The Children

Straight backed obedience
Driven to comply
Acts duly committed
Without the question 'why?'

Love for the adult
With unmutual respect
A diminishing soul
Too imbedded to detect

Quashed curiosity
For adult peace of mind
An inquisition missed
Too hard to rewind

Mouths shut, legs crossed
With eyes on the prize
A minute validation
For developmental deprivation

Can't you adults see
Children need to be seen?
They mirror your acts
And reflect your esteem

Can't you adults hear
Children need to be heard?
Their simplicity of truth
Redefine the absurd

You act for the immediate
Only for your convenience
You shut the kids down
Then blame them for deviance

Why for your sake
You keep kids in your wake
But ignore their joyous presence
When they're opportunities to take

Don't you remember
That you were once them?
Reaching out for the hand
Of your adult guardian

Don't you remember
How you wanted to play?
But told to sit down!
Listen! and Obey!

Nurture the child
That you wanted to be
To build a new adult
For our future community

We don't want the anger
That perpetuates the war
Between youth and adult
When we're all from one world

Understand today
To realise tomorrow
There's more to education;
There's no bow and arrow

In the words of Abe Lincoln
We must 'disenthrall'
Our industrial ideal
It's detrimental to all

Embrace a new culture
To flourish and thrive
Cultivate individuality
Aid kids to come alive!

We need a revolution
As our soulful solution
To bring the human race
To a new evolution!

Pt III Discover Travel Series: The Free Fall

You did it! You're gone!
New lines have been drawn
A paradigm has shifted
Your heart is reborn

Throw out your arms wide
Feel the rush, take your time
Let your senses drown in wonder
Have your faith by your side

Everything is new
But there's a sense of deja vu
You've been here before
It's your soul baring true

Breathe in a-fresh
Breathe out infest
Melt into yourself
Discover new depths

Pt II Discover Travel Series: The Embarkment

You cling to the familiar
You're flooded with doubt
These crazy ideas
How have they come about?!

'Things are fine the way they are!'
Your mind shouts in vain
'You're not ready for the world!
Not equipped for its pain!'

'NO!' your heart screams
As you fight through the tears
'I'm ready as I'll ever be
It's time to face my fears!'

The barriers are broken
Nothing stands in your way
You take a step forward
It happens today. 

Pt I Discover Travel Series: The Motivation

A question comes to mind

for those who want to find

the reason for travel:

what do you want left behind?

Routine sex, the daily grind

a stale perception, temptation to resign?

Travel is a gift, so take a moment to revere

the possibilities that are offered: are your intentions sincere?

Are you ready for the road? Have the guts to adhere?

Or else there’s no difference if you’re there or here.

What is your motivation?

Do you really want a change?

A leap of faith, an adventure

or a getaway vacation?

What is your motivation?

Do you really need a break?

A quick fix, a holiday

or spiritual revelation?

A question comes to mind

for those who want to find

the reason for travel:

what must you leave behind? 

Date A Girl Who Doesn't Travel

Date a girl who doesn’t travel. A girl who doesn’t travel is easy to track, easy to predict. She’ll always be there. She’ll be on your couch at home, or hanging with her friends waiting for your call. You’ll know where to find her. When you do, you will talk about your day and she’ll talk about the latest episode of Jersey Shore. With you, she’ll be secure from the dangers of the world. She’ll be happy with her virtual one. She will be safe. She’ll enjoy a night-in with a movie or a PS3 game. She won’t expect, or even want, extravagant, expensive, creative days and nights out. You can pick her up a bottle of nail polish and be in for a good night.

A girl who doesn’t travel is very well-groomed. She can take the time in front of the mirror and have tidier eyebrows, even complexion and smooth, smooth skin. She won’t have the wiry mane of a girl who travels who pulls faces for photos in front of yet another landmark. Her hair will be glossy and maintained. She will have the perfect picturesque pout.

