Turning to appreciate the jacarandas: on circuit-breaking and truth-telling

Content warning: 

Please note that in this piece discusses abusive behaviour. Please be mindful, or take a break from reading if this is a difficult topic for you. If you need support, please contact Counselling Support or visit the Safer Campus Community website.

I know we didn’t want to hear the word lockdown and so we called it a circuit-breaker and a community pause. I know I’m not a business owner so I cannot say I know firsthand the hardships another lockdown has caused. I am a solo parent studying full-time and working part-time to provide for my little family. Our international and interstate borders are shut, which means I am isolated from family and friends. I am lucky that I have friends here in Adelaide who have become my home.

We are all struggling. I think if there’s anything I learned is that I am not alone in my struggle. So many people are underemployed, if not unemployed. I have family members and close friends who are doctors. Their faces bear the marks of the masks they are wearing everyday as they battle in the frontlines. Their bodies are weary. Students are missing graduations and exams and face unpredictable futures. Our older family members and friends are isolated from their loved ones. The list goes on.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about what’s happened with the Woodville Pizza Bar man. I was a victim of a lie too. So, like many, I was also angry. Still, also like a great number of others, I found a way to employ empathy. There’s no excuse for his lie, even if he was afraid, and even if it is a result of systemic inequalities. It’s true that he still could have chosen truth instead of succumbing to his fear and lying, but I also can’t shake off the feeling of compassion. He was afraid, I get it. Again, is fear a good-enough excuse? Are we able to hold two things together and at the same time – that his actions were wrong but that we can understand why he did it, but then also allow him and the system to face consequences? How do we get justice, how do we begin reformation?

I remember reading about Sean Connery’s recent passing and how it saddened a lot of us. At the same time, accounts of him slapping women were also being made public. It’s not the same, but why are my thoughts turning again to the questions of, are we able to hold two things together and at the same time? Can two things both be true, that he is a brilliant actor, but that also he had hit women?

I also recall Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’ remarks on July 23 regarding Representative Yoho as she said, “having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a man decent. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man.” Again, could two things be true at the same time? Could a man be indecent to other women but be a decent father? I know daughters who have been raised and nurtured by loving fathers who are the same men found to have been indecent to other women. And then again there are brilliant men, very successful men who excel in their work and well-regarded in the workplace, but are also abusive within their family. Are we able to hold two truths in our mind at the same time? Could two truths exist?  

For now, I take this time to pause and reflect, but also to appreciate all the wonderful things the world has to offer, even in the midst of this pandemic, in the midst of our struggle. I turn to the renewing ocean sunrises and our purple-lined streets of the blooming jacarandas.