She’s a good coathanger

Beauty runs in my family although I have wrestled with it for most of my life. I have known people who were very beautiful who had hardly any awareness of the fact. It is kind of like that in my family. I have siblings and parents who are so nonchalant about the way the look it’s like they have heard nothing at all about the concept. Not much about the word.

Beauty? Huh?

It just doesn’t occur to them. Beyond a cursory glance at their reflection where they don’t see it anyway.

That’s not how beauty feels to me. I see a prize. My family are wearing prizes on their faces. Awards. Because there is a prize then there is also a test, a competition, a struggle. There is effort. That is my relationship to beauty.

Or was. It has softened with time. There not much left of the struggle. Also I see a lot better these days even though I need glasses for nearly everything. Everything in fineprint.

When I was twenty my older sister became Miss Northern Beaches. Just like that, she was her. My older sister had no idea that she was even attractive. Next thing you know, she is a beauty queen.

She was very well suited to her new role. Not just because she looked great but because she had no issue with being beautiful. It didn’t feature in her consciousness, neither as a positive or a negative. It was absent.

She basically didn’t care. She was gorgeous, olive skinned, beaches personified and unselfconscious. I used to tell her she was part aboriginal. No-one has ever known where her suntan comes from. It is a question mark in our family genealogy.

In order to wear her new sash and crown and be a queen, my sister was obliged to raise money for charity. It was the essence of her brief. Smile. Be friendly to everything. And please make as much money as you can.

One day in her year of reign she decided to stage a fashion show. I only barely remember her invitation to me to be a part of it. I think it was more like a demand.

“You’re in it” she said.

“Me? I don’t know how to model.”

“Well you should. You’re beautiful! You should be a model!” She was always telling me stuff like that. That’s the other thing about beautiful people. About unselfconscious beautiful people. They aren’t jealous.

My sister was always very encouraging towrad me. She would frequently tell me I was gorgeous. She never quite understood that I didn’t believe it. And I didn’t understand at all why beauty wasn’t painful for her.

My sister raked in me and all of her girlfriends to be models for her show. Many of her friends were already doing some modelling. Not high-end modelling. Not shalllow-end. Mid-end modelling. I know that’s never going to catch on but that is where they were modelling. Somewhere mid-end.

We each had an assortment of outfits to wear. I only remember two: one was a little sailor suit. Sailor suits were very in in the year of my sister’s reign. A sailor suit and a little sailor hat.

There other outfit was a swimming costume.

This one was a full piece. A full piece swimming costume in leopard print, bright emerald green. Almost fluorescent green.

I loved it. It was very bling. Very euro-trash. Not very northern beaches.

I felt super confident. In green leopard print I was completely in my skin.

There was no time for a real rehearsal, just a run through. Walk to the end, turn, no … small pose … turn, then walk back. On high heels..There was no getting away from them on any catwalk. The only exceptions are actual walking cats or actual walking leopards. I have never seen any image of either of those creatures during one of their walks wearing heels.

Lights down and my sister was on stage talking to the assembled guests like a queen. We waited for her backstage to take her place in the queue of us and then the show started.

Boom boom boom – lights heels yeah!!! Boom boom boom – little sailor hat yeah!!! Thud, boom whoops – someone nearly fell ( I think it was my sister) … !!! Boom boom boom – la de da de da!!!!

And it was over.

Two of the guests in the audience were my mother and her friend, a professional (retired) model. My mother’s friend had been the face of a fictional character in a long running story in an Australian women’s magazine. The story appeared every week and her face about every month, to remind readers that the fictional story was real.

Afterwards, my mother conveyed to my sister and I her friends’ professional appraisal.

I forget what was said was to my sister. She was already a queen so it didn’t really matter much.

For me, she offered this:

She’s a good coathanger.

It is the only thing I remember. To be fair I think it was the only thing she said.

I’m sure it was supposed to be a compliment.

It sort of worked. Except that a coathanger has no face.

I saw the photos of the modelling show some time later. We took them to show to all the members of our family.

I remember looking at them and thinking two things:

One: I looked so serious. No smile whatsoever.

And two: I looked beautiful.

Wait a bit. Then take another look. Turn around … and you’re beautiful.

Love works on the inside. But keep turning around.

Because you’re beautiful.

I See Him Well

The other night I saw my father well. I can still see the image now. So clearly. I will describe it to you.

My father is standing in the kitchen with a walking frame. It looks like a light aluminium frame and he is standing behind it. He is making a pot of tea and smiling broadly. He is smiling, talking and laughing all at the same time.

He is so tall, as usual. but because I haven’t seen him in a while he seems really tall. Hardly anyone is tall here in Britain. I think I am one of the tallest. So seeing someone tall at long last, suddenly they look really tall. Long! Amazing! Giant!

He looks so happy. He is slightly paler and a bit thinner than when I last saw him but I am aware that he heftier and less pale than he has been recently. Hospitals are no places for a suntan. There are many better places.

In the act of making tea for himself and another, possibly a few, he is finding joy again. It is one of those acts – next to the treating of someone who is ill and turning it into a text book – that brings him great joy.

He loves it. If you are in Sydney and you are hanging for a cuppa I cannot recommend a better establishment. You would be making him happy if you said yes to his invitation. He will make it for you. And then he will bring it to you, somehow, on his new frame  When he is better.