It’s fun conversing with a girl who doesn’t travel. She’ll believe everything you say and then giggle politely when you tell her you’re joking. And then laugh louder when she gets it. She will let you take the social center stage. She will watch you from the sidelines with admiration. She won’t challenge you with the wit of a girl who travels. She won’t one-up you with stories from the foothills of the Himalayas. She will like everything you like and go everywhere you go. You will be the light of her life. She will turn to you for every lip tremble, every tear. She will wrap her dainty arms around your neck and embrace you with a need so powerful you know that she can’t live without you.

Don’t invest your time and love in a girl who travels for she CAN live without you. She knows how to take things in her fearless stride. She would be fun for now, not forever. She’ll never be around. She will come and go and laugh melodically at your pleas to stay. Don’t get caught up in her spiritual depth and hippy ways. She’ll just plant grand seeds of thought and question everything you ever believed in. Her passionate rants about the beauty of the world will send tremors and quakes through your foundations and belittle your existence.

A girl who travels will drive you crazy with her sporadic emails and unreliable contact. She will send you mad with video calls where you can see her but can’t fucking touch her. She will make you cry with longing. You will realize that distance doesn’t make the heart grow fonder – it fucking rips the heart apart and smirks at the shreds of despair. Date a girl who doesn’t travel because she won’t do that. She will take the tender steps to keep your heart intact. She will fold it up in cheesecloth and hum to its soft rhythmic beat. She will keep you in your realm of familiar and sit demurely in the passenger seat as you drive on that 6-lane freeway to the white-picket fence.

Let the girl who travels go off into that other dimension. Forget all the romantic stories she tells of pristine white beaches, gushing jungle waterfalls, and tropical wildlife encounters. Dismiss her tales of the whack-jobs she met along the way and the adventures on which they embarked. Let her endanger herself with military run-ins, frightening South East Asian traffic and storm-whipped boat rides. Let her try quench her insatiable cultural thirst in countries with makeshift beds, dank toilets and parasite-ridden water. You don’t need it. You don’t want it. Not one part of it.

Find yourself a nice girl who doesn’t travel. You just can’t know where on earth a girl who travels has been.

Getting A Sense of Barcelona

Barcelona looks like thousands of china plates smashed into minute shards and reassembled into architectural masterpieces of curves and spirals.

Barcelona sounds like a swollen tongue with a distinctive lisp and infinite roll of the R that resounds the seductive allure of an endangered language.

Barcelona smells like a Catalonian cologne concocted of cured meats, roasted cocoa and a dash of Mediterranean Sea breeze.

Barcelona tastes like explosive bites of marinated culture; a kaleidoscope of pickled onions, artichokes and cherry tomatoes.

Barcelona feels like a step back into a forgotten memory with the crisp fresh air nipping at your cheeks as you cycle through the narrow alleyways carved from gothic stone.

Barcelona is a city to come back to. 

Tribute to Panama: Not Before Coffee

This is a Spoken Word Poem thing with a melodic twist performed on a rooftop for my beloved travelling buddies on the 20th of Jan 2013.

A reunion in Panama, an adventure for three

The Isles of San Blas, strips of sand with coconut trees

All sickly pale and in desperate need
of sun rays and sunshine
on aqua carribean seeeeeeas

but noooooooot...before coffee

Barefoot treks through a jungle marquee 

Santa Fe was the next destination for three
Bound for the waterfalls, we sunk to our knees

In horse shit and spit, not a soul heard our pleeeeeeeas

but nooooooooot...before coffee

On the shores of Bocas we lived by the sea
Above an open sewerage that amazingly didn't reek
Sprawled out on the pier, with a ciggy and a beeeeeeeer
but noooooooot....before coffee

Backpacks reloaded on a water taxi
We arrived in Bastimentos, a jungle drumming oasis

In the Bushman's Kitchen we waited hours for a feed
But it was so worth the chef being high on his weeeeeeed...

