When the lights went out

Just before communion in the humble church I attend, the power quit.

We'd been inundated for several days with storm after storm of wintry blasts from the South Pole...thunder and lightning, hail and rain, wind and stronger wind. Temperatures hovered around the 40s during the day and 30s at night.

On the way to church that morning, my husband and I marveled at how much standing water there was, in a land plagued with drought the last 15 or more years. Creeks flooded, and paddocks looked like grass-fringed lakes with ducks circling and flapping in the frigid air while sheep sought higher ground.

As we entered the 150-year-old town hall in Buninyong where our little Baptist congregation meets, I noticed everyone was rugged up in wooly scarves and warm winter coats. This time last year we celebrated the arrival of warm weather, constant sunshine, and blooming flowers. Steve and I found a seat in the rear of the hall with our backs next to heat emanating from ancient radiators shaped like curvy Christmas candy painted forest green.

We settled in, sang some hymns and modern songs, the offering was taken, and then it was time to remember Jesus' sacrifice, as scripture tells us to. The body broken for me, the blood shed to cleanse my sins and make a way for me to be in God's presence now, and forever.

Then darkness descended in fits and starts as overhead bulbs flickered on and off. The high windows near the ceiling in the old-fashioned building are painted, so no light came in once darkness won the fight for light. Our pastor's wife had a penlight so an elder leading that part of the service could read his Bible out loud, and so I could take my turn at the pulpit reading Bible verses out loud that our pastor had chosen to go with his sermon.

I thought the topic he'd chosen was apt, in light of losing power and light. He spoke out of Exodus 32:7-14 and Exodus 33:12-16, which describes a heartfelt and honest conversation Moses had with God. Moses even argued with God a bit, and talked Him out of destroying a nation He had rescued from the Egyptians and a life of slavery because they were so ungrateful, wayward, and stiff-necked.

But the kick-in-the-pants verse for me was out of Matthew 15:8-9, "These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. They worship Me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men."

Ouch.

How easily distracted I am away from God's heart. I tend, sometimes, to focus on what I think is expected of me from others as a Follower of Christ, rather than what the Bible clearly teaches me, in the Old Testament and New, but also in the example Jesus set for me..."Follow Me," he said. Not others, not the way they think and the rules they make.

Sometimes I think that the reason God became man in the form of Jesus was because He understood that life is confusing, people are confusing, people are sheep needing to be herded and led, and in His compassion, He came to say, "Okay, my beloved children. THIS is what I want you to do, THIS is how I want you to love me, THIS is how much I love you," in the form of Jesus. His Way, His example to live and be, is clear in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Why do I forget that? Darkness descends and fights with the flickering light in my spirit.

Pastor Tom asked two questions, both of which I pondered all of yesterday, and still into today: "What is hardest for you in your life to trust God in?" and "At the end of your life, looking back over the years, what would you change in your walk with God?"

Wow. That brings me to the nitty gritty. I struggle with trust...in general. My whole life has been a struggle with trusting people, and I guess that brings me to trusting God. What would I change? To trust more, and to be less stubborn in wanting to hang onto my own "safe" way of doing things, for a start.

As the service ended, we sang another hymn with older and younger voices raised, no electric keyboard, and we prayed. We mingled, we laughed about how there may not be hot water for instant coffee or teabags; but it was a subdued crowd of 30 or so...not because there was no power, but because we recognized something in each of us that we struggle with, and we are all on the same journey.

And then the light came on.

Aha!

So this is why: "...writing itself is a mixed blessing. We, who are addicted, berate ourselves and feel guilty when we don't write, at the same time put it off and hunt for diversions. Why? Because the thing that makes us happiest is also tedious, frustrating, and hard. Writing makes us crazy; not writing even crazier." --Marcia Preston

Such is the stuff of my life.

How do I help a non-writer mate understand that?

It's beyond my scope of capabilities.

I pray.

That's all I can do.

And I write.

Homesick on a rainy day

I wish I could write about happy things,
funny things,
things that make people laugh
and smile
and giggle and
ponder.

But it seems that when I get deep
inside myself
there isn't a lot to laugh about
lately
or giggle over
and ponder with a smile.

Funny thing is,
there are no funny things
that make me laugh
or smile or giggle
that I want to write about
to anyone.

Sad, isn't it?

Maybe it's just a phase I'm working through
A by-product of living
life in a country not mine
whose people are not mine
whose language is not mine,
at all.

History tells me that this phase will end
and my heart will rebound
as it usually does;
With the coming spring
rampant with flowers and birds and sunshine
I will be resurrected.

Conundrum

I have seen a man

A guest at a pulpit,
trembling,
as old men do.

He poured his heart out
honestly
as a Christian man does.

He chastised many
pitilessly
in a voice choked with tears.

There are forlorn people
wandering,
tortured lives without a savior,

he said.

Such tenderness, surprisingly
astonishing
from a man often harsh and critical

toward his brothers and sisters in Christ.

Impatience

I listened
fighting impatience
as she droned.

I tried not to focus
on the loose skin
under her chin.

It wiggled
and jiggled
as she wagged
on and on.

I pondered...
is this how I look to others
when I speak?

Termites

White ants carve streets
and boulevards
that no one sees
inside
vacant trees.

A late winter afternoon

The wind howls,
whispers,
sighs,
mourns.

It chatters leaves like frozen teeth; it
tosses thin branches like castanets.
It shelters:
husssshhhhh.

Voices speak in myriad tones.
We are mortal.

One who speaks

It took several minutes
to focus
on what someone
urgently said.

Hand gestures
with dialogue
went un-noticed

Because the speaker's
nose had a
stringy booger on it.

Hens and chicks

Five rectangle-shaped reading glasses, in different colors, perched on five different noses, including my own.

That's what I noticed yesterday during Bible study with a group of seven women.

The other two ladies, without glasses, are young mothers and wives, their toddlers (one each) busy in play, the mothers' attention skillfully divided between their children and our study.

Us "oldies" are all about the same age, late 40s to mid-50s, with a wide range of life experiences.

We commiserate with the younger, 20-something moms, and remember life at that stage.

One young woman is pregnant with her second child, and her husband is a student at the local university. The other is satisfied for now with her one child, and branching out into designing accessories again, which she did "before."

While we pondered over I Thessalonians, we laughed, shared our stories and experiences based on what we studied. Children dandled on our knees and were handed small, healthy treats.

It's strange to be in that place of being an older woman with 30 years of house-wifing and motherhood behind me.

I don't feel that old. Likely it's because I understand that there is still a lot to learn about life, love and other mysteries. My journey isn't over.

Yet I find that I am in a position to be an example, to offer advice, to help answer oh-so-many questions about raising children and living with a husband, in addition to scriptural principles I have learned, and am still learning.

I think of the Bible verse, Titus 2:3-5, "Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God."

There are older women I have met that make me cringe with their loud-mouth ways and garish outfits, who belittle their husbands, laugh about it and encourage others to do the same.

There are also older women whom I admire and want to emulate with their sense of humor, loving ways to everyone, and honesty.

My desire is to be the latter.

Meandering thoughts

Writer's block.

The dreaded constipation of coherant thinking and creative process.

