Journey of a Lifetime

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Today's poem first appeared on the blog several years ago; it has been slightly revised as I am using the necessity for social distancing during the pandemic to look at and (sometimes) revise or rework old poems. I miss being with friends, of course, but I like to think of my poems and you, my readers, are friends  too; it helps me feel less isolated as I live alone and would almost certainly be feeling very lonely otherwise.

As regular readers will know, I migrated to Australia.in the late 1960's.  In many respects, the whole episode was a disaster, my dream of creating a new life proving just that - a dream. True, I had been told a pack of half-truths at Australia House that misled me into thinking I was making the right decision. True also, that I was in such a panic about getting my life on track that I could not even begin to see any wood (real or proverbial) for its trees.

At the time, my deafness still had not been identified as being 'perceptive' deafness. Self-esteem was not high, since I constantly seemed to be misconstruing (for mishearing) people and facts. I knew I wasn’t stupid so covered for my mistakes with a sense of humour that got me out of scrape after scrape, but with which I was fast losing patience.  Having acknowledged - to myself at least - at the age of 14 (1959) that I am gay hadn’t exactly boosted my flagging self-confidence since same sex relationships were a criminal offence at the time. In short, I was a mess and if I’d had anyone to confide in who would have listened to me instead of judging me, they would certainly have advised me to face facts and get on with my life. Instead, I ran away from it all. Ironically, this cleared my head and proved to be my salvation.

If returning to the UK was seen by family and friends as an admission of failure, it was one I found able to take on board without feeling a failure.  I had discovered a new self-confidence which, along with a bent for positive thinking would see me through the rest of my life. Oh, it would be no easy ride (whose life is?)  but I was now equipped with an emotional capacity for looking on the bright side of life, no matter what; this would come to my aid in physical and emotional crisis after crisis, not least the death of loved ones, a severe nervous breakdown and more recently a bad fall during which I sustained a badly fractured ankle which left me housebound for months.

It may sound trite but is true nevertheless that sometimes we have to run away from ourselves to come full circle and find ourselves again, presenting to the world an invented self that was, in fact, there all the time but needing to be coaxed out of its customised shell, not led by the nose through various hoops provided by our so-called ‘betters’ to illustrate invention’s nemesis - convention. For the first time, I began to believe in myself.  The year I was 25, I became a student teacher, fell at the first hurdle (teaching practice) on account of my hearing…and compensated by getting a university education instead. Later, I would do a postgraduate course at Library School and spend the rest of my working life as a professional librarian. Oh, life has been no less a roller coaster for all that, but if I haven’t always enjoyed the ride, at least I live to tell the tale. 

At 74, I have been living with prostate cancer (treated with hormone therapy) for nine years, and despite mobility problems since an accident in 2011, remain a Happy Bunny…well, most of the time. Many people see my going to Australia all those years ago as a huge mistake, but I know better for it gave me time to take a good look at myself and learn from what I found there. Oh, I would go on to make mistakes and turn a blind eye to some things; it would still be another ten years or so before I would finally be able to look the world in the eye as a gay man. But ... one giant leap at a time, yeah?

Now, I will probably never return to Australia, but it will always occupy a special place in my heart, Australia and Australians gave me what I had lacked since early childhood…faith in myself as I am, not as certain others would have me be. (Yes, I learned the hard way, but is there an easy one…?)

JOURNEY OF A LIFETIME

I sailed away to a place

in a dream,

only it wasn’t a dream

but a get-away,

running (scared) from a reality

I couldn’t bear

Water, water, everywhere,

co-conspirator

of a loneliness closing in

on me, secret fears

demanding open confrontation,

no hiding place

Sea, sky, and wind

(day after day)

expressing an affinity

with the chaos

of mind-body-spirit seeking

a reconciliation

Cloud faces wherever

I look, masks

that have intimidated me

all my life, needing

to be ripped away, exposing

secrets and lies

Each landfall, a thought

for the day;

revisiting native hosts,

naming them,

raging so at some for having

led me on

I try befriending people,

failing miserably,

probably down to having less

to say for myself

than a child’s comic book hero

making pillow talk

Ah, but isn’t that exactly

how it had been,

an inarticulate desperation

to do something other

than dance some light fandango

at a masque haunt?

A dawning discernment,

landfall of a kind

likely to grow on us for integrating

with ‘live’ art forms

not incompatible with the science

of human evolution

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017; 2020

[Note: Much of this poem was written in 2017, the year it first appeared on the blog (under a different title) and is reflected in lines I scribbled aboard the ship that took me to Australia in 1969 (The Southern Cross) which I recently discovered folded between the pages of a novel I hadn’t read for years.]