thank Goooooooood we had our organic, Up On The Hill coffee

Things took a turn with an addition to the team

dynamics made a change and a Brazillian took the lead

carried our bags, booked hotels, ordered our food, translated our requests...

actually that's fiiiiiiiiiiine before coffee

In Santiago was a lesson about the humble abalone
I learned not to eat something that numbs your body
Thank goodness I had friends to take me to Emergncyyyyy
Unfortunately for them it was waaaaaaaayyyy before coffee

To Santa Catalina's Pacific with depths of murky

In search of the shark whale, its sight a rarity

All but one was equipped for the sea

Daca got cocky and then struggled to breeeeeeeeeathe

but nooooooot before coffee

We concluded our time with one more to the three

The four of us together made wonderful memories
We raised our glasses and toasted 2013
A bright new beginning in Panama Cityyyyyyyyyyy

(all together now!)

BUT NOOOOOOOOOT BEFORE COFFEEEEE

Microworlds

Since the 22nd of November 2012, I have been blessed with the luxury of travel and landed in the U S of A. In the days and weeks following, I hand-balled myself from friend to friend, family to family in State to State with the question of 'meaning' in the foreground of my mind.

The full itinerary I had in North American leg of my-round-the-world trip was a testament to the loving friends I have made over the years and the family members I share a name and blood with.

Unfortunately I haven't figured out the advanced abilities of the iPad and the various apps for this blog to include photos...but hopefully these words paint a nice picture:

welcomed into homes 
beckoned into arms
with eyes just as wide
i peep into lives

i wander through worlds
see differences in reality

i perceive what is

i see what could be

i formulate a life 

i believe suits me

Thank you so much to family and friends who have so kindly hosted me in LA, San Jose, San Fran, New Jersey, Philadelphia, New York and Quebec (it's Canada, I know). Thank you for sharing a piece of your world. You have all inspired me in one way or another and feel pure gratitude and joy to be part of your life.

In a world that is shrinking, I'll see y'all again one day! 
Happy New Year!
XOX

Love vs Live

A woman of worldliness blinks back tears and quells the waiver in her voice.

Her life of transience has granted her no favours in relationship longevity.

"Why won't you fight for me?"

"Because I know I'll lose."

She braces herself as her heart retreats.

"The Love I want to give, isn't the Love you need. So this is the only way I can."

"Goodbye."

Consolidating

In my sojourn at home, I've had a lot of time for myself to sort things out- internally and externally.

Internally...I've always been quite aware of what's going on in my head and heart in the philosophical sense. So, when it comes to pondering life...easy! I can move through the motions and make an interpretive dance of it.

Like this:

Externally...I'm like this:

Attempting to consolidate my Super Funds

What does this all MEAN!?!

Still a long ways until I attain 'true' balance. I'm thinking...I need to find me a partner who understands this stuff! 

Blast from the Past Deb

Today I received a letter from myself written well over a year ago before my mobilisation back to Cambodia for my final stint with Senhoa. 

30/9/11

Dear Future Me,

You had heaps of fun in Canberra and hopefully this warm, fuzzy feeling will resonate as you read this.

By this time, I reckon you’ll have collected a whole heap of new memories and fingers crossed a bit of humility amongst them.

What you’ve done is bloody awesome and so far removed from ‘normal folk’ everyday stuff and that makes YOU pretty awesome. BUT just let people figure that out! Get off that grand standing soapbox! As long as you feel within yourself you’re a good person and have done well, that will glow from within and you’ll be a delight all round.

Congratulations 26 year old me!!

Young, fit, healthy and loved. What more can you ask for?

Actually…it’ll be good if you learn how to save…or earn money for that matter…

Love you, love me.

-Past Me

Obviously I felt that I was getting to a point of unbearable cockiness. I had to tell myself to reign it back! However still, I proceeded to self-praise. Contradictory? Nah. 

For me to learn to accept compliments, I had to learn how to compliment myself so that when I did receive nice words it wouldn't go to my head, blow up my ego, or seem like I was feigning modesty. I would absorb and let it reaffirm that I'm on the right track; people see in me what I see in myself. 

