#sietta

     And now for something completely musically different. Sietta is a musical duo I barely know anything about but have randomly enjoyed some of their tunes over the last decade or so. So, let’s strap on the research goggles and focus in for a hot second. Alright --- doing research, gimme a second folks, a second being roughly the time I usually spend on research for these posts --- yup, just as I thought. Barely anyone knows about this duo, they’re from Australia and are totally obscure here in America. They do electronic soul, soul music being a genre I NEVER post on this page until now. They haven’t updated their Facebook page since 2018 and they haven’t cranked out an album in over half a decade. Folks, this is my favorite kind of band to feature; the talented and obscure ones that were worth something and then faded away into a poof that you can only begin piecing together by caring in the first place. I dare say that outside of my blog on Tumblr, some of the music I post is so rare that it only exists on a few other dark corners of the internet. From what little I could scrape off the journalistic workings of the interwebz, I was able to determine they’re a twosome from Australia made up of a guy that does instrumentals and production, and a gal that does vocals. Apparently soulful, spiritual music inspired both and seeing as how they had the talents to assemble ideas on an album, they did so, and managed to create something that combined hip-hop, soul and blues under one electronic roof. I think the reason I keep coming back to their music occasionally is because it’s just flat-out groovy, highly danceable and a cut or two harder and more stylistic in tone than anything I’ve heard in the same genre. This isn’t my kind of music, but its my kind of music in sporadic doses, providing something fun, on-the-nose and universally relatable. Caiti Baker, the very talented lead singer, had a blues-singer father and has suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome, making her upbeat and energetic performances quite the opposite of her nature. She was inspired by her producer, James Mangohig, to have confidence in her natural voice, expression, and ability. That’s just about all the information I can give you, other than the above track is What Am I Supposed to Do? from 2011’s The Seventh Passenger. If you’re into music with heavy bass, catchy beats and a pure message, smash play and enjoy, especially the bumpin’ last thirty-five seconds.

I was extremely happy. I loved my daughter & husband and had a great job. On Oct 29, 2005 I went to sleep & didn't wake up for 10 weeks. The first thing I remember was somebody saying "Squeeze my hand" I didn't squeeze, I kept thinking squeeze your own fucking hand! I thought I was still at home in bed. 

I had been feeling very tired of late, my husband is a driller on off shore oil rigs and worked a 4 week on/4 week off roster. He had been gone 5 weeks. So I thought I was tired from him being away and working full time with a baby. I was wrong. I picked him up from the airport, told him I had been feeling a little funny and was sorry but needed to have an early night and went for a lie down. I had been having a slow leaking brain haemorrhage, without knowing it, which was making me feel tired. I am lucky, I guess, that it burst the night he flew home, or I would have been dead in my bed with my daughter in her cot. 

My husband left me. I had life insurance and some money was released to me. But the authorities put me under full orders of the Public Trustee and Guardianship Board. This meant they took away all of my money and medical decisions. They took away $1,14000.00  and then forced me to take methadone as a pain killer. We thought I was severely brain damaged but I kept trying to overturn the orders, (not easy when drugged up on faux heroin), but on the 5th attempt, armed with 3 psych reports, I succeeded and got all orders removed. The first thing I did was order the Doctors to stop the methadone. At first they said no, but, finally agreed. I was allowed to reduce it by 5mg a day. I took the last 5mg on Xmas day in 2012 and it was like I just woke up from my coma! By Xmas lunch time, my Mum and I had the giggles. 

Mentally I am fine, except I suffer from short term memory loss. I am legally blind and a hemiplegic – my left arm is completely paralysed. I have the use of my left leg, except for the ankle, and have been referred for surgery to support the ankle to stop it rolling. If successful, i will be able to walk again! The worst thing that happened, the thing that has hurt the most, is the result of the methadone use. It caused me to get gum disease and the bastards ordered me to have my teeth removed. I can't wear the bottom dentures, so I think I look disfigured and hate myself. I desperately want to get implants, but, they cost  $20,000.00 and now that the Public Trustee blew all of my insurance money, there is no way I can afford them. I hate that being in the wheelchair has made me fat, but, I know if I start walking again, after the operation, the wight will drop off. But I will never feel pretty again with no fucking teeth! 

