Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The whim of the word

Setting the stage: one-room school teacher Morrie Morgan has just told his 1910 class of first through eight-grade students that the word "ghoti" can be pronounced "fish."

"Always be aware that you are at the mercy of the whim of the word. It decides how it is pronounced and what it means.

"It chooses up it's own letters, often in ways we wouldn't. And it can be a shameless mimic, by sneaking in one of those sound-alikes tucked away in the alphabet."

He spun to the blackboard again as if those devilish letters were listening there. "Preposterous as this 'fish' looks"--from somewhere he produced his pointer and went en garde with 'ghoti' as if to slay it--"it is made up of similarities perfectly well known to our tongues. Sound it out for yourselves," he whapped through the letters 'gh' as in 'cough,' 'o' as in 'women,' and 'ti' as in 'motion.'"


by author Ivan Doig in The Whistling Season

Monday, June 23, 2008

Old man in the fog

Sometimes I see him.

He's not always out and about.

Mostly I come across his bent back walking slowly
on spring/fall/winter mornings.

As a writer, I gather my thoughts before I meander with words on a computer screen. Often, it's after my husband leaves for work before dawn; after we've had conversations about myriad things and Biblical principles.

So, I take solitary drives down country paths in wispy fog,
praying,
pondering...
not far from the comfortable, spacious house where we live.

When I do see the old man, he's hobbling along an un-busy
one-lane paved road
between Scarsdale and Berringa.
He looks to be in his 90s;
his face is rivulets of rubbery-looking wrinkles,
his hair is stringy and fine and sparse; his scalp is freckled with sunspots.

But I have learned here in Australia that
faces age under a lifetime exposed to
dry air and harsher sun; those who have worked land,
mining for gold in nuggets or produce during time spent outside.

Several generations have seen hard times and moved on.
Some families have stayed put and stuck it out, certain that better luck or better weather is on the way.
Success depends on whom you ask.
It's hard to tell how old someone is.

The environment takes its toll in more ways than in faces.

Stooping,
this "foggy" man walks with a crooked cane
made from a hardwood gum tree branch,
the thin length of wood skinned of bark and worn smooth with age.

Like "blokes" of old who are set in their proper ways of dress codes
he wears an old fashioned suit-jacket
when he goes on his walks.
His jacket is worn-out, wrinkled and frayed,
the beige color matching worn-out grey, baggy slacks.

He steps slowly
to the side of the lane when he hears my car approach from the back of him
and he seems to painstakingly pause to wait for me to pass.

I saw him once
head-on
surrounded by thin fog
carrying an armful's worth of kindling collected from the roadside
tucked into one bent elbow
on a cold, frosty morning.
His other arm used his gum tree cane for balance.

Just before I saw him and passed, I noticed a 150-year-old gold miner's house off the road
near where he was headed:
a shanty of corrugated tin and plywood
with front verandah posts bending under the weight of a roof.
Tin water tanks listed to the side of the building toward a shallow ravine where a creek may have run to take water into the house years ago.
A thin string of dark smoke rose from an ancient, precariously leaning brick chimney.

Is this where he lives? Was his father a gold-miner in this gold-rich area of Smythesdale/Scarsdale/Pigoreet/Berringa/Ross Creek/Ballarat in the mid to late 1800s? Is this his inheritance?

When I drive by him in my little silver sedan sports car I slow down out of respect.
He never waves
or lifts his walking stick,
or even acknowledges that I have passed by...like most Australians will do: a wave, a nod...some recognition.

But always as I pass,
leaving him in my rear-view mirror, this is what surprises me:

He turns slowly to look,
stops and stares
until I can't see him
past the
bend in the road.

I wonder if he remembers far away days
with horses and buggies passing through
carrying women in finery and men in top hats
en-route to the bustling Smythesdale Court House Hotel for dinner,
or women in homespun dresses on errands to the Scarsdale butchery, or
children on horses for a day at the one-room schoolhouse.

I wonder if he has or had a wife and children.

I wonder if anyone but me thinks of him?

I wonder what memories and treasures he has stored inside his heart that will die within him?

