Two weeks on the edge

Fellow Scorpio, novelist Kurt Vonnegut once wrote "I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over … you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the centre". Having just spent two weeks in remote Maningrida, an Aboriginal community in Arnhem Land, 500 km east of Darwin, I agree. Maningrida’s as far from mainstream Australia as you can get, culturally shocking, and as insightful and stimulating as a trip to India for the first time.

Before I left I was concerned with two things. How my sensitivities would cope with my perceived notion of domestic violence, and whether, as a single woman, I could transition to life there. On those two counts, my concerns proved unjustified.

I worked as a volunteer in the Bawinanga Women’s Centre, a social enterprise providing empowerment and employment for the local indigenous women. Whilst ‘work’ as we know and understand it generally means 5 days slog to enjoy 2 days rest, the opposite seems to be true for our first nations people. Despite earning a wage for hours worked, the women often didn’t show up. Sorry business – the cultural practices and protocols surrounding death which can last up to a week, ceremony, gone fishing, gone walkabout for pandanus gathering, and other long established customs inform their day-to-day and keep cultural tradition alive and well in the community. How real!

The women are sewers, textile print-makers (lino-cuts and screenprints), artists, cleaners, op-shop attendants and much more. To hear them speak ‘language’ in the Centre I was reminded of my own ignorance. An ancient lineage it is and it made me reflect on what values and beliefs I hold dear and how often they direct my life. Notwithstanding a common indigenous view that white people are ‘tissues’ – white person arrives, white person leaves, another one takes their place – I felt their reserved welcome of me, and to make the occasional eye contact, was humbling. I was fortunate to work alongside them, teach them a few sewing techniques, and learn a whole lot more from them. Here’s some of their lovely work.

Dilly bag designs, lino-cuts

Helping with screen-printing. A stunning bamboo design

More screen-printed designs

All these designs, and hundreds more can be viewed, and bought at wwwbabbarradesigns.com.au

A parallel universe it might be, but the alternative reality was at such odds to my own that the cultural difference I experienced left me feeling emotionally drained and disturbed. As far as most of the balandas (white people) there are concerned, the Government ‘Intervention’ is a failure. Housing’s an issue, but mainly for the balandas. There’s never enough. The housing built to accommodate the indigenous people on the other hand, from the outside at least, seemed neither wanted nor needed. While I was told its frowned upon by authorities, the locals look far more comfortable sitting on the dusty red earth around the ubiquitous fire, burning day and night, in the front yard. The constant smell of smoke in town made it hard to breath. The supermarkets bulge with soft drinks, sweet biscuits, potato chips, long life milk products and 2-minute noodles. Sugar is devoured with a kind of manic obsession and the packaging dropped where it lands. ‘White man’s products! White man’s problem’! The town is one depressed looking garbage dump. The mangy, emaciated, scabby dogs in their hundreds satiate their rabid hunger by foraging through the balandas bins, knocked over by one large roaming resident pig who also feasts on dog and human faeces. "Watch that you don’t hit the dogs on the street" I’m warned, ‘Otherwise you’ll pay". Why the dogs appear to command the reverence of a holy cow I never found out. The effects of smoking and sugar consumption pose the two most serious health risks in the community, according to my friend who’s employed by the health service. About 10 percent of the school age children in town turn up to school. And why would they? They’re being asked to learn a curriculum in a language foreign to them! Once the young men are initiated at around 12, there seems no good reason for them to return to school. The school counsellor I spoke to one evening was at a complete loss to know how to engage them. ‘There’s no good male role models in town’ she lamented.

One of the most shocking of all sights I encountered though was ‘death alley’ (my description). This is a stretch of coastline some 500 metres long at the edge of town where the locals dump the clothes and personal effects of their dead. Custom suggests that the incoming tide will 5 times wash the effects clean of any undesirable spirit energy, and then, in an ideal world, it would be transferred to the tip. This doesn’t happen of course, and the result is a coastline littered with rotting and rusty rubbish, including car batteries, prams, fridges, lengths of iron, mattresses, bed-frames. etc.

I recommend the edge. It's a fascinating place, full of wonder and knowledge.

