ARE YOU OK?
NOVEMBER 2023 by TEAH CARLSON
As I lay down with my pepī to breastfeed after a long night of titty time. Holding back the sandpaper scrapes I call eyelids. I click on my phone to see the screensaver blue light rays on my face at 5:55 am bearing the latest cold sore.
“Are you ok? Do you need anything?”
I booked a holiday a few weeks back, that I never took - wtf is going on?
After failing high school, I put myself through uni. With no fallback on parental assets - we are humbly building our castle with a moat and a taniwha (with all this rain!).
Another day in the empire. What more could I ask for than a healthy, happy whānau in which I (we) have built and held with a busy, mental load of spell-checked typos and mowed lawnscapes.
Who am I kidding? I’m treading oxygen 24.
I have four tamariki requiring their own character wairua flows of life and living, casting actors in a great play of tangata whenua.
I feel like im failing them, as they talk to me I'm trying to be present to hear their dreams flow from their mouths.
“Are you ok? Do you need anything?”
I chase replayed tape recordings on the five governance boards I’m on all requiring their own transformations of kaupapa Māori - let alone this poor bloody maawree.
“Are you ok? Do you need anything?”
I run contracts like I ain’t got a fucken full-time job to hold up dreams of freedom. Built off the back of whānau legacies of bad credit, fines, repo possessions, legal bills and mortgagee sales but a candlelight away in a dark cave of trauma that isn’t my own I might add!
Not my cave…not my bear.
Then there's my salary mahi, which gives me flex, hope and stability in rolling storms of tsunami (I love to spell that word!).
I have 5 master's students, 4 PhD, guest lectures and a PhD to examine soon - what an honour this mahi is - Greenlandic, maramatanga, rangatahi, hauora, mahi magic on the fortnightly.
Fuck what else am I doing…..
I
Know
What
I’m
NOT
Doing
Having holidays, looking after my reo, hobbies, reading books, painting, dancing, swimming, diving, learning to cook new kai, gardening, sleeping in the sun.
“Are you ok? Do you need anything?”