I sit at my desk. Stare out the window.

I see a windmill replica in my yard. Its aluminum blades with red tips lazily turn with a breeze from the northwest. Round and round...like my thoughts.

Perhaps my problem is that the breeze from the northeast brings with it wisps of memories from my "other" life.

Perhaps that is why my thoughts are frozen in place this frigid morning in the southern hemisphere's winter.

Too much information to process. Friends from 30 years ago have surfaced lately on Facebook.

Along with those friends, memories that were buried under the ashes of time are revealed.

I am reminded of figures frozen in hot ash in Pompeii from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Day after day, memories long buried under several layers come back to my mind. Some are heart-warming, some make me laugh. Others make me cringe.

God does His work in mysterious ways, we are told. As a youth, I heard it. As a young adult, I heard it. As a middle-aged woman with children raised and a grandchild, I begin to understand it.

One of the scriptures that consistently comes to mind lately is Psalm 18:19, "He brought me out into a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me."

The early years of my life were hard. The middle years of my life were hard bordering on excruciating, and this verse kept popping up when I read the Bible. During those hard times, I found it, relied on it, prayed for it to happen, and believed it would someday, but always with a bit of reservation in my faith because I didn't want to be disappointed in anyone or anything anymore.

But here I am, literally in a spacious place. Australia is largely uninhabited (compare the size as similar to the United States, with a fraction of the population) and very spacious. I can drive on some days near the country town I live in and not see another car on the road.

Over the last few weeks of reconnecting with friends from my youth, memories have surfaced. As a result some scars are throbbing.

But I am glad for that.

Because my scars are testimony of God's healing work in my life, and a reminder that I have truly been brought into a spacious place. He rescued me because He delighted in me.

And so, my writer's block hasn't necessarily ended...I've just danced around a few thoughts.

I hope they make sense.

If not, I'll try again later.

Precocious child on the river (revised)

By Heidi Wallenborn-Cramer

"Have you ever been on a locomotive?"

"Why are flies black?"

"Why do bees sting you?"

"How far have you traveled on that boat?"

"I don't like eggs. Why do you?"

"The Easter Bunny leaves me chocolate eggs. Do you know why?"

On our last of five days on the Glenelg River in Australia over Easter weekend, I was peppered by questions from a five-year-old like buckshot from a 12-guage rifle.
My husband Steve and I had settled in for the night. We moored our small sailing yacht at Saunders Landing and took the outboard tinny out to fish before sunset. No one was at the offshore picnic area we chose. In fact, it seemed that no one was around for several miles.

Steve lit the wood-fueled barbecue. We cooked steaks, sautéed some onion, and baked corn-on-the-cob and potatoes in foil. While eating at the picnic table, we settled in for a game of Scrabble. Dusk turned to night, and we enjoyed the sounds of sleepy parrots and other birds settling in.

Midway through the board game by flashlight, with our dinner nearly finished, we heard a foghorn-like Australian female voice drifting over black water, "Hoy! Yeah mate! That's the place we saw earlier today, mate! Oi! There's boats there! But I'm sure it's the same place! Oi! It looks like two boats are there! Pull in anyway! Oi! I see lights! Pull in hard right, mate! I'll watch out!"
Chagrined, Steve and I helped these boaters who tried to navigate with flashlights the black, snag-filled river underneath a black, star-filled sky. My husband got our tinny out of the way and helped them get their old houseboat into the dock. When finished, we invited them to share a yarn or two by our fire while sipping sparkling wine.

This couple, older than Steve and I in our late 40s, had a five-year-old son with them.

Campbell was precocious, to say the least, and an absolute delight. Curious, he processed information quickly. He noticed our interrupted Scrabble game and asked questions about the letters on squares with tiny numbers in the corner. I explained the game to him while the others gathered around the campfire. I enjoyed watching him learn. He was fascinated with our flashlight and randomly turned it on and off. He lit up the surrounding gum trees looking for ring-tailed possums and koalas. He asked about how far light goes.

I replied, "How far do you think light goes?"

He pondered a moment and answered, "As far as I can see."

"Really?" I said. By this time the moon had risen and sailed above the horizon. "But light travels so much farther than we can see. What if someone was on that moon over there and saw your light? Do you think that could happen?"
Campbell didn't answer, he stared at the moon.

"What about the stars?" I asked. "What if the light shining down to us from space was really a bunch of people on planets with flashlights shining them in our direction--hoping we would see them?"

Campbell looked at me quizzically and said, "Flashlight?"

"I mean torch," I said. (Australians refer to flashlights as torches.)
Thinking about that for a minute, he smiled. With a childish laugh, Campbell discounted the idea. "Nah," he said. "That's just too far away."

The child was distracted then by Steve offering a perfectly melted marshmallow from a stick over the fire. As the evening wore on, the little fella was ushered off to bed on his parent's houseboat.

“Oi!” his mother called to me, trailing after her husband who held her sleeping son. “He’s pretty smart, ain’t he?”

The story of Little Bird and Cat

In a land far away east of Eden and not far from Nod, there is a copse of stately trees in a circle.

These are not ordinary trees. Their strong, beautiful branches are laden with silver-filigreed leaves that shelter ripe, luscious fruit of every kind and color.

Birds with vibrant plumage live in little hollows in these trees. They live peaceful lives under the watch of the bird council. This council is made up of very wise, older male birds whose adornments set them apart from their ordinary wives and other, lesser birds. But they rule their kingdom strictly and fairly.

All these birds live in the copse safe from every danger, except for the cats that live in a community nearby raising their own little families. The bird council make efforts at keeping peace with the ferocious felines, and some even believe that cats can be made into birds if they just try hard enough, or want to be a bird badly enough.

And so, dear reader, we visit a little, grey female bird who listened to the council of wise, elderly birds. A stray cat befriended her, and she began to think that not all felines are bad. This one, anyway, seemed very nice.

Little Bird made a place for her new friend in her home. He was so warm and cuddly, and was so very nice. He brought home gifts of mice and squirrels from neighboring communities, and even though she couldn't enjoy those gifts as much as Cat did, she was glad for his thoughtfulness in bringing her things.

It wasn't long before Little Bird realized that Cat wasn't going to change into a bird. She looked carefully along his fur as she preened him with her little beak, but there were no signs of small, unfurling feathers against his skin. His smile still showed sharp, needle-like teeth, and his claws grew longer and sharper, not shorter.

But more than those signs, Cat began to show his true feline nature. He watched his little grey bird as she puttered around her little hole in a tree at the edge of the copse, his eyes like green slits. His tail twitched, his eyes narrowed, his body tensed, and he pounced on the helpless little bird for fun. But he never hurt her enough to kill her. She was his toy now, like a ball of yarn to pounce on and chase and sink his teeth into just enough to hurt, but not puncture.

Frightened, Little Bird went to the council for help. She stood before the group of eleven, brilliant birds in a special tree used for such meetings. In the dim light entering the chamber, they could see that her feathers drooped, her eyes were dull, and she looked as if she was molting in patches.

