Bali Life

So, this crazy thing happened about a week ago. Actually, it started about two weeks ago with a dinner with our mates Kerrie & Grace, who had just returned from Bali. They cooked us this awesome Balinese inspired feast and we got to drinking and eating and after a lot of wine decided that we needed to go to Bali together over Easter. We were excited and full of dreams about what it would look like, until the next morning when we all sobered up a little and realized that K & G's work schedules weren't really going to let it happen. 

So, we went on our way and kept talking about the time we 'almost' went to Bali. It wasn't until a week later when I was doing a budget for a trip we were going to make up the coast of Western Australia for a couple of shows and some r&r time with a friend. The gigs weirdly enough fell through. We were still planning on going when we had the realization that it was going to cost us as much in car hire and petrol as it would to fly to Bali. 

Crazy, no? 

Everyone else will tell you that of course it costs more to travel Australia than it does to come to Bali. 

So, guess where we are?

Yup, Bali. 

I still can't quite believe it. Here's something about me....pretty much every holiday I have had as an adult (except for one, 12 years ago) gets built around my gigs. That's the way I can travel. I live on an artists earnings for goodness sake so I have always needed to gig in order to make the travel happen. As we sit here in Seminyak in our private villa, with our private pool, eating dinner that was put together by our maid earlier..I can't believe it. This kinda holiday happens to other people. Not to me. 

And I am so in love with this place already. (Having the privacy of our villa, the refreshing pool, the glorious mosquito net around our bed, the food I haven't had to cook and the $1.65 beer I am enjoying  drinking sure helps that love affair). Most of my Aussie friends have been here, while they were coming to Bali 10+ years ago I was saving my money to go to America to tour. A lot of my Aussie mates are quite over the novelty of Bali..but I am just beginning. I am amazed at the dirtiness of the 'sacred' beaches....(as in, beaches you can't swim in because they are deemed sacred by the locals, but they are littered with so much trash it's astounding). I'm amazed that even on the equivalent of $1000 a YEAR earnings, the people seem very happy. I'm amazed that I can get a massage for $7.50 and buy a billabong t-shirt for $3. I'm amazed that the entire fridge of food our maid, Putu, bought for us cost maybe $20. I'm amazed that it only cost us $500 to get here.....to this sweet, sometimes dirty, happy island. 

I feel very blessed. I feel unbelievably thankful that my sweet wife believed that we would get here and her belief and trust that it would all work out, got us here. I feel blessed that I get to share this paradise with her and her Cherokee heritage ever browning skin (even as I sit here still as pale as can be...thanks English heritage skin) and her warm, beautiful smile.  This is our honeymoon. I married her. We sit in paradise. I can't quite believe it. 

Thank you. 

Our Mums

I spent the whole day with my mum today. 

It was horrible. 

See, even as I type that word I feel guilty about it.

No-one died (came close to being a murder a few times). Yes, we all still have our limbs. No kittens were sacrificed.  So on the scale of 'horrible things that could happen', it was on the low end in the world scheme of things. 

But for me, it was horrible. It was tough. Frustrating. Infuriating. Emotional. I had trouble getting my mind around some things she said and did. I had trouble finding my compassion and by the end of the day, finding my patience. I wanted it to end. And I felt guilty all day for wanting it to end.

If you don't know, my mum has dementia.  This disease sucks because it seems to present differently with each person and, in my experience, the degrees in which it presents can change hourly. It steals some of her long term memories some days and replaces them with others on other days. Sometimes she forgets something the moment she's asked it. Other times, particularly when challenged it seems, she can completely remember an entire conversation.  It causes her to ask the same question or tell the same story over and over again. I heard 'there use to be koalas in all these trees' and 'can I have a cigarette now' about 57 times today...said like they were never said before, with no recollection of it the second time around. 

Our entire 9 hours felt driven by her addictions. Every hour I argued with her about something she wanted then and there (usually a cigarette) or I had to remind her that she had already had whatever it was she wanted. My mum has always had an addictive streak. She loved to gamble and there were many nights in our lives as kids where she left us to go gamble (along with my father). Together they lost hundreds of thousands of dollars....they lost our home, their businesses, our entire inheritance and my mum, just like my dad, will die penniless wondering how her life came to this. She wonders that question out loud all the time and now, with her disease, there's no point even telling her the truth. She won't believe any of us. According to her, everyone else did all those things...not her. 

