Mum lives in a house overrun by paper miscellany – bills, newspapers, junk mail spill
cantankerous on the couch, dining table, floor, kitchen bench, notes scribbled on the edges of
open envelopes which she’ll forget and ask me over the phone.
Most Tuesday nights I have dinner with Mum; wash-up, wheel out the rubbish and recycling
We chat about her 90 year old tai chi teacher who eats eggshells everyday as a health booster
We chat about Dad in the aged care facility, if he sat on his electric wheelchair for activities
or not
We chat about Mystery Diners & sneaky employees on hidden surveillance cheating their
bosses
We chat about the news, her birthplace in Terengganu where two women were caned in
public for consensual sexual relations
…………..(I scour google and read that it’s never happened in Malaysia before September 2018.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister denounces the caning, but maintains that LGBTQ+ rights are
Western values (here in Australia, we celebrate one year of marriage equality). In August
2018 the portraits of two LGBTQ+ activists were removed from an exhibition. Later in the
year the former Malaysian deputy prime minister claims that Palu, Indonesia’s earthquake
and tsunami was the result of God’s punishment for LGBTQ+ activities. Sodom and
Gomorrah on repeat, the fire and brimstone magic show)
Just before the mercury rose over 40 degrees in January
I replaced Mum’s noisy wobbly fan, circulating more hot air, with a borrowed portable air
conditioning unit ignoring her repeated refusal, ‘Don’t worry, I’m fine. Don’t you need it?’
Her home spared from the 200,000 homes in Victoria hit by power failure
With coal and thermal generators failing in the heatwave
It was wind power that filled the gap
Summer 2018-2019 beating 2013’s hottest summer record
Sea levels projected to rise to over two metres by 2100
The earth slowly sucking Jakarta’s foundations into its bowels, ‘the fastest sinking city in the
world’
Mum and I are home from hospital ‘cos Dad is sick again
We chat about the news; ScoMo wins, the Adani coalmine on Wangan and Jagalingou
Country will go ahead, a few days later a climate emergency rally disrupts parts of the
Melbourne CBD
I wheel the yellow recycling bin over the tuft of grass in the driveway,
Ponder how Australian recycling has now landed in Malaysia’s ports full of maggots
A trash outpost for rich nations
A Western value system of individualism and selfishness?
We turn off the news,
Make space to breathe, practice tai chi in the lounge room.