Fighting Mind, Helen and her Pearls, Child Abuse In NZ.

Varo, Birds.

Such a fight of thoughts these days. I wake up and they’re all there, gloves off, ready to take me down before I can even get up. I have to find ways to deal with the brutes gently. Fighting on their terms doesn’t work. Instead, I think of Helen Rutledge. I met Helen by mistake on Monday morning as I sipped an overpriced coffee in Henderson. Yes, Henderson has a Columbus coffee and I’m afraid it’s pretty damn good. The large flat white was almost soup bowl in proportion, and as I sipped it, an old lady of eccentric design walked past my table.

“Hello” I smiled.

“Hello!” she smiled back, her face immediately alight, and she lurched over to continue the conversation. Oh, I thought, I don’t think I’ll be drinking this alone. For about one second I wondered if I should guard against my solitude, but it was a very fast second. She was a wonderful blend of naiveté and high intelligence and was delighted when I complimented her long string of creamy pearls.

“Oh yes!,” she said “aren’t they BEE OOT IFUL? They cost $3000!”

I laughed “you might not want to go around telling everyone that”

“Oh no,” she said “they’re all rich around here anyway, they don’t care. And I didn’t pay it all at once. Paid them off on time payment plan! But I love jewellery. I LOVE it. Do you want to see my ring? It’s brand new! I just got it.”

Yes, of course I wanted to see her ring. She told me she was so excited about it that she woke up at 4.30am that morning and couldn’t sleep. She had to get up and look at it. Her whole face was glowing with the pleasure of it.

Because the top half of each digit was very swollen, the ring could only be pushed a short way up one of her fingers. We admired it together, and she pointed out the tiny diamonds surrounding the amethyst. I said “so when you look at the ring, do you feel like that beauty is inside you?”

“Oh yes!” she said “that is just how I feel”.

She complimented my eye shadow, wanted to know how I’d applied it and what sort it was. She said something about ancestry regarding the Scottish and the French, making claims to something vaguely royal. I said “oh yes, I’ve got a good whack of Scottish in me”, and then, upon observing the way I drank my coffee, said I was obviously of this Scottish French persuasion.

 I should have told her that according to my family tree, the Italian line goes back to the Garibaldi’s. I didn’t think of it at that moment, but I’m sure she would have loved it. She was already convinced that I was special due to the way I held my coffee cup, and that was enough for me. We spoke briefly of love (of course she was sitting down with me by this time) and she told me how she loved one man and always would ‘but we’ve never even kissed’. I heard about her cats, and she asked me things like “can you knit? Can you sew?” (she can!) and I would have to confess I could not.

 “I do like to draw and paint though”

 “Oh! You’re an ARTIST”.  

She was just the most adorable lady ever. She looked 70 and said she was 61. She was big but claimed she’d lost 7 stone. The skin under her neck was loose and yet fat at the same time, and her eyes were bright and pretty. She asked what I thought of her handbag. I loved it. She really did have great taste. She was wearing a cloche hat, and around her shoulders a sand coloured knitted number that looked more like a mini cloak than a shawl. I complimented this too, part of the design involved intermittent strands of wool coming out of the main fabric. I said it made me think of a Maori cloak and she replied “Oh yes, the Maoris love it and so do the Indians”.

She told me how much she loved bags as well as jewellery, reminding me of the cost of the pearls. A fruit fly buzzed around for a moment and I shooed it away. She smiled and said she liked them, and so I didn’t kill it. In the end her brother came in to get her. He looked like a man in his 60’s who is either on his way to or from the RSA for the day. He mumbled so much when he spoke that I had to sort of nod and smile because I didn’t want to keep saying ‘pardon?’.

I hugged Helen good bye, and when I think about her I feel really peaceful. I think of her eyes, and of her pearls. I can hear her saying in our broad, flat Kiwi accent ‘they cost $3000!’ and for some reason this really soothes me and relaxes any tension in my heart. I liked the look on her face when she observed the fruit fly, or the way she described the big black cat that sat on her chest and “put his arms around my neck and his face on my chin”.

The gangs of fighting thoughts want me to pay attention to everything, but something that has haunted me this week is the topic of child welfare. What should you do if you know of a child being neglected or possibly abused?

Margaret Shanahan writes ‘According to the Ministry of Social Development’s 2005 Social Report there are at least twenty confirmed cases of child abuse and/or neglect in New Zealand every day, resulting in an average of seven deaths due to child abuse every year.’
Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/Child-abuse-stats-make-sobering-reading/tabid/423/articleID/223052/Default.aspx#ixzz24JQVtLfH

What frightens me is that a lot of Kiwi ‘she’ll be right mate’ attitude also embraces ‘aw, what can ya do?’. I’ve also heard ‘well it’s not your child’, and ‘well if it’s not severe abuse’. I do think it is up to all of us to keep an eye out for children, even if they don’t issue forth from our own bodies. I don’t think abuse needs to reach a severe level before its intercepted. That’s insane. To think we’d be in agreement – it’s okay to verbally abuse a child as long as you’re not raping her or stomping on his head? Come on New Zealand. We can do better than that. Let’s get a Gold in something that matters more than a physical race. A ‘Gold’ in child care. Oh sure, you can’t hang it on the mantelpiece – but it might save some lives.

How can you reach out to someone and get help without blowing their whole family apart? If you involve the NZ agency CPS (Child Protections Services) they often create problems in the process of trying to solve them. Children can be shuffled around from home to home and still feel unloved or unwanted. Taking a look at their website helps me feel at ease – they seem to have other options that could be useful to a family:

People who can help (New Zealand)

Barnados

for family counselling             0800 4 PARENT

 ( 0800 472 7368)

Plunketline

For 24 hour help with anything to do with parenting and children under five
 0800 933 922

Relationships Aotearoa (Formerly Relationship Services)

For help with family or relationship problems
0800 RELATE ( 0800 735 283)

Go to the Barnados website

Go to the Plunket website

Go to the Relationships Aotearoa website (formerly Relationship Services)

I liked reading about young people (in care) who won William Wallace awards that support their tertiary, vocational or leadership training. It makes me seriously consider fostering a child when I’m in the position to do so. That’s also on the CYPS website.

And so the fighting in my mind ceases for now. Peachy Toscat Poscat Pie is purring and trying to get as close to me as she can. She resents my laptop.

“Are you a baby?” I ask her in a the saccharine voice reserved for babies and animals.

“Are you a bay-bee or a cake?”

She purrs. She’s a baby cake.

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