the blathering

Isn’t it funny how words can be hijacked? They can become coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population and in fact becomes a dog whistle signifying something entirely different? I soon learned to be wary of any political or social organisation with Family in its name. Think Family First, a free market, small taxation party whose idea of what constitutes a family is much narrower than most people would be comfortable with today. And The Australian Family Association, an offshoot of Santamaria’s National Civic Council, a bastion of conservative Catholic values, including opposition to feminism, same-sex marriage, abortion and euthanasia.

But it is the word Wellness that has been hijacked perhaps more than any other. I have got to the stage that I cringe each time I see it on a shop front or in an ad. I would certainly never patronise a business promoting Wellness, it is a sign of a mindset of loopyness.

It has been my experience that religion and alternative medicine go hand in hand. Either literally, where religious people seem to favour non-scientific approaches to healing or else where Wellness becomes their religion in the absence of conventional religious beliefs.

I have acquaintances who spend most of their disposable income, which is small, on osteopaths, chiropractors, herbalists and the rest, but would never darken a doctor’s door. This has lasted over 20 years, yet they are as unwell now as they were then. When such people ask me how I am I always perk up and reply that I am feeling great, because to even imply a problem is to be inundated with the names of alternative remedies which will cure me. Shark’s fin, homeopathy, ginseng root, wheat grass, eating kale, iridology, reiki will sort me out. Goodness, it is enough to keep me well just thinking about it.

Sadly though, there is a much more serious story lurking here. The recent death of the Wellness Warrior, Jess Ainscough, from the cancer epitheloid sarcoma, following on from the death of her mother from untreated breast cancer, is a tragedy for both women. But an even bigger tragedy is the fact that the Wellness Warrior website had for years been discouraging people from seeking medical help for cancer, instead recommending Gerson Therapy, a mixture of a high intake of fruit and vegetables with a regime of coffee enemas. (Can someone explain to me how sticking coffee up your bum qualifies as natural ??).

So sorrowfully, even though these women had every right to refuse medical treatment, they may have influenced many others to follow suit and thereby sentenced them to earlier and more painful deaths than they may otherwise have had. Today’s Australian newspaper suggests that another Wellness promoter, supposedly cured of multiple life-threatening cancers by a pantry of goodly foods, has admitted she was ‘misdiagnosed’ as having cancer in the first place. Pity that, after so many people have forked out money to buy the app The Whole Pantry which she was selling to publicise how her miraculous cure came about.

Snake oil is not new, but it seems so much more prevalent of late. It could be forgiven coming out of a covered wagon in the American West, but it is depressing in 2015 and reminds me that the tussle between religion and science is far from over.

some of the jewels

Browsing the miserable book section of the Vinnies opposite my shop is usually a recipe for disappointment. But on one day last year I saw a staff member unpacking a large box of  yellowing old Penguins and marking each one with a $2 sticker. Curious, I hung about to browse through the collection.

They were all from about the 1950s and early 60s, mostly by authors I was unfamiliar with, but a few were recognisable and sparked my interest.    A Gunter Grass, a Daphne du Maurier, Tom Jones of all things. I chose a few to buy and that night began to read one. It was a beautiful read, so I decided  to go back the next day, to have another look and perhaps buy a few more. I soon realised that these were all from one collection, many had the owner’s signature (in fountain pen of course) and were probably from a deceased estate or from someone going into care.

Perhaps the person had much the same taste in literature as I have, I wondered? There was also a sentimental desire to keep his or her books together a while longer, just as I hope that my collection of books will stay as a family for as long as possible. So, on a whim, I asked the lady to box all of them up again as I wanted to buy the lot. They have lived in that box, dusty and unread since then. When I passed by the box occasionally I wondered why I invested in those grubby, yellowed volumes with an economic value well under what I had paid, $2 each was a rip-off in that condition!

But recently,  after an extension and renovation of my loungeroom, these little guys finally earned a spot on the enlarged bookshelves, though they certainly looked down at heel compared to their peers. They have come to live together on their own Penguin shelf, not yet quite accepted by their cleaner, glossier and more fragrant brothers and sisters.

But what a treasure trove they have proved to be, introducing me to Nadine Gordimer, in a book written before she won the Nobel for Literature,  to Giorgio Bassani, before he came to fame with The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, and reminding me of the great talents of Joan Didion and Margaret Drabble. I will try to mix them in alternately with my other reading, but this week I couldn’t resist enjoying two in a row.

I have been thinking of how I would love to meet their previous owner, who bought these as new editions, in a very different world to the one we live in. An afternoon having cups of tea and discussing our favourites would be a thrill.

But the best thing of all is that there are still 52 of them unread.

