A Daily Practice

Natalie (Goldberg, my favourite writer for writers) says (in The True Secret of Writing, her most beautiful book to date):

"There are many ways to meditate. Whatever opens us, softens the heart, makes us alive to this human world and helps us to bear it is our path."

I do sit and meditate in the usual way, most days, at some point. Ideally it's early in the day, and now that the weather is rapidly warming up, that will have to be the case if I want to do it outside. I love to do that, in my cherished back yard surrounded by greenery. Meditating indoors just doesn't feel the same.

Journalling afterwards opens me too. But today I wasn't early enough. Already it's getting too warm out here to be quite comfortable. 

I was up early as usual, thanks to the cats. They wanted breakfast at 5, but I told them to wait and turned over to snooze. They're very good. They stopped miaowing and cuddled up next to me on the bed until I roused again at 6. After I fed them I went out and watered the garden, thankful that we have no water restrictions here and that it's a quiet cul-de-sac where I can go outside in my pyjamas and it doesn't matter. Usually no-one sees me at all, and if they did, it still wouldn't matter. 

I am still in them. That's part of the trouble, part of the discomfort. I need to shower early these warm mornings, and get into a sarong if I'm staying home, a caftan if I'm going out. The nights are still a little cool — though I removed two blankets last night and packed them away — and my tween-seasons PJs are soon too warm as the day goes on.

Still, it's pleasant here. I began this habit of meditating and journalling last year, when Andrew was already booked into respite care for a fortnight, as part of the 'Writing As Spiritual Practice' course. It began the week before he went in. I continued through that fortnight and after he came home. Coincidentally the final day of the course was the same day he ended up in hospital and never came home again.

I interrupted this writing to check on the dates. That led to re-reading some of those journal entries, which made me cry. But it is salutary to remind myself of those times, when life was so very difficult for us both. I don't know how we got through it all so well, but we did. We were both extremely brave, I perceive, rising to the immense challenges, fairly good-tempered most of the time in the face of it all, and sustained by our love.  

And yes — as I keep coming back to — it could not have gone on. The timing was right.

It was also wonderful timing for me to take that course — to meditate, journal, and engage with my spirit. These practices helped me in that saddest of times, and since. Thank you, Universe. I am well looked after.

At Sunset

I'm sitting on my front veranda for a change. It's nearly sunset, and the back yard is already too shadowy to see well to write, with its surrounding trees and overhanging roof.

This spot in the front is where Andrew often used to sit, but not the same chair. After he died, I had time to notice how rusted that one had become from being out in the weather. I've replaced it with a nice, solid wooden one I found in a hard rubbish collection. The wood was already weather-worn to grey when I found it, but not broken or crumbling. It's more comfortable than the old chair was. 

I've been out all afternoon, and went for my evening walk after I got home, so now my feet are relaxing in my fluffy purple slippers.

The cats have come out to join me. They like lying on the front steps, with or without human company. I, too, enjoy surveying the street from on high. This is a slightly sloping block; the ones either side are flatter. Mine is the only house built up off the ground. It's like the house I grew up in, in Launceston, one storey in front, two at the back. But here it's the other way around: the high part is in front, overlooking the street. What is under it, though, is just the space under the house, where tradesmen can crawl to check phone lines and drains, and where a very shy, quiet possum lives. The house in Launceston, on a steeper block, had rooms downstairs, giving onto the huge back lawn and beyond that my father's veggie garden.

When I went down the hill just now for my walk, a kid was playing a recorder inside one of the houses, practising for homework. How many Aussie kids are doing that after school tonight, in how many suburbs all over the country? I like the sound. It takes me back to my little brother practising his, and then to my sons piping away on theirs. They had the music, my brother and my sons. It skipped me, but I still like to listen.

The crickets have started up. The mountains opposite have gone from indigo to dark grey-blue. There's a faint, thin line of pink light along their tops, barely distinguishable from the whitening sky into which it fades. A notice comes up on my iPad: I have updates for the evening edition of the Sydney Morning Herald. Time to go in.

Walking and Breathing

I set out for my walk half an hour ago, and relished the clean air which my lungs took in so effortlessly. At the end of the day, it was pleasantly cool yet with a hint of sunlight: the air of early Spring. What a delight, this sensation, this easy act of drawing in breath. 

Somehow everything settled down into place. Past, present and future came together. I recalled Andrew and me arriving in the Caldera 19 years ago, full of anticipation; our joy in the surroundings, the lifestyle, the people we met. How well we settled in! How easily and sweetly it all happened. How boundless was our joie de vivre.

It certainly was the right place for us, then and ever after. He'd always been a city boy, but small town life suited him too, as much as it did me, who grew up that way. Being here was never boring for us. How could it be, with such a thriving community of creatives, healers and spiritual folk; and such powerful natural beauty everywhere? 

