Writer's Journal (exercise): The Sophistication of Pottsville

(write about your locality as a character)

Pottsville was a lazy sort of character when we first met. Even a bit dowdy, or at least casual. And friendly, definitely friendly. Laid-back, I suppose you'd say.

Eight years later, my goodness, we're getting quite posh and up to the minute. Smart new duds, at least where they show, though maybe underneath there are still some old and worn items.

And busier, not so lazy or laid back any more. Still friendly, but with less time to pas in idle chat. And somehow has more of a sense of self-importance now.

Was a bit hasty with the face-lifting, I think. Not all of it works.

Writer's Journal (exercise): The Road Home

It’ll be wet today, and I’ll take the long way back as I took the long way here. This means roadworks and going slow, but I don’t want to slide around the hills and bends of Clothiers Creek Road in this wet. Hopefully it won’t be pelting down as it was on the way over. The road home is one I’ve driven so often in my 20 years in the Caldera that it’s very familiar. Now that I do all the driving, I know it well. I like the bit where I approach Murwillumbah, and know that home is close, especially on days like this, or late afternoons/early evenings as it will be by the time I get there. Evenings to be all cosy inside, with hot food and armchairs, TV and hugs. The road home is good because it ends in home. The road out is good too because it takes one out. Both are great.

This became a cut-up poem posted at my poetry blog, The Passionate Crone. 

Writer's Journal (exercise): Friday Night Drinks

Friday night I rush home after a long day in Pottsville. I usually have appointments before WordsFlow, and go shopping on the way home. So I don’t feel like cooking. It’s usually BBQ chook, instant mash and frozen peas, with a bit of fake gravy out of a packet. And wine. A bottle of cheap red on the way home, shiraz or sometimes merlot. Andrew isn’t allowed to drink, being diabetic. Even when he has just a smidgeon, it’s bad for him, and his blood sugar shows it. But he likes Zero Coke or Lemon, Lime & Bitters.

I don’t really like the taste of wine any more, I just like the effect. I’m a really cheap drunk these days, and two glasses is more than enough, small gasses moreover.

Sometimes I hanker for a good Scotch, which is way out of reach financially now, but if I had one I think I mightn’t like it after all. My tastes have changed so much.

And all those liqueurs I used to love — would they seem heavy or sickly now?

I can’t afford to drink too much anyway, when I have someone to take care of. And there is me to take care of as well. So a couple of small glasses of red with dinner do me very nicely on a Friday night ... and a Saturday night ... and a Sunday night. I finish the bottle all week, and next Friday I get me another.

Writer's Journal (exercise): Obama the President

Oh how ecstatic I was when that happened. At last, I thought, America had come of age. And I liked him so much, and his Yes We Can slogan (reminiscent of that other favourite, It’sTime!) Yes we can do this, it’s time for a radical change.

But it hasn’t turned out like that.  

‘What chance have they given him?’ someone asks. I don’t know. Couldn’t he have closed Guantanamo? Or am I being naive?  

Anyone, of course, has to be better than George W Bush, or that dreadful Palin woman who at one stage thought to run against Obama. So he started well ahead. And he is so personable, and his family so attractive. And he has a brain, unlike George W and some others. And he doesn’t play around like Clinton and Kennedy, or if he does it’s very well hidden. And he’s a Democrat.

He ought to have been the Messiah some of us expected, but in truth he seems a bit weak. And also a damn sight more warmongering than anticipated. What good, really, did killing Bin Laden do? A great propaganda victory perhaps - but the sight of him and Hilary and co all sitting around watching it on TV, like murder was a GOOD thing — that was chilling in its banality. No I don’t say Bin Laden was right or good, or anything but a mad, megalomaniac fanatic. But still. I was brought up to think two wrongs don’t make a right. Those values seem long gone now.

This became a 'cut-up' poem posted at my Passionate Crone blog.

Writer's Journal (exercise): Family Meals

The nursing home prided itself on home cooking. Not much like any cooking that has gone on in any of the  homes I’ve lived in. It was not brought in from outside, but cooked on the premises, and they did have roasts on Sundays, which I guess is a traditional family meal. But the vegetables were mashed to a pulp — for the oldies I suppose, with their dentures. I have dentures, but I can eat my veggies without having to make them so soft.

