Veronica Foale

Welcome to the InterWebs

2010-03-07T22:35:54Z

The travellers sat in a carriage that was a little bit too small for them. Pressed against their neighbours, they were privy to things they weren’t sure they wanted to know.

Outside, the world streaked past, faster than you’d expect, but slower than they wanted it to.

In the front of the carriage a bored tour guide stood up and turned to them.

‘And here we leave the last vestiges of Reality. If you look out of your windows, you can see it trickling away.’ She started to look less bored and more peppy.

‘Right!’

She had cheered up immeasurably, obviously Reality bored her. ‘We’re nearly there. Do you have your checklists?’

‘Yes.’ they all chimed back at her.

The colour streaked back into the tour guide’s face and slowly she became prettier and curvier too. The lack of Reality suited her.

‘Let’s go through the checklist now. Do you all have your About Pages?’

A hand streaked into the air and a small mousey woman began to speak.

‘I don’t have an About Page. I’d really just prefer people didn’t know who I was…’ she trailed off as the tour guide glared at her.

‘You need an About Page.’

‘But -’

‘You need an About Page.’ she turned to the entire carriage and swept her arms wide.’You all need About Pages. Do you know why?’

They didn’t know why, but no one was game to say so.

The tour guide sighed. ‘Look out there! Go on, look!’

They peered out of the windows, the carriage had slowed now. Outside were thousands of people, absorbing information from every venue. They looked … animated.

‘Those people, they don’t care about you.’ the tour guide boomed. ‘They have no idea who you are and frankly, they don’t give a shit. You could be the next Christ and they wouldn’t give a fuck. Not without an About Page.’

‘But I want to be anonymous. I don’t want -’

The tour guide cut her off again.

‘Lady, everyone is anonymous here. No one cares who you are in Reality, this is the InterWebs. You can be whoever you like. Just for Gods sake, write yourself an About Page. Fictionalise it, anything, but you will not survive without one. People will look at you and if they don’t know who you are in the InterWebs, they will slide right past. Short attention spans you see.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s nothing personal.’

The mousey woman bent to her laptop and started typing. Slowly she grew brighter and a little taller too. Her eyes sparkled and she looked less mousey.

The tour guide reiterated ‘You can be anyone here. No one cares.’

With a flurry of heads they all bent to their About Pages and updated themselves; the change in the mousey woman spurring them on. By the time the train drew into the station, they were all shining with confidence.

‘Okay’ said the tour guide. ‘Sorting time.’

‘Sorting?’ someone asked.

‘Yes, sorting. You have to know where you fit into the InterWebs don’t you? Otherwise you’ll get nowhere and I’ll have to take you back to Reality.’

‘Oh.’

They shuffled nervously, no one wanted to be sorted.

‘Right, you. What do you write about?’

‘Ummm, my children mostly -’

‘MUMMYblogger. Go and stand over there.’

‘But I’m not a MUMMYblogger…’

‘You write about your children, right?’

‘Yes…’

‘And occasionally you’ll post recipes. You dabble in photography and sometimes your photos work and sometimes they don’t, but you post them anyway. You’ll accept money to review products and you will enjoy the free stuff.’

‘Ummmm -’

‘You sound like a MUMMYblogger. Don’t worry, the InterWeb has thousands of them. You’ll find plenty of people that you like. Hell, you might even write a book and wouldn’t that be just what Reality needs?’

The tour guide sounded cynical.

‘What do you write about?’

‘Technology and stuff.’

‘You’re in for Tech then.’

‘Xbox Games’

‘Oh, another gamer. Exactly what we needed’

‘The state of the InterWebs’

She sighed. ‘Geek. Another one.’

‘Fashion and Reality Stars’

‘Really? That’s who you are?’

He nodded.

‘Right. Perez Hilton wannabe’

Slowly they were sorted, whether they liked it or not.

The tour guide stood and looked at her little group. ‘These niches aren’t all defining. You’re not stuck there forever, it’s just where you’ll be happiest. You may branch out, you can write about anything. The InterWebs isn’t like Reality, there are no rules here.’

They nodded impatiently, wanting to leave the too small carriage as fast as possible.

