Minus three in July

I wonder
if I will ever cease to wonder
at winter in July
in Australia.

Yesterday morning
my shoulder poked out of the warm cocoon
of blankets when my husband got out of bed;
I felt the frigid cold of a winter morning and burrowed deeper.

Three degrees below 0 Celsius
the outdoor thermometer read,
which translates to about 26 degrees Fahrenheit.
Very cold for what is supposed to be a summer month where I come from.

Because my back is still healing
and needs to rest
I noted the cold temps as told me by my husband, then
happily stayed in my warm bed with a heated mattress.

The woodstove roared
after Steve stoked it with hard gum tree wood
but the blaze barely took the chill off
the pre-sunrise day inside our house.

My husband went out to his shed
getting his work ute ready for the day
then hurried back inside and called to me...
(snuggled deeper inside my warm cocoon)
"Come look at your flag! Bring your camera!"

Curious me.
I put on his bathrobe and then mine over his,
donned my thick socks and
wrapped up like a mummy, headed outside with my camera.

Icy droplets of dew had formed
on my star spangled banner,
frosting the field of blue with white,
the flag stiffly mounted on its pole in our courtyard that forms a square between the shed, garage, and house.





Dusty pink colored the horizon
as the sun crept over distant eastern hills.
I took more photos,
amazed that in July I am looking at a "January" landscape.




It reminded me of mornings I drove my two children to school
in Battle Ground, Washington state,
gingerly slipping down a crest on the icy road where before us on both sides
the grassy fields were white with frost,
looking like snow fell overnight.

Even the evergreen boughs of Douglas fir trees
bent under the weight of heavy, white frost.

But that was then.
And this is now.









Last Friday night Steve took me out to dinner at "our" place,
"The Hog's Breath Cafe" in Ballarat.
On the way we passed another cafe
that sported large windows facing the street;
inside it's lit dining area I saw a fully decorated, fake Christmas tree
and roped, gold tinsel swagged around a faux fireplace.

I did a double-take and said, "What the heck?" in amusement.
Steve smiled at me and said,
"Didn't you know? We have Christmas in July here."

I was speechless.

Surprise on a morning romp

Kookaburras laughter resounded raucous
through the forest this morning
as I drove my way
through winding,
early-sun dappled
orange dirt roads
wet with puddles from recent rain.

A burnished sky
with the rising sun
hadn't burned moisture out of lowlands yet,
ribboned with
wisps of fog among gum and pine trees,
clinging like filmy scarves
wound gently 'round women's slender necks.

Magpies chortled
while traversing narrow "bush roads"
where diverse gum trees with broad, narrow, wet leaves
caught the sun
reflecting light
like silver filigreed Christmas ornaments.

Out of the woods and onto the paved road,
a mother kangaroo and baby
tentatively bounded out of bushes
and stopped
just yards in front of my slow-moving car.
The pair of roos continued
on the safer, far side of the road
away from me.

I stopped to watch them.
Her baby, previously frolicking at her side was alarmed
when my mud-splattered car appeared and
after taking a tentative look at me
jumped head-first into her protective pouch with
his back legs sticking straight out.

The mama roo perused me,
paws protective in front of her tummy
while her youngster found refuge
wiggling his way down
into his mother's warm, soft belly.

Then, with baby safe,
she turned her stubby, grey-furred, muscled body
away from me
without a backward glance
and hopped effortlessly over a barbed wire sheep fence.

On the other side
she stopped and stared with her deep, brown eyes
as I crept by
in my sedan.

She watched me with caution,
her dangerously sharp claws
protective over the pouch where her youngster hid,
back legs still sticking out.

A doomed kangaroo

Half a cup
Australian
ginger-flavored wine
spicy taste on my tongue
burn in my stomach
at home
during a night alone
after an errand
into Ballarat.

A small buzz in my head
numbs my mind to
the unwitting killing of
a kangaroo, and
my escape from the cause of it's demise.

I want to forget;
the dark night highway,
a "bull" kangaroo
leaping from a stand of
gum trees
lining the main highway
on my side of the road
from Ballarat to Scarsdale.
I saw the bounding creature in my headlights
from side vision.

Too late.

I hit the brakes hard
from about 65 miles per hour.
His thick, strong tail
hit the right end of my front bumper;
I heard a dull thud.
But he kept bounding.

He bounded
into the car driving in the opposite lane
opposite me.

I saw those headlights,
no time for warning.
A sickening smash
of that kangaroo
bounding
into the other car.

I heard the bloody smack
of large animal body meeting metal
as the hapless creature
careened
unaware
into the other vehicle heading to Ballarat.

The bottle of red wine
I purchased to go with tomorrow night's dinner
shattered as it jumped off the front seat
and onto the hard floorboard
at my abrupt stop.

The smell of spilled red wine filled my car.
I heard the sound of someone else's smashed car
and a kangaroo's death.

My purse landed on top of the mess
of wasted wine.
Shards of green glass
lined my floorboard
among rivulets and pools of red.

Words in a hurry

I heard on TV or a DVD or read recently (my mind is still foggy with meds) something that set me to pondering.

Yet again. I am always in a ponder of some sort.

Anyway, the comment was, "Journalism is literature in a hurry."

I was so astounded by that statement that I wrote it with a blue ink pen on the back of my hand (because that was the only thing handy at that moment) so I wouldn't forget it. No matter the daily showers, the adage stuck to the back of my left hand for a few days. So I memorized it.

But I think the statement is true.

My blogs are too long and drawn-out and filled with all manner of ponderings and posturings and I spend days sometimes hashing out what I want to say and take too much time to say it.

