Like Telling The Truth

On the Road with Coco

2012-02-11T11:47:00.000-06:00

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,

Healthy, free, the world before me,

The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,

Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,

Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,

Strong and content I travel the open road.

-- excerpt from Song of the Open Road, Walt Whitman

Yum-Yum Breakfast Toast

2012-02-06T07:59:00.001-06:00

Yum-Yum Breakfast Toast, which we enjoyed for a late-night snack under the stars this evening.

When life's slings and arrows seem too many, and its happy fortunes too few, I usually bake a chocolate cake. But then again, nothing says comfort quite like hot buttery toast, does it?

(I would bet a hundred bucks that no one brought up in the good ole USA can hear "nothin says lovin" without mentally responding "like somethin from the oven," while picturing gooey cinnamon rolls, poppin' fresh biscuits, rolls of chocolate chip cookie dough, and the giggly Pillsbury Dough Boy getting his belly poked. If you are not American, this may make no sense to you, but you can see what I mean here.)

We are taking a brief respite from our usual posts - fiction, poetry, personal essays, etc. - in order to bring you this recipe for a restorative treat, which promises to uplift both body and soul; unless you hate toast, but who hates toast? Or, I suppose you could be antipathetic about bananas, loathe avocados, and believe that capsicums are a fruit of the Devil. In that case, we cannot help you. You will have to seek succor elswhere.

This recipe is my husband Robin's sole contribution to the culinary arts, and it is worthy of its good name: Yum-Yum Breakfast Toast. Don't let the timing of breakfast constrain you, as it is delicious for afternoon tea or an evening snack as well.

Yum-Yum Breakfast Toast going under the griller.

Lightly toast some wholemeal or light-rye bread.
Spread toast with fresh unsalted butter.
Spread toast with freshly-mashed or thinly-sliced avocado.
Add thin slices of banana (enough to cover the top).
Dribble a little honey over the bananas (to taste).
Sprinkle a couple of teaspoons of finely-diced red capsicum (aka bell peppers) on top of that.
Sprinkle a couple of teaspoons of coarsely crushed natural almonds (i.e. not roasted) over everything.
Grill toast lightly – best to pre-warm the tray if the griller heat source is only fromabove.
Add a few dobs of sour cream to each slice.

Sprinkle a little cinnamon on the cream to top it off.

Note on ingredients: We prefer red capsicums, but you can use green, of course. As for honey, the flavours are quite diverse, as anyone who eats it regularly and from a variety of sources can tell you. We prefer to use red-gum,blue-gum, or tea-tree honey; though tonight, we used what we had available, which was wild bush honey, and it was great, too.

It must be love. Antique postcard.
(Image source)

Love on Toast

“While I’ve no gold,” he whispered,
“Love’s riches shall be thine.
Though we, in a modest cottage,
On bread and water dine.”

“With love’s warm flame to serve us,
At slight expense,” said she,
“We can make of bread and water
Sweet feasts of toast and tea.”

-- 13 May 1903, Oakland (CA) Tribune, pg. 6, col. 4:
The Tattler in Town Topics.

(Source)

One Drop of Wine: Home is So Sad, by Philip Larkin

2012-02-01T00:30:00.002-06:00

Gertrude Abercrombie, The Past and The Present (c.1945)
The Art Institute of Chicago
(Image source)

Home is so Sad  by Philip Larkin

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was: 
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

From Collected Poems by Philip Larkin. Copyright © 1988, 2003 by the Estate of Philip Larkin.

One Drop of Wine: And in the Hanging Gardens, by Conrad Aiken

2012-01-24T01:14:00.000-06:00

19th century hand-coloured engraving of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which are most likely mythical,
but a very beautiful idea nonetheless.
(Image source)

And in the Hanging Gardens
by Conrad Aiken

And in the hanging gardens there is rain

From midnight until one, striking the leaves

And bells of flowers, and stroking boles of planes,

And drawing slow arpeggios over pools,

And stretching strings of sound from eaves to ferns.

The princess reads. The knave of diamonds sleeps.

The king is drunk, and flings a golden goblet

Down from the turret window (curtained with rain)

Into the lilacs.


Marie Spartali Stillman, Beatrice (1895) The Samuel & Mary R. Bancroft Collection of Pre-Raphaelite Art at the Delaware Art Museum (Image source)

Andat one o’clock

The vulcan under the garden wakesand beats

The gong upon his anvil. Then therain

Ceases, but gently ceases, drippingstill,

And sound of falling water fillsthe dark

As leaves grow bold and upright,and as eaves

Part with water. The princess turnsthe page

Beside the candle, and between twobraids

Of golden hair. And reads: ‘Fromthere I went

Northward a journey of four days,and came

To a wild village in the hills,where none

Was living save the vulture and therat,

And one old man, who laughed, butcould not speak.

The roofs were fallen in; the wellgrown over

With weed; and it was there myfather died.

Then eight days further, bearingslightly west,

The cold wind blowing sand againstour faces,

The food tasting of sand. And as westood

By the dry rock that marks thehighest point

My brother said: “Not too late isit yet

To turn, remembering home.” And wewere silent

Thinking of home.’ The princessshuts her eyes

And feels the tears forming beneathher eyelids

And opens them, and tears fall onthe page.

The knave of diamonds in thedarkened room

Throws off his covers, sleeps, andsnores again.

The king goes slowly down theturret stairs

To find the goblet.

F.W. Burton, The Meeting on the Turret Stairs (1864)
National Gallery of Ireland
(Image source)

Andat two o’clock

The vulcan in his smithyunderground

Under the hanging gardens, wherethe drip

Of rain among the clematis and ivy

Still falls from sipping flower topurple flower,

Smites twice his anvil, and themurmur comes

Among the roots and vines. Theprincess reads:

‘As I am sick, and cannot write youmore,

Nor have not long to live, I givethis letter

To him, my brother, who will bearit south

And tell you how I died. Ask how itwas,

There in the northern desert, wherethe grass

Was withered, and the horses, allbut one,

Perished’ ... The princess dropsher golden head

Upon the page between her two whitearms

And golden braids. The knave ofdiamonds wakes

And at his window in the darkenedroom

Watches the lilacs tossing, wherethe king

Seeks for the goblet.

John Everett Millais, The Knight Errant (1870)
Tate Collection
(Image source)

Andat three o’clock

The moon inflames the lilac heads,and thrice

The vulcan, in his root-boundsmithy, clangs

His anvil; and the sounds creepsoftly up

Among the vines and walls. The moonis round,

Round as a shield above the turrettop.

The princess blows her candle out,and weeps

In the pale room, where the scentof lilac comes,

Weeping, with hands across hereyelids, thinking

Of withered grass, withered by sandywind.

The knave of diamonds, in hisdarkened room,

Holds in his hands a key, andsoftly steps

Along the corridor, and slides thekey

Into the door that guards her.Meanwhile, slowly,

The king, with raindrops on hisbeard and hands,

And dripping sleeves, climbs up theturret stairs,

Holding the goblet upright in onehand;

And pauses on the midmost step, totaste

One drop of wine, wherewith wildrain has mixed.

Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia
(Image source)

Conrad Aiken (1889-1973) was one of America's greatest poets, as well as a masterful prose writer. Here are six facts that may inspire your appreciation of Aiken and tempt you to learn more about him.

1. Though he described himself as a New England poet - having been reared and educated for most of his life in Massachusetts - he hailed from Savannah, Georgia, where he returned to live out his final years. Local legend has it that he wanted a marble bench by his graveside, as an invitation for visitors to stop there and enjoy a Martini. (Aiken is buried at the Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah).

2. The marble bench is indeed there, and inscribed with two epitaphs of Aiken's own choosing: "Give my love to the world" and "Cosmos Mariner - Destination Unknown." In the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Aiken's grave is where the author John Berendt shares a shaker of cold Martinis with Miss Harty.

Aiken's parents are buried in a double grave next to his. Their deaths were the great tragedy of his young life, as the 11-year-old Conrad was the one who discovered their bodies after his father shot his mother and then turned the gun on himself. (Source: Bloom, Harold. The Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer Through Frost. New York: 2004).

Blue Voyage, a novel by Conrad Aiken (1927)
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons

3. "Most of Aiken's poetry reflects an intense interest in psychoanalysis and the development of identity. Of the many influences Aiken acknowledged, the writings of Freud, William James, Edgar Allan Poe, and the French Symbolists are most evident in his work. The forms and sounds of music pervade all of Aiken's highly introspective poetry ..." (Source: Poets.org).

4. Kate Bernadette Benedict, a talented modern poet, has a page about Aiken on her website, which she opens with this (abridged) paragraph: "No poet of the 20th Century fascinates me more than Conrad Aiken (1889-1973) whose poetry I would describe as imagistic, enigmatic, penetrating, lush, and not a little Gothic ... In orderly sitting rooms, his characters encounter chaos; they fall into other dimensions or the chasm of their own selves. It is all very slippery. These poems are the product of an original and a fearless mind." (Link to page).

5. As editor of Emily Dickinson's Selected Poems (1924), Aiken was largely responsible for establishing her posthumous literary reputation. He considered Dickinson to be a very fine poet, calling her work "perhaps the finest poetry by a woman in the English language." (Of course, he might have left out qualifying the compliment with "woman." Dickinson is considered a master among poets of either gender, challenged only by Whitman as the greatest of the American poets of the 20th century.)

6. He is the father of the author Joan Aikens, who wrote The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.

Conrad Aiken's grave at Bonaventure Cemetery
(Image source)

One Drop of Wine: our poetry appreciation series

2012-01-23T09:34:00.000-06:00

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Favourite Poet (1888)
Private Collection

This week, we are beginning a new series called "One Drop of Wine," featuring our favourite poets and poems. The plan is to post a poem each week, and sometimes to share a few interesting facts about the poet. If the poet is very modern - i.e. born in the 20th century - and still widely read today, we will skip the fact-sharing and simply post the poem on its own.

The choices we make will be based purely on our belief in the aesthetic value of the poetry itself, rather than on any social, political, or other "extra-poetic" (as Harold Bloom would say) factors.

We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

January 2012

2012-01-22T07:00:00.000-06:00

My Sister, Dad & Me

I've been spending the first month of the year watching my father die. He's slipping away, slowly, bit by bit, the life dripping out of him.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Mostly I sit and watch TV with him--Wheel of Fortune, televangelists, rodeos. He's too weak and tired to talk much now, but even before we didn't say much. And what is there to say to each other at this late date? We have not, he and I, acknowledged the rampaging elephant in the room; not to each other at least. I haven't asked him how it feels to be dying. For all I know, he doesn't think he is. He hasn't asked how it feels to be losing my father, perhaps because he's already walked down that road himself.

My mother asks how I feel, how I'm handling it all. I tell her it seems so surreal that I think I must not be feeling it yet. There must be some part of it that hasn't hit me yet.

My mother and sister and I sit at the breakfast table, now shoved aside to make room for the rented hospital bed. We eat and talk about inconsequential things and play cards. Our minds wander and we repeatedly nudge each other back with a soft "Your turn."

It eats at me that what is unresolved between us will remain that way forever. He will die with me knowing that, while he may not be exactly disappointed in me, he isn't proud of me. I can't change that. I just have to accept it. And go on. But it hurts more to know (or think) that he is proud of my brother--newly remarried, ostensibly off drugs, teaching a weekly bible study at the jail. And then the other night, my new sister-in-law hugged my dad goodbye and said brightly "I love you!" and he replied "I love you too." Hot, angry jealousy hits me hard.

Sitting with him, waiting, I don't pat his hand and murmur reassurances because that's not who I am with him. He doesn't reminisce or offer any last thoughts because that's not who he is with me.

On Fridays I rush home. I close my world around me--my husband, my home, my dogs--and try to block out the days of sitting, of waiting. But I snap or tear up at the least provocation. The phone rings and I jump. I go shopping to feel the life of the world around me, but wear my iPod to keep it at bay. I go to the gym, not to meet a friend, but for a spin class, as dark and anonymous as a movie theatre.

And after the weekend's respite, I go back. And wait.

Photo and Text by Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Coming the Raw Prawn: a dozen of my favourite Australian colloquialisms

2012-01-17T09:43:00.002-06:00

There are several websites you can peruse, and books you can buy, to learn Australian slang. While these tend to vary in breadth, depth, and quality, most are certainly worth a quick squiz (i.e. a brief look).

What keeps Aussie colloquialisms fresh and lively, to me, are not only the terms themselves, but also the way they are mixed and matched by various individuals and groups of people. Of course, as in any country, phrases and their usage will differ from region to region.

I imagine Aussie-speech as an enormous, multi-coloured wardrobe, in which all the bold and subtle fabrics somehow work together to form vibrant, wearable sets of clothes. When I visit some new place whilst travelling round the country, or when I attend a local dinner with a few fresh faces in the crowd, I carry a small notebook and pen in my handbag. This is because, even after eight years living here, I still catch people saying things I haven't heard before - things that often leave me laughing, even days later.

Here are a dozen of my favourite Australian phrases, with definitions and examples of usage given beneath each one.

1. A few sheep short in the top paddock - a bit stupid.

"Once you get to know 'im, you can tell he's a few sheep short in the top paddock."


This fellow may be said to be "a few sheep short in the top paddock," and no wonder, if he regularly uses the flock to make hats! (Image source)

2. To fall off the perch (also, to cark it) - to die.

"Good to see ya, mate. Glad to see ya didn't fall off the perch yet!"

"You, too, mate. Thought you might've carked it y'self by now!"


These two are still firmly on the perch. Glossy Black Cockatoo Pair, by Eleanor Sobey (Image source)

3. To spit the dummy - to get upset, especially if accompanied by a tantrum.

"She quit! Just spat the dummy, then stormed off in a huff! Bloody hell, was she spewing!" (Spewing also means to express anger or rage).

A dummy is a child's pacifier.
This one is intact, beautifully edible, and never spat.
(Image source)

4. Shag on a rock - This sounds sexier than it is, if one imagines being shagged on or near rocks at the beach (because we all know from Austin Powers that a shag is sex). But, in this case, shag refers to a kind of bird, and the phrase means to be abandoned.

"Awww, mate, it was pretty bad. She left me shag on a rock, after I'd bought all the food for dinner and cleaned up the flat and everything. I felt like such a dill." (Dill - stupid person).

Australian Little Pied Cormorant, aka a shag on a rock.
One imagines it can get rough and lonely out at sea.
(Image source)

5. Fang it - to drive fast

"Buckle up tight! If we're going to make the opera on time, we'll have to fang it!"

Wherever he went, Tas always fanged it.

6. Sticks out like dogs' balls - excessively conspicuous; lacking in subtlety.

"I enjoyed that performance of Turandot overall, but that note the tenor cracked at the end of Nessun Dorma stuck out like dogs' balls."

One Dog's Balls ...
this photo was much more appealling than the alternatives.
(Image source)

7. To come the raw prawn - to lie, in a disingenuous way (i.e. to feign naivete, or - as we say in Texas - to downright bullshit someone).

Thanks to my friend Loscha for correcting me on this one, and providing this perfectly apt example -

Jilly: I never slept with Daveo.

Johnny: Don't come the raw prawn with me, I've known for ages.

Up until now, I had thought this meant to be to be disagreeable, confrontational, or aggressive - as in"Don't you come the raw prawn with me, mate! I'll bash your bloody head in!" Fortunately, I haven't been threatening to do this - much - so I've not shamed myself by getting it wrong out on the street.


You would not want to meet Big Prawn on a dark sea floor. Big prawn in Ballina, New South Wales. Species uncertain. Picture by user Happy Little Nomad on Flickr. (Image source)

8. Got a head like a bashed crab - spectacularly unattractive.

"Since ya already got a head like a bashed crab, you really want to watch what ya say!"

This fellow, Tommy Morrison, is a world champion
in the sport of Gurning, which means face-pulling.
Excellent example of a bashed-crab face.
(Image source)

9. Hung like a rogue elephant - a big bloke.

"Of course we know why she dated him, and it wasn't for his brains. From what I hear, the bloke's hung like a rogue elephant!"

You can imagine the rest.
(Image source)

10. To chuck a wobbly - pitch a fit, throw a tantrum (i.e. to express anger)

"I tried to explain that I only ate the last of the chocolate to help her keep her weight down, but she chucked a major wobbly, mate. I'll never understand women."

It sucks when the bastards fill your Halloween pumpkin head
with nothing but fresh fruit.
(Image source)

11. Ankle biters - small children.

"They already have a bevy of ankle biters, but I guess you can never have too many, huh?"

Americans Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, of Arkansas, with their 19 children.
Michelle was pregnant with their 20th at the time this photo was taken.
(Image source)

12. To be hungry enough to eat the crutch off a low flying duck - to be very hungry indeed.

"I am starving! I could eat the crutch off a low-flying duck!"

(Note: crutch - crotch).

Not really. Could you? Look at that face.
(Image source)

I do not advise yelling out this phrase in polite company, no matter how hungry you are. Frankly, even in impolite company, people will stare at you, and possibly think less respectfully of you than ever before (unless you are so low in their esteem already that you have hit rock bottom). Do you really want everyone imaging you in the middle of such an act? I don't think so.

And, while we are on the subject of intimate body parts ...

The term fanny, in Australia (as well as parts of the UK) refers to the vulva or vagina, rather than to the bottocks (as in the U.S.). So be aware of that before you use the word, in order to avoid awkward social moments.

Under no circumstances should you relocate to Australia, have a child, and name him or her after Fanny Brice; Fanny Hill; Fanny Price; Lord Fanny; Madame Fanny La Fan; Aunt Fanny from Enid Blyton's The Famous Five; or even - I am sorry to say - Edgar Allan Poe's Fanny from his romantic and beautiful poem.

Though it is a lovely, delicate-sounding moniker, the days when it was fashionable, or even remotely acceptable, are long gone. Nowadays, people would just think "Wow, she named her kid Vagina. What kind of person does that?" And no one would let their kid play with your kid. Besides that, no child needs the kind of attention on the playground that being called Fanny would invite. (Though personally, I sort of love the way "Madame Fanny La Fan" sounds).

If you name your child Madame Fanny La Fan, s/he may one day aspire to owning a cabaret like this one. That's kind of cool if you ask me. It's the sort of name you grown into, I suppose, but the primary school years would be a challenge. (Image source).

Of course, the real beauty and fun of these colloquial phrases is hearing them used by real Aussies, in their natural habitat (i.e. at a barbecue, with a drink in hand) whilst relaxing with friends. That's when all the good stuff comes out. But you will have to visit us to hear that for yourself.

Winter Light

2012-01-10T07:31:00.000-06:00

"The autumn shade is thin. Grey leaves lie faint

Where they will lie, and, where the thick green was,

Light stands up, like a presence, to the sky.

The trees seem merely shadows of its age.

...

"Nights grow colder. The Hunter and the Bear

Follow their tranquil course outside my window.

I feel the gentian waiting in the wood,

Blossoms waxy and blue, and blue-green stems

of the amaryllis waiting in the garden.

"I know, as though I waited what they wait,

The cold that fastens ice about the root,

A heavenly form, the same in all its changes,

Inimitable, terrible, and still,

And beautiful as frost.

"Fire warms my room.

Its light declares my books and pictures. Gently,

A dead soprano sings Mozart and Bach.

I drink bourbon, then go to bed, and sleep

In the Promethean heat of summer's essence."

-- excerpts from Autumn Shade, Edgar Bowers

"All the complicated details

of the attiring and

the disattiring are completed!"

-- excerpt from Winter Trees, William Carlos Williams

Photos by Sandra Peterson-Ramirez

13 Ways: Someone Like You

2012-01-07T08:06:00.001-06:00

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: itgoes on.”
- Robert Frost

Bonjour, Helen!

It’s Grandmother Grace here. This is my first time to use this recordingsoftware. Your Grandfather set it up forme, and he tells me that it is superb, so I will trust his judgement onthat.