And I wonder if he wishes I would quit driving on his road.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Ponderings from Ruth Bell Graham

Ruth Bell Graham is one of my favorite people.

We've never met, and now we won't until I enter Heaven where she is enjoying the company of Jesus. She is (was) the wife of Billy Graham. I have long admired her: raising children with a man she loved deeply who was rarely home, doing what God called him to do. Her children have all gone on to serve the Lord in their various ways, and some are authors as well.

What I love most about her written thoughts are that they are real. Life was not a bowl of cherries (or as my closest friend Cheri and I say, 'A chair of bowlies,'), a life with all roses and no thorns. She reveled with joy in every day simple things, and didn't mind writing about her hard days either. But she always understood who she was as God's child. His beloved child. She knew her place in Him.

I long to do the same.

In this hard time stuck to a reclining chair or to a bed indefinitely while the lumbar part of my spine heals from long-ago injuries, I have been remembering some of her thoughts written in her book, Sitting By My Laughing Fire. Which ironically is what I'm doing in this southern hemisphere winter of Australia. The fire in the woodstove is blazing away, and my toes are warm.

I hope I'm not violating any copyrights. These are her words...they just strum the chord in my spirit that they must have in hers...and I'd like to share them with you.

I awoke heavy
and heavy I prayed,
face in the sun,
heart in the shade.
As smoke hangs low
on a sullen day,
my prayer hung there...
till I heard His Voice,
"This is the day
that the Lord hath made;
...rejoice." RBG

Dear God,
let me soar in the face of the wind;
up--
up--
like the lark,
so poised and so sure,
through the cold on the storm
with wings to endure.
Let the silver rain wash
all the dust from my wings,
let me soar
as he soars,
let me sing
as he sings,
let it lift me
all joyous and carefree
and swift,
let it buffet
and drive me
but, God
let it lift! RBG

Lord when my soul is weary
and my heart is tired and sore,
and I have that failing feeling
that I can't take any more;
then let me know the freshening
found in simple, childlike prayer,
when the kneeling soul knows surely that a listening Lord is there....RBG

(
I added these last two stanzas to her verse myself...)
Lord, my aching soul IS weary
my heart IS tired and sore.
I can't shake this failing feeling
and I can't take anymore.
Where is the real refreshening
found in simple, childlike prayer?
DOES my kneeling soul know surely
that my listening Lord is there?

My soul MUST know the Lord is here
my heart must trust His grace.
The failing feeling lingers yet
but still I'll seek His face.
The real refreshening is His Word,
on that I will depend.
My kneeling soul rests yet on this;
His mercy has no end. HLW-C

"I will lift up mine eyes
to the hills;" (Psalm 121:1)
and when I fly
I will lift up my eyes instead
to the sky;
it is the same
sure,
certain thing--
this quiet lifting up,
remembering...

I leave myself awhile
to let my thoughts explore
all He had made
and More;
returning
to my small load
at length,
calm,
reassured: this is my strength. RBG

Lay them quietly at His feet
one by one:
each desire, however sweet,
just begun;
dreams still hazy, growing bright;
hope just poised, winged for flight;
all your longing--each delight--
every one.

At His feet and leave them there,
never fear;
every heartache, crushing care--
trembling tear
you will find Him always true,
men may fail you, friends be few,
He will prove Himself to you far more dear. RBG

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Continental winds

Today the wind is blowing a cold winter gale.

It's mid-June.

A strange experience all around to this northern-hemisphere American living Down Under.

The miniature red and white windmill in my one-acre yard swings back and forth like an uncontrollable kite on a string at the beach.

Our Galah parrot, Buster, is content is his outside cage which is bolted to the verandah, and chirps and cheeps and squawks along with the other cockatoos and magpies and rosella parrots enjoying the gale around him.

I love the sound of the wind funneling down our woodstove pipe and whipping around the corners of our house in the Australian Bush.

The wind sings here. It's different than what I've been used to for 40-plus years. The wind has a voice. It's difficult to explain, even for me. It's something one has to hear on their own.

