Very superstitious

 My mother believed that there were stronger forces operating than what you saw with your naked eye. She was always getting messages about what was about to happen, good or bad but mainly bad. As a young child, I often had a sense of foreboding when my mother made these pronouncements.

’There’ll be a fight tonight, you just watch. The knife has been left with its cutting edge up. There’ll be a fight for sure.’ She would solemnly shake her head and sure enough, that night when my father came home, a fight would ensue.

’The knife is never wrong. I knew there’d be a fight,’ she’d mutter as she poured herself another drink.

‘Now look at what you’ve done. You’ve spilt the salt. That’s a bad omen. Quick get a pinch of the salt and throw it over your left shoulder,’ and I quickly ran for the salt, worried about more bad luck coming our way.

There were other things too, like heating lead and dropping it into water to see what shape it made. My mother could divine how the next few months would play out just from the shape of the lead. Or lighting a candle on a dark night and asking questions of the dead who would answer by the flicker of the flame. I hated these nights when the candle would be brought out and all the lights turned off. We often sat at a window with the light of the candle reflected in the glass, a ghosted image of the candle beckoning spirits of the past. My mother started with some incantations before calling upon a deceased member of her family for advice.

I felt a cold shudder go down my back whenever my mother leaned into the dark, talking to the candle flame. It was creepy and unsettling, and it always felt wrong. I wondered where this other side was that her mother kept talking about and feared that it may be somewhere just on the other side of that eerie glass pane in the dead of night.

Then, there were the odd sayings that I never quite understood. So much of the adult world seemed strange.

’Never sweep the dirt from your house into the yard or you’ll be poor for the rest of your life,’ and

’You can’t sew on a button while you are wearing the shirt or you’ll sew on poverty,’ which made me wonder how many buttons my parents had sewn on and how much dirt they’d swept into the yard, to be as poor as they were.

‘Now look what you have done! You broke a mirror. Seven years of bad luck,’ which especially frightened me as I was barely eight at the time.

The strangest comment of all was muttered every time my mother ironed. We didn’t have an electric iron, only an ancient, heavy black one that had to be heated on their wood stove. The temperature of the iron had to be closely monitored and my mother sprayed all the clothes with water to create steam when she pressed the iron down. This helped to get the creases out.  She would heat the iron and begin to iron carefully, making sure she didn’t burn the cloth. It was hard work and required concentration on her part, especially when ironing shirts and trousers. Inevitably, my mother ironed creases into the fabric where none were required.

‘I’ve just ironed another Jew into the shirt. Damn. Now I’ll have to reheat the iron and smooth it over. That’s better, can’t even see that the Jew was there!’

It was strange to hear her mother speak like this, but I didn’t understand what any of it meant. I didn’t even know what a Jew was, except that my mother hated them and called my father a bastard son of a Jew whenever she was angry. I thought if my father was a Jew then it couldn’t be all that bad, but I never dared to say this to my mother. It was always Jews and Gypsies that my mother cursed, yet she loved to hear the Hungarian csardás played by a Gypsy violin. It was all very confusing.

On one of those nights when my mother spoke to the dead, she brought out a small jewellery box that I had never seen before. Inside it was a tiny, weathered lapel pin with a red ring on the outside and a white centre piece. On the white enamelled centre was a strange looking bent cross on its side. The cross was black, and it stood out from the white and the red.

‘I have kept this for a very long time,’ my mother said.

‘How long, Mama?’

‘About 25 years,’ she replied. I have kept it hidden because it could cause a lot of trouble for me now, but I still have it.

‘I’ve never seen you wear it,’ I ventured.

‘No, I can’t wear it now. Not now, but I wore it with pride during the war when I was young.’

‘Why did you wear it then and why can’t you wear it now?’ I asked.

‘You wouldn’t understand. Maybe one day you will.  But for now, you can never tell anyone that I still have it. Especially not your father.’

