Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

The first time I needed to say this was as I felt your gaze like no one before. I could see deep into your soul and somehow feel you connect. I had never felt this before and it was all over too soon. But it needed it to be over because I needed to feel how I did after the blink. I needed to say thank you.

I have been saying thankyou ever since. You stood next to me at the kitchen bench of the old fisherman’s cottage, with no doors or windows until the sun shone through the palms. You had booked a flight out from Cairns that day.

My phone rang later that morning. “I would like to stop in on the way through to the airport. Is that OK?”. I barely managed to drink a small cup of coffee before you were there. Blue jeans, singlet and thongs. Your golden hair was flowing. “Isn’t it a bit warm for jeans?”. Oh yeah, you ares leaving. As you weaved out the window, backing out of the driveway, I wanted to say thank you again.

A change of course was awaiting the first time you called from Melbourne. There were many calls over the next couple of weeks. I paced the garden, a couple of times ankle deep in water from the storms. My phone boiled in my hand.

The next minute I was on the plane south. From the hut on Four Mile Beach to her parents’ unit on Queens’s Rd. “What’s that smell?” said your dad when I served up char-sui pork and vegetables. He managed to give it a go, which was good for his age and background. We were shacking up with your parents and I had bought a one-way ticket.

“let me check for jobs in the area” I said. There were not many jobs in hospitality going in the Melbourne autumn but I got lucky. Ten years down the track, we have two young boys and we have done well. Thank you to your mum and dad for their inspiration and support.

We moved out and back in again after your dad passed away. He won’t have to wonder what his dinner smells like anymore. Thank you for helping me get to where I am and for you letting me help you get to where you are.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

The first time I saw it, I was surprised. I mean I’d never seen one before. It was red and spotted and rather, well uninteresting. I guess it might say the same about me, except for the spots. I took it in my hand, rolled it around, tossed it from side to side. It was light, unassuming, rather nebulous, unlike me. I’m definitely not light!

I took it out from the shadows to look at it in the light. It made no difference. It was still dull. I tossed it and shook it and nothing happened. I threw it on the ground, rolled it around with my toes and looked at it from every side. Just the spots, that’s all, nothing remarkable.

It was smooth, and felt nice in my hand. I rolled it through my fingers, around and around. It seemed to reduce my tension. I breathed a little easier. I closed my eyes and wondered what I could do with it. I decided that I should slip it into my pocket where I could touch it, should I feel a little anxious.

And so I continued my walk around the park. It was a beautiful bright and sunny day, gentle breeze, children playing, flowers blooming, birds singing. I was at ease. Every now and then, I placed my hand into my pocket and touched the little red thing.

On the footpath ahead, I saw a small abandoned coffee cup. You know, those disposable ones. The ones you only use once and then throw away. I was cross. It should have gone into the recycle bin at the very least. I wondered about it. Could I reuse it in some way? Goodness, I didn’t drop it! How is this my responsibility? I started to feel cross and reached into my pocket to stroke the red thing. I calmed down a little, took the cup over to the fountain tap, and rinsed it out.

I took the red thing from my pocket and popped it into the cardboard cup. It clattered around making a rattling noise. It was quite funny. I took a change in course, across the soft green lawn and sat under a shady tree. It looked a little like one of Dr Suess’s illustrations straight form The Cat in the Hat. Awesome! I’ve always liked those drawings. I tossed the little red thing around and around in the cup still wondering what it was, but enjoying its company never the less.

A seagull set itself down not far from me. I think he was wondering whether I might throw him a chip or two. Of course I didn’t have any, but the seagull was optimistic. The next minute a dozen more landed down beside me calling out in their usual gawking ways. I was amused for several minutes, but they were getting a little fresh so I shooed them away. They alighted hesitantly. I’m sure they thought they were going to miss out on something, but I had nothing, just the red thing and a coffee cup.

What’s that smell? Ahhh, sausages. Over on the hill a group of scouts were cooking sausages to raise funds as they do. I think I’ll have myself one or two. The seagulls were onto me. They followed me across the green. I bought three sausages, two for me, because I was as hungry as a horse, and one that I shared with them. You should have seen the fight. Seagull everywhere!

I dropped my cup in all the commotion. Let me check, where is that red thing! Oh no! Where is it! I scrambled across the grass checking every blade. I started to panic. Down on my hands and knees. Then I saw it. A young scout had picked it up. He looked at me. I looked at him. I took it from his hand.

“Please Sir, can I have my dice back?