In Battle Ground USA at my old house, the wind whispered and sighed through the branches of dense fir trees. But if the wind came down the chimney we all stopped and listened...it was not common. Here it is normal, and actually as I write at this moment and hear this other-worldly sound, it gives a comfortable, homey feeling. It's low and hollow like an oboe.

I have a memory that once during a really bad storm at our haven in Battle Ground I was upstairs cleaning and my youngest, Kimberly Mae, was sitting on the window seat in the front room downstairs watching the tall fir trees sway around the house. She was probably eight years old. Suddenly I heard her scream, and the hair on my neck stood straight up as I raced down the stairs to see if she was alive.

A neighbor's shallow-rooted Douglas fir tree had toppled toward our house where she sat, immovable with terror. But the top of the 40-foot tree only glanced off our roof, damaged the gutter and bounced into the front yard. Other than the gutter, the house was hardly damaged, and tree remains were cut for firewood.

But here in Scarsdale, Victoria, the wind whistles and whines and sings (really sings) through sparse gum tree leaves and screens on windows and doors in homes far apart from each other. Trees falling onto homes is rare. I can stand outside in the middle of our acre and hear the wind sing through everyone else's trees and homes and sheds. I smile. I want to open my arms and embrace the wind, but I think that I'm already considered the nutty American.

That's what happens when you live in a very SMALL neighborhood and town of about 50 people, not including horses, sheep and cows.

Anyway, the trees here are so drought-starved, the roots go very deep; not like water-laden, shallow-rooted Douglas fir trees. It is rare that a whole gum tree topples here...which is good. These trees are huge and heavy.

The danger is when a one-ton drought-starved branch breaks off a trunk and lands in the road or on a car or on a person.

Steve calls it free firewood.

Life is certainly different here.

And today while I am stuck at home in a recliner with a computer, I rather like the sound of the wind in the chimney, the roar of a good fire, and the thought that before long my husband will be home.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Absconded by a bubble bath

Calgon took me away last week.

Almost literally.

Nearly two years ago, my friend Cindy made sure I was loaded up with body-softening oils and lotions and face creams, and a mega-box of Calgon bubble bath before I left for my new life in Australia. Some of those 'trusted-name-brand-products' I'm used to are not available here.

Cindy wanted to make sure the drier air and harsher sun wouldn't wrinkle me up like a raisin. The atmosphere in the Pacific Northwest is very moist to say the least. It rains a lot. She loves me.

So like a squirrel, I have hoarded most of my moisturizer stuff and used it sparingly...mostly in the summer. I haven't wrinkled too badly yet.

But lately, with the back problems I have explained ad nauseum, I broke out the Calgon to soak myself in hot water with softening bubbles in my spacious jetted tub. Heat will help the bad nerve swelling, the doc said.

So I thought that if a quarter-cup of bubble-making Calgon will do, then a half-cup is better, right? I hadn't thought about the tub jets churning the water more than a regular bathtub, thus producing copious bubbles.

To add ambiance, I brought nearly every candle in the house into the bathroom and placed them on the convenient spacious shelf at the end of the tub. I was alone, and thought about reading my latest Jane Kirkpatrick book, or listening to Maire Brennan's Celtic tunes, or puffing bubbles around the bathroom just for fun. But instead I decided to enjoy the quiet for an hour or two.

By the time I gingerly lowered myself into the steaming tub with the doctor's warnings of "don't bend, don't twist" in my head, the bubbles were about three inches over the lip of the tub.

No worries, mate. I didn't care. The more bubbles the merrier. The jets and warm water sure felt good. I could make castles and the Cascade Mountain ranges with Mount St. Helens exploding if I wanted to...even duplicate Mount Kilimanjaro or Mount Everest. Who cared? I puffed and blew bubbles up to the ceiling and laughed. I had a great time.

I floated, rotating my sore back to the jets, laid on my tummy and on my back until I nearly fell asleep, wrinkled like a California prune.

Ah. Luxury.

But I realized I was getting too sleepy and that if I didn't get out, I'd likely drown and the house would burn down with all the candles lit.