Little Bird told her sad story. Although the council was not happy that she had allowed such a cat into her home, they encouraged her to keep trying to make peace. With enough patience and goodness, Cat can turn into a bird, they said. They have heard lots of stories from other communities where that had happened. They assured her they would be there to help her and support her, but that she should go back and do her best to change him...and pray to their God.

Reluctantly, the obedient little bird went home. When Cat found out what she'd done he pounced on her again and pinned her underneath his heavy paw while he hissed and spat in her face. As she lay there, she cried out to the great God who made her and waited for the rampage to end.

Remembering the advice of the wise bird council, she went about seeing to Cat's needs and whims without complaint. She made squirrel stew and mouse steak because he still brought these home. But they were not gifts anymore. They were products of his labor, he said, and it was her job to use them for his pleasure.

Cat's cleverness continued along with daily pouncings and terror-inducing games. But he decided that if he was going to keep living in the bird community, he should at least try to fit in. So he went to weekly bird meetings on Sundays where all the birds sang to their God and listened to one of the wise bird council members speak. Being a cat, he never tried to sing, because he knew he would stand out as not a true bird because of his caterwauling. And every Sunday, Cat took some of the feathers he'd stripped off his Little Bird and carefully glued them in places on his sleek body so that other birds could see he was a changing cat. As for the bald spots on Little Bird where her feathers were gone, she learned to artfully arrange what was left very carefully so no one would know.

But still the torture continued. After one especially horrible attack where her spindly legs were nearly unhinged from her body, she went to the council again. Please help me, she said. I am afraid for my life.

This time, a few older council members went to talk to Cat. Surprised at being confronted about his hidden behavior, the feline admitted to some of his wrongdoings. Giant tears fell down his whiskers and dropped onto his soft paws as he asked for their help to become a bird like them.

The older birds congratulated themselves on a job well done and set about having Little Bird and Cat meet for counselling every two weeks.

At first, Cat was better. Little Bird stood up to him when he crouched in position ready to strike, and threatened to call the head bird on council. But after several months of behaving himself, Cat couldn't hold back anymore. Neighbor birds heard him screeching and howling at night. But they stayed silent and didn't offer to help. After all, changing from a cat to a bird can't be an easy thing to do.

One night, Cat snapped. As Little Bird sat near him watching him eat his liver pie, he screeched and hissed and spat at her. His eyes became green slits, his tail twitched, and this time when he pounced, he sank his teeth into her. But as he let go to throw her into her little nest, she escaped! She flew and flew, around the house and out the hole in the tree, and all around the neighborhood until she couldn't fly anymore. Cat bounded out of the tree and meowed sweetly for her to come home (other birds were watching, you know) but she didn't. She landed on the edge of the community in tall grass and fainted.

Well, you would think that would be the end of cat living there, wouldn't you? He was punished after neighbors found Little Bird. Big crows came and took him to a special tree with bars and made him stay there awhile. When the crows let him out, he was told not to go near Little Bird. He was so sorry about what happened, and so afraid that the crows would take him back to that horrible hole, that he didn't. He agreed with the council that Little Bird needed time to heal because he hadn't been very nice and understanding after all. But he arranged with a few, not-very-smart little birds to send secret messages to her. The letters, written on very thin leaves, were spotted with Cat's tears, and in every line he said how sorry he was.

The wise elders of the bird council saw that he was sorry, and still had hope that he could become a bird because he wanted to so badly. So they let him come back to Sunday meetings, but only if he would stay away from Little Bird.

But Little Bird wasn't fooled anymore. She knew about all the times he had dressed himself up in her feathers, and he had amassed quite a few. He wore them all the time now. She saw clearly that he had glued a piece of plastic to the top part of his nose to look like a beak, and that the thin little feathers sprouting next to his trimmed whiskers and along his body were stitched on. Little Bird was amazed that only a few other birds recognized that this cat sprouting grey and white feathers was not a bird.

Even though Cat had promised to stay away from Little Bird at Sunday meetings, and he knew crows were waiting to take him away if he misbehaved, he prowled around the hollow rooms in the meeting tree, looking for her. He always told other birds how sad he was and he only wanted another chance to show Little Bird he loved her. Sometimes he snuck into the back of a room where Little Bird was...and sat there...and stared at her with his slitty, green eyes.

After three years, the wise birdmen were impatient with Little Bird. They wondered why she wouldn't give him another chance and let him come home. They wanted to know why she couldn't see the changes in him. If he was going to kill you, he would have done it by now, they said.

The last time Little Bird appeared before council, she didn't look at all like the bird she used to be. She walked with a limp, one wing was crooked, she had bald patches where luxuriant feathers used to grow, and there were scars all over her little frame. She stood with head bowed, because she was so tired of trying to make them understand that Cat was only pretending to be a bird. She warned them that he was only playing cat-and-mouse games with them. But they didn't listen. After all, she's only a silly little bird who let him into her home in the first place, they said. She made her nest and now she must sit in it.

On this day, the in the dim lighting of the council chambers, with the sound of happy birds singing outside, eleven brilliant birds in vibrant cloaks of many colors looked at Little Bird with pity. But their pity for Cat was greater. They turned her away one last time and told her that she is actually the one who needs help. She must forgive Cat, they said, and to understand that cats can be birds after all, if they are given enough patience, time, care, and prayers to their God.

Little Bird left the council chambers for the last time.

There in the hallway, hiding in a corner, was Cat, covered with stitched-on feathers and a plastic beak. He pounced, with teeth bared and claws unsheathed.

Little Bird was no more. She flew away.

Watching over me (revised)

In 1970 I saved my allowance for nearly a year to buy a wristwatch.

My step-father encouraged me to save money for things I really wanted. If it was a worthy cause, he would match whatever I put aside. He suggested a watch because I was learning time by hour and minute hands.

When we left the house one morning after I'd saved enough money, I was excited. Snuggled in my light-blue, down parka, I pulled the fur-lined hood over my chestnut-colored hair and clambered after him into the family's metallic blue Chevy station wagon for the three-minute trip into town. I was so happy I could scarcely breathe. The chill February air of eastern Washington State bit my nose, but I didn't mind.

I kicked snow along the sidewalk as we walked to Chelan's only jeweler's shop, mysterious in dim light. A bell pinged above the door as it shut behind us. My step-father told the man behind the counter that I could tell time and that I wanted to buy my first wristwatch. The owner smiled at me, pointed to a clock on the wall and asked me to perform. Although shy and nervous and afraid I'd get it wrong, he smiled and said I was worthy--or some such thing.

I looked at an array of beautiful watches: some with diamonds, some with thin gold bands and dainty chains that dangled from the wrist. But I didn't have enough money for those. I settled for a Timex with a round face, clear numbers, and a ridged, black fabric wristband.

To be honest, I wasn't that thrilled with it. The watch wasn't fancy or pretty like the opulent adornments worn by movie stars. But it grew on me. I loved to hold it under my ear and hear it's tiny ticking heart. It was mine, bought by saving allowances and sacrificing candy, and I became quite proud of it. I wore it everywhere.

In 1971, my third-grade class sent a letter to President Richard Nixon along with a handcrafted gift from our Mrs. Pingrey. He (or someone) wrote back, and my classmates became news fodder. Our photograph was printed in the Chelan Daily Mirror newspaper. I gasped when I saw my picture, not because it was me, but because my little watch was visible on my wrist.

