The lightbulb moment that changed how I look at life

They happen to all of us - those moments when a thought, conversation or observation suddenly helps us solve one of life’s puzzles. The Wheeler Centre celebrates these pivotal shifts with Lightbulb Moments, an evening of storytelling by local writers and performers, to kick off the Spring Fling series of events running November 2-11. We hear from five of the participants about those moments that made them see life anew.

Chloe Hayden

Growing up, I was in love with the idea of princesses, pixies and mermaids. I was in love with the idea of a world where happily-ever-afters were no longer a hopeful yearning, but something that was a given, that was expected within a character’s story. I yearned deeply for that life; for a life where fairytales, once-upon-a-times and happily-ever-afters were expected, where anthropomorphised animal sidekicks and singing into wishing wells were a part of your every day … not just when you opened up a story book, or turned on a Disney movie.

I dreamed it, with every part of my being. But my life was as far from a fairytale as it was possible to imagine. I wasn’t the princess in my story; I was Quasimodo, I was the antelope that the lion king would eat, I was a trapped genie.

Chloe Hayden: “I don’t need to hide behind a princess to realise that my happily ever after is right here with me.″⁣Credit: Netflix

And, despite wishing on shooting stars and keeping my bedroom window open a crack in the hope that Peter Pan would whisk me away to Neverland, life had shown me time and again that shooting stars were really just flaming balls of gas, and that Peter Pan was just a fictional character. A fairytale was not in the cards for me.

I’m autistic, and, in the global fairytale that we know as “society”, my character is not wanted. It is not valued, it is deemed as not needed. And so, for my entire life, I sunk back, I hid, I stayed silent. For 16 years, I was selectively mute, painfully aware that my story was a glitch in the fairytale.

Still, the idea of a fairytale story stuck with me, Disney playing a large part in my fantasies. I owned dozens of Disney plushies, spoke almost solely in Disney quotes, and for a good part of my life, only wore outfits that I felt my favourite Disney princesses would wear.

On my 16th birthday, my parents bought me a Princess Anna costume. I had found comfort in her character since being introduced to her in Frozen. Her bubbliness, her boldness, her unapologetic personality were all traits that I was drawn to, all aspects that I wished I had more of in myself.

I’ve learned that I don’t need to hide behind a princess to realise that my happily ever after is right here with me.

When I dressed as Anna, where my differences, my quirks, my oddities, my “Chloeness” felt hidden behind a mask of false eyelashes, a plaited wig, a princess dress and painted boots, I was able to entirely embrace that quirkiness, that boldness, that confidence that I only had behind closed doors. Ironically, my lightbulb moment came in the fact that by being someone else, I felt safe enough to be my authentic self.

Every time I wore that costume, my confidence grew, along with my ability to communicate and open up to the world. At 16, I opened my own children’s entertainment company, and, eventually, was able to enter the world simply as Chloé.

Now, I’ve packed away the wig, the dress and the boots. I’ve learned that I don’t need to hide behind a princess to realise that my happily ever after is right here with me, that I can be boldly, proudly, unapologetically myself. That who I am is exactly who I’m supposed to be.

Chloé Hayden is an award-winning actor and disability advocate, motivational speaker and social media influencer whose story of being “different, not less” has attracted a worldwide following. She stars as Quinni in Heartbreak High.

Maxine Beneba Clarke

Grown-ups in my extended family always slotted bite-sized pieces of wisdom into their sentences. Maxims, idioms, proverbs – they’re big West Indian chatter. When I made a foolish or ill-advised decision, and suffered the consequences, it was: well, you made your bed, and now you must lie in it (insert thick Guyanese accent, and knowing proclamatory tone, if it was from my maternal grandparents). When some criticism I was waxing bordered on hypocrisy, it was: you know dear, people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. If I tried to pull a sickie from school for the second time in a fortnight, when I was clearly as healthy as a kale crop, it was: mind you don’t end up crying wolf.

Maxine Beneba Clarke: “In that dining-room moment, I realised: it all comes down to that. That’s why they were afraid.″⁣Credit: Simon Schluter

In the bedtime stories of Brer Anansi, and Brer Rabbit, folktales that journeyed my family over the generations from West Africa, to the Caribbean, to England, to Australia, there was always a kind of teachable moment – an oral, or a kernel of wisdom at the heart of the story. The characters were clever, and cunning, and always in a race to outsmart each other. In my younger years, I was an avid consumer of these tales. I loved reading and books, loved all learning and found myself always searching for the lesson in any situation.

I don’t remember my parents ever telling me blankly that education is important. It was just kind of a given. By the time I was born, my family had reached the beginnings of middle-class. I was reaping the benefits of many, many, many generations of intense struggle. You know how the saying goes: I am my ancestor’s wildest dreams. Education was still seen as a privilege in my household, but it was also given. We knew we would go to school – that society would allow it, and that there was enough income to sustain in. We also knew that still was not the case for many. In the early years, excelling in academia was a byproduct of my intense curiosity about the world, and a family that nurtured learning. Later, in the face of Hanson-era high school racism, it became a mark of defiance.