This is what I see.

I see him well. I see him utterly well. I see him radiant.

Ask him about the tea later. He will confirm it for you.

My father is at the beginnings of his at home recovery. He was discharged from hospital on Monday, home that afternoon. If they had not discharged him he would have possibly charged his own way out. He was ready to be home.

Yesterday he finished weeks of intravenous and oral antibiotics. Two weeks of each. I have never known anyone, personally, who has taken so many. I had never even heard of intravenous antibiotics until now. Now you know.

My Dad is in recovery from all of it. It is one of those recoveries that has made it into a saying. Slow but sure. His is a sure recovery but it might also be be a little slow. A little bit slower than he wants. I can hear his want and determination in his voice, faint, soft and gentle.

His voice can bring me to tears. It is so beautful. So loving, so receptive to love. I have rarely heard any voice so receptive to love. Perhaps it is the effect of being walloped to the ground by events beyond our control that brings us into this state of receiving.

Whatever it is, it seems rare and very beautiful. When I tell him that I love him he says “thankyou” in the most gracious, transparent way. I can feel it go in. He is Love’s sponge. He feels every drop. He makes it so easy to love.

I had a request for Pete. I wasn’t embarrassed to request it with Pete but I am a little to write it here. I don’t quite know how to put it. I guess it’s personal but what is a blog for if it is not a place for the highly, highly personal? When was the last time anyone ever wrote a private diary that wasn’t available to the whole world to read? Exactly.

Here is the page from my secret diary available for the whole wide world to read:

I asked Pete to pray with me. I don’t really know what religion Pete is. I have no idea what religion I am. I think I am all of them. Which is a good start, maybe. Come to think of it.

I’ll take all those gods please and the real one, thankyou .. if the real one would care to stand up …

I pray all the time. Maybe it is my religion. My life without prayer, without hope, without the power that prayer brings would be very different. I am glad it is not. I cannot imagine a life without prayer. Why would I? When nothing else works, prayer always does. I would never say never.

I have never won the lottery doing this so I guess there are limitations. No to what we pray for but nevertheless ..  If I couldn’t pray I would invent something to substitute it. I have no idea what that would be. Probably the same thing with a new name. With a twist …

“Pete, will you pray with me please?”

“Yes” he said “that’s a good idea.”

We lay there in the dark with our eyes closed. It was night-time. Silence. Side by side.

I saw my father as soon as I closed my eyes. I saw him as clear as anything. Standing there. Tall and smiling in the kitchen. With his walking frame. Making a cup of tea.

I can still see it now. I can see him. I can practically hear him. I know he is saying something funny. He is laughing and talking through it.

He looks so happy.

He is becoming this happiness.

He may seem a little bit away from it now but he is becoming it, he is becoming himself again.

Standing tall.

Making jokes and tea for everyone.

With love for my father and his wonderful, lovely wife who cares for him without end.

Falling off the face of the Earth

Soon we will be moving. I say soon because everything is relative. We have no dates whatsoever. It could be sooner than you think … For that reason I wouldn’t want to give a time line even if I could. It might be sooner than that.

We are at the very beginnings of change. We have ideas about nothing. We both want to be in Australia. That is about as far as we have got.

Nothing else is set up which means we have free reign.

Which means I have plenty of time to freak out about how the change will affect us.

Here is my fear, in a nutshell. Here is what the change brings up in me. I’m not trying to be uncool about it. I know that it is uncool. If I could have it my way, I wouldn’t be thinking this stuff at all. I would be cool.

But I can’t even imagine that. As I am writing now, I am trying to imagine what it would be like if I were not worried about this stuff … and  … I actually can not do it. My resources run dry. I am in the desert. I have no imagination for this stuff. My imagination is much better set up for freaking out, like this:

We don’t have enough money! We’ll never have enough money! Pete’s not going to get enough money!!!! He doesn’t care enough about money!!!! I have to care about money because he doesn’t! We’re going to die!!!! We’re going to starve!!! We’re going to live in a cave!!!

I don’t say things like this out loud. Of course not. That would be embarrassing.

I just think them.

The antidote is this, a scenario that is so peaceful I fall asleep thinking about it. Pete is on the telephone, just over there, by the door. He brings the phone in here to stand looking out of the window and proceeds to utter the following words:

Hello! Yes this is Pete! Yes I am calling from Scotland! Yes I am looking for work in Australia which is ten thousand miles from here! Yes that is the sort of figure my wife has been bandying about! Yes I do think Gigi will be very happy with that! Yes I am glad that fits perfectly with you! Yes I can start that day! See you then! Bye-bye …

Our move is very influenced by Pete’s work. He wins all the bread in this household meaning every loaf. One day, if I am lucky enough, I will win some too. I have some ideas. You might even be reading some right now.

Pete is so accomplished. Seven years in the Yoo-Kay has added many strings to his bow. Yet today he doesn’t really know exactly what it is that he wants to do. I know this because he told me recently. But I am trying to forget he said it. It’s so indefinite when you don’t know what you want to do. It could mean anything. It could mean just reason for a freak out.

I hesitate to write any of this because it sounds so awful. But … it’s like falling off a cliff. That’s how it feels. If I try not to think about it I feel like I am falling off the face of the earth. With no safety net, no two stars coming together to catch me.