1. There is something good in everyone.

2. Books keep me sane.

3. War would end if men refused to fight.

4. I need plenty of thinking time.

5. Jam does not taste good on sourdough bread.

6. Many of our thoughts and actions are driven by our subconscious.

7. Doing what makes my heart sing is always the right choice.

8. I am extraordinarily lucky to have been born and to have had a long life.

9. Trusting my instincts always works best, trying to please others rarely does.

10.  A cat is a heavenly thing.

the Nishi building, Canberra

It constantly amazes me that people don’t seem to notice the ugliness around us. Australia is a magnificent continent full of grandeur, but the built environment is largely a chaotic, depressing mess. Of course we have the Opera House and the Bridge in Sydney, but they are vastly outnumbered by the endless acres of McMansions, the aerial clutter of elevated powerlines, the gaudily decorated business premises, the unit blocks without a scintilla of charm, in fact good design is really so hard to find that we note it with surprise when we see it.

It has long been my practice to alter my route to work in order to avoid the most egregious examples of visual pollution, so I dodge the Holden dealership in Windsor for example. Why start my day angry? The flood bypass bridge has proved a boon as it gives me a view of cows or horses at the end of the morning drive instead of having to be visually assaulted by the downhill slide of what was once a lovely town.

The development of Windsor’s Riverview shopping centre, with its fake heritage façade, had many detractors, including myself, who spoke against it at council meetings before its approval. The developer (for whom a special warmer corner awaits in hell, catering for him and all his ilk) assured council that the development would have “restaurants with big windows overlooking the Hawkesbury River” and what do we have? A sad food court, a large section of which has never been occupied by a business and remains unlined, with bare Besser blocks and exposed foil air-conditioning ducts and wires. People actually sit and eat there!! Of course no windows exist but glass doors go out onto a rarely used balcony. Apart from this, the view of the River is completely blocked by the walls of Coles and the food hall outlets. What a wasted opportunity.

It doesn’t have to be like this. In my brother’s city of Halifax in Yorkshire, the strict planning laws insist on new buildings, including shopping centres and fast food franchises, being built in the local stone to blend with the original architecture. In Paris, McDonalds was forced to use all black and white signage so as to keep the city in its traditional grey tones. But here the developer is king (never a queen you may note) and these people make their pile while laughing up their sleeve at the pathetically inadequate rules they need to follow. You can bet the homes they go back to in the evenings are on the waterways or lovingly restored heritage piles. We can’t all live in Hunters Hill, but we can make our individual environments as good as they can possibly be, keeping the developers at bay and electing councillors who have some aesthetic sensibility.

In Canberra recently I was excited to have a tour of the newish Nishi building, with its 4 different facades, varying to provide so much visual interest and to better suit the particular micro-climate each side is facing. So I do live in hope, there are some people leaving behind buildings to be proud of, but as John Betjeman wished in his much criticised poem beginning ‘Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!’ there are times when you just want to wield a giant eraser on the lot.

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love cats.

As a child we had big ginger Titsy, who was a boy, and his small delicate mother, a tortoiseshell. Tortoiseshell coat pattern is a sex-linked gene and requires two X chromosomes to appear, so every torty is a female.

At times there were other kittens, who were given away. I particularly remember a sick kitten who clearly need a vet’s care, but there was no money to pay for the visit. I learned then about priorities with money. We all say “I can’t afford that” when what we mean is “my priorities for the money I have lie elsewhere”. As a small child I couldn’t imagine prioritising a sick kitten below anything else and thought my parents cruel and uncaring when it died.

I didn’t own a dog till I got one for the kids when I was over 40 and it was a disaster. It was a pedigreed black chow chow which seemed to me untrainable. If the gate were left open for a second it would run off at speed, never looking back. I tried both chasing it and letting it go, assuming it would return, neither worked. So much for a dog’s loyalty! Many hours were spent looking for the damned thing, once I found it on Windsor Road at Castle Hill, headed purposefully for Windsor. I brought it home where it lasted a few weeks before escaping again, this time I searched in vain, but weeks later I saw it sitting in someone’s front yard, dirty and unloved. Taken home again, the critter finally divorced itself from the family one more time and was never seen again.

Though I like other people’s dogs, sometimes a lot, as with their children, I have no desire to take them home. But their cats…….well, I could happily ferret one away in my bag on leaving and one day might.

Cats never want anything but their owner, some food and a quiet warm spot to nap. My cat Lily wasn’t even much interested in food, just in being on my lap or in my bed. If I moved rooms, she moved rooms. She watched me take a bath, hang the washing out, cook a meal, patiently waiting for me to read, watch the teev or settle into bed so we could be together, just us. I slept with one hand holding her paw or tail, that is if she were not asleep on my chest, for most nights of her 14 years.

A dog on the other hand always wants. Wanting a feed, a walk, a bath, but always wanting. Dogs are high maintenance. When I get home from work I want a companion, not an obligation.