But when I worked as a journalist and director of a newsroom of a weekly newspaper of about 25,000 circulation for nearly eight years, I could easily pound out 2,000 words a day on my keyboard...Stories ranging from political elections to a horse giving birth to twin foals, a cat stuck in a tree, a new house and vineyard in the hinterlands of Clark County, sex offenders, lavender gardens, murderers, city council and school board meetings and local crime and car accidents...all in one day.

So what happened now? Why are my blogs so long and tedious?

Because literature is not journalism in a hurry.

An un-made-up face and religion

I've sworn off face makeup for awhile.

At home anyway. I can't quite go public without war paint yet.

One reason is that my husband says he loves my natural face and skin and that I am beautiful to him the way God made me.

I tuck away his compliment with wariness because of an observation made years ago by my then-young children who said that I "look like Uncle Les" without makeup. My handsome, strapping, manly brother 18 months younger than me is not feminine in any sense of the word.

But beside the fact that it's my husband's desire for me to go makeup-less at home, I acquiesce because I want to please him. But some days it doesn't stay on anyway. So why bother?

Confined as I am recently while the lumbar portion of my spine heals out of the acute pain stage into the "let's see how we can manage this" stage, I have lots of time and things to ponder, and to read responses to my Ponderings blogs.

The tears just come. I can't help it. Not scrunched-up face bawling. Silent, hot tears course out the corners of my eyes and down my face. My fingers rub off any mascara and eyeliner and eyeshadow and blush anyway.

Why? Oh so many reasons: (If you don't want to hear me whine, just skip this blog entry, but you'll miss the parable at the end.)

Because I miss my loved ones...friends of 15 years and a handful of more years than that, and family of 46 years.

Because I miss the places where I felt I belonged.

Because I miss the way my life was as a highly respected businesswoman and newspaperwoman.

Because I miss all that was familiar and am living in a place that is so foreign in so many ways, (Australia is not a mini-America after all) and people are different and life is different and living with a new husband who is so different from me in personality and culture is sometimes really difficult and at times nearly suffocating and extremely maddening.

Because being a step-mom to three children is harder than I thought it would be. I'll leave it at that except to say that two of them are are teenage girls (18 and 16) and play their dad like a finely strung violin. The oldest child is a nearly 22-year-old son. We get along great and I have really come to love Luke as my own. He is really special and kindhearted.

Because I miss my own children, (Jason 25, Kim, 22,) my new daughter-in-law of just over a year, and my first grandchild that I've only met twice who is just beginning to crawl at nearly eight months old.

Because I miss snow, and the Cascade mountains, and the Lewis River teeming with steelhead jumping the rocky crags of Lucia Falls on their way upriver.

Because I miss my favorite places on the Washington and Oregon coasts like Klipsan Beach, Astoria, and Cannon Beach.

Because I miss Timberline Lodge, nestled high on Mount Hood and the days I spent near a roaring gigantic fireplace while looking out the massive windows at snow-covered or wildflower covered fields beyond. I broke the pinky on my right hand there. It's crooked forever I think.

Because I miss seeing steam from Mount St. Helens on cold mornings on my way to work, puffing skyward from the massive heat meeting frost or snow or just cold air on the new dome forming in the active volcano.

Because I miss the Canadian geese foraging in farmers' fields and flying north or south in V-shaped formations, depending on the time of year.

Because I miss a lot of people: Cheri and her children Anna and Anthony, Cindy and Mike, Kelly and John, Karen and Bill, Bill and Barbara, Lisa and Dave, and so many more who were my refuge friends who opened their homes and hearts when I was so worn out from working 50-hour weeks. They fed me, listened to me, made me laugh, and sometimes got me a little tipsy with fine wine or a good martini.

Because I miss eating out with my girlfriends at the Prairie Tavern (we called it the PT) and eating the yummy Ying/Yang pizza with lots of flavor along with pitchers of Hefeweizen with lemon and "Duck Farts" for dessert; then other times there was Billygan's Road House, Beaches, El Rancho Viejo, Irby's, The Silver Dragon, the River Cafe on the Willamette River, McCormick and Schmick's, Who Song and Larry's, McMenamin's, The Greek Cuisina in downtown Portland for my 40th birthday party and so many other places to dine. I'll never forget dancing with the owner of the Cuisina and smashing plates while yelling "WHOOPA!" when I turned 40 and having way to much Ouzo in a contest, and watching Karen's husband Bill stand on our table and dance while a belly dancer encouraged him from the aisle and someone put money in his belt. Godly behavior? Nope. But at that time in my life with all the hypocrites I'd known for years and the way they had treated me after my divorce...it didn't matter. It was just plain fun, and I was out to have fun from my long days at work surrounded in a world of information of crime, politics, and cats stuck in trees. I spent a few years trying to find my way "back home" to my childlike faith. But that's another blog altogether. Or maybe a book.

Anyway, with all this going on, I am jumping into the fray again.

I'm working on a book about spousal abuse, and child abuse and how "the Church" turns a blind eye and actually abuses the victims and chastises them for not keeping the family intact.

I remember a line from the Anne of Green Gables series where Gilbert tells Anne to write about what she knows rather than the unrealistic romances she was prone to write.

I am writing about what I know. And it's taking some time, because it's hard to relive things that I have experienced, and to hear stories from people I love, and people they love, and from women in general.

It seems to me, and to those I have interviewed, and those I have not met but want to interview that an "intact family" and "keeping marriage vows" is more important to church pastors and elders and deacons and other leaders than the people who have been hurt and continue to be hurt. The "leaders" hear what goes on behind closed doors from those brave enough to come forward, but what seems to matter most to them is what the "letter of the law" says, not seeing beyond that to God's tender heart.

Shame on them.

That makes me weep. So there have been lots of tears.

And so...no more makeup at home anyway. Why bother?

Makeup just covers blemishes and makes a face look pretty. As does "religion." In real life, it just gets washed away, with flaws always underneath.