Sometimes it makes us laugh. If I say it in a funny way it does. “A billion dollars a year!!!!” But he knows I mean it. So the laughter is short and sweet – more like a spasm.

Then … he goes his way and I go mine. On this topic.

With less interference, Pete can dream. He can be the man in the night sky, the one in the clown costume, navy and gold, with a pom-pom on the top of his pointy hat. He is balancing cross-legged on the crest of the moon and throwing glitter to the stars. From his dreaming stance he can see every opportunity and catch his own dreams.

He doesn’t tell me what he is up to. He is talking with lots of people I think. But none of them are me.

It’s a perfect arrangement that I wish I could take credit for. But our friend thought of it for us.

If Pete does accidentally open up about where he is in the dreaming I just block my ears.

“Lalalala!!!! You’re not supposed to be talking to me about that. I can’t be that friend right now, remember? Find another one to talk to about it. Phone someone. Phone a friend!”

When Elyjah was here – just a few days ago, here!, stayed here, in this house!  - I overheard a part of a conversation they were having that went something like this:

“… mumble mumble mumble … work … yeah, I’ve always liked forests …”

“Lalalala! That’s supposed to be a private conversation. I only want to hear words like “forest” and “work” when it includes phrases like ‘two or three hundred thousand dollars a year. Remember?’”

Like they could forget.

They were heading out to the garden. Elyjah was rolling a cigarette in one hand and pulling open the door with the other.

When he heard me he stopped and pulled the door wider, enough so that he could spin around, like a ballerina, to look me straight in the eye. “Don’t worry honey. I’m totally looking out for you!”

I understand this is comedy. I trust this comedy.

It feels a bit shaky right now because … well because.

Pete is going to find his way. And his way will be the way. In that I have unshakeable trust.

Maybe comedy is the salve that makes it easier to navigate when you are not feeling strong.

But I have a clown costume somewhere. One day, if I feel like I am falling again it could be like this:

I am falling, falling off the face of the earth. And Elyjah is there. Elyjah and someone else. It’s Pete. In his clown costume. Two stars.

No, three.

I can fly.

Angels

Sometimes you just need an angel.

My Dad is getting better. He will be out of hospital soon. By the end of this week.

But he needs an angel. And so I am writing to ask whether you know of any.

An angel or a choir of them. His recovery has left him feeling weak.

“You just need to get home. You will feel better when you are home, in your own bed, looking at your own view – they have a lovely harbour-side one – and in your own kitchen. Just walking around your own place.”

“I know” he says “I will feel much better when I am home.”

Which is why everyone has been campaigning for his release.

Free Fred Stephens! Free him!

Unfortunately my father got pneumonia in hospital. To cure him they put antibiotics straight into his blood. Now he is taking them straight into his tummy.

It’s been a bit waring.

His appetite has gone. His tummy is complaining.

He is still recovering from a broken pelvis. Now from painkillers, antibiotics.

He doesn’t swear and he doesn’t like it when his family or especially his children do. But I am pretty sure he is feeling sh*te. Completely and utterly beyond sh*te.

He is taking an infusion of the good bugs with the unpronounceable Latin names to help his tummy.

But …

I think he needs an angel.

Or some.

They could help to detoxify his system, give him back his vigour, make it easier for him to see the funny side. He is trying.

To help him feel himself again.

And that is why I am writing.

If you know an angel, any Australian angels, Sydney-siders, an angel that would like to see the lovely view, we could connect. If you know an angel, if you would like you could leave a comment. Maybe someone who practices acupressure or acupuncture. Or brings their own healing – a beautiful, intuitive healing.

I cannot tell you the number of times I have benefitted from all three and more.

If you are too far away, if you don’t know of any, you could still help my Dad if you would like to.

Because I have received healing, deep and far-reaching, through the air as well. Invisible healing. Healing that has been so profound and changed my being so much it was hard to remember I had needed it.

I am not talking about emails through the air although many times the words sent in them have healed me.

Two weeks ago, I lay on my bed sobbing. I had been like it for days. Then I called my friend.

“Good timing” she said. “My house is full of women. We are just about to have our first women’s group meeting. Is there something you need?”

“Yes” I said and told her.

“Okay. And really allow yourself to feel included” she said.

I hung up and went back to cry and cry and cry. I couldn’t stop. I only stopped to pray. Please, I prayed. Please help.

After fifteen minutes I thought I should get up and start dinner. It is about ten paces from our bedroom to our kitchen. By the time I got there, I was better.

Not only better. I felt amazing. I felt so calm. I felt like how I imagine my friend feels - soft on the inside. I felt so soft and so calm.  I felt relaxed. Deep peace. I felt absolutely calm and together. I felt well.

She told me later that she and the women had included me and my Dad in their circle. They sent us love and healing. It was what I had been praying for.

She did it again last week. It was just her and a friend that time. ‘We are here in a heartspace. We will bring you into it” she said. And the same thing happened.

Invisible healing.

Prayer.

Good wishes.

They all work.

Freely available miracles.

The power within us, what we can do with our hearts … is miraculous.

If you would like to help my Dad I would love that. You could just send him a good wish, light or love. I would love whatever you could do. He would too. although I might not tell him. I will probably just show him this. I hope he will forgive the swearing.

