Hodding

When I was a young man, one on of the 'survival jobs' I took was as a hod carrier for a bricklayer. It meant running up and down barely navigable boards slung across metal scaffolding. The scaffolding was just heavy metal pipe frames lashed together to make a tower, with heavy wooden boards forming ramps from one level to the next. At the end of each board, I had to lift the wheelbarrow full of bricks or mortar from one board to the next.
The old bricklayer saw me sweating and shaking a couple of times and teased me, "You're a little scared."
Scared Hell! I was inside out with gut-wrenching fear. Every time that scaffold groaned or creaked, swayed and shook, I wondered what they'd do with my body when I was gone!

In between work, the old man would tell me stories about himself.
Turns out, when he was about my age, he was a Tiger tank driver in Russian in World War 2, chosen because of his stature and quick wit, he was one of the elite of the German tank corps.
He told me about the war, and one memory kept coming back over and over: Pulling chunks of human flesh out of the treads of his tank.

He had been wounded by a hunk of shrapnel in a battle near Kursk, one of the most famous battles of WW2. He showed me the wound. The wide scar ran up one side from nearly his hip to just beneath his arm. It's a wonder he survived. That must have nearly ripped him in half.
At that point, it had been over 25 years before, but the memory was so traumatic, all he could do was smile nervously when he told the story.

Turns out, the foreign studies institute where I was tutoring had a couple of teachers who'd survived the concentration camps. A couple of them still had the numbered tattoos. Some of the students -- myself included -- decided to tape a series of interviews with them to get their impressions and feelings on record. All of them were getting old. I arranged for the aging tank driver to be one of the interviews.
Every one of them had defining moments in their memories of their experience. For the bricklayer, it was pulling the flesh from the treads of his tank.
Some remembered the cool politeness of German officers as they ordered men and women to their deaths, or talked openly of the small difficulties of logistics with so many men and women to move. Moments and memories that held the essence of their experience.

Years later, musing on those memories myself, I wondered what my defining moments would be about my time in Australia.
The first memory that comes to mind was the insanity of watching a magistrate as he read out the court orders with bored annoyance removing me from my home for a year.
Another was the look on the acting sargeant's face when he came to take me from my home. Red faced and ready, his hand on his baton, he came to my house intending to use that baton on me.
The next is the months of horrible anxiety that began just after returning from the hospital and intensified when the Intervention Orders were delivered. The wrenching struggle to try to form a defense against the indefensible: a Big Lie. These people had already determined I was a pedophile, drunk, and abusive far beyond anything even alleged, but with what few cognitive hours I could find each day, I had to try to defend myself and my character.
In the end it didn't matter, that magistrate never wanted to hear my side of the story. He just thought of me as amusement.
Another is the moment I ripped the wallet photo of my ex twice, and tossed into the trash at my home. I shook in pain. My eyes literally hurt from tears. But it had to be done.

Two years of twisted abuse while crippled taught me more about the experience of those concentration camp survivors than the hours of taped interviews. The time under legalistic attacks taught me the roots of my own character, and how deep what little dignity a person may find inside themselves under such accusations may run.
I could never convince myself that a violent reaction was warranted. I can take some small, personal pride in that.
I went to my fate with enough personal dignity to earn many friends, and the respect of nearly all who heard my story. It's not much. But it is over.
Sadly, what I went through is nearly a social paradigm in Australia. None of them were surprised.

Defining moments, like remembering old movies or half-forgotten books, change over time. It is not the great wounds that define a life-changing experience. It is the feelings, and we search for a moment that incorporates them all.
Time and human nature makes the decisions for us.
Defining moments are like scars that reopen in our hearts. They damage our souls. Some sort o reminder opens the scars for us. For some, it may be a date. We ennoble someone who drifts into depression or seclusion each year on the day a spouse dies. For others, it may be a word or phrase that drives them to relive the pain of a traumatic experience.

This year, it was a time frame for me, nearly 4 months, from January when my ex first threatened me with a ridiculous lawsuit, until early April when I was removed from my house while negotiating settlement via email. I felt all the daily anxiety and depression. I was just as exhausted every day. The feeling that my heart was ripped open and left bare to the open air.
The pain was in my heart and gut, visceral, all through me -- and it hung inside me like being wrapped in a poisoned blanket.
I called my friends and made myself usy with them. I worked with them on their dreams, business, and plans. It was not enough to try to hide from those feelings in study.
I can only hope that in time that sense will leave me.

Defining moments are like a bitter taste. There are not words to describe it, so you seek to share the feelings with some experience, and fail.