Thanks women of Maningrida.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Resilience

Carelessness

wallet stolen

Mindlessness

new machine damaged

Death

Aunty critically ill

 

Visitors by three

hungry ghosts

come to shatter the illusion

beware the arrogance

of a closed mind

they seem to want to say

 

The heart will not be broken

Posted with Blogsy

Ode to the ANZACs

 

Brothers and uncles, grandparents and gads

Babes to their mamas, and lovers and dads

With trust and honor they served our shore

Naivety and courage their distinguishing lore

 

When the fighting was done and they all returned home

The welcome was short, yet the life-time long

For the horrors of combat are enclosed in the mind

And the memories live on, the triggers grind

 

‘It’s bullshit’ he’d say with loaded expression

downing a claret to anaesthetize his depression

‘The glorification of war is demonstrably mad’

he reminded us yearly, which just made me sad

 

I was fine all morning till the bugle was played

At the market where all the fresh fruit is displayed

The diggers were two in their medals and stripes

And the tears flowed freely, for suffering, for hype

 

 

Lest we forget

 

Posted with Blogsy

A seamstress' Rite of Passage

I sew, therefore I am! Said nobody ever. The functionality of my sewing machines is what I love, although I think I’d still prefer a motorbike. At least you can go places. 

Lately I’ve been sewing again. After a long spell. Because I couldn’t get a job. I didn’t want any of them, but that’s irrelevant. Here’s what I’ve been making. They're made from old woolen blankets.

And they're for sale!

In the early years I’d take up the hems on my dresses to within a millimetre of my arse, whilst fiercely guarding the bedroom door lest mum discover my shameless pursuits. As much as possible I endured, but avoided her silent, grievous look. This was the late 60s and besides, I was told I had good legs. Despite having knock-knees, pidgeon toes and wearing orthopaedic shoes as a child! In the 70s I made most of my work clothes, fancy three piece pin-stripe suits, lace and linen ensembles, backless satin evening dresses. The latter I christened one night on the way home from the Hofbrauhaus in the Dandenongs by throwing up all over it, only hours after finishing it. Classy! In Alexandria, in Egypt in the early 80s I meticulously hand sewed a red gathered skirt to distract myself from shitting water a hundred times a day whilst nursing myself through an acute bout of amoebic dysentry. A few years later, when Phil and I lost our first child, Carla, at birth, I made dozens of tiny white night-dresses for SIDS babies. Carla’s little nightie that I found recently, after a very long time, made me sad. I made our later kids’ clothes, dinosaur and cat suits, but generally I just draped them like rubber mannequins in whatever happened to be my textile fetish at the time. There’s been wedding dresses, bronze chiffon ones, and black emo ones, and period costume for stage and film including an impressive (impressively large) ostrich-skin codpiece. As wardrobe mistress for one of Juliet Lamont’s first documentary short films, The Players, I relished the opportunity to dress two prostitutes. Corsets and stilettos. Now we're talking! 

Mostly though, I’ve undermined my inner needleworker. A combo of mediocre self-esteem, combined with a general belief that every woman sewed, didn’t they, like learning to set the table during home economics at school, or having to check in at the clinic for a Pap smear every so often. You just didn’t talk about it, did you? Well, you mightn’t! 

Anyhow, after a long 40+ year initiation, I’ve grown up, and bought two industrial machines. I’ve grown up to the extent that I’ve even put a dollar value on my capacity to thread a needle (does this needle actually HAVE a fucking hole, and if so, WHERE?) from the right direction. I’m seriously expensive (but I trade ... seeds, vegetables, overseas trips), and I’m worth it!

 

Here's my new housemates.

This is Bess. She’s named in honor of my maternal grandma who taught me to sew with patience and skill, and the heady smell of Craven A and burnt white toast. Thanks for the life-long nicotine habit Grandma! Bess is the older of the two machines, and when I look at her, she inspires a direct memory link to my old 70s stamping ground, Northcote. All grey, sinister, resilient and dependable. She’s my straight stitcher, and she rocks!

And here's Sissy. Color, sass and subversion are her hallmarks and she represents my paternal nana. She's everything Italian and the woman I credit with my passion for international textiles and cultural difference. Home was Villa Bereguardo, in Diamond Creek, and now that I think of it, her rolling hills, lemon-scented gums and deep valleys symbolize my own personal rite of passage, from young girl to young woman. My humming overlocker.

I think I'm going to like my new job. It’s practical and social. And sexy! I get to put my arms around strangers waists. And between their legs. This is as good as it gets.

