A View to Eternity – A Letter From The Bride – 9th September, 2001.

Last Thursday, Geoff and I celebrated our 20th Wedding Anniversary. Well, being in lockdown, “celebrated” might be exaggerating just a tad, especially as Geoff kept getting called into work. However, we had dinner with the kids, zoomed my Mum and Dad and then had a zoom with some friends. These were current friends who weren’t there on the big day, and we’re still to get in touch with our Chief Bridesmaid and Best Man. I don’t know what happened to the weekend. Oh yes I do. Geoff was working.

Anyway, I decided to share a letter I wrote which was printed up in our Order of Service. It turned out to be a good idea, as I was half an hour late.

The Letter

Geoff and I would like to thank you for attending our wedding and being part of our special day! I decided include this letter in the order of service to personalise the service and to share our thoughts, feelings and wedding experience with you. We also wanted to have a solid reminder of our priorities when we first entered into marriage to keep us on track for the future.

Geoff and I met on New Year’s Eve, 1998 when our mutual friend, Emma Longstaff, invited us to watch the fireworks over Sydney Harbour. Meeting Geoff was one of those frozen moments in time. Not because I thought I’d met my future husband but rather he is one of those few people you meet in life that somehow calms the storm within. Geoff gave me some very sound advice that night – look for friendship and stop trying to find a relationship. It lasted a few days, however, some New Year’s resolutions are made to be broken! After an all night conversation in my parents’ driveway, exchanging a few emails and a trip to the zoo, the rest as they say, is history.

Geoff and I not long after we’d met photographed in his Austin Healy Sprite…not as romantic as it looks!

The last couple of months have been hectic as we have bought our first home, started a business and have been planning the wedding. It could have been very easy to get wrapped up in all the preparations and smothered by the trimmings: finding the dress, arranging the engagement party, designing the wedding invitations, choosing the florist, the flowers, the reception, the cake… With all these details to sort out, the preparations for the service almost became the wedding itself and it was a battle to remain focused on what really mattered – our love and commitment to each other and how we were going to spend eternity together.

For so many of those around us, our marriage seemed a foregone conclusion. The inevitable destiny of two people who are in love. Rather than rushing down the express lane, Geoff and I have taken our time in approaching a future together. There is a time for everything and this is our time…not a moment too soon and not a moment too late. This is the perfect wedding – knowing we are marrying the right person at the right time and knowing we have laid the groundwork for the journey ahead – not having the right flowers!

In the midst of planning the wedding, I have also been establishing our new garden. Establishing our garden provides a good analogy for our preparation for marriage. When we bought the house, there were only two trees and compared to the garden I’d grown up with in Pymble, the place looked pretty bare, lacking in warmth and imagination. Before we’d even moved in, we had bought packets of bulbs to establish our Garden of Eden only to discover we had sandy soil that wasn’t unsuitable. Not to be discouraged, I dug vast trenches through the grass, ploughing in cow manure, soil and compost to prepare the ground. I continued watering the dirt throughout the winter months, plucking out the weeds and bits of grass, wondering whether those bulbs would ever see the light of day! It didn’t help either when the local nurseries had daffodils in flower while mine were still lying dormant. Night after night, I checked the garden with my torch until finally, row by row, the bulbs started to shoot.

Meeting Geoff didn’t happen overnight either and it took time for us to get to know each other well enough to make this commitment. Unlike flowers, though, you can’t just put a relationship in a hot house pumped full of fertiliser to accelerate the process and expect it to survive long term. You need to do the groundwork. It is only by sowing the seeds, fertilising the soil, pruning the branches and pulling out the weeds that a marriage can last. And for that extra special garden – making sure there is always something in flower through every change of season and every type of weather! Geoff and I are committed, with God’s strength and your support, to have a bountiful and enduring relationship.

You will notice several pots of flowers here in the Church instead of the customary floral arrangements. These started out as a way of financing more plants for our garden, however, once I put more thought into it, they came to represent a number of things for us. I liked the idea that these plants would be flowering every year on our wedding day to remind us of our special day. I also appreciated the promise of hope that they offered. Just like the tall poppies, there are so many forces at work to cut down a marriage and Geoff and I are determined to grow together with our branches entwined yet nurturing separate root systems to establish a healthy relationship. I also felt like a flower cut down in its prime when I got sick a few years ago and am thankful for the personal growth I have experienced during my recovery.

