Right from birth, Karen had never understood her creative, dreamy daughter, Matilda. A marine biologist, her entire world was classified into the natural order of things while Matilda didn’t fit into any category, and she couldn’t get a diagnosis!
“Matilda!” she screamed after stepping on a wet painting.
Battling long covid, now more than ever she questioned:“Why couldn’t I have a normal child?”
Karen fell into her chair, immediately leaping to her feet. The neck of Matilda’s violin had snapped like a dead man hanging from a noose, and Karen had become “The Scream”.
I was delighted to see this week’s prompt as I play the violin, although I stop well short of calling myself a violinist these days. Practice had dropped off before my lessons stopped during covid, but I’ve been picking it up a bit again lately and am practicing Peter Allen’s hit: “I Still Call Australia Home”. My mother used to play it on the piano and I’m wanting to play it with her and I really do love the words of the song.
The Scream by Edvard Munch
When I was growing up, Mum would occasionally lose patience with the eccentricity of the rest of us and ask: “Why can’t this family be normal?” Mum played things pretty much by the book but the rest of us didn’t even know where to find it. As it turned out, in my mid-20’s I was diagnosed with hydrocephalus and had a shunt inserted to sort things out. Being creative, I wasn’t exactly “fixed” but I was a new improved version of myself and at least I wasn’t falling over all the time.
It wouldn’t surprise me if my husband had told me not to leave my violin on a chair in case someone sat on it; and I’m probably lucky my violin’s still in one piece.
Another week has just rushed past like an express train and I’m struggling to remember what happened. Or, perhaps it was more a case of being hit on the head a few times and I’m struggling to get my bearings. That’s probably more like it, because I haven’t exactly been busy in the traditional sense. More like hyper-distracted. Indeed, I’ve acquired a new, and very addictive distraction which involves shopping online at Salvo Stores. I’ve included a few of my more extraordinary finds for you to check out:
To be honest, I’ve needed a fair bit of distraction lately. Or, perhaps the reverse is true and that by distracting myself, I’m only shooting myself in the foot and now is actually the time to be uber-focused, vigilant and pedantically one-track minded. I don’t know but before this cryptic conversation with myself goes any further, I probably should spill the beans and bring you into the picture.
I’m not sure about how much I’ve said about what’s going on with my health atm. I have an auto-immune disease, dermatomyositis (DM) and associated fibrosis in my lungs, which is known as Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD). I developed the DM after the birth of my daughter and have been living with it for 17 years. The ILD developed about 10 years ago and had been largely contained but the fibrosis has gradually increased. The theory is that as long as the DM is in remission, the lungs will be stable. All was going well until a mix up with a script cut my medication in half and unlike many other scripts, I didn’t manage to lose this one. Bugger! Consequently, my autoimmune disease flared up a bit. IN the meantime, I had a respiratory virus in December and covid in January. Yet, I seemed to recover and had a wonderful time in January catching ferries and walking extensively around Sydney. So it’s hard to understand how I came to fall on my sword and end up so sick and desperately short of breath and my lung capacity dropping from 50% to 30% Not only that, I suddenly became my lung specialist’s best friend as he started exploring and sharing my case. That obviously spells TROUBLE!! Yet, at the same time, I’ve set out fiercely determined to heal myself. I’m going for a 10 minute walk most days and using a device called a respiratory exerciser where you inhale and try to raise three blue balls off the ground. At first, I could only raise one but now I’m getting the third one up some of the time and that has to be a good sign. We are also praying. I would probably prefer to pray for God to wave a magic wand and instant make me better. However, he has a wonderful sense of humour and I know I have to do my share too and that’s the exercise. I should also do more singing. After all it’s singers, swimmers and brass players who give me hope because they can end up with above average lung capacity. So, instead of trawling through the Salvo Stores I should be singing all night.
We had a very special day today. Our daughter auditioned for a local youth performing arts show with the dance school she attends and we were able to watch. She appeared in three classical ballet dances: a trio, a duo and her ballet solo. She is always amazing and naturally looks the part with her physique which is a stroke of genetic fortune (especially considering I am about 10-15cm taller than her). However, none of this comes on a platter and there’s a lot of hard work and she lives and breathes ballet with a passion.
