Remembrance

I grew up buying poppies and wearing a sprig of rosemary each November Eleventh in remembrance of the soldiers that had fallen in wartime service. As a kid I didn't have a really good idea what war was. Sure I'd had a great uncle who had been an ANZAC and another great uncle who never made it back from the killing fields of Flanders. My grandfather lied about his age (being only 15) just so he could follow his brothers into the Great War, which many believed at the time would be 'the war to end all wars'.

Yet all too soon another world war came and my father, though living in a neutral country, risked his life sweeping for mines in the waters around Sweden and after that war was over had the horrific experience of entering places like Auschwitz to help clean up a tragedy that should never have occurred.

My mother too did not come out of the second world war unscathed. Her closest cousin, was shot down in Papua New Guinea. But the horror that I remember from that story was not her cousin dying, but how my ANZAC great uncle's workmates treated him after his son went missing in action. The next week they told him he wasn't wanted to be a part of their weekly lottery ticket syndicate as having lost a son made him unlucky. And doubly unlucky he was, for it was that week that his workmates won the lottery, and not a penny of it did they give to him.

During the first dozen years or so of my life, my brother dragged me along to more war movies than I think any of my peers (at least the female ones) have seen in their entire lives.I knew how to shoot my brother's air gun (and wasn't too bad at hitting the target) and I'd watched my father strip down and restore classic guns to their former glory.

Our favourite game in the backyard was playing wars and, together with the neighbours kids we dug trenches and tunnels, wore real helmets and tossed rocks at each other pretending they were hand-grenades. How we lived to tell the story, I'll never know, yet we survived all our battles with barely a scratch or scrape.

When I hit my teens I began to see another side of war. I saw young guys, not that much older than myself, marching not wanting to go and fight a war they didn't believe in, and I saw old blokes trashing them. Though at the time I was probably only 11 or 12 all I could think was how wrong this war must be. I remember celebrating in 1972 when Gough Whitlam was elected, for Australia, at least, this war was going to be over. And that led to another November 11 when in 1975, the prime minister who brought us peace, was sacked by the Queen of England's representative.

During my university years I became an ardent pacifist and republican, yet as the years have wrought their toll I have found the edges of my passion becoming greyed. Edmund Burke once said, 'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.' Over the years this much quoted phrase has been used to justify both action and inaction and for me the debate is still out.

Yet I still, cannot image a point where I could raise a gun and shoot to save my own life. The only time in my life I have ever had a gun pointed at me was by a Koori late one night in Redfern, who, after we chatted, ended up just wanting a light and decided I was cool. Maybe the situation was never dangerous, or may be my inability to respond negatively to the danger made it a positive experience ... I'll never know, but at least I lived to tell the tale.

We now live in a world where one country's freedom fighter is another's terrorist. Where inequity is massive. We get caught up in chasing dollars, fame and fortune, but as I was reminded so well by Deepak Chopra this morning, what really matters at the deepest level is peace, harmony, laugher and love.

So  peace, harmony, laugher and love are what I am focussing on this Remembrance Day and hope that if enough people around the world join with me then together we can make this dream a reality.

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Monday Mornings

Despite the song, I really do like Mondays. For me they represent the promise of a new exciting adventure.

Monday mornings are kind of like the sunrise of the week, you want to roll over and make the weekend last a moment of two longer but you know that if you get up and greet the week you're going to feel so much better for it. And of course it helps a little if it's been the hottest night of the year as peeling back the bedclothes is not such a daunting task.

It's funny, everyone always says they want longer weekends, more holidays, less work, but you only have to look around to see that's not how we really think deep down. Like how kids by the end of the summer holidays are missing their friends. They say they don't want the summer to end, but with every other breath they are talking about who they are looking forward to seeing when they get back to school, what classes they are going to be in, when their sport is starting up again and all the good stuff that makes growing up so great.

And how many times have you found yourself at the end of a trip saying words like '... it's been fantastic but it'll be good to get home ...' While we are on the road it's easy to get caught up in the endlessness of the moment and more than once in my life I've thought it would be great to just pack my bags and head off for an endless winter or an endless summer, chasing the snow or the surf as the wind blows.

I remember vividly at the end of year 12 planning with my best friend Sandra to pack our guitars and head to Perth. We knew no one there and had no idea what we were going to do when we arrived, but at the time it seemed like the best idea in the world, full of excitement and a million miles from home. That plan almost gave my father a heart attack and my mother didn't hold back in telling us what she thought of it. Having started school early, we were both only 17 and I guess far too young for our parents to let go. Yet even now, almost 35 years later, there are times when I wonder who I might have become had we just packed our bags and headed west.

I wouldn't have gone to Uni, at least not that year. Maybe I would have stayed west forever. Or maybe I would have kept on travelling and seen the world several times over. Or maybe I would have come home, a little wiser and wearier for the experience. But I'll never know because I chose the path I chose and for that I am now who I am.

So to Monday morning, which is fast becoming afternoon, no matter how perfect the sunset was yesterday, or the moonrise last night, it is impossible to look at the sunrise and not contemplate what is to come. And therein lies the choice, do we stay in bed trying to relive what has been or get up and discover all that is possible in what lies ahead?

The Proclaimers

I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more...

I remember watching Forrest Gump many years ago who, on a whim, ran for over three years coast to coast across America. He ran  not because he should, but simply because he could.

Like running, walking has a way of taking you over so that as one foot follows the other over and over again in a zen-like trance you cover further and further distances often without even noticing.

More and more we as tread the pavement, it is in the journey that we are finding the true joy. The sound of early morning bird-calls, the feeling of the day starting on a note that can only go from good to great. The feeling of the muscles firming, the feet strengthening. The simple pleasure of being outside, at one with the elements, whatever they may be.

Even more satisfying are the friends and family who who join us along the way. Like Cathy and Geoff who were just going for a short stroll across a bridge or two  and ended up still with us 20km later. Or Milo determined to come across all the bridges with us next year. And Joel boasting to his fb friends about our walk and the big one yet to come.

Like Forrest, I am beginning to believe that life is really like a box of chocolates ... you may never know what you are going to get. Luckily for me I like all types of chocolate ;-).

And scarily, as we wander further and further afield, I begin to wonder if the day will come when my feet take me clear across the continent and beyond, all on a magical journey that has no starting point and no defined end.