There are some very special people with us here in spirit today. Geoff’s parents have passed away. Fortunately, I was able to get to know his mother, Margaret, and were able to spend Christmas together. Geoff’s mother embroidered the ring cushion. Geoff’s brother, Terry, has also passed away and we have received much love and support from his widow, Gaye. We would also like to remember my grandmother, Mama Haebich who passed away a year ago. Mama loved Geoff and we spent some special times with her and Papa and Anna. Mama always seemed to get teary in Church and I have one of her special lace hankies with me today. We have also included the 23^rd Psalm in the service today in her memory. I would also like to remember my grandfather, Papa Curtin who would wholeheartedly approve of me joining a family of stirrers.

Just so you don’t think planning the wedding was all work and no play, we have enjoyed our engagement and preparing the wedding. One of the highlights was Geoff’s Valentine’s Day proposal. Instead of proposing straight away or giving me my intended gift, Geoff wrapped up an electric sander for his car and presented it to me as my Valentine’s present. The look on my face, he says, was priceless! Another magic moment was finding my engagement ring. It has white and yellow gold meeting from opposite directions twisting together around a beautiful, perfect diamond, symbolising our marriage. There was also trying on the wedding dresses with Mum and Lisa and seeing myself transformed into the glowing bride. The wedding has also been an excuse for catching up with family and friends. And not to forget the Father of the Bride. I think Dad was the only one who was surprised when we announced our engagement. Or was that denial? He enjoyed his medicine though…watching both versions of the film Father of the Bride. Given that Dad looks like Basil Faulty and anything was possible, the movies seemed like good insurance!

Once again, we thank you for sharing our special day!

Love and God Bless,

Rowena and Geoff

Weekend Coffee Share – October 28, 2019.

Welcome to Another Weekend Coffee Share!

How are you? How has your week been? It’s now Monday morning here for me, which is my usual time for checking in with you after the weekend is done and dusted. I don’t really have much to offer you this morning unless you like a fresh roll with butter and Vegemite on top. Otherwise, you might have to come back later. I’m currently sipping on my cup of English Breakfast Tea, which I re-heated in the microwave after dropping the kids at school and running through the chemist and supermarket. Turns out yet another prescription’s expired. Humph! This is all too much for a Monday morning, especially after things on the home front blew up last night. Like all families, stuff brews for a bit them blows, but it’s not good when more than one person blows at the same time. It’s hard to know how to divide my attention, and not ignore somebody.

Last week, we drove up to Queensland for my sister-in-law’s wedding on the Gold Coast. It was a beautiful wedding, especially because they’ve both been through a lot and against the odds, they’ve found love again. We had the wedding ceremony on Saturday at 6.00pm and on the Sunday we had what could be described as a post-wedding wake where we met up for lunch at this historic mill site with a large sprawling cafe and an animal farm. It was not only an occasion of catching up with family. I also had some rather deep and probing conversations with a few people, and experienced that sense of delight and disappointment when you meet someone you connect with but doubt you’ll see again. Meanwhile, we were staying with Geoff’s other sister just South of the border at Nureybar, in the hinterland behind stunning Byron Bay. What with going up for the wedding, we didn’t get to go anywhere else, although it was novel to be in the country listening to fruit bats fighting in the fruit trees at night, which to the city person to me sounded rather sinister and macabre.

Lady at Ocean Beach, NSW.

Talking about not getting out and about, that reminds me that our so-called “holiday” was cut short a day after two of the dogs got out and Lady was missing overnight. Geoff had been working on the car to get it ready for the trip and didn’t quite latch the back gate properly. When our daughter went to feed them, she found the gate wide open and Rosie and Lady were gone. Just to compound the difficulties, Lady’s tag had fallen off a few weeks ago and I’ve had a chest infection and hadn’t quite managed to get a new tag. So, while she is microchipped, she didn’t have a tag. Rosie had a tag, but as we later found out, she refused to be caught. So, when they were found on the road, they managed to catch Lady and they dropped her at the vet in the morning and we picked her up. Meanwhile, Rosie arrived back at home about 11.00pm looking absolutely exhausted. She’s a border collie x kelpie and she looked like she’d been running all that time and had well and truly overdone it. While the two dogs were at large, my daughter and I were driving around the streets and stopping off at the beach trying to think like a dog so we could find them. Geoff hit the streets with our other dog, Zac, hoping he’d draw them out. They walked about 10 kilometres without finding any trace of them at all.  It was so eerie being out there. The whole place was just silent. There were very few cars or people out and about although we saw quite a few cats roaming about, their eyes glowing in the headlights. It was like we’d escaped from planet Earth and landed on “Planet of the Cats”. Well, that’s an exaggeration, but it certainly wasn’t “Planet of the Dogs”. Ours were nowhere to be found.