That summer, my family and I vacationed at Yachats, Oregon on the Pacific Ocean. It was a fairly long trip with five people stuffed into a station wagon bursting with suitcases and bedding. We spent about a week there in a rustic beach side cabin, playing in the sand and surf, looking for wild strawberries, and catching net-fulls of smelt. As fast as my mother fried, we gobbled them hot, right out of the pan.

I couldn't find my wristwatch when we got home. I looked everywhere. I was afraid to ask my step-father and mother for help because I didn't want to get yelled at and called irresponsible. So I quietly mourned, and prayed, and hoped no one would notice my empty wrist.

School started in September with chilly mornings and warm afternoons. It was too warm to carry my thick parka, so I wore my light jacket. One morning I jammed my chilly hands into my pockets on the way to school. I stopped in my tracks. My fingers closed around the familiar fabric band and felt the smooth face of my beloved, long-lost friend. Little bits of sand clung to it. I must have put it there for safekeeping when building sandcastles and the wind chilled me. I didn't know why I'd missed it being there before. I wound the watch to start it anew and set the time.

On walk home after school I went into a copse off a side road at the top of a hill where a spreading elm tree stood. It was a special tree. We buried a bird there once. I walked to it often and spoke to Jesus about my little girl troubles.

I stood under thick, spreading branches with yellowing leaves. No bird to bury, no troubles to tell Him. My right hand fingered the watch on my left wrist. My eyes closed and I thanked Him.

God was with me, as always. He gave my watch back to me.

When I walked home, I imagined that He held my hand, the one with the watch on the wrist.

Irish Blessings

A tribute to my grandmother Irene Edith (Daly) Wallenborn whose father, Stephen, was Irish. She collected shamrocks. She died April 2007 at age 95.
Irish Blessings

May you live to be a hundred years old...with one extra year to repent.

May you live all the days of your life.

May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night, and a road downhill all the way to your door.

We drink to your coffin. May it be built from the wood of a hundred-year-old tree that I shall plant tomorrow.

May the roof above us never fall in, and may we friends gathered below never fall out!

Memories of Grandpa and Fish

Grandpa 1983.

Grandpa with 35 lb. King Salmon. 


The thin nylon cord sang as it whipped through the air to dance above the shimmering green water.

I sat outside and watched him as the summer sun set in golden light behind towering Douglar fir trees, while deepening shadows turned the lake from emerald to forest.

Content, I sat nearby, perched on a cut-out round of a tree tucked into the side of a hill for a step. Huckleberry and blackberry bushes' ripening scent hung in the warm air along with dragonflies.

We both loved the quiet at dusk, being outside, with the scent of Grandma's cooking wafting downhill.

Grandpa worked as a mechanic at Boeing in Seattle. After his hour-long commute home to Monroe, he quietly headed to the lake he lived at to fly-fish. 

There was a large, round piece of plywood that he'd nailed to a fallen tree that rested in the water. He stood on it, and casted his line about 15 feet from the muddy bank. 

From the age of eight through 11, I spent a month every summer with my brother Les at our grandparents' place in the woods. Most of our time was spent outside exploring or with Grandma. But it was my grandpa who fascinated me. 

As I grew older, I noticed his sense of humor was subtle. He smiled at me a lot, but wasn't much of a talker.

On the way home from trips to the big city, we passed pastures of cows and horses. He tried to convince me that horses were cows and vice-versa. I pretended to agree, mooing with him at startled horses. He grinned his close-lipped smile, nodded his head, and kept driving.

In their younger days, my grandparents lived in Lake City, raising my mother and her older brother in that busy suburb of Seattle.

Later, they bought the place I remember most;  a little house overlooking Lost Lake, outside of Monroe. The road was a dead end, enveloped in a wild, tangled forest of tall trees and thick bushes.

Their house was built on a steep slope halfway down to a lake.

Underneath the house on stilts and wrap-around deck was a cave.  When he wasn't fishing, Grandpa worked many years on that place, widening the hole to convert it into an extra living area and storage space.

To me, as I looked up at the house from the lake, it was a gaping monster mouth. For all I knew, Sasquatch lived in it. Many times I ran pell-mell up the hill to the house to avoid whatever I "knew" was hiding there. That was one place I didn't follow my grandpa to.

I knew Grandpa differently than his grandsons. My other brothers, Marty and Jeff, visited for a month in summer as well, but my grandparents couldn't handle all four at once. Maybe it disturbed Grandpa's quiet too much.

I was the only granddaughter, and sometimes I think he didn't know what to do with me. Because he was so quiet and reserved, I didn't get to know him well at all. I was a silent watcher of him.

He taught me how to fish, and showed me around his smokehouse full of fishing rods, but that's about it. I mostly remember him fishing, or sitting in a chair in front of an orange, rounded pyramid-like, free-standing woodstove while he watched television when it was too cold outside.

To remember my grandparents, I also remember fish. Always fish. My grandmother was a fisherwoman.

I saved only a few photos of the multitudes of trout and steelhead and salmon they caught, hung by the gills through decades of fishing. Even now, whenever I travel throughout Washington I recognize river and lake names from seeing them printed in faded black or blue ink on the backs of those photos. Skookumchuck. Skokomish. Sammamish. 

Although I never learned to fly-fish, I taught my own two children the joy of tying a hook, digging worms, the thrill of the yellow and white bobber popping up and down, and the adrenaline rush when the rod bent under the weight of a trout. 

My son, Jason, walks in his great-grandfather's shadow. 

He lives in Colorado, travels to Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon with his friends, his father, and his camera. He is a photographer of all things fly-fishing and is beginning to make a living at it. 

On a visit to a crystal clear stream in the Rocky Mountains, Jason tried to teach me how. As always, I just loved being outdoors. Pine-scented air, the sound of frigid trickling water over smooth stones, the ziiiiing of the line as it sailed downriver were enough for me. Good thing, as I never did get the hang of it.

I think Grandpa would be proud of his great-grandson. 

Jason took the elder's hobby to another level. 

Yet...

There is something to be said about casting a line at the end of the day while the sun goes to rest, the fish leap for flies--real or fake--and there is silence all around.

Just for fun. 

Elmer Bruce Bartlett died in March 2000, age 82.

Little things

Naomi at the Pink Roadhouse in Oodnadatta, South Australia.

We got her a very cool hat to protect her fair, facial skin from sunburn. She is wearing that hat in this photo. She posed for me so I could take the Aborigine man's photo in the background.

Aborigines sometimes have a phobia about being photographed. This man had been "playing" the guitar for our amusement, with no chords or melody.

We figured that his mode of playing was for money to be tossed into a "bush hat" while he pinched a cigarette between two forefingers of the same hand that rested on top of the guitar's neck. The other hand strummed that same aimless tune..."gadang, gadang, gadang, gadang," while he sang whatever words he wanted to.



Jason near a dry lake bed outside of Marree, South Australia. The white line in the background is salt. Lots of dry lake and riverbeds in Australia are salty. Up close, it looks like snow.