Knowledge is the only thing you can acquire that nobody will ever be able to take from you.

In the late ’90s, my brother, sister and I were summoned to England by my grandfather, who wanted to see his Australian grandchildren. I knew he wasn’t well, but was too wrapped up in teenage-hood, to fully realise that this meant one last time. One evening, I found myself in the dining room with Grandad. He asked about my studies. Then he looked at me – the only time I ever remember him looking me directly in the eyes for a significant period of time, and said: education is the only thing you will ever be able to acquire that nobody can take away. Time stopped, for a moment. Then that moment passed. It’s a maxim that’s been repeated in slightly different wordings, by many different people throughout history – but this was the first time I’d heard it said.

I knew, of course, that education could lead to class mobility, to a good job, to not having to slog it out the way I was at the kitchen jobs that supported me to attend university year after year. I knew that in our family history, freedom was key. That legacy of not being allowed to read or write – of being killed or physically punished for even attempting to get educated - the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, loomed large. But in that dining-room moment, I realised: it all comes down to that. That’s why they were afraid. Because once you have it, it is yours to keep forever. They can’t see it. They can’t touch it. They can’t take it. The defence is embedded in the acquisition.

The power of this revelation, not just about formal education, but about knowledge in general, has returned to me at various points in my life: when struggling to find the motivation to finish my degree; when I found myself a single parent having to support my family through my work; when I started growing food in the gardens of various rentals; when I learnt to drive a car in later life; when I decided to represent myself for a while as an author and do my own legal work; when I taught my own children how to read, or write, or draw, or plant, or ride a bike. When I taught them: knowledge is the only thing you can acquire that nobody will ever be able to take from you – the defence is embedded in the acquisition.

Maxine Beneba Clarke’s books include the acclaimed memoir The Hate Race, the award-winning short fiction collection Foreign Soil, and the poetry collections Carrying The World and How Decent Folk Behave.

Anne Summers

My life changed forever one night at Fanny’s, the fine dining restaurant in Lonsdale Street that served sophisticated European fare for more than 30 years until the recession of 1993 forced it out of business.

It was 1963. I was 18 and had been taken to dinner at Fanny’s by my Aunty Nance. It may not have been my first experience of a restaurant, but it was certainly the fanciest, with its white linen, subdued lighting, and exotic fare. It was also unusual for two women to be having dinner together. Ladies lunched.

Anne Summers: “That night at Fanny’s I thought that – maybe – I could aspire to more.″⁣

Nance Hogan was single or, in the cruel language of the time, an “old maid”, “on the shelf”. As I could see from observing my mother and her sisters, Catholic girls like me had three options: to become wives and mothers, enter the convent or remain spinsters. I’d briefly flirted with becoming a nun, but fortunately realised in time I did not have “a vocation” so would not be following Aunty Gwen into the convent. Nor was I keen, watching my mother with her six children, on what I saw as the suffocating domesticity of motherhood. Nance was no Aunty Mame, but nor was she a fuddy-duddy old maid because here we were, sipping wine, eating food I never knew existed and having a fine old time.

Even my mother and her family felt sorry for Nance because she was unmarried. They looked at her and saw her as missing out. No one mentioned restaurants or travel or the freedom to do what you liked, but that is what I saw as we dined in style at Fanny’s.

I knew from reading that there were women with aspirations like mine. But they all seemed to be in other countries, not in dreary Melbourne.

Nance would not have had a lot of money. She lived in the small Riverina town of Findley where she worked in a bank – as a clerk. Women could not be tellers back then because they were not allowed to handle money. But despite her modest salary, Nance could travel to Melbourne and treat her niece to an expensive dinner. My single aunt opened my eyes to the possibility that I could choose to be like her: independent, in charge of my life, free.

I knew from reading that there were women with aspirations like mine. But they all seemed to be in other countries, not in dreary Melbourne where it seemed that every girl my age was merely marking time until she could find a husband.

That night at Fanny’s I thought that – maybe – I could aspire to more. I could be one of Edna O’Brien’s “girls”, having a thrillingly messy complicated life of affairs and travel, like the two young women in the Country Girls trilogy. These books were banned in Ireland for their challenging of the traditional Catholic mores that saw women ensnared by the three choices that had seemed to be my destiny. Or I could be in a café in Paris, casting sly glances at Simone de Beauvoir sitting in a corner writing in her notebook.

I could be anything. All thanks to my Aunty Nance.

Anne Summers is a journalist, researcher, commentator and best-selling author of nine books, including Damned Whores and God’s Police, first published in 1975, and still in print. Her most recent book, Unfettered and Alive, a memoir, was published in 2018.

