Life: bits and pieces
Travels with my Mother VII: The Mystery of Keys
This is the seventh in my occasional series I’m calling Travels with my Mother. If you’ve not read the first in the series, you might wish to have a look at that one as it gives the context behind these posts.
Doreen with her keys, winter 2020 ‘Do you know what this is, Mum?’ I handed her a large decorative metal key.
Mum turned it over in her hands, peering at the engraving on it. ‘It’s a 21st key, is it?’
‘Yes, and it was given to you by your dad.’
I showed her the message her father had put on the key:
To Doreen, Love from Dad. March 1950
‘And there’s another one here, a wooden one. It’s a bit of a mystery.’
I handed her the second key, a light wooden form, covered with signatures of people like an autograph book. She traced the writing with her thumb.
‘Whose was this?’ She didn’t seem to recognise it.
‘That’s the mystery! I thought at first it was Dad’s, because he signed it on the front, here.’
I showed her Dad’s flourish, smiling as I did, because Dad had the most dreadful handwriting and he’d clearly made an effort here.
‘But it can’t have been his, because he turned twenty-one before you’d met. And see here, on the back? These are autographs by your family and friends. Do you think your dad bought this one for you as well? Was it the custom to also give a wooden one for people to sign?‘
Mum considered this. ‘I don’t know…perhaps.’I spent more time reading out the names of the people who’d signed her wooden key, all those years ago. Her brother Art and sister Betty, her soon-to-be sister-in-law Norma, and many others whose names I didn’t recognise. The winter sun warmed our shoulders and small blue wrens pecked at the grass in front of Mum’s wheelchair.
Mum seemed content to know that whatever the mystery of the wooden key, it had once meant something to her. And pleased to be reminded that the people who had signed it had wanted to wish a happy life to the young woman she had been in March, 1950.#travelswithmymother
Travels with my mother VI: Travelling back to colonial times
This is the sixth in my occasional series I’m calling Travels with my Mother. If you’ve not read the first in the series, you might wish to have a look at that one as it gives the context behind these posts.
This, in conversation with Mum:
Mum: I’m so tired, love. But I’m not doing anything today. I got back yesterday from a trip out, like I used to do, on a pony. Just me and another woman. We’d have a pony each and we’d set out from North Richmond and decide: this way or that way? So this time I chose north.
Me: ‘What was there?’
Mum: Not much back then. I’d follow the river for a bit and find a few people—squatters—on the river bank. I’d say ‘I’m here to help you. Is there anything you need?’ But they were usually very suspicious, like they thought I was there to interfere. They didn’t like the idea of being moved off the land.
They’d say: ‘We don’t need anything, go away, leave us in peace.’
Anyway, all that was a long time ago. Must be twenty years ago.Me: ‘Did you enjoy those pony rides?’
Mum: It was an adventure. And I felt I was doing good for others because every now and then I’d come across someone who needed my help. But I don’t think I could ride all that way on a pony any more. I suppose if I tried it now I’d get a right old backache!’
As usual after one of these chats, I went searching for the golden nuggets of truth in her words. To my knowledge, Mum has never ridden a horse or pony in her life. To dig deeper, to the emotion of her tale, I see it is about freedom and choice: the ability to make decisions about where she wanted to be; and to be able to move about with ease. Two things no longer available to her.
And, just as importantly, the wish to feel needed – to be of use. Most of Mum’s life has been spent ‘doing’ for others in some way: home maker, income earner, family glue. And outside of the home and family, she took on roles in community, school, leisure activities. Always busy, a wonderful organiser and contributor.
In the tale of her pony rides, she also references early days of settlement of the Hawkesbury district. She married into a family with deep roots in this region going back to the Second Fleet of convicts in the late 1700’s. The Eathers, from whom I am descended through my father, were among the earliest of English convicts and later settlers along the Hawkesbury River. Mum’s own family history also features several convicts who eventually settled along South Creek.
In the past couple of years, I’ve been talking with Mum about our ancestors and about early colonial days. I’ve delved deeper into family history, as I began to write fiction inspired by some of these people and places. Several decades ago, Mum was a keen family historian and did a great deal of leg work in researching and documenting the lives of our forebears. I picked up from where she had left off. So perhaps its no surprise that images of ‘squatters’ and settlers along the once wild Hawkesbury region feature in her imaginings.
I’m glad that she is able to live out stories of colonial days in her thoughts and fancies as she ventures into new territories.
