Pride Goeth

A week ago I uncovered my well mulched veggie patch and began planting.Over the past 7 days the following seedlings were planted:
20 tomatoes, several varieties
8 beans
16 varieties of Asian greens
8 red chillies
8 basil
8 Thai basil
10 coriander
1 lemongrass
1 Vietnamese mint
4 snow peas.
With the seedlings settled in and mulched to the eyebrows with pea straw, residual weeds hoed and no sign of snails I thought I had done well. I watered, congratulated myself on a job well done and looked forward to the coming bounty.
They are all dead. All brown and shriveled. All (I don't want to add up how much I spent) of them.
I miscalculated and underestimated the tenacity of the Blandberra frosts. The days have been warm for well over a month, all the trees are blossoming and spring is well upon us. I thought it was safe. I thought the frozen earth was thawed sufficiently. I was wrong. They are all dead. Fuck it. That really pisses me off. Read more!

Cigarettes and Alcohol

My grandfather is dying, as grandfathers tend to do. He has been dying for some time, years in fact. He quit smoking at 50, but after 36 years of inhaling tobacco smoke emphysema had already taken hold. Now, at 88 he has malignant tumours in his bladder, shoulder, chest and lungs.
He is currently recovering (unexpectedly) from pneumonia. He is bed ridden, unable to walk or even stand unaided and has developed many pressure sores on his back and bottom. He is totally incontinent and can't feed himself. He is almost deaf. He has had at least 2 strokes. Yet he lives. He hangs on. Is it grit, determination, constitution or simply that his wife won't give him permission to die?
What is it that keeps someone going when their bodies are broken and damaged beyond what seems possible? The medicos are in awe of his perseverance, his death has been predicted by them several times over the past 12 months. Yet against all odds, he lives.
My mother, sister and I lived with my grandparents when I was a child, my sister an infant. My grandfather was my only male role model for my formative years. He was a farmer, all brawn and work ethic. My grandmother was the brain, that was obvious. My grandfather is no doubt responsible for my staunch feminism – I was told he was the head of the household, but even as a small child it was clear to me that he wasn't. He was compliant, he did as he was told. He still does. Every night my grandmother leaves the hospital saying "goodnight, see you tomorrow" and he hangs on. She tells him to stay and he does.
My grandparents' marriage was not an easy one. They had to get married, she was pregnant. They have never celebrated a wedding anniversary (not even their 60th) in case somebody did the math and worked out their oldest child (my mother) was born only a few months after their wedding. Their life was made difficult by his catholacism and alcoholism. Too many children, not enough money – an old story. A life filled with many arguments, much resentment. But finally a bond that neither has the strength to break. Love? Habit? Fear? Guilt? Only they know the ingredients that hold them together (maybe).
I look at my own husband. A smoker for 32 years. Is what my grandmother deals with now what lies in my future? If so, do I have the strength, devotion and depth of love to deal with a husband wracked by lung disease? I don't know. As an asthmatic I know first hand the ordeal and pain of lungs that refuse to work. To struggle for breath is terrifying. It's not a state I would ever wish on anybody. I hope that if the time comes I have the strength, devotion and depth of love to say to him "Goodnight and goodbye, my love. Don't wake up tomorrow".


Since writing this, my grandfather has been sent home for his final days. He is apparently calm and peaceful, which is a great comfort to me as he was scared and confused in hospital.
And now we wait….. Read more!