By this time, bubbles towered over the tub almost to the window that has an outside view...about three feet up from the tub...five feet from the floor. I couldn't see candles anymore. Come to think of it, all I could see was bubbles.

Time to get out. So I put into practice what the doc said and gently turned over onto my tummy and lifted my left leg out the side of the tub edge to place my foot firmly on the dry towel I had ready, and gently ease myself into a standing position, per his instructions.

But the towel wasn't there. I don't know why. When I found it a few minutes later, it wasn't dry. The entire floor was covered in wet, slick bubbles.

With one foot and a portion of leg out, and no dry towel...the rest of me followed in a hurry, backwards. Like an untrained seal, I slipped and flopped flat on my bad back on the black marble floor.

"This is not good," I thought.

I was covered in bubbles, surrounded in bubbles, and nearly breathing bubbles. I think if someone had walked in they wouldn't have even recognized a human form under all the pink foam.

I groped for the towel that was supposed to be there, so I could cover my nakedness (I am modest after all). I found it about a foot away, soaking wet and covered in bubbles as well. I draped the bubble-covered towel over my bubble-covered body anyway, because I am modest, as I said. It doesn't matter that no one was at home.

Because I was alone I knew I needed help. I couldn't move, and I was afraid of hurting my back more. But I was not going to call "000", the Australian equivalent of the American "911" so a bunch of young, handsome men could find me like this.

My hand flopped around near the area of the closed toilet seat where I thought I left my cell phone. Found it. Thanks be to God. Sent a text to a girlfriend for help.

"I've fallen and I can't get up."

She was there within fifteen minutes, helped me up, wiped all the bubbles off me, got me dressed in a bathrobe and handed me the prescribed valium and codeine I was due for. By this time it was really needed.

Calgon didn't take me too far away.

But I thank God the medicine did about 20 minutes later.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Outrage

Today I am weary.

Frustrated.

Tired.

Lonely.

Depressed.

I am out of my skull from boredom and pain relievers and muscle relaxers for my lower back. They make me feel like not my ordinary self. I want to be cheerful and happy and busy.

I wear a path between stuck in bed or a lounge chair, because my back has failed me. I ask my husband if I can PLEASE do something constructive like fold laundry that is piled on a bed and all have to do is stand. He can put the rest away. His answer is a generous "yes" if my back does not strain. The problem is that the sciatic nerve in my left buttock DOES strain. I HATE this.

My husband wakes up in the morning when the clock radio goes off, and snuggles his bare skin next to mine, his arm draped over my shoulder or hip. We listen to the Australian radio personality Red Simonds who thinks he's a great wit. Sometimes he is and other times I think he's an idiot. The other day his topic was a discussion of "fog" in areas versus "fogs." Please. Give me a break. When I'm in pain, this hardly matters. Why not discuss modern-day cannibals? Steve easily rolls out of bed for another day of work and taking care of me.

My back hurts. Not just hurts. It's an agony of pain. I want to find a place in the yard and dig myself into it. It hurts that much. I don't want to shower or brush my teeth or wash my hair. How disgusting is that? I go to the hospital and they give me a shot in the arm that does nothing. So they give me another one. I writhe on the emergency bed on my belly like a snake about to strike someone. Anyone. My cries of agony are muffled into the sanitary pillow between the sanitary sheets. If anyone touches me, I may just bite after all.

For years I've suffered minor back discomfort and numbness in the left leg and tingling in toes, but it's never been that big of a deal. Of course, I never saw a doctor. I was a single woman with a single woman's medical care in the good old USA. How could I afford to see a doctor? Why would I worry if it was something that was intermittent and also something I couldn't afford? I could gently stretch the sore back for a while, rest, and be "okay." Take a day off of work now and then.

But in Australia under a National Health Plan where it doesn't matter if you're single and have a low-paying job, health care is a given. Everyone goes. At the clinic I go to, I present a national card (as a "temporary permanent"resident) , and my treatment is free. Medications are inexpensive. My doctor said I sustained severe injuries to my lower back several years ago...what happened, he asked me? Who hit me, he said? Who beat me, he wondered out loud.