#travelswithmymother
Travels with my mother V: History
This is the fifth in my occasional series I’m calling Travels with my Mother. If you’ve not read the first in the series, you might wish to have a look at that one as it gives the context behind these posts.
I found Mum’s high school history notebooks, tucked away in a treasure box. On a recent visit, we went through them together. She had written copious notes in beautiful handwriting; no doubt copied from the blackboard or from textbooks, as was customary in the early 1940’s.
The world was at war, Britain fighting to maintain its sovereignty but also its empire. The lessons Mum wrote were all to do with struggles of the past: British royals, the English Civil War, the French Revolution, British dominions in India and Australia. Captain Cook, Arthur Phillip, colonial expansion, ‘troublesome natives’ and ‘lazy convicts.’ ( Mum pulled a face when I read aloud the last two references, rightly shocking today. I was pleased to see her sense of injustice had not been diluted by the years.)
She recognised her old Phillips School Atlas with it’s red cover. Almost half the world was coloured pink back then – pink for the British Empire.
When we discussed her school years, she remembered some things differently. She said she’d had to go to the ‘domestic high school’ because she wasn’t good enough to attend the more academic school. I reminded her that she’d been more than smart enough, but economics and transport problems made attending the more distant school impossible; she’d had to be content with learning domestic science, sewing and cooking at the closer school. She looked both uncertain and pleased by this reminder. Mum was always justifiably proud of her clever mind and aptitude at study and I was saddened to think that this capacity was something she no longer recognised.
The conversation showed that there can be different versions of history, depending on who is doing the telling, when and why. And that memory can be an unreliable narrator at the best of times.
#travelswithmymother
Travels with my mother IV: Show and Tell
This is the fourth in my occasional series I’m calling Travels with my Mother. If you’ve not read the first in the series, you might wish to have a look at that one as it gives the context behind these posts.
Mum seemed flat this morning: subdued and disconnected. I spoke about bits and pieces for a while and she was polite, but her interest flagged quickly. When I pulled out the items I had brought to show her, her demeanour changed.
In the past few weeks I’ve used a sort of ‘Show and Tell’ on my visits with Mum. While her eyesight is now so poor as to make it almost impossible for her to properly ‘see’ an item, she can still touch, hold, or smell one. She enjoys old photos, not quite ‘seeing’ them, but hearing my descriptions of the people and places in each. I’ve heard Mum’s stories about the photos in the old family album – those tiny sepia images -and I can now tell them back to her. It’s the stories of the photos, not the images themselves, that we connect with. Occasionally, a memory will be sparked and Mum will travel down a path from long ago. At the very least, we talk.
On this visit, the items I took for my ‘Show and Tell’ included a chic little navy blue handbag (circa 1951). Inside were several hat pins, a girl guide badge, and a tiny harmonica, no bigger than half the length of my thumb, in its little box.
I placed the handbag on the table in front of Mum. Recognition was slow, but when I told her my guess that this was a bag she had purchased to go with her wedding outfit, an expression of puzzled pleasure crossed her face. We looked at the wedding photo on her shelf and examined the pretty pale blue dress she had worn on that day.
Next were the hat pins, in their spongy cushion. I touched Mum’s fingers to the rounded bobbles on their ends. She had no recollection of hat pins. When I suggested she may well have used the one whose bobble was a soft blue-grey colour to hold her wedding hat with its tiny veil in place (the colour complementing both hat and dress) she nodded, pleased.
The tarnished Girl Guides badge was another mystery to be explored. It prompted a look through the photo album and there, as I’d remembered, were three cloth ‘merit badges’ which Mum had earned during her time as a Girl Guide. She traced the stitching on the badges with a forefinger, with a look close to wonder. Was she recalling this long ago time? Or pushing her damaged memory to try, try, try to bring it back?
Finally, I placed in Mum’s palm the miniature mouth organ. Her fingers explored it but no idea came to her as to its purpose. I blew into it gently and we heard its distinctive sounds.
‘Dad had a proper mouth organ,’ I said. ‘I don’t remember him playing it but he used to talk about his time in the brass band when he was a youngster. I think he played trombone?’
I smiled: as always, the image of my skinny dad with a skinny trombone was irresistible. ‘I’m guessing this little mouth organ was his too.’
Mum looked mystified.
‘But what would it be doing inside my handbag?’That, we will most likely never know.
