Well gave my friend back her space and moved myself via a GETZ to Sydney. After a quick unload and another trip to Vinnies we settled in for the night. Grand daughter growing wonderfully and so inquisitive already. But I have far too much stuff to be schlepping up and down railway stations. The dilemma is send by mail or throw away. Just how uncluttered should one arrive at the next destination?
Good byes to friends are very different when you know they will remember you, there is nothing final because the momentum of memories will not allow the vacuum to form behind you. I must say the memory of the cold, bitter, thin, mean wind of Canberra will be dropped down a very deep well when I find one. But on the other hand I miss the cockatoos screeching their way across Ainslie Avenue.
Friends took me out to dinner on the 'one-before-last' evening and after eating we adjourned to a bookshop across the street. A tremendous find was a collection of books for Grand daughter. The Magic Pudding - because I loved it so much as a child, a new Dreaming story of a hawk, crow and cockatoo - because it is the new Australia. Another book - BARBAR because in France it was a favourite book of her father's family and finally an Oxford book of childhood poems and rhymes - because her father was born in England. Hopefully she will grow up knowing that belonging comes from the heart not from where you were born. Hopefully she will feel sufficiently confident to be a citizen of the world calling everyone her neighbour.
Why do Indian Minahs torment crows and why do crows put up with it? I have been watching a repeated battle between several - up to six or seven pecky minahs dive bomb and herd crows out of the garden at the Villa Maria monastery. This is the venue for the baby-sitting I have been doing. It could not be better. Very old norfolk pines and such creating deep shade for the baby and I to stroll about in as we take a break from sleeping, her, and reading a book, me. I have been reading a biography of Galileo - appropriately. I have realized that the ignorance of today's church is nothing new - just a repetition of the old stuff. A major reminder to make religion a faith matter not a culture affair. I think that God is the crow and we are the minahs.
3 comments:
It was lovely to meet you at The Shopping Sherpa's exhibition on Saturday. I look forward to reading your posts in the future. You have a lovely style of writing. Good luck with the move and the next phase of your life.
jen
You are sounding relaxed which is wonderful. Chat soon hopefully. Have to go into work tomorrow (Sat!!!) to help dws - family in uproar!!
Your ghost is definitely still here: at work on Friday I kept thinking I saw you out of the corner of my eye (then I realised it was Di!) and brunch at Black Pepper yesterday just wasn't the same: especially as they wouldn't let T and I sit at "our" table because that was a table for three, not two...
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