TakeawaySoulfood

Walking Tiptoed

2012-02-05T12:31:00.004+11:00

Yesterday Cat at http://thereandbackbytricycle.blogspot.com.au/ triggered a memory of a story I read as a small child, and that although I had forgotten it or where it came from, its name had floated up in my mind intermittently ever since.
"The Thing that Walked Tiptoe" came from a book called "The Dawn Shops": such a magical title. Could you buy "sunrise" in such a shop? Obviously it would have been full of mysterious and magical wares.
The story - you can google it - is of an elfin "thing" who yearns to be and play with real children. It practises trying to walk on the ground - its kind walks above it - and eventually manages to walk on tiptoe. Its family makes it a dress, and a hat to cover its long ears, and it confidently sets off.
Shockingly, a group of children jeer at and reject it, but it finds a lone child in a meadow, with whom it plays happily all day. However, at the day's end, the child reveals that it has known all along that it is not another real child: its ears poke through its hat and it walks on tiptoe.
Saddened that all the work and effort went for naught, the thing flees to home. It doesn't see the positives of the child enjoying playing with it while also accepting its true nature.
A sad little story. But what a parable. Hiding or disguising your unique qualities in order to try to fit in. Not an uncommon story.
Of course I didn't see that when I was a child.
But perhaps my subconscious did, and that's why the story lingered there while my memory deleted it.
Sometimes among my students I have young ones who are easily distracted. Among these are some whose distraction consists of constantly watching other children. I have sensed - and, I might be wrong - that they were appraising and trying to learn how these others were so easily being average children. Is that lucid?
I used to work with individual children across quite a wide geographic area. Thousands of children, in total. It seemed to me then that the eyes of most 5 year olds were completely open and trusting: but, by six, an almost imperceptible shadow of wariness was there. Losing their self - acceptance? Learning to stretch their toes to the ground and hide their long ears under a hat? I wonder.

They eyes of some monkeys, like the one above, are unbearably sad.

Congratulations and thanks to these companies

2012-01-19T09:52:00.004+11:00

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2012/01/sopa-blackout-who-is-joining-the-protest.html

The anti-piracy legislation before the USA government at the moment will greatly reduce access to information on the internet.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/18/sopa-pipa-consumption-only-internet

"These bills could prevent you participating online again ....a 'consumption only' internet is starting to look like the goal of these bills."

A small but important dilemna

2012-01-17T19:52:00.000+11:00

I've known M for about 20 years - although not very well. So that not having seen her for years was not unusual. I can't remember how or why we met, or how we made any kind of connection: mutual acquaintances possibly, or just random.
She was around my age group, and I knew that she was an adopted child of a family with some social prominence.
"I was cherished," she said. "Cherished".   A wonderful childhood memory.
She was warm and chatty and artistic: 2 items together were 2 items together, she said: but 3 created a whole different entity. Puting 3 together, you needed to watch what you were creating. She painted pleasant and skilled watercolours.
I don't think she would have known anything of my background, because she liked to talk, not question, and she liked to socialise in groups, (which I don't).   She visited me here, and was always welcome to visit me here: but that hadn't happened for a long time.
Her adult life, I gather, had not really been very happy.   Her husband was not simpatico, and she clung to the social group that she felt she belonged to - and why not? - altho her husband didn't fit in, and finances made this increasingly desperate in the decades since her husband's death. This from others, not from her.
I asked a mutual friend about her a month or 2 ago, and she said that she had moved to some kind of seniors' centre.
Today, in the online newspaper, there is notice of her funeral.
My particular dilemna is that I have a copy of Khalil Gibran that M lent me.
It had been given to her by her beloved daughter, who committed suicide as a very young woman/girl.
What do I do with it?

The perils of being an early adopter

2012-01-15T19:46:00.000+11:00

I don't know how I came across Hypochondria Jones blog from 2005

http://hypochondriajones.blogspot.com/

But I thought it was sad and funny, and would like to read more of her. I regretted that most of the few responses seemed to be from sleazes.

Surprise! Things change.

2012-01-13T19:23:00.002+11:00

The waters of Nakhodka Port were the black of death, non life, Styx, some anti-life force, when I first saw them. The water rippled sluggishly, weighted down with oil and rubbish and jetsam. An arc of settlement around the harbour showed faded peeling pastel stucco, as the revolution, or Stalin, proscribed in its destructive path across eastern Russia.
What changes this to the photo above, which I would once have thought to be a fanciful dream?
Relinquishing fear?
Capiltalism seeing and exploiting an opportunity?
Ecological enlightenment?
All of the above?
None of the above: just the force of history?

Touring

2012-01-12T20:03:00.002+11:00

I watched "The Bear Man of Kamchatka" last night. I slightly envy, but mostly admire, people like Charlie Russell who have forged themselves such admirable lives.

Once, in a Moscow restaurant, a man tried to convey, with astonishment, to his - say 11 year old - son, that I came from somewhere as exotic as Australia. He and his son came from somewhere as banal as Kamchatka. (Irony alert - we were both agog). At that time I was adept at illustrating my provenance by drawing a kangaroo.

3 or 4 of us had made a group. Jules was a NZedder in his 70s, well heeled. Jules took us to a Russian nightclub. At the hotel desk he asked for a cab. "What?" said the receptionist. "A cab! A cab!" said Jules. Her face closed and turned away. "We don't have those in Russia," she said. "Taxi", said I. "Oh yes, " said she. And there it was.

The nightclub was a fairly disspiriting affair. Rows of healthy, unsophisticated, glum looking girls dancing in high heels and socks, who occasionally twirled so that their skirts rose to display the awful Russian underwear.

We didn't look for a cab/taxi back to the hotel: caught a bus or a tram - I forget which - and got off when we felt it was about right.

We walked to the corner, turned it, and there before us was the splendour of the cobbled Red Square, with the excessively gorgeous St Basil's cathedral illuminated in its centre. On our right was the grim structure of the Kremlin. The clock struck midnight, and we saw the mechanistic changing of the guards at Lenin's tomb.

Going to Europe later was something of an anticlimax. Well, a disappointment, by and large, although I enjoyed myself and learned a lot, largely through the Americans I met who befriended me everywhere, talked, argued, informed and. among other things, took me to "Hair", to stay with them at a Cambridge college and to take brass rubbings. Why am I not more generous to Americans when I have enjoyed them so much? On the other hand there were these handsome, healthy, well built young men, oozing with privilege, who would accost one outside American Express offices, confidently asking for handouts, as if entitled. They are probably all bankers now. The other side.

Taxi, police, beer... close to universal words in my experience,

My father was...yes, we have long generations in my family....in Canadian logging camps in the 1920s. He had photos - my niece should have them now, but perhaps she has mislaid them - of twin grizzly cubs who used to turn up each day to be fed porridge by the men. Their mother lurked watchfully in the trees. So, Charlie has not been alone, or even the forerunner in knowing that grizzly does not necessarily mean "grizzly". It's about time we stopped all the killing, don't you think?

2011-12-16T20:17:00.000+11:00

Replying to the lovely Elephant's Child, repeating myself, I speak of Daniel: a splendid looking, over 6 ft tall 16 year old boy. His speech has a defect - why wasn't I told before he started? If I had known, I wouldn't have wondered if some kind of deafness, or some reverse babel fish, had struck me. Or , I wouldn't have disturbed him by asking him to repeat himself. "I can't fxxing talk" he would shout in self loathing and frustration.
These days I can understand him, instead of pretending by interpreting a word or two, which I used to do.
He is quite an intelligent person, with a great interest in the biological world and its workings: the function of krill in the mighty panoply of the cosmos, eg.
Confined to lower school classes with less intelligent or interested students, because his written work is even far less intelligible than his spoken, which is difficult enough, he is locked into a communication prison.
"My friend would think that I am trying to give myself a blow job," he said, when I showed him how to lean over a glass to drink to cure his hiccups.
I have been told that my response of slight mirth was inapproptiate, that I should have conveyed some message of disapproval to him. I still can't quite understand why.
But I find it piquant that a 16 year old boy would say this to a woman 50 years older than himself. It sort of seems like a "good thing".
However, when by conversational rambling we arrived at the Vietnam war, and I discovered that he was not only convinced that "we" won it; but he was also absolutely convinced that Vietnam had invaded Australia, I was appalled.
He volunteered the info, and was adamant, that guerilla warfare was disgusting, and therefore the Vietnamese brought Agent orange onto themselves.
Talk about blow jobs is not going to rattle me.
Ignorance about our history will offend and disturb me. And it did.

Temper, Temper.

2011-11-06T21:36:00.007+11:00

I like to think that at last I now have a quite equitable temperament: seen it all, been there, experienced that, moved way past emotion and passion as it were. Not so.
Recently I've become aware that I have a temper that flares and dies quickly, like a match lit in a draught. I say a sentence and the anger has gone before I've reached the full stop, and indeed will possibly be instantly regretted.
Relatively Retiring speaks of those who phone to tell you that your pc is compromised: with just your credit card details they can fix it for you. Some unfortunate rang me at a most inopportune time to tell me this, and my response was to tell him that he was lieing: - ok;  and to ask him what kind of way was this to earn a living, by cheating people: not ok.
I hung up the phone and instantly hated myself, because I knew that, short of killing people, I would once have done whatever was required, including deluding rich 1st world people, to support my children, if that were the only way open to me.
Does Rebecca* have a temper? (*name changed).
Recently I have accepted 3 students from a charitable organisation.
Rebecca is 12 -13: tall, fair, slim, athletic: looks a little like a young Rachel Hunter. She is in her first year of High School, where she is only allowed to attend 90 minutes a day, because her behaviour is so.......
Rebecca always attends with a carer - a trained social worker - because her behaviour is so.....   She lives in a young person's refuge. Apart from her 24 hour carers, - and someone in charge of them - she has a case manager and team at the charity, a case manager and team at a govt agency, ongoing sessions with a psychologist, and, I am told, huge help from a concerned circle including the counsellor at her High School.   Her care - possibly all too late - must cost thousands and thousands a year.
I have learned that R was so maltreateded as a baby/toddler that her hard wiring is wrong, and can't now be changed: that is the reason she will do anything now - ANYTHING - to attract attention: good, bad - it's all satisfying to her. And that the details of her subsequent life are horrific.
"Can she eventually attain a normal life"? I asked her case worker. "No, " he said.
"Can she attain a sort of functional life that is satisfactory to her"? I asked.
"That's what we hope for." he said.
I guess we should pencil R's children into our calendar for future treatment and support.
End of story - I hope. Rachel and I fell out.
When, for a variety of reasons, including nonsense such as that we were fighting for control of the mouse and keyboard, R left the tutoring session - as she does quite often - and proceeded to swing on metal rafters, as she does quite often, and which I don't think would be covered by my insurance - I suggested that she find another tutor. My temper, although I expressed it calmly. There have been plenty of other occasions when she has behaved just as poorly, and I haven't reacted.
The fall out from this is not hopeful. Oh dear. They manage R, which I certainly couldn't do: yet, their approach - ie, they want her to apologise to me..for what?   -seems to me to be wrong.
I really don't want to tutor her further, although the money is tempting...( see above). The agencies, at a loss for tutors, will really try to push it. I don't know what outcome I wish for.
Other children from the agency.
D. "A gentle giant", I was told. 16? At over 6 feet, and well built, he is certainly large enough to be potentially intimidating. . I'm f..ing stupid, he says. I can't f..ing spell, I can't f...ing write, I can't f..ing f..ing talk properly: certainly I initially tried to hide the fact that I couldn't understand anything he said. F.., he says constantly, and writes as his user name, but I am well past reacting to a mere f.
I am quite interested in his world...so, some decorating site, where you could go baroque, Victorian, ....pimp. "Pimp? "say I. "What's that?" " Oh, retro, " he says, "All zeebra bedspreads and big ass spas. Not pimps and hos." All educational to me. For the next 2 weeks he is absent on a cruise. How this fits in with his damaged background, I have no idea. "I'll bring you back a souvenir," he says.
J. Still primary school.  A beautiful, refined looking, very well kept child - with foster parents: so his background can't be good.
Lovely, polite, fun...but, evidently he makes obscene sexual remarks to other children.
Ten minutes after R left, I walked from my office to go to the newsagency. On the way I met an old friend - I hadn't seen him for 20 years - and we went for coffee and a lovely nostalgic chat. He told me that he has a terminal cancer.
R's caseworker evidently called at my office in the interim, and was alarmed that it was unlocked. It's really hard to explain to someone that I think the chances of an opportunistic thief dropping by and stealing my aged computers is slight, and the chances of a foolish teen damaging herself/the building by showing off and swinging from metal beams not meant to be load-bearing are much higher.
Since its flare with R, my temper has been lying low. But I know that it's still there, lying in wait to cause trouble.