Jason and Naomi at Bell's Beach, Victoria. A world-wide famous surfing spot, the waves weren't very big on this day. Good thing...we didn't have time for Jason to surf. The little black dots to the left of Naomi are surfers.
......

It was too quiet when I slid open the big glass door, the back entrance to our home.

A vision of my son sitting on a bar stool, bent over his computer at the kitchen counter met me. But he wasn't there.

Small reminders of his and his wife's month-long visit to my home in Australia greeted me as I slowly walked around the house.

I savored each bit.

There was the flat, cardboard backing from his purchase of computer screen cleaner, and the bottle's cap on the beige, leather sofa.

 Four wine glasses with tiny pools of red nectar in the bottom curves waited near the sink.

Empty Tupperware containers sat nearby, draining, where Naomi had washed and left them to dry.

There was a coffee mug...handle broken...the memory of Jason's surprise at it's sudden demise when he held it made me chuckle.

Near where his laptop computer was stationed I found a tag taken from a hat he'd purchased in Coober Pedy, and my book that he'd been reading, Fatal Shore, a history of Australia.

The memory of his reading excerpts aloud reminded me he wasn't here anymore.

Oil from dinner the night before was splattered around the stove-top, and I reluctantly cleaned it up.

Jason and Naomi made a special goodbye meal of a Spanish potato and onion dish that I love...to go along with the roast lamb that I made because I know they like that. It was a mututal "love" dish, one could say.

It was also a belated Mother's Day gift, as we were camping Outback on that holiday. Naomi had also spent a lot of time making chocolate and oreo "truffles" as well. I have saved a few in the freezer to savor.

I started to clean up, because my niece-in-law and her husband were coming with their four-month-old baby girl to stay with us for the weekend, starting that night.

I put away bananas and cereal that Naomi enjoyed.

At the back of the house, in the room they stayed in, I gathered sheets they'd slept on and towels they'd used after showers. The bathroom fairly echoed with the absence of their things.

Near Jason's side of the bed I found two empty wine bottles he'd planned to take home as a remembrance of our time in the Barossa and Clare Valleys in South Australia. Reluctantly, I put them in the recycle bin, along with brochures he'd gathered about places we'd traveled in Australia.

I meandered to the front of the house and found on my bed a neatly folded winter scarf that I'd let Naomi borrow.

In the room opposite, on an old table, I came across a stack of books I'd recently purchased with Jason at "our" favorite bookstore in Ballarat. I fingered the pages and remembered coffee and congenial silences broken by sporadic comments on this or that author, and this or that topic over a few hours of bliss.

Jason told me he'd written something for me to read in a book I'd purchased...a treasure-book that he'd discarded because he was being frugal. I read the two pages he'd penned in the front of the book and wept. What wonderful things he wrote to me. I wish all mothers had a son as conscientious and loving as him.

As I puttered around the house, getting things ready for our newest set of family visiting, I heard echoes of laughter, the sound of my voice reading stories to Jason in front of the morning fire blazing away, and of my son reading prose and other stories to me.

His and Naomi's laughter is embedded in the walls of this house.

I can still feel my son's warm hugs, his kiss on my cheek as a child and as a man, and see him smiling at me, with his beloved wife by his side...their arms reaching high and hands forming the "I Love You" sign with thumb, forefinger, and pinky...as they left to board their Qantas flight back to a life they've formed together in Denver, Colorado.

I am content, for now, with what I had for a brief month.

Commemorating Anzac Day

ANZAC Day on April 25, is likely Australia's most important national occasion, apart from Australia Day on Jan. 26.

ANZAC is a shortened term for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. They fought side by side in the soldiers' first military action together during the first World War.

Every year on that date in April, Australians meet across the nation, from small country towns to the nation's largest cities, to commemorate their union, and especially a long battle fought at Gallipoli in Turkey.

A bit of history: in 1915, the soldiers formed part of an allied expedition that set out to capture the Gallipoli peninsula to open the Black Sea for allied navies. The plan was to capture Constantinople (now Istanbul) which was the capitol of the Ottoman empire and an ally of Germany. They landed on April 25 and met with fierce resistance from the Turkish defenders, according to documents.

What had been thought of as a bold stroke to knock Turkey out of the war ended in a stalemate, and the campaign dragged on for eight months. Both sides suffered heavy casualties and endured great hardships on that beautiful coastline. More than 8,000 Australian soldiers were killed, and April 25 became the day on which Australians remembered the sacrifice of those who had died in that war.

Although the campaign is reported to have failed in its military objective to capture Constantinople and knock Turkey out of the war, the Australian and New Zealand actions bequeathed an intangible but powerful legacy. The creation of what became known as the ANZAC legend became an important part of the legacy of both nations.

Yesterday, I went to a small ceremony in Sebastopol, an incorporated area of Ballarat. The local Sebastopol CFA members were going to march there, some of whom wore their grandparents' medals received in the course of that war, and other wars. Cadets from the Australian military led the march, and other relatives of those who served. Some bore national flags, some carried memorial wreaths.

A high school band played songs, people clapped and cheered, and wind and rain from an autumn storm drenched us and left ears and noses and uncovered hairdos dripping frigid water.

Speakers spoke, wreaths were laid, and after the 30-minute ceremony, schoolchildren in school uniforms posed for pictures in front of a memorial engraved with the names of those who have died in service to this area of the nation. Behind the memorial, 148 white crosses adorned with red poppies were formed in a cross. Several old people stood in silence, looking at names they recognized or perhaps knew as family.

Although Australia is my newly adopted country, I was moved. I longed to sing the National Anthem, Advance Australia Fair, along with my husband, but I didn't know the words. I wanted to join the last words of a poem, Lest We Forget, but I didn't know the cue.

I thought of my grandfather, Leslie Thomas Wallenborn, who was an American Army officer in World War II and the Korean Conflict, and how little I know about him, and his exploits, and was saddened at my lack of knowledge of my own family history in the fight to keep freedom in my own country, and to liberate other, oppressed nations.

I also felt very proud that I do have a family heritage of fighting for a nation's liberty, and also proud to be a part of my new, adopted country which honors its fighting men and women as much as, and perhaps more in some ways, than the country of my birth.

So here is my salute, on this ANZAC Day weekend, to ALL those who serve for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all people...no matter where we hail from.

Australian military cadets leading the way on a cold, drizzly, April autumn morning.

Family members of those who served bearing flags and memorial wreaths.

Memorials like this one, To the Fallen, can be found in nearly every town and city across Australia. The British Union Jack flag flies in tribute to the country Australia served under at that time, and as a nod to the country Australia is a commonwealth to.

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead, short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from falling hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep,

Though poppies grow

In Flanders fields."

--John McCrae, May 1915

Can't help meself

Okay, I'm on a roll.

Here we go:

On Australia by Barry Humphries, 1981...
Australia is like a jacuzzi of Bailey's Irish Mist, sort of syrupy and rather too warm. It's interesting that a country that prides itself on its liberty has so many restrictions on it. But then we have a lot of people here in Australia who are natural public servants. I did a little research and found that most public servants can trace their ancestry to convicts. They were in the service and prefer to remain so.