There were many secrets my mother expected me to keep. This was just one more to add. It was only much later, when I was a teenager in Australia that I understood the significance of that German lapel pin with the black swastika. By then, my mother had finally summed up the courage to leave my father.

Ch ch changes

I plan for changes for a long time before they happen. I just have a gut feeling that I will do something in a few years’ time and then the idea bounces around in my head without taking much shape. Sure, I daydream and imagine what it will be like, but generally I don’t take steps towards it until it leaps up with an urgency I would not have predicted the week before. Suddenly, things seem to fall into place, and I must play catch up to turn the vague idea into reality.

I was like that when I decided to go to university. I talked about it, had a nebulous dream and did nothing for five years. Then I made up my mind from one day to the next and plunged headfirst without testing the waters. While I am not a strong swimmer, I know I can always dogpaddle my way to the side of the pool. I have lived my life by this metaphor and I always make a bigger splash than I ever thought I could.

When I began my teaching career in my early 40s, I walked into my principal’s office on the very first day and announced I would be applying for a teacher exchange the moment I became eligible. I did nothing towards it until that time arrived and then applied on what seemed like a whim. The moment I was accepted, I went into her office and reminded her of the conversation we had five years earlier. She remembered it well and approved my application. That’s how in 2008 we moved to Switzerland.

I have done the same thing when I accepted the principal’s position at Lyndhurst and then bought my house after a cursory glance. It just felt right. I love that quirky house in which I live, and I have enjoyed some very happy years there. I can’t believe that I moved in seven years ago this month! But change is in the air.

That big pool is beckoning once more. Do I dare jump? Of course! For the past three years I have been mulling over where to next. Canberra seemed the logical spot. My daughter lives there and the place has grown on me. The first few times I visited, it seemed cold and sterile, too many apartments and too many roads that go in circles. The CBD felt soulless. It took me quite a while to find the hidden gems, mainly in the inner north but some also on the south side. I have grown to love the dog parks, the lake, the cafés and of course all the culture that only a capital city can to offer.

Without any hope of a successful outcome, I sent an email to the Director in charge of my work unit. I asked whether I could move to Canberra and keep my job at Orange as much of what we do can be done from home. To my amazement and delight she has come up with an even better plan. She has been able to transfer my job to Queanbeyan, less than half an hour’s drive from the ACT. All of the sudden, that nebulous future plan has come into sharp focus. The job starts in January. I will have to get my cottage ready for sale and move within six months.

I have started the clearing out process. I’m filling Otto bins with accumulated papers while some useful items to go to Charity. On the 19th of August, I will hold a garage sale and slowly but surely, I will whittle down excess baggage. After that, I will have to fix all those pesky things I have left for another day.

I have a place to go to, so I don’t have to worry about the Canberra end. After being somewhat inert for a couple of years, I will face plenty of upheaval in the next few months. There is nothing like a deadline to get me going.

Central West Sunset

Dusk at Millthorpe is enchanting. The western sky, dappled in mid-level cloud, plays with a palette of yellow, orange, pink and bruised plum. The colours layer on top of one other like an extravagant celebratory cake. The initial yellow and orange hues are followed by an intense pink reminding me of specimens in the Bathurst begonia garden. In part it is like pink tulle draped across the sky, lifting in intensity, and for a few glorious minutes, the sky lights up just as its embers are about to die out.

The soft duck egg blue above this showy palette is slowly transformed to lavender, plum, mauve, and violet before the sky changes yet again before my eyes. Blues now dominate the sky. Moving from azure to cerulean, delft and finally to navy before turning into an inky black sky, I gaze as if into the eyes of a lover. Slowly, stars emerge, first one then another, and before long hundreds fill the night sky. Away from the city lights, they illuminate the firmament and light the way, even on this moonless night.

I have long been fascinated by celestial bodies and as a child could name many of the constellations until my northern sky was replaced by the southern cross and new shapes for which I had no name.