After spending 2 years in hospital and rehab trying to get better, sometimes I would think "fuck it, is all too hard!”. Then something amazing happens. Solo (of Horrorshow) guest listed me to Clipsal so I could see Bliss n Esso, Horrorshow and Jimblah play live. Illy guest listed me to his sold out Cinematic tour. James put me on the door for Sietta's Invisible River album launch, but, my carer cancelled her shift and as I can't go out alone, I missed out. My favourite group of all time is The Hilltop Hoods. They are inspirational to me for so many different reasons. These lads have had the guts to refuse to be stopped by all of the doors closed in their faces. They have refused to give up doing what they believe in. They have not compromised themselves to be successful and they are so honest and good at what they do. These lads are my heroes. If these boys, who didn’t finish high school can keep trying and never give up, then I can do the same for my daughter. 

He was my father and I was his youngest. When he was diagnosed I truly believed he would make a full recovery. Even in the last week of his life I still thought he would get better. How naive I was.

Together my family endured a lot in that year but in true force we pulled together and did what we had to do, for my father and for each other. Even though I would have hoped life wouldn’t throw us such a curve ball, I never found that year a burden; there was not a moment when I thought I don’t want to or I can’t do this.

Time after time Dad sat in that chair, a chemical milk shake being pumped into him. He called me his chemo buddy, to me that meant a small ritual of bringing him a cherry ripe, getting him a cappuccino and telling him to eat his sandwiches that the nurse had bought for him. We would discuss meaningless things like the weather, what was happening at work and the boy that I thought I liked. It was never about the conversation, it was about being in his company. Sometimes he would fall asleep and I would just watch him.

Unfortunately with the disease comes a fair share of physical pain. A massage when we spent time together was no chore, unlike when I was a child and I used to make him pay me, I think from memory the going rate was a whole 50 cents for half an hour. Now, it was all about making him feel better. If any one of us could have taken the pain away we would have done it in a heartbeat but he never would have allowed that any way.

I remember explaining to my father one day after he said he felt bad for all the stuff we had been doing for him (he had sent me back to the shop for a different kind of fizzy drink) that we wanted to do these things for him and he was allowed to be as demanding as he wanted. It takes a lot for a strong character to concede.

I’m now on the other end of the longest and shortest year of my life but if it meant being able to kiss him on the forehead and hold his hand one more time, there is no doubt that any of us would do it all over again.

As a child I saw my paternal grandmother as being magical.

She lived in this beautiful castle of a house on the water and would always carry around a handbag full of lollies. Snakes, jelly beans and these tiny caramel lollies wrapped up like bonbons that ensnared your mouth in chewy sweetness whenever you bit in.

My father clearly idolised his mother and through the stories he told, I saw her to be this picture of perfection. A candy carrying homemaker who always had her hair set, her nails done and a new coat of lipstick applied.

She was the image of white, upper class Australian perfection and I was her half-caste Aboriginal granddaughter.

As I got older and my grandmother’s admiration for me grew, the jealousy of my father’s younger sister arose as an issue.

She had never accepted that her older brother, the only son, had fallen in love with an Aboriginal woman and had produced a vivacious and incredibly adorable Aboriginal daughter. I was the apple of my grandmother’s eye for the first few years of my life and it angered my Aunt incredibly.

As a result of my Aunt’s ire, the latter part of my childhood was consumed by stunted visits with my grandmother in which she would attempt run down my mother’s family, expressing racist views that I don’t even know were her own but were said with such conviction that it reduced me to tears and deterred me from wanting to be around her.

In my early 20s things changed.

My grandmother became frail and my younger cousin, who had originally relocated to Sydney to study at university, began part-time caring for Nanna.

I would visit my cousin (who at the time was living with Nanna) and it seemed that as her mind slowly began to give way, so did my grandmother’s distaste for me. I could tell that she genuinely delighted in seeing my face at her door and loved retelling stories of her childhood – something I took great pleasure in hearing about.

About 6 months into my cousin’s relocation, things got dramatically worse with Nanna. We noticed the early signs of mania that come with dementia and it got to a stage where Nanna feared being left alone.

It was at this time that between the two of us, my cousin and I became co-carers for my grandmother.

While it may be difficult to fathom why I would forgive someone who had made me cry so much as a child for something I could not control, my own identity, I had always loved my Nanna and wished that she could see me for who I was and love me too.

And she did.

As she began to wither, both mentally and physically, her hair was no longer perfectly coiffed and her nails became chipped and broken. She feared the night time especially and would often get up during the night, despite the difficulty she experienced in doing so, to check that I was still around to protect her.

In the end my cousin and I declared to our parents and our mutual Aunt that it was just too much. 

That while we had tried our hardest to keep our Nanna in her house where she so desperately wanted to be, there was no way we could provide her with the level of care she needed. She was then relocated and approximately two years later she passed away.