We were more adventurous then than later, particularly him. We used to go all over the place -- up to Nerang to meet with the creator of a new energy clearing product; down to Lismore for a night of theatre, or to the Gold Coast Art Centre or Brisbane's South Bank; to Byron Bay and Mullumbimby to shop, as well as Tweed Heads and Coolangatta. We had two favourite restaurants in Coolangatta, and another favourite in Kingscliff. We attended the Brisbane Writers' Festival and the one at Byron Bay. We belonged to two different library systems at the same time. We saw great musicals and art exhibitions. We swam. We walked in the bush. He climbed Mt Warning. 

Somehow, walking this evening and breathing in Spring, things came full circle for me in a strange kind of way. I felt all over again the rightness of our coming here to live. It was as if the air carried it into me, reminding me -- no, taking me back to that beginning and reconnecting me to it. Even though I am now alone, it is still the right place for me to be. And I know we played out our lives together here in a good way, with more delight and excitement than we would have found in Melbourne (though we did all right there too).

So many couples retire to this part of the world and then find themselves isolated and lonely without their familiar surroundings and established support systems. It wasn't like that for us. But of course, those others retire to Surfer's Paradise and the like, not to daggy little old country towns. We came to this small community and found so many new friends that now, 19 years later, I find people I know everywhere I go. I'm always bumping into people to hug!

And I go on in this community as connected to Andrew, in other people's perception as well as my own. When people ask how I am these days, they mean, 'How are you coping since losing him?' They are glad I'm doing OK, and they remember all his good years, and us as a couple. It's nice to know I am not the only carrier of those memories.

I am on my own but not alone.

Meditation with Lizard

I'm late to meditate today. Luckily I am well-trained, not to empty my mind but to step back and be the observer of it — and to stay in meditation mode despite extraneous noises. It's a loud, busy afternoon in this usually quiet corner of the suburb. The man over the side fence is coughing, someone nearby is slamming a door, a bird is shrieking repeatedly. 

I meditate anyway, observing all this dispassionately, and observing my thoughts when they wander away from focusing on my breath. (Yes, I have a mantra, but after decades of use it has become stale. Instead of taking me deeper, it allows the monkey mind to become very active. So I am using a different focus now.) I observe how calm and happy I feel, and have been feeling all day.

That's so good, I think. I am able to have the sense that Andrew is nearby and not be upset by it but just think of him as being 'in the next room', as they say. Then, as soon as I contemplate his closeness in spirit, I start to cry about his physical absence. This always happens. Better not to become too conscious of him, even in happy ways. Better to let such awareness be a background to my life. I observe these thoughts and reactions and bring my attention back to my breath. I feel calm and happy once more.

When I come out of meditation, the bird shrieks and there's a sudden flurry. I see what I think is a coocal bird flying onto a branch. But then it stays so still for so long, I realise it must be one of the big lizards that live around here. It's light brown and banded, and must be at least as long as my arm — perhaps a Monitor, or a very big Water Dragon. It lies along the branch, and I take a number of photos with my iPad, hoping it will show up in them — it's so well camouflaged. [Later: No, it doesn't, even after editing the photos to try for greater clarity.] After a while I begin to wonder if it's really a branch and I'm deceiving myself. Maybe it was a bird, that flew through the branches and away. I stay in my meditation chair to write. If I shift to my writing table I won't see, if it is indeed a lizard and it moves.

I look up, and it's gone! I didn't see or hear it disappear. Clearly it was a lizard; the branch looks very different now. While I stare, it takes a sudden hop along a lower branch. I see it in that moment, big tail swaying slightly as it jumps, then it is hidden behind a thick clump of leaves. OK, I move to my writing table. 

Then I realise it's time to stop writing; to take in the washing; to go for my late afternoon walk. I lead a quiet, ordinary life. I relish it.

Perfectly camouflaged lizard on branch, approx. centre. 
You might just be able to make it out.

Pleasing Myself

I dreamed we would sit out here together, him and me, in our peaceful back yard. If we ever did, it wasn't often. Maybe once or twice, early on — since moving here at the start of 2010. But that's why there are two chairs. Now there is only one small coffee table between them; there used to be a long, low one in front and the chairs were side by side. I think we did do it, once or twice.

He needed to get some sun, for his Vitamin D, after he started resting indoors so much of the time. The back yard is shaded. For a dutiful 20 minutes he would sit out on the front verandah instead — a tiny space at the top of the steps. There was room for one chair, which either one of us used if we were out there singly. If we were both there, I gave him the chair and I sat on the top step, my back against the railing. Usually the two cats would join us, each taking one of the lower steps.

Now the cats and I are sad, but adjusting. They do still join me if I sit out the front, but seldom when I'm here out the back in the mornings, meditating. Mornings are sleep time for them, after breakfast. They wake up at lunch time, and may then decide to make their stately way outside.

