Over new year we went to Eden, YAY!
But there were fires, BOO!
Anyway, we cut it short and although the road (Princes Highway) south was closed the road to Canberra opened on New Years Day. Since we’d packed the day before we were ready to go and headed out home, the long way round.
Stopping briefly in Canberra for a cuppa and cake provided by one of my sisters (and petrol stops) we were home in bed by midnight that night. All smokey and exhausted. But home together safe and sound.
The reality of the disaster is still not truly evident. It’s off the front pages now and everybody has donated what they can. But it’s far, very far, from over. The Alpine region is still burning. Mallacoota has only just reopened as has the Princes Highway, holiday villages which survive on the summer season are in terrible trouble.
The economics of this catastrophe is of a scale I don’t think is going to truly be appreciated for months.
I’m a single voice, a mother, artist, possibly not worth listening to by those in charge of this country but I’m one of thousands, just like me who want this beautiful country to make peace with itself and be better.
Conservative or progressive, rich or poor, we have everything to gain by working together, and I mean ALL of us, not just this group or that group. Lying, obfuscation, bending the truth and facts have no place in this. We have to face up to our past, listen, find solutions, we may even find trust and forgiveness.
It will cost us all something, but if we don’t it will cost us all everything.
I’ve sniped from the sidelines for a while now, but not any longer. I’m going to make my voice heard. What are they going to do to me? someone just like their mother, sister or aunt? Nothing. They will “other” and marginalise almost every sector of our population; but I am them, middle-aged, middle-class, white & educated, holding a mirror up to their hypocrisy.
PS: Don’t vote for self-interested climate denying fuckheads, whatever their political party may be.