Enough already

2011-09-30T17:42:00.005+10:00

I see this on the news.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-30/penthouse-life-sweet-for-tarongas-chimps/3193638

I don't like to see anything caged, no matter that the cage cost millions. That caging them may preserve them from humans seems, well, not a good solution to an issue.
I recall, decades ago, seeing the first gorilla at Taronga Park zoo.
His arrival and his display was greeted with noisy pride and acclaim.
He was in a small enclosure. He sat, legs crossed, leaning on his fist, and looked like an (obscene) middle aged CEO. He stared back at us with contempt, rage, extreme boredom and deep, deep despair.

Small Mercies

2011-09-28T18:56:00.001+10:00

As I slammed the boot down on my groceries, I saw, too late, my car keys sitting where I had thrown them, on its floor. Fortunately -70/30 - I had left the car unlocked, so could open the boot to retrieve them.
Coming home from shopping, I found that I didn't have my house keys. Fortunately, by chance I not only had the key to another door, but had left it unsnibbed: a rare occurence.
After leaving work I realised, at my car, that I no longer had the work keys. I retraced my steps in this very poorly lit area and saw a tiny, slightly denser area of blackness: the keys.
Small problems which could have wasted frustrating hours and hours.
When Mark was painting my house I told him that he had to accomodate the fact that this front window had previously been painted closed, and couldn't be opened.
"No it's not," he said, and used one finger to open the window

So, for 15 years or so, in this area which has quite a high burglary rate, I could have been easily burgled. But wasn't.
Small mercies. Big gratitude.

Changes

2011-09-25T18:57:00.004+10:00

After my husband died, quite a long time ago, I had a dream in which I was driving along an aquaduct..(aqueduct?) like this, from Cooma to Canberra. It was perilously narrow, but, thankfully, straight for the 100kms or so.....(yes, I hate that incorrect construction: I should say, "I was thankful that...").
The dream seemed symbolic: I was alone on a fraught, narrow path to somewhere different.
Canberra, I had some association with, but why Cooma I have no idea - maybe a suggestion that I didn't feel that I was starting from home.
After that dream, I developed a phobia of driving over bridges.
Prior to that, I would have been unsympathetic to phobias: now, I had to grip the steering wheel, keep my eyes focussed on the other side, blot out everything else, and hold my breath and wait to reach solid ground. As I did...(although sometimes I strayed far too near the middle of the bridge, to the deserved hostility of other drivers).
It wasn't the fear of the bridges that was the only problem: it was the limp, sweating, weakness after I crossed that compounded the issue.
And the fact that it was irrational and illogical was maddening. I had driven for decades with no issues.
To be honest, there was also an issue with my car. Many had been recalled because of a computer error: the company had writen to me, but the local dealers refused to recognise it. I spent many $oos on trying to fix the car on its habit of stopping abruptly. I was a silly air-head woman. Barbie-headed. And then at last it happened to them when they were returning it to me. And then they fixed it.
After this, for some years, I challenged the phobia by driving my children here and there. On the whole, the phobia won the challenge.
From which, I can assure you that getting back on the horse after you have fallen may work for the moment, but it can also suggest that finding a different method of transport is a more sensible option.
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," is a typical platitudinous lie that they tell children. What doesn't kill you can make you weaker. And weaker.

Average

2011-09-10T19:30:00.001+10:00

Shawn Achor, previously referred to, speaks of the pressure for "success", such as the pressure, the commitment, the devotion, the sacrifice of self and other interests or other aspects of your personality, or gifts or tastes, in gaining entry to Harvard.
He cites a mum keeping each baby and childish scrawl because "it will be in a museum one day."
Now, that's putting pressure on your child.
He demonstrates the problems for half the Harvard students, once they've arrived, in accepting that, in spite of these immense sacrifices, their great abilities and their extraordinary achievements, they are below the (Harvard) average.
There seem to be some flaws both in our system and thinking.

A Happy Woman

2011-09-10T19:04:00.003+10:00

Happiness precedes success: not follows it,as we are taught, says Shawn Achor, who has written a book re same.
Ann Moyal seems a perfect example of this.
An Australian academic historian born in 1926, she seems, according to her autobio I have just read, (Breakfast With Beaverbrook), to have loved learning from an early age, and been successful in, by and through it.
Her last and 3rd husband was Joe Moyal, mathematician, whose early work in physics was so before its time that it is now far more highly regarded and understood than when he first wrote it. Her previous marriages and break ups do not seem to have been at all traumatic or unfriendly for either party.
Ann's academic work and writings are exemplary and highly regarded. Rational, pragmatic, evidence based.
So, I enjoyed particularly her recount of staying, courtesy of an American colleague, at the former home of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, in Sussex.
A huge admirer of Virginia, she was given V's garden study in which to sleep. With doors and windows closed, she was woken during the night by violent bangings of things being thrown around the room. Too frightened to move , it was only morning that showed her bits flung around the room. She quotes the distinguished biographer and expert on the Bloomsbury group, Leon Edel, as saying: "I'm certain that that was Virginia herself."
I am impressed that Ann Moyal has published several books this century. In photos she certainly appears to be still a happy, vibrant, interesting woman.

The Way We Were

2011-08-28T23:17:00.006+10:00

Altho' it's so long ago, I can still recall bits of orientation week back then. The women's adviser, whom because I thought that it was about time that I did the recommended thing, I went to see. She seemed annoyed to be disturbed and told me that my subject choices were rubbish and that I had no future other than to be a school teacher, so should only do Eng/history.
Only ever able to do bits of the right thing, I ignored her advice and did anthrop and Psychology as well as Eng: in fact is was the former two that gave me both freedom and employment. And I did philosophy, which she seemed to regard as as an indulgence like McDonald's Happy Meals.
On the other hand, I didn't do my other choice, archaelogy: and still regret and yearn for that.
I also remember some of the people I met then, in Orientation week, and I am thinking of D. She was a tallish, rangy convent school girl with short brown wavy parted brown hair. Not particularly pretty. but when I met her there was something so personal in her meeting that I thought: this is a very nice person.
Perhaps I particularly remember her because she kept popping up; before long her hair was golden, sparkling as dark subject to peroxide initially twinkles, and she and a handsome blond college boy were a dazzling couple. Before too long after that she had left him. She had left the hearties to join the arties.
She was not one of the most beautiful women around the place. S.U. was stacked with them: Tania Verstak became "Miss International" or something, but she was unremarkable around a place where there were many beautiful young girls. D was quite an attractive girl - aren't most young women? - but just that: "quite attractive." I don't think that anyone would have called her beautiful. But: she had a huge impact. She cut a wide swathe. I wonder, in retrospect, if any of it was due just to the fact that, when she met you, you felt as if it mattered to her. As it had felt when I met her.
This was an era in Syd Univ hot with such as Clive james, Germaine Greer, Robert Hughes ...(and all the other local buzzes).
5 or so years later...her hair like straw...(she looks so used, we used to say in our bourgeois way)...D still had that appeal.
She married "well", but in fact badly.
She was photoed inernationally. Life magazine. Or/And Vogue International..
As it all fell to pieces - as of course it does if you've grown up in a backwater and you are expected to be riding high waves in a big surf it will -that marriage ended . Just as Lawrence Olivier chose the miserable option of portraying a demeaning aspect of Vivien Leigh's last hours, so her internationally famous husband chose to record demeaning and degrading behaviours of D.
Reading it, I felt gratified that life hadn't offered me the opportunities that it offered D.
She returned to oz, lived and died, young, in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney.
I feel regret for her.
I feel regret that all her intelligence and all her knowledge, scholarship, intuitions went to nothing, evidently.

Can It Be true

2011-08-28T20:11:00.002+10:00

that Sarah Palin said, "If we hadn't won the War of Independence, we would all be speaking English now."

I think, actually, that SP has shot her bolt, so to speak. She has inspired and then been overtaken by more ambitious, prettier, better groomed, more outrageous, younger women, now that she has demonstrated that ignorance is not a disadvantage.

Names

2011-08-26T08:55:00.002+10:00

Izzy, 10, tells me that her best friend has the wonderful name of Halley O'Malley.
An 8 year old boy I knew felt that he was being bullied by another boy, whose name was Shannon Sloe. One would have thought that might have provided ammunition for some retaliation. Having that name, of course, might make a boy bitter - being a bully could be the only option.
The death notice in the paper was for an elderly man called Jack Spade. I can imagine a small, daring, adventurous boy called Jack Spade. Or an elderly man who might mend your saucepans, clean the guttering and dig the vegetable patch, giving bigger yields than you had ever dreamed of. The middle years are harder to envisage.

Travel

2011-08-23T22:00:00.002+10:00

is about new experiences and places.
Once we drove back from Brisbane the long way, going several hundred kilometres west before turning south.
My son - about 11? 12? - complained: "We've just been at the beach, I don't want to look at more sand."
We drove for about 700 kilometres past the Darling Downs through scrub. Scrub, scrub, endless scrub. No towns, no villages, no farmhouses. Scrub.
"What do you think of the sand?" I asked him.
"It's an optical illusion," he said. "Everyone knows that the interior of Australia is a desert."
The scrub was so, so boring: one could imagine how the poor swaggies went mad walking these unchanging miles.
We stayed the night in a motel at Cunnamulla, the 4 of us sharing a room: double bed, two singles.
During the night, like a good parent, I moved over to allow someone in to nestle in to me..
Finding myself both too hot and too squashed, I started resenting the child. Why wasn't their own bed good enough? Which child was it? It's feet touched mine, it was my body length, so it had to be my son.
But my face was full of a cloud of hair, so it had to be my daughter.
Yes, a woman had come into our room and climbed in to bed with us.
Oh dear. She was drunk or drugged and heavily asleep, and not easy for my husband to get rid of. (And yes, I do notice that although I had let her into the bed, he had the responsibility of turfing her out. Oh dear).
We suggested to the owner, as we left, that having the same lock on each door was perhaps not the best idea.
Fussy southerners! He took the suggestion good humoredly, in his stride.
We didn't go that way again.