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

I can barely remember the first time I gambled. I remember more clearly a time in my life when I went to Vegas a few times. It was almost like a routine with me and my mom. She lived in Needles, California. It’s a hoe-dunk town in the middle-of-a-nowhere desert on the border of California and Arizona. It suffers from the stifling heat that nothing grows under except the tan my mom had on the one arm closest to the driver’s window from her daily 15 minute drive back and forth to work. Mom took a supervisor’s position there. It’s hard for me to understand why she took this job, other than it would pay her more and she might get to retire early. She moved into a fifth-wheel trailer at a big camping park on the Colorado River to save even more money. And to live rent-free, she volunteered her time at night booking the in-coming campers in. So, whenever I came to town to hang out with Mom, we often scooted off to Vegas, a not-too-far drive away, and stayed in the traditional downtown Vegas at a casino called The Horseshoe. This was the home of cheaper rooms and two dollar steaks served from 11pm, a place we could afford and, with a little luck, we might come home with a few more bucks than what we started with. We usually played Blackjack. Mom liked Blackjack and we would often practice in our room and play during non-busy times, which were early mornings or early afternoons, when the locals and old-timers gambled at the two dollar tables. You had to know what you were doing or you messed up their odds and they would tell you so. Sometimes in the afternoons, after I’d had a couple of free drinks, I’d wander over to the Craps table, which was just a game of chance. You didn’t have to think. You’d pick a number and they rolled the dice. If you’re number came up, you won. If it didn’t, you lost. I liked playing Blackjack and games of chance, but if I ever got on a losing streak, I had a rule about how much money I was willing to lose. The minute I went over this amount, usually ten dollars, I would walk away. I couldn’t stand losing my hard-earned money, so I knew I never had to worry about a gambling addiction. The toss of a dice and the loss of a dollar together was too much to bear.

I’ve always liked spending time with my mom. We had always lived far apart since I was eighteen, so I would often plan a vacation with her or just come and hang out with her. I had no idea that my sister felt differently about spending time with my mom until a few years ago. Susan’s the type of person who holds everything in, quiet as a mouse in regards to important things, then will suddenly break, releasing an avalanche of hurtful truths, past regrets and anger…until recently. I noticed a change in her after we nursed our father through death; she began to open up. I think it was the passing of our father, of not having another family member she was close to, or maybe the mortality of our time left, but she began to tell her truths, to set things straight, to find her voice to the wrongs of her childhood. It wasn’t until now that I am able to see the start of her story. What was that sound? Was it the sound of silence that her heart could bear no more that prompted her to speak? At first it was light whisper, nothing you could actually make out as language, but I asked, “What did you say? Did you say something?” She spoke it so softly and then asked Mom to speak for her to the one who wronged her. When she told me that she asked Mom to speak for her, I called my sister, “Susan, you have to talk to him yourself. Don’t you see? He holds power over you until you find your voice. You must use your voice to take your power back.”

“You’re right Tami Lou! I’ve got to use my OWN voice….using my voice is taking my power back.”

It wasn’t much longer after that and Susan began to speak to us more, to share with us parts of herself that had remained hidden for too many years. She came around to Mom’s more often and did this and that for her. She often asked Mom if she could stay the night. The other day when I was talking to Mom and asked how Susan was doing, Mom said, “She’s an angel.”

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

Prompt No 1 – I can barely remember my childhood. It was a time of books and hiding. A lot of fear, a lot of coping. My first flash of consciousness: sitting on my potty at the bottom of a dark flight of stairs, while my parents argued in the kitchen. Shouting. Angry. This was not to be an unusual occurrence. Looking through a door which was a window of light, two people screaming.

Prompt No 2 – It’s hard to explain why two people stay together when they provoke each other so much. Mum said she almost left Dad twice, each time with me in tow. Talked out of it by her sister. It wasn’t the done thing, of course, back in that day, but I wish she had. What I learned about marriage and relationships was not how to break our and be free, but how to endure. How to stay regardless. I don’t tend to leave. I stay and will things to get better. There was a deal though, Mum signed up for adventure. At the end of the second world war in London there was not a lot going on. Rationing, a broken country trying to rebuild, it was entirely pants. I think Dad probably did love mum, in his way, but mum I suspect hopped on for the ride. A colonial life in a panoply of countries. Africa, Kenya, Singapore, Malaysia, always a drawer of different currency from exotic climes, a rand, a Canadian dollar, a 5000 Kyat note from Myanmar. As a child I was fascinated and envious.

Prompt No 3. “Next minute”, Mum said, “He’d be shouting at me. We’re at a dinner party for dignitaries in Kenya, and then I disagreed with him about something. He looked at me like I was dirt, and said ‘When I say ‘shovel shit’, you jump on the shovel”.