I was particularly delighted to see the new duo for the first time which she performs with a young man she’s known forever at the studio and I guess this for me is what ballet is all about and it really is like she’s finally arriving after starting ballet 14 years ago as a three year old and there’s that graduation from flats, to pointe shoes, doing solos, getting your first real (expensive) tutu and then there’s that magical connection in a good duo which is sensational. They might not be Torvill and Dean of the dance world in other people’s eyes, but they were to me and they were spectacular.
After the audition, we went out for lunch across the road. That was also truly special and not something we do terribly often.
Have you read any good books lately? I am currently reading “Seven Poor Men of Sydney” by Australian author Christina Stead. It’s largely set in Watson’s Bay on Sydney Harbour but is quite a dark tale and perhaps not the best thing for me to be reading with the state of my lungs. However, Stead’s characters are generally lonely misfits and I’m immersed in family and community so my lifestyle is very different. The book is very philosophical, which I love and Stead writes beautifully and there’s plenty of underlining throughout which is my mark of a great book. Here are a few of my underlinings:
“Who does not wish to spend his life in communion with himself?”
“You can be absorbed in Nature, as-as in the sea, as if you melted into the sea and were diffused through the oceans of the earth. There is peace where her mysteries are an open book to you; in her inmost recesses she has perfect peace, even for the most fevered.”
I have 50 pages left, which is too much to polish it off tonight but at the same time, I’m on that downhill run where I’m eager to follow all the threads and reach the end, even though I will miss it when it’s done.
Meanwhile, I’ve also been researching her father, naturalist David G. Stead and he led me astray onto a whole different journey as he was a naturalist and conservationist and he wrote a series of articles in the children’s section of a Sydney newspaper which make for interesting reading. His column was called “The Great Outdoors” and was narrated using the voice of an emu called Dirrawan. Stead was rather broad in his understanding of the great outdoors and one of his early columns gives a detailed account of mud sediments at the bottom of the ocean, especially at the deepest part of the ocean in the Marianna Trench, which is clearly well away from the Australian outdoors. Anyway, I’ve managed to download the text from the online newspapers after undertaking text corrections and they’re now getting a further clean up as the analysis begins. This has also been a brilliant distraction.
So, how are things with you going? No doubt, I should’ve asked you that at the outset and offered you “coffee, tea or bonox” as my mother would say. However, I got a bit carried away. So, please forgive me.
This has been another Weekend Coffee Share hosted by Natalie the Explorer.
Best wishes,
Rowena
PS I almost forgot to mention that Miss and I decorated our new phone cases this week. This is an idea she picked up from Tik Tok where you cover the cover the back of the cover in tiling plaster and stick objects into it like a collage. It was so much fun and I was really happy with the results even if they’re not the most practical phone cases around.
My phone case made using shells I’d picked up in Geraldton WA over 20 years ago.
“We always called him “The Joker”. Even back in boy scouts, he had us rolling around the campfire in stitches. My favourite was his legendary encounter with the jellyfish he meant to throw at me. That SQUID squirted him in the face and while he was screaming like a banshee, we almost died laughing.
Tragically, we now know there was another side to Mark. Yet after his shows, we’d have a few beers, more jokes. Never anything about his troubles. Mark was my best mate. Now…. I wonder if I knew him at all!
Hey, guys, we need to talk.”
…..
100 words. Photo prompt Lisa Fox.
This story was hard to reduce to the 100 words and I’m pretty stoked I got there in the end. Unlike the speaker in this story, I have long been aware of the clown with the tear. The anguish behind the smile. Yet, at the same time, if someone refuses to talk about their angst and won’t seek professional help, it’s a tough spot for a bystander. That said, sometimes just having someone sit alongside you and know they care or even love you can be enough.
I also wanted to mention actor Heath Ledger who wasn’t the inspiration behind my story, but at the same time clearly deserves a mention.
Here in Australia we have a suicide prevention program based on asking people: RUOK? We even have RUOK Day, which will be on the 14th September, 2023. They also have some resources to help you progress the conversation. Last year, I also did a suicide intervention course through Lifeline and found it incredibly useful unfortunately. Not every joker is always joking.
They only had a short walk home. It was meant to be safe, but their cover was blown and suddenly the wind had changed. Mum had spotted her ex and his thugs too late.
“Run, Mirry! Run!” Her mother shrieked.
