The Jacaranda Syndrome

If you visit my home town in November,
you cannot miss the Jacarandas.
For most of the year, they are simply large,
non-descript trees which line some streets 
and decorate our parks and yards.
In the winter, you wouldn't give them the time of day.
They seem almost dead.
They briefly drop their foliage at the end of the dry season,
then leaf up again when the rains come.

By mid-spring, they begin to transform.
Small green buds appear at first and,
as if born-again overnight,
they bloom into the most vibrant of purple flowers
covering the whole tree spread.

As you drive down any street,
your eyes cannot help but notice the exotic splash of purple,
appearing in random tufts throughout the suburbs.
Streets, lined with these majestic Jacarandas
magically transform into avenues of mystical proportions.
The flowers laying a thick and royal carpet where they fall.

It is simply beautiful.

But with most things in this natural world,
there is a downside.
There always is.
The coming of these flowers heralds a warning.
As a student, I used to cringe at the purple displays.
It always meant that finals were close at hand.
The blanket of blooms, once fallen
create a browning and smelly sea of mulch.
staining cars, footpaths, lawns and everything else they cover.
As the beauty fades, the signs of decay emerge.
It is a mixture of allure and forewarning.
A bitter/sweet reminder and presence.

Life is full of these.

Recently a dear friend of mine was relaying his journey with depression and anxiety.
He said he often felt very down and vulnerable around the year's end.
He had begun to piece together a pattern to his emotions.
He saw that his low times seem to sweep over him at the same time each  year.
The darkness emerged as the Jacarandas blossomed.
The words 'Jacaranda Syndrome' came to my mind.

As my friend shared,
he opened up about his life as a boy,
and how he hated the end of each school year.
This always brought the dreaded report
and the ensuing disappointment his father felt
and conveyed to him.
Try as he did,
my friend did not succeed at school.
And each year, he faced the rejection and pain
of being verified by this fearsome and authoritative piece of paper.
The message was clear and unfair and stinging:
he was essentially no good.
He felt dumb.
Stupid.
Incompetent
and defeated.

Things only slightly improved throughout his school years.
Having faced this inevitable gauntlet year in and year out, 
he soon left those school walls
for the journey into the adult world.
He took with him the poor academic judgement.
He took to heart his father's disapproval.
The legacy of this would reappear sporadically,
emerging with the signs of the closing Spring days.
And as the weather warmed and the flowers emerged,
instead of celebrating the year's end,
it covered him in a blanket of shame.

And each and every year
the purple blooms of the Jacarandas were reliably there.
To remind him.
Reclaim him.
Purple.
Shameful.
Stupid.
Wrong.

But there was hope.
Through the process of his own male journey,
pitted with wounds and hurt and pain,
there was a way to break this branded indignity.
His rites of passage brought him beyond this yoke.
It led him away from this ingrained resignation
and created a 'passage' to move on from his past.
In middle age, my friend can now see the triggers and reminders of past humiliations.
Past hurt.
Past rejection.
The cycle HAS been broken.
This 'Jacaranda Syndrome'
is now no more than a marker for him.
to remind him of this part of his life.
To give him space to acknowledge it.
Sit with it.
And learn from it.
He is no longer this small boy
who cannot sit still, learn or achieve,
but a man of wisdom, compassion and insight.
A college graduate, a writer and elder.
His internal scars are his badge of courage
His pain; his teacher.

As I write this,
I am gazing over to my own beautiful jacaranda from my window.
It's in its final days of flowering.
The carpet of lavender is withering and dry,
and the wind is scattering each memory of it for another year.
It once again silently turns into a barren form.
But inside this tree there is a hope.
There is life within.
Hidden within its core.
The memory of the petals.
The cells await,
patient and calm.
Ready to bloom again
in another spring.

And when this new season comes,
and the colour purple announces the summer days,
and the memories and angst raise their heads to the surface
as they will inevitably do,
my dear, dear friend will once again be reminded of his pain,
those memories,
those words,
those feelings.

But now,
so very much present in the now,

they are all merely his welcome companions.

