. I realised I didn't do myself, my family or the community any favours. The kids and I have discovered that since coming out of a "safe" private school environment and entering public school and a more public arena we receive less harassment and more friendliness. The more we're out and about, doing our thing, participating in community and public events, the better it is for us. 

I have become more confident as a result. In the past I would have been scared to participate in a Fun Run and would only reluctantly do so if I had company. Now I register because I love to run and I don't mind that I do it on my own. I don't care about what people might be thinking. Why was I once so presumptuous to believe that I knew what they were thinking? They could see me and think, "She's short. I wonder if she'll last the distance?" or "Good on her!" or "I'm glad I wasn't born like her!" or "Oh! Great haircut!" or they may even be looking right through me and are wondering what they'll cook for dinner. My point is, what does it matter anyway? I'm here! I'm alive! I love it!

And I guess that's the face I want to show to the world. I want to show the face of a person who is filled with more light than she could have possibly imagined, who lives and loves and adapts to a physical world that isn't always built to her specs. I want to show them someone who is getting out there and being "average" in a not so average body and ROCKING it! I want to show that I'm approachable, friendly, teachable and that I deserve respect in the same way every other soul on this planet does. 

I believe it's possible; in fact I know it's not only possible but is actually happening right now. 

Promoting Dwarfism Awareness just by being me.

Schoolyard tactics

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I made the fatal mistake of stumbling upon Free Jinger and GOMI the other day.

It got me both sad and riled so I started writing the following under the title of "The World Is A Big Schoolyard".

The world is a big schoolyard. I've finally worked that out. I can't believe how long it's taken me to come to this. I'm not saying that everyone stays in the schoolyard. There are a vast number of people I know and love who no longer reside in the schoolyard but have moved on to maturity and with mindfulness. However, if you just scratch on the surface of adulthood you see it's still there - the schoolyard politics and hierarchies and competitiveness and jealousies and terrible, horrible bitchiness that grows and spreads like a cancer devouring (or trying to) the goodness in its path.

I just don't get it. Why would you have a forum totally dedicated to hating on bloggers? Why would you troll on other people's sites that they tend so lovingly just to feed your own hate and jealousy and then bitch about it to others? If you don't like a blog, if you want them to "Get Off My Internet" then it's simple - JUST CLICK AWAY! Then they're not ON your internet are they? Practically every blog I read and love is featured on GOMI. And the bitching! Nasty, hateful, spiteful stuff. Awful.

I guess it's part of the reason why I've been so quiet on the blogging/diary front lately. I just don't do hate. I don't do bitchy. I have never been able to understand it and I have handled it badly when it's been directed towards me. (no, I wasn't featured on GOMI as far as I know. They seem to leave writers under the disability category alone...kind of.)

Which got me thinking a lot about my family of origin and wondering what we would have been like if I hadn't have been born with achondroplasia. Would we still have the same acceptance and attitudes towards difference if we hadn't had first hand experience of difference ourselves? I ponder on this a lot. I remember early years when I didn't know I had a difference. I remember starting at children/young adults who were different and my mother calling us on it. I remember a boy being cruel to a little girl with an intellectual disability at school and I couldn't work out why. She was just a little girl as far as I was concerned.

I remember a young man named Paul who had an intellectual disability. It concerned me when I was three or four as I knew he was much older than me but he was acting a lot younger than me. After he and his mother got out of our car and we were driving home I said, "That boy's not proper, Mum!" Funny how I knew to wait until they were out of the car to make a statement like that.

I remember a young woman with an intellectual disability who lived across the road from us. Sally was in her 20's...or maybe even early 30's. She came over to our place many, many times and played Totem Tennis with us. You'd see her walking the streets with her dog...who was not desexed and constantly (so it seemed) on heat. Consequently there were a whole pack of male dogs with them. We kids knew that Sally was a grown up but acted like a little kid...and that was ok. We didn't tease her for it.

Once my little brother and I did tease her though because we thought she wasn't wearing any knickers. Truth be told, she possibly had a massive wedgie. Mum tore strips off us. We were sent to bed without dinner. Our teasing had nothing to do with her disability and everything to do with the fact we thought she had a bare bum!

Sally came to a sad end. Years later when we moved away we heard news reports that Sally had wandered off from her residential care facility and had become lost. She died of exposure.

A kid in our neighbourhood once yelled at my brother, "You're just picking on me because I'm black!" to which my brother replied, "No! I'm picking on you because you're a little turd and you're annoying!" Racism meant nothing to us. My little brother shouldn't have been picking on that kid anyway, but his race had nothing to do with it. (for the record....that kid was an annoying little turd!)