To Boldly Go

I am happy. I am porcine in excretum. I have a grin on my face that the husband finds quite disturbing. I have Star Trek, The Next generation, all of them. Every one. All the drama, all the action, all the monologues and all the skin tight uniforms I can handle.
Now here is my dilemma: I am an atheist. There are no Gods or Deities that I pray to. I believe in the randomness of the universe and of self responsibility. Yet herein lies the quandary – why is it that so often things seems to "fall into place"?
On the weekend I saw an add for box sets of Next Gen and DS9 for only $280 each. I already have all of DS9 on VHS, as much as I would love to upgrade and save some space as well, I couldn't justify the double up. But owning all of Next Gen has been on my wish list for some time. I looked at the add and lamented my unemployed status, my lack of financial fluidity. Six months ago I would have simply gone straight to the shop and bought both of them and given all the DS9 videos to the Salvos. These days $280 is a truckload of money. So I lamented and dismissed. The next day I received a cheque for $405.45, an adjustment for some shares from my previous employer. Today I own Next Gen. Coincidence? Of course. Or is it a case of "ask, and you shall receive"?
In previous blogs I have typed about the drama of losing my "precious things", my engagement ring and several important items and I have blamed unnamed universal powers for their loss and subsequently their return.
Was it a coincidence that when being faced with the question of my obsession with materialism I should be forced to deal with the loss of that which was most precious – materially and emotionally? Was is also a coincidence that the loss of my engagement ring acted as a catalyst for many fights between myself and the husband and that these fights forced confrontations that while momentarily traumatic exposed vulnerabilities to each other which ultimately brought us closer together? Only when we had both given up all hope of finding the ring did I eventually find it. Life lesson learned - reward given. The Gods spoke thusly. What Gods? Are there Universal powers? I actually prefer to believe in randomness. It is the only way to deal with situations such as two children in a cancer ward – one lives, the other dies. Why? Religious belief would argue divine intervention on the part of the survivor and "mysterious ways" on the part of the child that lost the battle. I'm sorry, but that's not good enough for me. Random variables and the action of chemotherapy answer both. But then we are left with those in our lives that behave in abhorrent ways (for some reason my ex-husband springs to mind) and the only way I can remain sane when thinking about such things is to summon up a belief in Karma. Therein lies the rub: my belief system changes depending on circumstance. I am a hypocrite.
So when the Mormons, excuse me, Latter Day Saints or Jehovah's Witnesses knock I am a pagan (gets rid of them real quick), when faced with mortality I am an atheist and will deal with my own shit but when faced with a bargain and an unexpected cash flow I will thank any and all of the Gods that I can find.
So thanks. Live long and prosper. Read more!

Faith

At the age of 16 I had never seen a frozen lake. The sight of one induced both fascination and terror. It was the mid 80's and The Omen films had taught me to fear Rottweilers and falling through ice. The lake that lay before me was small, more a pond really, about 50m across. It was surrounded by forest; the moon shone bright above the lake and the trees reflected on the ice. It was one of the most beautiful scenes I can remember. The boy that had brought me there took my hand and tried to lead me out onto the ice. I was too scared, I pulled back and yelled my refusal loudly. He picked me up (I was a tiny 54kg, not the fatty I am today) and carried me out to the middle of the lake. I screamed and kicked and protested yet over the noise I was making I could hear the ice creaking and cracking under us. When we reached the middle he put me down and I stood, still screaming, but now also crying from fear. The boy took my face in his hands, forced me to look at him and said very calmly "I have told you that I love you but you still think I would do something that would put you in danger. How can I prove to you that you can trust me?" He then moved away from me and started jumping up and down. The sound of the ice cracking was almost deafening, the splitting sounds rang out and echoed through the forest. I couldn't understand what the boy was doing, why he was trying to kill us. I was crying and begging him to stop, eventually I collapsed to my knees and just cried, my face in my hands. The boy stopped his stomping and sat down beside me. "You need to learn to trust people, you can't live your life alone." He paused for a moment then looked me in the eye "this isn't a lake, it's a flooded field, the ice is no more than 50cm deep. Now will you please relax?" We looked at each other for a second, he laughed and I punched him in the chest as hard as I could, knocking him over, I was furious. I started walking back towards the edge, trying to be as dignified as possible while slipping everywhere. The boy caught me from behind, dragged me back to the middle of the ice and we chased each other, fell over, ran around and screamed and giggled as only teenagers can.
The impact and the significance of that night didn't really occur to me until much later. I had lived my life totally emotionally disconnected from each and all. Partly due to being raised by an emotionally absent mother but mostly as a defense against the bullying I had been subjected to at school. I didn't trust anyone and I would certainly never admit to feeling love. That lovely, charming, funny boy would teach me many things in the eight months that we knew each other. For his mere 18 years he remains one of the wisest people I have ever met. I owe him my emotional sanity.
We lost touch less than two years after I returned to Australia and for the most part I am happy to leave him to the realms of my romanticized youth. Events in my life at this moment have given me cause to reflect on what (indeed who) it was that made me who I am today, why I am able to remain relatively calm and objective while my family rip each other apart. Why it was that a disgruntled young would-be punk ended up with a degree in Biochemistry rather than a heroin habit. The people who influence us, the paths we take on our journey, are many and come in all shapes.
It is easy to look at a young troubled person and tell them things will be OK, it's much harder to look at an old, dying man and tell him the same. We can only speak from experience. Read more!