The Price of Two Coffees

DISCLAIMER
This is solely my own idea.
It has not been commissioned by anyone.
It is not to make you feel bad.
It is not to make someone rich.

It was just something I thought I would do.

It is however, a very hands-on approach to meeting a great need.

It is something that I came up with that could fit into
what Richard Rohr calls the
"action aspect of the Initiated Man's journey".
It made me feel I could give back to the process of MROP in a practical way.

So, if you're not interested,
That's OK.
Hit the BACK button now.

But if you think you might want to have a look,
Read on......

The Price of Two Coffees

Now I've got to tell you.
I'm a educator.
A teacher in the old language.

I mostly teach science
although I am a dab hand at algebra.

So I did the math!

Let's say,
A good cup of coffee costs around $5.
And I am sayin' a GOOD cup.
That's around $10 for two a week.
That's not much to ask.
I spend more at the servo when I get my fuel.

Now double that $10
and it makes only
$20 a fortnight.

That's not a lot.
When you look at it that way.
Two Latte Double Shots a week.
Really.

Say I get paid every two weeks.
Direct deposit like most of us do.
Would I miss that coffee money if I channelled it elsewhere?
Not really.
I usually have one or two coffees EACH day.
Now there's a confession!
Could I give up two coffees a week for this?
Whatever floats your boat.

So what if we pledge this loose change,
this Cappuccinodonation,
to help a brother?
Could I do that?
Would it really be that painful?

You see....

THAT'S what it would take to just about sponsor another brother for MROP.
Two cups of coffee a week.
In the scheme of things, it is really not a lot.
Math is good like that.

It wouldn't pay for all of his MROP.
And it shouldn't.
A man needs to pay his way for something like this.
But some men cannot find that kind of money.
It's a sad but true fact.
And a donation like this could make a difference.
To get a man there who cannot afford it for himself.

It's small change really.
I hardly miss it.
I really don't.

So here's what you can do.

Direct deposit $20 on a fortnightly basis into the CFM accounts
each fortnight for a whole year.
Easily done in this techno age of internet banking.
That's 26 payments over 12 months
of just $20.
My bank does it for me as an automatic transfer.

I am sharing you all of this as an idea.
And letting you know how easy it is to start this up.
Nothing else.
No heavy sales pitch or cleverly crafted script.
It was just an idea.
Because I believe in the gift and invitation that MROP can provide
And I feel for men who are disconnected and need grounding.
Money should not be a barrier.
Not in this day and age.

So that's my idea.
And I wanted to share it.
That's all.

If you are interested in doing this, here's the bank details below:

Account Name:  Centre For Men
BSB:  064178
Account Number:  10446091
Marking it clearly as MROP GIFT FROM (your name ... or leave it anonymous)


God bless you,
Kent

You Returned, But Never Came Back

This is a story.

It is just a story.

It begins with a man,

a husband,

a father.

Born in a time too young to fight in the Pacific.
So he trained for his country in National Service.
And then, when he tried to enlist,
was told he was now too old for Vietnam.

So he worked hard and raised a large family.

Gave back to his country.

Was concerned about the state of his nation.

And the world.

Saw men land on the moon.

Campaigned against the war that wasn't our war.

Tried to make sense of all the meaningless deaths.

He made a decision.

As child number five was announced,

he also made it known,that he had accepted a commission to serve in Saigon.

Not to fight.

But to do his bit requisitioning and selling off equipment.

His wife wept and they hardly spoke.

He had to go.

The children were growing.

There were too many for her to raise by herself.

It was best not to tell them he was leaving.

So they made boarding school seem like an adventure.

The oldest three were to go.

The youngest to remain with Mum.

Too young to send away.

She waited for her next child to be born.

She pleaded with him to stay until then.

He said he would try.

He left nine days before the birth.

His wife was truly all alone.

He had said brief goodbyes to the older children

as they were driven far away to their new schools.

He cried silent tears.

And did nothing.

The boy who loved his dad waved as the car drove off.

It was the day before he turned twelve.

He was told they'd see each other again at Christmas.

The son believed the lie.

Boarding school was a hard life.

They made you forget your family.

The priests cared more for enrolments than broken hearts.

The boy waited in the summer heat to go back home.