I was looking for fish on Fridays, but they didn’t seem to have that tradition. No Catholics in the home? Or did they think everyone must have lost all track of time? But if that, why roasts on Sundays?

At first Andrew said, ‘The food here is fantastic.’ A few days later it was: ‘I don’t want to eat their crap lunch!’ And after another few days, ‘Oh, they seem to have improved their cooking.’ In fact it was quite nice food but there was an awful sameness.

At home we have stirfries and grills and crockpot meals, things unheard of in that nursing home. Are the elderly considered so conventional?

Writer's Journal: My Story (exercise)

My story should be told, Billy said — or at any rate my mother’s and father’s stories and my grandparents’. I come from a fascinating background, the stuff of soap operas at the very least. I always mean to write it, but time goes past.... I think the  only way it will happen is if I put it in poems. But could I include the necessary detail there? Worth a try, maybe, Perhaps if I do it like a haibun, only not about travel — that is, a mixture of poetry and prose. Marge Piercy did that in her memoir, Sleeping with Cats. But there wasn’t that much poetry. I would want lots, with only little linking paragraphs of prose, Oh wot-the-heck, no, let’s leave the prose out. Well, maybe just tiny notes, little more than chapter headings?  The thought of doing it in verse makes it seem more possible, more interesting to me to write it. I could have different forms for different characters ...

Writer's Journal: Worm Food (exercise)

(Topic suggested by Hebe)

It has a Shakespearian ring. That is what we all come to, isn't it? Did Yorick say something to that effect? I don't know if he actually used the phrase, but it’s the kind of thing he might have discoursed upon. But Hebe’s worm food is about life, not death. About growing good organic veggies, I presume, and keeping people healthy. I don’t have the energy or inclination for serious gardening. I want hardy things that take care of themselves: native plants are the go. Maybe I should try growing lilly pillies or something. They are said to be vey healthy eating, a rich source of Vitamin C.

Bush tucker, eh? But I would draw the line at goannas and things, caught and killed with my own bare hands.No thanks, can't get that far back to nature. So when the worms finally come to feed on me, they might find a toxic corpse. Will it bother them? Probably not.

When Hebe said her worms must be eating each other (because she has't got enough worm food) I thought, ‘Oh no, they are probably just dying quietly of starvation — but after all they do eat meat, flesh, so maybe....

Andrew and I did once try a compost bin but we didn’t have the hang of it. The day a rat jumped out of it was the day we gave up and got rid of the whole damn mess. Our pumpkins flourished without it. That is what I mean by hardy plants. We thought pumpkins would take over the world, even though we did little to help them thrive. In the end we got rid of them too. It was all too much to cope with.

Writer's Journal (exercise): Pinching Other People's Things

I used to do it quite a lot when I was a kid. I wasn't allowed to read the Girls Crystal comic books that all the other girls at school used to talk about at playtime, and I felt very left out. But my parents didn't approve of ‘those rubbishy comics’; they wanted me to read good literature. (And I did, and loved it, and am forever grateful, But I wanted the rubbish too, or anyway to be part of the crowd.) Of course I wasn't allowed to take advantage of kind offers by some of the other girls to lend them to me, either. So I stole them from the corner shop. I used to hide them under my mattress and read them under the covers at night, with my Girl Guide torch.

Of course the day came when Mum turned the mattress, She waited for me to come home from school, and confronted me. Mum said, her whole life, ‘Oh, we never smacked the children.’ Selective memory? She spanked me that day with a hair brush, she was so enraged. I think it was not so much the morality of it as the ‘what would the neighbours say?’ by which she lived her life in those days.

After we’d both calmed down, she made me take the money for the one comic she had found to the shop, instructing me to apologise by saying, ‘I bought a comic and forgot to pay for it.’ What would she have said if she knew about all the others I had read and disposed of?