In the summer, which is coming fast, I'll be glad this back yard is well shaded. I sit here alone — as I did, too, when he was alive and keeping to his bed — and relish the beauty. 

Yet I feel wistful that we never got to sit out here together very much, with cuppas and books, companionably. Nor did we, come to think of it, at other houses. We thought we'd do so at our second Pottsville home; it had a lovely back verandah with garden. But we had neighbours who, despite being nice people and good neighbours, used to converse mostly by yelling, and couldn't get the idea of toning it down. It was fine when we were indoors, but sure ruined pleasant times on our verandah!

And in the other homes, I would as like as not use my verandah-sitting for free writing, as I'm doing now — well, not quite as now; I used a paper notebook and a pen (iPads had not been invented) — while he would be at his desk, working on his computer, writing too. 

'You are both very driven people,' our psychologist once observed — not judgmentally, but as descriptive fact. Yes, we were: always driven by the urge to write, to network, to advance spiritually, to heal and empower others, to leave the world better than we found it — all those things, but above all the writing. And of course I still am.

I don't now experience it as bring driven, however. It's just what I do. Now that I am on my own, it's not quite so hard to squeeze it into the time available. Also I am more relaxed about it now, and about everything. A year after his death, I am still recovering from the stress and work of those last years. My body and psyche have slowed right down. And I finally have the realisation that I don't have to rush and push and bust a gut. If I don't write a poem today, I might write one tomorrow. Heck, I'm so prolific, I've got hundreds of poems already written. I never have to write another. I shall, though, when I feel like it. The only urgency will be the poem's demand to be created.

Life has become about enjoying myself, doing what I like. I have long held to the 'follow your joy [bliss/excitement]' rule for living. Now I am even freer to do that. 

This principle guides me well.

Hugs and Kisses

Last Wednesday we had an errand in the coastal village where we lived until just over a year ago. We were there six years, loved it, but always wished it were a little closer to the town ringed by mountains which we came to in 1994 and have returned to now. We still wish the two were a fraction closer! We get back to the coast every Friday, to the writers’ group, but that doesn’t leave a lot of time over. So on Wednesday, after completing our errand, we had coffee and cake in the newly re-opened Courtyard Café. It closed down when the old general store in its historic building succumbed to competition from a supermarket chain. But it’s all turned out well. Half the old building became the new home for the organic greengrocer. Now, months later, the other half has become the kitchen and shop counter for the café, under new management. I don’t know what they’ve done exactly, but the café itself looks revivified, though it still has the same tables and chairs with the same trees around them. The sun was shining. We had no need to hurry. The coffee was good and the cake delicious. The waitress/manager was helpful and happy. My Beloved relaxed with the daily paper, left out for customers. I wrote a small poem: Coffee in the courtyard. The low buildings, the palms and frangipani, the warm autumn sun make me feel I’m in Darwin or Bali, or Nepal. ‘It would be nice to be there,’ my companion says.  Yes, and it’s nice to be here. I have spent time in all those places, and sometimes hunger for them, but on that day in those surroundings … well, the poem says it. After that we had a look in the Opp Shop. Himself found a nice shirt good as new. I found two more clowns for my small collection. Normally I get a Pierrot and Columbine pair — not necessarily created as a pair, but I can match them up that way. This time I found something different: two boys in tartan trousers and tam-o-shanters, smiling twins. They were undoubtedly created at the same time, to be together! Then we started for home, a half hour’s drive. I decided to take the coast road — almost as quick, and much prettier.  I realised we would pass the house of the Lady Who Lives with Fairies, and had an impulse to visit. ‘You stay in the car,’ I said, ‘While I see if she’s home.’ At first I thought she wasn’t, but then she opened her door. Her greeting was less exuberant than usual.  ‘We were passing,’ I said. ‘And I had an urge to drop in. Is it convenient?’ She hesitated, then said that it wasn’t really: she’d only just got home after taking her son to the airport. I waved my Spouse back into the car. The Lady Who Lives with Fairies apologised as she hugged me. ‘That’s all right,’ I said with a smile, kissing her cheek, ‘Obviously I came to give you a kiss.’ We drove home happily through tall trees. Later that day I made a quick dash into our little town to get a few things from the shops. I was walking up the ramp in the shopping centre as the Pink-Haired Musician was coming down. Seeing me, she threw her arms open wide, so I walked right into them and we had a big hug. ‘I needed that!’ she said, and told me she was on her way to Court, where she was acting as an advocate for her son who is mentally ill. It’s a complex situation that’s been going on a long time. She said, almost matter-of-factly, that each time it tears her heart out. We had another hug. ‘It’s my day for hugging people!’ I told her. ‘That’s my job today.’ I was filled with delight. What better job could there be? Next day I had an email from the Lady Who Lives with Fairies, saying, ‘I was so low today I couldn't invite you in as I really can't talk about the pain I am feeling...but it gladdened my heart to know you had been prompted to come for a visit.’ (She hurts for her son, who has many troubles.) So I knew I was right — I did go there especially to give her a kiss. I’m sure I was indeed prompted.