Open for Business

Posted with Blogsy

On gums and bums

5.00 a.m. It's something you have to get used to on the Camino, being woken at insane hours, grumpy at the chorus of nasal trumpeters who've kept you awake half the night. Every night I have the earplugs at the ready, and every night they get inserted, fall out, get taken out because I feel like I'm suffocating via hearing-deprivation, get cursed, and despite my best efforts, get lost or swallowed during the night by the angel of mercy! Your typical pilgrim hostel is dormitory style, which you share with anywhere between 4 and 100 people. Neither privacy nor modesty belong on a pilgrimage. They're first world luxuries. Being woken to the sound of backpacks being dragged across the floor, zips opening and closing, plastic bags being rustled, walking poles collapsing in a racket on tiled floors - it's not the kind of gentle introduction to the day I've come to expect and depend on. Not a morning person! I've had to process my resentment at being woken so cruelly. It doesn't get easier.

This morning I suffer the disturbance for 30 minutes, drifting in and out of sleep, and eventually get up around 5.30, my inner huff clearly audible, I'm sure. I sit on the edge of my bed, and drag my pack to my feet. If you can't beat them, you join 'em. The man on the top bunk, who I could particularly strangle this morning - the entire bunk was vibrating under the force of his gasp last night - is standing directly to my right, his hip virtually in my face, arranging something on his bed. He seriously needs to do something about the shock of matted hair on his back. Should I be the person to tell him? In front of me, at arms length, is a large German woman bent double, attending to her blisters. Her arse is almost in my face. I retreat a little further back onto the bed. To my right, another man, from the top bunk on the opposite side. Some people shouldn't wear lycra. He's emptying the contents of his pack all over the floor - why don't you take up the entire floor space you selfish sod? - while clearing his throat and flossing at the same time. I duck to avoid a projectile. Oh for God's sake! Add to this the passing traffic of people moving backwards and forwards to the dunny, and you've got a pretty clear picture of the normal morning routine in your average pilgrim hostel. I lower my head a little deeper into my pack, ferretting unsuccessfully for the bag that contains the electrical stuff, ipad and phone charger, uke tuner, batteries, and head torch. Suddenly I hear tinkle, tinkle, the sound of something light and metallic meeting tiled floor. I squint down onto the floor. A pair of dentures smiles up at me! Oh please!!!!! I look up, from one arse to another, but no-one seems to have noticed. On impulse, and wanting as little physical contact as possible with the 'visitor, I do what any empathic pilgrim would do and with great dexterity, and a further tinkle, tinkle, flick the dislocated smile back in the direction I presume it's come from. In an instant, a hand darts down into the semi-darkness and retrieves it.

I'm sick to the back teeth with it all!!

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

'Swing low, sweet chariot ...'

Maybe I'm cranky this morning because I drank more than my fair share of red wine last night. At $1.50 a jug, why wouldn't I (over) indulge from time to time? I stop at the first cafe I come to, only 2 kms down the road from where I stayed last night, for my second cup of coffee. The first one doesn't count cos it's from a machine. For the next 6 kms all I can think of is my feet, how much they ache, how sad they feel. It's walking on bitumen that does it; so unyielding. I keep reflecting on the fact I've grown muscle on my arms and legs, but not on my feet. They're working SO hard. Poor tired wasted feet!

So I arrive in the next village, having walked only 8 kms. I need a short day I say to myself, recover a bit, give myself a rest. But it's early, 10.00 am and nothing's open, apart from the cafes. I have my third coffee. I know. Bad! I send a text to a friend who's already reached the end of the camino, have a bit of whinge. I'm heard, and feel a bit better. I give the rose I've collected on the way to the woman behind the bar at the cafe, and feel virtuous!

I summon up the energy to keep walking. There are two options, one by the motorway, slightly shorter, far less mountainous, and one up and over the pass. 13 kms up and over the pass! I remember my note to self, no more bitumen if possible! Before I've even reached the edge of town, however, I get cranky again with a busload of tourists for monopolising the pilgrim statue and taking too long to say cheese to their respective cameras. I try distracting myself by drafting a ditty in my head to my sore feet but it lasts all of a minute. Breathe Catherine!