‘Can we go now?’ the Perez Hilton wannabe asked.

‘As soon as we go over the last of the checklists. You’ve got About Pages? And Content? You also need a Contact Page, otherwise no one will be able to find you.’

They checked their files and nodded again.

‘Right, you’re good to go then. Remember, some of you will find Sponsors and some of you won’t. It would be wise to create a BlogRoll once you find a group you like. Have a walk around your niche and see how it feels. If you find you dislike it here, the train leaves once an hour to take you back to Reality. We don’t advise you leave and return often though.’

She looked around at her newest group. They were exactly like the last group and the next group would be exactly like these ones. The InterWebs didn’t promote originality in its overall use, just in its content.

She bent her head to her clipboard and then looked up.

‘Disclaimers: You need to listen and then sign and then you can disappear. Agreed?’

She looked at them while they murmured their assent.

‘The InterWebs will not be held responisble for anything you do here. Your will is still your own and your decisions and the consequences thereof will be held by you in your entirety. While it is advised you stick to your niche, you are under no obligation to do so. Anyone caught stealing content will be evicted back to Reality. Do you agree to this?’

They agreed and one by one, they stepped forward to add their mark to the document.

The tour guide stepped back and watched them leave. Bending her head she checked her watch and boarded the train back to Reality again. Another group would be through in an hour.

They always were.

Circles. Round and round in circles.

2010-03-03T01:46:26Z

My hair falls out, great handfuls tangling themselves around my fingers as I run a brush through it. Stress I assume and hormones. Something, I’m not sure anymore. It’s no great loss.

My son hands me a handful of half chewed pasta. Wrapped around his fingers are more strands of my hair. All the vaccuming in the world never picks it all up.

I have a lot of hair.

Or should that read I had a lot of hair.

***

The hospital rings me while I am in the car. I strain to hear her voice over the top of the traffic sounds and my children, whining, contained in the backseat.

‘We’ve got the children’s genetic tests back.’

‘Okay, have you got the results?’

‘I’m sorry. I can’t tell you over the phone, you’ll need to come in and see us.’

‘Oh. Why is that? It was only meant to be looking for the gene that causes coeliacs, surely it’s just a yes or no answer.’

‘The test results are quite involved and complicated. You need to discuss them with Head of Paeds.’

‘Oh.’

I feel sick and cold all at once. It was only meant to be a genetic screen for Coeliacs. It’s not involved or complicated. Yes. Or. No.

‘You have an appointment in June don’t you?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Well, ideally we’d like to see you sooner.’

‘Yes, that would be good.’

Sooner is never good news.

‘But, as you can imagine, we’re heavily booked. I’ll see what I can do for you.’

June is a life time away. I’d like to see them tomorrow, but that’s not possible. What else have they turned up, that she can’t give me the results over the phone, when I was told that I could ring to find out whether the children have a coeliacs gene or not.

‘Are you sure you can’t tell me if they screened positive for the Coeliacs gene? That’s all they were testing for.’

‘I’m very sorry. Like I said, the test results are rather involved and you need to see Dr. B about them.’

Dr B. The higher up of higher ups. The Paed we never see, whom our regular paed leaves the room to consult with occasionally. The one in charge of all the major decisions. Him.

‘Okay then.’

‘Okay, we’ll try and get you an appointment sooner.’

Inside I panic.

Outside, I rely all this information to my partner, who has listened to one side of the conversation while he drives.

We’re worried now, they were only meant to be checking for Coeliacs, nothing else. Nothing that would warrant an appointment with the higher ups.

***

I sit on this information for over a week without thinking about it, pushed down to the bottom of my mind, until it bursts free this morning, leaving me stressed and strung out.

My mind spins in circles.

They were only meant to be testing for coeliacs. Nothing else. EDS wouldn’t show on a genetic screen, not enough information has been compiled for doctors to know which gene is broken in EDS.

***

I turn the music up loud and sing, badly.

Anything to make my mind switch off.

Because I’m worried. Really worried.

And to be honest, we’re already dealing with enough fucked up genes, I’m not sure I can take much more.

