As I transfer this image from the camera onto iPhoto, from iPhoto to the desktop, from the desktop to this blog, I wonder what I might have to say that could possibly gild the lily.
It puts me in mind of the effort I’ve expended this year on the enterprise called Rosa Mira Books. And I’m made awe-fully aware that what I’ve produced, while it looks pretty good in certain lights, is yet ‘seared with trade; Bleared, smeared with toil; And wears (my) smudge and shares (my) smell’.
But the lily, its flowers rain-flecked and ogling me through the window as I write, pressed up out of an unprepossessing potful of soil, with somehow in its bland stalk these blooms encoded, which, within a few days, broke open, displaying all their ‘dearest freshness deep down things’. There ain’t a darn thing wrong with them.
I’m weary and short of words, but praise be for Muriel Rukeyser…
THIS PLACE IN THE WAYS
Having come to this place I set out once again on the dark and marvellous way from where I began: belief in the love of the world, woman, spirit, and man.
Having failed in all things I enter a new age seeing the old ways as toys, the houses of a stage painted and long forgot; and I find love and rage.
Rage for the world as it is but for what it may be more love now than last year and always less self-pity since I know in a clearer light the strength of the mystery.
And at this place in the ways I wait for song. My poem-hand still, on the paper, all night long. Poems in throat and hand, asleep, and my storm beating strong.
(Make it Friday, okay? That’s the day before Saturday.)
‘Please come on Monday The day after Sunday And mind that you start with Something to part with; A fire shall be ready Glowing and steady To receive it and burn it And never return it. Books that are silly, Clothes outworn and chilly, Hats, umbrellas and bonnets, Dull letters, bad sonnets, Whate’er to the furnace By nature calls ‘Burn us!’ An ancient bad temper Will be noted no damper — The fire will not scorn it But glory to burn it! Here every bad picture Finds refuge from stricture; Or any old grudge That refuses to budge, We’ll make it the tomb For all sorts of gloom, The out-of-door path For every man’s wrath. All lying and hinting, All jealous squinting, All unkind talking And each other balking, Let the fire’s holy actions Turn to ghostly abstractions. All antimacassars All moth-egg amassers, All gloves and old feathers, Old shoes and old leathers, Greasy or tarr-ry, Bring all you can carry! We would not deceive you: The fire shall relieve you, The world will feel better, And so be your debtor. Be welcome then — very — And come and be merry!’
A handwritten party invitation sent to their friends by George and Louisa MacDonald in 1885.
Most people I know have had a turbulent year. And then Christmas was suddenly upon us. Plenty have decided to flag it altogether: no cards, no gifts, no relatives, no fuss. I let it slide to a certain point and then suddenly I want: carols and oratorios, the scent of pine needles, tinselly evenings full of quiet expectation; my family. Some of that’s pure sentiment, or the longing for what won’t come again, but something vital endures in this festival that celebrates a new baby on the earth.
Whatever we make of the rest of Jesus’ life and death and after-death, with his birth a seed was planted in the soil of humanity, a seed of great pedigree, in whose growth was invested great hope.
And that’s the archetype that makes Christmas worth considering. Each new life calls forth a measure of that same royal hope and expectation — that the child will grow and thrive and live out the fullest expression of which it is capable — even if it takes 100 years.
Potent ideas and initiatives call for the same spirit of hope, and the same investment of time and attention, which might be called love.
I think that’s all I should say. I don’t want to make a sermon. Happy Christmas, friends. I long for your simple, essential, lovely hopes, plans, dreams (and where necessary, babies) to take root in the coming year.
Getting away is always worth it. I don’t know how I forget to, caught month after month in the loop of routine. Mt Peel was waiting just a few hours up the road and a friend joined me for the day walk, no, tramp, for which we were glad we’d chosen boots over gymshoes — for mud, roots, and a hill that rose and rose. Somehow we both managed to ignore the bold DOC sign telling us we’d taken the steep south ridge route.
Clouds rolled back as we climbed a hill mantled in Dracophyllum, Spaniard, celmisias, hebes and, pictured here, korari burning in the mist. Crickets flipped about and two women breathed heavily.