#travelswithmymother
Travels with my mother III: Wedding Ring
This is the third in my occasional series I’m calling Travels with my Mother. If you’ve not read the first in the series, you might wish to have a look at that one as it gives the context behind these posts.
I wear my mother’s wedding ring. She stopped wearing it several years ago; possibly she worried about losing it. It’s a plain, narrow gold band – my father was broke back then, as for much of his life, so a larger or fancier ring was out of the question.
I love it. I remember as a child, trying it on and pretending that I was a ‘married lady.’ The idea had seemed both attractive and ridiculous. Now I wear it as a tribute to my mother – her absence of need for showiness, her discomfort with ostentation. Mum was – is – a simple woman in many ways, though possessed of complexities in others.
To me, this plain little ring also symbolises the ordinary comforts of Mum’s life: the old houses she lived in, which had needed close attention and much effort to become family homes; the plain but nourishing meals she prepared; likewise the many apple pies, jams, cakes and sweets she made for her family and for community fund raising; the clothing she sewed and knitted for us.
Almost everything Mum did was achieved in less than perfect circumstances, but added so much to the lives of others. All of which is held in the memories evoked by one unadorned golden ring.
My Mum and Dad on their wedding day in 1951. Mum sewed the pale blue, knee length, sweetheart neckline dress herself. An unusual choice in the early 1950’s; I suspect partly out of necessity due to limited funds and partly Mum’s wish to be a bit different from the norms of the time. #travelswithmymother
Another Australian ‘living literary treasure’: Helen Garner and her book ‘Everywhere I Look’
I’m late to this book (published by Text Publishing in 2016) but I’m an avowed Helen Garner fan, especially her non-fiction, which Everywhere I Look is: a collection of short anecdotes, musings, essays, film and book reviews, and a catalogue of everyday incidents in the life of an author who has made observing and recording a daily habit. In the hands of someone as skilled as this, the everyday become poetic, luminous, full of beauty, humour and mystery.
These were qualities of other books I’ve read by Garner: Joe Cinque’s Consolation, This House of Grief, The Spare Room, and of course the classic Monkey Grip, among others. How does she do this – write about the ordinary and the extraordinary in ways that make both seem familiar or, at least, understandable?
The second-last piece in this book, titled ‘The Insults of Age’, should be a must-read for any woman approaching mid to later life (and their partners, family and friends.) Her warning to thoughtless (younger) folk who might presume to act towards older women as if they are invisible, stupid, deaf or helpless, is one of several paragraphs that made me chuckle.
There were, as well, moments when I gasped in recognition of the situation described and at the beauty and simplicity of the prose, such as in the piece describing her mother and their relationship. ‘Dreams of Her Real Self’ also made me weep a little. There is this:
When, in the street, I see a mother walking with her grown-up daughter, I can hardly bear to witness the mother’s pride, the softening of her face, her incredulous joy at being granted her daughter’s company; and the iron discipline she imposes on herself, to muffle and conceal this joy.
Everywhere I Look, p94And these sentences, describing a photo of Helen as a baby in her mother’s arms, which capture the other side of the parent-child relationship:
I am six months old. I am still an only child. She is carrying me in her arms. She is strong enough to bear my weight with ease. I trust her. She is my mother, and I am content to rest my head upon her breast.
Everywhere I Look p105There it is – the entirety of the complicated bond between parent and child in a handful of understated or pared-back sentences. Who could say more, or more beautifully?
A wonderful offering from a living literary treasure.
Travels with my mother II: singing with youngsters
This is the second in my occasional series I’m calling Travels with my Mother. If you’ve not read the first in the series, it may be worth having a look at that one as it gives the context behind these posts.
Mum sounded tired this morning on the phone, her words slurring a little. She agreed she was weary, adding that it was because she’d been on a long drive to Canberra with a car full of youngsters.
‘What were you doing in Canberra?’ I asked.
‘Well there were young people here in the nursing home wondering what they should be doing. I asked if they’d like to get a singing group together and they said yes! So that’s what we did.’
‘Fantastic! Were they a nice group?’
‘I got to know them quite well. They had to be escorted from one stage to another but they got used to it. Some of the songs were poking fun…’
‘Satire?’ I wondered.
‘Yes, I suppose so. Some satirical songs and some others.’
‘It sounds a lot like the National Folk Festival in Canberra. Going from stage to stage. Was it like that?’
‘A lot like the Festival, yes.’
‘Any wonder you feel weary today, Mum. You’ve been doing a lot.’