Writer's Journal (exercise): Out in the garden where we planted the seeds, there’ s a tree that’s as old as me

and I’m always embarrased and disappointed at what a scrawny little thing it is. Evidently my Mum and Dad didn’t know at the time that it would be so slow-growing. It should be lofty, a giant, don’t you think? I should be able to gaze up at it and say proudly, ‘This tree is as old as me, just think!’ But now, I stand beside it while they tell visitors, ‘We planted this when she was born. And I cringe. It is gnarled and twisted. It is never going to be lofty and spreading if it lives to be hundreds of years old. It’s a crab apple, a miserable thing with nasty little fruit. I hate it. ‘Why did you pick that to plant for me?’ I asked them once. ‘We thought it would be so lovely when it was in blossom.’ they said. It has seldom blossomed; when it does they are scarce. The only good thing about that is fewer of those nasty, shrivelled, dark so-called apples which no-one could ever eat.  I so hate it when they refer to me as Blossom, their pet name for me. 

When I grow up, I am going to get my own place and I am going to plant a tree in  honour of my dear parents. What will it be? What’s most poisonous? Perhaps oleander. That has wonderful blossoms, but you better not touch.  When they ask me why that tree for them, I’ll say, ‘I wanted to return the favour’.

Writer's Journal (exercise): How am I ever going to get out of it?

I would — I bloody would — specify the foot had to fit the slipper, wouldn’t I? Well, she was a pretty girl in that fancy getup she wore to the ball, and my parents seemed so approving. Of course she looked rich, with that carriage and all; that helped. And I was half pissed anyway, the night being so late by the time she made her entrance, and me under pressure about having to choose.

But you know, I’m basically a simple sort of a bloke. I really rather fancied that plump little thing in yellow. Not a great beauty maybe, but she had a wicked sense of humour, a downright nasty streak really — refreshing after all those simpering little tarts. As for Glass Slipper Girl, I don’t think she could string two words together; at least she didn’t say anything to me while we were dancing, not even when I slid my hand down to her bottom just to see how she’d react. She might never have noticed, for all the response I got. Dumb, if you ask me.

So how can I get out of it, is what I want to know. Everyone thinks it’s a match made in heaven. The ceremony has been planned, etc, etc, etc. I’m supposed to send her naughty, plump sister and her other sister and their mother far away out of the kingdom for being mean to old Dummy. If you ask me, there are natural victims and she’s one.

Writer's Journal (exercise): What If Rhett Butler Had Given a Damn?

There would have been no more story if Rhett had given a dam. They would have reconciled and lived happily ever after. Isn’t that what we want, according to Michael R [whose writing course we looked at]?

Well no, not in this case. We leave Scarlett collapsed on her staircase, but with somewhere still to go tomorrow, She’s a resourceful bitch, she’ll figure it out. And besides, I think we all know he really does give a damn, he’s never going to get Scarlett out of his system. But he has to storm off just at that pointy, so the story goes on working in our minds after we leave the cinema or close the book. (Yes, I did both in my time.) Part of the fascination is wondering what Scarlett will get up to next.

Also Rhett has to be a strong character; he can’t just succumb weakly. If he had given a damn, he wouldn’t be the same old swashbuckling, roguish Rhett, Not a very nice person, really. If he had not given a damn, neither would I. As it is, we care very much that Scarlett, having finally seen the light, is left on her own to nut it all out again.

Writer's Journal (exercise): In a Pigsty

In a pigsty here I lie

looking up at the sweet blue sky.

Mud is heaven too for me

I wallow freely, happily.

I eat the scraps, and I enjoy

being hand-fed by the farmer’s boy.

When the sun goes down at night

I sleep the sleep of the just and right.

What a lucky pig am I

safe and cosy in my sty!