I begin the climb, my mind a monkey, jumping from one thought to another without the slightest effort! What's with the three married men who've propositioned me so far? How very un-Christian pilgrimage! Am I giving out the wrong signals? (fyi fellas, a woman travelling on her own, whether she's 18 or 60, is NOT an open invitation to have sex, so pull your heads in!) Why haven't I had an epiphany yet? I'm only 150 km from the end! What if I haven't had one before I reach Santiago? What then? What will have been the point of the pilgrimage? Should I continue walking? Another Camino? Will I have enough money? Why are the pilgrims who catch buses from village to village and then walk the last 100 kms entitled to the same 'certificate' at the finish as those who walk the whole 800 km? They're fake! Why are the lycra-clad pilgrim cyclists allowed on the same path as the walkers? Why don't they use their bloody bells? Will I find an albergue with a kitchen tonight to cook the big slab of fresh salmon I've got hanging off the back of my pack (thank God it's a cold day!)? Will there be wifi? Where's my Australian friend? Has she reached the end? Blah, blah, mind is out of control!

I hear the church bell chiming from the valley floor. I stop. Look back down the mountain. It stops.

Walking again, I hear the sound and stop to listen again. Nothing. For the third time I begin walking and hear the sound again. I concentrate on it for a moment, and with a start, realize the sound is coming from my pack. It's my uke. Something is moving against one of the strings inside my pack, producing what sounds like the 'C' note. As soon as it occurs to me I'm making the music by the movement of my body, something shifts in me. In musical terms, or should I say in my simplistic musical knowlege, the note 'C' is what is variously described as the 'home key', the note songs sung in the C major scale often finish in, the comfort key. I'm struck by its significance. Coming home, in the realm of a spiritual practise I've followed for years, is coming home to the present, coming home to right here, right now. In the right here, right now, I begin to practise walking meditation, breathing in, breathing out, one foot in front of the other. It's astonishing how little emotional or physical pain there is when you focus on your breath. I walk on, aware of the birdsong, the wind on my face, the sweetness of the jubes I'm tucking into, the pink clover at my feet, the smell of the wild lavender, and come back to my breath, back to one foot in front of the other.

I look down from the mountain and see the highway snaking its way through the valley. The small dark moving shapes are pilgrims moving along, risking life and limb in the traffic. In three hours I've seen no other pilgrims on the mountain. I made the right decision.

Through the ancient chestnut grove.

'... coming for to carry me home'.

Posted with Blogsy

Thank You

Thank you for the wild red poppies and tiny daisies, the hyacinths and even the genetically-engineered canola flowers. They are my ground-dwelling rainbow.

Thank you for my fellow pilgrims, from every nation on earth, including Herman the German, Pavarotti channeller extraordinaire, whose full voice on the mountains and in the valleys brings tears.

Thank you for the chill wind that still blows from the late snow on the mountains surrounding the path, for it cools and comforts the workhorse that is body.

Thank you for the yellow arrows, those trusty hand-painted signs found on trees, rocks, the road and pavement, telegraph poles, houses, hospitals, everywhere. Priceless.

Thank you for the countless sculptures dedicated to the pilgrim. They are a reminder that this is no ordinary walk.

Thank you for Ibuprofen! What remarkable good sense to make the Spanish version three times more powerful than its Australian equivalent.

Thank you for frozen peas, nature's astonishing cold-pack!

Love, Stumpy

 

Posted with Blogsy

Bob and Bloo and the province of the mind

A few days ago I met Bob and Bloo, two Scotsmen, also travelling solo. We've been walking together.

Bob's 73, a grandfather, salesman, and extraordinary storyteller. His stories of the personal lives of European nobility from last century have restored my faith in history.

Bloo (don't ask!) is 62, an ex military pilot, with 35 years experience in the army. Last year he had a stroke, lost his power of speech, but with dogged will and support, has regained it.

When you're walking for up to 8 hours a day, every day, the heat burning down on you, the wind chilling you to the bone, your feet navigating the rocks on the path and screaming 'rest', it tests the fibre of your being, it tests the fibre of your doing. Out on 'the way', in conversation with the other, your common day-to-day censor, fried by the sun or buried underneath the old meat and peas in the deep freeze, becomes inaccessible. Camino Dementia! You become very personal, very quickly.

Keeping pace with the two B's has meant walking faster and further than I normally would. Two days ago, while walking the longest straightest stretch of nothing to date, a 16 km gravel road with no shade, no villages, and nothing to occupy the mind but mind itself, I asked Bloo to tell me what a soldier might be trained to 'think' in similar circumstances. He contemplated the question for a little while and replied 'see that puddle ahead? How far do you think it is?'. Make a guess, then step it out, he suggested. A bit later he continued. 'The horizon, do you want to know how far it is?' Math was never my strong point, but for the sake of conversation, I nodded. His response included words like height, square root and multiplication. Try it, he said. I spat the dummy. 'I'm not playing' I replied. 'That kind of game reminds me of questions thrown at me as a child, questions I could never answer. You remind me of my father!'. OUCH! He stopped, looked at me, and the offence was obvious! Censorius Unavailabilius! What a bitch!