Maybe you are lucky enough to also be part of a wonderful group; a prayer group, a healing group or meditation circle. If you are and feel inclined I would be so grateful if you would send him your prayers and your healing wishes.

You might include him by name or just as Gigi’s Dad. I am sure the Universe will know who you are talking about.

I cannot say how happy I am to even be able to offer my dumb old blog for this deeply heartfelt purpose.

Thankyou, so very, very much.

With all my love.

Last chance saloon

I have given them every chance. I have lived in a cold country for seven years. They have not seen the sun in all that time. It’s now or never. Meaning, I hope they are gone for good. But I doubt it.

Freckles have a way of turning up again. They will come back at the very first opportunity. With the very first rays. If you give them maybe just a glance at the sun they will do this. They feel invited.

I just know they’re going to come back.

Oh well.

Once I transformed the semblance of my whole genealogy. I did this on my own and without any recourse to science.

It was a three-step programme, so simple anyone could do it. I noticed no-one else did but maybe they didn’t have enough cause. You need cause to pull off the transformation of your semblance.

I did it like this – the tools of my trade:: hair dryer; hydrogen peroxide; fake tan. So simple.

With my tools I: bleached and straightened my hair adding a foot to it’s length (two steps) and; I gave myself a seamless orange tan, a foil for my freckles.

It was miraculous. I looked noting like me

Everything was going well. But one day followed by the next day and each day thereafter the peroxide and the hairdryer combined to break every strand of hair they had been allowed to assault – snap! snap! snap!!!!  

By the time I got to college I was forced to cut off the remaining five bunches of straw -ninety wisened strands in total – and contend with many feet less tress.

I was forced to throw away my tools.

I had to leave my hair plain red.

In leaving me alone …

after many many years …

I cannot say how many …

sorry about that …

I was forced, somehow, through acceptance, patience and getting my eyes fixed

… to love it.

The irony in all this is that by the time I did, the fire in my hair had stared to go out. It was more like embers.

Ballocks!

I loved that freakin’ hair!

Never mind. It’s still red. I found a way.

Before this, before the assault, before camouflage, I had about a million freckles. I was only aware of about two or three hundred as most of them were behind me.

But every now and then I was reminded of them by embarrassing, random questions that I had to field.

One day, when I was fifteen, I was standing in a bikini somewhere in the city.

It was a soulless room in a soulless building in a soulless, commercial, transactional part of North Sydney.

I am with my friend from school. Her stepmother has asked me to audition for a television commercial. The television commercial is for a new drink, one that will rival coke-a-cola. I could tell you the name but you will most likely never have heard of it. It was not a lasting threat.

The television commercial will be set on the beach. They are looking for a beach-y type. The other girls in the room look nothing like me. They are all tanned. They have on a lot of makeup and hair-spray.

I feel … 

The word I am looking for is exposed but I do not know that word yet, for this. So I am just standing in a bikini in here. I have been advised to wear high heels and am wearing the advice.

I am tall for fifteen. I will be tall for twenty one day, then thirty. Etc. I will be tall for the rest of my life.

Everyone is allocated a partner to go into the audition room. The girl I go in with is half my height and barefoot which makes her even shorter and me even taller. I feel towering. Together we look like David and Goliath.

She is friendly and relaxed. As well as being small she is natural looking. Golden skin. Choppy blond mop. No makeup. I feel like advising her to put on high heels though.

I am already pale but next to her I look like someone form the moon with freckles that I am barely aware of.

We stand in a spotlight in an otherwise blacked out room. I can just make out a group of people sitting in armchairs at the end of the room. There are about five of them – invisible in the black. They ask us questions from the darkness. One of them has an American accent.

Suddenly, there is a loud question.

“Do your freckles go dark in the sun?” It is the invisible American.

No-one answers. We can’t see anything. I personally know nothing about freckles going dark in the sun.

Then I realise it is a question for me.

“Pardon?” I say.

“Do your freckles go dark in the sun?” he asks again.

“No” I answer. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

I have no idea.

As we are leaving, someone calls out: “Don’t cut your hair!” I don’t know who of course.

I hope they had a good look.

The girl I went in with gets the part: later I see her on television, on billboards and in every available media. She is perfect: beach-y, sweet and with the power to sell chocolate milk.

I tell you all this for two reasons: My freckles don’t go dark in the sun. They do appear though. They show up.

The other reason is: we are moving back to Australia. As I write that my heart lightens. It is practically floating. It must be a good idea.

We don’t know how or when but it is our next move.

Australia is very sunny.

I just know my freckles are going to show up.

Probably Qantas will hand them back to me when we get on the plane.

Excuse me madame?

Yes?

I believe these are yours.

Yes they are. I will answer. They are beautiful, don’t you think?

Funny bone

My father s surrounded by flowers in hospital. I can’t see them because he is too far away. But I think I can smell some of them.

His room is full: of flowers, cards, invisible well wishes. There is just enough room left for him. I hope he is comfortable.

“Some of the cards” he starts up sounding as if he is smothering something – either a chortle or a giggle “some are very funny!” he says.

Oh how he loves the funny stuff. Anything funny. If you have any spare, anything remotely side-splitting, perhaps you have an old joke cluttering up your place, I would be happy to pass it on to my father. Once you are done with it. I cannot think of a better new home.