They never came.

He ate a cold Christmas dinner alone in the kitchen with the cook.

They allowed him to open just one present.

It was next year's uniform.

He wrote to his parents, pleading for them to come and get him.

To return him home to his family.

The priests never sent the letters.

They simply rang to say he was quite settled now.

And that he desired to stay on at school,

considering the circumstances.

The mother, tired and alone with two young babies,

blindly agreed.

The boy was left there for nearly two years.

The father never saw action.

But he was around something just as horrific.

The aftermath of war.

The dead, the wounded, the maimed.

He saw bodies in the streets,

and corruption at every level.

They worked him hard.

In that stinking heat.

Too hard.

Then he broke.

They sent him to Darwin,

too sick to travel further.

His wife was flown up to see him.

No one else.

She saw a wild man, not her husband.

He asked for a divorce.

She refused his pleas.

"You'll be right luv." she said hopefully,

"Just come back to us".

But they sent her home.

Alone.

He endured their treatment and he rested.

The Australian air revived him.

He played the recovery game.

He knew it all too well.

It's easy to ace the psych test.

Especially when you play cards with the doctor.

He was back on home soil,

but his mind was trapped in the war.

He pleaded with them to let him return.

He had to finish the work he was doing over there.

He petitioned those above him.

He claimed his knowledge and expertise was needed.

He applied once more to send him back to the mess.

And they did.

He dug in deep during those eighteen months.

Built up walls in his mind and soul.

Fathered a child with a local girl,

to save her from poverty.

He never stopped.

He cleaned up the mess his government had made.

He covered up for them and made it go away.

To cope, he turned himself off.

He went cold.

And did his job,

until he could give no more.

It was then that they sent him home.

He came back to his house with a new suit and haircut.

He arrived unannounced.

He was there at the kitchen table when his wife came home.

He saw his baby son he had never met.

He ignored the toddler beside her.

He ate a sandwich,

and went to bed for two weeks.

No words.

No visitors.

No talking.

No life in his eyes.

The army came to see him.

It was only then he arose from his bed.

He was given a cheque and they left.

His work there was finished

and he was now officially unemployed.

All that was left was to start over.

The boy was never told of his father's return.

They kept him there at that school for three months more.

The priests felt they knew what was best.

"He's happy!" they told the parents.

"He wants to finish off the term."

They believed it.

Then one day a car pulled up.

The mother had come to collect him.

He was the last to come home.

The older girls were already back.

They had returned six weeks earlier.

He was told not to make too much noise.

Dad was resting.

The boy saw his father in the yard.

The yard they had joyfully mowed together.

It was their place.

His dad was sitting under the lemon tree.

Drinking.

The lawn was unkept. Long and wild.

He didn't look up when his son approached.

The boy was confused.

They just stayed there.

"You've gotten taller." he eventually spoke.

The boy didn't recognize this voice.

There was no strength or love in it.

Not like he remembered.

The boy ran back to the house,

to his room,

and cried.

It was a new life.

For all of them.

A new man they had to call 'Dad'.

"Things will be better now!" the mother told them.

"He just needs a bit of time."

He hardly spoke to them.

He wasn't really there.

A year went by.

The man had started a new career.

Something to make his mark.

He seemed to regain some of his old self.

Some.

But now, this job was all consuming.

He worked long, late hours.

Making money was his passion and compulsion. 

He made enough money for them all.

That should have made it alright.

He spent his days dictating and managing and making powerful decisions.

And his nights were mostly for drinking.

He wore a grubby groove in the corner of the kitchen cabinets,

where he stood for hours slowly draining a bottle of scotch.

Every night.

The boy stumbled upon a rifle hidden in a box.

He carefully folded it back in the blanket.

And never told a soul what he had found.

The discovery however gripped him with fear,

especially in the night,

each time he heard the sound of that wardrobe slowly opening.

The night before every Anzac Day the father would disappear.

The rifle was taken too.

He'd come back a few days later,

unshaven and hung over.

Nothing was ever said.

They were never allowed to ask where he went.

But noticed the peace those three days brought them.

As the years went by,

they all began to wish he wouldn't keep returning.