Caro Llewellyn

More than a decade ago, Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s Sundance documentary Miss Representation interviewed high-profile American women including Condoleezza Rice and Jane Fonda to paint a devastating picture of the impediments to women’s representation in positions of power and influence.

It was sobering viewing but, for me, the most striking moment came when Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defence Fund says: “You can’t be what you can’t see.”

It seems so obvious, but it was a lightbulb moment.

Caro Llewellyn: “I can’t give up until our institutions truly reflect and celebrate the diversity of our many nuanced lived experiences.″⁣Credit: Justin McManus

Edelman, a black civil rights activist, was not only talking about women and girls, of course, she was also talking about race. The phrase has since become a catchcry for greater representation of many kinds in our organisations, offices, political structures, and boardrooms.

We have seen incremental changes to the diversity of our institutions. This change didn’t – and still doesn’t – come easily. It took a gloves-off fight to shift the dial on gender and race with such a long way still to go.

The lightbulb moment of “You can’t be what you can’t see” resonates with me particularly for my community of people living with disability. I recently delivered the keynote address for a national disability conference. I’d been asked to speak as the organisers identified me as the only CEO of a non-disability focused arts organisation who publicly identifies as living with disability. I was honoured to present, and am lucky to have a platform to share my experiences and voice my opinion, but it’s wrong there aren’t more CEOs with disability in the arts.

According to Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-2031, more than one in six Australians have a disability and 35.9 per cent of Australia’s 8.9 million households include a person with disability. Among Australians of working age (15-64), 2.1 million have disability. Of these, just under half were employed (47.8 per cent), compared with 80.3 per cent of people without disability.

Only 34 per cent of people with disability are managers and professionals, while graduates with disability take 61.5 per cent longer to gain full-time employment than other graduates.

What can each of us do so that more Australians with disability can see what they can be?

Those are terrible statistics.

Many organisations are working hard to include greater diversity, but in my experience, the representation of people living with disability, whether visible or not, still has a long way to go.

Every day, I encounter great generosity, grace, encouragement and support, but I also experience behaviours, barriers and attitudes that make my job harder and break my heart a little with their intended or unintended cruelty.

It might be struggling up stairs to a stage so I begin delivering a speech feeling self-conscious and vulnerable; having to ignore people staring or commenting on how I walk as I pass; listening to people telling me I look haggard and should wear more make-up; or dealing with questions about my ability to lead an organisation because of my condition.

Sometimes I feel disheartened but I can’t give up until our institutions truly reflect and celebrate the diversity of our many nuanced lived experiences.

What can each of us do so that more Australians with disability can see what they can be? In seeking an answer to that question, we all might have a lightbulb moment of our own.

Caro Llewellyn is the CEO of the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas, is on the Board of the Summer Foundation, and is the author of the memoir Diving into Glass.

Lionel Fogarty

Poet Lionel Fogarty at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in January.Credit: Rhett Wyman

Lightbulb’s conservative.

Lightbulb are for me when thoughts are made in the story

of justice over negative injustice.

The work given at early age, sometime bright up

my immature help remember.

But expectancy, so not fully told,

leave me idea to when drop are but

feeling touch in sunlights.

Every time a society morning day and night fakes a growth,

up life new birth to zombies; I won’t be a light for

on any side of the cultures.

Peace is rimming water up trees;

the wars teach wars are words

by those that carry out tears drop laws.

Heart lovers lust didn’t hands bodies mind

to a spirit uneducated.

Visions in the after life, gave my rights to stay

wise alive rich and well.

While saying this a people’s struggle ended,

heart pump blood different but solid,

seeing injustices in equally ways,

meant the street light goals carry a sparkle from

the eyes of thousands house fires.

Vibes can’t enlighten,

the practice what counted.

Let the dead be dead,

yet learn as life must live out a life full.

Walkabout will image even voice,

yet write about as you ride.

Dreaming gave I the children to life,

seem world want see touch

had me think of plant earth

need in a origin culture.

The worms work even without a hook.

Getting the paper truth in a book online

affair must of moved eyes smell sex

and Revoultion beyond a library book shelves.

An army wins against the winners,

the story off the frontline fights gave the ideas.

A sun is the light of the head, but must fires

it’s own amber light, at first self creation.

Everybody I run into had a story

light bright height and low.

Yo number one a first nation happen to have,

a movement in action arise in future’s regeneration.

Yo stay alone most times, make a writing,

so much like solution are needed.

Those that are oppressed or pleasure by exploration will be the lightbulb

to beat and defeat by words over powers that enable a poor door.

Lionel Fogarty is a Murri man, born on Wakka Wakka land at Cherbourg mission. This year he released a new collection of poetry through Giramondo Press, Harvest Lingo.

Lightbulb Moments is at Melbourne Town Hall on November 2. wheelercentre.com