Writer's Journal (exercise): My mum was a cat

My mum was a cat. A tame, domestic cat. She liked her comforts. She was a timid one, a  scaredy-cat who liked to stay close to home and to her people who made her feel safe. There, she was happy to be cooed at and petted. My dad liked to stroke her, and we kids were not allowed to interfere with her comfort. She came forth occasionally and ventured out on to the street, so long as someone safe was with her to protect her. She liked to lick the cream off life, and she hated loud noises. She didn’t like swimming or hiking, or getting into the dirt, and she hated mice and was always intent on destroying them. She was very private about personal matters, even secretive. And she was oh so fastidious about her person. You never saw my Mum ungroomed. She had an aloof air with people she didn’t know, and if she didn’t like you she would simply freeze you out by ignoring you. She had great dignity, my Mum, and she was quite vain. She knew she was very decorative to look at.

Writer's Journal (exercise): What if we came all this way and missed it?

Well personally I couldn’t give a damn. See I didn’t come for that, I came for the ride, and now that we’re here I like what I see. It’s a gorgeous planet!  You mob reckon it’s dying on ya? Well maybe, but it’s not so far gone yet. Time to stay for a bit of a visit, and enjoy what’s still on offer. The rest of our mob, they’re a bit pissed off because the stuff they wanted to study has been corrupted. Well, not my fault if the time coordinates were off by a few centuries; I didn’t pilot the ship. I’m happy enough to arrive at a time of aeroplanes and toilet paper and the internet. It’s quaint! And not nearly so primitive as those earlier centuries would have been. I like this air too, and the oceans. My adaptor kit made the conversions very easily and now I can function here just like one of you. Too bad about the rest of ’em, mooning about, complaining that they’ve missed it. What’s so great about a virgin birth anyway? Two a penny where I come from. It all depends on your point of view. Apparently the planet needed saving or something. Looks to me like you’ve done all right for the most part.

Writer's Journal (exercise): Ban nuclear power

Yes please. We really have gone too far. It’s a bit like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted, mind you, what with recent events in Japan. I don’t have to worry about conspiracy theories, I’m too busy worrying about whether nasty nuclear gases are invisibly infiltrating our space and causing us all lingering deaths.

Ah well, we are all undergoing lingering deaths of course from the moment of birth. But we’d rather those deaths be natural, not nasty; and we’d rather live out a goodly span of years, not have them cut short.

A friend of Andrew's is enraged by Rachel Carson’s book The Silent Spring which records the devastation of wild places by pesticides. Without DDT, he says, millions of people would have died of insect-carried diseases. Where do we draw the line, where do we find the balance? I like toilet paper and plane travel and being able to heat my house in winter without having to light a wood fire. Even wood fires have a downside — all those trees destroyed. I don’t want to die from malaria or Dengue fever, but I also don’t want the environment polluted.

Closer to home, I am all for banning coal-gas fracking.

Writer's Journal (exercise): Origami

Origami! I used to love the whole concept, but I was never much good at it. This bird is lovely, though I can’t really relate it to any living bird. First of all, blue and orange are not colours for birds, unless one includes birds of paradise, perhaps. And I don't know what bird has such wide wings, long neck, and this general shape. It’s an exotic bird, that’s for sure, and looks as if perhaps it can’t fly. I would think it might be a pelican, only the neck is so long and the beak too short for that. Also the tail sticks up too high.

I miss the pelicans on the creek, that used to swim with me when I lived in Pottsville. Real swimmers like pools with lanes, and to chug up and down increasing their fitness. I liked the good old creek with its treelined banks, and the pelicans sharing it with me, or roosting in the trees opposite. I liked the way they would fly so low, skimming the water, great ships in sail on the air.

Writer's Journal (exercise): Hunting

and shooting and fishing. Manly blood sports of which in theory I disapprove. But everything’s relative, and we can always make the exceptions that suit us. I used to enjoy fishing. Growing up in Tassie, most kids fished from an early age, even if it was only with the bit of string off the river bank. I liked being in a dinghy and trawling, or even just dropping a line over the side. I liked going out by moonlight to spear flounder. And hauling up nets full of crays. I liked getting oyster of the rocks. Later, when I was in my second marriage I liked sitting by a waterhole fishing for eels. Nice eating, eels.