Some time later, falling back to walk separately, my mind attached itself to how strong I was becoming, how powerfully I was walking, and, wait for it, comparing myself with the cripples on the path. Sure, I'd had some blisters but they'd healed. Fifteen minutes later, striding along confidently, my foot suddenly, and momentarily, went numb. I was concerned for half a minute, then not. A kilometre down the road I was crouched on the grass by the side of the road, shoe off, pain searing my foot, the two B's at my side offering comfort.

'4 days, no walking' said the doctor. Tendinitis!

Bye Bob and Bloo. Thanks for the lesson.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Day 15: Reflections on the Camino

This morning I left the albergue (pilgrim hostel) feeling a bit flat. My right foot was sore because I'd taken lots of skin off my little toe yesterday - ten mins after my blisters had healed! - by stubbing it while enthusiastically photographing the phenomenal stork's nest on top of the church.

I walk on. Along gravel paths, through zucchini-green wheat fields and canola crops. In the past few days, as soon as you leave one village, the next is visible in the distance, its not-so-silent witness, the church bell tolling across the meadows.
It came to me. I was feeling lonely and full of self-pity. I had no-one to walk with. I walk at snail's pace and everyone I've made a connection with so far has long since passed. In 'Sinning Across Spain' Alisa Piper would say I'm carrying too many sins in the heavy pack on my back.
As I turn the corner on the narrow cobbled road of the next village, I'm struck by the familiarity of the woman walking in front of me. Her hair, gait, body. It's my sister. Not literally of course but I'm immediately reminded that before I left home I told friends and family I was walking with them. It's a sign. Back on the path 30 mins later, walking toward me in the opposite direction, are a woman, man, three young children, and three heavily laden woolly donkeys. My first impulse is to reach for my camera, my second, intrusion. I stop by the side of the path to let them pass, and call to the woman leading the way 'peregrina (pilgrim)?'. Si, is her response. Another sign. I'm not alone.
My loneliness passes. I contemplate ending my day's journey 4 kms further down the track, a short day's walk. There are three mountains to traverse today, and I'm not feeling particularly energetic. I reach the next village which involves a short walk along the national highway. As I walk on the narrow culvert, trucks overtaking each other, I feel vulnerable, small and quite fearful. My protection mantra gets a good work-out.
At the village, I sit with an Irish woman who was at the same albergue three or four nights ago when I played some uke. I've become known as both a witch (the woman who carries the homoeopathic first aid kit and likes to share it), and loco (crazy, for carrying a ukulele). After a short conversation I rise to leave. She gestures for me to sit down, she has something to tell me. The evening I played, she tells me, was the first anniversary of her husband's death from a violent heart attack. 'Down by the River to Pray', and 'I'll fly away', songs I led that night, were songs played at his funeral and she wanted to say how moved she was. I'm brought undone.

Posted with Blogsy

Fisherwoman

It was the whimsy, so endearing

I said to myself later at home

that turned my gaze northward

toward the unlikely sound

of a voice, rising with beauty

above the crash of the ocean

against the colossal granite

at the end of the wall

Amongst the rotting flesh and

discarded tackle of her peers,

dressed in grey trackies

faded flannel shirt and scuffed sneakers

her unruly curls defied the constraint of her beanie

as I became captive to her face,

aged, lovely, a classic Renoir,

and her unselfconscious melody

With hands masterful and deft

she baited her rod

paused to let the dolphins pass,

looked back, and cast long

a practised throw, plonk

one solitary fisherwoman,

with a song in her heart

How beguiling!

A meeting with a monk

 

I see him initially at the Hong Kong Ladies Market, a garish evening bazaar, bursting with acres of vulgar plastic junk destined for land-fill in a year's time, imitation-designer handbags and t-shirts, faux jade buddhas and beads.  He's tall for an Asian, wears a wide and rather sinister-looking smile, crew-cut, a floor length grey tunic and mala. Walking the narrow aisle, meeting the eyes of the tourists who dare meet his, he extends his alms bowl cupped in both hands.  Something inside warns suss, but I suppress it. Way too irreverent Catherine.  We look each other in the eye, he proffers his bowl, and I move on.   I’m not giving!  I feel petty and pathetic for harbouring such unholy thoughts about a holy man, but it’s my temperament.  I like my monks earnest!