Currawongs and other things

2011-08-20T18:51:00.006+10:00

Currawongs are quite large birds - about twice as big as magpies. Glittering and black, they fly down to us when it gets too cold in the hills that are their homes. There is something rakish about them: they chortle and yammer and soil clothes on the clothesline, but they have the most beautiful bell like song that rings out like a celebration as they cross the sky.
I quite like spiders - mine, anyway. My house has daddy-long-legs: sizeable but having a fragile look, and harmless. Occasionally I sweep them down, feeling unpleasantly like the wrath of God as I wipe out their homes and larders. I also have Bruce.
Bruce is blacker, stronger than those, with bigger, hairier legs, and looks more threatening - tho' he's not. Over the years I've only seen one of him at a time, which is why he is named, and why I continue to see him as the same spider reincarnated, even tho' I've not only seen him dead, but on occasion have caused it....I've felt somewhat like Arthur Dent and the rabbit.
Bruce appears unpredictably: on one occasion he was on my leg in the shower. Flicking him off, I saw him balled into a tiny heap, saturated with hot water: well and truly past it. Half an hour later, when I went back to the bathroom, Bruce had revived and was attempting to climb the tile step to the exit.  Repeatedly, he climbed, slid down the glossy surface, picked himself up, climbed again, slid down....Of course I put a towel down to give him a foothold.
Then a newcomer appeared outside. He was quite fearsome looking: about 12 cm long, and with a huge abdomen. His web went from the roof to a tree - close to 3 metres - and, unfortunately, above my route to my car. I consoled myself, as his web and he grew, that spiders have a firm grip on things and don't fall. Then, while I was typing away on the computer, Bruce fell onto my face, rather shaking my confidence in this.
Then the currawongs arrived, and in a wink the interloper was gone.
At my father's small funeral, 29 years ago, currawongs sang and rejoiced across the heavens, like a tribute. Both he and I couldn't have wished for better.
Kingsley, a 16 year old schoolboy, played the last post on his trumpet, arranged by the old soldiers assoc.   I really still don't know how they knew that he was a veteran. It was not something that my father cultivated or even spoke of much. "It was a famous victory," he would quote.
K and Linda were together since way back then. She was a 10 year old in a netball skirt when I first knew her. They married young, and now, middle aged, live down "my" lane - a few doors from where L grew up -  had two sons, the second of whom has Down's syndrome.
Living in a smallish town -20000 when I arrived, 60000 now - one can feel a little like a Miss Marple. Minus the murders, of course, because there was only one of those - ok, two - that I had any contact with, and there was no mystery about them at all.

"Spring has sprung..." Maybe.

2011-08-14T17:02:00.002+10:00

One of my rare but blissful luxuries once was to escape to the tropics at this time of the year.
Our home, like most others, always had a fire of some kind that took the worst chill off the air in one room only, even though the house was like an icebox. Shops and cars were not heated. It was a privilege as a senior, in my last year at school, to sleep on an open air balcony. It was winter: it was cold. I huddled miserably through an endless, interminable winter.
Term 2 finished around August 20th. What absolute delight to go somewhere hot and lush. Two weeks later, on returning, Spring had arrived.
I haven't had the heater on here for days....(15C is quite warm enough for me, of course).
As I walked past a neglected corner of the garden, I suddenly realised that the 2 or 3 metre high pittosporum had disappeared. Where had it gone?
Jasmine is a merry, romping little boa constrictor. It covered the pittosporum like a dust cover. It was covered with its pretty white and cerise flower buds: a week later and I would have been fighting the bees as well as the tendrils.
Abutilon is also a thug: it's lanterns are blooming, so its execution has been stayed. Ditto periwinkle, that push-me-pull-you that roots itself at both ends. I enjoy its delightful blue blossoms for a few weeks, and spend the rest of the year pulling it out. Thanks for the offer, Mr Monsanto, but I decline your help.
Looks like Spring. Confession: I still haven't raked up all the autumn leaves.

London et al

2011-08-09T11:43:00.003+10:00

My sympathies....

Witty, warm, clever, learned...

2011-08-09T11:43:00.000+10:00

Facebook sometimes suggests him to me as a friend.
Why don't I link up?
Because he died earlier this year.
I wonder how many others of Facebook's millions have departed?

Giving a Damn

2011-08-06T18:23:00.010+10:00

Louise, a kindergarten teacher, overheard 5 year old Zac telling someone to piss off. "We don't use those words at school," she reproved, quite kindly.
"Bullshit!" he replied. "Year 4 say it all the time."
For me to use these words is somewhat like my wearing a bikini. Of course people wear them,  (although I might find some decisions re this to be flawed), and I can find it enviable.    But unseemly, unattractive and inappropriate for me.

"Damn" is well within my repetoire, plus "bugger". But not the above, or further up the scale.   Not because I'm prim. Not because I'm female: my father was in the trenches, logging camps, ships et al, and I never heard him say as much as "damn": my standards are lower than his.   A student at Manchester Grammar early in the last century, my father was fortunate enough to be presented with classical role models which guided his life,. My husband may have used lurid language on his farm for all I know, but not at home. Going to a private school, my husband was indoctrinated? with the same idealism that my father was.
"A man is someone who can control himself," says 30 year old Fred, and one can make of that what one will.

But, probably it's because I'm older. Perhaps, in the past, words were more of a social divider, and these were the words of the lowest classes, so one eschewed them. I see many of these words as coarse and vulgar. They are not that way for the younger, and they can use them with quite a different spirit, and with an exhilirating outcome.
Plus,   the now quite ubiquitous "f"was simply obscene Irrespective of what Tsolkias said in his anger, no one used it. Simon and Garfunkel's "four letters on a subway wall" portray this exactly: this occasional scrawl at a railway station was an act of sexual aggression, a virtual rape, by an anonymous, dysfunctional and perverted thing.
For me to say this carries no particular weight, so I am happy to say that Nora Ephron, who carries a lot more credibility, says pretty much the same thing.
I can also say that I am happy that the power of this assault has been dissipated by the contemporary ubiqiuty of the "f" use.

Because, by and large, I have no issue with other people swearing...I can find it funny, tolerable, interesting or unnoticeable... and I am sometimes quite fascinated by it. Fascinated that "f" and "c" first came to acceptance through literature and other high places. Fascinated about the unwritten rules:  it is acceptable to swear across or down the hierarchy , but not up: Zac's error.
Fascinated and frustrated that it can express such a range of emotions, or none. Rather appalled that it is a social issue: one can be charged and gaoled evidently, for using language that is commonplace on tv.

I wrote a flash fiction of 300 words, moving from him initially calling her "sweetie" to referring to her as a "manipulative bitch". It occurred to me that, in contemporary mores, he should have referred to her as a "f"ing " "c".
Stronger? Why are those expletives "stronger", when they are so comonplace?

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," said Rhett Butler. A scathing sentence.
Oh, the patronising tone of "my dear".
And;   "I don't give a..." gives all the contempt possible, irrespective of whether it was a damn or a f.
The power of words. We seem to have given up on that.

Temper, Temper

2011-07-16T16:26:00.004+10:00

"...they exercised the old middle-class male prerogative of being permanently in a most filthy temper," writes John Mortimer in his autobiography, "Clinging to the Wreckage".
I don't know whether he's writing re the 40s or 50s, but I certainly encountered it later than that: men in senior positions whose bad temper swirled around and radiated from them, so that one approached them, on the most innocent mission, with trepidation and something close to obsequity. Girlish deference, anyway.
Management is much more enlightened these days, I am told. However, I read: "Since when did displays of rude, aggressive behaviour get you ahead at work? .....according to research from the University of Amsterdam, people behaving badly often.....forge ahead in their career." (The Age. 4/7/2011).
I was reminded of this this week when I saw the unaccustomed photos of Rupert Murdoch smiling. Yes, I know that the files may be full of such, and the newspapers have chosen not to print them. But, these were current. I speculated as to whether the smiles were saying, "What, me worried?" Or perhaps, "I'm a nice person, really."
I was reminded also of ex Prime Minister Paul Keating saying of him: "He's a big, bad bastard and the only way you can deal with him is to make sure he thinks you can be a big, bad bastard too....the only language he respects is strength".
Then RP returned to the USA. He announced that the crisis had been handled absolutely faultlessly. The photo accompanying this story had his usual grumpy expression restored. Whew! Everything back to normal.

It's certainly true that some senior women have now perfected these techniques also; taking them, I'm told, to a new level of viciousness. What a pity. They all need to learn to play nicely.

When Failure Opens Doors

2011-07-05T17:30:00.000+10:00

I imagine that many people have completed this Guardian quiz in which you judge whether a passage has been written by a male or female.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/02/vs-naipaul-jane-austen-women-writers

My miserable score was 3/10. It came with the comment:
"Awful. What are you, a girl or something?"
I think that my poor score demonstrates that I am an ideal person to judge literary competitions, because I would obviously be completely unable to favour one sex over another.
I wonder where I go to apply?

Fare thee wells

2011-07-03T20:41:00.004+10:00

Is "The Bufffalo" the old ship I saw near Glenelg in South Australia?
How unbelievably tiny these old ships are. They look too small to serve 176 people afternoon tea, let alone transport them for 6 months around half the globe.
Sea-stuff: buoys, nets, boats, figureheads, promote reflection and excitement and the taste for adventure. Many figureheads are of women: enigmatic and staring.
The figurehead of "The Buffalo" is that of a poor cow: terrified, eyes rolled. Bovines do not care for swimming. I feel for this poor buffalo, breasting the oceans from England to Oz. He looks as if every moment was a moment of fear and trepidation.
I have said my farewells to people again and again and again: the same people, my dear ones, over and over, as they came and went. Bye! Take care! Have a good trip! The voice can send different messages than the heart feels.
Once, people leaving were probably never to be seen again. The emotions left behind are too big to be spoken of.
"The Dunbar", 81 days out of London, turned in at "The Gap", an opening in the cliffs that was easily mistaken for, and just a couple of miles from, Sydney Harbour and safety. All but one perished.
Such sad old stories.

Being Tough

2011-07-03T18:17:00.007+10:00

His photo shows him to have wavy hair - (ugh) - with a distinct part - (yech). He wears a cravat - (yikes) - and has, in one hand a cigarette IN A HOLDER, as if he were Holiday Golightly. Under the other arm he holds...wait for it....a poodle. What a wanker.
Of course, it's a quite old - 1950s? - photo of Nicholas Monsarrat, on the dustcover of his book recounting his years in escort vessels, during WW2, across the north Atlantic, with unimaginable and prolonged cold, hardship, fear and peril. Icy, dangerous seas. Constant alert and fear of uboats determined to kill you. Grief of loss. Death a constant shadow. Intermittent catastrophe, as another vessel is targeted and sunk. A monumental and prolonged endurance trial.
If you survived, or even as a coward lived through it, you had no need to strike macho poses later. You could confidently wear a part in your hair, carry a cigarette holder or a poodle, and wear a cravat. You had proved yourself.
Times have changed, as they do.
Locally, (and I suspect that this is wider spread than here), there is an emphasis on making boys "tough".
I would like them to change this word to "strong", the quality that allowed such as Nicholas Monsarrat to endure.

Times Past, (Or Not, As the Case May Be)

2011-06-24T13:19:00.000+10:00

As a child I once visited, with my mother, some new friends that she had made. They were European immigrants.
Bored, I wandered around the room. In their small glass-fronted bookcase, I was surprised to see a copy of "Mein Kampf" in pride of place.
I didn't mention this to my mother, but as she was rather pro-communist at that stage it seems little wonder that the friendship did not develop. Though I believe they may have had a certain authoritarianism in common.
Years later I mentioned this to a friend of long standing. I knew that he was born in Germany during WW2, and that his father had been in the German army. However, I was surprised by the vehemence of his reaction.   His mother, (a very beautiful woman), had worked closely with Hitler, he said - (some of her best friends were Jewish, he defended her).  Why shouldn't they have a book that had meant so much to them? A book that was as precious to them as a bible?
Taken aback, I didn't ask further.   But it still intrigues me that they valued so highly something which I thought was completely discredited.
Other immigrants I came across: Italian and Maltese. Bare footed, poor, impetigo scaling down their legs, school lunches of a hunk of bread and a raw onion.   Some of their surnames are now blazened over hugely successful and well-known businesses.

Talking To Myself

2011-06-24T12:50:00.000+10:00

I have been told that comments can no longer be left here. This is no doubt due to some alignment of the stars, some malevolence of the mysterious web, or an accumulation of personal failings.
However, I will continue to chortle away to myself.