My Uncle Ian asked me to write a poem for him about fishing, and the joy of fishing. I didn’t get it written until after he was dead, and then one of my vegetarian friends was horrified by it, but I still think it was a pretty god poem. It’s true, though, that I was not thinking of it from the point of view of the fish. Seeing a fish gasping in the air that suffocates it is not a pretty sight. Knock it on the head quick — that's what I was taught. Funny how that wasn’t a pretty sight, but gutting and filleting them didn’t revolt me. I’d still give a lot for a taste of cray, or a plate of oysters.

Writer's Journal (exercise): Pointing the Bone

I imagined a black man in tribal costume (loin cloth and not much else) holding a small unidentified bone in his right hand and pointing it across vast distances at some poor victim. The bone pointer could not be brought to justice for this form of murder, because he could be far enough away that no-one could say for sure he had anything to do with it, even thought the whole tribe would know who the witch doctor was.

That was when I was a kid. Now I have other notions. I think curses work best if the one cursed knows about them. Heck, they can work even if they haven’t been cast. A silly woman whose son is a pal of mine is convinced that, because I’m a witch, her son and I have been putting hexes on her. As if! It’s not actually what modern witches do if they’ve got any sense. But this lady is very good at getting herself into trouble and blaming others. She never puts the responsibility where it belongs.

I do think angry or hostile thoughts create energy, mind you, so some people might feel the effects even if they don’t know anything specific about where the bad vibes are coming from. And guilt feelings can also play a part.

Writer's Journal (exercise): Paddleboats

I love all kinds of boats, always have, and I’m very happy aboard any kind of craft.

When I lived near Mildura as a schoolgirl, I first saw paddleboats in the flesh so to speak, and they took my fancy in a big way; but it wasn’t until years and years later when I was grown up and married and living in Melbourne that I finally got to go on one.

We made friends with some people Mum knew, when we were visiting Tassie, and they had the idea. The ‘we’ I speak of was Bill and me, husband number 2, to whom I was married for 27 years. He was a boatman, an abalone diver with his own boat, and had a skipper’s licence, so he insisted he had to drive the thing, that he was reqired by law to do so. There were seven of us on board, Mum and Bill and me, and two other couples. There were a few ructions about Bill wanting to be skipper all the time; the other blokes didn’t see it his way. Mum soothed him down so he let the others have a bit of a go. But he kept muttering that he’d be to blame if we ran into trouble. We didn’t of course.

It was interesting to me to see Sunraysia as a visitor — that place where I spent two years of misery finishing school and suffering a stepmother from hell. At the time of our paddle boat jaunt my dad was in an old folks’ home, suffering from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. We took Mum with us to see him. They had managed to be friends after their divorce, but my stepmother was fiercely jealous of Mum. So the visit was a sneak expedition. It was sad for her to see him like that, but sweet for him to get a visit from his true love. I’m glad we did it. Also we met friends of friends up there, including a woman who reminisced about my stepmother, who had been her hated schoolteacher. That pleased me very much. 

I liked the pelicans along the river, and I liked lazing on the top deck and writing poems.

Writer's Journal (exercise): My Favourite Song

There’s a few, but the one that comes first to mind is Summertime from Porgy and Bess. Why? I don’t know. I just love that combination of words and music, and the idyllic happiness and love the song conjures up.  For a woman who regards herself as not very maternal, I’m a sucker for babies. Even now, when I am far too old to be clucky and certainly don’t want the looking after of infants, I make eyes at strange babies. Babies are the best flirts!

There was one at the chiropractor’s this morning. He had huge, deep blue eyes and he was obviously happy, gurgling and smiling. I caught his eye, beamed and said, ‘Hellooo!’ and he beamed right back, and we did things with our eyes, peeping and hiding and smiling again. Then another woman came in, a young woman, who saw the baby, made eye contact and pulled a wonderful face at him. He turned to her and beamed even more radiantly than he had for me. I was so jealous!  His Mum meanwhile dandled him on her lap, and chatted to her friend without for a moment losing awareness of her son.  

Happy babyhood, isn’t it a lovely thing? And I love the fact that it’s a tender dad who sings that Summertime song, I grew up when dads weren’t allowed to be tender. Luckily mine was.