Three days later, 9 pm, the heat intense, I’m on my second and last excursion back to the bazaar.  Getting there and back in a hurry is my main objective.  I’m just about to cross the street at the traffic lights when I notice the monk from the bazaar on the other side of the road. My reaction is not altogether pleasant, but I make a decision to practise the art of generosity this time and as the lights change, I move across the road, fishing for my wallet.  As I reach him I place my hands together in prayer and place $5 (80c) in his bowl. Simultaneously, from the folds of his tunic he extracts a small red plastic sheath, embossed with Chinese inscriptions, something firm and flat inside, and hands it to me.  I’m taken aback. Instinctively I look down at my wallet, and remove another $20.  Looking up at him he looks into my wallet, points to the $100 bill, shakes his head at my offering, and says ‘one hundred’.  You've got to be bloody joking, I think!  I look down at my wallet again, back at him, try and process my horror, place the $20 in his alms bowl, and turn and flee.

For days afterwards I suffer a terrible disquiet.  Should I have given more? Was his gift valuable? Should I have returned it? Why did I run, not challenge him?  Who was he?  Why me? Should I track him down? Was he a fake?  Stashing some extra cash away for smokes? The reflections and neurotic questions were endless, and disconcerting. 

“Why do you have to make things so complicated!” my sister replied when I returned home and told her the story.

Then I did a google search, 'Monks, Hong Kong'

Time I learnt to trust my intuition methinks.

 

Hong Kong and the Muse

This is Hong Kong from Peak Tower, the island’s highest point.   It’s spectacular in a concrete and commercial kind of way,  and represents every reason I don’t live in a city.

We're 14 (8 clients, 6 support staff) from a disability support organization in Lismore, and it's our last night of the holiday so we've splashed out on the night habour cruise.   Sitting on the back deck of the Shining Star, in a plastic chair, drinking complimentary Nescafe, and wishing it was red wine, I’m taking in dramatic fields of laser beams, neon lights, flashing billboards. You'll just have to imagine it.  As if in empathic overwhelm, my camera died! Giant video screens perched atop monolithic high-rise advertise, well, you name it, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Hong Kong Bank and the rest of the qian (money) whose hands are low in the pockets  of Hong Kong Tourism.  I feel six parts assaulted, four parts numb.

Every few minutes I look back at Eve (not her real name).  She’s sitting on a cushioned bench seat away from the rest of us because she’s afraid of heights, the boat, the water. In her cosy corner, as is her wont, she’s jabbering away to herself, and gazing out at the world with absent interest.  She’s 55 and has Down’s Syndrome, which means she’s already outlived most of her contemporaries.   I’m here to provide for her needs, pop her meds out of the webster pack, help her in and out of the bath, wipe her bottom, cajole and bribe her into cleaning her teeth,  document her trip with her camera at the same time documenting my own trip with my own camera, guide her choice of meals, gifts and activities, and change her money into local currency.   I’ve pushed her wheelchair, rubbed cream into her necrotizing lower legs and feet, eased on her pressure stockings, soothed her anxieties and countless times, at her behest, felt the pacemaker under her skin. She’s worth it. When she looks at me and smiles it feels authentic in a way I’m unused to, unaffected by layers of cynical judgment.  She calls me sister, and has a wicked sense of humor that rings all my perverse bells.  Given my father’s constant infidelities, she could be onto something!

From a distance I watch as a Chinese woman of about the same age arrives on the couch near her and attempts to make conversation.  I’m humoured, uneasy. Should I go over and explain, intervene?  Eve’s oblivious. For ten days now I’ve wondered what she’s saying.  This soft but audible chatter wakes me at night,  loud enough to disturb my sleep but not loud enough to make out what she’s saying, save for a word of two.  Tonight though, I think I have it.  I think she’s got a visual (photographic) memory, and is repeating the text she reads everyday in ‘A Thousand Scientific Facts’, a book she bought on the trip. Occasionally I read over her shoulder, so taken am I by her interests. Why don’t snakes have legs; How do bees produce honey; Why do some trees live for hundreds of years; Why is ear wax yellow.

I want to be in her head! Nature, such comforting innocence!