Two Years Later

2010-02-27T03:59:11Z

The house is held together with baling twine and hope. We bought it with our fingers crossed, just looking for somewhere that we could call home.

It was a mess then.

When we moved in, it took 6 of us to remove the filth left behind.

I took on the bathroom with bleach and elbow length rubber gloves and I scraped and scrubbed until I could see the floor under the dirt. I wished for a hazmat suit the whole time.

Eventually it was liveable.

Eventually.

Nathan moves an old tank filled with bits of concrete to weigh it down.

Underneath he finds a stash, wrapped in decaying garbage bags, a hollow underneath the tank containing syringes and water. No drugs – although we’ve got no doubt they were here before.

We clean it up.

Like every other mess we’ve found, we don protective gear and get it over and done with.

You don’t want to know what we found in the old stables.

Nathan starts pulling out an old broken window.

I bounce next to him and make him pull out the frame as well.

It’s not enough; it’s never enough and I make him pull out the wall as well, talking grand ideas of laserlight and indoor greenhouses. Before he knows it I’ve convinced him to tear down the slats that enclose the BBQ area and we’re letting in the light, brushing away dirt and cobwebs and wondering why we didn’t do this sooner.

Later we sit, admiring our handiwork, looking up at the stars. Watching the night sky in front of us, the moonlight on the garden. The cool breeze floats through to the kitchen, a welcome addition on a summer night.

There is an awful lot of work left to do, but things cost money, something we are frequently short on. We tell ourselves that it won’t be forever and we plan our escape, how we’ll put this house on the market and buy something else.

But not yet.

For now, this place is home.

Broken

2010-02-21T10:53:42Z

I walk into my bedroom, picking up child detritus as I go; things pulled out of the cupboards and toys scattered about. Bending down next to my closet I breathe in and it’s her.

Eight months after she died, I can smell her perfume, like walking into her bedroom, like standing behind her while we prepared dinner, like holding her hand through the endless hospital visits.

The children playing have disturbed the last remnants of her, a few articles of clothing hung in the back of my closet. Her overcoat sits now, hiding in the dark.

I lean into the closet and bury my head in the sleeve. I breathe in, just for a moment, before steeling my shoulders and walking back out into the daylight and the chaos of my small children.

I sweep them up and twirl them around, all the while seeing her inside my head and remembering that last day. Remembering how it felt to pack up a hospital room and remove jewellery from her cold hands.

We are more for knowing her and less for losing her.

I am not better.

But I am coping.

Even Her

2010-02-12T02:02:00Z

Who are you?

You’re a writer?

No you aren’t. You can’t write. You just type things and they end up on this screen here. That’s not writing. In this day and age of the Internet and blogs, anyone can do what you’re doing.

You’re not special.

Anyone could do it.

Even her.

Who are you?

You’re a photographer?

No you aren’t. We’ve got digital cameras, anyone can take a photo. No skill necessary. Everyone gets lucky occasionally and gets a good photo.

What’s that you say? It does take skill to take good photos? Even with the digital medium?

Bullshit.

No it doesn’t. Take a hundred photos, one of them will be good. You’ll see. Go and try it, come back and report.

You’re not special.

Anyone can take a photo nowadays.

Even her.

Who are you?

You’re a journalist?

No. You aren’t. Thousands of people are doing your job on twitter, you’re outdated and useless. What need do we have of printed material when everything is on the Internet for free? Go and search twitter. The blogs.

It’s a digital world, you’ve got to move along with it.

You’re not special.

Anyone can report the news.

Even her.

Who are you?

You’re nothing special.

Except when you are.

Because it does take skill to pull together a blog post. Sure, anyone can do it, but not anyone can draw an audience and make them laugh and cry. That’s writing.

It does take skill to take a photo. A baby can push a shutter button and capture a moment, but it takes skill to snap a photo that make people see what you saw and feel what you felt.

There is skill involved in reporting the news. Anyone can tell you what they saw, but can they tell the whole story from both sides?

The Internet is changing the way we view things, skills that were once out of our reach are now being brought down to earth where we can capture them for ourselves. Things that were once the realm of only the specially talented are now there for anyone to practise. You’d think that this would water down the talent pool, but instead we’re discovering untold talent in hidden places.