A Minor Mystery

We recently started getting the Sydney Morning Herald delivered each morning. What luxury! When we were a little poorer, we used to get it only on Mondays for the excellent TV guide, and we went to the shop to buy it.

Andrew loves it: best paper he’s ever come across, he says. (I used to feel that way about the Melbourne Age, which is ‘from the same stable’.) I like it too, but most of all for the word puzzles, which I solve (or not) while watching TV in the evenings.

Then, for the last two mornings, it went missing. The first time, I didn‘t get to the newsagent to report it unil late in the afternoon. By then there were none left — not there, not anywhere in town. It was the morning after Australia found out who was going to govern in our hung Parliament; I guess everybody wanted the paper that day. The newsagent gave me a copy of The Australian instead — a paper with a very different political slant from the Herald. ‘Julia Gillard gets nod to govern’ said the SMH headline (I found out online). ‘Gillard gets a second chance,’ said The Australian.

The following day, Andrew saw the paper outside in our yard, but neither of us was dressed at that point. By the time we were, and went to retrieve it, it was gone. I phoned the newsagent, explained, and asked him to keep us another copy. Then I went door-knocking around Tulipwood Court (our little cul-de-sac). My neighbour in the other unit is away. She once told me someone collected her mail for her at such times, so I thought maybe they’d picked up the Herald too on the assumption it was hers. No-one I spoke to knew anything about it.

‘It must have been stolen,’ said one woman. ‘There’s a bit of that goes on around here.’ Another said, ‘I’m up at five every morning. I’ll pick up your paper from now on and put it up on your veranda.’ Sure enough, this morning’s paper was right there outside our front door. Bless her!

The newsagent’s father delivers the papers early. He confirmed he’d thrown it right up into our yard. ‘Could it have been a dog?’ asked the newsagent. ‘One that’s trained to fetch?Dad saw a dog rummaging around in the rubbish bins along the street.’  Hmmm, I’d heard a dog barking up and down the street in the afternoon, which was unusual, and on the way home from the newsagent I saw what looked like a stray in a nearby street to Tulipwood Court.  But if so, it must be a very selective dog. Various free newspapers get delivered too, and they have never disappeared. The Tweed Echo was still on our lawn yesterday after the Herald had gone, and the Mail the day before.

I spoke to teenage Nathan from across the road, and his little sister. They were riding their bikes around our end of the street.

‘It could have been Monty,’ they said. ‘He takes shoes sometimes.’

Monty is a big old dog from further down the street, inclined to wander vaguely in front of cars, but we all stop to let him by. Or they thought it might be Baxter. Baxter’s a big boxer who lives near Monty, and is the reason I don’t walk down that end of the street. He appears friendly, but very boisterous; I’ve been scared he’d knock me over in his exuberance.

‘Baxter’s a bad dog!’ said the little girl.

‘There have been some bites,’ said Nathan.

‘And there’s also Coco; she’s a golden labrador who lives down the hill.’

Baxter wasn’t out on the road just then, nor were the other dogs, so I braved the walk to their owners’ houses. Monty had been in his back yard for three months following a complaint to the Council, said the cheery blonde who came to that front door. At Baxter’s place, a teenage boy and girl and their Mum all answered my knock and told me Baxter is now confined by an electric fence and a special collar.

Coco’s house was over the side of the hill, down a dip. There was a little path through bushes, then a big house with a big yard. Coco, lying outside, looked up at me placidly. Not a golden labrador actually, but one of those curly-haired ones that look a bit similar: a golden retriever.

‘Come in,’ called a tall young woman busy peeling vegetables.

She said their SMH wasn’t there this morning either. We had a hunt around the garden but found nothing.

‘If she does pick ours up,’ said Coco’s owner, ‘She usually takes it to where she sits. And she doesn’t bring home other papers.’

She introduced me to gentle Coco, who stood up to greet me and enjoyed having her ears rubbed.

I must be looking my age even though I don’t think so. Coco’s lady took my arm to help me back on to the path up the hillside and asked her teenage daughter to accompany me to the top.

So I don’t know who or what has been making off with our paper, but it won’t happen again thanks to the kind five o’clock riser, and now I’ve met more of our neighbours and found them all very nice.

One door I refrained from knocking on because others said, ‘Stay away from her. She’s ... er ... strange.’ (Strange enough to steal newspapers? Perhaps I’ll never know.)

Home

We are having a second day of taking it easy, flopping around in our nightwear with warm woollies on top. Yesterday we spent most of the day in bed. Our bedroom in this new home has become a sanctuary — even though it’s never completely uncluttered, because we avid readers and compulsive writers keep piling up books and notebooks on the bedside tables. It’s a small enough room to be cosy and big enough not to feel cramped. We look out through one wall of glass on to our private, enclosed little courtyard garden. Though it has been low priority so far and the weeds flourish, the potted geraniums are bursting out of their pots and blooming in bright pink, the big plant in the corner —whose name I’ve never learned in years of caring for it — has glossy new leaves, and the vines are thickening on the fence.

