A bucketful of sunflowers and sorrow

Yesterday I was moved by a bucketful of sunflowers. They were leaning on each other; their bespeckled faces pointed cheerfully in various directions. Tall. Joyful. Those thick-stemmed blooms sparked a golden chain of connected thoughts that led me to sadness. They led me to lovely lost-to-us Liam.

For years, Liam Davison and I were colleagues. A smiling, gentle man with an expansive manner, he had faith in me and in my skills. I admired his immense talent with words. And people.

So, I decided to share an extract of his work with you. And I hope it inspires you to seek out what he wrote for us all to keep.

In one of his haunting short novels, Liam captures time and landscape and character in his imagining of the story of the mysterious White Woman, who, legend says, was held captive by the Kurnai People of nearby Gippsland in the 1840s, the time of early settlers.

The narrator took part in an expedition to find the woman. Forty years later, he tells his tale to the un-named son of a fellow traveller, who has come in search of the truth about his father’s role in the event.

It’s odd how memory serves you.  Or how it fails.  Before you arrived here tonight, knocking surreptitiously at my door for answers to your half-formed questions, I could barely recall your father’s face.   Oh yes, I could conjure up the vague outline of a man if I put my mind to it (large, heavy-jowled, a solid jaw) but of course there was never any need.  He belonged to his own past, you see, as much as mine.  Nowadays, no doubt, you’d make a photographic print to hold it fast, the image of him as he was then, as if you had to fight against the past to keep him from slipping into where he belongs.  Yes, I’m right aren’t I? Memory’s not enough.  Tell me you haven’t sat in front of the magic box yourself and winced at the phosphorescent flash.

    Yet now, with you sitting here before me, the outline sharpens; it takes on your features, your voice, your manner of holding the hot tea to your lips. Your father is back before me. All the years before have gone and I find, yes, I do remember.  I remember what he was like.  I talk with confidence about the things we did.  The events fall easily into place, day follows day, night follows harrowing night.  I open my mouth and it all comes tumbling out as if it happened yesterday: the search for her, the first signs of your father’s presence, the journey up the river… Almost without thinking, it finds its undeniable shape.

    But I worry.  If it was somebody else who knocked, somebody else who walked impertinently into my shabby little room to claim association with my past, would I have just as readily recalled a different face?  Would things have moulded themselves just as comfortably to accommodate a different set of features, different questions, different expectations?  Would I have found myself recounting a different story about a different past? And if no one had knocked…? 

The White Woman, p. 73

How did smiling sunflowers lead me to sorrow?

Photo from abc.net.au

Liam and his beloved life-partner Frankie were on MH-17.

Only his words remain. 

Pedantic Idol

I am not a grammar Nazi.
Nor am I one of those language Luddites who think the 'rules' they parroted at school ... the ones their parents had their knuckles rapped over ... the same rules the nuns used to pull their grandfather's ear for forgetting...  I don't believe those rules should never change. 
I believe language is organic.
And while I'll confess to being a complete and hopeless David Crystal groupie, I'll shout from the rooftops that I have zero-tolerance for Lynn Truss and her stick-up-her-arse zero-tolerance approach to English grammar and punctuation. Nobody else would get a look in if she entered Pedantic Idol.

I'm also willing to testify that I'm just a bit fond of Constance Hale, who...shriek ugh omagod... is American.  Worse yet... She's Californian... 
Surely this zee-saying interloper can have nothing valuable to offer on the sanctity of the grammar of the Queen's English..
I mean...
American English?
Is that even a thing?

Well... cop this. I totally love the smell of this quotation from Ms Hale's Sin and Syntax in the morning:

The flesh of prose gets its shape and strength from the bones of grammar.

Amen to that!

 

To quote my hero...

If you are a regular visitor to The Rock, you will know that in November 2014, I had a stab at my first blogging challenge, during the course of which, I met my best blogging buddies Mary-Anne up there in Canada 'Breathing Life' and Judy over in England at 'Edwina's Episodes'. 