Secrets and Stories

2011-06-22T12:57:00.003+10:00

I once, after the death of both my husband and mother in law, asked a sister in law what I thought was a rhetorical question.
"Oh, I can tell you that, Frances," she said, and proceeded to tell me a confidence that her mother had once shared with her.
I was shocked. By the information - not that it was so shocking, but because it was so out of character with the woman that I thought I knew - but that she would reveal what was obviously meant to be a secret. Does death negate this?
I didn't pass this on. However, the sister in law told her own daughter, who told all the cousins, etc etc.
My own daughter has said that, irrespective of the ethics, she is pleased to have this information. A valid point.
The urge to confide is both strong and puzzling. My mother in law had not told her other daughter, who sometimes seems disbelieving of the whole story.
Are the dead non-people whose wishes no longer need to be respected?
Perhaps they are. I don't think that I will share any information that I regard as among my secrets.

Our Hearts Were Young and Sanctimonious

2011-06-04T10:31:00.002+10:00

Once I had summer holiday work as a live-in waitress in Perisher Valley, a winter ski resort. At that time an Australian summer holiday meant the beach, so the guests here were all European migrants sensibly seeking the cool. I had never before come across women who were both mature and pampered.
We wore dirndls with eidelweiss (!) and long socks; we were well paid, well fed, and, apart from serving three meals a day, had plenty of leisure time. The guests were exquisitely courteous, and undemanding - until She arrived. At one of "my" tables.
Beautifully coiffed and Elizabeth-Ardened though she was, I could not estimate her age, sensing that she was not as old as her facial lines suggested.
Guests had a choice of 3 entrees, main courses and puddings. From the start she wanted more. Her eyes would skim around others' selections, and she would whisper: "Can I have some xxxx also? And a little....xxxx? Perhaps some xxxx? And xxxx?" This gave her some very odd combinations, but she ate every crumb.
I was sanctimoniously appalled by her greed.
Instead of adopting the numerous small ways a waiter can undetectably disadvantage a customer, I went to the other extreme: no matter what she ordered, I suggested more. I offered her cutlets to go with her roast beef. Apple pie to go with her souffle. They were often accepted.
I was of course ridiculing her.
When she left she sought me out. She tipped me generously, and thanked me lavishly.
She had, she said, been in a Siberian gulag for many years. The cold? You get used to that, she shrugged. But, the hunger: you never recover from that.
I still feel a little ashamed.

It's Autumn Here

2011-05-21T18:30:00.003+10:00

I do need to get this maple off my house, don't you think?
(it enlarges when clicked - but, I'm sure that you knew that).

Where's Bigggles when you need him?

2011-05-17T21:38:00.003+10:00

"What did you think of the death of Bin Laden?" I asked Zac, 15. His face clouded. "Terrible," he said. "We should have tortured him."
"What did you think of the death of Bin Laden?" I asked Ryan, aged 11. He clenched his fists. "We should have tortured him," he said, in a rage.
"Why?" I asked. "He tortured us," he said.
"Who tortured you?" his mother asked, with a smile. "Well, not me, but...."

Once war was all about the fact that the others were bad, but we were good. Decent. With high standards of courage, morals and fair play that always won out in the end. Fine, brave chaps like Biggles endorsed such. Torture? That was the action of the low, evil enemy.
Of course that was probably tosh, but it wasn't a bad idea to put some kind of standards of behaviour into the little barbarians' minds.
Of course Biggles was unacceptably racist, but one would think that judicious editing might clean that up, and make him acceptable again as a kind of role model. The only adult role model for boys these days seem to be, Heaven help us all, footballers.

But Biggles has gone, along with Grace Darling, Father Damien the Lepers' Friend, Oates, Scott, Florence Nightingale et al.
One consequence in Australia of the Vietnam war was the lowering of the age of majority from 21 to 18. This was because of the protests about 18 year olds, unfranchised, being conscripted. It's odd to recall that rather pleasant interlude between leaving school and reaching 21: privileges without responsibility. It's odd to think that that stage of life no longer exists, and I wonder what the ramifications have been. Certainly I find it absurd to read in court reports that "an 18 year old man was charged with...". I don't believe that there is such a thing in our society as an 18 year old man.
I wonder how the ghastly news and images that they have seen from Iraq and Afghanistan will shape these modern kids?

Moving Right Along Now

2011-04-30T18:47:00.003+10:00

Like many of the many people who have had smaller or larger esp experiences, I find it possible and probable that there are lives beyond this one.
I know that such experiences are explained as brain blips. But, what if present reality is just one such blip? Why not? A different reality, if you glimpse it, is as real and tangible as this everyday world. Sounds like rubbish, of course, until it happens to you.

Perhaps this is a case where my ignorance stops me coming to a more rational conclusion.
I am not talking about some kind of judgement day, or old testament thunderings. Sorting out the sheep from the goats? I've never been sure who were the good guys here: sheep and goats are both enormously useful and valuable, and both probably quite nice too.

I Am Watching

2011-04-29T21:03:00.003+10:00

some people getting married.
I didn't think that I would bother, but the fact that the British do pomp, ritual. spectacle and ceremony better than anyone else, (in my opinion), easily swayed me.
Catherine looked like the strength in the relationship, just as E Bowes Lyon was and Diana wasn't.
Astrologers say that they selected a disastrous day.
Why did the Queen choose yellow?
What did Charles think while his son repeated those celebrated vows that he once made evidently having no intention at all of keeping them?
The royal wave used to be a regal wave...wave...wave: now it was flapflapflapflap.
As usual, as traditional, a stupid amount of guff that influences noone and annoys many, is spoken.
I won't be buying the DVD, but I assume that some will.

Last Week

2011-04-28T21:57:00.004+10:00

I had to go down town to open an office to the electricians who were working nearby.
I was impressed - no, enormously impressed - by their aplomb, courtesy, consideration.
Twenty years ago, as tradies, they would probably have been at least slightly gauche. Now they weren't.
But what impressed me most was a quiet but obvious happiness radiating out from each and every. From each and every. Radiating. You could see it. An almost tangible happiness. Made me think.

Most of my beloveds are not in these areas.

Yesterday

2011-04-28T19:22:00.005+10:00

My maternal grandmother lived in Bourbong Street, Bundaberg, Qld, Aust, etc.etc.
This was a long way from where we lived, just over the Blue Mountains from Sydney. Visiting her took taking the local steam train to Sydney, then the overnight train - in a sleeper!- to Brisbane, then the Rockhampton Mail to Bundaberg. Once, lying on the upper berth, I idly kept pushing an unlabelled button to see if it did anything. Yes, it did: the attendant eventually arrived, flustered, sweating, red-faced, irritated to tell us that this buzzer summoned him. He was eventually quite kind about it. I was deeply humiliated.

From the moment I saw, during that first endless boring journey, the stilted Queensland houses I fell deeply in love.
My grandmother's house wasn't on stilts as tall as I would have chosen, but they were there, with the omnipresent staghorns and elkhorns adorning them. I forget much about her house except the wide verandahs, the large kitchen with its ell verandah to the backyard, the sitting room, with its extraordinary orderliness and the intricate needlework in its cushions, the warm clean sweet air. Her cocker spaniel called Paddy, who caused her eventual and ultimately fatal fall, as so many of these loving beings do. The bedroom I shared with my sister: waxed floors with pristine mosquito nets tied into loops around the hoops above the beds during the daytime. French doors, always open, to a verandah.
I was five the first year that we went. When we were shown our bedroom there was a large toy rabbit decked in long angora hair on one bed. For some reason this caused me to remind my grandmother that it had been my birthday only a week ago, and she immediately endowed me with the beautiful rabbit. I loved that heap of wool passionately for many years.

Always banana trees in the backyard to pick from. A large mango tree - but, none of us liked mangos: they were endemic, a bit of a nuisance, like the omnipresent cane toads. I totally loved the colours: the vivid grass shoots running across the orange earth towards the asphalt of the road. Lime green of the sugar cane. Scarlet, emerald, sky blue, turquoise seemed to match the rich flower scents. And orange. Vibrant.
I know little of my grandmother except glimpses. I enjoy the glimpses.

Literary fashions

2011-04-22T16:16:00.002+10:00

I have been reading short stories and more short stories. Of these were two large Australian collections published by Scribe.
I was surprised by their homogeneity.
Only three stories stood out for me: one by the master, Cate Kennedy. Two by Sunil Badami.
I am not a careful or informed reader, but I don't think that I could recall what most of the other 60 or 70 stories were about: no doubt this is a reflection on me, not on the writers, whom I could see were very skilful.
In the Atlantic, Tim O'Brien wrote ".. writing workshops, in which I've noticed, almost always to my alarm, that classroom discussion seems to revolve almost exclusively around issues of verisimilitude." I gather that this why present tense is so ubiquitous: it was easy to project this comment onto the stories that I read. It was interesting to see in the author bio's how many had degrees in creative writing, or taught creative writing.
In contrast, I also read "Wonderful Town New York Stories from The New Yorker". They were wonderful stories indeed: rich, light, dark, heavy, funny, sad, wistful, dramatic, written in a range of styles and voices.
Of course they had an immense range of great and famous authors to select from, but what stood out was the intelligence and interest of the stories, even when the subject matter was slight. I want to read the collection again.
In the Australian stories, what stood out was the style.
This surely can't be A Good Thing?

Changing

2011-04-09T19:56:00.007+10:00

Rather improbably, the solution to the classic impenetrable mystery story of the dead man in the isolated railway carriage was that he had been gored by the horn of a bovine on a passing train.
This is not how it is written in a famous story, or how my mother read it to us. The word the author uses is "steer", and this proved to be my mother's stumbling block. If it had been bull or cow, there would have been no problem: she evidently just had insuperable difficulties in explaining the word "steer"as relating to a desexed bull calf. "What is a steer?" we asked at the story's climax. She clamped her lips, and we were awed and silenced by the import of her inability to offer any further words.

I thought, at the time, that the man had been gored by some amorphous, unspeakable horned creature and this strange, evidently murderous being/thing lingered in my imagination.
If spaying/desexing had been explained, I think that I would have taken it in my stride, without a second thought. And the story would have made sense. But, the zeitgeist of the times was that the world was wicked, and that the best protection for children was ignorance. (cf).

"Gender" was the everyday substitute for the embarrassing, risque word "sex". Masculine, feminine, common, neuter -
there was no category for such as a "steer", so it rendered my mother mute.

Being Efficient

2011-03-27T18:23:00.011+11:00

I installed a new DVD player, and much to my surprise it worked. This was not a hard task: the plugs were colour coded, (although there were too many), and I ignored the instructions about "if your system is..., then do this ...; but if it is...then do that.... "

But, I certainly didn't expect it to work, and the thought, "You are not incompetent" leapt (leaped?) into my mind when it all operated perfectly. This astonished me, because although I bewail the contemporary complexity of technology, I have never thought of myself as incompetent, and if I search back through my treasured Pandora's box of ancient accusations and insults, I can't find an apt one. I can only assume that it was a judgement I took upon myself as a youngest, who, by position, can do most things slower, more fumblingly and clumsily than everyone else in the family.

But it made me consider how differently I would have lived my life if I had thought of myself as competent and efficient. For a start, in my married life I would have cleared out all my mother in law's detritus from the many cupboards. This means I would have tossed out curiosities like a small box of penants printed with tributes to QE2 on her visit here in 1954 - (Our Radiant Queen) ; dull books which turn out to be old diaries; the bill for a sister in law's wedding in 1952 at the Savoy in London: "Couverts" - what is that? - @15/6: 77 pounds 10 shillings. etc. They drank a lot more whisky than gin; plus 70 bottles of Freminet for 122 pounds 10 shillings.
What difference would it have made if I hadn't kept them? None at all that I can see. They are of slight interest to some people, and none at all to others.

