The evolving writer

Sexpo

/ frankiebanks27@gmail.com


I feel so lucky to be here and yet I’m so far away from anyone I love, this is truly an epic adventure of heart and mind for me at Sexpo Perth.  This isn’t how I start my seminar out loud but maybe I should have!

Day One

Sales are going well and before I am due to go on some angels come to visit me. One is Madison Missina her strong charisma always projected a few feet ahead, she also talks at the share center and is a proactive safe sex advocate.  Madison takes the sexpo tours, holding the hands of the curious, encouraging their intrigue with every step. Then I catch Isabelle Deltore, she looks beautiful as always and tells me how busy she’s been and how she needs a break as always though her energy is high, racing around as fast as her motorbikes!  She joins myself and Jack, a historian and we discuss his three published books.  Sexpo really is soup for the soul, a mixture of the caring, curious and conscious.

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Black Ink

/ frankiebanks27@gmail.com


Notes on a poem

Pain is the spilt pot of black ink that covers everything and yet is not always apparent to the naked eye.  The bearer of pain is the only person who knows its origin and holds the key to unlock the door to happiness.  However pain is a fuel, a wonderful weapon of manipulation.  Always holding it’s power over others. Poor me, poor you, poor us.

Pain unlocks your pain but then where does it go? Are you beholden to him?  Does it occasionally surface as a reminder of how not to live?  A dear friend now poisoned.

Do you cling to the knowledge of a dark familiar place or follow a light that is wavering and uncertain?

After all knowledge is power and so now your power has gone.

Happiness is just those few notes you got right, never once did it make a song.

Pain is the uncertainty of happiness, just out of reach.  A warm and loving gift.  Touched words to soothe the dark in so many women’s lives.  Another powerful kind of control.

How can we know if it is true or if a yoyo of black and white will always occur?

Blind faith is all we have and a little courage that falling from a place so close to the sun would surely be a flight worth risking.

Lyrics of Faith this is the poem or lyrics!

Enjoy x

 

 

Red Rock

/ frankiebanks27@gmail.com

Wandering down to the quarry yesterday, the jagged red cliffs and beautifully still water would echo the ebb and flow of the day ahead!

The light fragmented on the cold hard rock face, whilst cockatoo’s glided peacefully out of green woolly crevices, boasting loudly of their higher perspective and freedom from the earth.

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Crazy Bitch

/ frankiebanks27@gmail.com

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Sorry if I offend you but I have a little story to tell about this CB.

‘You have never met a Crazy Bitch like this before have you?’

This was the beginning of the new me, I had tried to be the dutiful wife and the Mary Poppins mother. All us mums had husbands that were disconnected and working away. Everyone else however seemed to hold it together so well and those that didn’t were talked about; 

‘I don’t know how she copes!’ Simply implying she isn’t. 

‘Oh it’s a hard time for them at the moment’ whilst plastered grins on the speakers faces hide a multitude of depression, infidelity and unhappiness.

My Mary Poppins costume just didn’t fit, I was popping out all over the place! I spent years trying to tuck myself back in until I realised my mortality, what a smack in the face that was! 

All of a sudden the flabby bits didn’t matter, it was my hard heart I needed to listen to. I had to stop pleasing, I had to stop pretending and most importantly I needed to look myself in the eye.

That’s when the truth turned up and the Crazy Bitch returned in full flow. I had to be me and accept that not everyone would like it, some people would find it scary…I still don’t know what to do with them! But most people are accepting of my new happiness.

The biggest compliment was from my big bro this week, he checks in with me and sometimes gives me a verbal slap. We take it in turns to be the adult. ‘I’ve seen other people grow into the person they should be’ he said. Wow that was nice. He also implied it’s hard for the people around them, I accept that.

When I spoke to one of my friends recently about the fragility of my marriage her response was ‘You’re very brave only one out of ten marriages I know are happy and they accept it, they don’t question it’. I don’t know who is right but I want to be happy, not right or wrong!

I have to be me, are you being you?

Honestly?

The Un Couple

/ frankiebanks27@gmail.com

My hubby and I have been through the mill these last few years, emigration, five house moves, working away, illness and redundancy. Basically we’ve experienced life and sometimes it pulls you together and sometimes it pushes you apart. We love each other sure but in love, no. Friends absolutely, lovers no.

It’s a harsh reality that we had to discuss. We are not connected and the more I write and get back to myself the further away we seem to drift.  I found happiness in my writing and discovering myself. ‘You have changed so much’ he said. I have he is right and I love this new me but it’s not compatible to him any more, we both seem to accept that.

Not wanting to unsettle our two beautiful children nothing has drastically changed in our set up other than awareness and willingness to talk.

‘It seems everyone has been through this, is going through this or is divorced’ he said after talking to a few of his friends.  He seemed surprised to find that there are not many happy marriages around. Everyone is struggling in one way or another, even if it is unsaid.

‘Men just don’t talk about their marriages’ he said. 

Where we are right now reminds me so much of my first miscarriage. A sadness that we shared together.  My body and mind seemed so disconnected from the world. It was out of my control and yet I was losing a part of me. All of a sudden the women around me shared their truth and experiences of miscarriage and I realised I wasn’t alone. It didn’t change the awful guilt or indescribable confusion about why this would happen but it helped with the isolation I had felt. I know my husbands friends were also willing to share their experiences too and it helped.

As we travel down this new road of ‘uncoupling’ I hope isolation isn’t a destination or even a pit stop. I hope we are not ‘damned’ for our new way of life.

I want to be happy and for those around me to be happy too, it’s that simple. Even when simple seems like a distant dream.