Well, Judy is something of a crazy blog-aholic; she'll chug-a-lug down any writing challenge as if it was a tepid cup of tea.

The last challenge she passed on to Mary-Anne and me was to write at least a paragraph without using the letter e. This time it's to post three quotations that mean something to us over the next three days.

So I'm going to start with an extract from the novel I go to whenever I want to be inspired. Or moved. Or to remind myself that I'm not a writer's bootlace: Tim Winton's Cloudstreet. 
 

Will you look at us by the river! The whole restless mob of us on spread blankets in the dreamy briny sunshine skylarking and chiacking about for one day, one clear, clean, sweet day in a good world in the midst of our living. Yachts run before an unfelt gust with bagnecked pelicans riding above them, the city their twitching backdrop, all blocks and points of mirror light down to the water's edge.

  
Genius.
His shameless Australian diction. 
His unique ability to use the wrong adjective to create an exact image, or to invent the perfect word where none existed before. 
How he breaks the rules of punctuation so carefully that all meaning is possible and positions a word as an unfamiliar part of speech to build a sentence that sings. Or cries. 
Art with words.
Poetry in prose.
Tim Winton is my hero.
What would Cortazar say that reveals about me?

Letting Go

The countdown to Manchild finishing school has begun: 40-something days till final exams. And frankly, we're both poo-ing our pants. Neither of us is ready for this. How the hell did it happen so quickly? 

Preparations for the final day and Valedictory Dinner are well underway. I know this because the school recently sent me a terrifying and inordinately long e-mail. Terrifying not just because I had to cut through all the dross and dodgy syntax to work out what the hell they were trying to tell me — leaving me trembling at what they might be teaching my kids about good writing — but bowel-looseningly terrifying because of this section of the communication:

 ...I am inviting you, as a parent of a 2015 Year 12 student, to join us in this recognition of students by writing a letter to your son or daughter. It may be a chance to let them know how much they are loved; express some of your fears for them, as well as your joys or tell them how proud you are of their achievements – it is entirely up to you.
This letter is confidential- please do not let your son or daughter see it or know that you are writing it so that it will be a surprise when it is given to them at the House meeting. The Year 12 students will have a chance to reflect and take some time before their final Assembly. In this time the letter from you would be read. It will be a meaningful time for each student to be able to reflect on their relationship with their family... 

Last day of school... Ever...

A meaningful time to reflect on his relationship with his family?

Seriously?

So his final day of school isn’t going to be about throwing eggs from the bus and getting his uniform signed by his peers then?

Really?

Are you sure?

Have you met my son?

And after the week that we’ve had — a phone call and two emails to let me know about his 'behaviour' and failure to apply himself, plus a detention for arriving late to a class carrying a cheese toastie and cuppa-soup  — right now my letter to the Manchild would begin something like this:

Dearest Light-of-my-life,

It somehow never occurred to me that my amazing intelligent son would spend his last few weeks of school being a total dick. Why don't you just pull your finger out... and your head in?

I'm pretty sure that's not what  they're looking for from me.

 

My whirling panic about WTF to write stirred a memory of a piece about his  first day of school I wrote for a parenting magazine all those years ago. I found a copy filed on the first external hard-drive I ever bought. Here’s how I started that article:

Suddenly, my big tall boy, who’s always looked so much older than his few years, had shrunk. I watched him through the blurred filter of tears I knew he mustn’t see. Attention focused on the task of tying his shoelaces, he wore the face of one who understands the burden of responsibility. Heavy black shoes and long baggy shorts emphasised his thin brown legs.

I resisted stepping in to help him. With the task completed to his satisfaction, he looked up and beamed. Such a familiar smile. The one he’d worn the first time we saw him. The one that enchanted everyone when we carried him proudly through those big customs doors at the airport more than four years ago. The smile that makes my heart sing and his eyes disappear in his face.

My baby boy was ready to start school. And he was so proud.

For so long – understandably – we parents, mothers especially, focus on the desire for a baby and the delights that becoming a family can bring.