One of my sister's in law is a most efficient woman. She had most of the family's written records in her keeping and when she left here she efficiently cleared them all out and burned them.

None of these things actually matter, as far as I can see. (see Leonard Woolf).

Although I had not thought of myself as incompetent, I certainly didn't think of myself as efficient. That I had never cleared everything out, after living here for 40 years, did seem, from time to time, a cause for a little self-reproach. Then I read that a letter from J M Barrie to one of his "boys" , written in 1927, had been recently found at the back of a drawer, and was reminded of that wonderful truth that there is always someone who has done a worse job than you.

In which vein, I always recall during my third year at S Univ, where I was inattentive, missed lectures, harrowed myself with my own shortcomings, and was therefore totally chuffed by Bruce Beresford, entirely without self consciousness asking me the times, days and sites of the Anthropology lectures in Michaelmas Term, 5 or 6 weeks before final exams.

I don't know whether he passed or failed, but I would think that this made little difference to his future as a film director.

Short stories

2011-03-19T09:20:00.004+11:00

I have been reading and enjoying two Scribe published collections of short stories. One can't help but be struck not only by the skill, but also by the homogeneity of style.
And by the homogeneity of the author biographies,which can loosely be summed up as: has done/ is doing/ is teaching a creative writing course; has won/ been shortlisted for (insert distinguished literary prize here); has been published in Meanjin/Southerly/Overland etc.
They sent me to my old copy of "Australian Short Stories" which was a school text in the 1950s. Now, assuming that the contemporary authors are possibly within a 15 year age bracket, the ASS has a diversity in that age range from Marjorie Barnard to Douglas Stewart, each with their own distinctive, identifiable style. Of course, the age spread among the contemporary may be even wider.
I wonder why this has happened? Smaller, more proscriptive markets?

Visual artists seem to practise a wide range of styles. The public and the cognoscenti seem not only to accept this, but to expect it. The artist's style is recognisable: he is valued for it. Why the difference with words?

Spring

2010-10-21T10:27:00.006+11:00

Spring is well and truly here, and my garden again looks like my header picture. The roses are bursting into their October flush.

"I'll tell you a secret," I sometimes tell the teens. "Life gets better the older and older you get."
They often laugh, (with me)....Are the young still told that being young is the happiest time of their life?
I don't think that many older adults look back on it as such.

When I was a teen, the most enviable female in the world - not that I envied her, her life was too dazzling to be yearned for - was someone who suffered from anorexia nervosa, alcoholism, depression, throat cancer and kidney disease.
Not that she did at the time, of course... that all lay in the future for Sandra Dee. She died at the age of only 63. Or perhaps 61: her son says that her mother inflated her age so that she could start work at 2, rather than the 4 years old that her mother claimed.
"Youth is like Spring....," my father quoted to me back then, at a loss when he found me in floods of tears about ...nothing. I had no idea why I was crying. "....a much overrated season."
I heartily agree. Blissful bits. Storms. Cold snaps. Unpredictable.

Genes

2010-10-21T10:02:00.004+11:00

Twelve years old Oscar looked up from his punctuation excercise and asked, "Are you French?" "No," I said.
"You're not?" he said. "No."
"Are you sure?" he said. "Yes, " I said.
"You're like Australian Australian?" "Yes".
"You're sort of...," Dionee waved her hands around, worryingly leaving the interpretation to my imagination.

One half of my ancestry is centuries old English. One half equally Irish .... except for one great great something who left Corsica with Napoleon. Perhaps I look like him.

Editing

2010-10-19T12:07:00.003+11:00

I withdrew a submission to a university alumni magazine this week, because the editor misread an acerbic, ironic phrase as literal, and objected to it.
As, read literally, the phrase offended her political viewpoint, I saw this as not only misreading, but censorship.
It reminded me of Max Harris being found guilty of indecency for publishing the Ern Malley poems, because the police found indecency in the narrator's intentions in "shall rest snug and know what he means". In another instance, "the indecency lay in the fact that the 'events took place in a park at night'". As well as for using the word "genitals" and "incestuous" - the prosecuting policeman said that he did not know what the latter meant, but felt confident that it was indecent. It's strange to think that such was the world I was born in to.
Fortunately, withdrawal meant that I did not have to object to her wish to change "wheel" to "turn", "skeletons" to "frames", or change some punctuation which destroyed a deliberate rythmn. This trivia made me aware that as an editor she is paid to alter someone's writing.
How odd. Her initial reaction to the piece was "absolutely lovely". When an artist takes a painting to a gallery, does the owner say, "Absolutely lovely. I'll just paint out this bit here and here, and change these bits around"?
Ironically, I think that if, in the offending bit, she had edited "was" to "seems", it may have overcome her objections.

Consequences

2010-10-19T11:49:00.002+11:00

One week, I was unable to go, which had unforseen consequences.
A's mother, brooding about what we were "getting up to" - (which amounted to revelling in the beauty, the isolation) - had evidently come to the conclusion that I, the girl whom she didn't know, must be "good".
She made a surprise swoop on the little shack.
That I, the good girl, was not there proved that the other three were bad: why else would I stay away?
Having proved that the three were bad, therefore confirmed her opinion that I was good.
Q.E.D.
A was a lovely, serene girl; immersed in poetry and history and literature. She endured her mother's mental illness with such grace and kindness and good temper. I don't know how she did it.

Times past

2010-10-05T20:28:00.004+11:00

In my last year at university I was friends with A, B and C, who were old school friends of each other, but not of me. My school was more downmarket....not only that, it was, yuk, catholic...(although I was not: an uncomfortable perch). My parents were less well-heeled - ie, poorer. Culturally, we were sort of the same : my parents'education possibly eclipsed theirs. Values,etc were in common, and traditional........ I enjoyed AB and C hugely.

A invited us to stay at her father's south coast getaway. We jumped at the chance: we were carried by her in her mini several hours south of Sydney, to stay in this tycoon's getaway - a fibro shack. It faced north, ie sunwards, across two vast empty inlets/beaches. Divine. There was no other dwelling in sight.
It was known but unspoken that A's mother had mental health issues: that's why A had a car: what horrible assault might happen if she had to take public transport?
A's mother, in her confusion, had insisted that A go on an "outward bound" course. A said that it had all been boring - if you had to abseil down a cliff, then you would abseil down a cliff, or do whatever silly physical stuff they valued - and that the only positive she got from the experience was that it was pleasant to swim naked.
So, we gave it a try. And, after initial coyness, it was very soporific, to wander nude along the pristine lengths of these two beaches: the untouched sand, the clean breakers washing in. Miles of beach and bush and emptiness: isolation, solitude. It was quite blissful.
Until the day we looked behind us, and saw waves of people gradually emerging from the coastal shrubbery as we retreated. We had forgotten that there are weekends. And, that on weekends people travel to surf and fish and whatever.
Today the whole place is, of course, a mass of development. I'm pleased that I remember it when, but I wonder whether there are any old locals who remember four naked young women loitering along the shore while the locals hid in the bushes.

2010-10-04T19:35:00.000+11:00

for oh, the wolf is nigh

2010-10-04T19:22:00.005+11:00

Rachel stitched this in 1842. It occurs to me that, to do the equivalent, I would need someone staring at my work in 21 78.
It's quite common to read of people whose motivation is how future generations might regard them. Not my interest at all, but these bits from the past are both poignant and intriguing.
Rachel is a long gone relative, and I know nothing about her: but, I have her childish work here in my hand. How odd.

And yes, just as in 1842, the wolf is nigh. Maybe.

Jesus great shepherd of thy sheep, (funny looking and one-eyed as they might be).

2010-10-04T18:51:00.002+11:00

Dummy spit

2010-10-04T18:38:00.002+11:00

I apologise for such. I have not returned to my blog for so long because I did not want to read my own embarrassing behaviour.
The emotionally reactive part of my brain structure seems to have more influence than the rational side would choose or prefer....(thereby shucks of responsibility for own behaviour).
Many thanks for the kind, concerned and understanding responses.

Miscommunication,

2010-06-27T19:00:00.002+10:00

misunderstanding, difficulty, issues, problems, sadness, grief, loss, tragedy.
Are these life's realities?
Growth, hope, optimism can seem to be cerebral abberations that keep us keeping on in spite of the evidence that life is real, life is harsh, life is often sad, unrewarding and disappointing.

Never Learn To Milk a Cow

2010-06-26T17:02:00.009+10:00

Virley Dunning is a local older woman - (well, so am I, but Virley is older again) - who writes. In a short piece, she warmly recalls her mother, who, coming from a Victorian upbringing, had great difficulty in talking about sex.
Virley recounts how when she was about 13 she was out walking with her mother, who suddenly said, "Have you noticed that Alison doesn't go in swimming some days?"
"No," I answered.
That was all. We kept walking.
And that was the totality of her mother's information to her daughter.

Similarly, on the eve of Virley's wedding, her mother's sole piece of advice was not about sex or even housekeeping, but: "Never learn to milk a cow."
Virley writes of her life as a farmer's wife, and the chores from endless feeding and cleaning to replacing ewes' retroverted uteruses -uteri?-, resuscitating lambs - with brandy as a last resort -, mustering bullocks - (even, in desperation, barking at them).
But, she didn't milk the cow. As she witnessed the gritty, mundane imperative of the twice daily rounding up and milking of a reluctant cow, she says that: "Thank you," I'd silently say to my mother. "It was great advice."
Affection. It's always a pleasure to read of, witness, or experience.

Grumbles

2010-06-25T20:06:00.008+10:00

Looking through my bank statements I saw that, at one stage I had a balance that earned 0.03 cents in interest for the month.
That it would have cost me about $60+ per month, or thereabouts, to borrow this sum from the same bank irked me considerably, as did knowing that if I owed someone 3 cents, I would be obliged to round it up to 5 cents.
The banks, whose billion dollar profits escalate each half-year, don't have to round up. Why?
It reminded me of other grievances, such as energy-saving light bulbs. "40 watts = 80 watts"or somesuch, they trumpet.
I've come to the conclusion that, re light globes, when they put up these equivalences, they are talking about the COST of having these things, not the output of light. My standard lamp has 3 bulbs, by which I should be able to discern the germs under my toenails, but instead I find myself peering at, and trying to decipher, the written word. I don't think, for a minute, that the three of them churn out more than about 60watts. But, my electricity bill continues to climb, so I assume that when they speak of equivalence, they don't mean that 40 watts provides the illumination of 80 watts, they mean that the cost of 40 watts of this new stuff is equivalent to the cost of 80 watts of the old.
Of course the new ones carry the exciting possibility of occasionally exploding and showering you with glass shards.
Paying more for supposedly using less electricity, makes me feel exploited, just as the bank makes me feel exploited. I feel that we are all being squeezed just a little too much.
These are, I suppose typical small grumbles of "small people", as the BP executive recently referred to the populace at large.

I read that BP is going ahead in autumn with a new well in the Beaufort Sea that is far riskier than its Gulf of Mexico one. BP has "been implicated in each of the worst oil disasters in American history, dating back to the Exxon Valdez". BP was also the biggest donor to Obama's campaign, and I am inclined to think that multinationals run the world. Or destroy it...as they choose.
No wonder so many of our "leaders" resort to advising us to pray: governments can really do nothing, as Frank Rich explains (NYT 18/6/2010). Our power has slipped away.

And when I read that the newly nominated candidates for Senate for Kentucky and Nevada have marked for elimination or privatisation the Department of Education, The Federal reserve, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and also marked the Energy Dept; the Environmental Protection Agency; Social Security, the Dept of Veteran Affairs, and Medicare, I feel that we are entering the uncharted territory of the robber barons. Alas, where the U.S. goes, we tend to follow.