“Did you get my book?” I ask.

“No”

“The Dumb Britain book?”

“No”

“Oh”

Two days later he emailed. “Your very funny book arrived!”

No-one is going to laugh harder at the Dumb Britain book than my Dad. It’s a kind of fact-file for people like him. All for brains also means all for stupid. Nothing will make him laugh more.

Dumb Britain. From Private Eye. A collection of questions and answers from quiz shows here in the Yuk (UK.). Billed: real contestants, real quizzes, real dumb. Perhaps there are international equivalents: You could google another country. Maybe your country is dumb. I am hoping that we are not the dumbest.

Here is an example of how dumb we are, swiped straight from the book which makes me a quasi-plagiarist. Quasi-plagui. I do apologise. In my defence I could not make this stuff up.

from the book …

Phil Wood (BBC GMR): What ‘K’ could be described as the Islamic Bible?

Contestant: Er…

Phil: It’s got two sylla-bles… Kor…

Contestant: Blimey?

Phil:Ha ha ha, no. The past participle of run…

Contestant: Silence

Phil:Okay, try it another way. Today I run, yesterday I…

Contestant: Walked?

My father laughs more and is funnier than ever these days. He is so free with his jokes, transparent with his joy. His voice is young and clear – not a day over thirty. It is commanding and fresh. There is an in-built invitation to make him giggle. He may have a few more wrinkles but he sounds about the youngest I have ever heard him.

“Oh” he says with droll “things keep falling apart. The doctors keep sticking them back on. About the only thing that isn’t falling apart is my brain.”

“Dad” I say. “I’m sorry to tell you this but …” He gets the joke. He laughs and laughs. He loves that joke.

The last time he was in hospital, he had a fantastic team looking after him. They helped him with the multitude of knock-on effect health issues he was having. My Dad was like a domino then. This remedy for that .That remedy for this, this for that, this, that and … Voila! He was better and out of hospital.

“Dad” I said. “I’m a bit concerned about this great team of yours. They have completely failed to fix your faulty sense of humour. And your political views (which are linked and that is being kind) …  But I guess that would take a miracle.”

“Ha ha ha ha!!!’ he laughed and laughed. Then he said something funny again about Al Gore’s climate change, like Al Gore invented it, and then about the Australian government and then I passed him on to Pete with urgent, mimed instructions to Pete to ignore every word …

Dad says the worst jokes he ever heard in his life came from the theatre. Not the West-End theatres. The other ones. The ones with the person lying on the table entrusting you with their life, ones. The ones where you stall life, cut it open, mend it, sew it back together and re-start it. Those.

The very rudest. The most unrepeatable. He usually didn’t repeat them.

“I heard a very funny joke in theatre today” he would say.

“What was it?”

“Uh … I can’t tell you”

“Dad!”

“Sorry.” Then he would change the subject. Probably the only people who ever got to hear those jokes were the team.

“There was an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman. None of them wore underpants…”

“… Scalpel …”

When the tension is that high, when the Universe is extracting every particle of skill, focus and artistry from every member of the team so that they operate as one in service of another one, at some point, when the worst is over, when the finest of lines has been trod but not crossed, woven into new life, someone is going to crack at joke.

“ … and up went the wind, lifting the Scotsman’s kilt to the sky…”

My Dad the lion king. Funny and noble. Commanding, fresh voiced.

Maybe he is the strength I look for when I am sad. The commanding person.

He listens to too much talk-back radio. If he turned it off, it would heal all his political opinions.

I don’t know about his jokes though …

Oh gosh! There’s room for one more … from the book.

Here it is:

Daryl Denham (Virgin Radio): In which country would you spend shekels?

Contestant: Holland?

Daryl: Try the next letter of the alphabet.

Contestant: Iceland? Ireland?

Daryl: It’s a bad line. Did you say Israel?

Contestant: No.

The remedy of flowers

You should see the flower arrangements my mother throws together. She could pick dirt from the ground, throw it in a vase and it would look beautiful. She does this all with her eyes closed. It is one of the marvels of our world.

I had forgotten how good she was at it until she sent me a photo recently. It was a gorgeous arrangement she had pulled together in her sleep, I think. Something from the ground here – a daffodil – something from a tree there – a twig – and omg, she’s done it again. Gold and amber, eucalyptus grey and green. A blue-green vase.

I don’t even think she realises. She only sent me the photograph to show me the season of her garden. The season of her garden, at this moment, is autumn-spring.

Her garden gifts her jonquils … here you are, some jonquils … for your table …

It imparts rosy autumn hues on the branches of deciduous trees  ... perhaps some gold to go with that … some rosy hues … what about some amber? …

It is autumn in Australia. But my mother’s garden is having a little party. Two seasons! For the price of one! There is so much to give.

My mother sends photos from her I-Phone. Like every photo that phone of hers sends out, it arrived upside down on our computer. They all arrive either upside down or sideways. This gives my mother the sh*ts. She writes to me to let me know the effect the sideways or upside down photos have on her being.

“That sh*ts me!” she writes. I-Phones are expensive. They are a real brand, a brands brand. A brand-lovers brand? I’m lost now … I’m trying to find a way to capture the brandiness of them.

Every brand lover will know what I mean. And pay a premium for my words. Or the branding. I am not sure which.