But those babies are with us for a blink.

Too soon they are independent people – off to make their own way in the world, facing experiences that do not involve us, trying to make sense of a life that so often has no reason at all. That’s what we want them to do. That’s what we raise them to do. But when they actually set off to do it, we feel a deep sense of sorrow, even loss. We cannot protect them from any hurt they may face...

 

And here’s how I finished it:

 It makes my throat constrict and my heart pound whenever I have to wave good-bye and head back home on those days when he has trouble disengaging from me. But this is only the beginning. We have a long way to go. I’ll get over it. But that big smile at pick-up time —  the one that makes my heart sing and takes me back to a hot afternoon in Seoul when I first met my son, I’ll never get over that. 

He used to have trouble disengaging from me.

Now, for his last day at school, the situation is reversed.

I think I know where to start my letter.

3 Things I've learned from Mindfulness Meditation

Do you ever have an a-ha moment that leaves you wishing that whatever it is had never actually occurred to you, but had remained locked in the box marked ‘Blissful Ignorance’?

No?

Well, I do. All the time.

Maybe it’s part of being an over-thinker.

Maybe it’s because until now I’ve been lacking in self-awareness.

Or perhaps I’m just weird.

Anyway, as I get older, as inevitably I do, my memory is becoming shitter and shitter still. If walking determinedly from one place to another and then standing perfectly still wearing a bemused expression ever becomes an Olympic event, I’m a shoe-in for a medal. Ditto for the Where-the-fuck-did-I-put-that World Championships.

So, in an attempt to stem the flow of stuff I used to know into the Post-menopausal Blackhole — and as part of the therapy needed for me to learn to tame the Black Dog — I’m having a go at Mindfulness Meditation.  Just twenty minutes a day of focussed brainwork, specifically designed to help me be more calm and aware and focussed. Brilliant.

I’m a complete novice at this. I’ve never even attended a yoga class. But I’m learning things about myself already and I’d like to share my first few realisations.

As the man with the oh-so-soothing voice croons: ‘Just focus on the breath. Notice the rhythm. Feel the motion of your body. Relax into the regularity of the pattern…’ this is what happens inside my skull:

What pattern? What regularity?

No rhythm. I have no rhythm.

How deeply should I be breathing? Crap, I’m such a shallow breather.

As easy as breathing… isn’t that how the saying goes? Or is it as natural as breathing? Not relevant… focus on the breath…

Which breath? The in or the out? No, it’s both… He said both.. In through the nose and out through the mouth… How hard can that be? … Well, clearly too hard for you, Dickhead, coz you can’t do it right.

Shit, Wendy, get it together…  just fill your lungs with air and then push it out again.

Count… yes, maybe if I count …

Realisation Number 1: I don’t know how to breathe.

The simple task for yesterday was to be aware of the motion of my body each time I sat down or stood up. To be present to what I was doing just at those moments. If I could be mindful of my sitting/standing even fives times in the day, the croony guru assured me, that would be good. The aim is for those moments to be anchor points to my being present to my own actions.

My results were significantly sub-good.

Zero.

Not once did I catch myself in the movement of sitting. It wasn’t until after my bum hit the chair that I remembered the task. And by the time I stood up, I’d forgotten again.

Realisation Number 2: I’m a slow learner with a disconnect between my brain and my bum.

Which leads to Realisation Number 3: This is gonna be a long journey.

All tips, advice, suggestions, wise counsel or pointy-fingered cajoling will be gratefully received.

Good talk, Son...

We recently acquired a ridiculously snug pre-loved couch. It has been broken-in and worn-soft by friends who, sadly, could no longer accommodate it. The possibility of said-couch ending its days waiting dejectedly by the gutter for the hard-rubbish collection was too horrendous to contemplate, so we lugged it and its two comfy-chair buddies down to The Rock where they seem to be enjoying a whole new batch of bums on seats.

