the echo and eclipse

I don't believe in falling in love.
Some years ago there was a movie called 'Music from Another Room'. One character described love 


You know how when you're listening to music playing from another room? And you're singing along because it's a tune that you really love? When a door closes or a train passes so you can't hear the music anymore, but you sing along anyway... then, no matter how much time passes, when you hear the music again you're still in exact same time with it. That's what it's like. 


Too long ago I was pottering about in a share house and heard the soundtrack to 'Against the Wind'. I froze and for a time was lost in another soul space. I knew someone who lived in those notes, but I had never met him, and at the time he was on the other side of the world.

I learnt to play 'Six Ribbons' on the piano...I can't play anything else, but that song mattered.
When I did meet him, I didn't notice what his hair was like, his clothes or anything changeable. I could hear the music, sense the celtic pulse and raw spirit.
I still don't believe in falling in love, but I know I have.       

a few words from my dog, Dougal.

1. Never accept rejection.
No matter how much someone may scream and flap, that lap is yours.

2. Stoical is not a word, neither is stoic a stable adjective.
The hidden angora blanket is yours.

3. Cleaning will not make you a spiritual person, dreaming will.

Overemphasis on spots and smells defines you as a cat.

4. Smile when it's not natural.

If you think this is difficult as a humanoid, it's moreso as a kelpie/corgie.

5 Explore the assumptions of royal duties.

If you are a 2 legged being, you will probably have little royal value. Corgies, on the other hand, should hold their head high.

6. Never underestimate the beauty of a lost sock.

7. Life without sole is boring.

Gather shoes on your bed, regardless of their original owner's screams and possessive carry on.

8. If you appear to be the same height standing and resting, rest more. But nurture the self worth of a big dog.

9. Choose to hear 'Dougal what are you doing NOW!' as an exclamation of wonder, not a question.

10. That's not a bone, this is a bone!

Negotiating a 3 metre bone and a 1 metre dog flap is only a matter of time and courage. Good bones taste better indoors.

writing in November

I am deliriously excited about writing next month. Some people go shopping, play in the garden, or sing but I love to raise a character, make them brilliant and loved and then hurt them hard.

The most huggable part of the story usually comes from a world view, a place where everybody has known that pain and may or may not recover.
So, at the moment I am packing for the journey; yoga suits, a new teapot, lovable coffee, plenty of sleep, details and moments and visits to my pear tree. That reminds me that bundles of sticks do break forth into beautiful leaves, blossom and fruit when there was no obvious evidence.
I don't have a muse, I think my busy daydreaming noggin is enough fuel for the distance. I do have happy dances stored up in the arena of my grey zones. I do have background music sorted; my family...drums, banjo, guitar, singing.     

Forums -

Forums -

What is NaNoWriMo? | National Novel Writing Month

What is NaNoWriMo? | National Novel Writing Month

Life before the dawn

Last night I slept all night, naturally.
 It doesn't sound that exciting until you miss several nights without even a nap. Then you start to wonder and of course start to Google; how long can you go without sleep....before you die *nine days*. It seems like forever and the loneliest path. Reflexes and recall are fragile, resources are few. People who went for records in staying awake usually chose to stay awake, to find that the body fatigued earlier than the will. But after nine days,
Different things start to matter, and like a trapeze artist reaching for hoops and hands, trust is invaluable.
This morning I heard that today's Aussie mum will prefer surgical over natural childbirth as more dignified.
My daughter and I had a conversation days ago over why we endure pain during birth. The outcome is beautiful, I told her. You can't gather the strength for that day until you are there. The memory of pain and tiredness passes quickly.
We had photos of me being brave; holding an eagle.
How to relax; pictures of our cat asleep.
No pictures of the child we couldn't see, but trust because of the weight I had carried, the movement I had felt.
Knowledge; because of the women who had been there.
Confidence in the person I had been, in trials before.
And each child is worth so much more than the problem of pain.