… anyway, they are expensive. Because of it. You know …

I love the photographed one she sent me. If I stand on my head, I can see it is the most charming arrangement. But I would love anything that she does with flowers. I am her fanatic. I have made that abundantly clear.

But along with the upside down flower arrangement, this week I had another, even more inexplicable floral encounter.

This one came from a tiny bottle. A tiny little fairy-sized medicine bottle, seemingly for wee folk. Elf sized. It had the look of another era. Brown, ancient looking. From centuries ago. In a way it was.

Inside the bottle was a remedy for broken hearts. I am certain it would have other uses, heal many things. I am nearly one hundred percent positive that it would fix broken wings if yours were broken.

Inside the bottle was essence of flowers. Just their essence. Essentially flower power.

On the outside, a label read Rescue Remedy. It was a rescue invented by Dr Edward Bach, another brilliant surgeon (you have to say that – they get offended if you forget) in Britain last century who was very ahead of his time. He discovered flower power forty years before it was discovered in the sixties.

We he did nearly one hundred years ago healed my heart just three days ago. I only had a few drops.

I walked through the park. The ground felt wobbly, not firm enough. I felt like I had a puncture. I had the kind of sadness that belongs to the ocean.

I wanted to tell someone, tell a policeman. Someone with command. Someone in the park.

“Excuse me. I am thousands of miles away from my father. He is lying in bed in hospital with a broken pelvis.”

I walked through the wobbling park like there was a hole in me or a hole in the park. I didn’t know which.

I thought: I should get some more flower power. We had run out. I have never known if it works. I wish I could say more conclusively than that. My experience is not very scientific. Do I feel better? I have never known.

But we have always had it in our house. I like to have it. It’s better than not having anything. There is hardly anything on the market these days for a broken heart.

I took a few drops. On Princes Street. Right next to where they are doing tram works. If you want an example of a palaver come to Edinburgh and see our tram works. They’ve been tram working for years. We still have none. No-one knows when we will see a tram in this city. It’s a guessing game.

I took the drops in between the tram works and the shops. Where the sign says “No Cycling” and where everyone rides their bikes.

I expected nothing.

It is inexplicable what happened next. In between the tram works and the shops.

I was better.

Fully. Completely. One hundred per cent better.

In moments.

I felt physically adjusted. I was completely at ease. There was no puncture.

My heart was mended with the drops of flowers.

There was cherry blossom on the ground everywhere today. I picked up two pieces. One for Pete, one for me. He wore cherry blossom in his hair against his will. We looked like bridesmaids. You should have seen the people smile.

It is spring. My Dad is getting better. He is on the mend. Which makes us all so happy. We love him.

Everything is better in spring. Spring-autumn. Autumn-spring.

And my mother may never know how much she has helped me with her beautiful, upside down arrangements - her autumn-spring collection - whatever she composes from her sweet, happy garden.

A hundred million dollars

This is the amount that I have worked out would put my life back in order. It has fallen out of order over the last few weeks. A hundred million would pull it back into shape though.

Here is how I would re-instate order with the one hundred million.

The first twenty thousand or so would go on first class air travel to Sydney. That would make the caged journey so much nicer. I would probably relax beforehand. And during. First class air travel has to be better than the type of travel I can afford. It is also probably a lot better than many things.

The rest of the one hundred million dollars – which I calculate would be ninty-nine million, nine hundred and eighty thousand – I would put in the bank. It’s nice to have some money tucked away. For a day that looks like rain. Etc.

My calculations include the following factors: first class air fare and; I don’t know what it is with me but no matter how much money I have I am always scared that it is not enough. For this reason, I never like to know how much for fear that it is not enough and will send me into a spin. Maybe there is already one hundred million dollars there, in my account. I don’t know. How can I?

The ninty-nine million, nine hundred and eighty thousand dollars therefore, would act as a kind of buffer. A remedy. For my fear. I am sure if I had that amount of money it would release my fear! I am pretty confident that with that kind of dosh, I would never worry about money again. I have no plans for it other than that.

My point is at least two of the things that bother me can be cured by money. But how much money would it take for Pete to see his shadow? Probably all my savings. The whole ninty-nine million, nine hundred and eighty thousand.

His head is in a bad way. He looks at me and sees his head. I say “It’s not my head you’re seeing, it’s you.” He says “ It’s yours.” We go on like that.

I am brilliant at spotting people’s faults. I can spot his with my eyes clsoed. Often I do. Often it is late at night when I spot them and all the lights are out. We are just having a chat, or sleeping. I can see his flaws with my eyes shut. I gently point them out. If he is sleeping, it is unfortunate. He has never taken to this form of cure. Not even in the day.

So that when I genuinely can see what is going on for him, see his shadow and am lucid enough to describe what I see, I am like the girl who cried wolf. There is no hope. Hardly any possibility of a cure.

Things go in waves, I have noticed. Right now, I have been dumped by my wave and am somewhere down in the shallows of the surf digging at the sand, trying to right myself. I am digging the wrong way down, I imagine because the saying is the wrong way up, or, even better, the right way up. I am so far away from both of those possibilities right now. The best I can hope for is finding a pearl in the sand … in a shell … one that might be worth a hundred million dollars.

Which is cheering.