That was enough excitement.

Meanwhile, I’ve been digging deeper into my family history research along with pursuing that burning question…how did they survive the horrors of the Irish Famine? This branch of my family, the Quealy’s, came from Lisheenfroor, Moyarta, Kilrush, County Clare. I don’t blame you if that all means nothing. Lisheenfroor sounded like somewhere out of an Irish fairytale when I first heard about it too. To put it simply, we’re talking about West Clare and if you’re familiar with the famous etchings of the Famine which appeared in The Illustrated London News, 1849-50 that’s the area I’m talking about. It’s been pretty confronting knowing my ancestors went through all of that and I dread to think of what they saw and experienced themselves, and yet this is what I need to know. I can’t turn my back on what happened. It is a part of me.

However, none of that pays the bills. It doesn’t help organize the family and keep the household running smoothly either. Indeed, it has quite the opposite effect. It sends me into my research tunnel and the world around me could disappear. Moreover, to be able to write this all up in any meaningful fashion, I need to go into this tunnel and nut things out. Distraction is clearly distracting, unproductive and to put so much energy into the research without grabbling with all and writing it up is somehow self-destructive. I don’t know if you agree with that. Yet, the cost of getting to the end and getting it all finished, if that is even possible, is very high.

If you’re a writer yourself, perhaps that rings true to you too.

That constant tension between survival in the real world versus knowing what you’re made of and striving towards that elusive creative or storytelling goal.

Anyway, perhaps I should’ve stuck to offering you tea, coffee and a Vegemite roll. Perhaps, you’re chilled, relaxed and don’t grapple with these tensions. Indeed, I could easy walk down to the beach and post a very pretty photo of the golden sand and rolling ocean glistening in the sun. Some times, it’s not a good idea to think. Worse to dream. Just stay in your rat-run and not take the blinkers off.

Here’s a relaxed outdoor shot I prepared earlier. It’s me on the rocks at Pearl Beach, NSW and that beach in the distance is home. 

Meanwhile, Lady our fluffy Border Collie x Cavalier who is losing black clouds of fur as we head into Summer has plonked herself under my desk and on my feet. She tells me not to grapple with anything and sleeping through life in your bed is okay, as long as a cat doesn’t move into your territory. She tells me that it’s okay to plunder food off the table or the bench and that being in a little bit of trouble is worth a tasty morsel in your belly. She also tells me that life is too short to wait until you get it right to tell a story. Start telling and the story will tell itself if it wants to be told.

Deary me. I would never have thought that Lady could be such a fountain of wisdom. Trust me. She keeps it a closely guarded secret stashed behind her gorgeous floppy ears and fluffy coat.

I think that just about covers things here. How about you? What have you been up to lately? I look forward to hearing from you.

This has been another contribution to the Weekend Coffee Share hosted by  Eclectic Ali. We’d love you to pop round and join us.

Best wishes,

Rowena

PS Rosie insisted I included photo of her. 

 

 

 

 

 

Weekend Coffee Share – September 10, 2018.

Welcome to Another Weekend Coffee Share!

Ooops! Starting to look like one cupcake was an elegant sufficiency, and two was let’s just say a bit of a mistake. Perhaps, you’d like to indulge. I was reading about cupcakes on a blog last week, which gave me uncontrolled cravings and I whipped up a batch of plain ones with butter icing a few days ago. Tonight, I experimented a bit and swirled strawberry jam through one half, and crunchy peanut butter and chocolate chips through the rest. Butter icing on top…yum! Great with your choice of tea, coffee or whatever else tickles your fancy.

How had your week been?

