Turn the other cheek...

... for Knots in the String.

I tried. Very hard, I swear.

As a child, I was subjected to all sorts of bullying. Chiefly because I was chubby, but also because I used to get good marks at school, Dad was head of the P&F, and we always went to my grandparents’ beach cottage in the south of the island for the holidays. I’d cry when I got home from school and Mum and Dad would say, ‘Just turn the other cheek, darling. They’re just jealous.’

But were they?

I think it was more likely the tribal instinct to pick on the one they saw was the weakest in the pack. The one that wouldn’t fight back, because I never did. I just hid a massive lack of confidence that is still with me to this day. It’s probably why I’m most relaxed on my own, where I don’t have to compete on any grounds. And why I despise those who mock, use acid wit and sarcasm to make a point against others.

As a child, I became a swimmer, eventually a champion swimmer but all I can remember, apart from quivering with nerves on the starting blocks, was one girl saying to me on the way home from school: ‘You know, my mum says it’s interesting that you are such a good swimmer given how fat you are.’ Somehow, I held my head up high and said nothing. Cried inside, but what child wouldn’t, especially when I wasn’t that fat. Chubby yes, obese no.

But that’s bullying. It serves to diminish the receiver. Making them feel lesser people. What it did for me was give me the greatest empathy and compassion for the underdog. A benefit surely from a distasteful situation.

Which of course brings me to the Oval Office. I felt such inordinate rage on behalf of a presidential guest. It was as if all the bullying I had received in my lifetime was encapsulated in the awful words emerging from Vance’s and Trump’s mouths. And I came out fighting.

I started to share things that people like Robert Reich

and Ramona Grigg write. On Facebook (so bad for my equanimity!), I’m proud to share the links and words from celebrated authors like Steph Dray, Mary Tod, Christian Cameron, Paul Bennett, Simon Turney, Anna Belfrage and others. Writers who are unafraid of readers’ backlash. As was said to me: ‘…We are in 30s Germany, and we have to be Churchills, not Chamberlains…’

I think of WWII and its aftermath. My father was in the RAAF. Our childhood neighbours were from Poland. My uncle was in the army in Malaya, (now Malaysia). All had stories to tell and as Paul Bennett said, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. If you like a detailed account, this is it...’ And I cringe when I note this from Anna Belfrage in Sweden: ‘Swedes have all been sent out a booklet called “When the war comes”, which… underlines the geopolitical unrest…’

You may think that Knots in the String is not the place to post anything about last week’s, last month’s events, but I find I cannot keep quiet. Just for a moment, I need to vent. But then, having done so I’ll move on. Leave it all there in black and white and talk about sweeter, kinder things.

Shall we do that then? In a volte face, let’s.

(I was the photographer, so none of me…)

I returned to ballet class this week – war wounds displayed on my arms from the pup. How wonderful it was to see kindred spirits, to hug and laugh and dance. New work at the barre. Up a notch from last year. Good for body and mind. But by the stars I cramped and hurt. Worth every moment.

El Puppiro is on strike. Because we’re in the townhouse for a few days, a house he barely knows, he puts bottom on the ground and stares at us with so much insolence when we ask him to do anything at all from school. Is he a rebel, I wonder? Please not. Sigh…

It’s been a hot week, again. Heat that leeches the energy, sucks the life-force so that I look at Robyn’s pics on Instagram of snowy Canada and I take handfuls of it and breathe it in. Be sure to tell me off grandly when we reach winter here in Tasmania and I start complaining of aching bones and joints.

(Total word count now up to 58,000)

I progress with the manuscript of Act III. When I first started writing, and Kate married Sergei Malkov, a Russian dancer, his brothers were always intended to be in the Russian military. Now, of course, it’s a given and I find I must go back a few chapters and add a confrontation between Kate and Sergei over her flagrant support of The Grand Kyiv Ballet performing in Australia. Funny how something so real can be so poignantly serendipitous at the same time.

I’m listening to a marvellous audio book, The Medici Heist by Caitlin Schneiderhan. It’s a late Renaissance Oceans’ Eleven and is written (and narrated) with such verve! It’s snarky and fast-paced and not once does Schneiderhan betray the genre precepts.

And of course, in the spirit of shikata ga nai (acceptance and resilience in the face of adversity), I swim. Alone. The sea water heals, cobbling any frayed edges together, cooling any fevered spirit. I am nothing and everything – floating lightly within the embrace of seawater. Looking along the beach and seeing no one, just me lying in the water like a starfish and the gulls swooping on the light breeze. I thank the heavens above for the freedom to dive under and through, rebirthing my mood, emerging cleansed, shriven and ready to move forward in whatever way is necessary for my family and I to remain buoyant.

Music this week? Turning the other cheek, leaving it all behind. Drifting in the calm…