The world, and the "small people" in it need a Wat Tyler. Now.

They Changed the Guard at Buckingham Palace

2010-06-22T12:31:00.001+10:00

And further....

2010-06-19T18:59:00.009+10:00

all names in this and every other post on this site, are not the real names of any person in the incident.
If we are making mistakes about how we categorise people, does it matter?
Well, maybe we could adopt other values that might lead to different paths. At present we are locked into some fractal Mandelbrot set that is neither advancing us nor getting us what we want. We need to change the equations.

I thought it wrong that Glen was sent to Iraq, because he is the sole parent of a 7 year old child.
Equivalence sent him there, because equivalence looks at the adults, not the child.

More contraversially, I was shocked that Anna, a police officer and mother of 4 under 8 years old, was sent out at 3.30 am into malicious, demonic seas erupting out of the icy antarctic rampage to attempt rescue of some in that particularly deadly annual Sydney-Hobart yacht race. She received a bravery award for this.
Her husband, also a police officer, could have been sent, but wasn't. ...but, that's equivalence, isn't it? Anna certainly wouldn't object, but I would. If her children had been 10 years older, I would have a different point of view.
But our regulations have no time for these or any other subtleties.
Once I knew a man who had worked in logging camps in Canada in the 1920s. He said that when a log jam occurred, a very dangerous condition, the cry went out for all single or childless men to get to safety, before the situation was tackled.
The uncalled for gallantry of this appeals to me: but, it also reinforces my suggestion that the divisions within society that we have set up and endorsed are arbitrary, and perhaps do not reflect our basic values.

Wot's the difference?

2010-06-06T19:05:00.003+10:00

There is an understanding that people are 3rd world or 1st world, "white" or other, male or female, rich or poor, literate or not, primary, 2ndary, tertiary educated or not, married or single, hetero or homo. And no doubt more dichotomies. But are these the best way to sort people, if that is what you need to do?
In our society "married" or "single" seems to have become fairly irrelevant. Once I used to, from curiosity, discreetly gawp for a wedding ring: I don't think that I have even thought about doing that for about seven years.
Once, a hyphenated name was a rather snobbish indication of exalted status. Now, I just assume that it means that the parents are not married, and I couldn't give a figurative.
The biggest differences now seem to me to be between the aggressive and non, the vindictive and non, the competitive and non,........but mostly, the ambitious and non.

"Fling away ambition," says one of Shakespeare's bods. "By that sin fell the angels. How can man then, the image of his Maker hope to win by it?"
Irrespective of whether or not you are hoping to win the image of your maker, I find a piquant attraction in the idea that competition, aggression and ambition are inborn negative traits that we should aim to educate out of children.

Of Mice and Me

2010-06-05T18:39:00.002+10:00

I saw a mouse in my kitchen.
I am going to have to kill it, because I have found that we can't cohabit.
I would prefer not to slaughter.
Give you a little leeway, Mouse, a little tolerance, and you run rampant through my cupboards, drawers, shelves, ledges and floorspace, defecating liberally as you ramble. I understand that the odours from the house are delectable, but I put perfectly edible and delicious food into the compost heap. You are free to enjoy it all, and your poop would only help things along.
I understand that my home's attraction now is that it is warm, while winter leers outside. So, you really have to choose warmth or death, Mouse. You have a fur coat, and there are heaps of you - or you can manufacture heaps fairly quickly - so, I can only tell you what I would advise.

I am not going to kill you with bare hands or bare teeth, but with discreetly placed poison pellets, and I understand that your death is not sweet.
Once, when the front of our dishwasher was removed during repair, I saw the skeleton of an adult mouse - mum? - in an embrace with a crouching skeleton child. That still saddens me, Mouse.
Do go away. It's nuclear against spears, Mouse. Retreat and live. Please.

There is a lot that I don't understand

2010-06-03T20:14:00.002+10:00

Why, if healthy gums mean healthy teeth, do skulls have teeth?

Why do people who value unspoiled places visit them?

If sex is an industry, will they have vocational courses in high school ?

Why is correctness "political"?

Are conservative women born with better-behaved hair?

Why can't I give $5 a week to sponsor a scientist?

Hee-haw: It's the Law

2010-05-30T21:23:00.002+10:00

Recently a man here was sentenced to a gaol term, for driving a car after his licence had been cancelled.
Usually, the penalty for this is to have the cancellation extended. Gaol is regarded as a very severe penalty, a last resort. The magistrate resorted to it because of his many previous convictions.
How many? I don't know, but I do know that they were sufficient to mean that his licence had been cancelled until 2065.
2065!
How unfortunate he was to come across so many tender-hearted magistrates, determined to give him another chance, and to keep him out of gaol.
I wonder if he had been sent to gaol early on, so giving him both a short sharp lesson and the possibility of regaining his licence, whether he might have changed his ways.
I wonder how long it will be, once he's released, before he takes a chance and drives again.

Vita Brevis

2010-05-29T17:49:00.003+10:00

He was tall, blond, stunningly good-looking. An ex student of a famous and expensive school, he was studying the combined degree of arts- law. My self-estimation rose when I knew him well enough to have a fleeting chat: I would never have dared aspire to more.
Then he deliberately shot and killed himself.
For the first time I recognised that there could be a vast difference between outward appearance and internal life, although I was a master of this myself...who isn't, at 19?
For the next x years, a suicide brought on - I saw this in others, as well as myself - the thoughts of what could I have done: why was I so blind: if I had only, etc etc. even of people known only peripherally.
But David died around 1960. In the early 1990s here, suicides became so frequent - several mothers, but mainly teenagers - that one didn't question them, or wonder, and their peers normalised and minimised it as "he topped himself". "Topping"? Why that word? The old Vietnam -era word of "wasting" seems more appropriate to me, about these sad children.

David's suicide made headlines on page 3 of national newspapers. Was youth suicide then so rare? Later, it became encoded in the death notices. "18 years old. Died of natural causes." Ah. Despair. A natural cause of death. RIP babes.

We take glory where we can

2010-05-28T22:49:00.002+10:00

"I can burp the alphabet," boasts Caleb, aged 7.
I declined the demonstration.
He took it manfully in his stride.

The Egg and I

2010-05-16T09:26:00.007+10:00

was one of the books I bought at yesterday's Book Fair, an annual Rotary event, where 30000 books are on sale for mainly $1 or $2 each.
I suppose that many are books from estates: they have noticeably changed over the last few years. There are few now by Taylor Caldwell, Robert Penn Warren, Lloyd C. Douglas, Daphne du Maurier, Irwin Shaw and such. How grand their titles were: "Dear and Glorious Physician", "A Many Splendored Thing", "The Robe", "The Citadel".
I had read "The Egg and I" years ago, and thought it hilarious. Her neighbours, Ma and Pa Kettle, became characters of comedy in their own right.
Re-reading it, I see it as a funny, brave and bright spin over hardship and disappointment.

Rising at 4 a.m. each day was a necessity. Having to walk 4 miles to the neighbours to borrow matches or such, she blames on her own forgetfulness. But I resented very much, on her behalf, (tho' she did too) ,that she had to scrub her white pine floor every day, because of her husband's insistence that "it was a badge of fine housekeeping, a labour of love, and a woman's duty to her husband."
When she says elsewhere, that she will never again feel more ecstatic than on hearing the distant sound of her husband's truck returning from town, we see the clash of love and frustration that shattered the marriage.
There is far more description - of sunrises and mountains and panoramas - than would be allowed now. But few readers then, I suppose, would have had any knowledge of the Olympic Mountains or Washington State, so I speculate that it may have been of general interest.

She writes with an easy, warm and witty voice, and with deftness. Of the winter monotony, she says: "The days slipped down like junket, leaving no taste on the tongue."
I salute you, Betty MacDonald. I feel fortunate to have found you again at the Book Fair.

Ambushed by a Little Old Lady

2010-05-08T18:54:00.002+10:00

"Oh, dog food has gone up again," she said. She was elderly - 80+? -erect, smiling, meticulously groomed.
I had rushed into the supermarket to grab some printer paper, which, because of some rationale that I can't fathom, is next to the dog food. But, instead of answering and hurrying away, I responded to her age, grace and the whiff of loneliness I scented, and smiled. My doom was sealed.
I still can't work out how she seamlessly segued into the following, in no particular order: her father had his hearing damaged from WW1, when he was leading his half-wild horse from Tumbarumba that balked at getting on the ship in Sydney. The youngest brother lied about his age, went to ww1 too young, and was killed. Her father went into hairdressing, and made enough money to buy their "beautiful farm" at Oberne,where she was "from." Her father's name was Hartnett - they were called "hardnuts" at school, which led to many a scuffle: but she and her sister had dark red hair, (from their Irish mother, who was an O'Hanratty) and tempers to match. They had 90 cows, and her father used to buy new bulls from Dapto, because of, you know... but, they milked 50. The four of them would hand milk them morning and night, into kerosene tins that her father had boiled and inserted handles into, they would pour the milk into a 90 gallon drum, and father would leave them to milking while he went off to separate. Nearby was the old Cobb and Co staging post, a 3 story building with cellars and iron lace around the balconies. Now she lived nearby in a house with a giant river red gum in the backyard, and neighbours who had erected a 12 ft high brick fence. She pays her rates by installments, because she's not going to have the council getting interest from her money. Her dog, a border collie, is a wonderful watchdog: but, no one could get close without being detected by her 40 year old pet galah, anyway.
Yes, I made several futile efforts to extract myself: but, it took most of 30 minutes before I got away.
She was expert enough to not make it a monologue. Do you know Oberne? Do you know what a separator is? etc etc
I found her fascinating and very likeable. I have doubts that Cobb and Co ever went to Oberne - a place that there are no roads to, according to google maps, but perhaps they did when there was a gold rush at Adelong. I wanted to know whether the half wild horses were the boys own, or supplied by the army, but she couldn't understand my question.
Iwill walk the street where she lives, tomorrow - it is only 5 or 6 blocks long. I have the feeling that I will see no giant river red gum, and no 12 ft brick fence. I hope that I am wrong.

The View from Nine Years Old

2010-05-08T13:48:00.003+10:00

"Did you do anything special at school today, Izzy?" I asked.
Her face lit up. "Yes, we learned about the world thousands and thousands of years ago."
"That sounds interesting," I said, thinking of primordial ooze.
"Oh yes it was," she said. "We learned all about World War 1."

Boys With Guns

2010-05-06T20:17:00.004+10:00

It seems very odd now that, in the days when schools had cadet corps (only for boys, of course), it was quite commonplace to see school boys - how old? 14 to 17? - carrying .303 rifles to school. It was as unremarkable as them carrying school bags.

It also seems piquant that blue hair was the prerogative of many mature and very respectable ladies.
When I was a child I sometimes heard the comment mutton dressed as lamb. I was unsure what it meant, but it obviously suggested poor judgement and possibly questionable morals. Dyeing greying hair a more youthful shade definitely fell into this category.

Hooray for nowadays!

"The World Beneath"

2010-05-02T10:11:00.002+10:00

I was late for work on Friday, because I just HAD to finish this book. (Fortunately, I am self-employed, so the boss took it in her stride).
Cate Kennedy has won many awards for her short stories, which she evidently (grits teeth) finds easy to write. This is her first novel.
If it wasn't for her distinction, I doubt that I would have continued reading past the first third or so of the book. Having three tedious and unlikeable main characters is high risk indeed.
However, as the fourth character, the Tasmanian wilderness, enters, the tension slowly rises and the story becomes absolutely compelling.
I would highly recommend it.