Meet Mahko

Name:                             Mahko

Gender:                          Gentleman

Location:                         Brunswick Heads NSW

Date of Birth:                  Some time during 1620

Relationship Status:       Single

Smoking:                        Not near me you won’t!

Personality:                    Attention-seeking

Nationality:                     Cross-cultural

Employment:                  Wallflower

Diet:                                Healthy admiration

Religion:                         What?

Dress Sense:                  Ostentatious

Interests:                         Hot babes

Children:                         Only if they look like me!

Facts and Footnotes:

Mahko is one of three period costume pieces I designed and constructed during studies for a  Diploma of Theatre Costume Manufacturing 1998/9.

Mahko is for sale (or hire/contract)

Ensemble:                   Doublet (jacket)

                                    Trunkhose (trousers)

                                    Detachable codpiece

                                    Lace Ruff

                                    Suede Beret

                                    Lamé stockings 

                                    Shoes
                                    (7 items) 

Medium:                      Ostrich skin, antique nylon
                                    quilting, skin print tapestry,
                                    silk Indian sari, lamé,
                                    suede, gold braid, cotton,
                                    lace, metal
                                           

Viewing/enquiries:       Phone: 0431 600 138

                                    POA, negotiable

Stand by in coming weeks for introductions to Mahko's eclectic family, Hadisha and Lush.

catherineperversi@gmail.com

A Case for Ageing

‘In another time and plaee, the lines on a woman’s face would be revered as her life map’.  So said Helen Garner.  That place and time sounds rather friendly, uncomplicated, noble. In that cultural heaven , I’m a wise old crone, with a wise old story.  In the cultural wasteland that’s Australia, I’m 58 going on 70, past my use-by date, and invisible. 

But me, I’m not bothered, secure in the knowledge that my ageing body’s a temple, or so says  Crystal down the road.  Every week I can look forward to a brand new discovery, a brand new me.  Some new protrudance, a  couple of extra liver spots, a plump new mid-range tyre or two, a novel patch of previously unnoticed weathered epidermis, a sag here and a sag there.  Delightful, never-ending.  Age throws you a surprise a minute. The sub-text of this phenomenon - Practising for Death! Normal, perfectly normal.  Not your experience? You wait!

Some of my changing fortunes then?  Those things beginning to bulge on either side of my lower face for example.  What are they – well, jowls of course.  When and why did they decide to take refuge on my jaw when they could have applied for bed and breakfast in my cheeks, give my face a bit of  pup? As a matter of fact they resolved to land there because inner guidance informed them of my fascination for the triangular, three’s a very potent spiritual number, the holy trinity ‘n all, and therefore, as a fan of threesomes, my jowls are just being considerate.  Any day now I’m going to be blessed with three chins, that’s a pair of jowls and a chin.  Terrific, I’ll be able to wear my holiness on my face!

Then there’s my eyelids, well, the left one really.  I’ve noticed it’s become a bit lazy and droopy lately.   I’m quite appreciative of this though because your poor eyes have to look at things all day, be hyper-alert to what’s going on, stare at the computer, be mindful of risks.  It’s protecting my eye, and I didn’t even have to ask!  My right eye, on the other hand is on constant holiday, up and cheerful. Damned party animal.  This type of duality is part of the natural law of the universe, so obviously I’m stoked things are on track in my body.  Pretty soon no doubt I’ll only have to invest in one lens. That’ll save me heaps!

And those small benign rough lumps that are popping out all over the place, you may know them as warts, they’re especially useful too. Since they belong to that furiously resilient family, the same one as the cockroach, they’re never going to die and that means part of me will live forever . Woohoo! From a creative perspective these lumps are priceless because I’ve come up with a plan, well, it was Crystal's idea actually. She reckons they’ll work perfectly as a central feature in some body tattooing we were discussing, and that the ones on my leg will look ace worked into a mandala. I’ll just have to add color.  It’s a goer!

That fine-lined crepe paper effect on my chicken flaps, that’s the floppy bit forming  the inside of your upper arm, well it’s sort of fetching too, and sure, I understand that for the benefit of husband-scanning I may have to reassess the advantages of sleeveless frocks but hey, I can volunteer as a super-model for Hallmark, the fine manufacturers of quality cards and wrapping paper!

I ask you, why would you resort to the knife when, at the altar of your very own personal place of worship, such constant and fulfilling astonishment is at play? 

Not convinced?

Then chin up girls!