Sometimes we just have to ride these waves, I suspect. Sometimes they can go on for days, weeks, months. Longer. All I can hope for for myself and for you and for whoever else finds themselves in the same boat (boat non-boat) is a pearl. If not of monetary value, then of wisdom. Something to make it all worthwile. After all, it does suck. At this end of the wave. In this part of the sea’s fancy.

I try to write a thousand words. No reason. It’s a sort of discipline – not too much more, nor too many less. But now I have only come to: 692. Or three. I have edited and lost count.

Not bad, for a whinge.

If I were to fill the space, so to say, I would write more about finding money and wisdom. Perhaps I would find a treasure chest buried in the sand I am being churned around in. A few paces more toward the beach, keep going … A TREASURE CHEST! I knew it!

I knew I might find one of those.

But I haven’t.

I haven’t found anything. I have a mouthful of sand to show for my efforts. My swimming costume has threatened to leave me more than once. I think it is on backwards. My ears are dull with sea-water. My head hurts from the onslaught.

I thought the beach was fun. I am in the wrong place.

My numbers are up to 830. I call that a thousand. I call the sea a dog … forgive me, dear sea. I will call it something else another day.

I am still hopeful of the treasure. Or the pearl. Whatever is worth more.

My father

My father has fallen. Now he is lying on his back in a rehabilitation hospital waiting for his pelvis to heal. It is fractured in three places. I hate writing that.

I wish I could see him. But he lives thousands of miles away, in Sydney, where I was born, thousands of years ago. It feels like lifetimes. I am sure we each have more than one life in one - many in one. Our spirits are multi-taskers. They can do a lot in one life.

In this umpteenth lifetime, my Dad is lying on his back. He is trying not to move his pelvis or get uncomfortable, bed sores or bored. He is cracking jokes to stop the latter. In his head. There is no-one else in the room so he cracks them in silence. But laughs out loud.

He likes to think of funny things, lying on his back, trying not to move … etc. He told me.

“Whenever I start to get down, I think of something funny” he says. “I think the nurses and people in the corridor can hear me – but they don’t know what I am laughing about. I am just trying to keep myself amused.”

He passes on an anecdote. A recent one about being at a highbrow function and accidentally kissing the security guard of the Governor of New South Wales. He thought she was someone else.

“Why did you just kiss the security guard of the Governor?” someone asks him.

”Oops!”

“You should write some of those funny stories down” I say.

“Yes, well, my joke book never worked. No-one wanted to publish it. My publishers told me there was a clash with my other books.”

His other books are all about how to treat advanced cancer. I can see the clash.

My Dad has been in hospitals his whole adult life. But on the other side of the bed. The standing up, “How are you doing?” side. The “How is the pain today? The cancer pain?” side.

He has loved it. He still does. He is still writing those books. It is his retirement. When one is published, he writes another. We are all sent a copy of the published manuscript, my brothers, sisters and me.

I never know what to do with those books. You should see the pictures. They are not for the faint-hearted. Not even for the nearly faint-hearted. And probably not even for anyone not faint-hearted who happens to be standing close.

But none of that occurs to my father. All he sees is are inoperable tumours, shrinking in size in accordance with the drugs he is feeding them, until they are operable at which point he cuts them out.

There are photos documenting every stage. Stories of lives given another chance. Another lifetime added to them. More life in the old life yet … 

They are photos of the miraculous, in some cases. He would never put it that way. He would rather say photos of his genius. He is all for brains. As a surgeon, that is how they all think.

The photos are not pre-dinner viewing. Unless you too grew up in our household or one like it. In which case … yes they are pre-dinner viewing. Sometimes. Accidentally. He was always very apologetic.

“Can you tell everyone dinner is ready please?”

“Okay” I say. “EVERYONE! Dinner is ready!“

“There’s no need to shout!”

There is. It’s a big house. There are lots and lots of people living in it. They are all scattered about. Some are outside. Some are inside. There is a big need to shout.

In the end, because there is such a big need to shout and because no-one ever pays any attention the first few times, so that there is a big need to shout and shout and shout, over and over again, we get a bell. A huge one. It is more like a gong. When it is dinnertime at our place nobody in the street will not know. It is likely time for their dinner too. We perform a social duty in a way; we are the harbingers of dinner for the entire neighbourhood.

But … Oh no!

“Dad!!!!“

“What? Oh yes, sorry … Okay, I’m packing them up now.”

He has been preparing a slideshow for a lecture. The dinner table is covered in slides. I do not need to tell you what the pictures in the slide show feature. His tall frame is bent down as studies the images which are spread all over the table, over every inch of seating. He is trying to choose the very worst ones. The very best, in his view. The most graphic, unrecognisable depictions of the human body from disease to wellness. It has been a long journey for every person in those photos.

On hearing my distress his long arms reach across the table, spanning it’s length and gather together the favoured slides.

It is late so I set the table around him. He gathers, I set. It is pretty gross. But I am used to it. We all are.

It will be three or four weeks before he is allowed home. Faster than any of us thought, including him. Thank goodness. “I’ve never treated anyone with a fractured pelvis before” he says. “I didn’t know they heal faster than other bones” he says. Faster than his ankle, for instance. That took months, then years.

