I've not written about Australia day before. I've never really had anything to say. Given that I feel quite strongly about my partial indigenous heritage (I'm half Russian and half, well, we'll get there) I've always thought of this as evidence of a fault within me. An inadequacy where I wanted a connection with my heritage that wasn't truly mine.
This morning, while driving through Ugarapul land, I realised why it was that I have nothing to say. I realised, it's because I have no story. Or, at least, that I don't know it.
One of the quirks of my life has been that neither the Russian nor the 'Australian' sides of my family have been forthcoming with their stories. It wasn't until my wife befriended my babushka that stories of great-grandfathers leading cossack hordes by Lake Baikal started to tumble out. It was only on hearing those stories that I began to connect with that element of my identity. It was the first time I could.
My family's history in this land, however, has never really seen the light of day. Or, at least, not so that I'd know.
I guess I did know about uncle Martin, the rugby league hero. And some things about my grandfather: how he befriended orangutans and learned the natives' language when serving in Borneo. As I grew older I even heard about his alcoholism, though he'd been on the wagon since before I was born.
But of my indigenous heritage, I knew nothing. Literally. I don't think it was until my late teens that I found out. My uncle Larry, who is quite dark skinned, was apparently quite relieved when he found out. I, being light-skinned and hungry for an identity, felt twin pangs. The first was the glimmer of hope for an identity. The promise of legitimacy and a place to belong. (no adolescent issues driving that one. Honest.)
The second was a white-knuckled fear that this was a fool's hope, and that I did not belong anywhere. Was I indigenous at all? Am I allowed to feel it? Or am I a fraud, leeching legitimacy from the oldest living culture on earth?
But it was only this morning on that drive that I put together the pieces. Stories I'd read and heard. The effects of the stolen generation. Young indigenous people struggling growing up in mixed cultures yet not truly in either culture. The loss of tribal languages. Disenfranchisement. And covering all of it, shame. The kind of shame that stifles stories and safeguards silence.
And so I realised. Perhaps I am one of them. Maybe my fear of being not genuinely connected with the land, with the culture, is less a sign of being fake than of being true. The story of those who do not know their story. Who have lost dreaming.
Maybe I do belong with them. With those who also don't belong.