Yesterday, was our 17th Wedding Anniversary. We went out for lunch at Eat Street on the Gosford Waterfront where I had fish tacos and Geoff has nachos. These were followed by coffee and a brownie each. We also went to the nursery and bought a yellow rose bush for our anniversary. Yellow roses are more my Dad’s colour and he usually gives mum yellow roses for their wedding anniversary. Yellow roses traditionally symbolise jealousy. However, in our case, we already have a beautiful and very resilient red climbing rose so we wanted something different.

Our rose bush is as pretty as a picture. Please rose bush do not die!

Well, being Spring over here, we couldn’t stop at buying just the rose bush. We would two very small azalias to go with the larger azalia that I’d bought Geoff for Father’s Day. We also bought a pink cineraria and a rosemary bush. We we brought them home, our son called out: “Plant killer”. So, in an effort to show that I’ve at least somewhat reformed, we got stuck into the garden ripping out overgrown grass and weeds and digging holes. Geoff has also done his bit and reinstalled our watering system a few months ago. There is hope.

By the way, I’m waiting patiently for our daffodils to flower. One flowered a few weeks ago and I fully meant to take a photo, but it looked a bit unfortunate locked up in the greenhouse when it should’ve been free. I blame three dogs for its unfortunate imprisonment. They dug up our blueberry bush and crewed it up…grr!

Posing after our violin performance 2012. Lizotte’s is a rock n’ roll venue where the likes of Diesel have performed…and me! The music school hired the venue for our concert.

While we’re chatting here, I’ve been reminded about my violin. I’ve been working on a short story called “The Violinist” based on my experiences of learning the violin as an adult. I had a bit of a light bulb moment this week, where I actually realized that if I practiced my violin for 30 minutes a day like I was supposed to. Indeed, that’s the very least amount of practice you can do and really expect to make any headway. I should really be doing an hour, which could explain why I can’t even manage to get any practice done at all. If I just settled for doing 5 minutes practice, it would extend out to 15 minutes, maybe even half an hour. Anyway, getting back to my light bulb moment, I realized that if I just did my practice, I probably wouldn’t be wrestling with my violin at all. That my bow wouldn’t be so tempted to wander off diagnonally across the strings and my fingers wouldn’t be so stiff. They’d be well-oiled and they’d actually know their way around the strings instead of feeling lost. No doubt, you’re probably wondering how something that obvious could count as a light bulb moment. Indeed, you’re probably thinking I might need to start looking for a new light bulb, if that’s the best I can come up with. However, there are so many competing distractions, and my violin isn’t at the top of the list. It’s something I love, but I see it more in terms of creative cross-training rather than something I’m ever going to master.

I was quite pleased with the flash fiction I wrote this week for Friday Fictioneers: Dancing With Apollo. I also wrote a post for Thursday Doors and this week I featured some of the miniature embassy buildings at Tazmazia. They’re quite amazing and I highly recommend you check them out in person, but in the meantime, you can enjoy the photographs. I’m really busting to get back to Tassie now. It’s our home away from home.

Well, I hope you’ve had a great week and I’m looking forward to hearing from you and catching up on your news as well.

This has been another contribution to the Weekend Coffee Share hosted by Ecclectic Ali. We’d love you to come and join us.

Best wishes,

Rowena

PS I thought I’d give you a laugh and post this photo of me taking photos at our wedding. You can’t hold a passionate photographer down. One of my friends said she was surprised I didn’t have a camera hidden in my bouquet.

The Photographer Bride: taking photos at my own wedding. Totally incorrigible.

 

Royal Wedding…A Front Row View.

Sorry you couldn’t join me for a front row sear for last night’s royal nuptials. As I’m sure you’ll appreciate, it was a rather exclusive event and since Dame Edna was unable to make it, I went in her place along her my possum handbag. Unfortunately, the pups got out and followed me. Perhaps, you missed the TV coverage, but they had a great time chasing the corgis around Windsor Castle. So, I can assure you that everything you saw on tele last night was something they’d prepared earlier and went through multiple takes and extensive editing. After all, how did you think Meghan’s dress stayed Omo white with all those grubby little page boys and flower girls wiping their fingers all over it. I was aghast. Some idiot had fed the kids chocolate crackles to keep them smiling in the royal automobile, and in the true blue wedding footage, you’ll see chocolate finger painting all over that dress and a huge tear in that precious train from when they were playing tug of way. Just as well Meghan had plenty of acting training and knows how to keep smiling under circumstances that would make an a saint hopping mad. Now, you’ll also understand why Harry was looking so nervous and shedding more than the occasional tear.