What more can I ask for? 

Saying Goodbye

In a transient town such as Siem Reap, saying 'goodbye' is an event that occurs heart-breakingly (and in time, brain-numbingly) often.

I have been around for all sorts of goodbyes so naturally I have also been present for a lot of hellos. And the contrast between the start and finish of a relationship is...amazing. It is from this observation that inspired me to write:

A cool dismissal, an abrupt departure

A lengthy embrace, and yearning there after

A relationship reflected in that final goodbye

A smile of fond memories or regretful sigh

Possibilities explored with new wisdoms collected

Possibilities not opened if otherwise rejected

Indifference at worst, kindred spirits at best

A journey for one with many to connect

A clash of chemistry or conversational flow

A path that is embarked with a simple ‘hello’

And since having said 'Goodbye' to my beloved friends of Siem Reap, I feel blessed to have that many important people in my life to make me cry and miss dearly. 

My Farewell at Jungle Junction

My last hoorah with the students

But in the end it's not just 'bye'. It is just 'good'.

Ta Da!

It’s close to a year now since my last entry.

Assuming that people have been looking for me: Sorry, guys!

For those who haven’t: You weren’t missing anything. Obviously.

So today when I looked at my blog for the first time in ages, my eyeballs dried up with its staleness. Oh, how I’ve neglected thee. Me thinks thine due to revamp and revitalize.

Ta da! A new look! AND a new name! Staying true to the idea that ‘Today Is A Gift’, I’ve renamed my blog ‘Present- from me to you’.

I love the word ‘present’. It’s such a beautiful heteronym.

pres-ent [prez-uhnt]

noun

1. a gift to another

verb

2. to display something or introduce somebody

adjective (my favourite)

3. being, existing, or occurring at this time; now

Present is a self-indulgent thought catalog that will explore meaning behind seemingly flippant instances, conversations, comments or observations. Moments in time that are snapped, captured and pondered.

It is also a medium for me to display my words woven into poetry (which a lot of the time happens by accident). They are intimate feelings rather than gruesome details- I want you to interact with the words and fill in the gaps and assimilate. I’d rather you as the reader, to not be a mere observer of my thoughts, but a participant. Hopefully it will provide something to help precipitate your own understanding and search. 

And all that in turn will be a gift from me to you.

I'm also a grateful taker so please... share share share your thoughts and comments too!

Going With The Flow

A lot of people 'go with the flow'. I do. I love it. Makes things easier and you can see how things naturally unfold. But, I reckon, it can become problematic when it gets taken too literally.

A flow, or a current, can be a dangerous thing! You can be taken for a ride and get bumped around onto rocks... along the banks... into on-coming debris...and not take notice of the oncoming waterfall...

BUT if you have a handy-dandy paddle, you can navigate your way around within in the current and be the captain of your own little boat!

Back to Oz

It's so strange to be back! After 12 months of back-breaking, mind-boggling, mental-hurdling work; 15 months of ab-tightening, face-breaking laughs; endless days of rivers, lakes and oceans of sweat and countless low-pressured showers...I'm home!

Last time I returned from Cambodia, I was a victim of reverse culture shock and was angry at everything. How dare we Australians live with such affluence over the safety net of our dole-bludging-condoning democratic government? How can you brag about the A-Grade leather of your couch when there are families selling their children for a meal?!

I didn't host any form of tolerance during my six month period of ambivalence in Melbourne. I was a bitter bitch bitchin' bout bloody everything..but this time is different...those things definitely still exist, but now I'm looking at things from another angle: How lucky we are as Australians to be able to have such lovely things at our fingertips with the support of a caring government who treats all of us as humans with rights. Good on you for being able to afford such a lovely leather couch...did the cows have to scream louder for that price?

Things are the way they are. The two worlds that I have each of my feet in can't be compared and be angry over. That energy should be channelled into the Developing side of my self/work to aspire to the Developed side of my self/work.

