Recently, my parents acquired a book put together by their community about the fires and then the floods which swept through the area last summer. People contributed photos and stories of their experiences. The book shows humans doing their best in a world turned totally crazy. On their faces are fear, sadness, determination, and hope. … Continue reading An Instant Library
Fandango’s Flashback Friday (only I’m late because we were away for the weekend) suggests posting a blog from this date on a previous year. I don’t have Friday’s exact date but this is only one day out. I hope you enjoy…
I
hate this wind and the brown sky and the pluming brown dust and the
brown, brown oval… except where the sprinkler has leaked and there
is a patch of rich green – a puddle reflecting what used to be.
The
scraping leaves exfoliate my heart like an acid. On days like to
today (today, when it was supposed to rain) I find it so hard to
believe that everything will be okay.
As
I walked this morning, a few spats of rain found their way to the
ground, like salt on a meal. When I got home I looked at the radar.
Down south, there is rain. So that is something.
Yesterday
at the fruit shop, the cashier lady, just returned from 6 weeks “at
home” in Bhutan commented that “compared to home, Australia is a
desert”. She landed, on Friday, in Sydney, thinking it an overcast
day, expecting…
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What is this "human spirit" this mysterious, awesome thing? It's basically an iron stake to which the injured cling. We're proud of our "resilience" (our giant brains love words) but frankly our self obsession is verging on absurd. Our spirit is definitely human: that's obvious to me but the spirit part is not unique! It's … Continue reading Spirit
Seventeen years ago a roar engulfed the singing pines - countless breaths exhaling the needle sting of smoke. They stood in shredded funeral garb flinging glowing ember flowers onto us below. They witnessed our syncopated falling and the operatic scream of twisting steel, the cymbal crash of exploding windows. We knelt prostrate before the fire … Continue reading The House at No. 3
I cannot forget your steely-white glare; the too-hot press of you against my skin. My body contracted until cracks appeared. Plants wilted, waterholes sucked in and my body fissured abandoned to exuberant wind and the angry roar of carbon-crazed dragons. The smoke rolled over us all like hell's too-slow envoy. Before it, a syndicate of … Continue reading Australia’s Summer
(I wrote this for a competition in which there was a 1000 word limit. It didn't win so, several months later, I think I will publish it here.) It turns out that waiting is the hard part. You decide that waiting needs to be redefined to mean “empty space; opportunity for useless worry.” As the … Continue reading Waiting..
We started with fires and then muddy mires, then a lockdown of worldwide trade Then Scomo's spat with China, well that's nothing minor when your economy needs First Aid. And now... what the blazes? So many malaises! It's that incorrigible school house pot. Most of the nation in enforced isolation but it seems the … Continue reading Living in 2020
Under this aluminium sky the day feels blank as a factory wall. The chickens fluff fatly keeping busy in the sunless dirt. The washing hangs limp and two dimensional in front of the enthusiastic budding of the Magnolia. It is winter with its grumpier face on. Pretty tame, you have to say, compared to … Continue reading I Love Winter
Dear Prime Minister Morrison, I am not a supporter of yours but I have been pretty impressed with how you have dealt with COVID19. And for me, the big difference is that you have listened to experts. It seems to be a common malfunction among Australian managers in general (and politicians in particular) that they … Continue reading An Open Letter
So P is outside raking leaves. "What?" I hear you say. "I thought you said it was summer!" Too right. The summer has been too hot for our plane tree. About 70% of its leaves turned yellow and fell. Our front yard is deep in browned leaves. It really looks autumnal. Of course, we have … Continue reading Weather the weather