Anyway, we had our own little running commentary as the full Royal cast passed us by. Upon the arrival of the Queen, my son pointed out that she was wearing “Hi Viz”. A friend also pointed out that she won’t get lost in the crowd. Anyway, she always looks delightful and I’m serious impressed at how the Queen and Prince Phillip keep going. They both walked into the Chapel unassisted from what I recall, which is a real commendation to them as well as a bit of good luck no doubt.

Watching the Royal Wedding from my front row seat.

The second thing I really appreciated about the wedding, was how Prince Charles was there to support Meghan Markle and her Mum, through what was quite an emotional thing of walking up and down the aisle. He was the consummate Gentleman and he was just like how I’d expect my Dad to be in that circumstance. He was just beautiful and I felt very compassionate. As Meghan’s Mum left the chapel, the only member of Meghan’s family to attend the wedding, Prince Charles against stepped up and walked her out. While Meghan’s Mum was rather regal herself through proceedings, it must have been a terrifying prospect. Yet, she handled herself with what is described as “aplomb”. I literally took my hat off for her and my high heels and put on my cosy ugg boots.

 

By the way, my Ugg Boots were a real hit at Windsor Castle, and the envy of most of their guests. Of course, most of them were wearing what I call toe-crunchers and didn’t have the nous to put comfort before style. Indeed, Camilla even tried to snatch them off my very feet. Indeed, I had to threaten to tell the Queen, and it was only then that she let go.

This brings me to the address. Well, to be honest, I’d like to give the Most Reverend Michael Curry my address.In case you missed it or had continuous interruptions like yours truly, here’s a link: Link and here’s a link to the  Full Transcript , which is truly worth an indepth study more than a glossing over. This man not only wore his heart on his sleeve, her radiated love like the sun. Not just any ordinary love either. God’s love. I have a feeling. Indeed, I know, that if there were more people like him in this world, it would be a better place. Moreover, I think we’ll be saying the same about Harry and Meghan before too long. Indeed, they’ve each made a significant contribution to their chosen spheres.

So, to finish off the big day, I pulled out a couple of trays of my world famous lamingtons and shared them with the crowds. I made quite an impression and you might even see me on the next season of Masterchef. That’s if I’m not playing my violin at the Sydney Opera House. My calendar is clearly starting to fill up.

Best wishes,

Rowena

 

Poem: Beyond the Veil

I watch the tourist bride & groom

snap-frozen for the camera.

Smiling in the shadow of

its towering silhouette.

Guardian of ships,

she’s now fully automated.

The lighthouse keeper

is long gone.

Thrown into the spotlight,

the tourist bride & groom

try on their celebrity smiles:

so awkward,

almost robotic.

Their performance unrehearsed,

bride and groom for one day.

Married for a life time.

Or, maybe not.

An Easterly wind blows

straight in my face.

So close

that I can almost smell its breath.

It slaps me hard on both cheeks,

like a frozen fish.

If I were a kite,

I would fly!

The bride & groom who inspired this poem were posing for photos from this lookout. Providing a stunning ocean backdrop, they also balanced precariously above these steep, jagged plunge into the rough surf.

Tourist bride & groom

perched so precariously

on the edge of the abyss,

the lookout giving way to the sea.

Waves gnashing their teeth

against the rocks.

Shipwrecks, disaster

are no stranger to these

savage, unforgiving shores…

a watery grave.

Following a change in the guard,

a Northerly blows through

with a vengeance,

seizing her bridal veil

too fast for a grasping hand

to intervene.

Pirouetting in slow motion

through the air with such grace,

almost Swan Lake,

it comes to rest in the surf

where there is no peace.

Just the savagery of the brutal sea.

She stares through tears

at her diamond ring,

which has suddenly lost

so much of its sparkle.

It might just be chance

but deep in her heart

she fears the winds of fate

have spoken.

The rocks at the base of the lookout.

How can it be

that even our loftiest dreams

can crash so quickly,

broken by the waves?

Those waves

which never, ever

pause to stop.