Mirium didn’t see her mother’s terror stricken face, or her captors as they threw her into a waiting van. She just kept running, knowing she was on her own.
I often wonder where these photo prompts were taken and try to bring that into the story somehow. That said, I am often stumped. However, this week I have an advantage because I took the photo. It was taken in Rose Bay, on Sydney Harbour and there were a few alleyways of shops to explore and I think Rochelle would like it there as I spotted a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel and there’s an significant Jewish community there. Unfortunately, I was too late in the day for the bagel but I hope to head back soon. I am yet to post about my trip to Rose Bay. I lived there in a flat with my parents for the first couple of years of my life. If you feel like a virtual trip, click here: Rose Bay
This has been another contribution to Friday Fictioneers hosted by Rochelle Wisoff Fields at Addicted to Purple.
Right now, I feel like I could poor a bucket of ice right over my head. Apparently, it’s 22°C and by rights I shouldn’t be complaining because the mercury is going to hit 36 °C later today. However, I’ll blame Zac the dog who is sleeping on my lap for blazing like a furnace and if it weren’t for him, I’d also elevate myself out of the chair and nab the remote control for the air-conditioning and turn it back on. Forget being stoic and developing resilience and grit. I want comfort!
On the train last night. Sorry you can’t see my magic red heels. They’re in my bag.
The highlight of the last week was catching up with some school friends for dinner at the Butcher’s Block in Wahroonga, Sydney. Coincidentally, it turns out we were meeting up with our friend Natalie who moved to Toronto, Canada and I’ve always found it kind of nice that I get a window into my friend’s world in Toronto through our intrepid host, Natalie the Explorer. There were ten of us for dinner and a number couldn’t make it, which I think you really notice with school friends because we used to hang out in pairs, within groups and while some of these allegiances changed over the years, there were those friends who made it all the way through and almost became an institution. I went to an all-girls school and while that didn’t preclude a romantic attachment, I haven’t heard of any but we certainly had no boys to couple up with although there was the school gardener who was rather young, handsome, blond and considered hot property at least on the bus. Fortunately, none of my close school friends have passed away but a number keep to themselves and I haven’t seen some truly close friends for over 10-20 + years. Indeed, putting that into words really paints an awful picture and I feel almost honourbound to get fired up and do something about it. Not all of these friends are real social and of course “we’re all busy”, but I think sometimes we need to exit stage left and leave all of that behind…the lists, the mess, the family obligations and say I am going to see you. I am going to make room for that coffee with a friend, a dinner, a weekend away. I’m not going to let the people who matter most to me get drowned out by weeds. Of course, it’s a bit harder when they don’t make the time. Don’t feel the need or desire to have coffee with you or even to return an email or text. You are in the past dead and buried. Well, as they say, “that’s their loss”. What I will say, is that I truly appreciate our school reunions and the opportunity to make new friends or strengthen various friendships which sort of hovered beneath the radar back at school. While in a sense these school friendships are in the past, there’s something really special about them. Well, that’s what I think anyway. You’re thrown into a lift together and under each other’s noses, arm pits the works with these often very strange creatures called teachers and rules and regulations, especially in our case, which often didn’t make sense. I started at the school in Year 6 back in 1981 so we’re not talking about the era of the horse and cart here, but we had to wear leather satchels to school and we also had to use cartridge ink pens. While the satchel sounds bad, inflicting ink pens on kids when biros are freely available was sadistic. How could they? We weren’t allowed to walk on the grass. Couldn’t go into a shop in school uniform or talk to boys either (which probably should’ve gone at the top of my list of prohibitions!!) Thank goodness, we’d been spared wearing gloves, but we did have to wear hats, which I’m sure had nothing to do with sun protection, especially the Winter Tam-o-shanter which made for fabulous frisbees at the train station and it was nothing for them to take flight and go on all sorts of unplanned adventures on their own. Clearly, you had to be there to appreciate the place in all it’s glory, which is probably much the same for every school although for different reasons and why school friends become a kind of survival network. If you can get through school together, you can conquer the world.
So let me propose a toast to absent friends and an open invitation for them all to come home.
Watson’s Bay, Sydney Harbour.