I am intrigued by the Australian Indigenous way of viewing the stars. The images I look for are formed by lines connecting star to star while they look for images in the spaces between. This reminds me of those optical illusions where you see either a young or an old woman depending on your perspective, until you can see both images and move between them with ease. I’d like to learn more about Indigenous astronomy and move between the two skies with ease.

It is too cold to stay outside. The temperature drops fiercely once the sun withdraws. I shiver and take a last look at the night sky and still can’t tear myself away from the spectacle before me.

A special type of mystic

I have neglected my inner life. I know this because I have an increased longing to be in nature and I have a fidgety, niggling feeling that I can only describe as ‘divine discontent.’ I know that change is in the wind, I’m just not sure that I am quite ready to leap into the unknown.

A friend suggested I read Raynor Winn’s ‘The Salt Path.’ She knows me well – I devoured the book. I marvelled at Winn’s resilience and trust in simply walking, putting one foot in front of the other until the path revealed itself. Since then I have read her other two books. I have been deeply moved by them all.

I have long harboured a desire to walk the Camino but now I am wavering. I have watched footage of hordes of people on this ancient track and I doubt I will find the peace I long for walking with thousands of others. It has lost its appeal. Maybe I need to find my own way, my own path to tread.

In her second book, ‘The Wild Silence’, Winn mentions the venerable Celtic concept of a ‘thin place.’ This is a place where the membrane between the ordinary and spiritual world becomes translucent, and we can touch the ultimate, even if only for a moment. It is a place where it is possible to lose oneself and find oneself at the same time.

Maslow called these moments ‘peak experiences’ and puts them at the top of the hierarchy of human needs. According to him, they play an important role in self-actualisation. He describes them as moments of pure joy and elation that stand out from the everyday where we experience a heightened sense of awe.

I realise that given my preoccupation with work, finances and plans for the future, I am not open to perceive thin places, should they choose to reveal themselves to me. Before that can happen, I have to get out of my head and be present to the here and now. I need to experience the earth under my feet, the air I inhale, and the space around and within me.

Lately, I have been drawn to interviews with Brother David Steindl-Rast, Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, and Thich Nhat Hanh. I feel that each of these great spiritual leaders have spoken to me directly over the years. I am not at all surprised that they knew each other and that they have been in inter-faith dialogue for years. Using the language of their own tradition, they too speak of the thin places where the sacred and profane meet and there is a momentary dissolution of the self and a sense of universal belonging. It all makes sense. And so I leave you to ponder Brother David’s words: ‘The mystic is not a special kind of human being, but every human being is a special kind of mystic.’

Unsolicited Advice

I’ve just returned from a trip down south to see my sister. We haven’t seen each other often in the past thirty years, in part because of the long distance between us, and in part because we have been busy with our own lives. Lately, she hasn’t been well at all, and I knew she was looking forward to my company.

My sister lives alone in a substantial three-bedroom house which has an additional formal lounge and dining room as well as a study. She keeps the whole back section of the house closed off to save on heating and spends most of her time in either her bedroom, eating alcove or family room. She is surrounded by a lifetime of memories, enormous collections of blue and white china and heavy wooden furniture that fill the sizable rooms. Once a keen gardener, her backyard is overgrown and inaccessible, especially now that she has great difficulty walking unaided. It was hard for me to see the enormity of what faced her day in, day out.

While out for dinner at her son’s place, she brought up the subject of the upkeep of the house and garden. Would he be able to come and prune the trees and weed the garden? Maybe even paint the house sometime? I immediately knew this wasn’t a viable solution. My nephew works full-time, has his own family and a house to maintain and certainly doesn’t have the hours on the weekend to do it all.

I had brought it up in conversation before, but it seemed like the perfect time to say it again. The house is simply too big for her to manage, and she ought to sell and downsize. Unbidden, my advice fell on deaf ears. When my nephew joined in with the many advantages this would offer, she picked up her bag, tried to rise from the chair and said, ‘Let’s go!’