Your Mum tells me you are having thetime of your life in Paris. Well, thatdoes not surprise me at all. I loved Paris, too, as a young woman. I visit it stillin my dreams sometimes. I like to imagine you listening to my voice from a cafenear the Seine, sipping warm milky coffee while the sun shines on your hair.

Of course, this damned wheelchair ended mytravels decades ago, so we tend to stick close to home, as you know. I amsitting by the windows in our study writing this to you, and it is a brilliantday outside. Our Liquid Amber has burst into bloom and the Japanese Maple isnot far behind. Grandfather has thrown open all the doors and windows to letthe breeze blow through from the garden, and the magpies and wattle birds arecarrying on like there’s no tomorrow.

Do you remember the Liquid Amber? When youwere little, you loved to stand beneath its blossoms and close your eyes tight,so that the only thing you heard was the buzz of a thousand bees, and you werenever afraid.

My darling girl, I am contacting you not only tosay hello from Grandfather and me, but also to tell you some things I thinkit’s time you knew. I am going to tellyou our family history; not the stories that you are used to hearing about whenJanie was little – how she would only eat cheese, biscuits and orange juice - and nothing else; or, how she insisted that she talked to aliens fromher Fisher Price telephone. And they arenot the silly-but-true tales of how Grandpapa and I met while he was admiringthe inflorescence on my philodendrons, and how then we stole away together onan impetuous trip to Tuvalu. No; theseare other stories that you’ve not heard, but which are quite important to thepast, present, and future of our family.

Grandfather is downstairs, by the way, preparingour lunch. Of course, Jocelyn could be doing that, but your dear Grandpapa hasdiscovered that he enjoys cooking, so we indulge his epicurean escapades,Jocelyn and I. Also, Grandpapa is more likely than Jocelyn to indulge my ownpenchant for a nice glass of chilled chardonnay with my salad. One thing aboutemploying the same housekeeper for three decades is that they become likefamily. Jocelyn bosses me worse than I boss your Grandfather! Well, I suppose Ideserve that.

So, let us begin ...

Darling, as you know, your old Grandmotheris getting on in years. In fact, I will be 90 next week. Please do not botheryourself with purchasing gifts and cards, as you usually do. There is nothingthat I need. We have missed you, ofcourse, and the six months you have been gone feel like a decade; but as we allunderstand, young people need time to explore the world, and your Mother was nodifferent at your age; nor, I suppose, was I.

Though certainly I was less bold than you,as I never have been much of a risk taker, I am sorry to say. I dared not go alone overseas, as you have,but I did enjoy travelling far and wide with my two best friends from school. Of course you remember your “aunties” Jaycee and Claire? I do still miss themso. One thing about getting old, cliché though it may be, is that you bloodywell do outlive your friends and your own body parts.

I might toss in here that your Mum tells meyou have settled on Medicine as your course of study. I’ve not told your Grandfatheryet, because I am only just now off the telephone from hearing that news, buthe will be thrilled. You know, darling, Grandpapa wanted to study Medicinehimself, but ended up following in his own Father’s footsteps and taking doubledegrees in physics and engineering - as you know, he holds doctorates in both ofthose fields.

Of course, one can’t complain. We havelived a very good life. Harold enjoyed an outstanding career - and he knows it - but henever forgot his original dream. He speaks still of how things might have beendifferent if he’d set his course for the biological sciences - the cures he mayhave discovered, the lives he might have saved. But you know, your Great Grandfather,Harold Sr., was an eccentric and brilliant man with a forceful nature. Your Grandfatherwas his eldest boy and admired him immensely, and wanted to win his respect;so, it was no wonder his resistance broke down and he took up the familybusiness.

Oh my goodness, Harold must be making aroast! I can smell it wafting up the stairwell, carried on the breeze. Howdecadent to be old and eating roasted meats and vegetables for lunch, with nodoubt a crisp salad, and a glass or two of bubbly - sometimes, we indulge a bitbeyond the chilled white and pop a cork to celebrate whatever time we have lefttogether. (Don’t tell your Mum or Jocelyn, because they would only fuss at us,but Grandpapa keeps a box of chocolate cherries for me to have with my coffee,too. Honestly, darling, it feelssometimes like your Mum Janie and our dear Jocelyn could just nag us old peopleto death with their love and worry.)

Well, I realise that you have only everknown us as a Grandmother in a wheelchair who reads a great deal, and aGrandfather who spends half his life pottering about the garden (and who was alwaysavailable to help you with your homework when you came by on school days). But there is more to our story than thedomestic tranquillity that you have enjoyed with us.

I think if your Mum told you much ofanything herself about your Grandfather’s background, it was that he specialisedin Robotics. What I am sure you do notknow is that the Harcourt family business, begun by your Great Grandfather, wasbuilt up by your Grandfather into the mega-corporation “Someone Like You.” It is commonly called “SLY” by yourgeneration, I believe.

I realise, my darling, that you will besurprised, if not shocked, to know that this is your own family’s business.

So here’s a bit of history for you aboutthe Company, that is not available to the general public. Your Great-Grandfather Harold Sr. had awonder of a mind for science but was a terrible money man. He could not even negotiatehis way through academia very well, so it was far beyond him to finessemillions of dollars from investors. Your Grandfather, though, was a born people-person as well as ascientist. This was no problem for him.

The Company, long before you were born, wascalled “Robotics International.” It was an intentionally simple andstraightforward name, but the work itself was deeply complex. Robotics International provided robots to do four basic types ofwork: domestic, commercial, military,and medical.

It was your Grandfather Harold who came upwith the idea of using robotics for more than human stand-ins at work, andit was his team that made the big leap from “robot” to “android.” (As I think you understand, while it is truethat all androids are robots, the reverse does not hold true - all robots arenot androids.) Modern androids, to any but those who are intimate with them, are usually taken for humans; but the robotsbuilt by Robotics International up until forty years ago never could have been. They looked like the machines that they were.

Your Grandfather imagined that, with enoughattention to the details of their appearance, their movements, theircommunication, their thinking and ... yes ... even their feelings, the androids they built could become a part of humanity - aseparate but equal species, so to speak. As part of that “separate but equal”ideal, they would of course be given more advanced anatomical systems, tobecome more than machines but still somewhat less than human. These improvements included functions such asdigestion, breathing and sexual intercourse. The one thing they could never do,of course, is reproduce the way that humans do, but that was easily managed inthe lab, after all.

Oh my goodness! You should have heard yourGreat Grandfather when Harold tried to tell him about his idea. I have neverheard anyone explode like that before or since. You see, he thought it unethical. He thought that the robots should remain quite distinct from humans, and thatto push too far towards humanness was somehow heretical (an odd thought for anonreligious man, but so it was). Also,his sole purpose in creating his robots was that they serve people asimpeccable and efficient workers, in avariety contexts. What made him happiestwas the creation of the Carer Robot, who looked after the sick and disabled. Harold Sr. did not wish to frighten orconfuse people regarding robot versus human distinctions.

Well, my dear, your Grandfather Haroldpretended to relent to his father, but what he did, secretly, was open a separatestream of the business, give it its own name - “Someone Like You” - andincorporate the business under his partners’ names. These partners werehand-picked by Harold from the best of RI’s staff, and they shared his visionof what they might accomplish, once out from under Harold Sr.’s restrictions. These men and women spent two decadesdeveloping and refining their work.

Your Great Grandfather was in his grave bythe time the first Companion Humanoid was ready to introduce to the world. Fromthere, it was only a matter of a few years until the Humanoids were so elegant,so perfectly true to form, that one could no longer easily distinguish betweenthem and us.

This was a realisation of your Grandfather’sbiggest dream in the Robotics realm, Helen, and I was so proud of him. And yet,it was funny. As hard as he’d worked, as much as he had achieved, he did notwant to be known for it, even when it was safe for him to step into thespotlight. He had become accustomed to the idea of being the silent partner,you see, and he found that there were advantages to it.

I did not understand what those advantageswere myself. I was forty years old, and your Grandfather a decade older. I had spent half of my life supporting him inhis work, so I wanted (perhaps more than he did) to see him receive therecognition he deserved. Of course, theCompany got accolades and awards, but Harold was never there to acceptthem. Yet, he remained the mostknowledgable, powerful, and respected man inside the organisation. I think that was enough for him. I don’t think he required more of society than that.

As for my work, well, I was busy with that,too, and the next decade of our lives was exciting and filled with pleasure,not the least of which was having our daughter - who came as quite a surprise,but a delightful one. Those were goodyears – wonderful years, in fact.

The accident happened on my 50th birthday,Helen. Did I ever tell you that? Not a good way to celebrate. I don’trecommend it.

My sculpture had always commanded much ofmy time, energy, and devotion. Massive things that they were, I suppose Ishould have imagined I might one day become too careless or distracted in mystudio and topple one over on myself. Tobe destroyed by one’s own creation is rather a cliché, don’t you think? One has either to laugh or cry. Obviously, being in a wheelchair andparalysed from the waist down is no laughing matter, darling; yet, I do try togrin at the unfunny and to bear the unbearable, in order to get on in the world.

The accident was my own damn fault, truthbe told. Usually, I would not have beenworking alone on a large piece such as that, but I had Janie to care for,who was on school holidays - as were my young assitants from the Art Institute. Janie was nine at the time, and keen to see what I was working on,as I was keen to show her. I thought perhaps she might take an interest in sculptureherself.

Your Mother, you know, always blamedherself for the disaster that befell us. Poor darling! Did youknow that, Helen? She had never before visited my studio when work wasin progress. She could not have known not to press her weight againstthe pillar. And anyway, it should have supported her, and would have done so,if my assistants had not left it precariously balanced against thewarehouse beam. Oh, how I hate remembering the look on herface when she realised it was falling and falling towards me.

Well, scared though she was, Janie was always asmart and capable little girl, and she ran to call for help right away, blessher. And when I awoke in hospital,there she was - standing beside my bed, and holding my hand.

But two things became apparent to me withinmoments of waking up: one was that Icould not feel my legs, and the other was that Harold was not with us. When I tried to speak with Janie about herfather, she collapsed upon me, sobbing.

I called for a nurse, who cameimmediately. It was this nurse, and thedoctor who followed after, who explained many terrible things to me.

I had been in a medically-induced coma fortwo weeks.

My spinal cord had been severed.

Harold had been the first person Janiephoned that night.

My Harold, always with a level head - socalm through every storm - must have panicked at hearing his child in a stateof hysteria, trying to ask for help. Hewould have known something terrible must have occurred - whatever Janie was ableto explain or not explain - since I had notphoned him myself.

Well, Helen, your Grandfather must havedriven like a wild man, and I can only be grateful that his partner had theforesight to phone an ambulance to come to my studio for Janie and me, because Haroldnever made it. My darling husband wrapped himself around a pole and diedimmediately of massive head trauma.

There now, I have shocked you.

But there is more to the story, Helen, andI promise it gets better from here.

Ah, I can hear him down there now, snappingat Jocelyn. She probably wants to help him bring up the trays, dear thing, butGrandpapa hates to be treated like an old man. The two of them bicker as though they are the married couple.

Let me go back in time a bit more.

Your Grandfather, as you know, is a frightfullybrilliant man, but also insatiably curious. Once he and his partners had perfectedthe humanoid, it was only a matter of weeks before Harold decided to create onein his own image. Knowing Harold, heprobably treated it as a marvellous joke, at least initially; but, as with mostthings, he had a very serious intention, underneath it all. He wanted a copy of himself, just in case one was ever needed.

The long and the short of it, Helen, isthat your Grandfather - the only Grandfather you have ever known - is not theoriginal Harold Harcourt, Jr. Technically,he is Harold Two.

But you can’t really say he hasn’t been amarvellous Grandpapa, can you? And as for me and Janie, once we got used tothe idea, it was just the same as having our old Harold back.

I do not want you to think me a cowardlywoman, Helen, but I was fifty years old, with a small daughter to care for, myown body and work life shattered - for even if I had wanted to work again, Icould not bear the thought of returning to sculpture - and the love of my lifegone. For the first year, Janie and I carried on as best we could, but thingswere hard, emotionally. Janie returned to her boarding school, which was herown decision, as I would have preferred her home with me. I think what made it most difficult for heris that she could not share her grief with her friends.

You see, your Grandfather had left strictinstructions with his dearest friend and partner that, in the event of hisdeath, there was to be no disclosure to anyone, other than his team members, andto Janie and me. This meant no announcementswhatsoever, and no medical or legal follow through, outside the private realmof the Company. Apparently, he would remain the silent partner even in hisgrave!

Well, his partner, Bennett Barlow, was agood man and a trusted friend of our family. It pained him to tell me this. Itpained him further to offer me a devil’s deal. You see, it had been left toBarlow to explain to me about Harolds Two through Thirteen.

It had been Barlow and his team who trackedyour Grandfather’s car, retrieved his body, archived his last memories foruse in the new version, and then preserved his remains, so that Janie and Imight say goodbye, and have a small ceremony. After that, his body was cremated and Janie and I took the ashes to ourbeach house and spread them round there. Harold has always loved the beach.

So, Helen, after that, Barlow gave me ayear to grieve and to consider my options – leave Harold dead, or resurrect himvia the humanoid, Harold Two. In themeantime, the Company and family covered for his absence, which was easy to do,as Harold spent half his life buried in work and the other half in the privacyof his family life. We closed ranks, all of us, and no one even questioned ourexplanations for his absence.

Harold’s younger brothers, your Great UnclesRandolph and Curtis, lived overseas, as you know, and were so busy with theirown work and family lives that we only spoke with them once a year or so; andthen there was Eva, Harold’s Mum, who was still alive back then, but sufferingsevere dementia and living in a care facility (being looked after by RoboticsInternational carers, too). She hadlong since stopped recognising any of us.

After a year without a husband and father,Janie and I did not feel better. We wereno longer in shock, but our loss was still fresh, and we were very lonely. We yearned for him. We wanted him back.

So I phoned Barlow, and he came to thehouse for afternoon tea and a long conversation. Everything fell into place rapidly afterthat.

One week later, Harold arrived home, drivinga silver 1956 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL coupe that was a dead ringer for the onehe’d wrapped around the pole, and wearing one of his pale grey suits – whichwere all that he ever wore except on weekends. He walked up to the door, and let himself in, while Janie and I watchedthrough the dining room windows, too stunned to move, even though we’d known hewas coming.

I will admit that both Janie and I were scepticalat first, but as the weeks, months, and years passed, we came to love HaroldTwo just as we had our original Harold. After all, this Harold had the same quick mind, sunny smile, and easydisposition that we’d always enjoyed.

The team at the Company had taken greatcare with all the refinements, so there was nothing sloppy or amiss about thisversion of Harold. They had set his ageto precisely where it would have been, had the accident never occurred, andthey had managed to successfully install his original “mind and memories.”(Whatever that means! I have no real understanding at all of the technologyused in the extraction and resurrection of human souls).

The most endearing quality of Harold Two wassurely that his love for us felt the same as what we had always known. Also, we enjoyed that he was home with us allthe time now, having officially retired from his work. It was then that we decided to put Janie in aschool nearby, so that we could all be together as a family again. That is no small thing, and Janie and Irealised what a gift our original Harold had left us, and how lucky we were.

After we’d been together a few months, Iasked Harold if he could tell me what he remembered about dying, but he saidthat all he could recall was racing to get to Janie and me, and then theenormous impact of the crash, and then blackness. The next thing he knew, hewas opening his eyes to a bright light - which was not, of course, Heaven, but hisconsciousness being revived in the Company’s surgical theatre.

Well, the poor dear had suffered so much, Ididn’t want to talk about his not being the “original” Harold ever again, ifpossible. Of course, he was fully awareof the fact, but why rub salt in the wound?

In all truth, Helen, I believe that after awhile, Janie did forget (or chose to stop remembering) her original father’sdeath. I think the trauma of that night,and what came after, was all too much for her. We stopped speaking of “original Daddy” and “Daddy Two” and he justbecame “Daddy” once again.

Rightly or wrongly, I have never sincespoken to your Mother about Harold’s death and “resurrection” because I assumedthat, if she wanted to address it, she would have said so. I believe she has been happier forgetting. This is especially obvious in that she nevermentions the Company at all, even though all of her personal fortune comes fromthat singular golden goose.

Well, my dear, I am sure you yourself havehappier things to do in Paris than listen to your Grandmother prattle on, soI will close soon. I think Harold andJocelyn will be on their way up with lunch any time now, and while they both know what I amspeaking to you about, I would rather have privacy in the telling of the tale.

I will come to the point.

The thing about Grandpapa and me is that weare old, and this has become a problem that must be dealt with.

While it was a wonderful 100th birthday partywe had for Harold back in June, we realise that we cannot keep him goingindefinitely; or rather, that we can, but that we should not do so under thepublic gaze. He has already outlived hisshelf-life by a decade, as most humanoids expire after thirty years.

Your Grandpapa and I have outlived all thefriends and relatives who shared our generation. Sadly, as of last month, even poor oldBennett Barlow is dead now. That wasquite a blow to your Grandfather, I can tell you.

It was in a recent discussion about our agedilemma that your Grandpapa landed another surprise on me. Why anything should surprise me about HaroldHarcourt, Jr. at this stage of the game, I cannot say; nevertheless, I wasstruck silent for quite some time, which you know is unusual for me. I had to have some scotch before I couldcontinue with the conversation. (Isuggest your order a nice glass of red for yourself before listening to therest of this - the drink did me a world of good.)

Apparently, your Grandfather did not makehumanoids of only himself, but of all of us. Imagine it! A dozen replicas of Harold, Janie, and me!

Well, of course, it seems obvious that hewould have done so, thinking on it now; but the idea had never occurred to me.

Once Harold realised he could createlife, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, he saw no reason to leave it up tofate or the gods, or whatever unseen others rule the Universe. Also, he has always believed that consciousnessitself is the essence of the human "soul." So, to Harold, there is really no differencebetween his original self, and his subsequent, manufactured selves.

Why should the same not be true for hiswife and his daughter, so long as the bodies are a perfectly-rendered match, andthe mind and memory files are properly created, maintained, andinstalled? (Of course, when he made them, he hoped never tohave to use those back-up copies - but he had no intention of living without us,should the worst happen).

So here we find ourselves, once again at a crossroads, and faced with some interesting choices. Helen, I want you to know what we have decided to do, and to explain your part in things.

Janie is a sensitive and vulnerable woman,just as she was a sensitive and vulnerable child; but she became even more soafter my accident. It changed her in a waytoo subtle to describe, yet too obvious for a mother not to notice. I wish to protect her, as much as possible,from the inner workings of the Company, and what is kept in storage there. I amnot sure she would recover from the shock of confronting ten Harolds, elevenGraces, and twelve little Janies, all in a row.

That why I am coming to you, instead. You are a gifted young woman - brilliant asyour Grandfather, but creative and stubborn like me. So I think you will cope fine, despite theseunusual revelations.

By the time you arrive home, it is almostcertain that your Grandpapa and I will have retired some version of ourselvesto Central or South America somewhere. The Company and our solicitors will handle everything that needshandling, so you needn’t worry about much, except what I am going to tell youdirectly is yours to worry about.

I want to extinguish this current versionof myself, Helen, so that I can resurrect as a young woman again – one with anable body, a youthful outlook, and perhaps even a heart that can embracesculpture again. It is true that I willnot be me exactly, but I will have myown thoughts and memories, and a sense of continuity. Who can say that these,more than anything else, do not constitute the Me I have known all my life ...that they are not, all combined, the soul of me?

As for your Grandpapa, he is not worried atall. He figures he can enjoy life nomatter which version of himself he inhabits; but he is looking forward to beingyoung again, as his youth – like my own – has been a long time gone. We will be young people, with wise old minds,and able old souls; surely, that is some kind of paradise? We will have one more round of LIFE beforesaying goodbye forever.

We have plenty of funds, and we will continueto earn from the Company – as will Janie, of course - but we have arranged withour solicitors to invite you into the private fold of the business itself. Your Grandfather and I would be so pleased ifyou would take over the Company once you have completed your studies. The team of scientists there are a very tightgroup, but they will welcome you with open arms, and they will be so pleased tomentor you. They will, of course, expectgreat things from you, as we all do.

The hardest part for you, Helen, will bedeciding – eventually – what to do with all those extra family members. This is indeed your lot, since they will bepart of your inheritance, along with our seventy percent share in theCompany. We simply cannot find it inourselves to destroy them, although they are not needed - at least not now, andmaybe not ever.

And while I hate to add even one more thingto this already overwhelming message, my dear, I must warn you that there may be another surprise awaiting you.

Your Grandfather refuses to be drawn out on this, but I think it’s possible that after his conversion toHarold Two, and his supposed retirement from work, he continued to direct the team regarding our family replicas - and I do not mean only in regard to generalmaintenance and software upgrades. Knowinghim as I do, I suspect that Harold continued creating hisbackup family beyond the three of us - though I am sure he would not have replicated yourFather, since he never liked or approved of the original.

That leaves only one other person. Helen, I fear you may find another you – adozen or so, in fact - amongst our little family group. If that is the case ... well then, you willhave even more difficult decisions to make. I hope the thought does not distress you too much, as your Grandfather would not want that. He would have created you with the best of intentions.

We are planning to have Janie to dinner in acouple of weeks, when we will explain that we are going travelling for a while– though it is not like us to do that, she will accept it, I am sure.

Unfortunately, we will then have to “die”rather suddenly - which is not difficult to do when one is very aged, andtravelling in countries known for exotic diseases. Even plain old malaria will do the tricknicely.

The Company will preserve our bodies at thepoint of extinction, here in Melbourne, and then fly them overseas when thetime is right. They will take charge ofbringing you and your Mum to Brazil for the viewing of the bodies, and theywill manage the cremation process there,too.

But, Helen, while all that is happening, youwill know the truth, which is that your Grandpapa and me are somewhere nearby,having the time of our lives together.

We will arrange a way to communicate withyou via the Company, once all the hoopla dies down.

I am sorry to have to put Janie throughlosing us, but after all, everyone’s parents die eventually. It has to happen.

We are taking Jocelyn (she is due for anupgrade, too), and Harold's Mercedes. But we are leaving my 1965 red Mustang convertible foryou, because we know how much you love it.

If the engine dies, don’t worry. Barlow Twocan get you a replacement anytime.

Good luck with everything, my girl.

Remember that we love you, always.

Goodbye for now.

Grandmother Grace is signing off ...

***

This is EveR-2.
Click here to learn more about androids.

Main photo by YuriArcurs, via Snapixel.
Second photo from Wikipedia page linked on caption.
Text by TD Whittle.

What does 13 Ways mean? All of our posts with 13 Ways in the title are part of an ongoing creative project, which you can read about here:

13 Ways of Looking: our illustrated story series

Just one more thing...

2011-12-31T09:43:00.000-06:00

Here's hoping that the new year brings you all the irrepressible joy of making snow angels in the falling snow in East Texas.

Happy New Year!

Christmas in the Land Down Under

2011-12-24T01:20:00.002-06:00

Our Living Christmas Tree, which we managed not to kill all year (hooray!)

Christmas Day this year marks the end of my eighth year in Australia. I arrived on this continent on 25 December 2003, having flown straight through and missed Christmas Eve, due to the time variation between here and home. I spent that first hot summer's day with my future husband, Robin.

(Photo source: Australian Geographic)

We took a walk in Westerfolds Park, and enjoyed a swim in the Yarra River, under the protection of tangy-smelling eucalpyts, and squadrons of screaming sulphur-crested cockatoos. Christmas lunch with Robin's family included abundant fresh seafood - shellfish, salmon, and king prawns - a variety of salads, beautiful Australian wines, a selection of traditional cakes (plus a delightful Pavlova), dessert tarts, and hand-made chocolates. This was an all together different realm from my usual Northern Hemisphere holiday experience. Everyone was in short sleeves and there wasn't a turkey in sight!

But it was very lovely and, of course, now I am used to it. I have learnt to embrace the summer holiday season fully and joyfully, without the heavy overcoat and wool stockings. I no longer sniff the air for snow on Christmas Eve, and I have ditched the brandy eggnog for a nice glass of Chardonnay or a cold Ginger Beer. Still, I admit that I prefer traditional Christmas songs to Six White Boomers , or to Aussie Jingle Bells, funny as they are the first time you hear them.

( If you don't know these songs, you can hear them via these links: Six White Boomers, a Rolf Harris Tribute / Aussie Jingle Bells by Bucko and Champs )

Here are some of our favourite ways to celebrate Christmas in Australia.
(Note: click on photos to enlarge)

Australia Lit Up
(photo source: Christmas and Design)

Take a Road Trip


We pack up our Kombi and head for the bush.


Near the Blue Lake, Mt. Gambier (South Australia, Australia)

Find a Secluded Spot for a Swim


Crater Lake, Mt. Eccles (Victoria, Australia)

Lake Mombeong (Victoria, Australia)

The Yarra River, near Warburton
(photo source: Warburton Lodge)

Keep a Look-out for Indigenous Wildlife

Koala in Manna Gum at Mt. Eccles Natl. Park (Victoria, Australia)


Wallaby with Joey in Pouch at Mt. Eccles Natl. Park (Victoria, Australia)


Echidna seeking ants at a roadside tree, between Nelson, Victoria & Mt. Gambier, South Australia (Australia)

Golden Staghorn Beetle, Mt. Eccles Natl. Park
(Victoria, Australia)

Superb Fairywren, at Old Man Lake,
Little Dip Conservation Reserve
(South Australia, Australia)

Pack a Picnic and Head for the Beach


The Christmas Spirit, Aussie Style! Source: Celebrating Christmas


The Southern Ocean, at Lake Mombeong (Victoria, Australia)


Weedy Sea Dragon Tile Mural, with shower on reverse side, at Beachport (South Australia, Australia)

Lots of beautiful fresh fruits and veg are in season now.
Our favourites are mangoes this time of year.
(Photo source: Travel Blissful)


Beach grasses in the evening light at Robe (South Australia, Australia)

Enjoy Catching Up with Friends and Family

Kevin Warradigawuy and Enid Gurungulmiwuy, Gapuwiyak, NT.
Still from Christmas Birrimbirr © Miyarrka Media 2011.
(Photo Source: Australian Government (Closing the Gap) Yolngu Christmas Spirit)


Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, photo by Jeff J. Mitchell (Photo Source:News.com.au)

Barry Humphries as Dame Edna, from The Dame Edna Christmas Experience
(Photo Source: Name that Christmas Special)

Half-Dressed Brits in Hats Make a Pyramid on the Beach
(Photo Source: News.com.au)

Robin and Tina Whittle, disembarked from The Cockle Train
at Goolwa on the Fleurieu Peninsula
(South Australia, Australia)


No better friend than a dog who loves you. (Photo Source: Everyday Hero, Guide Dog Christmas Appeal, Western Australia)

Whatever You Do, We Wish You and Your Loved Ones
a Wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

From paparutzi's photstream via Flickr
(Photo Source: flickr - paparutzi's photostream)

Except where other sources are cited, all of the photos in this post were taken

by Robin & Tina Whittle, December 2011.

Celebrating Christmas with Two Australian Icons: Michael Leunig and Phillip Adams

2011-12-24T00:44:00.003-06:00

Christmas

by Michael Leunig

From Poems, 1972-2001

I see a twinkle in your eye, so this shall be my Christmas star
and I will travel to your heart: the manger where the real things are.

And I will find a mother there who holds you gently to her breast,

a father to protect your peace, and by these things you shall be blessed.

And you will always be reborn and I will always see the star

and make the journey to your heart: the manger where the real things are.

Bush Christmas with butterflies and child

by Michael Leunig

From The AGE

December 24, 2011

Illustration: Michael Leunig.

Christmas comes to urban Australia and up go the decorations - the holly and reindeer motifs, the sleighs, the Santas and snowflakes - the same old incongruous wintry symbols, reminding Australians that their summer is well under way and the year is fading fast. The lives of little pine trees are cut short and hung with baubles.

Electric fairy lights wink like shopkeepers' eyes in dark suburban streets. Buskers wearing plastic reindeer horns murder carols in the street; mournfully hitting the wrong notes of Christmas on tarnished trumpets and creaking violins; a fitting soundtrack for the work of mental health professionals and police who are busy attending to the upsurging emotions and woes that come with the season of joy.

Mysterious sad yearning and loneliness emerge out of nowhere to alight on the unsuspecting, mingling with goodwill, alcohol and hope as the weariness and eeriness of the year pull at the heartstrings or loosen the purse strings.

In the midst of so much exhaustion, tradition and repetition it is difficult to imagine that the original Christmas story was about the miracle of birth and renewal.

Yet out in the countryside, beyond the harsh gravity of the material world, far from Father Christmas and closer to Mother Nature, a wondrous child may behold the miracles of the bush and know that new life and great beauty are abundant and eternal. There is no monumental religious event in this infinity of detail and diversity; it is all part of a broader ancient miracle.

Huge clouds of brown butterflies swirl up into the dazzling light, parrots swoop to grassy earth, honeyeaters ravish the sweet flowers of the bottlebrush, echidnas trundle steadily in search of each other, lizards dart among ants and ancient rocks, the fine branchlets of the manna gums quiver to the mating growls of koalas, ibises stroll and feast on grasshoppers and gleaming Christmas beetles hang from eucalyptus leaves like small green baubles. The birds sing gloriously and not a wrong note is heard. This is Christmas in the bush.

If European symbols and traditions have grown tired, perfunctory and oppressively banal in Australia, or been drained of spirit and meaning by the dreary dictates of materialism and secularity, then the raw spirit truth of our native land in summer is alive and radiant by comparison.

For joy and meaning we might well turn to our natural country and witness miracles of vitality and new life, of inspiration and profound beauty; all in some humble, quiet and improbable place.

Learn more about Michael Leunig

here: Michael Leunig's Website and

here: Artloft - Michael Leunig Paintings and Prints

Happy Christmas, Nan

by Phillip Adams

From The Australian

The Weekend Australian Magazine

December 17, 2011

I was raised by grandparents, William and Maud Smith, on a tiny farm long since subdivided for Melbourne's suburban sprawl - or, as I preferred to call it, the brick veneerial disease.

Grandpa had worked the place with his twin brother Fred for half a century, living in tiny twin weatherboards shadowed by pines and peppercorns. Our other family member was a draught horse, Blossom, whose stable was considerably larger than both houses put together.

Bill and Fred were born poor and died poor. They'd never gone on a holiday or owned a car. Fred died first and when Grandpa got too crook to plough the paddocks Blossom got the idea, lay down in her stable and heaved a final sigh.

Then the few acres were hacked into building blocks. The auction should have given my grandparents a few bob but they were diddled by a corrupt real estate agent. A member of Rotary, a pillar of the community, he knocked the blocks down to his mates at a fraction of their value.

Soon they were crowded with new brick veneers that have now grown old in turn. See them up and down Violet Grove, East Kew - once the dusty approach to Blossom's stable.

Maud Rebecca Smith died from sorrow not long after Bill. And I inherited the job of "sorting out her stuff". Precious little, jammed in a cheap wardrobe. To my astonishment there were all the Christmas presents her three daughters and umpteen grandchildren had given her over the years, all lovingly rewrapped in their Christmas paper, along with the cards.

Happy Christmas, Nan.

Remarkably unimaginative. The same pressies every year. Bottles of lavender water, lavender-scented talcum and soap. That's what she'd ask for if asked, and she finished up cornering the market. But she'd always open the wrappings with trembling, arthritic hands and express surprise and joy.

Easily pleased, Maud Rebecca. Which was just as well as it never occurred to Grandpa, though I'm sure he loved her deeply, to offer her much in the way of entertainment. They'd listen to the wireless together at night but he never took her out. Though Hoyts Rialto was just a tram ride away, I can't remember Nan ever making it to the pictures. I'd go to the local library for her and get "two romances and a mystery" and once a week she'd tram it to the Harp of Erin and meet a girlfriend for a few beers in the Ladies' Lounge. No mixing of the sexes in Australian pubs back then.

But I'm forgetting the wild parties.

Once in a while Bill and Fred would invite some mates over and have a few beers in Blossom's stable. Or in the tiny lounge room where everyone would take turns to sing (The Old Rugged Cross was Grandpa's favourite) or do "a recitation" (something from Kipling). I was allowed to stay up and listen.

I knew we were poor. The other kids told me. We were "looked down upon" for lowering the tone of the neighbourhood with its new houses with indoor toilets

But it was really only an issue on Christmas Day when the kids compared and flaunted their presents. Shiny Malvern Star bikes and Hornby electric train sets for them, versus a clumsily repainted antique bicycle that had belonged to an uncle before the war - the most humiliating thing I would ever own. That and my homemade clothes, which caused some amusement in the playground.

I've never visited my grandparents' graves. I presume they were buried together, with brother Fred close by.

But I don't know where. Clearly I was spared the funerals. Yet I loved them more than anyone else in my young life.

Far, far more than my parents, whom I rarely saw. And I always think of them at Christmas.

Learn more about Phillip Adams

here: ABC Radion National - Phillip Adams and

here: The Australian - Phillip Adams Blog

13 Ways: The Wonder Wall

2011-12-22T07:38:00.000-06:00

Tom walked out of the 7-11 with two coffeesin his hand, one for him and one for his wife Gayla, who had waited in the carwhile he pumped the petrol.

He stopped for a moment to watch childrenclambering on the Wonder Wall which made up the west side of the shop, andwhich Tom supposed caused more parents to stop here for petrol and soft drinksthan might otherwise.

The wall interested him because walls were hisbusiness. Tom was a manager in a companythat rendered residential and commercial exteriors. Usually, as jobs go, it was pretty good; butthis year had been tough.

He regretted the decision they’d made twoyears ago, as an executive team, to change their materials supplier to one thatoffered a supposedly superior rendering mix at lower cost. That’s how all the trouble had started - cracks,mould, and chunks of render dislodging from work sites completed only nine totwelve months earlier.

Tom considered the Wonder Wall, which hadboth an aesthetic appeal and a structural integrity that he knew to be lackingin his own projects of late. It waslarge in scale, about twenty feet high and forty feet wide, with multipleshapes representing gigantic sea creatures, along with several smaller and moreabstract objects that seemed to suggest suns, moons, stars and planets. All of these projected outward, offering handholdsand footholds, as an open invitation to the young ones to climb up. The whole effectwas bright and cheerful, and Tom thought that the wall seemed to radiate its ownpersonal happiness to the viewer.

The wall was, he supposed, truly wondrousif one were a child and keen to climb it, and it was charming and whimsicalenough for older patrons to enjoy viewing. There was a thick rubber mat at the base, incase someone fell, although the parts that were suitable for climbing were nohigher than six feet. The rest wasdecorative.

Tom watched two young girls, about seven oreight years old, so absorbed in their play that they took no notice ofhim. Tom thought they seemed to behaving the time of their lives. He felt relaxed and happier than he had in ages to hear them chattering, laughing, andclinging onto the wall together. A smile lit up his face as he remembered when his own boys were thisyoung; how quick and easy their smiles were then, and how any silly jokewould make them fall to the ground laughing.

These were the things that Tom would hearhimself explaining to Dr. Jellicoe about the event some weeks later.

“So, Tom, you stopped to have a look at howthe wall was constructed and so on, and you found yourself enjoying thechildren’s laughter as you watched them play?”

“Yes, that’s right.” He shifted in his chair, brought one leg up to rest on the other, and then crossed his arms, preparing himself to explain thenext part.

Tom was 48 years old, and he had never foundit necessary to see a psychiatrist until now, having led a fairly normal,stable, and undramatic life. He wasn’tsure what to expect from her, or what was wanted from him, or if it was absolutelynecessary that he be here; though Gayla had insisted he come, and had madethe appointment for him.

“And so then what happened?” Dr. Jellicoe asked.

Tom didn’t answer right away. Dr. Jellicoe seemed kind and had intelligenteyes, but he was not used to discussing his private life with strangers. This particular event, most especially, feltdeeply personal, and he’d told no one about it aside from Gayla, who was therewhen it happened.

“Didn’t my wife tell you this part when sherang you?”

“Yes, she did - her version of things. Would you like me to tell you what shesaid?” Dr. Jellicoe replied.

“No, actually I already know Gayla’sversion of things. It’s all I’ve beenhearing lately, when she talks to me at all.”

“Your wife no longer talks to you?” Dr.Jellicoe cocked her left brow at Tom, tilted her head slightly toward her rightshoulder, and adjusted her glasses.

Tom noticed that her glasses were anelegant, expensive design, and he noticed, too, that she had a lovely jaw, highcheekbones, and a near perfect nose. Hewatched as a lock of her hair, which was dark brown, drifted gently over theleft lens of her glasses, half covering his view of one bright, sea-blue eye. Tom realised then that she was pretty, in anintellectual, even artistic sort of way, like a woman one might see staring outfrom a fine painting in a gallery - a mystery to be solved by the viewer. But this recognition did not stir him as itmight have in the past.

“I wouldn’t say that she intends not totalk to me, it’s just that ... Well, look. I guess things weren’t great between us before this happened, and sinceit happened, it’s worse, I suppose. Probably that’s my fault.” Tomtook a deep breath and then sighed, letting it go. He sat back in his chair, unfolded his arms,and relaxed his posture, taking a sip of the water Dr. Jellicoe had offered himbefore continuing.

“We took that weekend trip to the country -where this all happened - to try to reconnect. Our three kids are off at university or working now - our youngest, Jack,moved out a few months ago. I guess,like a lot of couples, Gayla and I realised when he left us that the house felt enormous and empty - as if we each lived alone, even though wewere still together.

“Once upon a time, it was romantic andthrilling for it to be just the two of us, you know? We used to be sopassionate about each other. Butsomehow, when we weren’t paying attention, I guess that all changed. We lost touch, literally andfiguratively. We’ve been married fortwenty four years. There’s littleaffection expressed between us, and we have nothing at all to say to each otheranymore, it seems.

“Or, at least that was true until theWonder Wall. Now, she has plenty to sayto me, but I don’t want to hear it, to tell you the truth.” He flinched saying that, feeling it like awound being pricked open.

“Is Gayla concerned about you? Is that why she’s talking about that event atthe Wonder Wall?” Dr. Jellicoe asked.

“Yeah, concerned is the right word, Isuppose. But, to be honest, I thinkshe’s also wondering if I’m just going crazy. And I guess I wonder if Gayla is thinking of leaving me, if maybe she’sbeen thinking that for a long time, but she was waiting for the kids to grow upand all.”

“Did she say that?”

“She didn’t have to say it. We haven’t slept together since Jack was inyear ten at school - that’s three years ago now. And it’s been pretty obvious for the past decadethat Gayla prefers the company of her women friends to me. Those are the people she turns to when shewants to have a talk, or a laugh, or a cry. All that’s a clear enough message, I guess.”

He paused here, considered what he’d justsaid, and then finished the thought. “Notthat I’m blaming Gayla. I’ve always workedtoo much, and when I’m not working, I'm usually busy with other things,like golfing with my mates, or going to my boys’ sports events. I don’t think I’ve been the most attentivehusband in the world. And we have threesons, you know, so Gayla has had no other females in the house for company - unlessyou count our cat, Minx.” Tom sighed again, loosened his tie, and drank morewater.

Dr. Jellicoe was silent for what seemedlike several minutes, but Tom didn’t mind. He was surprised to notice that he felt calm and okay about talking toher. It felt good to say all thesethings he’d known for years but never uttered.

Eventually, Dr. Jellicoe looked him dead inthe eye and asked, “Tom, do you believe you are going crazy?”

Her directness surprised him, but not asmuch as his own silence upon hearing the question. Truth was, he didn’t know.

He stared back at her briefly, then glanced outside at a Japanese Maple, whose leaves were brushed with red and gold.

“What are the tears about, Tom? Can you tell me that?” Her voice was a soft seduction, although Tomknew she did not intend it to be. Shewas attending to him, doing her job, and doing it well, he supposed. Still, he felt a familiar tug towards her -the kind that he no longer felt towards his wife - and he wondered if this iswhat all her patients experienced with her. It was like being held without being touched.

He had not realised that he was crying, butas he reached up his hand to his cheek, he could feel that this was true.

“I don’t know, actually. Normally, I don’t cry, unless someonedies. Sometimes not even then. But these past few weeks, it just comes onrandomly. Usually I don’t even noticeit’s happening." Heremoved a handkerchief from his pocket and scrubbed his face with it, thendrank more water. "Luckily, it hasn’thappened at work, at least not yet. Idon’t know how I’d explain that.”

Again, Dr. Jellicoe waited several minutes beforeresponding. Tom watched her jotsomething in her notebook with a glossy black pen. Then she looked up at him, uncrossed her legs, and leaned forward in herchair, once more meeting his eyes with such a direct gaze that he would havethought it a come-on in another context; but not here. Here, it meant, “I am listening, and you havemy undivided attention.” Tom was not soignorant or vain that he failed to understand that.

“What happened to you at that Wall,Tom? Why does Gayla think you might begoing crazy?”

Tom cleared his throat and broke away from that gaze to the painting on the wall behind Dr. Jellicoe’s head. It was a print, and not a very good one, ofPicasso’s The Old Guitarist. Tom’s eyes rested there as he spoke.

“On a Sunday evening six weeks ago, I cameout of a 7-11 outside the town of Bendano, with two coffees and a receipt for atank of petrol. It was around dusk, andGayla and I were heading home from a weekend in the country, where we’d stayedin our friends’ cabin by Lake Reverie. We’d had an OK time, but nothing special, and we were both thinking ofother things on the drive home. We were dueback at work on Monday morning, so maybe that’s what was on our minds. I can’t really say for sure now. I don’t remember talking much at all."

“Anyway, instead of going right back to thecar, to Gayla, I stopped to look at that wall - the Wonder Wall, it was called -and I guess I stood there longer than I realised, kind of daydreaming orsomething. I don’t clearly recall whathappened around me, just that I heard those kids laughing and talking, and thewall’s colours looked brilliant, and the sun was setting just behind me, so thelight started to change on the wall as I stood there watching it. I think it had some reflective bits on it,some shiny parts that caught the light just beautifully. Or, that’s how I remember it, anyway."

“After a while, the wall seemed to developa shimmer, and it was like it started to breathe - like a living thing. The whales and octopuses and fish began tomake swimming motions, and the planets and stars lit up, like real planets, andreal stars. And you know, all this time,I was thinking, ‘No wonder it’s called the Wonder Wall, this is fantastic!’because I think it’s all part of the gimmick, even though I hadn’t figuredout how it worked."

“Then, I began to hear music coming fromit. First, it was just music like an oldcalliope would make on a carousel. But thenthe sounds of the sea rose up out of the wall - real sounds, of waves washing up on rocks, and gulls squawkingoverhead - even though we were nowhere near the ocean."

"Dr. Jellicoe, I could hear the whales singing. I’ve never in my life heard whales singing,except on a recording. It was magicaland beautiful beyond belief. I couldfeel the sun on my face, even though I knew it had set. The sand blew into my eyes, and I could feelmy hair being whipped up by the sea breeze."

“And the children were just laughing allthe time ..."

Tom stopped.

Dr. Jellicoe said nothing, nor did shemove.

Tom considered the man in the paintingagain, and how his guitar must have meant everything to him. How the whole of his life had been reduced tothis one defining moment, and this one essential instrument, rendered in thesaddest shades of blue Tom had ever seen.

He took a deep breath, and then drank whatremained of his water before continuing.

“Yes, the children were laughing all thetime, right up until the moment that they turned away from the world, andfrom me. They swirled around to face thewall, and then disappeared into it."

“After that, everything stopped. There was no more music, no more whale song, nomore laughter ... or wind, or sun, or gulls, or swimming fish, or breathingwalls. It all just ... stopped.”

“And what did you do then, Tom?” The gentle voice inquired from somewhere, andTom knew it was Dr. Jellicoe, but he felt far from her now, lost in a wakingdream.

“What I did was I dropped the coffees. I don’t remember doing that, but that is whatGayla said, and I am sure it’s true. Becausewhat I do remember is that I ran to the wall and began screaming and banging onthe wall, trying to find the children, trying to make it open up again.”

Dr. Jellicoe remained silent for severalminutes before responding, perhaps giving Tom time to add to his story; perhaps considering what he’d said; or, perhaps performing some other inscrutable butnecessary service.

“Yes, that is what Gayla said she saw,too,” she said. “Except for a fewdifferences. Do you know what thosedifferences are? I am sure she toldyou.”

“Yes, of course. She’s told me again and again.”

Tom wondered whether, if he stared at The Old Guitarist long enough, he wouldbegin to hear a melancholy Spanish tune, and to smell the streets of Barcelona.

“She told me, Dr. Jellicoe, that there wereno swimming sea creatures on that wall, and no lit-up stars or planets, and nomusic, and no sea breeze ... Andcertainly no children, laughing or otherwise. And she told me all of these things as she pulled me away from the wall,and away from the staring customers in the parking lot. And she told me them all over again, all theway home in the car - which she insisted on driving.”

“And did you believe her?”

“I don’t know what I believe anymore, Dr.Jellicoe.”

Dr. Jellicoe glanced away from Tom then, asshe removed her glasses, rubbed her eyes, and sat back again in her brownleather chair. Tom heard her sigh.

“Tom, what did you hope to do? What were you wanting or needing, banging onthat wall?”

Tom considered this. Maybe there was a clear and true answer thatwas not crazy, or maybe there was not. But he gave her the only answer he had.

“I just wanted to go, too.”

Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez. Text by TD Whittle.

What does 13 Ways mean? All of our stories with 13 Ways in the title are part of an ongoing creative project, which you can read about here:

13 Ways of Looking: our illustrated story series

Dreams

2011-12-17T10:15:00.000-06:00

Isn't that plane flying awfully low...

Listening to the radio the other day I was surprised to hear a story about stilt walking. I was even more surprised to be taken back to a recurring childhood dream. In the dream I'm standing in our yard just off the front porch when a man on stilts rounds the corner from the back yard. Sometimes it was my father on the stilts, sometimes some other man (or men); I either don't remember (or never knew) who. The feeling the sight evoked was a mixture of beguilement and distress. Although the sight of someone on stilts was exciting, it was also somehow just wrong. That memory started me thinking about the other recurring dreams I've had--and there have been several, aside from the naked at church/school/work dreams and the forgot to study for finals/go to class all semester/show up for work dreams.

There are two others from childhood that I distinctly remember. One stars a crush I had starting around age eleven and going on for some years. The object of my crush was the neighbor kids' cousin, so he was around just often enough to tantalize, but not enough to become familiar and boring. In my dreams I would somehow know that he had arrived next door for a visit and I would rush over to say hi only to find a stranger standing in their living room. Naturally everyone would insist that it was Mike even though it clearly was not. The other recurring childhood dream involved me, in my own bed, listening to the steady, insistent beat of soldiers marching. I could hear them getting closer and closer and sometimes my bedroom wall would become transparent and I could actually see them marching on the highway toward us. This dream was accompanied by the feeling that I had to warn everyone, but, of course, I was paralyzed and unable to move.

A bad relationship in college resulted in years of dreams featuring that former boyfriend in which his nose had taken on the district shape of a penis. My dream dick head?

Adulthood brought a couple of new recurring dreams. One always involved my teeth falling out; sometimes one at a time and sometimes all at once. The other has me standing by impotently as a plane crashes. It's always a big passenger plane and I'm close enough to feel the wind and be deafened by the crash, but never harmed or even touched by debris. And I'm always overwhelmed by the knowledge that I could have stopped it.

I really can't remember the last time I thought about the stilts dreams. They had receded, like so many childhood memories, so far into the recesses of my brain that they had almost disappeared. But now that I have remembered them, I can't help wanting to examine them. I mean the plane and tooth dreams are clearly stress related, but what makes a child have a recurring dream about stilt walking--someone else stilt walking at that? Maybe someday I should ask her.

Photos and text by Sandra Peterson-Ramirez

Slouching Toward Christmastime

2011-12-11T09:59:00.000-06:00

Spirited Coffee

"The Angels were all singing out of tune, And hoarse with having little else to do, Excepting wind up the sun and moon Or curb a runaway young star or two."
~Lord Byron

Spirited Playing

"I do like Chrtistmas on the whole... In its clumsy way, it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But it is clumsier every year."
~E. M. Forster

Juxtapositional Ornamentation

Det satt en arg älg i julgranen i Göteborg. (An angry moose sat in the christmas tree in Gothenburg.)

~Wikiquote, Swedish tongue twister

Public Cheer

Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time is Here" is hands down my favorite piece of Christmas music. It makes me happy and sad and wistful all at once, but mostly it just goes so perfectly with a fire in the hearth, a glass of wine and presents to be wrapped. If all else fails, it also just goes with the glass of wine.

Is This Thing On?

2011-12-06T00:30:00.001-06:00

Early Test pattern for WKY TV, now KFOR TV
Oklahoma City (retrieved from their site)

"This is a test. For the next sixty seconds, this station will conduct a test of the Email Subscription System. This is only a test."

We have an icon on our main page sidebar inviting readers to "Follow by E-mail" for updates to our site (see under the "Warm Up Here" photo of the woman drinking coffee). The "Follow by Email" gadget works like this:

... a simple way for readers to subscribe to the latest hot-off-the-press updates, which are delivered directly to the reader’s inbox. When new blog content is published, all subscribed readers will receive a daily email notification of the new published posts, which includes a copy of the new content as well as links back to the actual posts. (Blogger Buzz post by Brett Wiltshire on 17 March)

We conducted a test run, because we were doubting its efficiency, but as of 19 Dec 2011, we can say for certain that the "Follow by E-mail" gadget is working. So if you enjoy our site, please feel free to sign up to receive fresh posts in your Inbox.

You may also subscribe to our blog by choosing from a variety of other options. This post will tell you how: How to Stay Up-to-Date with Us.

Cheers!

13 Ways: The Offering

2011-12-05T05:07:00.001-06:00

“Say, hey, good lookin

What you got cookin?

How’s about cookin somethinup with me?

Say hey sweet baby

Don’t you think maybe

We could find us a brand newrecipe?”

- Hank Williams, Sr. Hey Good-Lookin

Della’s sneakershit the asphalt as she stepped off the bus from school, and immediately sheregretted not having worn her better shoes. The rubber soles of this pair were rubbed so thin that the heat comingoff the street seared the bottoms of her feet.

“Like two catfishin a frying pan,” Janice would say later over dinner, laughing when Della toldher the story. “I told you to stopwearing those ugly things a while back, didn’t I?” Janice was good natured, and would not giveDella too hard a time about it; nevertheless, she relished handing out an “Itold you so” to her daughter on occasion.

Della lived withher mother and her six-year-old brother, Cayce, in a working-class neighborhoodoutside town. The house they renteddidn’t look like much, but at least it was weatherproof, and a lot better thansome of the places they’d lived since her parents’ divorce. Still, Della knewthat Janice struggled to meet their bills every month, despite their modestneeds and natural thriftiness.

Della did notmind where they lived, as long as the three of them were together and safe fromher father; but she did wish they had not moved to so sultry a climate, a thousandmiles from where she grew up. Shewished, too, that more girls her age lived nearby. From what she could gather, most of the girlsat school lived near one another, and far from Della - their housesdotted around town, or at least within walking distance. Some of them had a house in town as well as aworking ranch or farm out in the surrounding country side. Della could only imagine what such luxurymight be like, and she hoped she might one day receive an invitation to ridehorses with them.

Janice had chosena good school for Della, and she worked hard to pay the fees for her to attend,so it was no surprise to Della that most of the other girls’ families werebetter off, financially, than her own. Della was proud of her mother for making this choice on her behalf, butshe also felt guilty about it sometimes.

The heat andsilence of the street were so total that it reminded her of a science fictionmovie she’d seen on TV, about a whole town whose people disappeared oneafternoon; no birds sang, no dogs barked, and no children played in theyards. Reflecting on this, Della wasoverwhelmed by a sense of desolation, so she distracted herself by calling tomind her old town and its seasonal treasures - the feel of fresh snow pelting herface, like the soft paws of kittens; the shock of hurling hersun-burnt body off a diving platform into a cold lake; and the gentler pleasure ofthe local park in autumn, where leaves tumbled on the wind.

Della waslearning that late May in the South, at least where she lived, meant intolerableheat, humidity, sweat, and mosquitoes, and she felt as though it was nearlyimpossible to dress light enough for the weather. Her school's buildings were comfortable enough, but the enclosed bus was stifling, and she was nearly an hour getting to her stop by the time all the other kids were dropped off.

Still, the bus was nothing compared to her full exposure to the glaring daylight. The jeans she wore felt too heavy. The Madonna t-shirt she’d scrounged from her mother’s dresser was looseon her, and worn thin from two decades of washing, so she’d hoped it would keepher cool; but only a block and a half from the bus, it felt damp, and stuck toher body in various patches. Even her eyes were sweating, in the spots where the plastic of her sunglasses met tender skin.

Della mulled overher options for managing her own comfort better, especially in the hotnights. The house was stuffy and theycould not afford an air conditioner, but her mother did not like Della’smakeshift bedroom out on the front porch, where she would drag her mattress inhope of catching a breeze through the fly screens.

"What breeze?" Janice would ask, reasonably. It occurred to Della that the breeze may blow only in her imagination or memory; but she needed to believe in its possibilities, nonetheless. Janice insisted that the porch might not besafe, as there was no lock on the screen door, and the screens themselves werehalf torn off in some places. It causedarguments, and Della hated arguments like she hated the heat. She preferred people and conversations toremain cool and calm at all times. Lifewas better that way.

Della consideredthis as she readjusted her sunglasses, swept her hair off her face,and moved past her neighbors’ houses. She could end the arguments, and they could all live better, if she couldjust earn some money; but what were her options, at thirteen? Della thought about the pros and cons ofbeing thirteen, which she had been contemplating for all of one month.

One big pro wasthat thirteen beat eleven or twelve; those ages felt like years ago to her now,located as they were in that distant country of childhood. Of course, Della thought, she was mature forher age, way ahead of most of her peers; and while she knew other girls believedthis about themselves, too, she was sure that, in her own case, it was true.

Another pro ofthirteen was that she was starting to look like a woman instead of a littlegirl. Boys were noticing her, and shewas noticing their noticing. This wasscary, but it felt good, too, like being an adult. Della liked best of all that her outside selfwas starting to catch up with her inside self. Curvaceous, capable, confident, and clever - those were “the four Cs ofwomanhood,” her mother had taught her; somewhat teasing, Della thought, but notentirely. Whether or not Janice wasjoking, Della had liked the sound of those words, and she repeated them toherself as a kind of mantra, aiming to embody them.

What she also likedabout turning thirteen was that this made her - at least technically - one yearcloser in age to Reese Baker, who lived next door and seemed hardly to noticeher. Della figured this was partly dueto her age, and partly because, when he wasn’t at school or practising with his band, Reese usually had his head stuck under thehood of his car; so it was no wonder he’d not had a good look at her since she’dmoved in next door. But Della hadenjoyed watching him work on his Ford from the privacy of her porch, where she perched on a high stool to improve her view, and struggled to pay attention to her homework. She often wonderedwhat it would be like if Reese ever looked up and saw her watching him, andinvited her in for a glass of iced tea or a Coca-Cola. She wondered if she would be embarrassed, orif it would just feel natural between them.

Just now, though,her burning feet kept her daydreams about Reese from wandering too far, andbrought her back to reflecting on the limits of her youth. Mostly, there werepractical problems. Thirteen was still acouple years shy of being able to get a regular job, or a driver’s licence; andeven though she worked hard at school, that wasn’t going to pay any bills - atleast not yet. One day, though, shewould earn enough money to take care of her family herself, and her mothercould stop working two jobs, and relax a little. Della would buy them a roomy house, surroundedby shade trees, with an air conditioner in every room. Maybethey would even have a swimming pool, and a car that didn’t break down, so thatif her mother did want to have a job, she could get there on time everyday. For Cayce, Della would find aspecial school that could help him with his learning difficulties.

For now, though, heroptions for employment were few. If theyhad not moved from Dargo, she would still be earning babysitting money. She had stashed a bit aside, but it was notenough for an air conditioner, she knew that. She wondered if the neighbors around here might want a babysittersometimes, then realised that they hardly knew her, so why would they trust herwith their kids? Then again, why not? Maybe she would ask around.

Della had walkedtwo full blocks and was nearing home when she took action to gain some relief from the swelter. She dropped her book bag to theground, pulled off her sunglasses, grasped the bottom of her t-shirt, used itto scrub the sweat off her face and neck, and then tied the ends together underher bra. That done, she stuck herglasses back on her face, and reached down to roll the cuffs of her jeans up toher knees. She was alarmed by thedizziness that overtook her when she righted herself again, but figured she’dbe fine once she got to the shade of her front lawn.

Della pushed herbook bag back onto her shoulder, scooped her hair into a pony tail, and securedit with a rubber band chosen from the several encompassing her left wrist. Shefelt a bit better having done these things, though her breathing was becominglabored, and she wondered if she was developing asthma from this new climate. She longed for an ice-cold drink in a waythat she could not remember ever having longed for one.

In the lateafternoon deadness of her neighborhood, Della heard Hank Williams singing “Hey,hey, good lookin, watcha got cookin?” and noted that the song sounded scratchy and old-fashioned,like somebody playing a vinyl record instead of a remastered CD on a Sony. Della knew about these things because herfather had collected old country western records, and because he’d loved HankWilliams, and all the kinds of things Hank Williams stood for. Della’s mother, on the other hand, had notloved these things.

Della felt a quick stab of longing for her father. A memory rushed to her, unbidden, sharply focused. She remembered being little, her father scooping her up to dance her round the house - a big grin on his face, his powerful voice joining in with Hank's. She had felt safe back then, when he would hold her high in his arms, or close to his chest as it resonated with Your Cheatin Heart. That had been back when her love for her father was a clear and sparkling stream; not the murky bog it was now. Yearning for him and hating him all at the same time was a complicated way to live; but she was used to it, mostly, and figured her mother must feel the same.

Della’s straight path home led her soon to the source of the music, right next door to her ownhouse. It was here that she spotted the yellowrabbit, and the pink bear - stuffed toys sitting side by side on a fence top, borderedby Easter baskets, all slightly askew.

Her first reactionwas to laugh, happy for the distraction from her family life. She knew these toys. They were from this past Easter, when, asevery other year, Janice had filled a basket for each of her kids and hiddenthem in the house, along with a new stuffed animal - typically a rabbit forDella, a bear for Cayce. Della and Caycewould devour the chocolates right away, and then gobble the jelly beans, the gummy snakes,the liquorice whips, the candy corns, the sugared eggs, the caramels, and the all-daysuckers that never did last all day. This left only the plastic grass, and a few dyed eggs banging around againstthe straw sides of the baskets. Thesethey returned to their mother, pleading innocence and requesting refills, whichwas also part of their family tradition.

“Seriously, Mom,they came like this ... totally empty. Idon't know how a thing like this could happen. It’s weird - or, at least negligent. How about you fillthem up now, and hide them, and we’ll find them all over again? Cayce and I will overlook your error thisfirst time round ...”

Cayce would breakup laughing when Della and Janice teased each other like this. Often, he did not understand the content oftheir banter, but he could infer from their voices and smiles that itwas meant to be funny, and that was enough for him.

“Refills comingright up!” Janice would reply. “Checkback with us in a year. The Easter Bunnyshould have them ready then, and I promise to deliver on time, with my usuallevel of efficiency.” Janice would takethe baskets then and empty them out, saving the eggs for their lunches, andtossing the plastic grass into the bin.

Della stoppedwalking and stared at the things on the fence, from a spot on the dirt strip infront of the Baker’s house. She wassorting through her thoughts, and trying to calm a rising unease in her gut. She felt slightly sick and her muscles were cramping- but maybe that was just from the heat? Or maybe not. Were these her and Cayce’sthings, or did they just look like them? No doubt, the stuff was cheap, and could be purchased at any drug storein town. But Della wondered now whereher mother had left their Easter baskets and plush toys once the holiday hadpassed. Hadn’t they been on the porch,with Della?

Hank crooned on, “There's soda pop and the dancin's free, soif you wanna have fun come along with me.” The record had been restarted. Della glanced around, but saw no one who might have done it ... Ofcourse not, why would she? The littlekids would not be playing outside in this intense heat. There were no other kids Della’s age on theirstreet, that she knew of, and the adults would be at work, orinside minding children, cooking meals, and washing laundry - or so sheimagined. She really had no idea whatthese people got up to when she wasn’t around, now that she thought about it.

One step farther from the dirt strip, and closer to the fence, was enough to notice that the toysand baskets rested, not on the fence itself, but on the tops of openedrecycling bins pushed up against it ... Were they for sale? Were theBaker’s having a garage sale, selling her and her brother’s Easter gifts? This was too bizarre to believe - unless itwas a joke, put there to get her attention. With a rush of excitement, Della imagined that Reese had been seeing herall along, and that this was his way of letting her know. Surely, Cayce or their mom had left thesethings in the yard, and then Reese had gathered them up as a kind of joke, and setthem on the fence, so she would see them and have a laugh, and stop in for thatlong awaited glass of iced tea or Coke.

As she thought ofdrinks, her throat ached. She realisedthat she was probably becoming dehydrated, and then remembered the water bottlethat Janice sometimes filled and packed into her bag. Della tossed her book bag to the ground andrifled through its contents, eventually finding the bottle, empty and halfcrushed beneath her English and Algebra books. As she stood upright again, her earlier dizziness returned, so she tooka deep breath and tried to steady herself.

Right about then,she realised that someone was watching her from the shadows just inside theBaker’s garage. No doubt the same personwho was replaying old Hank’s number one hit, and Della knew even as she saidhis name that it was not the one she’d hoped for.

“Reese?”

The man stood upfrom where he was perched on a stack of something Della could not see clearly,and walked up to the fence to greet her.

“Well hellothere, Miss Della ... ain’t that right?”

Della pulled her sunglassesback over her hair, since her mother had taught her never to greet someonewithout looking at them directly, which meant not through dark lenses.

“Oh, hello Mr.Baker. Yes, it’s Della. I thought you were Reese there for a minute.”

Mr. Bakerlaughed, and Della smelled beer on his breath, even though he was a good threefeet away from her. She knew that smellfrom back when her parents were still together. She did not like it. To Della, HankWilliams and beer meant an inevitable degeneration into yelling and hitting - aswift and total destruction of the calm, cool world she preferred.

“You know my boyReese, do you?” Mr. Baker asked, andleaned on top of the fence post. He wasropey and shrewd looking in his dirty t-shirt, with hair like dried grass, and skinburnt to leather from years in the sun - all of which meant that he looked like dozens of other men Della had known. The kind of men who drank too much and sworetoo much and hit their wives and kids whenever life took a swipe at them ...which was often, in their own minds. Itoccurred to Della that Reese might one day look just like this - that what madehim so handsome now was that he was young and fresh, and had not yet repeatedhis father’s life.

“Uhmmm ... sure, I know him a little.” Della was close enough to the fence to get aclear look at the Easter gifts now, and she did not know what to say. The baskets belonged to her and Cayce, no doubtabout it, as did the toys. Mr. Bakerwatched Della inspect them, but said nothing by way of explanation.

“So you sellingthese or something, Mr. Baker? Why are they on the fence?”

“Ha! Sellingthem? Oh no, dearie me, not sellingthem. Not at all. Why don’t you look a little closer, missy? See what the Easter Bunny brung you.” Mr. Baker reached out a hand to Della, whichshe pretended not to see; but she wondered at his comment, so she did move closer,finally going up on her toes to gain a full view into the baskets. As she did this, she wondered, too, if Mr.Baker was crazy, or just drunk. Easter? Easter,like Della’s birthday, was in April, and that was long past now.

The yellow rabbitwhose ear she caressed was her own, and in its accompanying basket was anassortment of sweets - turned to goo in the heat. Cayce’s things were next to hers, on theright, but the other baskets perched there belonged to neither of them. Della wondered what kids he’d got those from,as surely Reese was too old and too cool for such things. Inside the largest, outermost basket, was anassortment of colored plastic eggs, the kind that you could hide things in,and beneath those, bright silver coins shone out at Della.

“So what youthink? See anything you like, MissDella?” Della reached forward to touchthe cheap baubles, bemused, yet mesmerized by the oddity of it all. Mr. Baker pushed various things aside tounlatch the gate that stood between them, and beckoned Della inside the fence. “You’d best step into the shade, missy,you’re lookin bout on the verge of heatstroke. I have some ice-cold lemonadeand Co-Colas here in the garage. You like some of those?”

Della blinkedhard at him. White circles swam up inher vision.

“Yeah, I guessso.” She was overcome by an image ofherself at home, drenched head to toe in a cold shower, and feltsuddenly desperate to be there; but it occurred to her that Mr. Baker could be rightabout heatstroke. Della could notremember when she’d last had water, and she regretted the salty chips she’deaten for lunch.

Mr. Baker tookher arm gently and led Della through the gate.

“Well, you sitdown right here, missy, and I’ll get you that cold drink. You want to come inside the garage withme?”

“No, I’ll be okayhere, thanks, Mr. Baker.” Della droppedher bag and then herself into an old office chair at the opening of the garagedoor, at the edge of the shade. It was arelief to sit down, and she noticed that she was no longer sweating; but then rememberedfrom health class at school that this may not be a good thing. Wasn’t sweating supposed to cool you down?

Mr. Bakerdelivered the Coke, which Della figured was the best thing she had ever tasted,and she was grateful to him for providing it. After a gulping down a first bottle, and accepting a second one as achaser, Della’s nausea and dizziness subsided, her vision cleared, and she felther breathing returning to normal. Mr.Baker seemed content to stand near her, watching her drink soda, andlistening to Hank.

As Della watched,he started the record playing again, and she wondered how many timeshe’d listened to it today. Della didthat sometimes, too - played her favorite songs over and over, especially whenthe album was new.

All Della’sfamily loved music. Once in a while, Dellaand Cayce would arrange an impromptu dance party for Janice, to lift her spirits. They would dress up in their mother’s old t-shirts, kick off their shoes, and shove the furniture backto the walls in the living room. Then, they would entice Janice into the room by putting on some of her music from the Time Before, as she called it.

Della understoodthat this meant Janice’s life before she met the man she would marry, and whosechildren she would bear. The one she would fight with, then forgive, then fightwith again, and finally leave in the middle of the night, in a worn-out stationwagon, with just a few suitcases and their two kids packed in. When Della dancedwith Janice, she could see in her mother’s joyful movements how young she’d once been, andhow untroubled. She loved to see her like this.

Yet somehow, itfelt different watching Mr. Baker play this one record over and over again. Della could not understand why. There was no joy in it, that she couldfeel. Della searched for something tosay that would relieve the pressure of thinking about this.

“So, Mr. Baker,those Easter toys, where’d you get them? See, my brother, Cayce and me, we have some just like that, from our Momthis past holiday.”

Della regrettedasking this, almost before she’d finished the question, but Mr. Baker did notseem at all embarrassed, as Della would have under the same circumstances. He was smiling and looking her straight inthe eyes - but a bit shyly, like she’d just walked in on a surprise party he’darranged for her, and hoped she’d be pleased.

“Well, Della, Ithought maybe you would enjoy a refill, seeing as how they were all empty, youknow?” Mr. Baker leaned close to Dellawhere she sat on the office chair, and as she inhaled his beery smell and body odour,she instantly pulled away from him, hoping he didn’t notice her repulsion. She appreciated the Coke, but she wanted togo home now, and wondered how long she might need to stay there in order toavoid seeming rude.

Mr. Baker movedthen, too, until they were separated by mere inches, and that was when Dellasaw up close the contents of the largest Easter basket, which he perched on herlap, where it felt heavy and warm.

“Look here now; see what the old EasterBunny’s got for you here. And by theway, you can call me Bobby, if you like.” Mr. Baker winked at Della, and took her empty Coke bottle away, tossing it into the grass nearby.

Until this moment, Della could have summed up all that she knew or cared toknow regarding the Bakers, in a few brief sentences: Reese Baker was 16 and hot - a bit of a fail at sports, but admired by girls and boysalike, because he played electric guitar like a rock star; because he could fixany engine that was not electronic (that meant vintage cars, which were cool); andbecause he wouldn’t take grief off anybody. These were the important things, Della thought,which a girl her age, who lived next door to such a boy, would want to know.

But what else hadshe heard about the Bakers? She tried torecall the gossip other people had blabbed to her or her mother, which shewould have ignored at the time as irrelevant to herself and her family. One thing she remembered now was that Mr. Bakercollected silver dollars, which he had done for years, and everyone guessedthat he probably had thousands of them by now, but he never let anyone seethem. Another thing she remembered,which seemed obvious now, was that Mr. Baker was a drunk, and that he’d been anunemployed drunk ever since he got laid off from his last job in constructionten years ago.

No one talked badabout Mrs. Baker, and all Della remembered now was someone telling her and hermom that Dee Dee, as she was called, worked at the bakery in town; attended theBaptist Church on Sundays; and got on with life as best she could, despitebeing married to “that old drunken coot.”

At the moment,the silver dollars seemed to be increasingly relevant to Della’s life, becausethere was something Mr. Baker was trying to tell her about them, as he loomedover her and gestured at the basket on her lap. He yammered on, pausing only long enough to restart Hankagain. Della tried to listen andunderstand, but she felt hot and exhausted, and inexplicably distressed by hisnearness. He was Reese’s dad, after all,and his wife was a Baptist baker. Howbad could he be? But the longer hetalked, the more his voice took on the quality of someone calling from a great distance,and Della felt herself slipping into a kind of reverie.

She was becoming toohot again, and feeling sick, and the dizziness was returning; yet still, shewaited for a pause in Mr. Baker’s monologue, when she could make an excuse andleave. It seemed never to come.

Eventually, Mr.Baker took one of Della’s hands in his own, and pushed her fingers through themound of silver. Some of the plasticeggs popped open as he did this, revealing the currency inside. “A crazy man’s treasure,” Della thought, but she didn’t say this. Mr. Baker did not seem to want her tospeak. Occasionally, he asked a questionof her, which he then either answered himself, or assumed to be rhetorical.

“You see there, MissDella, that’s a nice little offering, wouldn’t you say? If you open up the rest of them eggs, you’llsee there’s even more inside there, all for you. What you think of that, huh?”

Della was silent. She didn't know what to think of that.

“Say hey, sweetbaby ... “ Mr. Baker sang along with Hank now, and wiggled his hips a little as he took hold of the basket she held, then two-stepped away with it, into the shadows behind them. The record wasn't even finished yet, but he restarted it again, anyway.

Della started to rise, but then Mr. Baker was behind her, reaching around her to grasp her forearms. He bent them upward, pressing them hard against her chest, so that he was holding her tight and still.

Della felt Mr.Baker rubbing himself slowly but firmly against her back, which she realisedshe’d made easy for him by the habit she had of sitting sideways in chairs. When she was too warm, she liked her backfree to the air, and not resting against anything. Except now it was resting against Mr. Baker.

Della thoughtthat to someone seeing them from the street, at a distance, it would like nothingmuch at all. They might think that Mr. Baker was herfather or uncle, playing a game with her in the driveway. Nothing worth glancing at a second time. And maybeit truly was nothing at all, to other people. Della wasn’t sure. But she wanted it to stop.

“Mr. Baker, Ithink I need to go home now,” she heard her own voice, rising up from a remote placeinside her.

Della was surenow that neither her mother nor Cayce had left the Easter gifts in the yard, ortossed them into the recycle bins, or left them out for the Salvation Armypick-up that came round now and again after the holidays. Della understood that while she had slept onher porch, or perhaps after she’d left it, Mr. Baker had watched, and waited,and eventually walked right into her private space and taken what belonged toher.

Mr. Baker sang,“I’m free and ready so we can go steady ...”

“Mr. Baker? Mr. Baker, I have to go. My mom should behome any minute now ...”

Mr. Baker did notrespond, and when Della tried to stand, Mr. Baker used the pressure of her own arms to crushthe resistance out of her, until she thought her ribs might break. Yet she did not cry out.

Then, like a gift fromnowhere, Della was remembering something she’d learned at a self-defence classshe’d taken with Janice, back in Dargo when she was eleven: that sometimes, talking a lot was a good wayto get an attacker off you. Sometimes,talking was all you had. Della wasn’tsure if Mr. Baker counted as an attacker, but she was sure that she wanted himoff her, so she summoned her voice again, and tried to hold it steady while she told thefirst story that came to mind. It wasone she had not told before.

“Do you know, Mr.Baker, that one time, when I was about six years old, just before Cayce wasborn, my daddy took me into the city, and we rode on a train?”

Mr. Baker wasmute, but his body was not. It had a lotto say to Della. Della felt his urgency ina way that she neither fully understood nor wanted to contemplate.

“We spent the daythere, and he met a man about maybe getting some work with him. And when it was time to go home, the trainswere delayed for a very long time. Whilethe train was delayed, as we stood there on the platform, I saw this little ratstruggling on the tracks. I think it washurt, you know, because it could not get up off the tracks and get itself tosafety. It was just right there wereanybody could see it, anybody could get to it.

“So I asked my daddyif we should help it, but he just said, ‘Don’t be stupid, it’s a damn rat; andanyway, there’s nothing we can do for it.’

“And after awhile, while we were still waiting for the train, this other, much bigger ratcame along and it grabbed the little rat and dragged it away, off to the sideof the tracks, underneath the platform.

“So I said,‘Daddy, look, that big rat is saving that little one, look at that!’ and I wasso happy, because I didn’t know that rats looked after each other like that,that they could be so kind, so gentle.

“And you know, hejust laughed and laughed at me, and when he stopped laughing, he leaned me overthe side of the platform just enough to see underneath, and there they were.The two rats. The little one half devoured by the big one.”

Mr. Baker made anoise that sounded like choking, and thrust harder into Della’s back - so hardthis time that it jolted her to action. Adrenalinesurging to her aid, Della pushed hard as she could, thrusting herself up andout of the chair, determined to get away from him, even at the cost of bonescracking.

Mr. Baker was fargone by then, fully in thrall to his fantasy of good looking women and hotrod Fords, but he was also fast as a rattlesnake. He grappled with Della so fiercely that Hankwas kicked right off the turntable, and then crushed underfoot. Della was grabbed and hauledbackward into the dim suffocation of the garage, and panic filled her throat with bile, as she realised she could not free herself. Still, she did not give up. Her arms were restrained behind her, so she used her legs and feet, kicking backwards and stomping repeatedly, hoping to connect hard with a knee or crush a foot under her own.

Mr. Baker danced her round the garage, cursing at her but keeping her from inflicting any real damage on him, and finally pressed her flat between himself and the wall. She was not screaming, yet he clasped one hand over her mouth, then used the other to unbuckle his belt. She understood then that her last defence had failed her, catastrophically.

Della would wonder,for years afterwards, what might have happened if, just then, her mother’s voice had not sung out, callingher home.

“Della? Honey, you over there?” Janice moved across their front yard, perhapswith a mother’s sixth sense that one of her children needed her; perhaps because she knew aboutDella’s infatuation with the boy next door. Della would never know what mysterious feelings, thoughts, or visions led her mother to seek her out at the Baker's house that day.

The sound ofJanice was enough to break whatever spell Mr. Baker was laboring under. He released Della suddenly, shoving her away fromhim and pushing her out the garage door, like some filth he’d found in his driveway.

With sweat pouring into his eyes and half blinding him, he spun round and stumbled into the old brown record player again, sending it skidding into the wall. He sought and laid hold of his basket ofsilver coins, and plastic eggs filled with cash, and then turned back to where he'd left Della, thrusting it at her.

But Della hadmoved far outside the garage, back into the sun, where she stooped to pick up theglass Coke bottle Mr. Baker had tossed onto the grass by the driveway. With one hard crack, she smashed it against the housebricks to make a jagged but serviceable weapon.

Her breathing was sharp and shallow. Sweat made her skin slick and her eyes burn; but she was prepared to do battle, if necessary. She switched the bottle to one hand, then the other, as she wiped her palms on her jeans, her gaze never leaving Mr. Baker. She wouldnot be taken off guard again.

Mr. Baker rushedover to her, spilling some of the coins and eggs, and as he came near, Dellaraised the broken bottle neck in front of her. Although he made no sign of noticing this, he kept his distance all thesame.

Still, he shook thebasket at her, creating a wild and jangling music, like Gypsies playingtambourines. It occurred to Della that, under other circumstances, she would have enjoyed the sound of that silvery clatter.

“There now, youtake that, you go on ahead! You go onhome to your mamma! You take anotherCo-Cola, too, and some of them lemonades!”

He was panting like a hard-worked bird dog and everything he said came out like a shout.

Della stared athim, but she did not move. She felt as ifshe were appraising this situation, and this man, from that calm place insideher where she'd earlier sought refuge, and where now, at last, she rested.

“Go on now, you takethis, I said! It’s a present, an offeringfrom your friend Bobby Baker! You takeit now, like a good girl! You tell yourmamma the Easter Bunny come twice this year!”

Della imagined herselfslitting his throat, if only to stop the shouting.

“Della?” Janice called again, closer now. Della glanced across the fence into her own front yard. Her mother was walking over now and was at least halfway across the lawn, bearing two paper bags of groceries.

Della did notwant her to see this.

“I’ll be rightthere, Mamma, just getting some things over here at the Bakers.” Her own voice, not a shout, swam up from the depths of her repose, just loud enough to traverse the distance between them.

“Okay, honey, seeyou in a minute!”

Mr. Baker stood stock still. Silent now, he dropped his basket, which landed hard on the cement. He walked back up the drive and lowered himself into the chair where he'd molested Della only minutes before. Once there, he seemed to collapse into himself with a ragged sigh, his energy sapped, his eyes hollowed out.

Perhaps something more than his energy was gone, but Della could not guess what. Yet, this was not the first time in her life she'd seen a man come undone by his own actions. He leaned down to gather up the shattered pieces of Hank Williams off the ground, then sat there holding them in his hands, like he’d forgot she wasthere.

Della thought he looked like someone who’d stumbled upon a crime scene with a gutted corpse, surprised to discover his own knifejutting out of the wound. Seeing him like this, she realised that she was no longer afraid of Mr. Baker, but she would not turnher back to him again. She inched backwards,toward the gate, tossing her broken bottle out onto the driveway.

He didn’t look upas it skittered past his shoes.

Della glimpsed Cayce’s and her Easter gifts, still perched abovethe fence, their static pose and unseeing eyes reminding her of something she’d learned in History, about how warrior kingswould skewer the heads of enemies on spikes, then mount them on their castlewalls.

She recalled how littlethese things had meant to her last month; how she’d thought about telling hermom that she was getting too old for this kind of stuff; and how that wasprobably still true. But just now, thetoys seemed as real as any living thing, and as vulnerable tosuffering and degradation. Della gatheredthem to her, and moved toward home.

Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez. Text by TD Whittle.

What does 13 Ways mean? All of our posts with 13 Ways in the title are part of an ongoing creative project, which you can read about here:

13 Ways of Looking: our illustrated story series

"Walking beside us was Nina Simone"

2011-12-03T14:11:00.001-06:00

This is a shelf in my medicine cabinet. I couldn't tell you exactly when it became so, to put it politely, non-utiliariarian. It holds a postcard from a coffee shop that no longer exists, a postcard from a place I've never been, my everyday perfume, a couple of Escada perfume samples I rarely wear because they're a bit heady for my daily life and, the newest edition, a box of worry dolls. The dolls, a gift from the last hotel I stayed in, are supposed to take away worry and allow peaceful dreams and came with instructions to transfer one worry into each doll before bedtime. Of course my first thought was I'm going to need a bigger box of dolls.

But they add a nice South of the Border touch to my little let's-not-call-it-a-shrine-ok. So in honor of these hard working little protectors of my sleep, here's Tom Russell singing about Nina Simone providing the soundtrack for his travels across Mexico. This all seemed more thematic before I started trying to explain it all, but really anything that ends with Nina Simone can't be a failure.

13 Ways: Inheritance

2011-11-26T17:57:00.000-06:00

Dear Janesy,

I have enclosed a photo of our oldhomestead, now yours.

I know you will think I have left younothing but a money pit - a pile of debris on land that may seem cursed, spurnedfor decades by God and Nature alike, and then - well, the terrible fire thatended everything, or most things.

As for me, I go on.

I know you will think either that I musthate you, or that I must be laughing at you from the Great Beyond, to haveleft you such a thing. But I know, too, that you will not resell it or walk away, abandoning it to time and weather, as others might havedone.

You will regenerate the old place,regardless of its evident hopelessness. Actually, you will do it precisely because of its evident hopelessness. You are like that, I think. A curious girl, an enigmatic woman.

Yet here is a fact which will redeem me inyour eyes, I hope - for when you think of me, I wish it to be with love - or atleast kindness - and not resentment, fear, or hate: There is something here, on this land,swirling in and around and through the house, permeating everything.

You would remember, perhaps, from when youwere a child, visiting us at home on Sunday afternoons, playing in the backgarden while your father drank coffee with your Grandpa Samson and me. You would have felt it brush past you whileyou scrambled through the shrubs with Marty, our hound. You would have felt it under your nails, whiledigging out buried treasures with our mangled trowel. You would have inhaled its essence whileclawing your way up through the branches and leaves of the oak tree, to perchon its ancient limbs.

It is an old something that dwells here - both unnameable andincomprehensible - yet it is as real as we are. You knew this as a child. I could see in your face that you did, thoughwe never spoke of it. Perhaps it is some remnant of Time, orNature, or God, which has not wholly abandoned us here, but which does nothingto explain itself, either.

I cannot tell you what it is, only that itis.

I cannot tell you, either, why I stayed hereafter the accident. I cannot explain what made me cling to anidea of living that others would find intolerable: old, alone, and impoverished, in a partiallyburnt-out house, haunted by a memory of fire.

Yet I have not felt alone, or especiallysad. And when I die - which will be soon, as Iwrite this (and done, as you read it) - I will feel less alone, and less sad, still. I am sure of it.

Besides me, you are the most solitaryperson I know; and also, the mosthaunted, though for different reasons. Besides me, you are the most spurned personI know, though you have not earned it. As for me, perhaps I have, perhaps I have not. (Whichever way one looks at it, though, I amsorry for the fire.)

But this home I leave you, it will notjudge you. You are welcome here, your past forgiven once you enter its gates, to claim it as your own.

It waits for no one but you.

Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez. Text by TD Whittle.

What does 13 Ways mean? All of our posts with 13 Ways in the title are part of an ongoing creative project, which you can read about here:

13 Ways of Looking: our illustrated story series

Wild Persimmons

2011-11-18T13:46:00.001-06:00

For me persimmons have always been a marker, a sign that it's finally Fall. There are two persimmon trees on my parent's farm and, growing up, I loved their short-lived fruit. Like blackberries in the Spring, the fruit seemed to appear overnight, take forever to ripen, and then disappear just as quickly, rotting in the sun or picked away by animals. But there was a moment of luscious, juicy fruit. And that moment was when the relentless Texas Summer had finally softened, when school had been dragging on for months, when Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays were in sight. There were other Fall fruits: pears, plums and grapes. None seemed as special as persimmons though. Maybe it's because in those days they weren't in the grocery stores or at the farm stands; at least not in my neck of the woods. In fact, I don't think I saw a persimmon in a market until I was living in New York in the 1990s and I've still never bought one. I suspect it would be like drinking "store bought" milk for me--a pale imitation of the thing I grew up with.

I came across these slightly crushed fruits while I was walking the dogs in the large suburban park near our home. Nine year old Me would have scooped one up, sniffed and squeezed it, and if it had seemed ripe, bit into it. I would have been cautious, avoiding the seeds and tasting for ripeness. Because an unripe persimmon "will drive a man's mouth awrie with much torment, but when it is ripe, it is as delicious as the apricot." But I'm not nine and these fallen fruits were on the ground in a public park. I looked longingly at the fruit on the branches well out of my reach, sighed, and went back to being dragged from squirrel to squirrel by the dogs, thinking they didn't look quite ripe anyway.

Wild Peaches
by Elinore Wylie
(excerpt from stanza III)

The months between the cherries and the peaches
Are brimming cornucopias which spill
Fruits red and purple, sombre-bloomed and black;
Then, down the rich fields and frosty river beaches
We'll trample bright persimmons, while you kill
Bronze partridge, speckled quail, and canvasback.

Photo and Text by Sandra Peterson Ramirez.

Postcards from Home, Set III: An intricate pleasure

2011-11-16T00:24:00.001-06:00

Nest

By Marianne Boruch

I walked out, and the nest

was already there by the step.

Woven basket

of a saint

sent back to life as a bird

who proceeded to make

a mess of things ...

(to read the rest of this poem, follow this link to The Poetry Foundation)

Photos by Robin Whittle.

13 Ways: Cake

2011-11-12T10:09:00.001-06:00

Cake had never met his father. He had livedwith his mother, Celestina, in the same two-bedroom apartment all his life. Cake called it their layer. It was the fifth level of a five-storybuilding on 9th Avenue and Carson Street. His grandparents, who owned the building,lived just beneath Cake and Cele, on layer 4; and his auntie and cousinsbeneath them, on layer 3. The rest of the building, which included a 2nd layer,a 1st layer, and a basement, was taken up by the family bakery.

Cake was nearly 16 and only his family stillcalled him by his real name, Javier. Hisfriends had called him Cake for so long that he thought of himself as Cake, too.This was not only because his family life centered around the bakery, but also becauseJavier loved baking and sharing and eating cakes almost more than anything else.He had a real talent for it, having baked alongside his mother and grandparentsand auntie for as long as he could remember. His proudest moment had been thecompletion of a 1957 Chevy Convertible for an avid car collector. The man’swife had been so pleased that she’d tipped him fifty dollars for the work,which was half again the cost of the cake, and his mother had allowed him tokeep that extra money for himself.

When he was not at school, or working inthe bakery, Cake’s favorite place to be was on the rooftop of their building.His cousins were too small to be allowed up there, so it was one place he couldbe alone, and yet still feel connected to others. He spent hours staring out at his bit of thecity, glimpsing moments in people’slives, fascinated by how the rest of the world spent their time. Sometimes,those he watched would watch back, and Cake would feel a wave of something - atremor of surprise at being all at once the observer, and the observed, and theobserver observing being observed, ad infinitum - that would leave him shaken,and filled with wonder, and glad to be alive.

Cele baked two cakes each year on Javier’sbirthday - one which was a replica of the boy himself - or, at least his head - which she preserved, and one which was a cakethat everyone could eat. This was the Flores Bakery specialty: cakes made to order,that looked like anything, or anyone, that one could imagine. It had beenJavier’s birth that had brought the idea to life, with Cele deciding to markthe end of his first year with a special offering. Baking was what she had tooffer, and so baking is what she did. Once the cake was completed, though, shewould not consider eating it. Her baby’sone-year-old face - varnished to a high shine, and well beyond digestible -smiled out at passers-by, charming them with icing waves of dark hair, enormousbrown eyes, and a smattering of sugary teeth.

In a matter of days, a dozen mothers haddropped by photos of their own children, and put down deposits on their orders.The Flores family flourished, and expanded their repertoire. Over the nearly 16years since Javier’s birth, they had designed, baked, and decorated hundreds ofedible replicas of their customers’ family members and friends. Generally, the customers wanted a full bust, though some chose an economical version, which included only the face and hair, with less extensive detail. Occasionally, someone would request a full body reproduction, even a naked one, and Javier's grandmother would pitch a fit about that, calling it pornography.

Both grandparents enjoyed showing off their talents with the reproduction of a detail in a master work of art, though, and in such cases, nudity was permissable. Nothing delighted the two more than breathing life into Rennaisance angels, recumbent Venuses, and saints or sinners in various states of undress, with icings of surpassing delicacy, which they had invented themselves.

Sometimes, the bakery received orders for replicas of objects representing people’s work, hobbies, travels, interests, or obscure obsessions. Two of their most interesting projects had been creating a series of cakes depicting battles of the Civil War, for a group of military history buffs; and producing a scaled replica of the solar system, ordered by the daughter of an astrophysicist for his 60th birthday. This one had stirred up aminor family argument about whether or not Pluto should be included as aplanet, but other than that, the jobwent off without a hitch, and it was this success that had confirmed for thefamily what they had suspected all along; that anything in the world could be donewith cake, if one had talent, skill, patience, and maybe a little magic intheir fingers. Anything at all.

“Javier?” Cele approached him on the roof, placing her hands gently on hisshoulders, so as not to interrupt his guitar playing. He was teaching himself.This did not surprise Cele. His father had done the same at his age. She hadbought the guitar for Javi’s birthday last year, and he had spent many eveningson the roof with it. The restlessstrumming was beginning to sound tuneful now.

“Javi, your birthday cakes -vanilla or chocolate inside? I will have them both ready on Friday.”

Cake stopped playing and took her hands,but did not turn his eyes up to hers. “Mamma, this year, I want a differentcake.”

“Different?” Cele walked around the bench,and took a seat next to him. She had not been prepared for a different cake.All fifteen Javiers still smiled back at her, with their bright varnished eyes,as perfectly as the day they were pulled from the oven. There was a Javiershowcase in a special section of the bakery, with a spot at the end awaiting this year’s addition. Afterthe flesh and blood son himself, this was Cele’s greatest pride and joy. And now he wanted different.

“Mamma, make me a cake that doesn’t looklike me this year, okay? I want a cake that looks like someone else for achange, just this once. Can you do that?” He was nervous. She could hear it inhis voice, a strained quality that was different from the changes in its depthand timbre that had been coming on for months.

Cele laughed, imagining what he had inmind. She understood that he was in love, or what passed for love at 15, withGina from down the street. With amother’s sensitivity to such things, she would watch Javi’s head snap up fromwhatever he was doing - blending a mix, or serving a customer - when Ginawalked in the door. She liked to drop inafter school most days to say hello and buy a cupcake. Gina loved cupcakes, and especially ones sheknew Javier had made himself. The lightvanilla ones with swirls of pastel frosting were Gina's favourites, which Cele thought suited her. Gina's skin was pale creamand her hair shone gold, falling softly around her shoulders in waves. Cele consideredhow she might one day recreate those waves from ribbons of icing on a weddingcake.

And now, looking at Javi’s face, seeing hislonging, she remembered being 15 herself, meeting Eddie in exactly the sameway. Hadn’t that been love, then?

“Okay, my darling son, you would likesomething different,” she answered. “Well, of course. It is your special day and you will have whatyou like, so long as it is not naughty. You know how Grandma feels about that.” Cele winked at him, but helooked away, embarrassed, not laughing, and she realised she’d misreadsomething about the moment. She draped an arm across his shoulder, fingeringthe rosary she wore around her neck, under her apron. They both looked at the sun setting acrossthe river, and were silent.

When Cake was ready, he began again. “Mamma,it’s not naughty. I want you to bake areplica of my father for me.” Helooked at her straight, heard her sucking air in so harsh and fast that it was nearly a gasp.But he would have this. “Can you do itor not?”

Cele was locked in a memory - a statue,staring but unseeing - as the river swallowed the last of the sun. This memory was wholly silent, like a moviebefore the invention of talkies, and it was one that she had replayed thousandsof times over the years. Eddie’s face, above hers, his bright eyes looking intohers while they made love, like he was amazed to find her there, like she mightdisappear if he closed them. A tape ofhis music was playing in the background. Shadows darkened the walls of the room as night fell, and after a while,it became harder and harder to make out his face. She’d thought at the timethat this was a turning point in their relationship - a loss of shame, a way ofseeing into the other, a bonding that went deeper than flesh - in her youth andignorance, she’d believed she was peering into his soul. Even now, part of her believed that still,though she understood that, if it were true, she had misinterpreted what shesaw there.

She remembered again how swiftly the crisishad unfolded, how four simple acts had cleaved her life into Before and After. She had told Eddie that they were going to have a baby. He’d taken herinto their bed, and made love to her with his eyes wide open. Then, he’d fallenasleep, holding her close, naked and warm in the dark. And when the morning came, he was gone.

He’d left a letter saying that he’d writewhen he got to wherever he was heading, and promising to send money. She still had that letter, and the otherswhich followed it, sent from New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California -places Cele had never been. By the time her belly had swelled enough to feelthier baby moving inside her, there was nothing but silence from Eddie.

“Mamma? You okay?” Cake reached over toher, touching her shoulder, and again, he heard the deep and sudden suck ofair, like someone trying to breathe under water through a straw, barely gettingenough to survive.

Cele stood and looked at her son straighton. “Javi, I will bake you a daddy cake,just as you like. But after I have preserved it, will you keep it in your roomwith you? I don’t wish to look on hisface every day. It is enough that itlives so vividly in my memories.” She kissed him on his forehead, and walkedaway before he could answer the question.

Cake could not have told you why he neededan image of his father, but some things do not require explanation. It was enough that he felt it. His family had been poor back then, before hewas born, and they had not owned a camera. Even if they had, it would not have occurred to them to photograph oneanother. That had only changed since hisown birth.

All his life, Cake had watched his mother,as sensitive to her movements and desires as she was to his own. Many times, especially when she looked athim, he had caught glimpses of the sadness beneath the surface of her life - mercurial, darting likeshadows beneath a door that opened and closed of its own accord - first lettingin the light, then shutting it out. Hehad understood this to be about Eddie Montez. And all his life, Cake had vowed not to be a man like Eddie. Yet who was Eddie? No one much, he thought. Only the one his mother had loved, the onewho had left her, taking his guitar and his music and his hopeless poeticgrace, and leaving behind a son as a keepsake, a token of their love.

“Cake?” It was Gina, catching up with himhalf a block before home. This was Friday,around four o’clock, and he could not wait to see his Cele’s creation. He glanced at Gina, smiled, and felt onceagain electrified by her nearness; yet, even that did not stop him.

“Hey, Gina, how you doing?”

She kept pace with him as they neared thebakery.

“I’m good. Hey ...” She reached out,touched his arm to slow him down, to get him to look at her. He stopped in his tracks and turned to her.

“I wanted to say, you know, HappyBirthday.” Leaning into him, she kissed him, just lightly, on his open mouth.

Electric.

Cake paused, but only briefly. “Thanks, Gina. Wow, really, thanks for that.That’s a great present.”

She laughed. “So what are you doing? I mean, tocelebrate.”

Cake thought for a moment, considered whatto say. “My family will make a big dinner tomorrow. It’s Saturday, so the bakery will closeearly. And they’ll bring out a cake andall, maybe even some wine.”

“That sounds real nice.”

“It is nice ... but, hey, Gina, tell youwhat. Would you like to come up to myroof tonight? Would you like to sit upthere with me and listen to some music, watch the sun set over the river? Maybe have some cake?” He reached out, fondling a lock of her hair,smiling. “I would really like that.”

“Ah, Cake, I would love to do that. But...”

“What?” He wondered if he’d got it wrong,but knew he had not. She liked him, morethan a little.

“My parents have tickets tonight, for someshow or something. I’m watching thetwins. Can I come maybe tomorrow night,after dinner?”

Cake hesitated. “Well, okay then. But I’m sorry it can’t betonight. I’m real sorry, Gina. It would have been perfect.”

“You think?” She beamed at him then. He’dnever seen a smile so bright, eyes so dazzling.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Okay then, maybe we can try for perfecttomorrow night. I’ll be round abouteight?”

She skipped off, in that way that girlscould do and look graceful.

Cake rushed into the bakery, barelynoticing his family as he slid past his grandparents behind the counter, andhis auntie wiping down tables, and his younger cousins playing in thecourtyard. He found Cele in the familykitchen, putting the final touches on a wave of black hair. She concentrated like a painter, not daringto breathe or look up at him, lest she make a mess of her work.

“Is it done? Is that him?” Cake tossed his book bag in a corner andmaneuvered around the counter.

“Yes, Javier, this is your cake, as youwished it.”

Celestina stood back, tossing herdecorators’ tools into the sink, as Cake moved around to have a look at thisedible sculpture. He did not speak, butput up his hand as Cele stepped up to the counter with the shellac thatshe used to preserve the showcase pieces. Then he turned to her.

“Thank you, Mamma. Thank you for this. We do not need the varnish. I will have it as it is.” Cake kissed his Cele’s forehead and movedpast her to pull a quart of milk from the refrigerator, a fork from the utensildrawer. “You have done a perfect job,Mamma, and I love you. I know this washard for you.”

Cele kissed him back. “Anything for you, Javi, anything. I am glad you like it.” Her voice sounded tired, aching, and half-strangled. “If you will be on the roof, I might go liedown and rest a while.”

“Okay then.”

“And Javi, when you go up to your rooftoptonight, look next to the climbing rose. I left your present there.”

Cake settled into his usual spot on thebench, setting his gifts next to him. Near the roses, heretrieved the brown bag that had been tied with kitchen string, and insideit, found two cassette tapes marked “Eddie Montez, Flamenco” and a stackof letters, from different states that Cake had heard of but never visited.

The sun set as usual, and his bit of thecity was as alive with the murmurings and rustlings of humanity as usual, butCake saw none of it, heard none of it. He spent the evening of his sixteenth birthday reading the letterssent to Cele all those years ago, listening to Eddie’s music on her old tape player, and trying to make sense of everything that swelled upinside him, an ocean of feeling at high tide.

When all the letters were read, and themusic listened to, and the sun really and truly sunk for the night, Cakegrasped the plate upon which the layered replica of his father’s face had beenbuilt. He understood that Cele had notmade a mistake. That the reason the facestaring back at him appeared to be his own was because this was the joke thatlife had played on his mother, on the both of them. This was the forget-me-never.

Cake ate half his birthday gift, washing itdown with the quart of milk. When he wassure the rest of his family would be long asleep, he gathered up his things,and went inside. He wrapped what wasleft of Eddie Montez's frosted head, and stuffed it into the brown bag along with theletters and the music, making a bundle which he tied round with fresh kitchenstring. He went upstairs to his bedroom,and packed a bag with clothes, toiletries, and the rosary his grandparentshad given him for his first Communion, which he carried as a good luck charm. Hefound the one photo he had of his mother in his dresser, and he took that,too. Finally, he emptied out the metalbox containing all the money he’d earned from working at his family’s bakery over a life time, and from making deliveries for the Jackson’s deli next door. It was enough to get him by, at least for afew weeks.

Then, with a few simple acts, he cleavedhis life into Before and After. Heleft Cele a letter. Maybe she heard itslipping beneath the door of her bedroom, maybe she did not. Either way, Cake kept moving. He left his keys on a hook in the bakerykitchen and moved through the layers of their home, staircase by staircase,until he reached his own room again. He left down the fire escape, the sunrising at his back, heading west.

Mexican Folk Art Angel

Main photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez. Text by TD Whittle.

What does 13 Ways mean? All of our posts with 13 Ways in the title are part of an ongoing creative project, which you can read about here:

13 Ways of Looking: our illustrated story series

Bug Stalking, in Orange and Green

2011-11-10T10:29:00.000-06:00

Photos by Sandra Peterson Ramirez.

Working

2011-11-03T22:41:00.000-05:00

"No, I don't like work, I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don't like work -- no man does -- but I like what is on the work, -- the chance to find yourself. Your own reality -- for yourself, not for others -- what no other man can ever know. Thy can only see the mere show, and can never tell what it really means."

~Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Bike Shop, Dallas, Texas

Mariachi, San Antonio, Texas

Barbecue Restaurant, Memphis, Tennessee

Hot Dog Vendor, New Orleans, Louisiana

Photos by Sandra Peterson Ramirez.

13 Ways: Dead Girl Head

2011-10-31T10:45:00.003-05:00

The cricket bat cracks first at the base of your neck, then across your chest. Another smashes into your back, and that's the one that sends you hurling to the ground.

You cannot believe that they continue to mock you, this gang of boys, as if bashing you to pieces were not enough to prove their cruelty.

Now, you are spat upon, and though you cannot see what's happening behind you, you feel a wet, hot stream as one of them relieves himself on your hair. This is your final degradation.

"Dead girl head! Dead girl head!" They scream, push each other, and laugh, kicking at what's left of you.

You take it all in, but give nothing back.

"Hey there! Stop that!" Adult voices, rushing towards you now, scattering your attackers like gnats in a wind gust.

"Those monsters! Look what they've done to her!" You know that voice. She is kind, and favours you, yet she does not lean down to lift you up.

"Well, darling, she was getting old ... " His voice, deep and calm. You stop listening, understanding that he has already cast you aside.

Then, oblivion.

The next thing you know, the youngest of the family members is standing by you, caressing your face and speaking in that sing-song voice of four-year-old girls.

"Our poor angel ... our poor angel." She brushes your face with a tenderness that would make you cry if you were something more than concrete.

You know, at last, what a cheap relic you are, how disposable - stained with damp, every inch of you covered in lichen, bits of dirt, and bird droppings.

"You will come home to my room to live, angel." She lifts your remains in her arms, and your silence - once a sublime repose - is now an immense regret, a knife cutting clean through a heart you do not have.

Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez. Text by TD Whittle.

What does 13 Ways mean? All of our posts with 13 Ways in the title are part of an ongoing creative project, which you can read about here:

13 Ways of Looking: our illustrated story series

A Tale of Three Terriers

2011-10-24T11:45:00.002-05:00

Bitsy Not Posing. Me Not Holding a Weapon.

If asked, I'd probably say I'm a cat person. They suit my personality with their independent, even indifferent attitudes. I also like fish. But even as I say this I have one dog asleep at my feet and another curled up next to me in my chair. They're not my first dogs, but the first in a very long time. The first was Bitsy. And I almost don't even count her. She was a present from my parents, a companion in case I was lonely when my sister started kindergarten. Bitsy and I....well we weren't close. She wasn't one of those dogs, like Nana, that assumed the position of child guardian. More like "don't leave me alone with that child or I can't be held responsible for what happens". So even though Bitsy was referred to as "my" dog, she and I always knew the score.

Many (many) years later I got another dog; again as a gift (isn't there some sort of a rule against that?), this time from my husband. When he brought her home she was five pounds, pitifully unhealthy, and unbearably shy, so I named her Violet. I honestly didn't think she was going to make it. But she did. She thrived in fact. And GREW.

5 Weeks Old, 5 Pounds

2 Years Old, 70 Pounds

Violet and I were a more successful match. For the past four years she has been my almost constant companion. She has been a balm during some rocky times. She changed me. Over the years, learning how to respond to her needs, I became more patient and flexible.

And then a few weeks ago, my husband did it again (are you sensing a trend?).

Big Dog, Little Dog

Coco is a different dog experience for me. In fact she is a little like a puppy/kitten mixture. She is playful and cuddly and fuzzy. She bats at my face when I talk and plays with Violet's tail. On the other hand, she also barks at dogs on TV.

So there they are; my three terriers: Bitsy the Toy Fox, Violet the Staffordshire and Coco the Yorkshire. I'd tell you more about them, but right now it's time for a walk...

...and then maybe a nap!

Postcards from Home, Set II

2011-10-17T10:03:00.003-05:00

Australian Magpie at the Rosanna Parklands, 27 April 2011

The Magpies, by Denis Glover (1912-1980)

When Tom and Elizabeth took the farm

The bracken made their bed,

And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle

The magpies said.

Tom's hand was strong to the plough

Elizabeth's lips were red,

And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle

The magpies said.

Year in year out they worked

While the pines grew overhead,

And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle

The magpies said.

But all the beautiful crops soon went

To the mortgage-man instead,

And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle

The magpies said.

Elizabeth is dead now (it's years ago)

Old Tom went light in the head;

And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle

The magpies said.

The farm's still there. Mortgage corporations

Couldn't give it away.

And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle

The magpies say.

O'Sullivan, V. (Ed.). (1979). An anthology of twentieth century New Zealand poetry.

Wellington: Oxford University Press.

The Colours of a Victorian Autumn

Autumn Leaves on the Japanese Maple, 27 April 2011

Rainbow over Rosanna, 30 July 2011


Sunrise from our Terrace, September 2011

Photographs by Robin and Tina Whittle (Rosanna, Victoria, Australia)

Postcards from Home, Set I

2011-10-17T09:36:00.002-05:00


Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo on our Terrace, 16 October 2011

Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo on our Terrace, 16 October 2011

Spring in Full Flower, 14 October 2011

The Yarra at Dusk, 30 July 2011


Sunrise from our Terrace, 14 September 2011

Sunrise from our Terrace, 14 September 2011

Photographs by Robin & Tina Whittle (Rosanna, Victoria, Australia)

Emerging Stories from an Urban Woodland

2011-10-07T09:08:00.000-05:00

13 Ways: Sunset at the Hyatt Regency

2011-10-05T04:52:00.004-05:00

It was 8.00 p.m. in Houston, and Martin should have been landing back home in Chicago by now. What the hell, no one would be waiting. Anna had taken everyone with her in the divorce, even the golden retriever. He stared out Room 1207's glass wall, as the girl came out of the bathroom. "What do you call that color?" he asked her, pointing to the sky. He recognized it was the same color as the feature wall in the family room, in the house where he used to live. Mostly, though, he was trying to distract himself, to keep from staring at her too intensely, too hard. She was breathtaking in her youth. He'd forgot what that was like.

"Huh ... don't know, really ... guess I just call it sunset!" she laughed, whipped off her jeans and university t-shirt, revealing nothing underneath but a pair of white knee socks, and skin soft as a child's. She straddled his lap, where he sat on the edge of the bed. He laughed with her, surprised to feel suddenly joyful, having forgot what that was like, too.

"You are something else," he said, meaning it, and clutched her tight to his chest.

"I guess that's a compliment?" she smiled, a flash of white teeth, but then was still and silent, and he wondered if she was having second thoughts. "Look, before we do this, you need to know I'm not cheap. It's two hundred just for the basics. Anything extra is another fifty on top. That's for an hour. I can do a half hour, but our flights are delayed anyway, so what's the rush, right?"

Martin hadn't understood. He saw her realize it, and felt ashamed.

"Oh right, you didn't ... Okay. Look ... uh ... I can't just announce in the airport lounge that I'm ... you know ... looking for money. I mean, you could be a cop, right? And, anyway, it's not like this is my real life. I just do it when I'm traveling, because I run out of cash sometimes."

"Yeah, sure, of course. I understand. It's no problem at all. Two hundred is just fine." But he was struggling with his words as he moved her off his lap and onto the bed.

"So, you travel a lot, Jesse?" He sorted through his wallet, found the cash, and set it on top of her backpack.

"When I get a break from my studies, yeah ... So, we good to go then?" She opened her arms to him, and Martin spent the next twenty minutes trying not to think about his own daughter, Caroline, who was nineteen and away at college in Miami. Mostly he failed in his efforts, and eventually succumbed to the hopelessness of the situation. Jesse remained smiling throughout, playful and sweet, until he pulled away from her to rifle through the mini bar. Only two hours earlier he'd been surprised and flattered by her sauntering over to him in the lounge for a chat. He'd bought her a coffee. Now, he wished she would stop flirting with him, and wondered if she was like this with all of her customers.

"How about a drink? You want a Coke or something?" he asked her, pouring himself a Jack Daniels.

"Oh hey, I'm not that young, you know. I'm working on my Masters, not an undergrad degree. Can't a girl get a real drink?"

He mixed her a bourbon and Diet Coke, which sounded disgusting to him, but she seemed to enjoy it. "So, what are you studying?" He slid his jocks and slacks on.

"We done here?" she seemed surprised, but not unhappy about it.

"Yeah, that's it for me. Not my day, I think."

He watched her compose herself on pillows to sip her drink, but he noticed she made no move to dress. In naked repose, she seemed to him a being of perfect integrity, every piece of her just as it should be. He realized that she was beautiful, but this merely depressed him now. He looked around for his tie, and noticed she'd stopped smiling.

"I'm finishing my thesis in Psychology. It's about complex grief responses. Know what that is?"

He wondered briefly if he should iron his shirt, in case he ran into any colleagues on the plane, but decided just to keep his jacket on. "Complex grief? Isn't all grief complex?" He regretted sounding flippant. "Sorry, no - I guess I don't know, really."

He'd finished dressing, and was looking away from her, seeing the final wisps of clouds fade as the night fell. Anna would have known the name of that color. It was something like "Desert Flower" or "Sunset Rose." Martin had learned over the years that paint swatches and fabric colors were never simply "blue" or "orange" as he'd imagined before marrying Anna, who was an interior decorator. Whoever named these shades imbued them with wistful romance, seeming to grasp the emotional reality that people spending hundreds of dollars to change their lives with a coat of paint needed it to be called "Streaming Fire," or "Flaming Beauty," rather than "Red #485."

Anna had understood that, too, and he recalled the devotion with which she had attended to her clients: "I'm not just painting their walls and hanging their curtains, Martin. I want to give them a perfect world to inhabit. I'm fulfilling their fantasy about who they wish to be."

"Hey, Martin?" Jesse spoke from the bed, startling him, because he'd half forgot she was there.

"Yeah?"

"It's fine, you know. I mean ... I understand."

"You understand what?" He faced her then.

"Guys sometimes ... can't. I mean, guys like you."

"Like me? What do you mean?"

"You know, older guys, like 50 or whatever. You're all stressed and in a hurry and worried about a lot of stuff all the time. So you can't always perform like you want. That's okay. I mean, it's really okay. I think you're a nice guy, that's all I wanted to say. And I would even do this for free, you know, with you. But I'm kind of broke at the moment."

"Oh, is that what you wanted to say?" Martin stared at her, astounded by her directness. She was so young.

He laughed then, and felt good again, like receiving a gift from nowhere.

"What's funny?"

"The color. It just came to me. It's called 'Flanders Poppy,' at least from the store we bought it. You know what Flanders Poppies are?"

"No, I guess not. I mean, rings a bell but I can't remember why." Jesse stood up and began to dress, which took her all of forty seconds, even with her sneakers to tie. As she leaned over to do this, Martin stuffed another three hundred dollars into the front pouch of her pack, for her to find later.

"Well, when I was a college student, History was my course of study. The Flanders Poppy is an iconic symbol of the fallen soldiers of World War I; in particular, the British soldiers. A poem was written by one young man who watched his friend die. I don't know if I can remember it all, but it starts off, 'In Flanders fields the poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row, that mark our place; and in the sky, the larks, still bravely singing, fly ...' You know the poem?"

Jesse had finished gathering her things, and then stood silently watching him, listening to his recitation. She stared at him for several seconds before responding, "I don't think I know it, Martin, but it sounds sad."

Martin walked with her her to the door, grabbing his briefcase on the way.

"Yes, Jesse. I think it's about complex grief."

Sunset photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez. Text by TD Whittle.

What does 13 Ways mean? All of our posts with 13 Ways in the title are part of an ongoing creative project, which you can read about here:

13 Ways of Looking: our illustrated story series

Repetition

2011-10-04T11:00:00.000-05:00

Tutus at a church bazaar

Paper lanterns at a pond shop

Shop window in San Antonio

13 Ways: Waiting

2011-09-29T12:34:00.000-05:00

This is memory,

or this is dreams,

or this is a memory of dreams.

I sit, a dark but yearning thing,waiting for you,

to cross the bridge,

from whereyou come, to where you go.

You are lithe and fair and solitary,

thekeeper of my hope.

Feel my heart like music carried on the wind.

Run to me, trailing sunlight.

Leap, a backwards child, into this forestwomb.

I sit, a dark but yearning thing, waiting

to catch you in my arms.

Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez. Text by TD Whittle.

What does 13 Ways mean? All of our posts with 13 Ways in the title are part of an ongoing creative project, which you can read about here:

13 Ways of Looking: our illustrated story series

13 Ways: Out Past the Reef

2011-09-26T01:57:00.003-05:00

She never liked it when the sand was messy, preferring to find an unfrequented patch of shore, where the only footprints were those of seagulls.

Yet he would insist on plunging in with both hands, digging and gouging at the ground like a wayward child seeking China.

What was worse were the artless structures he would erect, piled high and higher still, leaning this way and that, ugly but fragile, begging to be slammed to the ground, then pummelled into the beach, where they towered like sentinels.

He was helped in this by the waves - for he would build always at the water’s edge, taunting the sea to reclaim his monoliths - or perhaps he meant them as an offering.

She never knew.

What she did understand was that this had become his ritual upon arriving at the shore, on those yawning afternoons of summer, while she watched, as surely he wanted her to do, inwardly shaken by a terror she could neither recognise nor articulate.

Distracting herself was sometimes easy, sometimes not.

She unpacked and set onto the blanket her own expressions of art: baskets and bowls of food, created by herself with great attention to detail - just the right amount of crispness to the delicate, golden chicken; sweet paprika on a creamy potato salad; cool tropical fruits, to be served with freshly whipped cream; and, most importantly, a silver shaker of chilled Martini cocktails to take the edge off both the heat and her nerves.

A thermos of coffee awaited them at the end, after which they would pack up the car and return to the ordinary days and nights, to the dove-white town house with matching roses in the courtyard.

Now, she watched a pair of crows on a nearby blanket, pecking at the crumbs left there for them, and wondered when the couple who had made this ad-hoc camp-site might return.

They had not bothered to safeguard anything, from passers-by or local wildlife.

They were not young, so she had been surprised to see the two of them, hand in hand, run laughing down the beach, and then - she supposed assuming they were well out of sight - strip off their shorts and tops, plunge into the sea and head out past the reef.

She had watched them until she could no longer make out their heads bobbing like corks in the waves.

Photo by Sandra Peterson Ramirez. Text by TD Whittle.

What does 13 Ways mean? All of our posts with 13 Ways in the title are part of an ongoing creative project, which you can read about here:

13 Ways of Looking: our illustrated story series

13 Ways of Looking: our illustrated story series

2011-09-25T05:42:00.003-05:00

Introduction by Tina (TD Whittle)

13 Ways of Looking is an illustrated story project, featuring original work by the creators of this blog.

We owe thanks to a few people for ideas and inspiration.

Firstly, we extend thanks to Erin Morgenstern and Carey Farrell for their flax-golden tales, which sparked our own desire to embark upon a similar project based upon photo-inspired stories.

Secondly, with the title of our series, we pay homage to Wallace Stevens's poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird - sublime writing from a master of Modernist poetry. We chose this title because we appreciate, as Wallace did, that there are many perspectives from which to view a person, place, or thing, and at least as many ways then to express what one has seen.

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of inflections

Or the beauty of innuendoes,

The blackbird whistling

Or just after.

Back in September, when we developed our plan for 13 Ways of Looking, we envisioned it as a showcase for our stories and poems, each inspired by a random photograph, which would be posted along with it. The stories and poems were to be written by one of us (usually Tina), in a 13-line format, with the photographs to be taken and selected by the other (usually Sandra).

Since then, we have made two major changes:

* we decided, over time, to drop the imposed constraint of 13 lines; and

* as of January 2012, we began to use (on occasion) photos taken by people other than ourselves - citing our sources whenever possible.

What remains the same is that this is where you can find all of our original short fiction, accompanied by a photograph or two that either inspired the story's central idea, or that enhanced the telling of it.

You can find all of the posts in the 13 Ways series by following the links at the end of this page, or those on our Table of Contents.

We hope you enjoy!

13 Ways of Looking - links to posts

13 Ways: Out Past the Reef

13 Ways: Waiting

13 Ways: Sunset at the Hyatt Regency

13 Ways: Dead Girl Head

13 Ways: Cake

13 Ways: Inheritance

13 Ways: The Offering

13 Ways: The Wonder Wall

13 Ways: Someone Like You

Gifts for Your Dearest Friends Who Have (Almost) Everything

2011-08-09T10:51:00.030-05:00

When Robin and I go away somewhere, we take beautiful photographs ... well, mostly, he does, while I point out things that would make nice photographs, then assist him with comments like, "not that rock, this rock!" and "hurry, you're losing the light!". We end up with lots of scenery, rocks, shells, and wildlife pictures, with a few of us in the mix, looking sometimes goofy, and other times mercifully attractive - from a certain angle and a certain light.

One more reason Sandra is my best friend is that , when she goes on holidays, she brings back photos like these, which make my inbox smile ...


Cthulu has opened a shop! I was so worried the cult monsters would be out of work, with all the economic problems in the U.S. the past few years. No doubt they sell "spiritual" baubles, which is great, because I've been needing one of these creepy statuettes ...


This Cthulu idol is from http://www.stephenhickman.com/cthulu.html

Well, of course he arrives in 3 pieces ... When is the last time any of us saw a fully intact zombie? I think this is what she's getting me for Christmas. Can't wait!

I am an Aussie these days, having lived in Melbourne for the past 7+ years and gained citizenship in the process. Like most Australian women, I often catch myself admiring the dingoes at wildlife refuges, thinking that I wish there were some way I could look that hot. And now, thanks to the Hip Dingo, I can cultivate some of that fierce, bitey glamour myself. You might expect this would be an Australian boutique? Nope, the shop is located in San Antonio, Texas, right around the corner from The Alamo. Don't live near The Alamo? No worries, that's what on-line purchasing is all about: http://www.hipdingo.com/category_s/57.htm

Don't tell Sandra, because it's a surprise, but I've ordered her a personal Cthulu Santa for Christmas. Hopefully, the big sweetie can help her with things around the house, discipline the teenager, and maybe take the Pit Bull out for walkies. I think she'll be thrilled. I just hope no one else thought of it first. And I hope that he doesn't get too pissed off that I shipped him economy freight. I'd hate to have him come out of his shipping crate all scratchy and growly.

This particular Cthulu snap is from The Church of the SubGenius, but the hat is a present from me. (http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/pics5/vandewalkerTN/vandewalker.html)

Anticipation

2011-07-23T13:25:00.000-05:00

While this music makes me a bit anxious, the video is trippy fun to watch. Mostly I'm looking forward to the movie. And I suppose this anxiety-inducing music is appropriate both for the unsettling mood of the movie trailer and for the anticipation.

A Fun Thing or Two

2011-07-01T08:10:00.000-05:00

Summer in a Glass

Since it's now officially too hot to breathe here and too cold to bear on Tina's side of the world, we have no reason not to stay in and play on the computer. So here are a couple of digital toys I've been amusing myself with.

Pinterest

You know all those pictures you come across while wandering around the internet? That exact perfect fabulous thing that you are absolutely sure you will remember where you saw it, and that it exists? Right, that thing. Or maybe you've printed out dozens of variations on a theme, looking for just the right one, because you know there is no way you'll remember them all. Pinterest gives you a place to "pin" those pictures and points you back to where you found them. It also lets you categorize, tag and comment on them. Great idea. Wish I'd thought of it!

rrrewind

Whenever I spend a day or two offline, the first thing I do is wade through my accumulated emails, check Facebook to see what I've missed and take a look at my favorite blogs. But what about all those other sites I follow? What was happening on flickr and hacker news and twitter while I wasn't looking? All that was just lost. Until now. A very smart fellow named Roberto Martinez has designed a site that keeps track of these channels and several more, providing us with a time machine back to last week and even last year. It's safe to vacation again.

Scrivener

If you want to get some work done and your work involves writing, this is a great tool that is fun to use. Scrivener provides a virtual space to create fiction and nonfiction, with some elements that I really love. My favorite is the corkboard view where I can pin up notes. Also, it lets you easily separate a document into chapters and then coalesce the chapters for print or publication. All in all, a very elegant application.

So there you go. And after you've finished pinning, rewinding and writing, maybe you can join a friend for a coffee or a cocktail in Second Life.

Midweek Music - Mid-90s Edition

2011-06-23T09:13:00.000-05:00

Milla Jovovich - Gentleman Who Fell

I have to say I didn't even know that Milla Jovovich sang, but there she is at 18, looking almost exactly the same as she does today, in a video from 1994. It got me thinking about what music I was listening to during that period and the answer was a little of everything. Except maybe grunge. Nothing against the Seattle Sound, I just sort of missed it the first time around. Here's a sampling of the what I do remember from the mid-90s. Omitting the Wagner.

Mary Chapin Carpenter - Passionate Kisses

Meshell Ndegeocello - Who Is He and What Is He To You?

David Amram - Splendor in the Grass

Lost Weekend

2011-06-19T05:50:00.022-05:00


View from our cottage 15 June 2011

My husband, Robin, and I have been celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary over the past week. The highlight was his booking a few nights for us at a cottage by the Gippsland coast, near a place called Morgan's Beach. We set off from Melbourne on Tuesday afternoon and reached our destination about three hours later: a rambling farmhouse, in the middle of a pasture, at the end of a dirt road. Perfect.

Side note: I noticed when we were leaving on Friday that there was an old axe leaning on the woodpile stacked at one end of the front porch. My husband had been coming and going from that pile of wood for three days, as the fireplace was our only source of heat. I realised he had left the axe outside throughout our stay. Can you imagine? It's like he's never fantasised about our being attacked by an axe murderer in the middle of the night in a remote country house. Clearly, he has seen far fewer horror movies than I have. I felt compelled to explain, just in case this comes up on future holidays, that we really should have brought it inside. To his credit, once I mentioned it, he grasped how it might be seductive to roving psycho killers in the area. Also, we reasoned that, if the axe were inside with us, then we would be armed and ready for the demented bastard. (Before you label me an hysteric, remember that Australia is notorious for its serial killers).

But I digress.


Morgan's Beach on the evening of 15 June 2011

We were the only people around for at least a kilometre in any direction, if you don't count cows, wombats and kangaroos as "people." As it is winter here in Australia and our state, Victoria, gets achingly cold (especially at night), it is not such a surprise that we had complete solitude. But it is beautiful here in winter, the usual harshness of the open coast subdued by cool air and soft light.

Happy in our privacy and surrounded by acres of lowing steers and wild ducks, we enjoyed a peaceful evening cuddled up on a couch by the fire. Fortunately, we are not the type of urban folk who can't sleep when it's too quiet. We slumbered deeply and peacefully, the only sounds entering our dreams being the cawing of ravens and the carolling of magpies, with waves crashing in the distance ... Oh yes, and possums scuttling on the roof and the fluttering of micro bats' wings (see links 1 & 2).

Side note: Have I mentioned that we have bats in Victoria? Actually, we have lots of bats in Victoria, of both the megachiroptera and microchiroptera suborders. There were none of our familiar fruit bats where we were staying, though we enjoy their presence at home as they swoop through our back garden to rest in the neighbour's Angophora tree. Bats add a romantic Gothicism to the night, especially when complemented by a full moon, which rose dutifully on Wednesday evening.

We ventured out into the paddocks that first afternoon, planning to meander down to the cliffs then onto the beach, but we failed to account for the heavy rains that had fallen overnight. We were not wearing mud boots or slickers and it was too cold to trudge onward while getting wet and splattered, the damp seeping through our clothes and shoes. The dead Angus steer lying off to the side of one of the grazing pastures had a "beware all ye who enter here" feel to it. My feet became mired in swamp mud, while my husband provided encouragement, and the steers stared contemptuously at us from what seemed a great height (they had all managed to stay on high ground and we thought we could hear them muttering "stupid bloody tourists"). Just as I was about to cry, we managed to clamber up the slippery hill, whereupon we decided to find a path back to the house, change our clothes and shoes and head off another way.

This turned out to be a great idea because once we got down to the beach, we saw these amazing natural sandstone sculptures.


Natural sandstone formation at Morgan's Beach, 15 June 2011

We shared a sunset over the sea and a moonrise over the cliffs, simultaneously. This was exactly as gorgeous as it sounds.


Sunset over Bass Strait, at Morgan's Beach 15 June 2011 5.00 pm


Moonrise over cliffs at Morgan's Beach, 15 June 2011 5.10 pm

This small achievement of making it down to the beach is a common event for your average Aussie, but compared to the swampy paddock fiasco we'd just scrambled our way through, it felt like a celebration. This Wednesday evening amplified our confidence in our wandering-in-unknown-places abilities, by about a million. On Thursday, we figured we were ready for the adventures of extreme coastal walks. We are easily encouraged and take to self-flattery like platypuses to water.

This must be true of Robin and me; otherwise, how to explain the wild conclusion we drew while standing safely at the base of a hillock on some farmland, surveying what can best be described as the world's biggest mass of brambles: Why, of course we can hoist ourselves over this fence and create our own path to the cliffs, through acres and acres of snaky, interlaced coastal flora! How hard can it be?


It looks like an enchanted place from here

(Fast forward several hours ...)

We did eventually reach the coast, where we found ourselves at the cliff's edge with no pathways down to the beach and no clear trails along the cliffs back to our Kombi. Turns out, despite how clear-cut it looks on Google maps, you cannot simply amble along at the cliff's edge because there are undulations and breakages in the land continuity which prevent that. So, we ended up back in the morass of vegetation from which we had emerged only moments before.

We did have a marvellous view from the cliff, though, and we discovered ...


Natural sandstone formations as seen from a cliff's edge somewhere between Morgan's Beach and Venus Bay, 16 June 2011

Puff the Magic Dragon really does live by the sea, where he spends his days contemplating his realm and no doubt takes flight after sunset each evening.

We realised eventually that we were never going to make it to the dinner we'd planned with some friends for that evening. Robin and I were nestled in some bushes we could not identify, eating jelly beans and looking for our torch (flash-light) when this fact occurred to us. We soon found an open patch where we watched another glorious sunset over the sea while wondering how we were going to prevent hypothermia, since it looked increasingly as though we would be spending the night bundled in the branches of coastal tea-trees and whatever else engulfed us. Occasionally, we would hit a high, clear spot such as this one, which afforded a glimpse of freedom, only to realise that we still had far to go, with no sure path either to the beach or to the familiar paddocks.

We were getting pretty despondent by the time we'd clambered out of a deep sandpit to the top of a dune (yes, there were sandpits in the midst of all the shrubbery), to see that we were still surrounded by greenery in all directions. We ploughed onward. At times, our feet were not even touching the earth, as we were borne aloft by the clustering plants; other times, we would plunge beneath it all, tunnelling through underbrush like wombats.

Which brings me to another piece of advice, for myself and others who may be nutty enough to take on the Australian coastal bushland despite no practical skills or tools for doing so: like axes, machetes are useful things. It is a good idea to keep one with you as you never know when it might come in handy (take it out of your handbag before you get to the airport, though).


Lots of snarled vegetation to make our way through

Because I am writing this, you know we made it out alive (with only a few scratches and a whole bunch of twigs in our hair). After arriving back at the house, we composed ourselves with a hot shower, a hotter fire, good food and a bottle of New Zealand Pinot Noir.

Lucky for us, any Aussie serial killers vacationing in the vicinity apparently had other things to do because they never visited us. It is entirely possible there is an overly confident psycho out there on a stretch of remote Gippsland coast, crashing his way through a diabolical thicket and cursing himself for leaving his machete back at the cabin. But at least he can enjoy an awesome sunset over the ocean when he pops his head up from time to time to see how far he still has to go.


Sunset over Bass Strait, taken from a high point amidst the brambles, 16 June 2011

My Wish List

2011-06-14T11:28:00.003-05:00

Ok, here's my list of things that I want to work on; culled from the endless loop of things that run through my mind saying "Me!me!me! I need attention!"

Rejected

Wine - Not that I want wine. (Ok, I do. That's entirely beside the point, but feel free to send wine.) I really enjoy a good glass of red. Or two. The problem is, when I order a glass or buy a bottle of wine, it's sort of a crap shoot for me. I've had Pinot Noirs, Cabernet Sauvignons, Merlots and Syrahs that I loved. I've had Pinot Noirs, Cabernet Sauvignons, Merlots and Syrahs that I hated. For years I've meant to keep a log of what I liked. I even thought about taking off the labels and making a journal. But. I persist in this guessing game: Will I like it? Didn't I like a Cab that had "Red Something" in the name? Well that's a pretty name for a winery...

Yoga - For years, no for decades, I've dabbled in yoga. When I go to a class I try to find a spot near a wall where I can see a mirror but only if I make an effort. I try not to have eye contact with anyone. If someone speaks to me, I generally smile wanly and mumble. I haven't made a lot of friends in yoga classes. And I haven't improved much over the years. Could be because I don't go very often and when I do I'm torn between a sinking feeling of "not good enough" and ridiculous competitiveness. Must remember: yoga is not a competitive sport (probably).
Organization - Oh Container Store, I love you. I hate you. I come to you with my organizational needs and you sell me things that need to be organized. And stored. I dream of kitchen drawers that aren't a jumbled mess, of closets with nothing on the floors, of garages where I could actually find the Christmas lights.
Photos - My iPhone has 651 photos on it. My "old" laptop has approximately three times that many. My external drive has seven years worth of photos. Might be nice if they were somewhere where they could be seen.
My Brain - Let's just say it needs a little exercise. I like taking classes and learning new things and really feel like it keeps the brain agile (much like yoga does for the body). I had planned to take a couple of computer classes this summer, but that got sidelined by life. I think in the fall I need to take a class. Maybe something that involves organizing photos while drinking in a yoga position.

One more thing that I want to make a priority is being more consistent here. Maybe make (keep) a schedule. So that's my Summer/Fall plan. What are you working on?

Haunted by the 70s

2011-06-08T15:12:00.001-05:00

"Me? I'm just decor. Trust me."

You remember the doll from Trilogy of Terror, right? Scary little guy, pointy teeth and lethal looking spear. Yeah, that guy. Turns out his wife is still around. Waiting.
Just the thing to add interest on the little barn wood table next to the shabby chic couch...

Planning to Plan (Completely Different from Failing to Plan)

2011-06-02T08:41:00.001-05:00

After Vacation I Will:

Start eating better, cut back on booze
Exercise harder on non-trainer days
Get rid on some of the clutter that is driving me nutso
Stop trying to control everyone

Ok wait. How am I supposed to be less controlling if i drink less?

After Vacation I Will:

Make a list of things I need to work on...

Midweek Music

2011-05-25T17:24:00.003-05:00

Cat Power - Lived in Bars
Bluesy, boozy, southern, good.

Eilen Jewell - Warning Signs
"All your bad juju and all your weird voodoo made me go blind"

Jackie Evancho - Angel
Normally I'm not crazy about child singers, but there is an amazing voice coming out of that eleven year old body! Stunning.

And now for something completely different..

Bela Fleck, Zakir Hussain & Edgar Meyer - Canon
I suspect this is either a "love it" or "it makes me want to slap someone" piece. I love it.

Learning Curve

2011-05-19T14:48:00.001-05:00

The Boy got his driver's license last week, somewhat belatedly. He's 17 and seemed to be in no particular hurry--the same ambling attitude he has toward many things. In this case it was fine. We weren't in a big hurry for him to be out on his own in Houston. Ok, I was a little terrified. But time was running out on the learn at home program we'd been doing so I pushed a little (maybe a lot) until he got it all done and took the driving test. The lackadaisical attitude disappeared as soon as the license was printed.

Saturday Morning, 7 am

Boy: Do you want a coffee?
Me, glancing at my coffee: I have a coffee.
Boy: Oh. Do you want a chicken biscuit?
Me: Uh. No thanks.
Boy: Oh.
Pause.
Boy: Ok. Well. I'm going to go get a coffee.
Me: You can go in the kitchen and make a coffee.

The Boy makes the irritating/irritated nose air sound and disappears back into his room.

Saturday Morning, 8 am

Me: The Girl's game is in 30 minutes, do you want to leave now and get a coffee on the way?
Boy: Yes! What car are we taking?
Me: Do you want to drive?
Boy, considering: Noooo. I don't want to use my gas.

Sunday Morning, 11 am

Boy: I kinda want to see "Thor". Is it ok if I go to the movies?
Me: What time is the movie?
Boy: Oh I don't know--I was just going to drive over there and check.

I make the irritating/irritated nose air sound and go to my room.

***

They think we act the way we do because we don't remember 17. But the fact is, we do it because we do remember. And it scares the shit out of us.

Now, where was I again?

2011-05-13T22:47:00.006-05:00

If you are over 40 and leading a fairly busy, active life, it is possible that at least a few times you have had the experience of entering a room of your home and forgetting for what reason you went in there. This is a recurring theme in my life going way back, and since I tend to be easily distracted anyway - because I have a lot on my mind, thank you very much - ageing has only increased the frequency with which it occurs. I forget other stuff, too, though. Actually, forgetting is a way of life for me.

When I was a young woman, in my twenties and living in New York, I would routinely ask my friends to avoid patronising certain shops, restaurants, cafes and bars that had somehow offended me with their products or services. In this way, my support of local establishments worked similarly to U.S. foreign policy: sanctions were applied.

My two best friends would loyally oblige me, suspending their own patronage indefinitely, long after I had forgot both my request and the reason behind it - which happened in a matter of hours, probably.

Eventually it would come to pass that I would suggest a night out at Union Square or The World Cafe or some other establishment on the "Banned Places List." Apparently, for my two friends, the List existed as a pristine, up-to-date, and fully accessible document in their bright and shiny minds. For me, it was more like a smudgy piece of cocktail napkin balled up in the handbag that is my brain.

(Insert long, silent stare.)

Me: “What?”

Friend 1: “We stopped going there months ago.”

Me: “We did? Why? I thought we liked going there. Anyway, I’ve been quite a few times lately and really enjoyed it. Why don’t you two want to go there?”

(Friend 1 sighs heavily and makes explicit “this again” eye contact with Friend 2)

Friend 2: “We stopped going there back in February because you got angry at your waiter, and then complained that the cocktails were watery and the food sucked. You had a moral dilemma over whether or not you should be expected to leave a tip. Don’t you remember?”

Me: “Oh wow. No, not really. I thought I always liked their food. Don't remember the thing with the waiter at all. Anyway, were you guys there with me?”

Friend 1: “No, we just took you at your word, which is why neither of us has been there in three months, thanks very much.”

Me: “Oh. Well, you know, it’s possible that I was drunk at the time I imposed that embargo. I guess I forgot. Sorry.”

(Insert longer, silenter stare.)

Me: “Uhmmm. So, would it be okay if we go there, anyway? They make a great martini.”

My best friend, Sandra (Friend 2 in this scenario) will no doubt remember this dialogue better than me, possibly even verbatim. She will also remember the dates, the times, the frequency with which they occurred and what we were all wearing. As for me, I have had to make it up based on the bits and pieces I recall, pulling files from what my husband calls my “lateral memory” (not entirely sure what that means but I don’t think it’s a compliment).

So, I can't really claim that my distractability and memory lapses are something new and entirely age-related, but I can observe that it happens more these days, and that my tolerance is wearing thin.

The most common manifestation of my affliction happens like this. My loving husband, wondering through our kitchen, notices that the walk-in pantry's light is on. He steps inside to turn it off, only to notice me standing inside, staring at the shelves' contents as if I were at the Contemporary Art Museum admiring compelling installations of which I can make little sense. It probably does not help that I keep everything in this pantry: plates, pots, pans, tinned food and cleaning supplies, as well as anything else that I decide to shove in there.

Husband: "Hi, darling. Sorry, didn't realise you were in there. I'll leave the light on."

Me: "Okay, thanks honey."

He steps out, goes downstairs to fetch a part for something he's working on, goes to the bathroom or where-have-you, and wanders back through the kitchen several minutes later, where he pays a visit to me again. Because I am still in the cupboard.

Husband: (steps in and kisses me) "You are still here."

Me: "Yes."

Husband: "Are you being a cupboard fairy? Or, did you forget what you came in here for?"

Me: "Yes, yes I did. But I am thinking it will come to me if I stand here long enough."

Husband: (tries to help) "Well, maybe you were getting something out for dinner? It is nearly dinner time."

Me: "Well, that sounds right. Yes. I was going to make dinner!"

(Husband smiles, pleased to have been useful.)

Me: "I wonder what I was planning to make?"

Husband: (even more gallantly) "You know, just some tinned herrings and rice would be fine with me. In fact, that sounds really good."

Me: "I could do peas with that?"

Husband: (outdoes even himself) "That sounds great. Just what I want."

Me: (operating on the cognitive level of a cocker spaniel, but happy to be freed from the pantry) "Excellent. I'll just get those and be right out."

Tiny memoir of today

Husband: (eating cereal) "The AGE (local newspaper) wasn't delivered today."

Me: (tries to help) "Ah well, I will pick one up. I am going out anyway, and you have to get to your meeting. Do you need anything else? I am going to get some fresh fish for dinner, too, and I have to go by the library to pick up a book."

Husband: "No, nothing else. But fish sounds good. Thanks, darling."

We leave for our separate errands.

I am gone for approximately an hour and arrive back home with these items: a large tub of plain yoghurt, a punnet of strawberries, a carton of our favourite eggs and a packet of organic, biodynamic almonds (which fascinate me, because they sound magical). Clearly, a second trip will be required, since I have not landed the fish I promised for dinner, delivered The AGE that was missed this morning, or retrieved that book that I really do need from the library. About the time I am realising this, my husband phones:

Me: “Hi, honey! How was the meeting?”

Husband: “Very good. It’s all working out well, and I am just about to head off to go to pick up that printer I purchased on-line. I thought I’d check to see if you need anything.”

Me: (too embarrassed to say I forgot everything) “No, nothing, thanks. I was just about to pop out myself ... for some more stuff.”

I leave again. I am pleased that the fish market has two fresh snappers but the newsagent has sold out of our usual newspaper so I have to buy an alternative one. I stop at the bakery, where I request a loaf of bread, ask for it to be sliced, pay for it and then leave - without the bread, of course.

As I am turning round to go back for it, I come face to face with someone very familiar, yet I am quickly overcome by that awful feeling you get when your facial-recognition software sends up a “this person is out of context and cannot be identified” alarm. I manage this awkwardness badly, by saying nothing, moving past the mystery woman, and fetching my bread from the counter. She looks right at me and seems puzzled, but keeps walking and says nothing herself.

And that’s when I know. She can’t remember who I am, either! Perhaps oddly, this makes me happy. I feel a warm sense of solidarity with this stranger.

As I reach the parking lot, the software finally connects the face to its usual context and I remember that of course I feel solidarity with her, because she is my hairdresser. I have seen her professionally on two occasions over the past few months. I have spoken to her extensively about her life, her family, her children and her relatives from Greece. She knows all about how I met my husband, why I came to live in Australia, what I do for a living, and why I don't dye my hair. She knows that, being American, I always grapple with whether and how much to tip my hairdresser, and she can rest assured that I will never place her under any kind of sanction, or tell my friends not to go to her salon.

On the one hand, it is possible that we are both going to feel embarrassed about this the next time I make a booking to get my hair done. On the other hand, it is even more possible that we will both have forgot it happened.