The Australian Desert by Patrick White, 1981:
I've never been very far into the Australian desert. And what's more, I'm determined never to go.

A True Australian by Barry Humphries, 1980:
To be a true Australian you have to dislike everybody from anywhere else. [In fairness, I have to say I have been welcomed as an American here by almost everyone.]

The Curse of Australia by The London Observer: 1981
Flies are the curse of Australia and probably the reason why Australians tend to be irascible. [I hate the flies!!!!]

On Australia, by Patrick White, 1981:
"This sophisticated country is still, alas, a colonial sheep run." [in Victoria at least, this is true]

Some Australian one-liners:

You're as clumsy as a duck in a ploughed paddock.

He was meaner than a goldfield Chinaman, and sharper than a sewer rat.

He's got more corrugations on his belly than a thousand-gallon [rain] tank.

She's as skinny as a sapling with the wood scraped off.

He's as mad as a two-bob watch.

She's a whopper...fully three axe handles across the hips.

All behind like Barney's bull.

He's so mean that when a fly lands in the sugar he shakes its feet before he kills it.

She'd walk ten feet under water with a snorkel in her mouth.

Flash as a rat with a gold tooth.

He wouldn't shout in a shark attack.

If those two blokes were alone in a bar together, they'd die of thirst.

Brains! If your brains was gunpowder, they wouldn't blow off yer hat!

That man was too mean to hang himself.

She's mad as a bag of cut snakes.

Amuse your friends and neighbors with these...even if you don't know what they mean.

The Australian Female

In reading more of Great Aussie Insults, as previously posted, I ran across this bit of interesting drivel printed in The Drum by Sidney J. Baker in 1959. It's a good thing I have a sense of humor. Interestingly enough, I have run across several Aussie women who would fit this bill. Not all, but enough to make me do a double-take.

"Since Australian females lack practice in conversational exchanges with the opposite sex they, too, are frequently shy. Even at their best, verbal offerings are often shallow and repititious. They are poor conversational entertainers. They are almost totally lacking in a self-critical sense of humor. Their thinking tends to be of a non-sequitur variety that would send all but the most complaisant male up the wall. And because of these things, they are usually tense, wary and given to private dreams about knights in shining armour which males rightly scorn. So, because of shyness on both sides, there is little verbal ease between our males and females. And this takes us near to the heart of the problem. Here is a situation that grew out of male diffidence, was sancitified by frontierland courtesy, became static because of female inexperience, and, with nothing to modify it, became fixed into a tradition. If, as a consequence, the Australian male is prepared to wash his hands of the whole affair and confine its corrections to manoeuvres on the couch, one can hardly blame him."

And one more, from a report in Nation Review in 1976 concerning dinners at the Australian country home of Rupert Murdoch.
"...conversation during dinner tends, out of necessity, to invlove the women to a greater extent. The fact that they are seated alternately with the men makes it very difficult to ignore them. Perhaps it is due to their greater involvement in the conversation that it becomes noticeably more banal."

I actually snorted, I laughed so hard!

Aussie Insults

I have a book, "Great Aussie Insults" compiled by Bill Wannan.

So funny, I have to share some of them with you. Where needed, I will translate:

"May all your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny over." [chooks: chickens, dunny: outhouse]

"He couldn't knock the skin off a rice pudding."

"The typical daily newspaper wants boiling down to the size of a sheet of notepaper and then frying with disinfecting fluid and cayenne pepper to make it wholesome and refreshing." [oh so true!]

"There are only two classes of person in New South Wales. Those who have been convicted, and those who ought to have been." [Australia is notoriously founded by British convicts. Each of the seven states take jibes at each other.]

On the Australian accent from an article in The Australian in 1978:

"The broad Australian accent is not a lovesome thing, I grant you. At its worst, it is reminiscent of a dehydrated crow uttering its last statement on life from the bough of a dead tree in the middle of a claypan at the peak of a seven-year drought."

[The term "larrikin" came into use in the 1870s in Victoria and New South Wales, to denote a street hooligan or tough. Today it is simply an endearment for a bloke who is a jokester.]

NED THE LARRIKIN
A blossom of blackness indeed--
of satan a sinister fruit!
Far better the centipede's seed--
the spawn of the adder or newt!
Than terror of talon or fang
this imp of the alleys is worse:
His speech is poisonous slang--
his phrases are colored with curse.

An old "bush ballad:"
Fair Australia, Oh what a dump.
All you get to eat is crocodile's rump,
Bandicoot's brains and catfish pie,
Let me go home again before I die!

From the Sydney "Bulletin," Australian Sassiety:
"Australian 'sassiety' is a hollow, heartless bedizened swarm of sycopantic snobs and snobbesses."

On Deeming the Murderer:
The dastard demoniac, dubbed Deeming, deserves the doom of a degrading dog's death for diabolical deeds, if demonstrated without doubt that he is the doer.

On Women:
I'd sooner talk to a man than a woman any day. Ten minutes exhausts them.

The Sex Problem Again:
[Written in 1907, the last line is not what contemporaries would think; the term refers to a rooster.]
Some men want to be considered gods in their own homes; you'll generally find that sort of men very small potatoes outside; if they weren't they wouldn't bother so much about being cocks on their own little dunghills.

School-yard song:
Boys are strong
Like King-Kong.
Girls are weak,
Chuck 'em in the creek.

On Marriage:
Oh! Betting and Beer are the basis
of the only respectable life.
Much better to go to the races
Than moulder at home with the wife.

To a Food Waiter:
"What will you have?" said the waiter,
reflectively picking his nose.
"I'll have two boiled eggs you bastard,
you can't put your finger in those."
[Bastard is a common word here, sometimes even denoting affection. It is not necessarily considered a "swear" word as in America. In fact, I have been surprised to discover that several words Americans consider offensive are commonplace here, and no one bats an eyelid.]

And to leave you with one more thought, translation follows...oh, and keep in mind that the national anthem on this continent is entitled "Advance Australia Fair."

Advance Australia:
Wowsers, whingers, ratbags, narks,
Silvertails, galahs and sharks,
Knockers, larrikins, and chromos,
Bengal lancers, bludgers, homos,
Botts and polers, spielers, lairs,
Advance Australia--you are theirs!

translated in order: "wet blanket, whiner, ratbags, tattletale (gossip, troublemaker), pest, silly mindless bird, and sharks, pessimist, larrikin, paintsniffer, English army person, lazy user person, homosexual, botts and polers (don't know) teller of tales, flashy sleazy dressing person...Australia, you are theirs!"



For a laugh, go to http://www.koalanet.com.au/ for Australian slang. Pretty entertaining, and it has been helpful to me to learn the lingo.

My blessings

Today I spoke with both of my children in America.

I visited with Jason and saw his wife briefly for a few happy moments while on Skype. They both are so incredibly nice and funny. I love my son's smile, and his wife's good nature; her smile too, lights up a room.

I spoke with Kimberly Mae on the phone and made an appointment to visit on Skype this Sunday. I also heard my 17-month-old granddaughter giggling and talking in the background. They both have such sweet voices and laughter, and are so pleasant to spend time with.