Time now moved with jagged edges and empty living.

The children began to grow and leave, one by one.

The boy was now a young man.

He had to get out.

He needed to leave it all behind.

The father knew his son was going.

But instead of stopping him,

he casually asked for his house keys.

"You won't be needing them now".

The boy/man left.

They wouldn't speak for another seven years.

.

Rites of Passage and the Art of Lawn Mowing

When I was a young lad.
too small to be safe with anything sharp,
I used to sit in the backyard in the summer,
and watch my father mow the lawn.

For me,
as a small boy,
it was a beautiful and exquisite joy to do this.
So many aspects for my little mind to soak in.
It was dad and me.
It was our job.
Well, it was his job.
And the process was like a military manoeuvre.

First clear the yard of bikes and balls and things left around.
The dog droppings were mine to deal with.
Then the shed was opened
and the mower and catcher wheeled out.
Crouching to check the plugs and petrol.
Muttering.
Trip to the service station to get more fuel.
Coin pumps in those days.
Back to the yard.
Muttering again.
Something about knees.
Hat on, sunglasses perched, beer on the fence.
Yank the cord.
Again.
Again.
Check the plugs and open the choke.
Again.
Farumparumparumparumpa!
And it began.

Pushing the beast up and down in straight lines.
The sound deafening, the smell of the exhaust - sweet and invigorating.
Up and down.
Up and down.
Slightly overlapping the edge of the last line to keep it neat.
Up and down.
Stop for a drink.
Up and down.
The sound of a full catcher.
The aroma of the cut grass flowing outwards.
The grunting walk to empty the clippings onto the compost heap.
This was also my job - to keep the pile neat and together.
I embraced the responsibility.
Engine still on.
Catcher back in place.
And off again.

He mowed with gusto.
I would watch from the side, a safe distance from flying stones.
Not too close.
"You don't want to cut your feet off..."
"I knew a boy who lost all his toes...."
"Get me another beer son!"
I eagerly yearned to be old enough to do this task.
I was a willing helper and an obedient servant.
I was old enough to tend the sweet, cut blades.
I made sure my hands and feet were covered in them.
To feel the heat and embrace its earthiness.
When he wasn't looking,
I'd dive my arms into the centre of the grass pile.
Who can even begin to describe that feeling?

The rows finally finished.
The sound of the mower chugging down to a stop.
Job done.
Mower cleaned and wiped.
Shed shut.
The yard looked ordered and renewed.
It greeted our eyes with a satisfying completeness.
The smell of grass and dirt and sweat was intoxicating.

My father would stand on the patio edge,
final beer in hand as he surveyed his efforts.
He was pleased and always smiled.
He would call Mum outside when the job was done.
She would arrive, hands covered in flour.
Smiling at me.
"You did a good job luv" she'd always say to him.
Wise woman.
She knew what he needed to hear.
He just wanted her to see it.
To see what he had done.
Nothing more.
I'd stand beside him as if I had mowed as well.
"When you're older, you'll get to do this." he'd say to me.
"Just make sure you get the lines straight."
"And always get two-stroke - never that other rubbish."

I'd just stand there with him until the beer was done.
And so was he.
"Time to get cleaned up."
We were finished.

On my tenth birthday he handed over the task.
Like an apprentice he made sure I was ready and knew all that needed to be done.
After many attempts,
and guiding talks and demonstrations,
the reign of the lawn was mine.
I took it all in my stride.
Towelling hat tight on my head,
Cordial on the fence.
I was charged to reflect the master's handiwork.

He'd stand on the patio watching me work.
Offering advice,
but not too much.
He let me learn things myself.
Just a few tips.
By the time I turned eleven years old 
he would just read the paper as I mowed.
Not even glancing up until it was finished.
He'd check the job.
Hand on my shoulder.
And we'd stand there to gaze out on the lawn.
Mum was called.
Compliments made.
Time to wash up.

I learnt a lot about my dad and life through mowing.
By the time I had left home, my younger brothers had taken over the task.
Each one taken through the processes as I had been before them.
By this time Dad had bought a whipper-snipper and blower.
The bastard.

