After a round of rejections from within my social circle, I knew that I had to do the unthinkable and face a general admission crowd alone.
Browsing: Perspective
The sound of your voice is shaped by the geography of your mouth, the length of your vocal folds, the exact way you place your tongue. The way you pronounce words is a lineage of the accents and affectations you grew up hearing.
While I have clearly picked on some situations which could have been improved, this entire experience was very rewarding and provided me with so much insight. It allowed me to bond with a group of co-workers I had never met before. Blood, sweat and tears. Ballot, sausage and turnout.
I’ve heard it all, in all forms and rearrangement. Patterns so distant from my actual name that I’ve learnt to sweep things under the rug.
I understand your struggles as a queer person, but you do not understand mine as a queer person of colour.
I have always felt a purpose within these white institutions, not for conformity, but a confrontation. It has long been the case us ethnic Westies have had our places questioned in spaces like Sydney Uni; but it’s in this very uneasiness we thrive.
It hits me in these moments that there are worlds – literary, familial, cultural – that are almost entirely inaccessible to me, in a language that was meant to be mine.
I know so little of the place I was born. Recently, the reminders of my not-knowing have become more frequent. An epidemic of half-familiar this-that-those.
When I’m cooking dinner, I’ll hop outside to trim some leaves off my plants, taking care not to thin out the foliage too much, taking from the top, not the bottom. Rinse your herbs well before consuming them. Savour their flavour. The love I cook into my dishes tastes like home-grown basil.
“If I had just been a better child, less of a troublemaker in school, less of a problem child, would she be whole? … I broke my mum.”