7 more weeks till my return, so to psych myself up and recharge, I'm going to enjoy what's readily available here in my 1st world that is unavailable in my 3rd world home: Indie gigs, Melbourne breakfasts, perfectly brewed lattes, Korean hairdressers, traffic rules and drinkable tap-water. ESPECIALLY the tap-water. I feel my teeth strengthening already.

P.A.S.S.I.O.N

I’m passionate.

I’m also many other things (like ‘tired’), but right now, ‘passionate’ can be used interchangeably with ‘Deb’. I believe having PASSION is a gift, a risk, a luxury and most importantly, a DUTY.

Firstly, it’s a GIFT because everyone is born and raised differently with different personae and frames of mind. We can be regimental, blasé, structured or go-with-the-flow about life and that’s perfectly fine. But it takes someone with edge to have the GUTS to have and pursue PASSION and that’s where RISK fits in.

We need to take a RISK when it comes to pursuing something we care so much about. PASSION is from the core of your being so if it ends up crashing and burning at the feet of our expectations…that’s going to hurt a bloody lot more than not taking the risk at all. Or will it?

Following your passion is a LUXURY because reality can be a wet-blanket for many people out there; money problems, family problems, health problems, lack of opportunities, lack of education… so to be free of those binding shackles already gives you grant for pursuit. You just need to give yourself permission.

And lastly it’s a DUTY. Years ago I came across a line in ‘The Dream Giver’ (yes, it’s a Christian book): ‘Your big dream is someone’s big need. If you don’t follow your big dream…someone’s need won’t be filled…’ Or something like that. And that’s when I had my epiphany.

My passion is education. My passion is life. My passion is to lift people out of mental hell-holes and provide intellectual tools for them to rebuild their livelihoods and recognize HOPE.

I’ve got a lot more to learn and a lot more to give. And as long as I feel this fire inside of me (that isn’t the impending angina) I’m spear-heading my ambitions until I’m damn-well satisfied!

The Swedish say, 'Congratulations! You've reached 25!'

I have reached the quarter milestone of my life. Assuming I’m going to live to be 100. Happy Birthday, Deb! Hellloooo age 25! The age everyone wishes to stay at: you’re still considered young but old enough to be ‘responsible’, you can be ‘irresponsible’ and still get away with it, but most importantly, according to general consensus, you can be single and still have a ‘chance’. *eye roll*/*shrug*

For me, it’s a great age because I feel that 25 is the tipping point of life, where you’re balancing at the fulcrum, with one foot on either side, weighing up gathered experience with where it’s going to lead you. It’s when you realize (or should realize) where you’re headed in life and have a somewhat blurred vision of where you want to end up. I keep talking in the second person like I can speak on behalf of anyone. I’m really talking about myself. So ‘ctrl F and H’, find ‘you’ and replace with ‘I’ or ‘me’.

So I’m teetering on this see-saw analogy, shifting my weight from right to left, left to right, and I’m feeling pretty happy with how I’ve lived so far. I’m living with drive and direction. Everything I did had a purpose behind it- to learn and move forward. I don’t exactly know where I’m going yet, but I see a haze in the distance and it somewhat resembles a house, a husband, a family and a meaningful, sustainable livelihood. In other words: a future nearly everyone wants!!! I’m not so eccentric after all!

At this point the path is still unfolding before me and uncertainty is still, and probably always will be, part of the adventure. I have enough confidence in my abilities and curious enough about the world to take deliberate steps into a realm of possibilities. 10 years ago, I thought at 25 I’d be ‘settled’ in the mainstream sense of the word. But I’m so glad that I’m not because it means I’ve got so much more to look forward to! I’m setting up the stones of my path, laboriously and joyously laying it down, bit by bit. And I have faith that momentum will pick up (in the form of Universal conspiracy) and it’ll eventually pave out smoothly, into a wide stretch of road welcoming those wanting (or fated) to join me.