Even though I didn’t see her much after she left Sydney, I knew that that time that we had had together where I had painted her nails, did her hair, cooked her food, listened to her stories and reassured her that everything was ok, she saw the true me.

A granddaughter, not a half-caste, who loved her and that she loved back. 

Last Thursday, in the early afternoon, a group of strangers cut open my body and took a part of me away.

The realisation that this happened to me is still slowly sinking in.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, I awoke with (what had become) a routine pain. At some stage I made the decision to call a cab and go to hospital. I thought maybe they’d give me some painkillers, and I could finally get back to sleep.

I don’t consciously remember a point when I realised things were wrong, but somehow I ended up screaming and writhing on the bed. Hysteria is effective force - within minutes a senior doctor came, gave me some morphine and ordered an ultrasound.

From there, things got murky - there were telephone calls and forms, wheelchairs and beds shifting me from place to place - in the 80 hours I spent in hospital my feet barely touched the ground.

My condition was common. My surgery routine. But it had never happened to me before, and somewhere in those strange three days, something in me changed.

Mostly I remember being overwhelmed by people and emotion; the sad eyes of the gentle ginger haired doctor as he told me “I was sick as a dog”; a medical friend who redressed my cannula with tenderest of care; waking up from opiate dreams to find my mother sitting next to me; the cleaner who kept on checking on me as I sobbed in my bed for an hour.

When I got out I told myself I’d get better quickly. My mother left on the afternoon plane. In the days that followed walking became easier; I started to attend social engagements, stress over deadlines. My housemate warned me that I should be spending more time in bed.

As a child I was told I was lazy, and this is often how I think of myself.

I am now learning how difficult it is to stay still.

And I can’t stop crying.

I cried every day I was in hospital - screaming, heaving, sobs. I cried in my bedroom when I realised that I was never, ever going to have my gallbladder again. I cried in my back yard when I realised I can’t binge drink and eat fish and chips any more. I cried when my doctor told me I was going to have to learn to stop.

"You’ve just had an organ removed from your body" she said "You need to take it easy for the next six weeks."

My face cracked “Six weeks of not being able to drive, or ride my bike. Six weeks of someone else carrying my shopping.”

"You’re just going to have to learn how to receive help" she said.

"That’s not how I’m built." I sobbed "It’s not who I am."

But it’s who I am now - a slow moving vulnerability, shuffling through recovery. After years of driving myself towards independence, I am hopelessly reliant on my friends. And they save me, like they always do. They remind me that I am precious.

I have never had to press up against the limits of my body. I have always been buffered by the good health of youth. It turns out, this body I always perceived as flawed, has actually been almost perfect. Now in it’s fragile, post operative state I see how valuable it really is, and for the first time, maybe ever, I approach something resembling self love.

This could not have been written without the support of my friends, because quite simply, I probably wouldn’t be well enough to write it. So I’m sending out a massive thank you to each and all of you who have driven me around, brought me food, flowers and TV series, held me while I cried, constantly checked in on me, walked my dog, lifted heavy shit for me, sat in the sun with me and listened to me work through this crazy time. 

I’ve never been very good at letting go.  Never been good at being carried, supported, dependent, reliant, in need. It’s never sat well with me.

As a fiercely independent and misinformed young person, I’ve always feared a helping hand.

I guess it comes from a strange concern that I might, in some way, ‘disappoint’ people if I can’t keep doing things by myself.

And my greatest fear in life is to disappoint people.

But then I met Paul. My best friend and soul mate. My rock.

He came into my life in a way I never expected and at a time when I really needed someone. And he’s carried me ever since.

At the time Paul and I got together I was dealing with a series of shitter-than-your-average-day issues.

I’d come out of a relationship with a burnt ego as my ex had cheated on me.

I’d just been told that I had to retire from competitive sport after my fourth knee operation – ending a soccer career that contributed to my identity, confidence and physical wellbeing.

I’d just lost my Grandmother.

And I was facing a crisis in direction - I’d changed my degree for the fourth time.

In a way I was forced to open up to Paul. I sort-of-kinda-just-totally broke down. And it was the scariest thing that had ever happened to me. I was vulnerable.

And you know what? It was the best thing that could have happened to me. Because it turns out letting someone in and being carried, supported, dependent, reliant, in need… is how you become stronger.

I didn’t disappoint Paul. I connected with him.

And after four and half years of letting someone in and allowing myself to be carried when I need it…. He’s just proposed. A physical and metaphorical rock.