TheBanyanTree: Introduction, reintroduction, and stepping back inside

[Robin Tennant-Wood]

Thanks for the warm welcome (back) folks. I'm looking forward to
participating and sharing. This is going to be fun!

cheers
Robin


On 5 February 2012 06:08, Jim Miller <jim at maze.cc> wrote:

> Robin,
>
> For different reasons, I too have been mostly silent for the last ten
> years. I've thought of you often.
>
> Its wonderful hearing your voice again.
>
> Jim Miller
> On Feb 4, 2012 8:29 AM, "Theta" <tybrent at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm so sad you met with hostility in this place - that was never the
> image
> > I have of the people who hang out here.  I'm glad you have stepped
> through
> > the doors again.   The atmosphere here is quieter than the Spoon was, but
> > the tone is always positive.  And my dog, Gypsy, will gladly romp with
> your
> > dog and the rest of the pack of furkids who hang out here with us while
> we
> > are sharing a cup of coffee and some tales, tall and otherwise.  Welcome
> > home.
> >
> >
> > Theta
> >
> >
> > On 2/4/2012 3:09 AM, Robin wrote:
> >
> >> You know when something changes in your favourite café and you don’t
> like
> >> it? Maybe the best barista in town moves on; or the management makes
> some
> >> stupid rule about leaving your dog outside; or the chef is replaced and
> you
> >> don’t like the new menu; or the owner says something offensive. So you
> just
> >> stop going there. That was me and The Banyan Tree.
> >>
> >> For several years I hung out here with Roger, the Spousal Unit, telling
> >> stories and sometimes just shooting the breeze with everyone else. It
> was a
> >> good place and many a good tale spun under its branches.
> >>
> >> I’ve been away thinking now for a while, and perhaps I should start here
> >> by telling you why I’ve been away so long.
> >>
> >> Roger and I signed up to the forerunner of TBT, a little café just off
> >> the internet superhighway called The Spoon, in about 1997. We’d just
> >> ventured into this place we know as cyberspace and which has, over the
> past
> >> 16 years become a second home to some of us, and The Spoon seemed like a
> >> convivial place to rest up while we caught our breath. We made some
> great
> >> friends and I am forever grateful for those connections. When The Spoon
> >> morphed into The Banyan Tree we went with it, as did our cyberfriends,
> and
> >> things cruised along happily until one day in September, 2001, when a
> >> Terrible Thing happened.
> >>
> >> The Terrible Thing was unlike any other thing any of us had witnessed.
> >> News of it reverberated around the world and for days after it people
> >> clustered around televisions and computer monitors and shook their
> heads in
> >> disbelief and spoke in hushed tones. I was working in the political
> science
> >> department of a major university in Australia at the time, and many of
> my
> >> colleagues were called upon by domestic and international media to
> comment
> >> and give expert opinion as to why this Terrible Thing had happened, and
> how
> >> governments would/could/should respond.
> >>
> >> In the immediate aftermath of the Terrible Thing everyone, regardless of
> >> where they were in the world, tried to make some sense of it in their
> own
> >> heads. Why? Who? What next? Did they know anyone among the thousands of
> >> dead and missing? Where was cousin Jim who had travelled to that city
> just
> >> three weeks ago for a holiday? That nice girl down the road who had a
> >> scholarship to a university in that city, had her parents heard from
> her?
> >>
> >> The Banyan Tree, too, became an outlet for people’s questions: a conduit
> >> for collective grief and outrage. Into the outpouring that day, Roger
> sent
> >> his own thoughts about the Terrible Thing. I don’t recall what it was he
> >> wrote, but I was not prepared for the reaction that came from several
> >> people: abuse, hostility, and, perhaps most bafflingly, accusations. “I
> >> suppose you Australians are probably having a great laugh at this” shot
> one
> >> response. Others suggested we had no idea what anyone was going through
> and
> >> had no right to comment.
> >>
> >> I needed to get away and think about this. How could anyone think that
> >> just because the Terrible Thing had happened on US soil that we here in
> >> another country were having a laugh? When the fence at the US Embassy in
> >> Canberra had become a makeshift memorial and we all knew our lives would
> >> never be the same? As for what others were going through, everyone was
> >> going through something slightly different so did anyone understand
> enough
> >> to be truly empathetic?
> >>
> >> On a wider scale, I was saddened and confused to see a great country I
> >> admired suddenly slam its shutters and fold in on itself and I realised
> >> that what I witnessed in a few individuals, who I had considered
> friends,
> >> was being repeated at a national and global level. Where would it end?
> >>
> >> I stepped back to think about it all for a while.
> >>
> >> I’ve been thinking about it now for over 10 years and I’m no closer to
> an
> >> answer, except to know that Terrible Things have always happened and
> will
> >> continue to happen and that we all must search for meaning in our own
> ways,
> >> and if that means hurting or alienating others, that's just the way it
> >> goes. It, too, will pass.
> >>
> >> So my road had led me back to The Banyan Tree. I now work in the
> >> political science department of a different university, I write a lot of
> >> opinion pieces for various (mostly online) journals, I’m in the final
> >> pre-publication stages of a book documenting the history of solar energy
> >> research in Australia and starting a new one on the social and political
> >> legacy of the ultra-conservative government of one Australian state in
> the
> >> 1970s and 80s.
> >>
> >> I like to tell stories, though, and that’s something I hope to do more
> of
> >> around here. If you’ll have me back. But I won’t be leaving my dog
> outside.
> >>
> >> Cheers
> >>
> >> Robin
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Sent from my iPad
> >>
> >
> >
>