2010-05-02T07:11:00.001+10:00

Under the doona with Rome

2010-05-01T19:15:00.003+10:00

It was in the late 60s, that Aoife was engulfed in giggles when she told me.
Carmen's husband, Frank, had in desperation appealed to her christian sense of charity, that Aoife might have sex with him...(sleep with him, was the euphemism).
Poor Frank. Carmen had two children, a boy and a girl, and had medical advice that another child might kill her.
I've always wondered about, and never discovered, what kind of medical or physiological condition leads to this diagnosis.
However, that's what they said, and, as vatican2? proscribed contraception, there poor little, skinny, (rich), Frank was, an honourable and idealistic young man facing 30, 40 or 50 years of celibacy, and quite out of his mind with desire. Testosterone doesn't flag on vatican command. There were "bad girls" around, but Frank would have been too naive to know of them, and brothels were illegal. It may have been fortunate for him that he died young, and significant that it was of cancer: so often a disease reflecting an insuperable resentment, anger or difficulty, that gnaws away: gnaws away: gnaws away: in the mind, then in the heart, then in the body.

Mums

2010-04-24T18:34:00.005+10:00

Some women find being confined to household tasks unendurably stifling and boring. My mother was one of these, and she had an unusual attitude to childcare, in that she solved it by leaving me, the youngest, at home by myself when I was 3 1/2.

It would be easy to say "poor me", but I can't recall feeling in any way bad about it. Not lonely, not bored, not afraid: maybe peripheral, at the worst.
As an adult, I was appalled, but she defended it valiantly, pointing out that she was accessible in the school in the photo. Our house was some distance behind the photographer: not far, but it seemed quite a trek to me.
She must have had a lot of confidence in her children.

Oh: Do let us be correct at all costs

2010-04-24T18:07:00.006+10:00

In my final year at school our poetry book had an (unstudied) poem, called "Y Ddraig Goch", that my teenage self wistfully loved.
Y Ddraig Goch is the red Welsh dragon - that St George slew? slayed? My ignorance is immense.
The poem fundamentally has the story that I came across later in "Puff the Magic Dragon": the dragon as the friend and familiar of children, who inevitably grow and leave him. (Maybe a parable for some relationships?)
"Ho, Ddraig Goch, my pretty, pretty friend!
We were his children, knowing all his ways."

But,children grow, so, finally:
"Ho, Ddraig Goch, they tell me you are dead;
They say they heard you weeping in the hills
For all your children gone to London Town."

When I googled and found the poem again, there was something abrupt and truncated about the ending. Thinking of it, I'm fairly sure that there were two more lines, one of which said something like, "I'll bring you little boys to love."

Is that enough to have the lines censored? Oh dear.

When I drove through Wales, I thought that I could see the little dragon perched on fences everywhere. With a curly tail - rather like the dragon in "My Friend Mr Leakey", about which I remember nothing else at all.

Oma

2010-04-23T18:54:00.006+10:00

"Is your mother picking you up?" I asked Oscar.
"No, Oma is, I think," he said, taking for granted that I knew he was speaking of his grandmama, as indeed I did. As would plenty of others.
"Oma" is the only non-Anglo word I know (in Australia_) which is used and widely understood, and is still "foreign".
Obviously, words from boomerang to zeppelin have been shanghaied into English: "Oma" is different from these. Anglo-Austs use variations of nannas and grands: when someone has an Oma, I assume that they have a Dutch heritage.
Why did "oma" survive with people who have mums, dads, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and cousins?

Oscar's Oma is a smiling, crisp, well-groomed , grey haired figure: her pleasingly round shape seems to offer grandmotherly comfort, but she has no problem with gently chiding Oscar, or his cousin Hannah, when she comes to collect them. "Hannah," she sighs, "Here I am just trying to help you to become a lady." I find it desirably old-fashioned. Oma sets the family standards. That a family member actually comes up stairs to collect these 13 year old children, rather than have them conveniently wait on a darkening pavement, seems to be a part of these standards.

This Oma was, she tells me, one of 14 siblings. She says that her mother used to sit the children down in a semicircle, after dinner, and drill them in such as the multiplication tables. 14 children! What heroines these mothers were.

My mother taught school, at one time, in a "migrant hostel" - actually a grim and dismal collection of corrugated iron huts. I recall her telling us of a Dutch mother of 12 who had just walked out and left her family. "Wasn't there even one of them that she liked enough to take with her?" my mother said.
I still find this an unsettling attitude. Still, it's easy to love and value your children equally when, like me, you have only two.

Exiles

2010-04-21T23:08:00.004+10:00

Bomen is a small industrial area in southern rural NSW.
As the train passes through Bomen, one sometimes sees shipping containers.

It is enjoyably surreal to see them, stamped Hamburg, Zeebrugge, Rotterdam, Bremen: so far from home, forlornly waiting in apparently empty, dry paddocks that roll away into distant hills.
They look lost: more like unhappy exiles than like immigrants or refugees.

Moved to folly by a train

2010-04-21T22:24:00.007+10:00

While I was waiting at the railway station, a goods train barreled through. Three immense locomotives were hauling 73 wagons, carriages and flat beds, loaded with girders, and massive pipes and machinery. With its power and purpose, it was an oddly moving sight.
My reaction reminded me of T.E. Lawrence, (him of Arabia): "The trumpets came out brazenly with the Last Post. Our eyes smarted against our wills. A man hates to be moved to folly by a noise." What stoics they were.

Last weekend the annual "Great Train Race" was held. Three old steam locomotives race between Broadmeadow and Maitland, (about 30 km, I think), taking up the Northern and Southern Lines, as well as a coal line. That's a sight I would love to see. Trains...mmmmm. Love them.

Men of Harlech 2

2010-04-16T17:29:00.004+10:00

Watching rugby, Wales vs Aust, with two exiled Welshmen, I was surprised that I was the only one of the three who knew the Welsh national anthem - "O Land of My Fathers" - learned at primary school, of course.
"Men of Harlech", also...but my memory has been short circuited by university songs.

Learned in primary school:
"Men of Harlech in the hollow, Do you hear the ---......ow,Wave on wave, like rushing billow? Battle's distant sound.
"Tis the sound of Saxon foemen, Saxon spearmen, Saxon bowmen. Be they knights, or hinds or yeoman, They shall bite the ground".

Now, I used to know the rest, as I learned it, but, as the melody changes, the memory has been totally supplanted by University songs:
"Some of us are mining. Some in Arts reclining. More and more embrace the law and revel in its method of refining.
Some are fools and some are clever, Faculties divide and sever,
Still, we all belong for ever, to our varsity."

That, in the 15th century, Harlech was beseiged by Saxons, sums up about all I know of Wesh history, so thank you to those who prescribed that song back then.

Universities have changed immeasurably since the 60s. I assume that "university songs" may be a part of history also.

Men of Harlech

2010-04-16T17:10:00.007+10:00

In retrospect, I can see that an amount of material from the Department of Education, in my childhood, was about giving us a British cultural input.
Why else give little bush urchins such as "The Road to the Isles"? With incomprehensible words such as Cuillin, cromach, Tummel, Loch Rannock, Lochaber, Skerries, Lewes, Shiel waters, Aillort, Morrar, no wonder we used to get to the chorus and belt out in relief:
"if it's thinkin' in your inner heart, there's braggarts in my step, You've never smelled the tangle of the Isles.

As an adult, it was "aha", to visit or even read about these places, and know that one had known them before.
It's not a bad thing to get information or knowledge in childhood, that only makes sense when you've grown a bit.

In high school, I went to a Catholic "college": and everything changed, of course. The songs became very nationalistically Australian, from "The Morning Sunrise" to "No foe shall gather our harvest, or sit on our stockyard rails."

"Come, little one, and sing to me, A song a great wide land to bless", was one of 'John O'Brien's.
All this, to my mind, also wasn't A Bad Thing.

Mermaids, unicorns, dragons and dodos

2010-04-14T19:23:00.005+10:00

Once we used to have boring schoolwork, interlaced with frequent musical interludes. Robert Dessaix describes this very well.
The traditional songs, that we sang lustily, were often incomprehensible - but that didn't matter: I believe that the emotion that the songs conveyed said all.
'Vair me O, O ro van o. Vair me o oh ro van ee ; - sad I am, without thee,'

Sad am I without thee. We understood that bit.

It's Better for Girls Now

2010-04-03T19:10:00.009+11:00

Blanche Mitchell was the youngest child of Thomas, who surveyed the streets of my town, naming them after old compatriots from the Peninsula wars of 1809, (whatever they were).

Born about 100 years before me, she lived in the massive, impressive "Carthona", Darling Point, which her immensely successful father had built for him. Her diary records the privileges and pleasures of being an elite darling in the colony.

Unfortunately, Thomas Mitchell died prematurely, leaving his finances in disarray: Carthona was sold, and the family moved to Woolloomooloo.

Blanche knew the way the system worked. She no longer had a dowry, so she had no prospects of marriage. She and her mother were still received socially, but all the young officers and such that she met needed a wife with an income. They could not marry her, and she knew it. Her life was blighted., and again, her diary records her realistic understanding of this.

How cruel, to grow up in a life of such privilege and happiness, to not only have this all taken away from you by your father's death, when you are 12 years old, but to have the expectation and hope of a happy future sliced from you as well. Blanche died when she was only 26 years old.
I think of her like William Allingham's poem:

"They thought that she was fast asleep,
But she was dead from sorrow."

As far as I can see, none of Thomas Mitchell's six children had any living descendants.
Tragedy. It's just a word, unless it's your word.

Today is the 20th anniversary of my husband's death. He did not leave us in this position. I prefer "rest in the light" to "rest in peace." Vale Phillip: much beloved.

2010-04-01T18:08:00.004+11:00

Elisabeth reminded me of my childhood. During my primary years we were in Sydney suburbs: a Sydney awash with immigrants. And yes, I certainly heard people grumbling about malts, balts and wogs. I don't think that I took much notice, or that people did anything more than grumble.
But what I saw were the whitest, or palest babies and young children that I had ever seen, so that their blue veins were quite noticeable. Now, I have never seen any of this pallor since: why is this so? It did not look like underprivilege, or neglect, nor was it. I assume that it is how many of us might look like if we were not sun worshippers.

The children were well cared for, and looked treasured, but I regretted the lapse in taste that allowed them to dress their little boys with inappropriately short shorts, just passing the groin, like baby pants. Why couldn't their parents see that these well groomed little boys, with their neat hair and long socks were just...wrong? I knew that even little boys needed to look tough. And, the little girls' dresses were too short also. Both costumes showed long white thighs: not a familiar look.

Similarly, at the beach, women frolicked with curly hair running unabashed from inner thigh to knees. (Admittedly, when I recounted this to Andre, he nearly wept from nostalgia and desire).

My mother took me to visit a nice German family that she had met. As I wandered the room, in boredom, I saw "Mein Kampf" in their bookcase. I didn't mention it to my mother, but years and years later I mentioned this to another post war immigrant, who erupted in a rage. Why shouldn't these people have a book that had been so precious to them? Like a bible? He told me later that his mum had worked very closely with Hitler.

Also quite common at the time were children making their painful way in calipers, a consequence of the polio epidemic. Just another part of life, one judged at the time: thankfully, this was not so.

And, sometimes forgotten: men simply did not wear deodorant. The most aware may have used a useless powder: but no, men did not use such sissy stuff anymore than they used eyeliner. It created quite a different atmosphere, literally.

2010-03-27T21:28:00.003+11:00

I went shopping for a cocktail outfit to wear to L's wedding. A grim task.

It seems that manufacturers assume that as a woman ages she will grow bigger, taller and huskier: so, what may have been suitable are in quite immense sizes.

In smaller sizes, the clothes were short, strapless, ruched, rhinestoned, glittery and garish, and looked as if designed for ladyboys, rather than for nice young women. Poor girls: how fortunate was I to be young in the age of Courreges et al.

All that was left were indistict dark print, shapeless, loose things that looked suitable to wear at the Bide-a-Wee Distressed Gentlefolks free afternoon teas and fellowship. And they would do for intermittent funerals, as well.