She has become the ultimate victim. 

If you know these five things about my mum you will know who she is right now. 

1. She loves to smoke and would most likely give up her firstborn for a cigarette (sorry bout your luck Ali). 

2,3,4. She is now also wildly addicted to mentos, lip balm and farmers union iced coffee. If she doesn't have those on her at all times, she freaks the fuck out. 

5. She constantly complains about how lonely she is and how she never sees anyone and no one ever talks to her. She will tell me that tomorrow even though I spent 9 heartbreaking hours with her today...and I'm pretty sure she didn't ask me one question all day. 

It fucking sucks. 

The biggest reason it sucks? 

It's not her. 

Oh don't get me wrong, she's always been narcissistic, needy and had a whopping gambling/iced coffee/smoking addiction but at least she used to have a sense of humor about it. She used to be cheeky and witty and would always have a joke about something. (Mostly dumb jokes but, ya know). She would play the fool for the laugh (her favorite thing to do when I was a kid was play 52 card pick up - she would throw a pack of cards in the air and then tell us kids to pick them all up). She would always be up for an adventure. (She flew over to see me in the US when she was 70 and got off the plane physically devastated because it's the longest amount of time, since she was a teenager, that she went without a cigarette. But she was ready to see my life and meet my friends.)

This week, the only smile I got out of her was this morning when I finally gave in to her begging me for her second cigarette in 15 minutes. She clapped her hands together like a little kid, did this weird tongue poking out thing and smiled a big smile. 

It really hurt my heart. 

She didn't smile when she saw me for the first time in a year. 

She cried and told me she was lonely. 

She didn't smile when I told her we were going to the zoo (once, her favorite place).

She asked me how often she could smoke. 

She didn't even smile the night the whole family was together (sans one, who was in Bali, so no sympathy for him).

She told me how no one comes to see her and she hasn't seen my sister & brother in months (Not true) and then sat and stared into space for the whole night answering questions with one word answers and not willing to engage in anything, but smoking.

It feels like it has come down to this:

She only smiles when she can have a cigarette. 

I don't like this new person. This kid that I have to parent. She's mean and has tantrums if she doesn't get what she wants, when she wants it. She told me 4 times today to 'grow up' and 'stop being childish' when I wouldn't give her a cigarette every time she asked. (Back story: she gets 9 smokes a day. Last week when she stayed with us over night and I just gave her the cigarettes, thinking 'it makes her happy, why not'....she smoked 40. I was schooled today by her carer that It's really hard for her 'habit' if she smokes 40 one day, and 9 the next. Makes sense.)

I look at her now and grieve again for who she once was. To know that Jamie will never know her as she was, only who she is now. I know we have stories to share but you know, it's never the same as experiencing the person first hand.

I also am very aware that I come on here once a year for a few weeks and I call her almost weekly but my brother & sister are here all the time. My brother gently laughed at me today as I talked with him about it and said 'welcome to my life'.

I have some thought process that I am working through around how our old people 'go out'. The fact that my mum has this disease that has eaten away her personality and replaced her with a blank staring, non conversational, whiny individual who is just not pleasant to be around, just doesn't seem right. There's no celebration of her life, or her adventures, her lovers, her career, her kids, or her grand kids. The sum of life now has been reduced to cigarettes, mentos, lip balm & iced coffee. 

She looked at me blankly through her now pale pale blue eyes today and said;  'I never thought my life would end like this.' 

And all I could say is, 'I know. Me neither Mum, me neither.' 

Crushed. 

Breathe.....

I'm laying in bed here in Adelaide....actually, let me elaborate on that. I am laying in the car shaped trundle bed that my 7 year old nephew has kindly given up for us for the next three weeks. Every time I get out of bed by hopping over the wheel I have a little giggle to myself. 

Our time in Australia is going fast and almost every night we look at each other and lament on that fact. Time just goes too fast and I try to remember that when I'm being whiny about something...like the moment of rain we had the other day or the fact that my mum just asked me to stop and buy her some mentos, for the 300th time in the last 5 minutes, before she has to go back to 'her prison' (the old folks home she lives in...and hates). In those moments I try really hard to remind myself that I won't see her again till the end of the year or, realistically, perhaps this will be the last time I see her and so what if she forgot she asked me 299 other times. 