Today we have finally got out of bed, late morning, and sit at our respective computers in our respective offices. This whole house is our sanctuary. Like the bedroom, it is both spacious enough and compact enough, and the offices are not so far apart that we feel disconnected from each other. We get up and wander about between typing, get a cuppa, fetch a book, talk to each other in passing. The cats come and find comfortable spots near us. Usually Levi keeps Andrew company and Freya clings to me, but this varies. Sometimes they wander off to the places they like best of all: Freya on the bed, Levi beside the heater.

We’ve had heavy colds for days. I’m paranoid now about the slightest infection, after Andrew nearly dying of influenza a few weeks ago — but we’ve now had the flu injections for the first time ever, and we’re taking echinacea and zinc. The doctor couldn’t suggest anything else helpful. Giving in to it seems to be working. We try to remember to drink lots of water, we flake out and snooze as inclination takes us — we get tired often — and we avoid anything too energetic. Bare minimum housework, and nothing but pleasurable tasks on computer. The huge, loud, repeated sneezes that shook our whole bodies have pretty much stopped. The aches and pains are less acute.

I realise my body is trying to process and clear some stuff. ‘What are you two unpacking from other homes?’ asks a Reiki Master friend, and mentions a couple of places with unhappy memories for us. She’s right on the button as usual. I have indeed been doing the last of the unpacking and thoughts of those other homes have been arising, and even earlier homes in my earlier lives (as child, as young mother ...). As for Andrew, he has been sorting out his files and boxes of papers at last, and looking through photos; and I realise he has been mentioning his own past homes too. It is as if, now we’re settled in a place that we love and know is permanent, we can allow ourselves to relax enough to release old angst.

I think back on the homes we’ve shared, particularly the ones that weren’t so great. I see how brave and optimistic we were, knowing the drawbacks but — having to be there for a time — actively seeking and even creating positive aspects. We explored our neighbourhoods, found places to go for walks, set up our books and ornaments and our writing spaces ... and sadly, at the worst places, had to leave a lot of stuff in storage. That wasn’t what made them so bad, but it became part of the general dissatisfaction. Without going into ancient recriminations, I could sum it up as difficulties with places that were unsuitable in themselves but all we could find at the time, exacerbated by further difficulties in sharing those spaces with other people — a residential landlady in one instance, fellow tenants in another. As most of our homes have been delightful, we haven’t dwelt on the few bad memories; it seems it’s time to deal with them now.

I seldom remember my dreams these days, but the last couple of nights I’ve had dreams around the theme of home. I remember little of the first, but in last night’s dream I was returning to a large hostel where I have lived in recurring dreams. (In this dream, I didn’t live there all the time; it was a place where I rented a permanent room for times when I might want to stay overnight in town.) It was a while since I’d been there, and there had been extensive remodelling in my absence. I walked along what at first seemed the familiar corridor to my room, looking for the number — but a laundry had been installed halfway along, and girls in undies and hair curlers were dashing in and out to wash and iron their clothes, laughing and chatting to each other on the way. I became confused, and when I got to where I thought my room should be, there was a wrong number on the door.

I decided to leave, and went downstairs to the foyer and then outside. The hostel was on top of a cliff. There was a steep, sandy path leading down to a street below. I stood at the top of it, about to go down, when something made me turn my head to the left to look out over the sea. I gasped at the beauty of the view: hills, ocean, islands, horizon, sky; at once sunny and slightly misty. Some other women came up behind me to go down the path. I stood aside to let one go ahead of me. Two others waited politely for me, but I told them to go on because I wanted to look at the view. They turned to look too. ‘It is lovely, isn’t it?’ one said, before they went on. ‘Isn’t it ever!’ I replied. 

I don’t remember walking over to the edge of the cliff top, but next thing I was falling. I was falling very slowly, upright, and although it was a deep drop and I was probably about to die or be seriously injured, I was quite calm. I had some notion of making the most of what might be my last minutes. I kept moving my legs back and forth, with the idea that I might be able to catch the side of the cliff with my heels and find a footing. Another fast forward and I had come to rest at the bottom, sitting in a sandy hollow in the cliff wall, with my feet on one of those tubes that people put under their backs when exercising.

I looked again and realised it was actually a tube-shaped bag with a zip. I opened it and saw jumpers belonging to my [former] husband Bill and our schoolboy sons. [One of the jumpers does exist in real life, but Andrew and I got it in Peru long after Bill was dead and the boys grown up.] I saw that this bag was one of a number of items stowed under a low hedge at my feet. The beach disappeared and I was at home in the back yard. In the dream I knew it as the first home Bill and I and the kids had; now I realise it was actually much more like the home I lived in when I myself was a child.