I didn’t respond. I let her calm down, changed the topic and enjoyed our dessert. I wasn’t going to let this outburst spoil an otherwise enjoyable evening.

I stayed with her for another couple days before heading home. I never broached the subject again. I still worry that she will have yet another fall and that no-one will be there to call an ambulance. I’m concerned about her heating costs and her steep driveway which most days keeps her marooned in the house. But I also acknowledge that it isn’t my decision to make.

The saying ‘Don’t let anyone who hasn’t been in your shoes tell you how to tie your laces,’ echoes in my ears. I realise I’ve been treading that fine line between concern and meddling.

School holidays

For many years as a teacher, I lived my life in ten-week blocks. The first few weeks of term were always crazy busy as I wrote programs, prepared for extra-curricular activities and of course faced the day-to-day challenges of teaching up to 30 children. During the term, very little was done on the home front except for cooking, shopping, washing, and keeping a basic level of hygiene around the house.  Everything else was put on the backburner until ‘the holidays.’ Inevitably, when those two weeks arrived, the first week was spent in a stupor on the lounge. The best I could do was to finally read a novel or two. The second week, I madly spent tidying up and trying to get ready for the term. At the end of the year, during those blissful five weeks off, I would finally relax and wonder how I would ever ramp up again to face a new year, but I somehow, I did.

For the past four years I have been in the privileged position of mainly working from an office and going into schools assisting teachers with improving their students’ literacy. I have set lunch breaks, can make a cup of tea whenever I want, I have weekends off, and rarely bring work home. It is the closest I have come to a ‘work-life-balance.’ My heart goes out to the teachers in front of classes who must cope with the pressures of teaching, the increasing burden of admin and the expectation to constantly improve their practice. Whenever I am in schools, I do my utmost to help teachers in ways that don’t increase their already unsustainable workload. I have not forgotten what it is like at the chalkface.

These school holidays, I am taking a week off to see my sister, elderly mother-in-law, and my daughter. That’s quite a bit in a week, especially as I will travel several hundred kilometres. When I get home, I will be going straight back to work, and everything will be left in the state that it was in before I left. But unlike my colleagues at school, I know it will only take me a weekend to catch up. So, these school holidays, spare a thought for teachers who have not only finished a long term of teaching but have also written reports, had parent-teacher interviews, spent hours on playground duty and are now preparing for the term ahead. I have nothing but admiration and respect for everything that teachers manage to accomplish.

Audiobooks

I do a lot of driving. Some of it for work, some to visit friends and family. I average about 28 000km a year or roughly 540km a week. This amounts to many hours in the car on my own. As I am out in the country, I don’t always have good reception.

I do enjoy silence, but I also like to use my time productively. When you’re out on the road as much as I am, there’s often not much time in the day to read. Listening to books gives me a chance to catch up on my reading list or to try new books I wouldn’t necessarily want to buy. The irony is that I often buy the books I have listened to because I want to go back and read them!

Some of the best audiobooks are the ones read by the authors themselves. It is such a pleasure to hear a book read in the way it was intended to sound. One of my favourites this year has been Chitra Ramaswamy’s Homelands which is a story of a friendship between her and a 95-year-old German Jewish refugee who arrived in Britain as part of the Kindertransport in 1939. It tells his story but also hers, examining their otherness, friendship, family and belonging.

Another book that had an impact on me was Syria’s Secret Library by Mike Thomson. In 2011, Syrian government forces attacked Daraya near Damascus and held it under siege, deliberately killing and starving its own citizens. Throughout the bombing and shootings, a group of dedicated men risked their lives to save books and established a secret library deep underground. These books could be borrowed and taken to the front, or read in the bunker where a young man took it upon himself to become the librarian. These men were fighters yet had a thirst for knowledge. So, they continued their education when educational institutions were no longer viable amidst the fighting. Listening to Mike Thomson read I was in awe of their dedication to the resistance and to their commitment to education.