The waves pounding the shore….Byron Bay Lighthouse.

Byron Bay Lighthouse September 2015.

I started writing this poem while watching a Japanese bride and groom posing for their wedding photos at the lookout. Geoff and the kids were walking down to signposted Most Easterly Point in Australia and onto the beach down below, which was too much of a walk for me. They also had the camera. They were gone for about an hour, giving me plenty of time to watch and absorb the waves ferociously crashing on the waves down below. You really feel the strength and power of the mighty Pacific Ocean here and the waves are huge, powerful, incredibly beautiful but also unforgiving.

I ended up watching this bride and groom posing for their photos for some time. They clearly weren’t feeling comfortable, like so many bride and grooms. They spend there big day being photo models without any preparation or training. Being an extrovert myself, I’ve always loved having my photo taken and have my photo face. People tell me that I look a lot better in photos. However, that didn’t mean I didn’t feel some compassion for this poor bride and groom being tortured by their photographer.

I was standing quite a distance away and from where I was standing, I saw most of the steep escarpment behind them, which became quite an allegoryt for the ruggedness of real life after the wedding is over. Sure, it’s not all hard work but it’s not a fairytale wrapped up in lace and rose petals either.

The bride’s veil didn’t fly away but I could help imagining how that would look with the veil leaping over the edge and spiralling towards its death in the surf.

How would you feel as a bride if your veil flew away like that? I couldn’t help but feel a little superstitious, despite my Christian beliefs. Brides can be very anxious creatures and any sign of trouble becomes magnified and instantly catastrophised.

However, my husband, who is more pragmatic, said what would it matter if the veil flew away after the wedding? It’s done its job.

Anyway, any insights would be much appreciated.Do you have any wedding disasters to share?

xx Rowena

The Photographer Bride: taking photos at my own wedding. Totally incorrigible.

The Nikon Bride. Day 2: Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge

There is a fine line between being passionate, enthusiastic and obsessed or even (dare I mention the dreaded word) addicted.

Some would say that taking photos at your own wedding definitely crosses that line and would suggest putting the camera down and focusing on my new husband instead of staring down the lens at whoever it was.

Perhaps, they’re right.

“I’ve been called many names like perfectionist, difficult and obsessive. I think it takes obsession, takes searching for the details for any artist to be good.”

Barbra Streisand

Indeed, close friends did jest that they half-expected me to have a camera concealed in my bouquet. These days that could well be de rigeur but rewinding back to 2001, such  digital technology was very rudimentary . All our photography was done on film.

As crazy as it might appear, you are who you are. Once you become a photographer, professional or otherwise, your camera lens becomes a second set of eyes. A way of viewing the world. So, to go through our special day without viewing it through my lens, would have somehow not been me. I wouldn’t have experienced our wedding in quite the same way.

“What moves those of genius, what inspires their work is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.”

Eugene Delacroix

By the way, I should also add that I made Geoff stop of at the Palm Beach wharf for more photos well after midnight and the next day, we dressed up in our wedding gear again and took photos at Palm Beach late afternoon. I think we must have flagged down a passer-by to take a joint shot. I’ve never considered how that must have come across. I mean…I’ve never been asked to take a photo by a stray bride and groom like that myself in all my years of lurking around photogenic locations with my camera.

Call me passionate, enthusiastic, obsessed, addicted or all of the above. Yet, even if I’m crazy or even a little dangerous at least, I am unashamedly me.

I was nominated by Geoff Le Pard fromTanGental for the Five Photos Five Stories blog Share: http://geofflepard.com/2015/06/10/five-photos-five-stories-day-two/

I would like to nominate Paula from14 Weeks Worth of Socks  at http://14weeksworthofsocks.com/ . Paula lives in New Zealand and writes a great travel blog with stunning photographs.

The rules of the Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge are:

1) Post a photo each day for five consecutive days.
2) Attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or a short paragraph. It’s entirely up to the individual.
3) Nominate another blogger to carry on the challenge. Your nominee is free to accept or decline the invitation. This is fun, not a command performance!

I am enjoying thisw challenge and so far it’s taken me on a journey revisiting how my love of photography has unfolded over time, rather than featuring my best or even favourite shots, although the two photos I’ve posted so far are sentimental favourites.

Do you have a passion for photography and how did you get started?

xx Rowena.