While speaking with them, it doesn't seem as if we're 10,000 miles apart...thank God for today's technology.

And, perhaps because of the distance, I am more acutely aware of everything they say, every nuance in their gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, and appreciate more than ever the time we do get to spend together whether its via phone or video calls on the computer.

They have grown into young adults that I am so intensely proud of. Being a "new" step-mother to two teen girls and a young adult man has enhanced my admiration and appreciation of and for my own two children.

My daughter read to me the words from a song that means a lot to her, The Best Day, by Taylor Swift. When she finished, we were both in tears...and I was grateful, and pleased that she thinks so highly of me and loves me so much.

Along that same line, a day or so ago my son sent a letter on behalf of Steve for a character reference, and I was...were were both moved...to tears with his wonderful words and observations. I learned a few things about my son and how much he loves me, from that letter.

Today my son took me on a cyber tour of his and his wife's new abode. He was proud of their place, (it's very nice and fits their personalities so well) and proud to show it to me. I am honored. He and his wife will be here in a week to spend a month with us, and I am so much looking forward to it. I'm so beside myself, I'm almost two of me.

Yet, my joy in my children and their obvious love for me and for Steve as the extended part of "us three" was tempered a bit this week. It was made obvious to us from his circumstances that sometimes children are influenced by several means away from one, or both parents, and everyone suffers for it.

It seems to me that a lot of children nowadays (grown and growing up) don't love and appreciate their parents very much. Perhaps it's because of time spent in the workplace and busy schedules keeping children involved and informed with extra-curricular activities, and sometimes the parent is so caught up in their own interests, that the children are an add-on. Something to deal with later. Life is not so simple anymore. Do parents and children really take the time to get to know each other and foster respect on both sides?

I think we are often too busy. Sometimes ugly divorces make things even harder.

I wasn't the perfect mom, although I wanted to be. As I age, I see so many mistakes I made, and as is common as we get older, seem to focus more on what "coulda been," rather than the good of what was. But my children seem to have overlooked, or even better, overcome my foibles, and have turned out to be young adults that I am very proud of. More than I know how to say. When I try to tell them I cry, and that makes us all feel weird. But they know me. They know my heart. They know they are loved fiercely and without condition. They know my arms and my heart are always open. Always and forever.


"I think it harder
Lord, to cast
the cares of those I love
on You,
than to cast mine.

We, growing older,
learn at last
that You
are merciful
and kind.
Not one time
have You failed me,
Lord--
why fear that You'll fail mine?"
--Ruth Bell Graham

I know that He won't. He hasn't. And He promised that He would be faithful, even if we are faithless. I rest my heart on Him.

Princess Margaret Rose Cave

While a youth on his family farm in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Keith McEachern frequently came across what is known as a runaway hole. He tended sheep and other livestock over the several hundred acres his family owned.

One day, when in his early 20s, he gathered a few friends to help him explore the "sinkhole" that had caught his attention for several years.

He tied a strong rope to a few sapling gum trees nearby, and armed only with a few candles and matches, lowered himself about 31 feet down the hole until he reached bottom.

He bellowed up to his friends that he'd found a cave, and disappeared for two hours while his friends anxously waited for him.

When McEachern returned to the earth's surface, he exclaimed that he'd found Aladdin's cave.

In 1936 he took a few others with him and carved out an access point which took several months.

In the 1940s they were granted permission to name the cave after Princess Margaret Rose, the sister of soon-to-be Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

While on a five-day trip on the Glenelg River, this cave is a popular stopping off point, about halfway up from the mouth of the river from the Bass Strait on the Tasman Sea.

I have to say that I have seen photos of stalactites and stalagmites from a famous cave in Arizona, but because such sights can only be seen via spelunking (exploring caves) I thought, "oh well, I'll never see those." I don't like confined spaces, and the thought of crawling on my belly with a flashlight did not appeal to me. The beauty of this cave is that it is "walk-in." So I went along for the walk.

I'm so glad I did. I don't know how to explain what I saw. It is so much more colorful, ethereal, and strange than pictures can do justice.

The Glenelg River, especially further downstream toward its mouth is bordered by huge cliffs of limestone and caves carved by high water. This is the only cave that has been made accessible to people.


The long walk down below the surface.


This is looking toward the entrance where Keith McEachern lowered himself into the cave. The blue sky is a distant dot.


Stalactites.

"Cape" formation on the brownish stalactite. See the water drip on the end of the white spear.

The wall is blanketed in formations.

Where stalactites and stalagmites try to meet.

From the "ceiling."

The "chandelier" in background.

"Bat wing" formation.

The "wedding cake," and "engagement" formations. They call it engagement, because they barely touch. There is another formation nearby where both ends meet, and they call it the marriage. There is also one nearby where they have broken apart and it's named, "the divorce."

A "cape" formation.

Notice fine stratches on the wall. Those are from animals, likely kangaroos and wallabies, that fell through the runaway hole and tried to escape. No vegetation and not much water lead to their horrible deaths.

McEachern said he had to climb over several bones and carcasses of animals who had fallen in over decades.

When our group of tourist spelunkers reached the end, our guide asked us to stand on the stairs or other stable footing.

She turned off all the spotlights and we were blanketed in darkness. I literally could not see my hand in front of my face, even with my palm touching my nose.

I've never been in darkness so intense, so complete.

The guide reminded us that this is the darkness that Keith McEachern lowered himself into.

Armed only with one candle at a time, he found what we had just seen lit up with spotlights.

My creative mind went crazy...putting myself there with him...exploring hauntingly beautiful formations by ghostly candlelight, surrounded by bones of dead animals.

It was quite an experience. It haunts me still.

Precocious child on the river

"Have you ever been on a locomotive?"

"Why are flies black?"

"Why do bees sting you?"

"How far have you traveled on that boat?"

"I don't like eggs. Why do you?"

"The Easter Bunny leaves me chocolate eggs. Do you know why?"

On our last of five days on the Glenelg River, Steve and I settled in for the night. We moored at Saunders Landing, took the tinny out to fish, then came back to the onshore picnic area where no one else was, and started the barbecue. We cooked steaks, onion, corn on the cob and a potato each and settled in fo a game of Scrabble on the picnic table. Night fell, and we enjoyed the sleepy sounds of parrots and other birds settling in for the night.

Then, midway through the board game and with steak nearly finished, from the surface of the black river we heard a foghorn yelling..."Hey, yep, that's the place we saw earlier today. Oh. There's boats there. But I'm sure it's the same place. Oh. It looks like two boats are there. Pull in anyway. Oh. I think I see lights. Pull in hard right. I'll watch out."

Steve and I looked at each other, and decided to help this other boat company who were trying to navigate by very small lights. My husband helped the couple navigate their VERY old, small, "houseboat" into the landing, and we invited them to share a yarn or two while sipping bubbly wine.

They have a five-year-old son. Hence the afore-mentioned questions.

He is precocious, much how I think my granddaughter is. Curious, processes information quickly. Campbell (his name) noticed Steve's and my interrupted Scrabble game and asked questions about the letters and tiny numbers in the corner. I explained the game to him, and enjoyed watching him learn. But he was also fascinated with our flashlight and had it turned on and off most of the evening. At one point he flashed it into the trees and commented about how far it went.

