Vinnies

 

I went for a walk the other day and I visited the Vinnies of Crows Nest and found a jacket for the cool nights on the coast that I will be feeling in a week or so. It looked a little drab, being a man's jacket after all, and I thought a little trim would be the perfect pick-me-up. Finding a notions store on the lower north shore is not an easy task for the walking population. Nevertheless if you venture far enough and down just the right side street you never know what you will find. To cut the story short, I found too many choices but settled on a trim that is dark red and pale green bands gathered randomly to resemble flowers and leaves. Sufficiently feminine without too much prettiness! I also found a very nice bi-coloured beige ribbon that would have been ideal for a bit of an embroidery touch which I will save for Arizona. Boy it would have worked perfectly on the brown material I had to leave behind. - no regrets now!

I had a very interesting conversation in the Vinnies. The lady behind the counter was in conversation with a regular and they paused as I approached the counter. The employee took care of business, pointing out there were other jackets on sale. I thanked her but said I was on my way out of town. "Oh, where," she asked. "Back to America" I replied. Then started the conversation about how I didn't sound American. No but that is where I have been living. And out it popped, my dismay of finding Australia so changed. Of course I was talking to the kind of people I expected to find here. Friendly, outgoing, meeting-people kind of people. As I tried to move out of the store - sorry - shop, the other customer followed to continue the conversation. We chatted for a while and then I set off on the hunt for a notions store/shop/whatever.

I have been doing quite a bit of reading here Chez Son. The last book was written by Helen Barnacle about her life on heroin. An uplifting story if you can get through the "What it was like" part. Somehow the "what it is like now" is never told as grippingly as the descent into hell. Oh the Open Speaker-meetings of my other life. If I could find a way of telling it that would be funny or meaningful and not just a litany of the misery and heartache. But just how does one recount the day you came home from work at 11:00pm to find that he had this time taken all the groceries from the shop-before-going-to-work. Yep I could recount the anger, frustration and hunger but that would be an invitation to self to feel all those emotions again. No thanks. I would rather think about how I am in search of peace not excitment today.

Tomorrow I am going to find out why people in Australia today rarely smile as they go about in their apparent abundance.

Sydney still...

What happened to the weather in Sydney. I can't believe it was ever as bad as this in October - back in the day....

These birds visited the garden in Hunters'Hill every day. One day he brough two girls with him. I think the trees would astound the monks who planted them in the 1870's. A Brother living there told me that the banyon trees dropped seed pods so big and from such a height that it was not wise to walk down the path to the little chapel. One day while sitting at the front of the library where the classes my daughter-in-law was attending were held a kookaburra flew into the nearest tree with a little worm, or could it have been a baby snake? hanging out of its mouth. It spent a few minutes checking that he/she was not being followed and then flew off. Muggings my mynahs must be a frequent problem in that neck of the woods.

Step One

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.

Packing

My inertia is getting the better of all my plans. I have a household of objects to get rid of by the 7th and all I have done is forgotten stuff. Well not completely, I forgot to deal with the fridge and I have still not advertised the washing machine. I will never collect stuff again. Belongings that cannot be carried are in fact prison bars. The wonderful life of a nomad is opening up before me.

While I have been here I borrowed a sewing machine. Great fun to be able to zip up a skirt or two, mend things quickly but everything I have done with the machine I could have easily accomplished with a portable, use-anywhere needle. Hmm, it makes me wonder just what is progress. Why do we qualify our lives, status and future by what we own.

I am saying goodbye to family: sister, nieces, nephews and temporarily my son and his family. I have to turn this into a ''see-ya'' because my heart is having a bit of difficulty dealing with it all. When I sailed, well flew, off into the magic of Oxford all those years ago it never occured to me that it would be longer than a term or two. Thirty seven years minus a few vacations have made a difference. The last portion of the time spent in Tennessee were the years of learning that I am a person in my own right. This year in Australia has helped me understand who I am and what I want out of the daylight hours.

Enough days have passed and the apartment is empty - well probably the new tenant has moved in by now. So many boxes so few containing anything other than stuff. I did find a few rocks that my 'helpers' thought were objects for the trash can - to the rocks I keep the TV I gave away. There is a curious connection between found ojects and the finder that cannot exist if money has changed hands. If you can pay for it 0 so could others but if you find something it means a lot of people have passed by without 'seeing' the treasure you now display on your $5.00 IKEA coffee table - Op Shop find.

At the end of the move I find that stuff really is imprisoning. My prize possessions are worth pennies and the things that cost me significant money were mercifully carried off by others.

Preparations....

My renewed passport arrived yesterday. Why do they send the old one back? As I sent it off I thought about the freedom of getting rid of that younger, thinner, not bad looking even if the glasses were a bit too BIG, official photo of self. And there is was in the envelope having made its way to the States and back again with a tidy row of holes punched in the side. There I am mocking the the 70 lbs of excess self so evident in the new photo. Oh well at least this way the customs guy will not think I've stolen someone else's passport when I front up to the counter.

Talking about customs I really never plan to go through Vancouver ever again. The airport itself was probably not so bad but talk about unfriendly. I could rave on for some time about the nasty experience - no I had not visited Canada, I was in transit. The length of my visit was two long painful hours! Now that I have a Canadian niece-in-law I have to be polite and stop griping about the officious officials of our cousin state.

The economic crash of the US is a little daunting but I am not going back for the mythical riches of the American dream - just a little family. I have a fantasy of visiting my girls in Ohio.

A lot of changes started in my way of looking at life with these two little dogs. They had been picked up as tiny puppies wandering the street and nursed to health by the Young Williams Animal Center. Finally when I decided to come back to Australia I had to choose between stuffing them on an aeroplane in the cargo hold and then leaving them in quarantine for half of forever. Spice would never have lasted and Honey would have gone crazy with anxiety or leave them behind. So I gave them to a wonderful lady in Ohio. The last I heard they were loving each other like always and as curious as they should be.

There have been too many victims along the way, maybe that's why I seem to hit the wall when I see bullies having their way during the day.

Preparations continue. A friend helped me divest myself of a closet of ugly clothes - ugly because they did not fit or suit me and that solved the excess baggage problem. Now I have to find someone who would like to buy a washing machine!

May the world snooze and do no harm.

Returning to where I started...

With friends and family at opposite end of the world, I decided to start a blog to keep in touch.

I've lived in Canberra now for almost a year and have started preparing to return to the USA in November. I tried to make the change and come back to Australia after nearly 40 years away - I made a few mistakes but learned a whole lot along the way.

• You can go home again but you just have to work out where it is.
• Stuff is worse than handcuffs
• There is nothing better than watching a mob of galahs at breakfast
  

I arrived in Australia looking for the future in the past and found a bunch of new friends who helped me laugh while I gathered the pieces of myself and put the puzzle of who I am back together. I seem to have turned out a little differently than I remembered. I have found it rather difficult dealing with the time differences for making phone calls but rather surprising to me was that in the midst of all the wonder and beauty of the Canberra countryside, while watching the unbelievable sky, listening to the wild chatter of the feathered inhabitants of my neighbourhood I decided to go back to the States. It is a mystery. Maybe I just want to flit from US to Greece to Australia for the rest of my life. Now that would be trip worth living for.