Monday, 4th, January, 2016,

I have decided to start writing the date at the top of the page, because the day I start writing something and the day something gets published are two different things, and so there is a sense now that when a spark starts inside of me and when it become public can take time…. sometimes it will be instant, I will write, and I will think YES, BOOM< out that goes into the world, and then other times, I have to work harder, it grows slower and more thoughtfully and there might have been both struggles and savoring to get the words just right. Most stuff I am ok talking about, it is about me, I know myself, but then some things, need more thought… like racism, extended family, and sex. I want to talk about some many things, but some things I have to work up to.

The date is going to be written as one would in Australia, because we are gong to move back to Australia. Some time soon… not too soon, not tomorrow, but at some point every day is going to feel like we need to be Australians again. Once an Australian, always an Australian, but we have become a little American. So there will be lots of “When we move back to Australia.” It could be in two years, but if I use my super sonic powers of visualisation, then I think it might be in about…hmmm… 8 months. Maybe around Elle’s birthday, which is October 29th. We have been talking about moving back to Australia since we moved to America, and that was 8 years ago… so lets just breath into that!

So, so so, it seems like a good place to start is talking about personal and private because if you join me here, some of you might be super excited by just how much I share. For me, there is no such thing as private. Well ok, there is because there has to be, but that isn’t because I want there to be, I don’t really want there to be a sense of private, there is private because we each have our own body and soul, so we can only ever experience our own life, from our own perception. We can try really hard to merge, and to some degree we can, but essentially, no matter what, while we are on earth, we will always each have a private personal self, because that is how the world currently works. There is a line. I am going to try to always break down that line, because I don’t want my life to be defined by lines, but the lines I will draw, will be done so with love, integrity, honesty, truth, patience, tolerance, understanding, gratitude, and hopefully some humor. I want to live my life like a ball of energy, like a ball of light, like I am the sun, but since I can’t do that, I am going to just live my life like an open book. What a perfect saying. “She lives her life like and open book” and anyone can just come along and read me when ever they like. I don’t care if you like my book or not, but I do hope I have some friends left after this, and that metaphorically, you would have me in your home library, or in reality, I would be your guest. Yes. That is me, I am one to just invite myself in. If you met me in the street, I would be very loving and open, so long as you are loving and open too, and if you are as loving and open and me, then we would hug and just send love back and forth to each other, you know, we would have a loving exchange. But since I can’t meet you all in the street, you all can know for sure, that you can come to Magnesium Blue we talk like friends, but it is really just me talking. All my friends know, I chat non stop. I just talk, talk, talk, And that is the only reason I write really, is because I like talking so much, and tell stories, so here is the first one.

Explaining to Cam we are about to be more ‘public’.

Cam and I were in the woods. We like to go for a stroll together for love and wellbeing, taking solo walks together is a really important part of our marriage. We make a point of having woodland walks together, just us. Sometimes the children come, but when it is just us, we stroll hand in hand or arm in arm. I like to wrap my arm around Cam’s middle, so we are nice and tight. He likes this too, we really do feel connected, except when I get cross or he is being unkind, then I storm off in a huff, but for now, lets just focus on yesterday’s lovely walk. I do kind of like those days I get angry too. I am just so passionate. Anyway… keep the light dancing, breath into it…

Ok, back to the point. So we are walking in the woods and I was very talkative. Talk, talk, talk. Sometimes I am reflective too, and sometimes Cam gets to talk as well, but I certainly talk a lot. Arm in arm we were strolling, and then I began. “I have been giving some thought to what private and personal means. somebody wrote to me, and it was the way she wrote, and the way she used the words private and personal in a sentence, and it got me thinking…” I paused for a moment and then I dived in. “I want to tell the whole world every little thing about us and I have been thinking about what it means to do that. The truth of the matter though is that I can’t tell the world every little thing, I mean, I could try, but even if I set out to share absolutely every single part of our life, there would still be things that I could not possibly share with everyone. Not because I don’t want to, but because, there is no such thing as sharing everything. No one could possibly know every little thing about me, or us, even if I share our most personal and private things, they still could not be us, know us, or this moment, it does not work like that, there is always some sense of separation.”

We kept walking arm in arm, holding each other close. I could feel Cam, his intelligence, to understand. My darling Cam has been on the Soul Plane, and he knows, oh yes he knows.

“Do your remember when we went to that place by the seaside and we were walking along the promenade, and there were all those lovely houses with chairs on the lawn overlooking the water, and the houses each had a little sign hanging out the front that said PRIVATE?”

Cam was following along closely because he instantly said “Castine” to answer my location question and I was pleased, because that was the place I was thinking about. “Yes, Castine! Well I don’t like that. I don’t like those little signs that say PRIVATE. I look into those yards, and those pretty rose bushes and those lovely wooden chairs and I think, ‘Why can’t I go in there and sit on those chairs?” I want to just be friends with those people and be able to go in and sit on those chairs, and I don’t want to be like that, with a private sign. I want to be a soul that is ‘Open to the public’ I see myself like a national Park. I see myself as a place that anyone can go to and explore, and anyone can go there as much as they want. I see myself as a free place for people to visit, anyone and everyone, and that’s how I want to be, with nothing to hide, nothing private, just a place for people to experience. I would settle to be a public bench. Just a place for people to sit at to look at life from.

Cam took it all in, he is really an easy going partner this husband of mine, and while I do not suspect I will not be challenged by him, or others, I know that as long as we embraced and remember the love, everything will be fine… we can live life in the Public.

Now you will think this is interesting… I wanted to know the origin of the word public, and I had a sense it was related to the word pubic, and it is…. yes! Pubes, is Latin for Adult.

Public: Late Middle English: from Old French, from Latin publicus, blend of poplicus ‘of the people’ (from populus ‘people’) and pubes ‘adult.’

Since we have that out of the road, and everyone knows I am going to talk about everything and anything, and I have no sense of privacy whatsoever, and I am all about being public, lets talk about jealousy, taking showers together, menstruation and pubic hair.

Thank you for reading Magnesium Blue

Words and Photo By Kirsten Rickert, all rights reserved.