Many corners

A couple of years ago, maybe before my hospital internment, I had purchased a book The Stories that Changed Australia, edited by Sally Neighbour, about Four Corners which has appeared on ABC for 50 years. I have forgotten just when I bought it, but I know why I did. I wanted to read it.

It’s been 2.5 years since BIRU, and my stroke had cut off most of my reading. I could read info that I Googled for BASA, but I could usually only read the first paragraph of each article I found, which I subsequently posted onto BASA. While I didn’t really start reading for two years, I had fully read one fairly early – Rebooting my Brain by Maria Ross, which told about her own brain aneurysm. I can’t even remember that story. After that I had two books beside my bed every night, but I know that I only read half of Wings of Madness by Jo Buchanan, and hadn’t even started Firestorm: Trial by Fire by Peter Clack.

Before BIRU I wrote. I scribed my own first novel, First Person Singular, and finally had it printed 18 months after BIRU. I did a book launch at Redcliffe Library and attended the Brisbane Writers Festival and a display at North Lakes Library, sold some but didn’t read anything.

After I had moved up to Cootharaba I started reading again, and often. Rainy days and cold evenings were spent lying in my bed with nothing at all else to do – perhaps I should be grateful for being up there for a short period. The first book I had started but not completely finished was Revolution 2.0 by Wael Ghonim. It was a definitive Egypt political book which I could compare to Australia. I’d gotten through about two thirds of it - I got to page 210 and that book was 304 pages - but finally had to give it up. I moved on to Other People’s Country by Maureen Helen and Diamonds and Dust by Sheryl McCorry, which I finished. That was a breakthrough for me – now three full books after two years, and I remember what McCorry wrote about!

After I moved down to Bethania I discovered the op shop just through the village back gate, and all books there were on sale for $1 each. I could even afford $3 for the three books of David Eddings The Elenium. Eddings wound me right back up to where I should have been. I read much from him many years ago, but reading all three from The Elenium was opening my future and definitely continuing my recovery. I got through all three of them within three weeks.

Since moving to Aus back in 2005 I would occasionally switch over to ABC when Four Corners was on. I used to watch 60 Minutes on Channel 9, but I’d become frustrated with the ads on any commercial channel, and switched permanently to ABC. In the last 4 years the news, QandA and Four Corners became the only programmes I would watch. After my stroke I didn’t watch any TV for months, but returned to ABC when I finally turned it on. I was back to Four Corners, and The Stories that Changed Australia was still waiting on my shelf. I decided to read it now.

This book gave 15 individual writings by 15 different Four Corners staff. Each person had written about some of the stories they had done, from Aboriginal problems, politics, refugees, Vietnam, wars in Afghanistan and Iraqi, Australian detention centres and many, many more. The book became a “time for bed” reading, and if the chapter I was up to really got to me I would read it. Some nights I would read two.

Yet there are two main things which have stayed in my brain: Sarah Ferguson in chapter 14 wrote about a young woman who had been sexualised by at least six Australian football players whose team had gone to New Zealand to play. For me, that sexualisation was not at the woman’s consent. It was rape, and every football player who jumped in should have been sent to jail. That’s a different blog – perhaps I will write it.

The second thing was from the Author Biographies at the back. Mary Delahunty is the CEO and National Director of Writing Australia Ltd, an award-winning journalist, published author, previous Arts Minister and Chair of Orchestra Victoria – my own interests. I truly hope I can exchange words with her, because I see her as someone who can help me.

I have recently started my third book – which I want to be printed. I want people to understand a bit about my life – what changed me (I was raped at age 17), what drove me (I spent 18 years working for Drury Lane, a voluntary position I loved), I wrote a lot (published articles, club magazines, letters to editors, study, prose, poetry, websites, blogs, one published book and one waiting for publication). I want people to read me. Mary Delahunty has her history which I think I could have done many years ago. I know why I haven’t. Think PTSD and have another look (or first one if you’ve never been there before) at my other website – www.itsokaytobeangry.com.

This future seems… different. I have nothing else to hold me back. I can get back into writing.

I want.

I want.

I NEED!