I ended up longing for a naqib. With an extra opening - I imagine it rather like a post office slot - for a little discreet imbibing.

2010-03-19T23:22:00.002+11:00

He approached me like Santa opening his Christmas sack, and slipped the glasses over my nose.

Immediately his face loomed huge, covered with deep, unsightly pores. I could see each angle the razor had taken as it clipped his whiskers. The lines of his face turned to furrows.

"Um", I said, unwilling to throw cold water on his glee, and trying not to recoil. But, there was no doubt that the world looked better without these specs.
"Read this, " he said triumphantly. "I can read it without the glasses," was the truth, though I tried to soften it for him.

Why did I get them, anyway? Well, I thought it was about time, and there is no doubt that I can't read the fine print that I used to.

Truth is, the $2 shop ones that someone gave me do a better job.

"If you read much without glasses you would get headaches," he said.

Right. I only read 4 or 5 books a week, so I will try not to read more. I'm assuming that web hours don't count.

It seems to me that all kinds of perfectly fit and able people assume that their eyes are a bodypart that will fail them at an early age? Why is this?

2010-03-19T20:59:00.008+11:00

Once upon a time I had a poem published in Quadrant. It was the first and only poem I have ever submitted - just as the 1st novel I submitted was published. I didn't pursue either path: maybe I felt I had had my share of fortune, or maybe it's the fact that I am just not ambitious.

I actually remember little of the poem, - and, don't seem to have a copy - except for the title "Takeaway Soulfood", which the then editor, Les Murray, rejected and replaced. Dear Les: I've always been so fond of him: a man with a profound, light and loving touch on the landscape; a kindly, bitter, poignant view of us, including himself.

This small poem was written because I found Europe to be crass, immensely materialistic, aggressively competitive, and blood soaked.

This is not a popular opinion.

Myth is, that despite the multimillions of their fellow Europeans that they have slaughtered in less than 100 years, that Europe is a source of reason and culture.
Myth is, that despite the cruel and depraved male and church dominated history of the last few hundred years, that Europe is a centre of reason and culture.

These are not myths that I subscribe to.

Intermission

2010-01-25T09:11:00.002+11:00

Me to X: "I think that I deserve extra time because it has taken me so long to work out what it's all about."
X - (who is about half my age): "That doesn't augur well for my lifespan then, does it?"

Being Equal

2010-01-22T11:59:00.005+11:00

I don't quite know what people mean when they say that women and men are equal. It seems to imply that they are the same. 2=2. When they then proceed to talk about a female perspective, though, it suggests a difference, at odds with the word "equal".

Perhaps they mean that they are of equal value, or have equal rights.
I am unsure about the concept of human rights - these seem more to be gifts that people in a particular society give to each other, rather than an innate consequence of being human. But, if humans do have rights, a fundamental one in my value system is the right of women to raise their own children.

Of course, this right is rapidly disappearing in our society. Young women don't have a right to work: generally,they have an obligation to work.

I can see that I am not of equal value compared to, say, Marie Curie. Hillary Clinton yes, Marie Curie, no.

Restaurant Tofu

2010-01-22T11:43:00.004+11:00

is how the restaurant critic Matthew Evans describes himself: absorbing all the tastes, smells, flavours and ambience of restaurants.
He explains how, although he may particularly dislike a certain food or dish, he has to be able to know what it should taste like, and discern the quality of the ingredients, flavours, cooking, and as, DG said, whether the chef has added something special to it or not. And then praise it or not, accordingly.

This seems to me to be analogous to what a literary critic or lecturer has to do.
Fortunately, I am not in those positions, so I can romp around among what gives me pleasure.

Alan Bradley

2010-01-22T10:49:00.001+11:00

quotes Seneca.
"Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms. You'll be able to use them better when you are older."

Blog Block

2010-01-22T10:48:00.004+11:00

Evidently January has been the month for this for many bloggers.

I have wallowed in reading. In the last two weeks I read:
As many Agatha Raisin or Hamish Mcbeth as I could get my hands on...short, light, amusing detective stories...(why are these called "mysteries"?)
Two by Ann Granger - but I won't be looking for more.
At Some Disputed Barricade - Anne Perry. Excellent.
Never Order Chicken on a Monday - Matthew Evans. Light and enjoyable
All Our Worldly Good - Irene Nemirovsky...will definitely read more.
Women of the Beat Generation - bits of, satisfies curiosity; fills in blanks from the autobio of Caralyn Cassady
Winter Close - Hugh Mackay. Engaging, with interesting insights.

Tuvalu - Andrew O'Connor
Smoke in the Room - Emily Maguire
These two, being about young people and contemporary young culture had limited interest for me.
I began "Deaf Sentence" byDavid Lodge. Excellent writing, but the story seemed to suggest that the protagonist was innocently being drawn into a disastrous situation, so I declined to read further. I will look for others by him.

Papaver

2010-01-22T10:40:00.003+11:00

Oriental, opium, Iceland, Californian ....vivid, glowing, gay*. I don't wish to be a poppy chopper, but my post on "The Slap"suggests such. I blame it on the over the top back-cover hype: one can only react, "Well, it's not that good."
Poppies are not perennials in much of Australia.

*I am campaigning to reclaim this joyous word.

Shopping 2

2009-12-22T12:21:00.003+11:00

A week ago, I sought some pool supershock at the variety store -(take your pick of two) - only to see empty, yawning shelves. I asked at the enquiry desk. She pressed keys on a blackberry, and announced that they had none.
"We'll be getting more in," she said.
"You know that that's no use to me," I said.
"In 6 - 8 weeks, " she said.
WHAT? Do they have to walk to the factory to get it?
"This is a terrible shop," I said bitterly.
"Yes, it is, isn't it," she said.

On Friday, just 5 days later, being in the same shop, I checked the shelves out again.
Yup. There it was.

Shopping

2009-12-22T12:15:00.002+11:00

Yesterday the granny behind me in the checkout queue pressed some bank notes into the hand of her (about) 10 year old grandson.
"Do you want to pay?" she asked. "Do you want to be the man and pay?"

Living in the past? Or brainwashing to shape the future?

The Slap

2009-12-16T21:49:00.007+11:00

On page 11 she gives Hector his shopping list: 25 gm green cardamon seeds, 4 eggplants....
On page 24 Hector sees, in his garden "..the late season eggplants, full and black, hanging precariously ..."
Just carelessness, I expect.
An engaging, irritating book.

'An anthropological insight into modern Australian life," said one commentator on the ABC's bookshow.
Which was an interesting comment in itself: she saw the fiction as fact.
The characters were not like anyone I've ever come across...but they were similar to the scandalous mores that the newspapers trumpet.
"None of the characters are particularly likeable, but they're mostly uncomfortably recognisable," writes Leigh Sales. To my mind that's because they are largely stereotypes.

Another commentator on the ABC said that it is a soap opera. I'm inclined to agree.

It's an engaging, easy read. But not something I would urge someone else to read.
Interesting to talk about, though. The issue - someone slapping a friend's child - of more interest than the book, unfortunately.

.

Porn

2009-12-15T11:21:00.002+11:00

Cindy Gallop, on a Ted talk, says that because of parental/school/society reticence, most children now learn about how to engage in sexual practices from hard core porn sites.
She has learned this from personal experience, because as an older woman, she chooses lovers in their twenties.

Because, as she says, these sites are owned by, run by, controlled by men, girls can find themselves obliged to cooperate in ways that they might otherwise not choose.

2009-12-13T15:32:00.001+11:00

These little birds are made from recycled metal by "the gathering" at Deniliquin. They have fooled my neighbour's cats, who like to short cut through my garden....I expect that they may now have sore teeth.

Happy endings

2009-11-27T20:43:00.000+11:00

Tayla is a tall, trendy 10 yr old. She tells me that on the weekend she had to help her dad birth a calf, and it all went wrong. Her dad had to break the calf''s bones to extract its body bits. The cow was pretty wrung out, but they watered, fed, mended and tended her, got her to her feet and she perked up.
The next day they returned and she was ...not making it. Tayla's dad shot her. "You thought it was going to have a happy ending, didn't you?" Tayla said.

Words

2009-11-27T20:14:00.000+11:00

miasma: sounds to me to be sparkling and flowery. Wrong.

fulsome: has such a powerful sense and projection of its own meaning, that if you use it correctly you will almost certainly convey the opposite of what you intended.

pronunciations: idyll. Correctly pronounced to rhyme with riddle, piddle, widdle, all of which I reject and persist in pronoucing it as idol, or idle, both of which convey the languid lazy beauty of something Eyedyllic - the "I" as in "Ibis", "Iambic", "Iberian".

respect: very current at the moment. "Do your teachers talk about respect?" I ask. "All the time," rolls eyes. "What does it mean?" "Oh, they haven't told us that, yet."
Unfair selection there. A lot of comments, some of which were meaningful.

I find it generally disrespectful for people involved with younger, say teachers, coaches and THE PRINCIPAL OF A LOCAL FAITH SCHOOL to refer to their students as "kids"....a word that can be casual or friendly, but by such as the above sometimes sounds like a synonym for "the mob".

Sticky Social Situations

2009-11-23T10:59:00.000+11:00

On Guardian Unlimited Talk, someone asked for ways to handle a potentially dreary social occasion.
It was suggested arranging for one's mobile phone to ring, and saying loudly into it: "Dead? When? How? I'll be there at once."
On the other hand, if you were actually enjoying yourself, you could say: "Dead? When? How? Well, he won't mind waiting then, will he?"

Overheard

2009-11-21T17:56:00.000+11:00

Two seven year olds.
Him: "I went to Sydney on the weekend."
Her: "What Sydney? The Sydney with Sydney Harbour?"
Him: "Um...." Silence.
She persists: "You mean the Sydney near Yass?"
"Yes," he says, relieved. He's found his bearings.

Take note, Sydney. Hubris is never a pretty look.

The Fly and I

2009-11-21T08:30:00.000+11:00

Yesterday there were four flies inside. Today, only one -but, I can tell that he really likes me.
Where have all the insects gone? Few flies, no greenflies, blowflies, moths, or clouds of flying ants. Backyard zappers? What?
I am cautious re change. My bank recently changed its bland paint to crimson, orange and oxblood -(a fitting colour in that its old logo used to be a slaughtered sheep). It has unhelpfully redesigned its online banking, from black on white to grey on cream. It has erected plastic barriers between the tellers and customers - I think of them as Gail's gaols.
Are these there to protect me from the tellers? I think it's the reverse, and feel quite chuffed that the bank evidently sees me as menacing.

Apologia

2009-11-20T17:57:00.001+11:00

It's lucky that I'm not a diplomat: I'm sure that I would airily have trodden on international toes, with neither intention or awareness, so that I would have provoked even mild and pacifist countries like Sweden or New Zealand to declare war on Australia.
This to explain the edit of my last post, in which I happily and unconsciously slated a whole decade of people.

Expanding further on reactions to heat/cold: an older, such as I, is not stoic and enduring: it's just that entropy is getting the upper hand.

Hot

2009-11-19T20:06:00.000+11:00

Yes, it is, isn't it?
Chris Brennan: "Fire in the heavens, and fire along the hills./ And fire made solid in the flinty stone."
Yes.

I read where U.K. teachers wanted schools compulsorily closed if temperatures reached 26 C.
I read and hear of soldiers in the M.E., where temperatures are 10 degrees hotter than here - high 40s, over 50s. We haven't really stretched ourselves, evidently.

I notice the difference in expectation of some younger who grew up with uncooled or poorly cooled and heated cars, supermarkets, homes, schools, businesses and lives, some of whom now have so accommodated themselves to changing times that they seem to consider a temperate climate, albeit created artificially, to be a sine qua non.