Prompt No 4. I had no idea what to do with mum’s story. I left home like a bullet when I was 18, in Perth, getting away from the egg-shell home atmosphere, leaving mum to deal with dad on her own. It was the 1980s, and Rubics cubes were all the fashion. They reminded me of their relationship, frustrating and unsolveable.

Prompt No 5. Until finally, when mum was dying, I had a revelation. It’s not my fault or responsibility. She was so much happier after dad died, after 61 years of marriage, but ultimately it was up to her. It was her bargain. Dad could be an arsehole, but he delivered on adventure. They lived a life, a great life. Sometimes she complained, “I never saw myself dying in Australia”, but I’d point out to her, “This is what happens to old colonials, they die in a far-flung corner of the British Empire”. She chose her life. She stayed. Not, as Joan Rivers would say, my aisle.

Prompt No 6. What was that sound? Mum’s death rattle was wet and vile, for certain her lungs were liquefying in a stew of their own tissues. I could hardly stand to be in the room. But I stayed, mostly, actually on the phone in the toilet to my cousin Debbie at the moment she passed. They say that people hang on until their loved ones leave before they die. Going to the loo, in the end, must have been enough of a window. She was a brilliant human, Norah, sticking with life with her fingernails, sucking the marrow from what she had. Did not want to go. I didn’t want her to go either. But then that’s what I learned from her. Endurance. How to stay regardless. And I didn’t leave.

Some lessons have to be learned the hard way.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

There is always a beginning. A start of something. It can be hard to identify when it began.

They say that the beginning is the best place to start but who are they?

I want to start in the middle. At a time before it spiraled into darkness for my only brother.

Because it wasn’t always bad for him. It was bad when it began and at the end but it wasn’t always hard. Maybe it began around the time that I was born. Maybe it was when Mum became ill. I’m not sure, as I don’t remember. My perception is through other people’s memories and stories of that time. Memories that are warped by my mother’s self-preservation or my father’s inability to communicate emotions prior to my brother’s death.

Overnight my father aged 10 years, went grey and discovered his emotions. I guess the loss of a child will do that. For my mother she clings to a version of events that bridges the gap between reality and appeasing her guilt. I have found subtle amusement over the years in listening to her morph the truth to suit herself until I can see that she truly believes her own half-truths. I on the other hand wear my guilt like a veil that I know can only be lifted with time and self-forgiveness.

Back to the middle…..

My brother, Peter, was 9 years older than me. As adults the age gap was almost irrelevant.

The traveller from overseas had come home with an English girl to settle down in Melbourne. For a time, we were a normal family. A fractured version of a normal family with the past always in the background. For a moment, he was complete and we were happy as a united family. Something that I hadn’t really had growing up.

Even as a child, I didn’t quite understand why I went to private schools and lived at home with my parents while he was shuffled around boys’ homes.

There was a perfectly good bedroom next to mine after all. But my parents didn’t talk about it in front of me and I knew not to ask any questions.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

Ode to a new school year – a teacher’s work is never done

Here’s a ‘write out’ colleagues who aren’t overjoyed, happy excited to be beginning the new school year (yet again).

I’m not writing for the bright eyed and bushy tailed newly qualified youngsters or not so youngsters who anxious yet sooo happy to have a job and to be gearing up to be getting to to know their new companions over the next school year. Every year they get a guernsey. They get a greeting and a photo op in the local or even national papers. Their Australia Day is filled with optimism and anticipation as they look forward (finally) to the start of a new school year. They’re set, as far as they can be. ‘Smart not too casual’ clothes? Check. Plans for their classroom layout? Scope and sequence curriculum planning documents? Check. Check. Posters? Displays? Board work? Check. Check. Check.

No, those aren’t the colleagues I’m writing for.

I’m writing for all my teaching colleagues who spend Australia Day hoping the following week won’t be spent in a poorly furnished classroom which is boiling hot and without any form of functional cooling, I’m writing for those who hope that the ‘first day back meetings’ will allow for at least half an hour to find out where the new office is and what furniture, carpeting and other items need to be brought from home to make it habitable. Extra time to actually remove last year’s coffee, blood sweat and tearstains from a small patch of desk would be a bonus!

I’m writing for the ‘old teaching hands’ who will need to hunt for the set questions, assignments, rubrics, essay topics, list of ‘to dos’ and other essential materials they managed hurriedly to cobble together for Week One D-day before being the last to leave the building in a frazzled yet lethargic heap after the end of term ‘chicken and champers’ and congratulatory backslapping the night before last minute Christmas shopping.