So why do you face a night of sleeplessness,
because somewhere I knew that person was still within me.
She could still make distances.
 Something would break the cycle of fear and worry.
I haven't lasted eight days, so I could try at three or five. I could forgive naps.
It's not something I would try because I could boast a record, but I know I survived it.

Sasha's Lamentations

She has little to say
 but continues to rev a noisy impact on her environment.
She mutters again, that she will not be at peace until I become,
the prolific author that is part of the street somewhere ahead,
she says.  
On that day,
she knows that I may stop pacing and dreaming,
however, probably not.
She knows I will always be one to pace and dream,
always searching through the sandcastle gardens in the sky
 for seeds that tumble forth that story.
 And Sasha would never refer to them as 'little stories',
for as a cat she knows the offence and maddening memory
 of an inappropriate diminutive.
She trusts that one of these hunted seeds
 will grow with the breath and hope that warmed the germ, 
and alarmed the general.
Sasha knows that if an idea has heavenly breath,
it has no choice but to stretch, groan and wade through the places of doubt and fear. Everything changes, when you are a cat.
If you raise your chin,
the world asks questions of power.
People  fall foul fretting over fear fed by foes.
Alert listless listeners foil the poor puss.
In vain they assume depth of thought.
Sasha would say that the introvert has all power,
as the mountain has volume in her echo,
so the thinker sheds life from doubt.
So, she tells me, my concerns will bear bounty,
the most lonely thought that escapes can fill any possible wonder.
Dream on,
says Sasha, 
make them deliver.        

I'm worth a million dollars~~~$

The Melbourne show, is a microcosm of wailing walls, global warming, shrieking and gnashing of teeth. This circus allows sensory overload, to any straggly olfactory nerve that missed the escape clause.

I don't like crowds. 

I love people.

As a writer, I have the opportunity to stalk every Nanna and Grandad in their brave efforts to merge with this extraordinary young loud generation, and introduce them to even more noise.

Nana is causing considerabel damage to shins and toes all around due to a pristine Babyco stroller carrying George. George is covered in bubble gum, fairy floss and opinions.

'I'm Booooored!'

`Orright, we're going to do something. Look, there's something, yay!'

George has found more decibels and semidigested over-processed food to underline his point.

"I doesn't want to see wood choppers!'

The debate faded as my gentle observant daughter followed me into the lifestyle Paviliouns. There are refuges, there are people who whisper and smile and remind you that much of the day will be enjoyed in the memory.

The memory of a day with my favourite girl, surveying faces, savouring smells, sidestepping the crush.

I came home with a million dollar memory.

                     

notes within notes

The    one person I love to spend time with knows me better than I know myself, remembers what I need remembered and sees through my masks. There are no trademarks but plenty of watermarks that define him when held up to the light, and within that light he is at his most beautiful. The most important reflection of him, is his music. All things he does well and strives high, but in his music you feel his happiness. At anytime of the day he will gather up heartworn pages that spell out the melodies our home knows and spills. He has sung these to each of the children growing up and hums them in the garden. So, when he has an instrument that peals out his favourites, I stop and listen. I may write in the same room but I have to be there to feel the breath and passion that goes with his talent.                          

dead sticks

Months ago I bought  a bundle of uninteresting sticks  at the Caribbean Gardens . The voluble vendor assured me that within months we would have beautiful pears bowing low. I am not known for successful gardens but I do like pears so I struggled 4 ' healthy brown kindling and found a focal point in the front garden.
And here, do you sing sweetly to these brown dead sticks and believe that all things are possible and wow aren't the rains bringing out the blossom and flowering trees that we anticipate every year,
But weeks flew past and my sticks were swollen in some appendages but it could't have been the magnification of the raindrops, or me pouring my most encouraging growth sonnets into that ...brown.

BUT!, today, a small fluffy white blossom placed a sign out, 'come in for tea'.
My dead sticks found colours within to fill previously vapid substance to become my first pear of the season.