How should I interpret this? There are suggestions there of several real-life homes besides the ones I mention, but no exact matches. It’s interesting, though, to recollect that I have a sort of parallel life, or more than one, in various series of recurring dreams. I become aware of this whenever I have another of those dreams; it always evokes the recall of others in the sequence. Then I forget again until next time. This time it aroused the waking memory of another series too, where I visit a particular shopping area tucked away behind main streets in a Melbourne suburb. I have a notion it‘s Prahran, but it might be Cheltenham. These dreams also contain a huge, sweeping, curving road I must drive on between this little shopping area and home, and there’s a fork that I have to be careful of because it’s confusing and a bad choice could take me miles in the wrong direction. I’m not altogether sure this is a dream, but it can’t logically be an accurate memory either; there were no such roads approaching Prahran or Cheltenham when I used to drive to either place. It’s more like one of the roads I could take home from Melbourne when I lived at Three Bridges in the Upper Yarra Valley. Maybe it’s a combination of two different recollections, or a dream series that has mixed them up.

[As an aside — I look back in wonder at all the driving I’ve done over the years, in what a variety of places and conditions. It’s amazing because I’ve been so shit-scared of driving most of my life, yet I did so much of it so successfully. Even today I don’t exactly take it for granted, but now that I’m the main driver in the family, I’ve become much more at ease with it. I see (again) that my past self was brave; also that my present self is competent.]

This home we love so much won’t quite accommodate all our remaining possessions; that’s becoming obvious. We’re having to make hard decisions now about things to discard or give away. Perhaps that’s what has led to this mental stocktaking of places I’ve lived, and griefs and trials associated with them, as well as fonder memories and things I find myself proud of. Or perhaps it is the knowledge that we won’t have to move again, and the very pleasure we take in this place, which occasion the looking back and putting into perspective all the ups and downs of the journey that brought us here.

Since I began writing this, our handyman mate Phil has come and put up a blind over the little bedroom window that looks out onto the street. The street is at the bottom of the sloping lawn, beyond our big back gate; even so we felt a bit exposed, and now we’re secure. He hung some canvas panels in the garage, which is taking shape as library / consulting room / temple: paintings of Indonesian dancers, which Bill and I picked up in Bali 47 years ago. I found them rolled up in a plastic bag the other day, in the course of unpacking the last boxes. It’s been years since I had a place to hang them and I’m glad to be able to look at them again.

They and other artefacts from Bali are mementoes not only of travels shared with Bill and our boys, but also of the house we lived in longest, where we first displayed them; the house where the kids grew from kindergarteners to university students.

‘You’ll have to get rid of that,’ said someone decades ago, of my precious coffee table. (I was moving house then, too.) I don’t know why she thought so, and I have it still. It’s big. It has a timber frame with no metal nails, just wooden bolts, and the top is ceramic tiles in burnt orange and darkest brown. (‘Of course she picks the most expensive one in the shop,’ said Bill when we bought it in 1972. And it was, but that wasn’t why I picked it; I just took one look and fell in love.)

The aforementioned residential landlady piled a heap of stored furniture on top of it in her shed when we lived with her — chairs and other tables, boxes full of crockery — even though she knew it was one of my treasures. ‘I thought it was solid,’ she said. It survived, but has been a bit wonky ever since. I don’t let anyone sit on it any more, though it invites sitting. Years before that, my very large dog took a chunk out of the corner one night when he was looking for something to chomp on. I was upset at the time, but it’s hard to notice the missing bit now, and when I do, I smile and think of my beautiful dog. That table has been with me in ten previous homes, and here it still is.

One of the first things we did here was put up pictures. Both our fathers were artists. My favourite painting by my Dad is above my desk. It is of Mt Roland in Tasmania, his and my favourite mountain while I was growing up, and for many years thereafter. (Mt Warning, near my present home, is my favourite now.) Andrew has his father’s etchings in his office and a photo of his father, himself and his brother sitting astride a cannon in a local park where he grew up. He’s at the front, being the littlest. He’s six, and he’s laughing with joy.

When we sit in our armchairs and watch TV in our well-heated house on these cold nights, I think back to evenings by the radio in Launceston when I was a girl, the whole family gathered around the fire. This is safe and warm like that.

Yes, we’ve arrived home: a home that partakes of all the homes before.

A Dear Ghost

I looked at the date and saw it was his birthday, again. I smiled at my dear ghost and wrote him a little poem about remembering his eyes — his eyes which I always likened to the summer ocean. He was all sun, it seemed to me: light and warmth, shining. Yet in truth he had little warmth or light in his young life, my 24-year-old love who did not live to be 25, choosing to leave eight days earlier.