‘Yes, I think I’ll just rest today.’
Photo by Guillame Meurice at Pexels For many years, Mum was a regular attendee at the annual National Folk Festival held in Canberra, Australia, over the Easter weekend. She’d stay with my sister who at that time lived in that city, and they’d come to the festival site each morning equipped with warm clothes, sun hats and water bottles, ready to enjoy a variety of concerts, dance displays, spoken word presentations and other cultural delights.
The festival is held over a large open site with most venues set up in large marquees. Wandering around the festival site is always a pleasure, as is sitting under the trees with their autumn tints, sipping a coffee and chatting with friends. Mum loved these times.
As her physical aches and pains increased and her eyesight started to weaken, her hours at the festival began to shrink. When my sister moved away from Canberra, going to the National was no longer an option. So these events are now in Mum’s past.
It’s a pleasure that is no longer available to her except through her memory and imagination. I’m certain that these earlier experiences are at the root of our conversation and her carload of youngsters, as she drove them to Canberra for performances on various stages.
Travels with my mother: an occasional series
Photos by Tobi and Nita from Pexels After a long life lived with intelligence and a shrewd awareness of the world around her, my mother’s mind is failing. Not in a ‘railing at the world’ kind of way; hers is a much gentler decline, expressed in a vague blunting of her wits and a profound forgetfulness. I think her memory loss must feel like falling into a black hole every five or ten minutes. She often can’t recall answers to a question and will ask the same one over and over. Once a teacher, mentor and sounding board for her daughters and grandson, her attention now wanders, so it’s hard to maintain a conversational arc for longer than a few minutes at a time.
I treasure my connection with Mum, and this is painful to watch. She was the person who supported my learning and my studies: the boring parts (spelling lists in primary school, equations in high school) and those that were more fun (discussing books we’d both read, bouncing around ideas for an upcoming history essay for uni.) Mum and I enjoyed trips to the movies, watched classics together on Bill Collins’ Golden Years of Hollywood TV presentations, held season subscriptions to the theatre, talked politics and current affairs, and debated social issues over cups of tea and home made cake.
She was a vibrant conversationalist with a keen interest in and knowledge of world history, geography, literature and politics—much of it self-taught, and squeezed into rare moments of leisure from her demanding roles as orchardist, store keeper, café owner and home-maker. A sounding board for ideas or problems big or small, Mum was my ‘go-to’ person to share news, to fine-tune plans, and to swap stories.
Now, my heart aches as I witness her vagueness, her struggle to follow a conversation; her reduced engagement with the things and people around her. On my visits and daily phone calls, I keep up my chat about my life and things I’m doing, and also current events and important things on the news. But these are no longer meaningful for Mum in quite the same way.
I grieve for the connections we once had over ideas, places, people, books.
There is another side to this. As the insidious progression of her dementia damages parts of my mother’s brain and cognitive function, other facets emerge in original ways that are always fascinating, often surprising. After each visit or phone call I wonder about the conversation we just had, trying to parse the things she said or did, to pinpoint their meaning or origin. There is generally an echo of an event or comment from earlier that day or week that somehow makes sense in the fresh arrangement of Mum’s mind.
What this has meant for me is the possibility of engaging with my mother in novel ways, not informed by sadness alone. I am learning to see and appreciate the pleasure she might take from her perception of the world. Instead of mourning the erosion of her faculties, I strive to notice the beauty of her utterances and be intrigued by her sometimes startling statements. There is often humour, too—conversations with Mum are frequently hilarious.
All this is to say that I have recently embarked on a new journey with my mother, travelling with her on her winding pathway through the last months and years of her life. As I like to write, and writing helps me to make sense of my own experiences, I thought I’d begin a series of occasional blog posts about our explorations. Together, Mum and I will time- travel, meet people from the past, and venture into unknown territory. We will do some amazing things.
I invite you to join me on my travels with my mother.
Photo by James Wheeler at Pexels Five months of reading: 2020 Reading Challenges done and dusted
OK, so perhaps COVID-19 isolation rules had something to do with it. I’ve been reading a whole lot more in the first five months of this year. As a result, my 2020 Reading Challenges are done and it’s not quite halfway through the year yet.
So, here’s what I’ve achieved between the pages (you can find my reviews for each of the books in the links to my earlier posts):
Australian Women Writers Challenge
My goal for this challenge was 10 books by Australian women and to review at least 6 of them. Easiest one of all because I naturally gravitate towards work by Aussie women writers.