Back in Peel Forest we pitched a tent, threw a meal together and one of us nipped back to the village for two small lagers — quite enough to set us on our ears for the night.
The stars out there are a river of light. They fell and flared and seethed.
Next day we talked and read, walked through the kahikitea and over the Rangitata riverbed, cooked lunch on a fire, had a final coffee in Geraldine and said goodbye. She went north, I went south.
Reconstituted.
If you get a chance, do it. 36 hours is all it took.
Perhaps I’ve spent too long on the same project, too many hours in my own head, had too many weeks of routine. I didn’t know how susceptible I was.
Last night at the Dudley Benson concert I almost drowned. Inundated by wonder.
After the opening performance by Cat Ruka with a metronome, a chair, heavy black ropes about her neck and the presence of a goddess, Dudley introduced the Dawn Chorus: four achingly beautiful, clear-eyed young men mixing golden, grainy harmonies like a dunking in Demarara sugar. For the repertoire of Dudley’s own songs and Hirini Melbourne’s bird and insect waiata, beat box champion Hopey One joined them with her mesmerising array of percussive oral sound effects. Then Dudley and his sister Jessica sang a duet. Don’t you sometimes find that beauty threatens to undo you?
We clapped and cheered and stamped for more — and they gave it to us, including a heart-wringing tribute to the 29 men lying in the mountain at Pike River. Perhaps that’s another reason for the loveliness: our sensory membranes are worn thin just now by collective sorrow.
All this took place before a huge canvas backdrop painted by Nigel Brown, of a sombre and splendid river valley probably not unlike the one where the nation’s thoughts have been brought to bear.
Dudley’s moving to Dunedin. Lucky us. See him if you possibly can.
There were a lot of sticking plasters in the pool this morning. My new togs aren’t as comfy as the old ones but it was a good swim. I came home and read a woman’s story of how she tried as a child to kill herself. The cat curled up in the dog’s basket. I fretted a little about the challenges of the week ahead. I made coffee. The dog lay down at my feet. I thought of the discussion with Claire last night about how, whether and when we need to revisit the past, and when we might just let it be. Many old things are beautiful before they dissolve into another form.
I don’t know that that applies to other people’s sticking plasters, and harsh or horrific experiences. But I know that life is hastening us onward. There seems little time to look back. Everything is being changed.
Aaah, there’s nothing like a lovely object. I’ve spent so much of this year tinkering with words and ideas on screen, in order to create a book that I’ll never hold in my hands* — and I accept that this is how it is for now. Anyway, it was delicious to go and buy 12 boxes the other day, to have book cover stickers made up, and to peel them gently onto the box lids — then to hold these vibrant things, to stack and stroke and admire them.
Sometimes (often) we who live at our laptops need to go and touch things: earth, fur, vegetables, water, skin, and maybe now and then a book.
You can find out more about the lovely objects at the Rosa Mira blog.
Zac, 10 months, takes the world by mouth. Visiting the other day, he was unfazed by brass on the tongue as he alternately licked and tinkled, one bell in each hand.
The lilac’s just coming out, reminding me of the poem I wrote some years ago.
Canterbury
On this day of gifts my mother’s familiar hand remembers my birth in the time of nor-westers and lilac.
The nurses fed her whitebait; my father made shortbread.
Her card takes liberties, vasing up together helebore, anemones and erlicheer.
I make my own posy: Granny pegging underpants huge and white beneath the violet arc of sky; a sailor dress from Ballantynes; Victoria Park’s dark track; a hot wind and the mountains propped at the end of the plain.
Calafate, Patagonia. You might not be able to discern the pink bird in left midfield. A flamingo: I was stalking it across the wastes. Elena followed loyally until she stepped in up to her ankle. She mightn’t want to come to NZ, she said, if this was the kind of thing we did there. Nevertheless I found a pink feather and tucked it into my camera case thinking I’d remove it (or not) before I went through Customs. It’s above me as I write, pinned to the wall and faded to the softest shade of salmon.
Back then I wrote home: what a place. Wild with the big cold wind blowing across it, and beautiful like Canterbury but everything 50 times larger … we were befriended on the streets by dogs like loving wolves … now to bed, full of lamb and red wine.
