night thoughts..

Life gets better
Never give up
Green is the best colour in the world
Blue comes second
Be kind
Learn as much as you can about everything
People teach you in the way that they live
You can always say sorry
Keep going
Life is a daily prayer
A mother's love is so important all through your life
Things happen
Listening is a gift
Love is a lot of things
When you're calm you're in control
Good friends never leave you
The tide comes in and the tide goes out
Little children are precious companions
You are stronger than you think
A cold apple tastes delicious
A cow's udder is a lovely place to tuck your head into
Irish music is the sound of green
Thoughts come and go
Fear passes through you if you keep calm
Love gives you energy
Lovely is one of  my favourite words
God is everywhere
Skin on skin is the most comforting way to go to sleep
Grief is never really over
Curious things happen that connect this world to the next
I will always remember my sister
Writing is a way through
Balance is so important
Jesus was a God-send
Reading takes you everywhere
Daisies are divine
Love-making is lovely
Touch is wonderful
Smiling is a gift
Humour is very good for you
A Jack Russell is a marvellous breed of dog
I like the sound of a train at night
Mary Mckillop was a strong woman
Hope springs eternal is one of my favourite mottoes
You can never have enough love
Old friends are your treasures
My dad loved me and I'm glad he told me when I was young
I could be a lot better at a lot of things
Every day is a miracle
Life is a lot of mystery
Things work out
Hearts are always trumps!

red tee..

Late last year we took Long Service Leave and had six weeks on the road. England, France.  I was keen for Ireland but my husband thought differently. "Too many narrow roads, not enough live music in the pubs" we were there in 2007and this is how he remembers it.    I've written elsewhere about the 2010 trip and this is a nothing piece but earlier today a woman in a shop told me she liked the red tee-shirt I was wearing. ( I bought it in an alleyway in Amboise, a riverside town south of Paris.)  Another woman standing nearby looked up and said  "I bet you don't know what it says."
 I came home and found a French-English translation website.  I'm walking around with this across my chest.

A style, Mado, some, the Others, Instructions:

It was once Mado, a style, a history of some for the Others. A thought, clothes, words for a history of mode... For some, style is Mado, for the Others Mado a style is.. Life taste of some, style of Others... Fashion passes, style Mado stays... Mado is a way of life for some and instructions for the Others. Style is the clothes of thought. For some rest white for the Others it is black!!

Code Mado: Get dressed in the cloakroom of the one and carry it as the Other one. Mado, one day, clothes form a colour, a style... Mado conjures in all time all persons, all styles.. The back it is the place, the place it is the back and vice versa...


Yes, well..

gift..

She gives me two bars of Fry's Chocolate Cream and a packet of unsalted cashews.  I bring her a bowl of pumpkin soup and a pink rose.  In the last couple of years we've become good friends.
I'll miss her company when she's no longer living at home.
I use her full name to say goodbye.  She looks across the table and smiles. We get into a discusssion about names, particularly voguish ones that some children have nowadays then I run down the ladder of my own brothers and sisters..  Desmond, Michele, Paul, Michael, Joan, Patrick, Elizabeth and Gabriel.
She listens with all her might.
"You couldn't do better than that" she says.  "You couldn't do better than that.."

She's that kind of friend.

actress of a childhood..

Liz Taylor died overnight. I heard the headlines on the news when I woke this morning.. she was 79..  the first memory that came was the image of her as a young girl with a pale face and blue-black hair riding a horse by the sea in National Velvet ..  when we were kids during the school holidays we watched movies that featured her and Mickey Rooney.  my brother Paul used to remind me of Mickey.. he had bold ideas about what we could do..
when I looked at the Guardian online today the link to the old film was there.. here it is..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2011/mar/23/elizabeth-taylor-career-in-clips?intcmp=122

After the tsunami comes the grief .. guardian.co.uk, Sunday 13 March 2011 22.11 GMT

The reporter from the Guardian is walking along a muddy road surrounded by debris .. He's in the coastal town of Shintona in the prefecture of Miyagi, an area devastated by the earthquake and tsunami last Friday.. Those two words flotsam and jetsam are never more real than when I look at the screen.. A stretch of railway track has been lifted up and plonked sideways by the road and looks like a picket fence..  The reporter stands near the track then reaches into the rubble and picks up something he's found.. A dinner plate ringed in mud.. He turns it in his hands while the camera zooms in on a decorative blue and white plate.. Around the edges are the words Tonight is the Star Festival

A blue body bag lies not far away, tied at the top with  thin blue cord..

Tonight is the star festival
Tonight is the star festival

That line sits with me all day long.. Around 9 I'm standing out the back with the dog, rubbing his head ..There are crickets in the grass and a light, cool breeze and  tonight can I  tell you the sky above is  starless?