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that these are the actions of children.....and children grow up....or they're supposed to. Meanness and nastiness and bias doesn't compute in my family. Not accepting people because they look different, think different, act different, have different values, religious ideas doesn't factor. When we encounter such nastiness the common question is, "But why???"

Which is why I can't understand those who don't move on from childish ways....and continue with the schoolyard tactics of bullying and teasing and bitching and hurting others simply because they can......and these days they do it from the "safety" of their keyboard and screens. They don't have to witness first hand what their nastiness does.....which to me is the penultimate of cowardice.

So.....please.......if you don't like a writer's content, if their lives make you gag, if you can't stand seeing one more picture of their perfect children, if you don't like the way they are living their life, or educating their children, if you don't hold to their same religious beliefs or lack of......then for the love of all that is good......CLICK AWAY! Don't leave that snippy comment. Don't bitch about them on a forum. Just don't go there. Let them live their lives and you go and do the same. Spread a bit of goodness into the world by wishing them well and moving on.

We have enough hate in the world. Hating is easy. Challenge yourself to taking the better road. Live and let live.

Halloween

We entered into Halloween shenanigans this year. This is the result.

Tim the zombie.

Chloe from the Night Circus

Leisa the witch

Georgia- Esther the orphan.

To spook or not to spook

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I've never "celebrated" Halloween.

I kind of don't get it....possibly because growing up in Australia in the 70's and 80's we just simply didn't do Halloween....plus I grew up in a fundamental Christian environment where participating in Halloween was not only frowned upon but we would have sermons before or on Halloween unfolding how evil this "celebration" was. As a result, I learned to fear it and avoid it like the plague.

Honestly....a lot of my "faith" and belief system seemed to have been based on fear. Maybe I should write more on that one day...

Anyway...back to the topic. I've never "celebrated" Halloween so I'm kind of a bit clueless about how to do so...but we're having a bit of a party type thing at our place for Halloween. Not that we're inviting anyone over, but we are all dressing up to greet the Trick or Treaters that will undoubtedly come. Mind you, I'm only opening the door to little kids and their parents up until about 8pm....or until the treats run out. After that, we go into hiding because that's when the real little devils come out to play....and by that I am referring to the troublemakers of the neighbourhood - armed with eggs and other missiles.

The young ones want to have a party of sorts so we went to Lombards on the weekend and stocked up on a few things. Tim's into special effects make up so he bought all sorts of bits and pieces that will enable him to make scabs and burns and blood. Georgia and Chloe bought a few things for costumes. I couldn't help but be drawn into their enthusiasm and I found myself scanning the aisles for basic decorations.

What? Me?

Yes. I bought a large spiderweb and several plastic spiders, some spooky cupcake papers and the piece de resistance, a jointed skeleton. Oh how I love my little skeleton. After Halloween he shall hang in my closet and be known as the skeleton in my closet henceforth!

Lombards was great as their entire store was decked out in Halloween decorations so I gained a lot of ideas from there without having to purchase their expensive ones. Instead, I'm heading to the Reject Shop and my local Coles to purchase things like crepe paper and garbage bags that will do just as well. I'm also considering buying a carving pumpkin to make our own Jack-o-lantern....although I'm battling thinking about the waste of food. Perhaps a pumpkin soup with the pulp? Are carving pumpkins even edible?

Excited conversations are being had about the entertainment we will have over the course of the evening. I've heard whispers of Monster Mash and Michael Jackson's Thriller, A Nightmare Before Christmas (which Chloe said is a good movie for watching both at Halloween AND Christmas) and The Corpse Bride.

Yeah, we're really hardcore here! That's about the scariest we will go. While other people may be watching The Shining, Carrie and The Exorcist we'll be watching Tim Burton films. Badass we are!

Are we celebrating? No, not really. We're just having a spooky night as a family, putting to rest fears and biases and being free to express some other parts of who we are. No longer driven by fear and misconception we are forging our own path and making choices for ourselves.

It feels good to be free.

Authenticity and the blogging community.

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Authenticity (philosophy) - is the degree to which one is true to one's own personality, spirit or character, despite external pressure. 

Over the past week I have been thinking a lot about the word authenticity and what I believe it means in regards to being true to the self. I have been thinking a lot about this in response to a blog I read, written by a woman I very much admire as a mother, a woman and a seeker of truth. 

This woman has been through things I cannot even bear to think about, and yet in the face of this she chooses to walk in love and gentleness - seeking to respond to the situations she is in, her children, life and people she encounters along her way with love and acceptance. She chooses to blog about her journey and the journey she and her children make each day. Yes, her lifestyle is alternative as she seeks truth for herself and strives towards living authentically, but this makes reading her blog all the more interesting. I am challenged and inspired each time I read her writings and come away with many things to ponder and meditate on in regards to my own life and how I live it. I have met this woman before, albeit briefly, and I found her to be very much as I read her - gentle, full of love and giving.