Today I’m missing Elena and her big, wild country.
The day after Canterbury’s buildings underwent their first trial by earthquake, the nor-west wind roared through Otago, shoving at trees. This beauty used to supervise the playground. Falling, it considerately divided for the park bench. Its heart was worn out. Today the DCC sliced and carted it away.
Sap is rising in the garden, bringing flesh and blushes to the magnolia next door, and making trees vulnerable (does it?). A roguish nor-easter felled the pink-flowering manuka across the front fence and footpath last week.
Sap glistened under the bark. Its wood was wet in the saw’s teeth, and weighed in our hands as heavy as meat.
On the most interesting walks, only a short portion of the track is visible at a time. Unless you’ve travelled that way before, you can’t know what lies around the next corner. Or the one after that. If you could see the tiger crouching up ahead (or, let’s get local, the dead possum ponging, or the tract of pure, shoe-sucking mud), you might stay home. This is my niece Zeynep on the outskirts of Naseby, setting off toward Mt Kyeburn. She has what she needs for the forseeable future: sunhat, sturdy shoes, semi-reliable and curious companion tethered by affection and a red lead.
Do you sometimes wonder, after a day of buzzing hither and yon on the internet, if you still have what it takes for solid reflection, retreat, and rich, slow creative endeavour? Here’s a prod for contemplation: an essay Driven to Distraction: Cate Kennedy on the internet and the writing life — in the Australian political and cultural magazine Overland.
And if, after that, you still want delightful distraction, check out Rata Weekly’s latest offerings: why movies are bad for girls; how to pop your baby on an elephant; the world’s scariest jobs.
(To tell the truth, most of these are drones: kicking back but looking busy. It’s an art.)
One of the residents (chez moi) said there’s no excuse these days for putting out food that looks less than enticing. He suggested I go and try ‘enhance’ and ‘crop’ and ‘brighten’. I did all of these things. I think the plate comes over a little garish, that the centre of the pastelito resembles rather too closely a pregnant belly (a beautiful thing in its proper context) and that the oil shimmering on that belly is an unfortunate reminder of the way the pastries were probably cooked (by deep f**ing).
Nevertheless, it’s up to the reader now. Take your pick.
Talking of food, I beat same resident in an impromptu race to the end of the pool this morning (no, alas, not OUR pool) and we agreed it was probably because he had eaten porridge and I had not. Next time we’ll test the theory. I’ll porridge and he’ll (be) fast.
I saw treats like these in the pastry shops in Buenos Aires last year but Elena would always say I mustn’t eat those ones; wait until we got home.
‘Home’ was Jujuy in the far north, on the outskirts of the city, and early in my stay we wandered out the gate onto the gravel road where untethered horses browsed the verges and trimmed garden foliage, until we came across a young man to whom Elena gave a message for his mother.
A few days later he reappeared at the door with a heaped plate of hot pastries. A pot of tea was made, a cloth thrown onto the table and we sat down to eat.
Como se dice en espagnol? I asked Elena.
Pastelitos de dulce — dulce de membrillo y dulce de batata.
Melting pastry filled with grainy quince, or sweet potato, jelly. I ate enough to tide me over until my next visit.
Meanwhile I’ve begun to talk about Rosa Mira Books. To learn more, click on the green leaves in the side bar.
Polly: when her whiskers were still white and all her teeth intact. She wears that, Did you notice me here — wanting a walk? look.
I thought I’d run a little survey to see if anyone notices Polly and me here. Is my blog visited by anyone besides my mother and a handful of benevolent spirits?
I don’t do ‘stats’ so I can’t tell who’s sneaked in or out, but I wonder if you’d be kind enough to leave something, even a simple exclamation mark, in the comment box, if you come by. And I’ll decide whether to go on wearing this hopeful face, or if I should sniff out something more productive to do.
Now and then, despite your best intentions and efforts to be Present, Here and Now, you’re struck by a sudden longing to be somewhere else, such as here on a wild Ahuriri River tributary where the air smells of wet rock, beech litter and snow.
