Yea!

we will hug until

when my friends are sad...

sometimes i don't know 'how to be' around my friends when they are so sad. I feel like a lost ship in a dark night trying desperately not to crash into rocks i can't see. I have been happy for ages now, and i can remember things like how fragile a mind is, and how the slightest little thing can signify all this strange symbolism and stuff, or at least it did for me. When i think about the people who supported me, i don't know how they did it, being so patient and caring, always there when i needed to bitch n whinge n cry. I feel like sometimes i don't know how to be there for other people, especially when they can't tell me, sometimes i feel like i miss out all these things i should be doing, and like its really not as hard as i think. i know that its just about caring and loving someone... but somehow i still have trouble finding the words to say, thinking of things to do, knowing when to just listen and when to say that maybe you need some help. Minds are such impenetrable and powerful things. When i was younger i thought i was good at being around people who were quite sad or disliked themselves, and i wanted to become a nurse or a psych so i could get the skills to do it all the time, now i'v changed and i don't think a degree can give you people skills, and i don't feel like i'm any better at being there for my friends when they are really down, and when they don't seem to be coming back up. I am studying mental health nursing, it gives me labels for certain types of illnesses, (although these are sometimes just constructs, behavior considered unacceptable by society) and it gives an insight into a system that to me seems an awfully bizarre way to try and help someone who is fragile or unwell, a system we inherited from the days before people experiencing mental illness had rights, that has been gradually modified as we progress. Surely such a system is never going to be adequate, not until it is looked at properly and reformed based on evidence and caring...
I have been looking at some radical mental health sites such as the icarus project and am wanting to look more into such things, there are lots of great zines that i want to look at and conversations that i want to have about how to care for our friends. Here are some of the links;
http://www.radpsynet.org/
http://www.successfulschizophrenia.org/
http://theicarusproject.net/
http://sydneyicarus.wordpress.com/
http://www.rockdovecollective.org/
http://www.freedom-center.org/
yea, i don't know what this post is trying to achieve, its just something i'v been thinking about. All my love...

Cooper Pedy Roo

Coober Pedy

Strange town, full of secrets, driving into Coober Pedy through land broken up by mining i thought i'd hate the place, and disagree with the people in it, and probably find them a bit scary, but as we drove into the town i looked around at it and became fascinated, i don't quite know why, it is a desert town, the edges of which stretch out into harsh hot dirt riddled with mining holes and shafts. The main street is tourist oriented with opal shops and aboriginal art galleries, while the people who made the art lay in the only shade available on the street. All the people working in the shops were white. The people i was travelling with didn't like it and wanted to leave as soon as we got there, i really wanted to stay, and as we were leaving the bus got a flat, which meant that we got to stay from a few hours. It was wonderfully hot, just walking from the bus into town (maybe 250m) we were covered in sweat.
I visited the underground church which was through this little forboding door with a cross on it, and was so silent that i could only whisper. My skin was almost tingling, the pressure was different as well i think, i just sat there and felt the place and wondered about what had happened there.
As i went for a wander about the town i picked my way between buildings as the ground was so hot and my boots were starting to give me blisters, i stopped in the shade of buildings for a break as i went. One place i stopped at seemed pretty empty despite an enthusiastic sign proclaiming another opal shop, i wandered up to this big warehouse building and opened the door, inside i found a building in the middle of renovations and a very friendly couple who chatted to me and showed me their 'babies' little kangaroo's who had been rescued when their mothers had been killed on the road, they let me hold the tiny kangaroo who's eyes were hardly open and talked to me about the town. When i mentioned i was doing nursing they told me their daughter was also a nurse and worked at the aboriginal health centre down the road, they offered to call and see if there were jobs.
This is a bit random but the place just had some substance, and meant something that i can't articulate. I really want to go back.

dumpsta!