I had no idea

I remember it so clearly. I was living in a Singapore condo called The Bencoolen. I was doing an early morning workout on a stair climber in the gym. A security guard called Takza approached me, distressed and shocked, saying there had been a terrible terrorist attack in the United States.

I rushed upstairs and turned on the news and was overwhelmed with emotion by the events unfolding on my television.

I watched in horror as the World Trade Centre collapsed in real time.

It felt like the world was ending. It was terrifying.

Decades later, I wonder if society become desensitised to the awful things that keep happening in the world because we are so graphically exposed to them on the TV need and social media.

It was unsettling on Saturday night to see people laughing and talking as I walked the dogs before bed. I thought, how can we all be getting on with our lives as normal when just a few kilometres away six people have been stabbed to death in a shopping centre?

But then, I suppose, what else can you do?

It had been such an unremarkable day. I walked the dogs, went to the gym, bought a new granny shopping trolley because I’d worn my old one out, went to the beach and been thwarted in my desire for a swim by dangerous surf, had my hair coloured in Darlinghurst and headed to my friend’s house to admire her renovation.

We were on our way out her door to have dinner when I glanced at the news broadcast her husband was watching and was halted in my tracks.

What? This terrible incident happened as I blithely sat getting my hair done just a few suburbs away?

Until that moment it had felt like any other day. Except it wasn’t. It was a long way from it. As the New York Times reported it: “The attack, Australia’s deadliest in eight years, stunned a nation where mass violence is rare.” 

Individual violence, on the other hand, is horribly commonplace. Every day brings another terrible story of a woman killed at the hands of her partner or a teenager stabbed at a bus stop.

The U.N reports that gender-based violence is rising. One in three women have been subjected to some form of physical and/or sexual violence, at least once in their life.

And it is happening everywhere. In rural and urban areas. In wealthy suburbs and poor.

I woke to this post on my local Facebook group: “My dad just let me know this morning at about 5AM, a woman was running down the street with a suitcase and when seeing my dad immediately flagged him down.

“She was running away from her partner and was quite frantic when he offered her a lift and refuge, as he was concerned about her safety.

“I won’t say the destination he dropped her at, to ensure this women’s safety but our family has been thinking about her and her safety tonight.

“If you were this woman, we would really love to know that you are safe, as my dad didn’t grab your name and you had told him your partner had your phone.”

Hundreds of Ballarat residents marched through the streets of the city on Friday evening, calling for action on violence against women following months of tragedy.

Communities in Ballarat and its surrounds have faced the deaths of three local women this year — Rebecca Young, Samantha Murphy and Hannah McGuire.

Five of the six people confirmed killed in the Bondi Junction tragedy are women. And of the 17 people who were stabbed, 14 are women.

And yet there is still so much good in the world too, like all the heroic people who tried to stop the killer and help others at Bondi Junction on Saturday.

This isn’t the blog I had planned for today, but it feels like the only one I can write when so many people are in mourning.

No song of the day.