Or in some other homeland, heartland of your own. And if you want to enough, you can go there.
Ithaka
As you set out for Ithaka hope the voyage is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians and Cyclops, angry Poseidon — don’t be afraid of them: you’ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Laistrygonians and Cyclops, wild Poseidon — you won’t encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope the voyage is a long one. May there be many a summer morning when, with what pleasure, what joy, you come into harbors seen for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind — as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you are destined for. But do not hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you are old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you have gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey. Without her you would not have set out. She has nothing left to give you now.And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
C.P. Cavafy, translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard. As found on
Members of my houseful have often read crime fiction around me, wading through entire oeuvres, while I’ve done my best to avoid it. When there’s a detective story on TV, mine’s the irritating, ‘Who’s that again?’ ‘Wait, what just happened?’ while the others know from the opening scene who done it.
Last month I spent ten intense days editing the manuscript for a crime novel set in Wellington. It was clever, with textured settings and credible characters including a female protagonist; suspenseful, funny, horrifying and touching in turn.
Since I was in thick already, I decided to carry on and read — about time — Vanda Symon‘s latest, Containment. It’s set between Aramoana and Dunedin so my identification with place was vivid — I liked that Detective Constable Sam Shephard could eat a cinnamon pinwheel at Modaks (I mean, one of our family works there weekends) and next time I visit the Mole I know I’ll see that looming, listing shipful of containers.
I’d been broken in by the manuscript to the ‘say it like you’d say it in real life’ style of narrative, and settled in to enjoy the tough-talking, big-hearted cops chasing small- and big-time crims — the smart and the witless — through familiar grungy flats, seaside baches (I mean cribs), internet trading sites and antique shops.
These crime-writing gals are smart. They’ve done their homework: the forensic research, the hanging out in police stations (they must’ve), mastering the matey banter of the workplace, and the vernacular of the underworld. They give the reader plenty of what they know, and enough of what they don’t to keep them hooked. In the end: guns, fisticuffs, a tear or two, and hard-earned victory.
I begin to understand the compulsion to go and find the next (and according to her blog, Vanda’s is Bound and on its way to the publisher).
Recognise this stunning photo? Strange to say, a woman called Jill in Dunedin saw Island’s cover in the Otago Daily Times the other day, and knew the picture to be Jason Swain’s of Freshwater Bay in the Isle of Wight. She contacted him. He contacted me… Read that story here, and check out Jason’s gorgeous portfolio.
It’s not often that a person loses her health, her faith, her home, her job, most of her friends all in one fell swoop. So when that person picks herself back up and meticulously pieces together her own life — sifting, sorting, reclaiming and building from the ground up, then finds her voice and reconstructs her story with the same objectivity and care — you can be sure she has something immensely valuable to say.
In Rushleigh — The Wasteland Chronicle, Leigh offers hard-earned insight to anyone who’s struggling with any aspect of their lives. (Okay, there’s something for everyone.) From basic survival skills in the aftermath of trauma, to finding the professional help you need, from coping with panic and sorting through unhelpful or dangerous beliefs, to getting your finances in order, Leigh offers her writings as a rock-steady companion for the journey back to Life.
Leigh writes:
This site contains thoughts and suggestions to do with managing crisis and trauma, along with my own spiritual reassessment. It includes extensive comment about the pitfalls of New Age thinking and the painful process I went through extracting myself from it.
Although I didn’t see it at the time, the hammer blows of fate that shattered the old way were necessary. I now feel more true to myself than I was before. New wellsprings do rise up — if we let them. Life does eventually fill the empty spaces.
Nonetheless, that exceedingly difficult time was made more so by the paucity of useful information and the gross unhelpfulness of people whose work it was to help. Although I have been difficult to help, much of what I needed, and didn’t get, was at a very basic level. Having said that, there has been a small number of professionals from whom I have had valuable attention. These and the generous friendship of close family and friends have got me through.
Isolation is a big issue at a time of crisis, as it is when living with enduring illness and disability. Researching this set of writings has brought me a much expanded awareness, not only of factual information, but also of the stories of others going through similar experiences. I’m not as alone as I had thought.