esterday the sun was shining on Carlisle Street, Balaclava. I'd just had my hair cut and coloured, and there are very few moments when I would look as styled, despite the half active wear half casual wear outfit. My hands were full of brown paper bags from an unexpected purchase from a bakery, heavy sourdough laden with fat kalamata olives, cinnamon scroll coiled and dusted. I needed to cross the road, busy with trams and cars and people shining in the winter light. I've always been clumsy, bumping into tables bruises blossoming on thighs and shins, sleeves caught on door handles, toes stubbed. My phone has been dropped too many to count, the screen telling the story with cracks like a river and its tributaries stretching across the glass. The curb angled down, but my ankle twisted, then in slow-mo the aspalt was coming up to meet me, knees then palms, bags flung out towards the tram tracks. I pulled the bags towards me, then shakily got to my feet. People...
I listen to Radio Melbourne, I've never rung in but my other half says if I did I'd be "Angry of Aspendale". Usually I would say I'm not angry, I'm passionate. But at the moment I am angry, angry and disappointed, angry and sad. I feel the world we've been chipping away at has slipped away from us, so much further out of reach. I was full of hope that the Australian public would recognise the wounds of our colonial past, would see the need for change, would heed the call made in the Statement from the Heart, and vote yes to a constitutional voice for our First Nations people. I sat on the couch on that Saturday night, and wept for our lost opportunity, for First Nations people who had worked so hard and held such open hearts for reconciliation to have the door slammed in their face. For our Nation beholden to fear, to the status quo, to the deeply held and mostly unacknowledged discrimination and racism. I wept, and my 10 year old held me, and I felt b...