Mothers, fathers, anyone. Everyone.

Anyone.

We can do this.

And we can do it well.

Even her.

Gardening

2010-02-11T05:15:19Z

I lay flat on my stomach, a weed mat protecting me from the muddy earth. In front of me a snail makes it’s way back towards my greenery; a terrible model, it won’t stay still.

Carefully I snap photos, even as I wish that we had chickens that I could feed them to. They’re decimating my cabbages, tens of them slithering over the purple heads together, a tiny snail army. Their task – to eat and procreate, an eternal circle of life. Unfortunate that my garden is at the centre of it.

It’s a war I’m not winning, as slowly the holes in the cabbage leaves get bigger and the capsicums and cauliflowers are more hole than leaf.

***

My tomatoes are growing. Faster and faster, like a snowball picking up speed down a great hill. I can’t keep up and instead I’m left, trying to contain the chaos and prevent immediate injury.

Carefully I tie branches higher and support the green fruit with more baling twine. I hammer stakes into the ground and twirl the stems around them. I kneel in the middle of the tomato jungle, getting wet and muddy as I baby the plants along, preventing catastrophe.

I emerge from the plants, hair tousled and smelling like tomatoes. I look like I’ve been in a fight, with leaves in my hair and dirt on my face.

But the tomatoes are up off the ground, away from the pillaging slugs and I can breathe easy about the safety of my plants.

At least until tomorrow when the my daughter and the puppy go crashing through the garden.

Again.

This photo displays about 1/8th of the amount of tomatoes I've got growing.

Twelve Months

2010-02-07T03:07:08Z

Twelve months ago, we were glued to our television screens. Breathing shallowly we watched the flames race across Victoria, swallowing everything in their grasp.

The firestorm raged on

and on

and on.

We sat here, hundreds of kilometres away and cried as we listened to the body count rise; as they found more people dead. Dead in the streets, in their cars, in their houses. People who never had a chance, even as they ran from the flames.

The devastation unfolded before us and I’m not sure we comprehended it. Not entirely.

173 people dead. The worst bushfires ever.

Black Saturday they christened it, in the aftermath.

And I sit here and type while I listen to people on TV cry, twelve months later, and I remember. The faces of the broken and the grieving. The people at the community centres, waiting for word from family members who stayed behind.

I held my newborn son, and I stood in front of the TV, rocking backwards and forwards with his head tucked under my chin and I cried.

Twelve months on and we remember.

Oh how we remember.

We will never forget.

Blocked

2010-01-30T07:00:16Z

Suck it up buttercup, I tell myself. You need to write, sit down and write it already. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or not, but you need to get over whatever this block is.

But I don’t want to. I’ve got nothing to write about, everything has been boring.

I don’t care. Just write.

Just write.

So I sit down and I just write and it’s not very good. And I poke at it and prod it and it’s still no good. I turn away, disheartened, and something inside screams that I need to keep writing and work through this block.

I’ve got all sorts of good ideas you see, but I pitched to a parenting magazine today and in the event of them wanting something from me, a minuscule chance, I don’t want to have used any good material.

Stupid, I know.

***

The baby turns into a toddler with the arriving of his birthday. He stands on his own two feet and steadily makes his way around the furniture. He pulls a toy table over to the kitchen gate and climbs on it. For a moment, he hangs in the balance, tall enough now to topple over and land on the kitchen floor.

Another moment passes and I’ve caught him, whisked him up into the air, alternately growling and cuddling him; my heart beating a little faster as I run through the what-ifs.

He screams as I put the table away. I’m not prepared for him to be climbing baby gates yet.

Instead, he climbs onto the coffee table and sits there, looking pleased with himself, bouncing and clapping.

At least the coffee table doesn’t wobble precariously.

***

The toddler turns into a preschooler, one who argues and has conversations with me, all in the same breath. She asks when we can go to school and when we can go and play on the slide. She wants to have a birthday every day and she sighs, visibly disappointed when I tell her that today is not a birthday.