I have a lot of stuff swirling in my head this morning. My mum, my family, my country...and missing all three.  I have only just found out that for the last 10 years when I have been submitting tax returns in the US because I figured, that's where I live and mostly work these days, that I should have been submitting them here in Australia too. I haven't earned a lot of money in Australia in that time (and I've declared that money in the US) but you know, we have free healthcare and a retirement system that mostly works, and I don't want to lose access to that. Of course, that whole realization takes me on this mind fuck that generally runs along the line of 'you've spent your entire adult life making music, creating art, you have nothing financially to show for it and now your choices have fucked you up'. 

Trust me...I know the world has lost too many artists because of the fear of having 'nothing' and I understand that my life is extremely rich because of the choices I have made to do what's in my heart. 

But right now, I am having a moment of adult overwhelm. I am scared to lose my Medicare card because in some strange way it ties me to my Australian-ness. It's my safety net living in a country with overpriced healthcare. I'm scared that having to find an accountant to help me take care of 10 years of tiny tax returns is going to cost me more money than I have and leave me with more debt that I don't want or need. 

And, In this very moment laying in my car bed, I'm tired of being an under paid artist. 

If you don't know me I will tell you that I'm not irresponsible with money. I don't earn a lot of it and I need to make it stretch, so I am mindful of where I put it. 98% of my clothing comes from thrift stores,  I play the same guitar on stage that I have for 15 years, I could probably tell you right now where the cheapest petrol is in every city we've been in,  I try get home to Australia once a year for a working visit so I can see my family and try to work as much as I can to help pay for stuff while we are here and I'm mindful of how I spend. Anyone that knows me well will tell you that I'm very thrifty.

But, I also have an innate fear of 'getting into trouble' that I attribute to being born by two parents who were on the run from the police at the time..terrified they were going to get caught (for an actual wrongdoing with money). So that fear pops it's head up in times like this. 

My sweet wife would look at me right now and put her hand on my face and whisper 'it's going to be alright'. 

I know she's right. 

I know things get sorted out and that we have a beautiful amazing life filled with deep, wonderful love and friends and family and we have never not had a roof over our heads and food in our bellies, all the important things are covered. I won't die hanging onto stuff, nor would I want to. I want to leave this world with a smile of my face knowing that I loved and was loved well. I don't want to spend my time with my family, my very precious few weeks a year, worrying about stuff that will get taken care of.

And hell, how many other under paid artists, or well paid any things, get to look at this view...

Breathing now....

Pride.....in the name of

We had the wonderful opportunity to sit (or as it went, stand, for 5 hours) in a VIP section for Sydney Pride last night. Pride parades are always a mix of 'wow' and 'ohmygodididntneedtoseethat'. Last night was no different, we just had a better view of it. There was a lot of colour and celebrating and 'happyfuckingmardigras' and the whole city was just in a good mood. 

At 10.30pm (I know, you wouldn't guess this photo was taken at night but we were near the tv cameras so they had the street lit up almost like day time) (we were also standing near the float judges so everyone came over to us to show us, and more importantly the judges, what their float actually did). Okay, I used too many () in that sentence and now I've lost track of what I was saying....

Oh, the rain. 

Yes, it started to rain. You should have seen my hair. With 91% humidity all day and then rain, I was just a little frizz ball....but bugger it, I wasn't in the impending snowmagedon that is indianapolis so I was as happy as a pig in shit. We gayly ran through the rain....okay, maybe we gayly pranced with our kitty umbrella that our friend Nerrilee loaned us, but you know....we did it with pride. 

Pride parades always cause me to reflect on how we, the gay community, have come this far. I know the freedom I feel to hold the hand of the woman I love as I walk down the street has come because of the heartache, struggle and violence that people before me have had to endure. I am also painfully aware of how much further we have to go. There are a hundred stories I could tell you of lgbt families, friends and strangers being harassed, hounded and discriminated against for every 10 I could tell you of them being supported, embraced and welcomed. That statistic has to change. There are always going to be assholes in this world but there shouldn't be laws that allow one lot of people to purposely be assholes to another lot. It's that simple. 

But I digress. 

This night was about celebration and love and acceptance and pride. And leather chaps....lots of leather chaps with asses hanging out of them. 

Seriously, if my ass was that hairy, I would have to wax it. 

And now, I send you away with that visual....

xM