Robert Dessaix, ever a confirmed dog man, says that he prefers dogs because of their ability to abandon themselves to fun, something that he has never felt able to do in his life. The sight of his dog gambolling on a beach, “yanks me out of my buttoned-up cramped self”. I, on the other hand, am absolutely comfortable with being silly, I need no proxy. My cats enabled me to contemplate with a companion, she had her thoughts (they were always shes) and I had mine.

As an Irish monk put it a thousand years ago in reference to his cat Pangur Ban: “So in peace our tasks we ply, Pangur Ban my cat and I; In our arts we find our bliss, I have mine and he has his”.

But perhaps Kinky Friedman in his elegy to his cat Cuddles sums up my feelings, ” She was always with me, on the table, on the bed, by the fireplace, beside the typewriter, on top of my suitcase when I returned from a trip……….. People may surprise you with unexpected kindness. Dogs have a depth of loyalty that often we seem unworthy of. But the love of a cat is a blessing, a privilege in this world.”

The Humming Chorus

Though two sleeps have passed since I blissed out on Madama Butterfly, sitting outdoors on the edge of the harbour, with the city, bridge and Opera House in the background, I am not yet fully down to earth.

There is something about opera at its best which enables me to completely forget myself and to disappear into the music. Not every time, not even every opera, but enough times to make me want to keep coming back to relish the experience when it happens. I must admit that some other performances have had the same effect, Leonard Cohen in concert certainly did, but opera’s power to do this is something special.

In this particular performance the Japanese soprano Hiromi Omura thrilled us constantly but in One Fine Day, or more literally One Beautiful Day, she captured all the passion, longing and the loss of innocence of Cio-Cio San. I died and went to heaven.

The Humming Chorus, that melancholy and rhythmic calm before the storm of Pinkerton’s betrayal, was another moment when it seemed as if the music and I melded into one. Some people seem to achieve this state in meditation, though it has never worked for me.

As someone who can always think of something to worry or obsess about, it is such a delight to simply disappear, mind and body, into the music.

Dyspraxia, a funny little word, but one I have recently learned and come to love. After spending six decades trying to hide the fact that my body won’t cooperate to do certain things that others take for granted, I have been freed from embarrassment and, more importantly, freed from the pressure to keep trying.

Here is a list of the sports I tried, but failed, to learn at school:

1. basketball
2. hockey
3. tennis
4. swimming
5. gymnastics
6. volley ball

Through primary and high schools I stayed in the beginners’ ‘learn to swim’ class, despite a love of the water, from Year 1 to Year 7, when the teachers gave up trying. I have never succeeded in riding a bike, through childhood and teenage years, when I dearly wanted to do so to fit in, and even despite recent patient attempts to teach me.

Between leaving school and up to recent years I have paid for lessons in the following:

1. Violin, after buying one
2. Guitar, after buying one
3. Electric organ, after buying one
4. Ballroom dancing
5. Touch typing, after buying a typewriter
6. Swimming
7. Golf, after buying clubs
8. Line dancing

The most humiliating of these was typing, when I was in my early thirties, where I stayed in the beginners’ class for a year before the teacher (at night classes at Arthur Philip High School in Parramatta, you know who you are!) said to me through gritted teeth “You are the only person in my teaching career whom I can’t teach to type, please don’t come back next year”. Yes, I am typing this, but only if I can use one finger on each hand and take as much time as I please.

Driving I finally managed, (yeeks, doing different things with my hands and feet!) but it was years before I felt reasonably safe on the road. I fudged it by driving everywhere at half the speed limit. The testing officer said “I am going to pass you because you haven’t done anything I can fail you on, driving too slow isn’t on my list, but I hope I never get behind you on Parramatta Road”. Bless him.

Problems arise if I have to do two different things with my hands, like plucking strings with one hand and holding down chords with the other. Playing a keyboard, needless to say, is impossible.

But after recently hearing about adult dyspraxia and contacting The Dyspraxia Foundation in England, I was filled with excitement to confirm, despite opinions to the contrary, that I am not lazy, nor stupid, that I really did try, and I no longer need to beat myself up about these life-long failures. I can now just love doing what I am good at and know that I need never again try to make my body do what it simply can’t.

Dyspraxia, I love you.

Well what is this blog to be about?

At the moment I have no firm idea. But I know what it is not. It is not a foodie blog, not a decorating blog, nor a political one. It is not a book review blog, nor a travel blog, nor a science blog, but it may at times incorporate all of these things and more.

If I am fired up by a political or social issue, pretty proud of a new dish I’ve made, or I can’t stop thinking about a particularly wonderful (or atrocious) novel or film, you may hear about it.

For me it is simply a place to empty my current thoughts and perhaps sometimes a place to lay out the issues when trying to settle an internal debate.

Though this blog is not primarily for you, if you get something out of reading it, that’s great for us both.