She walks away in a huff, flipping her hair as she goes and I can almost see the shadow of a teenager hanging over her head, flouncing out and exclaiming that I’m ruining her life forever.

Not forever sweetheart. Just right now.

***

Everything is changing, slowly but surely.

Proof that life moves on, regardless.

It’s just past seven months since Nan died and inside, I can feel it, a ball of grief, hardened and immobile. If I ignore it, it doesn’t bother me, but poking it threatens to bring this whole house of cards toppling down on my head.

I wished I could ring her today, as my children screamed around me and the world spun while I reminded myself to breath. As I felt that familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach, that feeling of fear and dread and not knowing.

I wanted her here and there was nothing I could do about it.

So I did what I always do.

I ignored it.

I put the baby to bed, I cleaned out the horses water, I taught the puppy to sit. I fed the horses an extra slice of hay and I aimlessly clicked around the Internet. My son slept on and my daughter threw herself across my lap as I typed, watching the way my hands moved across the keys.

I breathed deep.

And I ignored it.

That’s probably not the best way to be dealing with the grief.

Newspaper

2010-01-25T01:51:59Z

My other blog was mentioned in the Sunday Tasmanian paper yesterday. I’m still floating on air, just a little bit. I’ve been blogging over there for more than two years now and it seems things are finally paying off.

They also asked permission to use my photo of Amy and I got photographers credit.

Click on the image to enlarge it and read the article. You may have to click on it a second time, to maximise it.

Here-ya!

2010-01-22T22:09:57Z

He talks now, non stop. Most of it is garbled baby nonsense, but slowly, we’re pulling words out that make sense. He mimics me and claps animatedly when we have a conversation.

Here-ya! he says delightedly as he shoves his hand down my throat, trying to feed me his biscuit. It’s soggy and a little mushed, but he is thrilled when I pretend to nibble it. Silly idea, as he promptly smears it all over my face.

Here-ya! Here-ya! A mashed together word, meaning ‘here you are’ or ‘here you go’. I try not to mash my words together too often, but hereyouare just happens, without breaks in the middle of it and he picks it up. Easy to say, easy to remember, he adds it to his list of words.

Not that I expect he has an actual list. He’s a baby and even the smartest baby is mostly daft.

A hole! Let’s put my finger in iiiiiit WAAAAIIIIIIIL.

Silly idea kid.

They never listen, babies.

***

He started as a ball of moulded flesh. Vaguely alien like, I birthed him and he was mine, ready to be shaped into whatever I wanted, so long as that shape was a little boy.

***

This morning as he screeched his displeasure at having his nappy changed and threw his breakfast across the floor because it wasn’t what he wanted, I was struck by a thought.

My baby. He’s turned into a toddler.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little sad.

He’s gone and grown up, with his own personality. He has wants and likes and they don’t always coincide with mine. For now, I am bigger and things like clothes and nappies are non-negotiable, but soon, my opinion isn’t going to be the one that matters.

***

He’s smart and he is clever. He can pull the wheels off toys and chew on them, he can climb to the top of the couch. He knows how to steal food from his sisters plate and he can almost get into my bra by himself. He talks and slowly his words take on meanings, rather than just baby babbling. He knows to crawl as fast as he can when the baby gate is open, to seek the freedom of the kitchen and then, outside.

But he still falls on his head occasionally when trying to climb down from the couch. He hasn’t learnt to fear heights and the falls accompanying them. He doesn’t remember that last time he played with the drawers, he slammed his fingers in them and this time, he’ll probably do the same thing.

That’s my job – the job of safe keeper. To prevent the falls, to watch him in the slippery bath tub when he stands up and claps, my breath baited and hands ready to catch him at a milliseconds notice. To leave pillows on the floor next to the couch for a safe landing and to either wedge the drawers open or shut, depending on their contents.

He’s bridging that gap between baby and toddler, faster than I’d like. He gets into mischief and laughs about it. He is my tiny little ball of energy, who follows his sister around like she is his God.

He is growing up.

For now though, he still needs my hands, ready to catch him.

Because at the end of the day, he’s still a baby and we’ve got a lot of learning left to do before he figures out what this world is all about.