That was in 1982. This year, 2010, was the first of all the years since then that I missed noticing the anniversary of his death. But my body remembered and gave me a cold. My psyche remembered and gave me a sudden loss of delight. From one moment to the next, the world was drained of all colour, all meaning. I should have remembered then.

After he died I got my ears pierced. Before, I had always thought of that as self-mutilation; afterwards I wanted some visible, permanent sign that everything was irrevocably changed. This time, not consciously, not on purpose, I got my hair cut very short — too short. It will grow again, of course. As for the earrings, they long ago became personal adornment, not a symbol of grief.

On Friday I saw the psychologist. I told her about my present love, my 81-year-old love, coming close to death in the last two months and slowly recovering. I relived my distress and fear. It seemed more than enough to account for my symptoms. I cried in her office for most of the hour and walked out with a new lightness.

Then I was able to recall the recent anniversary: the death that did happen, after which nothing was ever the same again. I was able to see that these two occasions of pain, these two far-apart winters, had become emotionally entwined.

He came to me several times after he died. At first he contacted a psychic friend who would get in touch and tell me the messages; then I began using this friend as a medium, asking questions over a cuppa and receiving what answers there were. Finally I could see and hear him myself, without needing a third party. I was not reconciled to what had happened, but I understood it better. I still took many months to move through the stages of grief, even though I set out to experience them fully. I thought that plunging right in would get me out the other side quicker, and I’m still certain I was right. But it wasn't very quick.

I went for long walks alone, talking to him in my head. My psychic friend told me that our grief keeps the souls of the dead from moving on immediately. ‘Too bad,’ I told my dead love, talking to him in my head as I walked. ‘You chose to go; you owe me my grief.’ I walked through one of the longest, hottest summers on record. I barely noticed the heat.

One day, next autumn, the world regained its radiance. I saw life shining in grass and leaf; the sun and sky had colour. Not that I didn’t still mourn, but I could be in life again; I was back.

For many years it was as others too have described their own situations: not a day went by that I didn’t think of him. Even now, it still happens often. The emotion accompanying the thoughts gradually changed. It’s always love, that doesn’t change; but now I can think of him with happiness. My husband’s recent danger brought back the old pain; I know too well already what it’s like to lose the most important person in my life. Perhaps it’s good that I’ve had a little preview. Last time the death was a shock as well as a sorrow. I sat down with a cup of coffee one Saturday afternoon and opened a newspaper, and there was the headline. (No-one knew that I was someone who might need to have it broken to me ... but there, how do you break such news anyway?) Next time — if I don‘t go first — well, I have been prepared.

Meanwhile, about to go to bed just after midnight last night, I noticed today’s date: his birthday. I’ve come out the other side of grief yet again. I smiled at my dear ghost and wrote him a loving poem, a birthday gift. Did my thoughts call him to me this time too, or was it simply a memory? No matter. Love never dies.

Walking Around Murwillumbah

It’s a sunny winter Saturday morning, so glorious that it feels like autumn. The little town of Murwillumbah is a bit quieter than it would be on a weekday, though there are still people out and about. It’s not too hard to find a parking space.

Walking up towards the Post Office, I peep into Crystal Treasures next to the Regent Cinema, and wave at Priya, who’s behind the counter today. She waves and smiles back.  We’ve known each other a long time, as fellow Reiki channels with mutual friends. If we’d met out in the street, we’d have stopped for a hug; and often do.

Then I come to the tiny vacant block past the NRMA, and there’s a young girl with mysterious cloth bundles of stuff on the ground around her. She’s wearing skin-tight, black three-quarter pants, and a purple singlet top with a black overlay.  Her hair is in braids with black and purple ribbons. Around her slender hips she’s twirling a hoop with a big, glittery bow tied on. Practising, I think.

‘I love your hair,’ she exclaims.

It’s very deep purple today. I did the colour yesterday and it was the last of the bottle so I put a bit more on than usual, using it all up.

‘I love your whole outfit,” I say.

We draw closer to each other. She admires my amethyst drop earrings, touching them gently. I tell her a friend made them for me.

‘I have a big thing for purple,’ she says.

‘Oh, me too!’

I ask what she’s up to, and she tells me she’s a performer. She indicates her fire sticks amongst the bundles. We wish each other a good day, beaming, and I move on. There’s a  big feather lying right in my path, which I take as a sign from the Universe that this was no accidental meeting. I think that on my way back I’ll give her one of my cards, expecting that by then she’ll be set up and doing her thing in the little vacant block.

In the IGA store, I’m standing at the counter with my purchases and a voice says, ‘Hello, beautiful Scorpio woman!’  There’s Tanya next in the queue, smiling into my eyes. I met her years ago when I was doing psychic readings in the Sunday markets. She consulted me a number of times thereafter, at my market stall and sometimes also for private readings at my home. Over the years I’ve seen her grow from an uncertain, self-doubting girl into a vibrant, self-actualising woman who has solved her dilemmas and no longer feels a need for guidance. We walk out of the shop together, chatting a little, before going our separate ways. She lives close enough now, she says, to walk into town and back. I say that I’m just a bit far for that; it’d be quite a hike.