I also like to listen to novels. On our way back from Adelaide, my daughter and I chanced upon A man called Ove by Fredrik Backman, a Swedish author. We thoroughly enjoyed listening to this story on our trip. I had never heard of Backman before and this lead me to listen to one of his other books, Anxious People, which I also loved.

Audiobooks have opened a new world of listening pleasure. Sometimes I listen to learn, other times I listen for pure enjoyment. Either way, it helps while away the hours on the road.

Soon I will be going to Melbourne to visit my sister. This is a round trip of roughly sixteen hours. I haven’t chosen my next book yet. Whatever it will be, I know I will enjoy those hours. In the meantime, your suggestions are always welcome!

A winter walk

It is currently six degrees, windy and grey. Trees are shivering now that they have lost their leaves and even birds look untidy in their coat of ruffled feathers. It is anything but inviting out there. The dog needs a walk regardless.

I put on my walking boots, puffer jacket and scarf and head outside. The moment I turn the corner, the wind assaults me with a slap across my face. An involuntary sound escapes my lips. It is even less pleasant to be out than I imagined.

We walk along a well-worn route, down the footpathed side of the street where I can let the dog off the lead for a short block of freedom. Zoë runs ahead to say hello to the caged cockatoo who calls out to her, ‘Hello, puppy, hello, puppy!’ I reply with, ‘Hello, cocky.’ He rewards me with a bark to let me know that he has recognised the animal to be a dog. I marvel at his intelligence.

Further ahead, I stop for a moment at the corner store. Zoë gets excited at the prospect of a treat. Sure enough, the store manager comes out with a Schmacko. After a couple of high fives, Zoë is rewarded, and her eyes are aglow with devotion for this young man. She is playful and affectionate and jumps up at him. I cringe a little at her lack of manners and my neglect to train her.

We walk through the centre of the village and meet more dogs and people. Some of them are up for a friendly chat, others growl and snap. Our walk is slow as every blade of grass has a story to tell. Zoë reads the doggy news slowly and leaves her own messages at important junctures. Meanwhile, I hop on the spot and rub my hands together to stay warm. We make our way to the dog park, a handkerchief sized plot of land befitting nothing but a Chihuahua. Still, there is fresh news here too and Zoë learns all the local dog gossip as she keeps her ears and nose on the ground. My toes are beginning to protest at the pace of our walk.

Eventually we make our way back home. I can feel my pace quicken as we round the last corner, and I am once again assailed by an Arctic blast from the south. Zoë doesn’t register the cold but even she seems happy to arrive at our gate. Inside, we huddle in front of the heater.

I have a postcard on my desk which I picked up in Germany many years ago. It shows two windows, one looking out and the other looking in. Below are the following words:

There are people who stand in front of windows and longingly look inside believing that life happens there. While those inside stare out at the street believing it occurs there. Günther Kunert

On wintery days like today, I am content to live my life inside and look out.

Buying a fountain pen

I promised myself upon finishing writing my memoir, I would reward myself with something extravagant. Something that would last and be cherished, an item of beauty. I decided upon a fancy fountain pen to mark the occasion. It seemed a fitting purchase for someone who loves writing.

I finished the memoir six months ago now, but the time never felt right to spend money on an indulgence. Something more pressing always came up. Then, about two months ago, I took the plunge and began to research the pen that I would eventually buy. I looked at a number of luxury brands and chose a slightly lesser-known English company which offered a range of limited-edition bespoke pens. The one I eventually ordered had the advantage of offsetting some of the profit to a charity I was keen to support.

