The Kindest Cuts

Cafe Locked Out

For various reason, common to many, I couldn’t sleep last night. This morning I just wanted to lay in bed and not worry about the show, or the bill, or the future; whatever that will be. But I knew that there were hairdressers cutting people’s hair down on the Steps of Solace. The hair of unvaccinated people, the new untouchables. So I hopped on my motor bike and headed down to check it out.

What I found was so much kindness that in the warming summer sun the people were glowing in my camera’s view finder. 

Many had brought their children. Some of these children were playing on the orange bollards, that had been installed to separate us from the police. Others, who had been sleeping here on the  stone steps were now walking around in their worn clothes and stylish haircuts.

And all this kindness, this true charity, refilled my soul.

Behind them, in Parliament House, the upper house members would be heading into the chambers tomorrow to finish the debate on the bill. And then they would vote.

What the bill is heralding is totalitarianism. It will be an Emperor’s bill. The Rich Jewish families have made this clear as have the QCs and the lawyers and the ombudsmen, and every Saturday more and more Victorians have filled the streets in a call for freedom, that feels, when you’re in it like a Forming Church of Hope. A Church that the mainstream media, who oddly have our eyes, refuse to see.

Our only hope now is that a few parliamentarians not only seen the numbers, but that our numbers and passion have reached their souls and are now carrying them across the floor to defend our democracy. If they do they will become heroes.

One lovely woman gave me a head and shoulder massage. She told me to put my phone away and stop talking, for she was going to pamper me.  It’s a gift she said. A gift of human touch.

And as she worked on my shoulders I closed my eyes as all the events that had happened to me, since I stood up and were now still happening and would happen , flowed up and out in tears. It was like she was holding me with her kindness, keeping me safe with her human touch and offering my soul a brief release.

When I looked up, these hairdressers were still cutting the unwanted people’s hair, and they were all laughing and chatting as they did, with strangers holding umbrellas up to shade them from the sun, as behind them a line of police stood close, as though they were cutting hair in a prison’s yard. 

This, in my opinion, is how we fight the lies and the emerging tyranny creating them. This is how we defend our natural empathy, which they are trying to destroy. We do it by being kind.

Maybe that’s what turn the other cheek means. You want us to strike you back, but instead we’re refusing to be infected by your hate. Instead, despite everything you are stealing from us, we are coming together, to look after each other.

Look down upon us, you parliamentarians, I dare you, come to your windows and see that under this warming sun, defiantly we are all hugs and smiles and like I said before, in my view finder, these ordinary Australians, your people, are aglow.

Images and Story: Michael Gray Griffith