The only "how to vote" card you need

Trust me

THINKING

It’s been a challenging time just existing in the world of late and the looming Australian election is upping the ante in my small corner of the world. I live in a bubble of what I thought were like minded people but have recently realised their minds are not like mine at all. Their minds seem to be focused on one issue alone and my mind, well it isn’t focused at all.

It’s not that I don’t care about the elections, in fact it could be said that I over care about the elections (just like most things) but I have spoken to too many people who are voting based on one issue alone; and I just can’t get behind that.

Choosing who should run the country is not the same as voting for class president or the manager of a sporting team. It’s a role that is bigger than the individual and more important than just a certain demographic. Years ago when I was a more active member of the group Mums For Refugees they posted this graphic on their social media:

It is the single best piece of voting advice that I have ever received and I encourage everyone to think outside of themselves when they vote.

READING

I am always going to find stories about mothers abandoning/leaving their children difficult for all the reasons that anyone would find those kind of stories difficult, plus a few scars of my own… honestly it’s probably something that I would have avoided reading in the past. But that would mean I would have missed out one of my best reads this year - Mother Tongue by Naima Brown

To be honest I was seduced by the croissant on the cover but also by the fact that

Mia Freedman

raved about the book and she knows me well and she knows what I like. Although I didn’t like this book, I loved it.

Mother Tongue It is about a mother who leaves her husband and young child and goes to find her true self, but it’s about a lot more than that. It’s about language and love and politics and conspiracy theorists. It’s about truth and lies and learning the difference in living between the two. It’s about family and not just the ones made by shared DNA. It is gripping and riveting and current and contemporary and it is told from three vantage points which allows you access to completely different angles of thought.

I am not the kind of person who comments (or even really knows) about narrative structure and what makes a beautifully written book - but I know that it is this one.

Read it. You won’t regret it (although I am going to erase the last chapter or so in my mind - you will see why)

EATING

There is not enough space on the internet for the food that I have been eating this week and also there is no one who was not born in South Africa who will understand. I have been in Johannesburg this week visiting my father and for the benefit of those readers from the old country it has involved a lot of time in Woolworths and Checkers, Dischem and Clicks eating cheese curls and chipniks, fritos and ghost pops, fizz pops and mint crisps, jelly tots and tex bars, koeksisters and pap. I don’t think I have seen a vegetable for a week (other than the lettuce on my Nando’s veggie burger).

On my way back to Sydney this week to reconnect with my bed and hopefully sleep once again.

Thanks for reading

Lana