Meanwhile, I’m still writing up my posts from my houseminding stint in Sydney and still going on massive research detours. You might recall that I visited Watson’s Bay on Sydney Harbour and started reading Christina Stead’s novel: “Seven Poor Men of Sydney” which was set there back in the 1920s. Indeed, she lived there from 1911-1928. Well, I’m very passionate about biography and family history and so I started pouring through the old newspapers putting all that background together and was fascinated by her father, David Stead, who was a noted naturalist who was an expert in Australian fish and actively campaigned for the preservation of Australia’s native plants and animals at least as early as the 1920[‘s. He’s speaking out about koalas being killed for their furs, women wearing the feathers of exotic birds in their hats and I guess the thing that really struck me was there were tigers roaming through Singapore only 100 years ago. Indeed, his writings provide a terrifying reflection of a world we’re coming close to destroying. Yet, he was blowing the whistle over 100 years ago. Much not only to think about there, but to act on as well!
Meanwhile, the while all of that’s been going on, there’s my health which has been refusing to lie down in the background and is still trying to push me out of the way on centre stage crying: “Look at me!” Or, more pertinently “Listen to me” be it a cough, choke or shortness of breath. I think the increased prednisone is helping and the coughing has really calmed down a lot. I was able to catch the train to dinner and got through the night without mishap so I’m feeling pretty chuffed. I even got to wear my red high heels, although I managed to slip them on when I arrived and hide the dreaded flats in my bag. That’s the beauty of being first to arrive and the bathroom was conveniently right behind my seat. Surely, even I couldn’t trip over and break my neck taking only a couple of steps (You bet I could but thank goodness it didn’t happen this time.) Mind you, I could also ask why I felt compelled to wear the flashy red shoes at all when they were hiding under the table almost all of the night (Of course, I had to point them out, didn’t I ?!!)
This week I have more medical appointments, but excitingly it’s our son, J.P.’s birthday on Wednesday. He’s turning 19. My goodness time is flying.
Well, I’d better head off to bed and hope by some miracle it’s cooler in there than it is out here with the dog. I know I’ll be complaining about the cold before too long, so I’ll try to be thankful instead.
On that note, what have you been up to? I’d love to hear from you and look forward to catching up on your news.
This has been another contribution to the Weekend Coffee Share hosted by Natalie the Explorer.
My goodness! Writing up these posts about our three week stint in Sydney seems to be taking longer than our holiday itself, a situation hardly helped by my knack of over-researching each and every step I take and even taking flight on the wings of numerous stories.
While some would consider delving into the past like this a waste of time or an escape from the present, for me these places really come to life when you find out more about them and their assorted characters. Indeed, even the multifarious fragments of stories I’ve been gathering are riveting and while they might not make a full story in themselves, I’m hoping to join them together into some sort of conglomerate or word collage. We’ll see.
New Zealand artist Francis Upritchard’s Here Comes Everybody
Meanwhile, heading back to the 19th January, I caught the ferry to Circular Quay and the train to St James Station and started walking towards the Art Gallery of New South Wales and it’s new development, Sydney Modern, which is located conveniently next door. Sydney Modern, which is its temporary name, only opened on the 3rd December, 2022. So, it had only been open for about six weeks and it was brand spanking new. Moreover, being our long school Summer holidays, quite a few of my friends had been going and photos were turning up on Facebook which motivated me to overlook the long walk to get there.
And I thought I had big feet…!
My thoughts about Sydney Modern are that it’s massive with vast amounts of space in between works and my feeling was they could’ve moved the paintings closer together and squeezed a few more works up on the wall and there would be more to see. Of course, this is coming from someone whose personal style is “cluttered eclectic” and I’m always trying to squeeze more books into overcrowded book shelves and don’t even talk to me about getting photos up on the walls at home. I have stacks upon stacks of picture frames and I’d probably be able to fill Sydney Modern myself given half the chance. So, I’m hardly one who would leave plenty of room or “pasture” around a painting on a wall. Being a public gallery, I might not want to jam it all in and I’m coming to appreciate the virtues of blank space. Yet, I did feel they could fit more onto the walls without it becoming less.
Darren Siwes: Jingli KwinMarlene Rubuntja: “Woman & Dilly Bags Hat 2019Grace Lillian Lee: Belonging 3Lin Onus: “Fruit Bats” 1991.