I asked him, "How far do you think the light goes?"

He pondered a moment and answered, "As far as I can see."

"Really?" I said. "But light travels so much farther than we can see. What if someone was on the moon over there and saw your light? Do you think that could happen? What if the light from stars shining down to us was really just a lot of people on other planets shining their flashlights at us hoping we would see them?"

He looked at me quizzically and said, "flashlight?"

"I mean torch," I said. (Australians call flashlights torches)

He thought about what I had asked for a minute, then with a smile and chuckle, discounted it. "Nah," he said. "That's just too far away."

Campbell was distracted then with the idea of melted marshmallows over a campfire cooked by Steve to perfection, not burnt. As the evening wore on, the little fella was ushered off to bed on his parent's "houseboat."

But I am still left with the memory of a very precocious child raised by parents older than me, and how wonderful that is.

Roots and trees

While traveling along at a slow boat's pace a few weeks ago on the River Murray from Echuca I pondered quite a few things.


There is a story within this tree.

The several hundred kilometres-long Murray, Australia's largest in scope to the Mississippi in America, is low because of the decade-and more-long drought. As a result, tree roots spread along the banks like bony hands reaching for shallow, warm, muddy water.

A Bible verse came to mind...Jeremiah 17:7-8, "But blessed is the man [woman] who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. He [she] will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes, it's leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."

I took several photos of fascinating trees and roots. But there was one set that caught my creative eye, although I failed to get a good photo...

On a stretch, there were two healthy eucalyptus (gum) trees on top of the riverbank, just on the lip of a cliff. Their roots reached into the river about 10 feet below. Between them was a smaller gum tree that had fallen off the ledge but still lived., even though the tip of its roots were just sipping at water.

What struck me as poignant was that the other, mature trees on each side of the adolescent plant held the weaker, younger tree in their branches. In fact, the older branches were so entwined in the younger, that I couldn't see where one's limbs ended and another's began.

Yet, they all thrived.

I am grateful for my mature, older friends...either in biological or spiritual age...that hold me up and help me to gain the nourishment I need to keep going...

even if I'm hanging on to the lip of a cliff.

This is indeed something to ponder...Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: if one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."

Grateful thanks to those who hold me up, keep me warm, keep me from being overwhelmed, and defending me. More thanks than I can say.

Thanks

God,

Forgive us please
For slapping Your
Holy name
on our shirtfronts
as if it was some
sticky, pre-printed
nametag.

"Hello, my name is...
whatever I choose to be
when and how it pleases me
regardless of how it pleases You
as long as I am
at peace
and happy
with lots of money and
children who excel in school
and have a good job
and my neighbors
and in-laws like me
and I have lots of friends, and
OH! I belong to God.
My name is Christian."

With all of that,
O God,
I thank you
And ask for more.

More on lingo

A few months after I arrived in Australia my husband, Steve, called me at home while he was working for the day in Melbourne.

"Hey babe," he said. "Why don't you catch the train and I'll meet you here. We'll go out for tea [dinner]."

I was just familiar enough with Ballarat to drive myself to the train station, and always-up-for-adventure-me said, "Sure!" Melbourne is about 90 minutes away.

So I called and checked departure times, and drove myself there without mishap. Pretty proud of myself, I was.

I got into the queue [line] and ordered my ticket. The nice man at the counter asked me if I wanted concession.

I looked at him blankly, while my mind raced in order to answer him timely. I'd had a late brekky [breakfast]. I imagined paying a bit extra for soft drink or coffee, little bags of snacks such as pretzels or potato chips from someone wandering the aisles with a cart. So I looked at him, smiled, and said, "No thank you, I'll be fine until I get there."

The kind man looked at me, puzzled, then grinned as he handed me a ticket and wished me a safe and happy trip. He reminded me of Father Mulcahey on M*A*S*H.

It wasn't until a few weeks later that I learned "concession" doesn't mean a snack bar. It is Australia's term for someone who gets a discounted ticket, such as those on welfare, or *cough* the elderly. He wanted to know if I was eligible.

I can only imagine what went through that ticketmaster's mind! I told Steve; he laughed himself silly.

I was reminded of that when I read an article in this month's Outback magazine. I bought a subscription for Steve's birthday last year because he loves it, but I use it as a tool to understand this country and whet my appetite for exploring.

There is a feature, Yarn Spinner, about Sandy Thorne, a storyteller and bush poet. She is renowned Australia-wide for her humor in conveying the outback to others. She's even been on the David Letterman show.

Here is an excerpt...

"So you'd like to learn the lingo of the Aussies from the bush
Where men are tough as gidgee, far from the city push
Where the women muster blowflies in the blazing outback sun
And the children crack big mulga snakes like stockwhips, just for fun.
Where you ride all day to travel from one boundary to the next,
You'll find the dinkum Aussies, away out in the west."

"Now fair-dinkum means ridgy-didge, or genuine or true
And if you've made a big mistake, mate, you've made a blue
But if some mug bungs on a blue, he's tried to start a fight
He's a nong, a galah, a drongo...a ratbag all flamin' right!
--probably not the full quid--just nineteen `n' six up top
--mad as a bag of cut snakes, a few wallabies loose in his crop."

I understand it mateys, and here is my best translation as an American:

gidgee--a hardwood tree...pretty tough...like iron.
muster--round up, as in cattle.
blowflies--aka "blowies," big, heavy, pesky flies common anywhere but especially where it's hot and they gather by the hundreds, especially over meat. In some places around the world they are known as cadaver flies.
mulga--a dry, desert area, I think
traveling from one boundary to the next--cattle stations cover several hundreds of square miles and take a day or two to get across. Very common in the outback.
mug--fella who thinks he's big stuff
ninteen `n' six up top--You're on your own. I don't know.
mad as a bag of cut snakes--you can imagine.
wallabies--smallish version of kangaroo, considered rodents. They decimate crops.

This woman was also a jillaroo, a female version of a jackaroo...someone who helped drovers [cowboys] muster cattle and take them to another station or somewhere they could be sold as beef on the hoof, as we know it. In America, cattle drives would fit this bill. Although not as common in America anymore, it is still a thriving industry here.

"I loved it," Sandy is quoted as saying. "Once I proved to the men I could ride as well as them, and handle the rough conditions, I was accepted as an equal workmate--even though women were paid a lot less. It was a case of swags [sleeping blankets] on the ground, salt beef and spuds."

The article goes on to say that Sandy enjoyed secretly writing about it, over the dying embers of a campfire every night.

Here is an excerpt from her "jillarooing" days:

"We started at five on a long cattle drive
But on Sundays, slept till dawn
Working 'til dark, we'd dip brand and mark,
Never filled in a union [labor] form.
We ate beef that was tough, the cook was as rough
as his tucker [food] that churned in our guts
When hitting the booze, he's serve "mystery stews"
of onion peel, gristle and butts.
At night we lay fryin' in galvanized iron;
The frogs that resided, quite often collided
with snakes, in a screaming refrain."

Here's to Australian lingo, and American lingo...vive le differance!