Pat..

My sister Liz’s 50th birthday. We sit outside in her back yard and eat the roast lamb dinner my brother Pat has prepared.  Pat's down from Queensland for a week to help celebrate with the rest of us here in Victoria. My youngest brother doesn’t say much but he insists I sit next to Liz while he takes a place on the other side of the table, squeezing up amongst the kids and though he's hungry, I notice he serves himself last of all.



For about 15 years he works for a doctor and her husband on a property they own on the outskirts of Bundaberg. Pat's a carpenter and does maintenance work on their house and land, renovates bathrooms and kitchens, builds sheds and puts new fences around the paddocks. Over time he builds a boat for the couple which they go sailing in, all around the top end from Airlie Beach to Darwin. Pat tells me that while most builders have other tradesmen working alongside them on a site, he learns to study the clouds for company. He watches the way they form and discovers what each one means as he goes about his work. Clouds give you feelings of peace he says.



My sisters are also there for the birthday and it's relaxing just sitting outside together. Liz tells stories of the people she comes across in her work with the Salvation Army. One woman she sees each week hasn't got any friends or family and so never has visitors. "I haven't got any infrastructure" is how she puts it. When we start the meal, Liz looks as if she's about to cry. We're just so lucky she says.



As the night goes on, the sky grows dark and then lights up with flashes of storm activity coming from the north of the city. The kids are racing around the yard on roller blades, the dog- a docile springer spaniel wanders in amongst the candles placed around the paved area in a bid to deter the mossies and finds space under the table nudging at our legs. Behind us a great fat spider is spinning a web underneath a girder connecting the old stables. The kids bring out a torch from a science kit and take turns shining a spindly light on the old web-master fastening thread to thread in the warm air. Music rolls out through the back door of the house while we sit talking then the far-off rumbling of thunder begins to get louder and we think about going inside. Pat points to the sky and says the storm will pass us by.  He can see blue above the fence next door. I look over and all I see is darkness then gradually this gives way to a paler colour, an inky blue that sits above the chook shed like a brushswirl on a child's painting.



Feel the breeze he says. The wind has shifted. It's cooling right down.



.

wedding dress..

On the desk beside me is a photograph of my mother in her wedding dress
She's dated it on the back Sep 20 1941


I saw the dress for the first time on Tuesday this week.
It is now Friday.
My mother's dress is made of figured satin.
-I had to ring her to check because I wasn't sure if she was saying finger satin or figure satin
after she said it a few more times on the phone, I got it- figured satin
The dress is kept in a plastic bag on a linen shelf at my mother's unit
It lies underneath sheets and pillowcases
I had no idea she'd kept it
I have no memory of ever seeing it

I carried it into the lounge room and opened the bag onto my knees.
It is the colour of cream
It is covered in lightly embossed flowers
Satin feels slippery on your skin
The sleeves are long with little puffs at the shoulders and two hand stitched press studs at each wrist
The bodice is high necked with a soft v in the middle
My mother wore a strand of pearls on the day she was married
There is a line of ruching gathered under the bust
Covered buttons with rouleau loops go all the way down the back
My mother's sister did up the bottom ones and she fastened the top
It is floor length with a ripply circular train
The dress has yellowy spots on one shoulder and a few marks on the skirt
There are no holes or tears in the dress.


I held the dress up to the light and saw my mother on the other side of the table looking at it
My mother is 92
When she was 23 she wore this dress
She had dark hair with a slight wave and wore a veil that reached the floor
My mother wore silver shoes with a small heel
My mother was 5 foot 7 when she was young

I have the photo beside me, taken on the morning of her wedding
She is standing by the window in a studio in Clifton Hill,
Her dark curly hair is just touching her shoulders
Her face is clear and her eyes are smiling
She is carrying a long bouquet of roses and gardenias
On her arm she is dangling a ribboned horseshoe
The train is spread out like a wave on the floor in front of her
She looks like an Irish princess
My mother loved marrying my father..

just looking..

At the op shop this morning I stood beside a man holding a bundle of books.. Old hardbacks.. The one on top caught my eye because when I glanced down I saw it was titled something like Learning Swedish.  He was middle aged, dark haired and had a moustache as fine as a cat's whiskers. In the seconds that went by I began to picture him opening the book in a room with his Swedish girlfriend  but when I looked down again, I saw it wasn't a language manual but a book about Crafting Softwood. The woman serving flicked through the pile and stacked them by the register.
The large white book at the bottom was an embossed Holy Bible.
"That'll be 4 dollars" she said and he paid her, dropped them in plastic bag and went out the door..