Before I developed these theories on gallery hanging space, I visited the Aboriginal gallery within Sydney Modern – the Yiribana Gallery, which actually takes pride of place in the new gallery instead of being shut away in the boondocks like it was in the old building. How could a country marginalise the art and culture of its Indigenous people? I don’t know and I guess it’s just part of a broader picture of things I don’t understand. My thinking is too simple. Anyway, I really enjoyed being able to immerse myself in Aboriginal art there and gain a greater appreciation, even if I have a long way to go. If you would like to explore the Yiribana Gallery online, click HERE
Just on this first visit, I didn’t really get a good feel for the new building and barely scratched the surface. However, if you’d like to read more about it, here’s a link: Opening of the Sydney Modern Project.
An awkward selfie of me with my lump of clay and contribution to the work.
Before we leave Sydney Modern, I’d just like to share one last thing which was more of an experiential or “participatory” artwork. This was Kimsooja’s Archive of Mind. Visitors to the gallery were given the opportunity to make their own albeit small contribution by taking a lump of clay, rolling it into a ball which was left on a large table becoming part of a a community of balls. We could choose from three different coloured clay and it was meant to be a bit of a relaxing, mindfulness type experience and there’s a brief explanation about what the work’s about:
“Each person has their space and time, but the work also creates a communal space. Working towards a certain state of mind creates a kind of cosmic landscape, a mind-galaxy
– Kimsooja, Korea 1957-
Personally, I found it rather exciting to go to the art gallery and make art or perhaps it’s more of a sculpture myself and to be a contributor and not just a watcher of art. I was also reminded of visiting the art gallery with our son when he was just shy of turning five. We were walking back home across The Domain after visiting the gallery and he found a great big Autumn leaf on the ground. Being a preschooler, he knew all about making leaf prints from Autumn leaves and wanted to take the leaf back to the art gallery so they could make one. He was so enthusiastic. I felt a bit too self-conscious to return to the art gallery with his leaf and explained that the gallery displayed art rather than making it there. Had we gone back, I’m sure the staff would’ve accepted his leaf with grace (unlike his mother) and there’s part of me now that wishes I’d turned back and had more belief in him.
Heading home, I decided to walk back to Circular Quay via the Botanic Gardens instead of walking back to St James Station. Transport wise, the art gallery is in a tricky spot and it’s a fair hike to a station. However, I planned to take it slowly, a bit at a time, and rest along the way and thought I’d be okay. I wasn’t and the walk back to Circular Quay was grueling. It felt like I’d been walking for an eternity and then I finally reached a map and it showed I was only a third of the way through and my legs were aching, exhausted, dead weights. However, I’d unwittingly committed myself to coming out the other side and everywhere I looked there were prohibitive flights of stairs. Tall trees towered overhead and there were moments where I was starting to feel trapped, and like I’d never make it out the other side. I also have a pretty poor sense of direction which didn’t help either and with such limited energy, I couldn’t afford to get lost and even take one more step more than required. Indeed, I was looking for the short cut out.
I guess this is what they call biting off more than you can chew. Moreover, the trouble is you can’t always spit it all out and make everything manageable again. Sometimes, you’re caught up in the flow and all you can do is keep breaking it down into smaller chunks, rest, recover and think about all those powerfully motivating words like resilience, persistence, perseverance, determination, never giving up. Another thing which also would’ve helped is planning ahead, and having some appreciation of not only getting to my destination, but also getting home. Sometimes you can push yourself too far, which is actually counter-productive and even dangerous. You don’t always need to be a hero, and some times being a survivor is good enough.
No escape from the Botanical Gardens for those who can’t get up the stairs lol.
Obviously, I made it out alive and didn’t get lost in the Botanical Gardens for eternity either. Yippee! Mind you, I can’t say that I really learned to be more cautious about pacing myself, but more of that to come.
Have you been to the Sydney and what did you think? Or, have you been on a similar adventure over in your neck of the woods? If so, I’d love to hear from you.
Hugo recently moved out, and his flat mate Maddy was initiating him into the cruel hard world of the local laundromat.
“Why can’t you just upload your washing and download it when it’s done? You can do everything else online.”
“OMG, Hugo! You’re such a Neanderthal. Doing your own washing is all part of becoming a responsible adult. You’re 18. Time to embrace DIY! Besides, why do you think I come here? Or, didn’t you notice we have our own washing machine? Going to the laundromat is so much more than doing your laundry.
Beyond the Flow 