I thought about my step-father who kicked my back repeatedly with his boots after he ripped off my t-shirt from the front neck down while I tried to stumble away from him up a flight of stairs to escape while he shouted at me that I was a whore because I had a crush on a boy. I was 12 years old.

I thought about my mother who slammed my spine, pounding her hands onto my shoulders, onto a wooden chair when she wanted to know which boy I was talking to after school. I was 13.

I remembered both mother and step-father throwing me onto a floor, into walls and over and over and over again punching and kicking me while they told me not to be interested in seeing boys. I was barely 14.

So when the doctor asked me how I was hurt. I honestly couldn't answer. Who knows? There were so many more incidents than those. I remember a few. Actually, when I need to, I remember a lot. I choose not to.

Anyway, my Australian medications are less than $100 USA. It doesn't matter now that my parents or anyone else hurt me. I live in Australia married to a True Blue Aussie. And I couldn't be happier.

My lower lumbar spine will heal. Eventually. Other things will take some time.

But what really saddens me is that countries appear to take less care of their own citizens not only in health care, but in domestic care. Especially when it comes to violence...between parents and children or siblings against each other.

My closest friend has recently been told by the court that she has to let her two youngest children visit their violent father who has a felony conviction of Domestic Violence Assualt and Unlawful Imprisonment. If she doesn't let them go, she will go to jail. This decision in Washington State, was made by a judge two days after the father told someone he was going to kill his wife if she interfered in his seeing those children. They went into hiding.

I am glad God is watching and keeping track.

My body has failed me. For now. I am only 46. But God never has, and He never will. Nor will He fail my friend. No matter what the Court does. And the judge? A newly-elected family man who claims to be a Mormon.

Am I whining?

Absolutely. Yep.

I am frustrated.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Faith

"Her own marriages had consumed years of learning how to walk beside her husband, and how to let him lead without making her feel that her only gift was to follow.........

"Did you bring me an answer to my question? The one of what was wrong with me that the baptismal water hadn't washed away my worries?"

"Ah, that one," he said. "I think I have a better answer now, better than what I said before."

"You didn't," she said.

"It isn't the water," he told her. "It's the love that washes."

"And my worries? Is this a sign that my faith is frail, weak as old bones ready to be ash?"

"Not your faith in God, Madame Toupin. But perhaps the confidence in your own worthiness, that you deserve a life of hope. Life is not made up of smooth waters alone. But of troubles and celebrations, of living through lost loves, noticing wrong turns, letting others help you turn around. Finding the lessons whenever they're offered, not just when you thought you were ready. Living looks like what you did: You took in gifts and then gave them away."

by Jane Kirkpatrick, Hold Tight the Thread, third in a trilogy about Madame Marie Dorion Venier Toupin, a French Indian woman who traveled from Missouri to the Pacific Ocean in 1814, just a few years after Sacajawea traveled with Lewis and Clark.

An amazing woman, this Madame Dorion...and Jane Kirkpatrick...and perhaps even me.

Prioroties

"Our father taught us the culture to which we were born. American culture was Dixieland above all, Dixieland pure and simple, and next to Dixieland, jazz. It was the pioneers who went west singing "Bang Away My Lulu." When someone died on the Oregon Trail, as someone was always doing, the family scratched a shallow grave right by the trail because the wagon train couldn't wait. Everyone paced on behind the oxen across the empty desert and some families sang, "Bang Away My Lulu," that night, and some didn't.

"Our culture was the stock-market crash--the biggest and best crash a country ever had. Father explained the mechanics of the crash to young Amy and me around the dining-room table. He tried to explain why men on Wall Street had jumped from skyscrapers when the stock market crashed: "They lost everything!"--but of course I thought they lost everything when they jumped. It was the breadlines of Depression, and the Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl, and the proud men begging on city streets, and families on the move seeking work--dusty women, men in black hats pulled over their eyes, haunted, hungry children: what a mystifying spectacle, this almost universal misery, city families living in cars, farm families eating insects, because--why?

"Because all the businessmen realized at once, on the same morning, that paper money is only paper. What terrible fools. What did they think it was?"

by Annie Dillard, "An American Childhood"