Soon he will be sharing his jokes at home and out loud again with his beloved. His darling wife. They don’t always share the same sense of joke.. But it doesn’t matter. They are like young sweethearts together. She treats him with such loving kindness and devotion. Sometimes, she is so kind and reverential it is as though she treats him like a god. Which makes perfect sense to him. Being a surgeon. And a Leo. He is both … can you imagine?

I wish I could see this lion. He is exactly the description of his star sign which is a sheer coincidence, considering it is all bunk. He has all the qualities. But of course, it is all bunk. Ask anyone like him.

I wish I could start up the car and be there in an hour.

If I had my own airplane I would fly to the hospital. From here it would take twenty four hours. We live in the north of the planet. It is where time, happenstance and unseen things have brought us.

If I saw him in person I would make him laugh. Which sounds a little forceful but I am confident he would get the joke. I would also be gentle. He is precious. To so many people. He is a father. Adored.

My father is in hospital. I didn’t know what to do.

So I wrote this.

Where the Sun Shines

He sits in the corner because that is where the sun shines. Our tiny garden. A tenants garden, so quite unkempt. I have not seen the gardeners for two years. I have given up asking their whereabouts. We do all the gardening ourselves now, which means virtually nothing. The soil is as hard as rock. The trees, which I love, shade out everything but themselves. There is no hope of rejuvenation by our hands.

The gardeners are never coming back- two years is a big message. But no-one is going to say. We just have to watch them not come.

We offer very little handiwork; here and there, we pick up the odd stick, sweep a bit. We tend our window boxes with the love we cannot bestow on the ground. The soil is just too hard. We feed the birds. Love the trees. Admire anything that comes through the rock soil; daffodils, bluebells, poppies, pretty weeds.

It is a shared garden but no-one else uses it. There is a zig-zagging clothes line and zig-zagging stone walls. There is moss where lawn could be. In other circumstances there might be. Sometimes there is an orange, or pistachio shells, sometimes cigarette butts or a roll of paper towel. An empty wine bottle once. We live at the bottom of the building. Things fall and land at our place, in the shared garden. Last year we gained a parterre tree. It fell from heaven and now we have it. It sits in a terracotta pot. It stands out because it is the poshest looking thing in the garden.

Another time, just as I was lamenting that I had forgotten to buy salad to go with dinner, I walked outside and found two boxes of living salad, one on it’s side and the other perfectly upright. Heaven sent.

Today there is a freshly hewn sycamore tree. We felled it just now, over three weeks. It was a midge a ghetto. We had to fell it. It was the only way to evict the midges  …  millions of millions of them. They treated the tree like a hotel, from April through October, their sycamore palace.

A midge is a silent predator. They look like fairies. They float in dim or dusk or dawn light – any light beginning with “d” – like angels. They are completely soundless. Tiny fairies floating in soft, wispy light at exactly the hour that fairies would appear.

These fairies are impostors. They bite you in the act of trying to eat you up – leaving bite marks the size of sixpences that itch and itch and itch for a month. As they are silent there is no hope of catching one. You will never hear one to swap it. They do all their eating in silence.

Try not to bump into one. Or a float. Once you have disturbed a midge float, my advice is to run away as fast as possible.

With no sycamore they will have to find another address this year. Their palace is gone. There is only a stump. It has taken us five years to figure it all out. We are so green, sometimes. Still new here. It will probably never wear off. Living in another country is not second nature. More like third.

Pete is sitting in a corner of the garden full of sunlight. He has taken a chair from the kitchen. He is lapping up the rays. He can have mine. I will never want them. Being a viking, I get all the sun I will need – vitamin D, other star ingredients – from looking at Pete. Pete is the sun here –  he reflects it brilliantly just sitting there.

From this desk, I can hear the birds. We get so many. Pete is looking out for the robin, I suspect for a chat.

“I have been having a chat with the robin” he told me.

He makes it sound easy. The robin whistles out a line of conversation. And Pete whistles back.

It is lovely to hear Pete whistle. Or sing. He rarely does. He is not a singer by qualification. Or nature. But he does something miraculous … I am trying to define what it is …

“Try this  … “ I offer. Something from my repertoire. Perhaps Gigi, the musical.

I sing it out.

“Together?”

Pete sings. A beautiful harmony. In a slightly different key. I switch to another key to blend in with his beautiful harmony. On hearing me, he switches to the new melody, another harmony. He is a bit of a tracker, singing-wise. I sing in another key. He switches to my key again or close. It goes on like this.

He is a born harmoniser – in voice as well as personality. If you sing the melody. Or harmony. Or whatever it is that he is trying not to sing.

Pete has seen the robin. Jumping about as usual, from low branch to low branch. Down to the ground. Underneath here, over there. Jumping about …  jumping, jumping, jumping.

The robin jumps into a dish we left out to catch the water that drips from an overflow pipe a hundred feet up.

I thought the birds might get thirsty so I left the tray there. If they get thirsty they can have  a little drink. I didn’t know if it would work. It is all so makeshift, like our entire lives. Like everybody’s.

The robin takes a bath in the dish. He takes a bath at our house.

Pete calls me outside to see. But the robin has jumped somewhere else. Jump, jump, jump. What a bouncer.

I can hear Pete talking to the robin now. They are whistling. In perfect harmony. In the sunshine while the robin takes a bath.

 Hush ...

Can you hear it?.

Pete is whistling robin. And the robin is whistling Pete back.