Strong Flower
For Norman Erikson Pasaribu
Flower never thought they had stories inside them. They grew up quietly moving in an internal forest.
They liked reading science fiction and playing sport. Both things did not require speaking sentences.
Flower’s extended family were legendary around this Country. Together they were as wide as the headwaters on the mountain. But they were dispersed like grassheads across lands and never all together.
Flower remembers their grandmother like a wind. When she passed away they grieved through running. They were always faster around the bend in the last 100m as if carried by a strong force.
Flower grew up with a worry that they would never be right. This became a bigger worry that they would never be good.
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Flower was told by a relative that gay people deserved punishment and humiliation.
Even their best friend in high school with his beautiful kind blue eyes seemed to believe this was true.
They tried to make the boy with the blue eyes love them to extricate them both at a Christian rock concert but this didn’t work.
Connections were easily made online then in the suburbs. Though computers were communal not personal and discretion was key when projecting thoughts to other planets.
Queensland was a vivid place.
In 1997, Pauline Hanson declared Aboriginal people were cannibals and Australia would be run by an Asian cyborg lesbian president by 2050.
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When Flower talked to you about high school, they first asked if you were okay.
They described shame like walking in the house at night and not being able to find the way back to your room.
These were laconic times. They did not speak.
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Mentorship and love came to Flower in different ways and started them on the journey of supporting other people to tell their stories, which they aimed to treat with the utmost care.
After a day at the desk editing they liked to run around a lit pitch below frenzied moths.
Being on others’ Country made them feel distinct and boned.
Amongst supportive mob, they smiled more freely. Inside that smile were their own words, ready to float freely, ready to arrive.
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In a season of storm, Flower returned to the relative to bring them a story encased in a paper shell.
‘You were the last of us I thought would do this,’ the relative said.
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Now that they were getting older, they were attracted to shortcuts up the mountain. They hoped spirit would not be disappointed in them. It was difficult to live through such extractive times.
This was the Alien year, and Flower was thinking about the uniformed consent of listening, the ethics of spying on the other mob from our skies, of shooting down, of destroying what does not fit in with the settler imaginary.
They will tell no-one, except one trusted cousin, of the night they saw the flickering lights by the mountain. This presence is not lightning.
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Flower has started saying the TV show ‘Sort Of’ starring Bilal Baig as Sabi saved their genderfluid life. Maybe it makes them feel prescient to say this to you, like texting their ancestors.
When Flower lifted up an oven tray of their desires they thought of what Sabi said in the last episode of season two: all I want is someone who gets me in the way I wanna be got.
Flower wanted you to put your hand in theirs, but this can easily be unpleasant and regrettable if your hands have not been warmed.
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During a recent trip off-Country, Flower made friends with a couple, both ten years younger.
When Flower was younger their options felt small and survival was no guarantee. They didn’t see anyone like them in loving, creative and sustained relationships. So far they have had categorical bad luck in love which they called growing pains. This couple made Flower a bed on the couch that fit their spike height. Flower looked at the younger generation to inspire possibility and growth.
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Flower sometimes woke up with a hunger to be a child again. To be forgiven for any future mistakes, fumbles and mishaps. They had not crossed the rivers for years and when they got across there after the flood, an Elder was waiting. Aunty Marnie was a warrior woman and sacred cultural burning practioneer from the neighbouring mob from the other side of the range where the lyrebirds sang. Together they walked gently by the colonial border which had been weaponised against their people. Aunty told Flower she’d teach them about fire here. This kept them alive for another year.
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Flower had a low pain tolerance for lateral violence. They had grown up seeing women and men draw hard lines on wet cement. And seeing men and women insist heavy intoxication was participating in culture. This added up to a pain in the side of their stem.
Sitting alone at a gathering their closest kin hadn’t been invited to, they emptied their bag of anything resembling a gift. They gave it all up to sit in the sun rays of the next day. With the light they grew tall again. The light shun down the line and other mob joined them in their brightness, in their stature.
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Deeply thinking into the fire, Flower wanted to honour the burn. The smouldering wood as bones. They bowed their head to the mob lost and killed and pushed and fell. No peace without justice. No justice without peace. Ancestors were every fire lit. An elemental pause. Dry despite this season. The fire curled the right way.
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It was thirty-three years before Flower knew they were a strong flower from a strong river.
Rare and tough, with fibrous and bright green leaves, they lived silently amongst birds.
It took time before they found their form. Strong like a spear. Delicate like dew.
Their spike grew from the centre in winter. In spring their red-brown rosette flashed against the blue sky.
Words deeply soaked their tearful roots.
Ellen van Neerven
Ellen van Neerven is a writer of Mununjali and Dutch heritage.
Ellen is the author of Heat and Light, Comfort Food, Throat and Personal Score. They live on unceded Yagera and Turrbal land.