I’m writing to encourage, commiserate with and salute all my colleagues who look and feel old before their time, especially after the habitual nightmare before term starts way too early yet again. Yes, that’s right, those who have been in the teaching and child and helicopter parent wrangling game far too long. Those who are over spending their hard earned holidays taken at the most expensive time of year in locations where they are still unable to avoid the “Hi Miiiis” and “Hey Sir” (of the unwanted yet still polite) cries of their inescapable charges.

I’m writing to wish all the best for the new school year to those who really deserve it and keep coming back, year after long school year because they are committed and do it in spite of the lack of acknowledgement. Good Luck and Happy New School Year!

*** Special Best wishes for those, like me celebrating their birthdays on the first day of the new school year when you really can’t come up with any believable or acceptable reason for celebrating they way you really want to…elsewhere.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

I am a single mum and I raise my two kids alone with very little help or support.  My kids have high needs. They both have disabilities, are both ASD (Autistic), are affected in different ways and I need to parent my kids differently.  This is not all of who I am, and it’s not all of who my kids are, but sometimes it can feel that that is all that is seen.

It can feel like my own individual identity gets eaten by my special needs parenting identity.  People’s perception of what that means can be exhausting. Their pity so strong it stinks.  Some days are hard.  Some days are hard for everyone.  Parenting in general can be hard and sometimes in our house, the days are endless and excruciating.  The pressure relentless, the loneliness overwhelming, my fear, stress and knowledge of my own inadequacy grows until it steals all the air in the room. 

And I can’t breathe. 

I can’t see.

I can’t speak. 

The space from where I am, and where I want to be, it grows too.

Grows into a thing with power and life, and takes up a space it doesn’t deserve.  A small part of me speaks the truth, that I am only one person, and what I am dealing with was never designed for only one person.  But the sharper truth is that I am the only person left.  Inadequate and all.  

That is the truth.

It is the truth, that I wish was a lie.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

‘So where am I’ I hear you ask. Right now. Now. At just right now.

Well I’m stuck. Totally stuck. You could say I’m stuck in a rut, a loving rut, a cosy comfortable rut. Or perhaps I could say it’s a loud rut. A rut that would be nice if it was quieter. Less drama of a rut, a rut that I need to find my way out of. I must do something fast and just seriously stop listening to her talking in my head. You know, that annoying one. The one who never shuts up unless she is sleeping. The one who totally ruins my mood in the morning if I haven’t had enough sleep.

Sleep, ahhhh yes how powerful it is with its healing properties. I am not sorry to say this, sleep is not overrated. Out bodies begin to collapse if they don’t reboot. Our bodies heal when they rest while sleeping.  Even though she knows all of this, she resists sleeping enough in the hope she will reach to clarity.

I wish I just wish she would shut up. I wonder could I possibly turn her off? I wonder is she connected to wifi like everything else is these days? Turning her off would free me, would take off the reigns she has on me. She stops me, hinders me, annoys me, worries me for all her personal reasons justifications and excuses. I could get more sleep for starters, oh what I could do for more sleep.

Why is she so fearful? Do I really know? Yes, of course I do. She just doesn’t wanna get hurt again. She doesn’t want to be disappointed one more time.

She yearns for a sense of certainty for once in her life. It hasn’t existed for more than two decades. She put her life in a box and placed it on the shelf a decade ago to live someone else’s dreams and visions for the sake of love. Is that what you would call love?

Moving forwards without clarity cripples her. It’s horrifying for her to not know how things will unfold as she is a perfectionist and must get things right. Are these expectations of herself a little too much? Can’t she see how much she has accomplished all by her own accord.

She knows all she needs to do is surrender. Surrender to what is showing up right now in her life, which is easier said than done of course. She has got terabytes of knowledge and wisdom, which seems to be not enough. ‘Im so lost’ she says. ‘I don’t know what to do’ she gasps. ‘I just don’t know’ she cries.

How do we expect people to figure their life out on their own with the help of guidance or without the ear of an authentic listener? Do I know who I am? What my values are? What makes me want to fly out of bed? Getting to know yourself is a journey! Discovering aspects about yourself is about having the pieces of the puzzle finally fit with many aha moments.

This adventure ride is a totally unpredictable one which uncovers your deepest fears, self-doubts, limiting beliefs and vulnerabilities. You have to be willing to face the music and have the courage to allow yourself be scared.

Maybe that’s what she needs to do. Stop waiting for certainty and clarity. Do what she can today, no matter how small of a step towards her goal it may be and get enough sleep.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER