Goal Setting ...

I am in Tassie. My first ever trip to the Apple Isle. It looks gorgeous, but I haven't come for sightseeing.

I am here on a writing retreat - along with Denis, Lloyd and Mel.

Tonight, we are setting goals. But first, odd things I have learned about my writing mates on day one.

Denis has a pink camera. Okay, not such a surprise.

He also a snuggle blanket. It's brown and he looks like Obi-wan-kinobi. 

It's a little scary.

Lloyd eats Heinz frozen peas and corn for  snack. Hmmm... and he is denying himself internet access in pursuit of a higher artistic calling.

Mel has an extremely cool tattoo on her back - no I mean her whole back - she is a girl with a dragon tattoo.

I am jealous - but, don't worry. My nose ring is enough.

Okay, now for the goals.

Denis:

I need to do at least five scenes - each two thousand words. So, that's five days of writing.

Lloyd:

two twenty four page comic strips and settle on all the character's names, backgrounds and an outline for where it is going (the latter is the easy part, apparently).

Mel:

first child free week in ... actually, she can't remember, but maybe eight years. She is working on a short story, the whole rule of thirteen (to have thirteen pieces out in the market at any given time), and a feature outline for screen writing.

Liz:

I have reached a crisis point. Do I try to edit little bits and produce a patched together attempt at a novel, or take it on the chin and go for broke - like completely re-write the damn thing. I have passed the nervous breakdown stage and now I am trying to really, really brave.

This is no picnic folks - it is a writing week.

Standing Tall

Thursday afternoon, you fly to Adelaide to visit your mum and, even though you have been told she's not managing so well, it's a shock. Her hair has cob-webbed in the five months since Christmas. Her shoulders hunched. She has driven to the airport to pick you up. But she is so exhausted by the effort that she can't rise to greet you. It takes twenty minutes to walk the two hundred metres back to her car. In that time, you hear she has fallen again last night. You reckon that to be about the tenth time.

Back at her unit, things aren't good – dishes in the sink, clothes about the floor, the washing machine door wrenched from its hinges in last night's fall. You think of all those times over the past six years, that you've seen the signs of this decline. All the times you've badgered, pleaded, coaxed and cajoled.

'Wear your hearing aids Mum. Please try.'

'Go for a short walk each day. Mum, can you hear me? It's use it or lose it, you know that.'

'Don't pretend. I know you're not exercising. I can see the evidence with my own eyes.'

On Friday, you go with her to the Falling Clinic. The physio is kind, softly spoken and very young. He is concerned about last night's fall. He hasn't been a physio long, you can tell by his shock. He glances from you, to Mum, and back again when he realises the home exercise programme does not exist. But he is learning fast, this young man. He sets some simple goals. Two exercises – five repeats each, and a walk to the letter box. On the way home, your Mum says she is worried it will be too much.

Saturday you walk to the letter box, it takes time, but your mum makes it there and back. Very slowly, and so terribly afraid she might fall. But that's her limit. In the afternoon, she curls up in the chair for a nap. You watch her lined face soften. Her body balled up and old in the green recliner chair. You wonder where she's gone, that woman who used to be nine feet tall. The one who coped after you emigrated, though her husband failed to adjust. The mum who stood up to bullies and nasty teachers and then turned around and insisted you always be polite. The one who came to Melbourne, time and again, when your own children were little, who sent you money and flowers, just to buck you up.

And as you sit there watching, you realise finally, definitely and irrevocably, that woman is gone. No amount of haranguing will ever bring her back. No amount of try a little bit harder please Mum, will ever be enough. And in that moment with the rise and fall of her breath filling the darkened room, you accept the final stage. And in a fish flip, your anger is gone. There will be no more pushing up hill. No more gravity defying determination. No impassioned arguments. She has tried very hard, for a very long time and now she has simply run out of puff.

So, you go to the sports store and buy the weights the physio has recommended. Knowing that, like the hearing aids, they will never be used. That she will never again engage you in conversation or walk easily across a room. You navigate the unfamiliar shopping mall, the weights heavy in your hands, thinking of agencies you must call, extra burdens you must manage, phone calls you must dread, and in that busy, noisy shuffling crowd, you realise you have become the strong one, and your mother is now the child.

 

Standing Tall

Thursday afternoon, you fly interstate to visit your mum and, even though you have been told she's not managing so well, it's a shock. Her hair has cob-webbed in the five months since Christmas. Her shoulders hunched. She has driven to the airport to pick you up. But she is so exhausted by the effort that she can't rise to greet you. It takes twenty minutes to walk the two hundred metres back to her car. In that time, you hear she has fallen again last night. You reckon that to be about the tenth time.
Back at her unit, things aren't good – dishes in the sink, clothes about the floor, the washing machine door wrenched from its hinges in last night's fall. You think of all those times over the past six years, that you've seen the signs of this decline. All the times you've badgered, pleaded, coaxed and cajoled.
'Wear your hearing aids Mum. Please try.'
'Go for a short walk each day. Mum, can you hear me? It's use it or lose it, you know that.'
'Don't pretend. I know you're not exercising. I can see the evidence with my own eyes.'
On Friday, you go with her to the Falling Clinic. The physio is kind, softly spoken and very young. He is concerned about last night's fall. He hasn't been a physio long, you can tell by his shock. He glances from you, to Mum, and back again when he realises the home exercise programme does not exist. But he is learning fast, this young man. He sets some simple goals. Two exercises – five repeats each, and a walk to the letter box. On the way home, your Mum says she is worried it will be too much.
Saturday you walk to the letter box, it takes time, but your mum makes it there and back. Very slowly, and so terribly afraid she might fall. But that's her limit. In the afternoon, she curls up in the chair for a nap. You watch her lined face soften. Her body balled up and old in the green recliner chair. You wonder where she's gone, that woman who used to be nine feet tall. The one who coped after you emigrated, though her husband failed to adjust. The mum who stood up to bullies and nasty teachers and then turned around and insisted you always be polite. The one who came to Melbourne, time and again, when your own children were little, who sent you money and flowers, just to buck you up.
And as you sit there watching, you realise finally, definitely and irrevocably, that woman is gone. No amount of haranguing will ever bring her back. No amount of try a little bit harder please Mum, will ever be enough. And in that moment with the rise and fall of her breath filling the darkened room, you accept the final stage. And in a fish flip, your anger is gone. There will be no more pushing up hill. No more gravity defying determination. No impassioned arguments.  She has tried hard, for a very long time and now she has simply run out of puff.
So, you go to the sports store and buy the weights the physio has recommended. Knowing that, like the hearing aids, they will never be used. That she will never again engage you in conversation or walk easily across a room. You navigate the unfamiliar shopping mall, the weights heavy in your hands, thinking of agencies you must call, extra burdens you must manage, phone calls you must dread, and in that busy, noisy shuffling crowd, you realise you have become the strong one, and your mother is now the child.

Kettles and Things

Some incidents in your life come out of the blue. They can be small, barely noteworthy. But your reaction is significant. With me it was the kettle. A shiny new aluminium kettle, that became a mirror to my soul. But, I am getting ahead of myself. Here's how the story begins.

'Mum,' the power's gone,' Seth yelled from the kitchen.

'That's no good,' I called back.

'The lights and the fridge.' His feet came pounding the hallway. 'Your room's dark too.'

I looked up. 'Oh dear, so it is.'

'What about your laptop?'

Sure enough, my computer had flicked over to battery.  I had an hour max and a new short story forming.

'Damn,' I said. 'We'll have to check the fuse box.'

The white wooden door opened with a click. Sure enough one of the little switches had stepped out of line. Seth flicked the switch.  But the little red fellow jumped back up again. Next, I tried. But that switch was a stubborn little cuss. Every time I flicked, he gave me the bird and poked his tongue out at me.

I looked at Seth. He shrugged. 'We could try some of the other switches?'

'No,' I said, stepping in front of the fuse box. 'Don't touch anything!'

'Come on, Mum. We have to try.'

'It's your fault,' I said, eyes narrowed. 'What have you done to my electricity?'

'Nothing,' he spread his hands wide. 'All I did was switch on the kettle.'

'The kettle?'

'Yup.'

'Then go and unplug it, son.'

I would like to say that was the end of the incident. But here is where the soul comes in. You see, once we'd chucked that kettle in the bin, I started dreaming of a new kettle. Not  a white, plastic kettle. Something homely and rustic, like a whistling kettle. A ye-olde-kettle-on-the-hob sort of experience.

Yes, a whistling kettle, I found myself enchanted by the notion.

It would be shiny as a five cent piece with a little black knob on the top and an old fashioned steam whistle that called us merrily to tea. I would cook Welsh cakes and muffins. Hearty casseroles and soups would bubble on the stove. There would be no publishers rejecting my manuscript, no advanced novel tutors telling me hard home truths, no failing to make the Bristol Long List. Things would be simple, old fashioned, the way they were meant to be.

A few days later, I bought the kettle.

Sadly, before I even stepped in the door, doubts began to creep in. What if I set it boiling, then remembered I had an appointment? What if I shot out the door without thinking? What if no one heard my little tin kettle shrieking?

No! We were entering a new phase. Only calm and order lay before me. I wouldn't get caught up in a new short story. Forget I had a family. Spend evenings scribbling in notebooks, or fulfilling corporate writing contracts. I would be a new, in-the-moment, earth mother, Liz.

Unpacking the box, I set my kettle on the stove and gathered the family. Okay, so we'd run out of tea because I hadn't done the grocery shopping and Andrew was sick. But instant coffee would be fine and there were a few stale biscuits in the packet. Besides, once we heard trill of my new kettle, life would take on a Brambly Hedge sort of glow.

Now, here's the thing about whistling kettles. They don't switch off automatically. Nor do they do the fast boil thing.

We sat with our empty mugs — waiting.

'How much longer?' Seth said. 'I have an assignment to finish.'

'Boring,' Priya said. 'Call me when it's ready.'

'I need a Lemsip,' Andrew said. 'My throat is killing me'

'Maybe I put too much water in,' I said, glancing at the clock.

'It's been five minutes,' Andrew said. 'But who's counting.'

Then it happened. A long white spume rose from the kettle's spout. Only, it didn't make the homely, comforting sound I had anticipated.

It blared: like a fog-horn!

'Help,' Andrew dived for cover 'The Luftwaffe is coming.'

I dashed to the kitchen, hands shaking, and lifted the kettle from the flame — silence, an even-the-past-isn't-safe kind of feeling, as one by one, family members grabbed coffee cups and headed back to assignments, chat rooms, and sick beds.

I emptied the kettle, and slunk back to my study.

A few days later, Andrew purchased a new fast boil kettle that switches off quietly.

There are no Welsh cakes on the bake stone. No hearty casseroles in the oven. All Brambly Hedge delusions have vanished. We are a modern family. But I have finished another feature article. My latest short story is ready for submission and I've been offered a new position at the library. Soon the re-draft of my novel will begin.

Meanwhile, I have gained a new sense of persepctive, and at the back of the cupboard, we have a shiny new kettle for use in electrical emergencies.

A favoured quote ...

This quote hangs above my desk. Call it an affirmation, if you like, a kind of new millenium creed.

'I still believe in the power of the priesthood, where sinful men are helped by sinful men. I believe in an authority that stoops to wash a poor man's feet. I believe in a banquet where sinners learn to love, eating in the company of their God. I believe in parents who teach their children the beauty that is life. I believe in words that God has left for man, words that can fashion hope from darkness and turn bitter loneliness into love. And I believe in man fashioned in mystery by God. I believe in the beauty of his mind, the force of his emotions, the fire and loyalty of his love. I know his weakness, his cowardice, his treachery, his hate. But I believe in him and his thirst for acceptance and love.

'Most of all I believe in God and the power of his victory in Christ. I believe in a Resurrection that rescued man from death. I believe in an Easter that opened man to hope. I believe in a joy that no threat of man can take away. I believe in a peace that I know in fleeting moments and seek with boldness born of God. I believe in a life that lingers after this, a life that God has fashioned for His friends.

'I believe in understanding, in forgiveness, in mercy, in faith. I believe in man's love for woman, and hers for him, and in the fervour of this exchange, I hear the voice of God. I believe in friendhsip and its power to turn selfishness to love. I believe in eternity and the hope that it affords.'

Father James Kavanagh
A Modern Priest Looks at his Outdated Church

Books, covers, and the bodies we live in.

You can’t judge a book by its cover. Neither can you judge a person by the materials they read. Just because a man comes to the library and borrows a book called, Sex Positions for Over Forty, doesn’t mean he has celebrated a recent birthday or that he's grown tired of being a missionary.

On the contrary, he might be borrowing it for a friend, who is doing a nude painting class. The friend might be in a wheelchair and unable to come to the library. Or maybe he’s always wanted to borrow that book, but has been too embarrassed, because he’s actually in it. Or maybe he’s doing it for a dare, one of those pre-buck’s night things.

You don’t know. You really don’t, appearances are deceiving.

This was brought home to me on a recent beach holiday. I took a pile of books, as is my custom and after joyously and obsessively revelling in the sumptuous detail of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, I needed a breather. I pulled a non-fiction book from my bag. I sat by a lovely inlet, in my little Port Fairy chair, reading and taking notes, when Andrew turned to me, face white, his lips trembling.

‘Liz? Is there something you haven’t told me?’

‘No,’ I turned, staring at him blankly.

‘But … your book?’

I turned the book over. It had a bright pink cover a library barcode and the title: Your Guide to Bowel Cancer.

‘Oh,' I said understanding. ‘It’s not for me. I’m writing a short story from the perspective of someone with bowel cancer.’

‘But no one knows,’ he said. ‘They’re all walking past, looking at you thinking, poor woman, someone in her family has cancer. Maybe even that woman has cancer? The poor brave thing.’

Well, he had a point. I could see how my reading choice might be misleading. But we should never judge a book by its cover. Nor a reader by the book they are reading. Further to that, I would like to add, we should never judge a person, by their outward appearance.

I learned this most recently at the library. We have a customer who, for this blog, I shall call The Wharfie. I will describe him as wearing a blue wife-beater and a navy flannel work shirt. He isn’t really called The Wharfie. Neither does he look like one. But please bear with me, I can't breach confidentiality. But I must characterise, for the purposes of telling.

The Wharfie comes to the library regularly. But if he ever worked on a wharf, I’d be extremely surprised. He is slight, scrawny even. His face ravaged by alcohol, tobacco and the passage of years. These are not assumptions, I can smell the tobacco. I know he slips out of the library doors, periodically, for a drink. What life has dealt him, I can hardly imagine. But I suspect it hasn’t been easy for The Wharfie.

One of the best parts of my job is serving folks like the Wharfie. Don’t ask me why, but I get a kind of warmth from it. I like knowing there is a cosy well lit place in the world where anyone can come, no matter how badly life has treated them. That they can spend all day there (and trust me plenty do), and so long as they don’t abuse the staff, or throw chairs, they can borrow DVD’s, or books, or simply read newspapers and magazines.

As a Christian, I sometimes wonder why our churches aren't more like this.

The other day, The Wharfie, came to the information desk, and thrust a scrap of paper at me. On it were written three medical looking phrases.

‘Doctor says I have to take these,’ he said. ‘I want to know what they’re gonna do to me.’

Well, it was a fair request. Although, I suspected prescribed drugs were the least of The Wharfie’s worries. But it wasn’t my place to speculate, merely to find the information. Unfortunately, it was also one of those afternoons when everyone wanted to join the library. Added to which, the phone hadn’t stopped ringing and now school was out. There were kids everywhere. I had a line like a giraffe’s neck arching from my desk.

‘I can look it up,’ I said. ‘But it might take time. Have you got a minute?’

‘No worries, The Wharfie said.

When he came back later, I had the MIMS open on my desk, but I hadn’t had a chance to look for his drugs.

‘I’m not busy,’ he said. ‘I’ll read something else, for a while.’

By the time he returned, I’d found the drugs in the MIMS. All I had to do was photocopy them. But I couldn’t understand a word of the descriptions. I doubted The Wharfie would, either. I showed him the descriptions. ‘These aren’t much good to you,’ I said. ‘I’ll look in one of our databases.’

‘Take your time,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back in a minute.’

‘You’re very patient,’ I nodded gratefully.

He smiled, all the lines on his face softening. ‘That’s what my granny always said.’

I found the information he required, and we were alone at the desk. I explained that although, the headings were slightly different, these were indeed the drugs he’d listed.

‘They’re gonna cut me open,’ he said, quietly. ‘You mightn't see me for a while.’

I nodded, feeling a sudden tightening in my throat.

Would someone to visit this man? I wondered. Bring him flowers? Ask how he felt? This battered old man, who had softened at such a small compliment, and despite my professional training, I found myself wondering how someone could travel the years, through all sorts of unimaginable hardship, yet still melt at the memory of his grandmother’s words.

‘Well, good luck,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you when you’re better.’

But I didn’t see him again.

Not for weeks.

I asked the other staff at morning tea. ‘Have you seen The Wharfie, lately?’

No one had.

I began to fear he hadn’t made it. That his membership would simply expire after two years. That we would never know what happened? Whether he was in pain, at the end? Whether he found peace? That’s the thing about being a librarian. You don’t judge a book by its cover. Neither do you judge a borrower by their books. And you never, ever, know when a small glimpse of someone’s life will disarm you, and make you care.

Last Saturday, I went to a picnic in the Botanical Gardens.

I drove home, mulling over a delightful afternoon with family friends. Wondering what we’d have for dinner. Whether Andrew and I would go to a movie? Work in the garden tomorrow? Go to the gym? The library was the furthest thing from my mind.

Until, I saw a familiar figure standing at the bus stop.

The traffic light at the approaching intersection turned red. I leaned on the brake and brought the car to a slow halt. Turning, I peered back at the old man. He wore a blue wife-beater and a flannel work shirt. His face was ravaged by the care of years. But he was alive. And it was The Wharfie. And I found myself grinning stupidly in the traffic queue.

I didn’t wave or toot my horn. He wouldn’t know me outside of work. Besides, I’m the librarian, a sometimes silent witness to other people’s lives.

But I went home feeling light of heart. Knowing he’d be back at the library sometime, next week, or the week after, and I’d smile and ask how he was, and he probably wouldn’t even remember telling me he was going to have surgery – if indeed, he ever did – and life would go on, just as before, and as long as he didn’t shout, or throw chairs, he’d keep coming to the library for the remaining years of his life.

Acrostic thoughts

I haven't blogged for ages – primarily due to a hiccup in my publishing aspirations which caused a temporary downward spiral in my mood.

But today, I'm home sick — headachy and suppurating in bed, my mind is running along acrostic lines. I don’t know why. I hated acrostic poems at school. But here you are: two little kernels that convey my feelings.

Retched, yes, I know it starts with a W, but that’s how I feel.
Effluent, a polite term for words that start with a SH
Jagged, yes jagged, the knife in my chest
Effluent, again and again, that’s right shite!
Calm, everyone, stay calm – hide the kitchen knives.
Torture, doubt and self pity, again and again.
Idiot, yes, idiot, for expecting too much.
Onions, yes, onions, my eyes are red.
No! I won’t cheer up – life’s a bitch cricket pitch!

Fortunately, time has passed. I have gained perspective. It wasn’t a rejection anyway, it was a send-it-back-later, not-quite-ready, sort of letter. So here’s my second attempt at acrostic.

Rubbish, yes, rot, my novel is great.
Everyone has set backs – yes, everyone, I say.
J.K. Rowling heard the word ‘no’ word stacks of times (okay, I know, delusions of grandeur).
Everyone, like I say everyone, there’s no need to pine.
Calm, stay calm, and believe in yourself.
Tough, as old boots – with a confident step.
Inner-resolve shoving doubt out the door.
Only grieve for a while and then trouble more.
Now it is time to get back to my work.
Someone, please someone, tell me how to begin?