Yesterday, Manchild was lying full-stretch on the new old couch while I sat ensconced in Comfy-Chair B with my knitting. The footy was on the tv. Manchild and I support the same team, and although this has been a disastrous season, we remain blindly hopeful that one day soon they will rack up a win. With yesterday’s opponents being almost as hapless as our lot of late, we both harboured a tiny optimistic flicker that this just might be the day.

Manchild had been out late Saturday night. He’d stayed at a mate’s house after a big social event and the lure of the couch was far stronger than the pull of his desk. Even with final exams less than ten weeks away, that damn desk remains a pathetic weakling in any tug-of-war… food, sleep, music, computer games, sport on tv… they all win without even trying.  Anyway, he must have been extra-tired because not only was he lying down, but he was snuggled under a blanket. He looked particularly calm and just a teensy bit vulnerable. I could see the little boy he used to be hovering just under the surface. He was warm and settled and focussed on the football. So I did what all good mothers of almost-grown-up sons do.

I seized the opportunity to start a particularly annoying conversation, confident that he couldn’t be arsed getting up and walking away:

You looked so handsome last night. Did people tell you how great you looked?

Yep.

Lots and lots of people?

Yep

Male and female people?

Yep.

What about one special person? Is there one special person that makes your heart go pitter pat?

(Crickets)

 IS there? Is there someone special?

(Crickets)

A special girl? … or is it a special boy? Have you even decided that yet?

(Crickets… with the slightest suggestion of upturned corners of the mouth)

Aha… I saw that!  You are listening…So IS there?

Stop talking Mum.

As far as conversations go between Manchild and me, that was a pretty good one. 
No mention of food on his behalf or dirty washing on mine.

And our footy team did win.

Score!

Yesterday was a good day.

Of Friendship and Feet

 I’m not sure how to say this without it sounding like a pathetic cry for help… or an attention seeking teenager’s lament. It is neither. It is what it is. And it’s something that’s been bothering me for a while now, gathering momentum, growing obese and knocking other stuff around as it travels. So I’m setting it free. For it’s own health.

And mine.

I’ve never had many friends. I was never one of the popular kids, never a cool girl, not someone to be seen hanging out with. I’ve never been part of a sporting team, or one of the arty crowd, nor even queen among dorks. I don’t think I’ve ever had a tribe.

Like most people, work-me and social-me have often blended. Work colleagues have become the people I socialise with, and some of them have come to be what I might call friends. That’s usual, right? Because most often it’s those with whom we spend the most time that become the source of our circle of friends…. Isn’t it?

Is it?

Is it a truism that our friends are drawn from the group with whom we spend the most time? And that who we have as friends, therefore, changes as our life-situation changes? 

Is friendship transient?

Or do friends meet in unexpected ways? Untold spontaneous ways? 

And stick.

Like when you comment on a blog that speaks to you from another part of the globe, and you end up connected to someone you’ve never met. The way pen pals used to be connected. The way women once wrote to random soldiers just so they knew someone at home was thinking about them. 

Words connecting lives through space and time.

Over the past few years, I’ve been consciously reaching out to people who I

once called friends. People with whom I spent a great deal of time. People with whom I shared many experiences, thoughts and conversations — one I spoke to almost every day while our children were young, another loomed large during our adoption journey, a third was once a regular companion on outings. And there are others. People who have known me for decades. People I thought would always be my friends.  

Almost all of them have dropped away.

They were pleased to hear from me… or seemed to be… when l reached out to try to reconnect. I believed they were happy for me to travel to their homes when I asked if I might do so. And travel I did. But that was where the contact ended. My visits were followed by silence. 

The same nothing.

And I find myself damp with the fug of rejection, wondering just what friendship looks like.

Then dampness chills to brain-freezing realisation that the common denominator is me.

But I asked someone I don’t know if she’d knit me a pair of socks as a physical reminder of the unfathomable way in which words can connect lives. And she said, ‘How big are your feet and what colour do you like?’

And better still, she knitted herself a pair too.

In the same colour.

The colour of friendship.