Each day she works towards being her authentic self and allows her children to live authentically as possible as well. She allows them to choose their own clothes, what they learn about, hairstyles, what they eat, when and how much. She doesn't enforce her own agendas on her children and I know that she has been challenged more than once to remain silent and let them choose for themselves how they wish to present themselves to the world. I find it all wonderfully facinating to watch the process play out. 

But, when you reveal some of your life online and have a blog where you write about the process of becoming authentic, living authentic and your lifestyle choices, it inevitably attracts the readers who watch your every move and pounce on anything they deem as contrary to your own philosphies. I cringe in horror as I read comments that reveal judgemental attitudes, criticism and this seeminly insane desire to catch her up when she stumbles. As time has gone on, she has blogged less and less and I wonder if it's due to the fact that each time she does, even though it may be a lovely piece about their latest travels and discoveries, there will be more than one someone who will criticise her for something. More often than not these comments will be insanely petty.

The latest two that saddened me came in the form of criticising her for shaving her legs. The reader deemed that this was not "authentic". The other was a criticism of her referring to herself and her girls as Gypsies. 

No. Really?

So what if she chooses to shave her legs!? In my mind she IS being authentic to her real self for doing so! Maybe she likes the feel of shaved legs? Maybe she likes the look of her legs when they are shaved? Whatever the case, she shaves them. This is her choice. If she didn't do so because she thought that hairy legs were the trademark of a hippy gypsy and she should do so because this is what everyone expected of a hippy, regardless of how she truly felt about it, then she would not be authentic to her real self. Instead of bowing to this seemingly relentless pressure, she listens to her inner self. She knows what she likes and doesn't like and responds accordingly. She knows her children intimately and fosters their growth and development in a loving, gentle, non-judgemental way. Who on earth are we the reader for criticising her whatever choices she makes? She makes them after careful reflection and thought. Why should she have to live up to readers expectations?

And why should she have to explain to her readers why she took an overseas trip and left her children in the care of others? None of our business! Yet there are readers who seem to believe it's their right to know why. 

Sometimes we as readers seem to think it's our right to appoint ourselves Judge, Jury and Executioner. Trial by Readership....and it's ugly.

So, after pondering these things I have come to the conclusion that being authentic does not have a specific look on the outside. A well groomed woman with immaculate hair, makeup and fashionable attire may be being JUST as authentic to herself as the woman who just lets her hair grow and hang in a messy ponytail, wearing no makeup and wears loose flowing shirts and jeans with bare feet. It's all a case of responding to your own inner values, not anyone elses. That's what being authentic is. 

I really hope she keeps blogging. I have learned so much from her. I hope she doesn't bow to the pressure of her readership forcing her into their ideal of authentic living. 

Just hold the eggs

Our house was egged on Saturday night.

I don't like eggs at the best of times.

Evil little ovals of yuckiness! I mean, come on! Who was it who looked at what emerged from a chooks bum and said, "Mmm! Yummy! I think I'll eat that!" 

But seriously, yes our house was egged to welcome the first official weekend of Daylight Savings. It's not the first time and it won't be the last. Our house isn't the only one in town that endures an egging once the longer days are upon us but I think it's the most frequently targeted. 

For obvious reasons of course. Most hooligans know where we live and who lives here. 

This egging was a pain in the butt more than anything as it had been a warm day and we had the window open. The eggs were thrown at the window so they hit the screen, broke and went onto the blinds and the curtains. 

Little buggers.

It's gotten to the stage now where I just sigh, grab a bucket, mop and the hose and go clean it off before it hardens. Yes I've been to the police who have promised there will be more patrols but in the grand scheme of things I suppose eggings are not too serious in their opinion. They've got domestic violence and robberies and stabbings to see to. Totally understand.

We've had worse than eggs and times where they've entered our property and damaged our gates. These have definitely been reported to the police, who did actually step up patrols in the area.

I can't really tell you why I am no longer outraged or incensed or even hurt. Maybe I've just reached a stage of my life where I know that their actions reflect more on their character rather than mine. I know that we're targeted because we are a family of short statured people and the bullies think that's funny.....but for some reason I have moved on and it has no bearing on how I feel about myself and my kids and our place in the world. I know we belong and I know we're pretty cool people....and I'm sure that if these bullies actually swallowed their fear (because that's all it is, you know!) and took a chance to get to know us, they'd think we were pretty cool too. 

And I really wish they would do that......

.....because cleaning smashed egg off windows and brickwork is a bitch of a job.