I couldn’t wait for the pen to arrive. As each pen is individually crafted, it took over six weeks to make and then I had to wait for the shipment from London. I was so excited to pick it up from the post office I wanted to unpack it there and then. But reason prevailed and I carefully unpacked my treasure at my desk. It came in a stunning black leather box, complete with a certificate of authentication, ink, and detailed instructions. When I removed the pen, the first thing I noticed was its weight. It felt very light and small in my hand. The body was made of resin, yet in parts it looked almost translucent. I felt a little disappointed, as I was expecting something akin to the sturdy Bakelite pens of the 1920s. Then I filled the pen and began to write. The 14c gold nib dragged across the paper and at times the ink didn’t keep up with my writing. I could hear it scratch along the paper and I knew the sound itself would be enough for me never to want to use it.

I swapped over to my trusty Lamy Studio fountain pen which I bought in Zürich about 15 years ago for about quarter of the price. It floated effortlessly across the page. I enjoy writing with it, and it has never let me down. Sure, it looks well-worn, and the patina of the bronze coating is clearly visible, but I love this pen. Why did I think I needed a replacement?

I think my motivation was that I wanted something new and shiny. Yet I love every old piece of furniture in the house with a unique story that can be traced through marks and stains. I still use the fifty-year-old pencil case my father made and every time I hold it in my hands, the worn leather fills my heart with gratitude for this object. Surely, my old Lamy is no different.

Once I realised that I was both disappointed with the new pen and with myself for not questioning my motivations, there was no other choice but to send it back and request a refund. I am not good at doing this. I was very factual and clear with my feedback and returned the item. I have lost some money on the postage, but I have gained a valuable insight about myself. This experience has taught me that I already have what I need, and that it is enough. More than enough.

Radical Gratefulness

Gratitude has become trendy with the positive psychology movement. You can always find something to be grateful for – be grateful for your breath, a pretty flower, a kind word. While I agree with the sentiment, I wonder whether the next generation who hear this mantra will grow up like I did, having to eat everything on my plate because I had to think of all those starving children in India. I am quite sure none of my Indian friends ever benefitted from the extra mouthful of cauliflower or cabbage I forced down my throat and it created a very skewed relationship with food for me which has lasted a lifetime. Waste not, want not…

Don’t get me wrong, gratefulness is a beautiful state and I do believe that we need embody it much more than we do. My gripe is the glib statements that often sound forced and obvious.  What I have been grappling with is what we do when things go wrong in our lives. How to be grateful when truly terrible things happen. This is what mean by radical gratefulness.

When I watched Peter die, struggling to take his last breaths, in those moments, I felt grateful. Not for the intense sunny morning that seemed so incongruous with what was happening, nor for the 20 or so years I had spent with him, but for those awful moments where I watched him suffer and that I could be there to share them with him. As my dear friend Janet said at her husband’s funeral, ‘Today is a beautiful, terrible day.’

Ten years later, I sat with Roger as he took his last breath and once more, I was grateful to have had the honour to sit with him in that beautiful, terrible moment. To bear witness to someone’s final moments is to be filled with deep sorrow, pain and beatitude. Radical gratefulness is the only way I can describe this. It is the experience of two opposing feelings in visceral communion through grace.

And so it was this week when I experienced a major setback. It was my fault – I missed a crucial date, and it has cost me dearly. My first reaction was to be annoyed, frustrated, and to be honest, gutted. But as time went on, I was able to find my way back to radical gratefulness. I didn’t accept the ‘it happened for a reason,’ ‘something better will come your way,’ comments, although I truly appreciated the love and empathy I received. No, I forced myself to look at the situation deeply, accept it fully, and be grateful for the lesson I have learned about my chronic inattention to detail. It simply matters, and I’ve stopped making excuses about being ‘the big picture thinker’.

I can now say with conviction that I am grateful for the mistakes I’ve made, for they have enabled me to learn and grow. As Alex Elle explains eloquently, ‘Gratitude practice isn’t about pacifying our painful or challenging times —i t’s about recognizing them and finding self-compassion as we do the work.’