Aussie Author Challenge
For this one I read 12 books by Aussie authors: at least 4 by female writers, at least 4 by males, at least 4 by authors new to me and across at least 3 genres.
Non-Fiction Reader Challenge
This challenge had me reading at least 6 books
across any non fiction genre
And the books I read? Here they are along with links to my thoughts on each in case you missed them the first time. (There are a few additional books read but not listed here because I did not post a review.)
Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
The Mind of a Thief by Patti Miller
Your Own Kind of Girl by Clare Bowditch
Bruny by Heather Rose
The Yield by Tara June Winch
Songspirals by Gay’wu Group of Women
The White Girl by Tony Birch
The Lioness Wakes by Blanche D’Alpuget
No Small Shame by Christine Bell
I Want You to Know We’re Still Here by Esther Safran Foer
Tell Me Why by Archie Roach
The Women’s Pages by Victoria Purman
Inheritance of Secrets by Sonya Bates
The Schoolmaster’s Daughter by Jackie French
Evie and Pog by Tania McCartney
Starfell: Willow Moss and the Forgotten Tale by Dominique Valente
When Grace Went Away by Meredith Appleyard
The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
Taboo by Kim Scott
Invisible Boys by Holden Shepard
Cutting the Cord by Natasha Molt
When Grace Went Away by Meredith Appleyard
Have you set yourself any reading challenges this year? Maybe a new author? Or trying out a genre you don’t normally gravitate to? Perhaps, like me, you’ve also been searching out more titles by indigenous Australian authors.
Now, on to the next half of 2020 and more reading. We’re into winter here in Australia and of course that’s the perfect time to settle in a sunny spot or in front of the fire with a good book or three.#AussieAuthor20
#readthestella
#2020StellaPrize
#AWW2020When happenstance leads to your happy place
Today I was listening to episode 1 of a brand new podcast called AusFolkus, which will explore the people and stories behind Australian folk music and dance. (Full disclosure: the podcast is presented and recorded by my husband, Andy Busuttil from Blue Mountain Sound studio) The podcast guest chatting with Andy was Gary Dawson, who has been participating in and teaching dances from the Balkans region for fifty years.
I was intrigued and amused to hear him relate the story of how, as a young university student, he stumbled upon folk dancing one night, when he and a few mates were wandering around Sydney, looking for something to do. They happened upon some ‘interesting music’, as he recalls it, wafting out from a building. Deciding to investigate, they were invited to join in. That was it for Gary. He was hooked, and went on to explore the eccentric rhythms, exciting music and colourful energetic dances from the Balkans, and eventually to become one of Australia’s most respected and loved folk dance teachers.
Photos by Kosygin Leishangt, Pixabay, Brett Sayles & Malik Talha from Pexels This anecdote got me thinking about the way ‘happenstance’ can knock us off a trajectory, or start a new one. A new passion, as for Gary, or a new career, love affair, favourite travel destination, even a brand new country to live in. There are so many ‘sliding door’ moments in life. Have you ever stopped to consider all the ‘what ifs’ that brought you to where you are today? Those split seconds where you might have chosen differently, got off at an earlier bus stop, missed a flight or train, or not taken a phone call. We can never know what the outcome might have been had we done it differently, of course.
And how wonderful when happenstance leads you to something that changes your life in a truly positive way, introducing you to a fulfilling and absorbing new pastime or life path. When you land in your happy place, as Gary did.
Dance is one of those activities that appear across all cultures, because it allows us to express ourselves and experience the joy of movement. Our bodies were created to move, to express, to feel joy and exhilaration. The colours, the traditions, the music and the rhythms of dances from around the world show us that dance is one of the ways we can be comfortable in our human bodies.
Photos by Marko Zirdom, Immortal Shots, Tope A Asokere, Antem Beliakin &
Joy Anne Pura from PexelsOf course, your happy place may be reading, or writing stories, or horse riding. You might buzz from creating a garden, or painting one, or sculpting a native animal. Maybe creating a meal to die for is your thing. It hardly matters what it is that takes you there. We all need a happy place to recharge and to get in touch with what makes us, us.
And if happenstance is what connected you with your thing in the first place, so much the more magical.
Please do let me know in the comments if happenstance has happened to you. I’d love to hear your story.And, if you are interested in folk music and dance and the community of people who make it happen, do have a listen to the AusFolkus podcast.