‘Ah,’ she says, ‘You get to come in and see people and then go back to your lovely quiet.’ She’s got a point.

I walk back past the vacant block, and it’s empty. The performer and all her bundles have disappeared. Now that I come to think of it, it wouldn’t have been a great spot for busking; not many passers-by in that location, on a Saturday morning in Murwillumbah. A lesson: I should have acted on the impulse to give her my card as soon as I thought of it, instead of waiting. Never mind; what is, is — and it’s still a warming memory. If we are meant to connect further, the Universe will arrange another opportunity.

Instead, Del comes walking towards me. I’ve known her since we were in a singing workshop together, oh years and years ago; I can’t remember how many. The workshop didn’t cure my tin ear, but it was lots of fun because Trish, the leader, created all sorts of innovative exercises for us including dressing up, dancing, swimming nude in the local creek, and doing some Goddessy rituals. I made friendships that have lasted ever since.

Del is what you’d call an ‘older woman’ but I have no idea how old. Probably younger than me (almost everyone is, lol). She has looked just the same in all the years I’ve known her: not young, but getting no older in any respect as far as I can see. One thing is different nowadays, though — her hair has a vivid pink streak across the top and front. Del is in a band that plays around town and visits local events such as the Sunday markets. They all dress in glamorous, outrageous costumes of basic black with lots and lots of knock-your-eyes-out red. Each person’s outfit is different, and together they are a joyous, exciting spectacle. Many times in my market days they would parade past my stall, half marching half dancing, playing their instruments, then stop somewhere where there was space to collect a crowd and give a brief performance.

I often wear vibrant colours myself, with lots of red and purple, and these days I have this purple hair which fades to auburn and then cherry between dyeings. Del likes to tell me I should be in the band too, the way I dress. Our affection goes back further than our bright hair days. We too tend to greet in the street with delighted hugs, as we do now.

‘How are you, darling?’ we ask each other. She tells me she’s having a walk in the sun. Like Tanya, she lives close enough to walk into town — and like Patsy, my Chinese-Australian friend whom I bumped into last Sunday when I ducked in quickly (by car) for a few items. I wrote a lune (a form of Western haiku) about that encounter:

Went to town.
There was Patsy walking around
in the sun.

These are people with whom I have seldom socialised. Not that we wouldn’t if occasion arose, but it doesn’t seem to matter. We’re just always thrilled to see each other, and go on our ways warmed by the encounters. It’s one of the great pleasures of Murwillumbah, to have these chance meetings with both close friends and, as today, fond acquaintances. There’s always the moment of pleased surprise, the kiss or hug, the exchange of news great or small, whether we saw each other only yesterday or three years ago. It will be the same with the young performer, if I bump into her again. The link is made.

People frequently ask us how we are liking our new home.

‘We love it!’ we say. ‘And it’s so good to be back in town.’

The Woman in the Hat

One reason I love Murwillumbah is that in some respects it reminds me of the Launceston of my childhood (which has grown and changed since then). There are streets and buildings which ring bells for me, and there’s the way you can’t go to Coles without running into half a dozen people you know and stopping for a chat.

I also love the scenic beauty, the sub-tropical climate, and the fact that this is a powerful energy centre, as many people who live here recognise and even take for granted — a claim I don’t intend to substantiate here and now, but may elaborate on at some stage.

Another reason is that it’s the place where, as I like to tell people, it’s cool to be daggy. (‘Daggy’ is an Australian word that defies translation; the closest you could come might be to translate it as ‘uncool’. So you see, there is a paradox involved.) It’s certainly a place where my spiky purple hair, psychedelic tops and rows of knuckle-duster rings occasion few remarks, all of them approving.

So I thought I’d start an occasional series of Murwillumbah vignettes, to celebrate this unique town.

A joyous encounter stays with me: that woman we saw coming out of Vinnie’s the other day. [The St Vincent de Paul op shop.] We’d never seen her before, in 16 years of walking around Murwillumbah. She was old, small, thin, with a faded taupe shirt, limp black pants, and wispy grey hair — surmounted by the most glorious hat. Its huge brim was covered in colourful flowers; rich, improbable colours. We stopped in delight and exclaimed how beautiful it was.

‘Did you make it?’ Andrew asked. Yes, she had. I told her that I don’t wear hats, but if I did I’d want one just like that.

‘I wouldn’t wear hats either,’ she said, ‘If I had hair like yours.’ She said to Andrew, ‘Isn’t she colourful? You’ve made a good choice!’  And wandered off, tiny as a fairy, dull as depression, yet crowned by this wondrous hat, which looked as though it must be too big but fitted perfectly.

She was a mystery.