My memories of these days are heady and full.
And I am amazed at how a simple task
could create a lifelong bond between he and I 
and cause me now to weep at these memories.
I have passed the torch over to my boys.
It is a different age.
But grass still grows as grass always has.
And it has to be mowed.
The task is always ongoing.
It never ends.
And even after a storm,
the new growth emerges.

Isn't that the stuff of life?

My Father's Touch

I wrote this after a time of deep sharing in my men's group the other night.
It means a lot to me.
After first publishing the poem, I made a video.

I hope you find something in it that you are looking for.

MY FATHER'S TOUCH

We are all emotional beings.

Our stories are as different as the wind.

We share an armful of common traits and needs that make us human.

Uniquely and gloriously human.

We have the need to connect.

To reach out,

To communicate.

From our first breath to our last we strive to make sense of the notion:

‘We are not alone’.

We have senses.

We have the gift of touch.

I often recall the memories of my childhood,

not clearly hearing the words spoken to me – they fade,

but more so, how I felt.

I remember my father when I was small

and how enormous he was to me.

The man with whom I belonged.

I knew this then.

I remember him scooping me up in his arms,
his laugh, his playfulness.

I remember the eagerness of waiting for him

to come home each day.

For him to walk through the door.

Him seeing me there and scruffing my hair as he went inside to change.

The impatient wait for him to emerge and, as his first priority,

take me out to the back yard to play.

To run, to be chased.

To be swung in the air and caught.

Never feeling fear.

Grasping the exhilaration of each powerful throw.

Telling him to go higher.

The catch.

The landing

And off for another game until we were called inside to eat.

Even then I knew that HE was the one who was sad to come in.

These were the moments of escape and freedom.

They were fun and rugged and reckless times.

But the dinner needed to be done.

The cleaning up and the baths.

And then some time to rest and pause.

To crawl up on his belly and read the paper together.

The letters for me were not yet learnt.

But I was content to just lie there,

looking at the unfamiliar words I would one day know.

Rising slightly

up and down to his rhythmic breathing

and dodging the pages as they were turned.

The hair on his chest brushing the back of my neck.

A cuddle always ensued, a kiss good night.

And then it was off to bed.

I remember that was a warm place.

A safe place.

I remember his smell.

His strength and his care.

And of all my sweetest and deepest childhood memories,

I most of all remember his hands.

Hands so big, they wrapped around my childish fingers and palms.

Holding me firm.

Protecting me.

Guiding me forward.

We would walk, he and I.

He would take my hand and we would go together.

Anywhere.

Just walking.

He would talk to me.

Tell me stories.

Ask me questions.

Teach me things.

We would stop and just look at the clouds.

I was safe there with him.

Holding his hand.

They were rough hands.

A man’s hands compared to my childish skin.

They protected me.

And I knew it.

No doubts.

My father’s hands.

My father’s touch.

I remember.

So now I am older.
Much older than he was when I was a child.

He is old now too.

So old.

When we see each other, we will kiss and hug and smile.

We will talk to each other in low voices so no one else can hear.

His voice is now subdued.

He holds my hand as we speak.

But his once strong grip

Now possesses the weakness of aging.

These hands of his are now softer and lighter and twisted with frailty.

My own grown hands now cover his.

They reach out to him in his declining years.

They steady him as we walk together.

His wrinkled fingers move,

Ever so slightly with ensuing palsy.

I lift him up and help him into his chair.

His eyes are old now, his face less familiar to me.

This man who was once my father.

Who is still my father.

Who is old.

So old.

I stare at him as he rests.
To notice every detail of him and keep everything in my mind.

So I will never forget.

Never forget him.

His body now is so frail.

He is slowly disappearing.

When he takes my hand, I feel almost nothing.

This man.

My father.

I turn to wave goodbye.

His eyes fill with tears and his body is slow.

I turn and go.

The man I once knew is gone.

The man I still love is slowly going.

And I realize,

With joy and with sadness combined,

the small boy within me rising with emotion.

The boy who longs to be swung so high again,

Just one more time.

Just once more.

And I feel,

with a heart that is weary with so much aching:

how already....
 

I miss my father’s touch.