Beach of Peace

http://www.flickr.com/photos/djbrady/1460272108/

The beaches are always deserted here, that’s why we come.  We come to get away from the people that endlessly greet you round every corner, each face tired and unfeeling, the crowded impatient CBD, the overstuffed sweaty trains full of averted eyes, and the car fumed stench of the city.

We come to feel powerless  to the forces of nature, a welcome relief from our daily jobs of arguing our point, and trying to get things done within the confines of red tape, while battling to get ahead.   Career development, money, promotions, budget cutting, it’s all a power game really.  One we vowed not to play, but find ourselves drowning in anyway.

The winds, the strength of the waves, and the pull of the riptide, they are power in it’s purest form, not selfish, demanding and egotistical like it’s human counter parts.  The weathered sign reminds us of this:  caution- rip tides along this beach, this beach has no life guards, swim at your own risk.  It is not an old sign, but it has seen it’s fair share of battles.  There are scratches on the sign board, it’s wisdom fighting to remain.   We know we would lose everything if we ignored it, so we choose not to fight and instead allow ourselves to offer our reverence to the sea by never venturing in.

The world feels so chaotic, so torn, angry, just like the sea in these parts.  But we choose to be free, here anyway.  It is why we come and we come here often.  With the city far behind us, we drive down the coast, past all the touristy spots.  We roll down the windows of our Nissan, turn down the CD blaring out Gotye, or Sarah Blasko, hold hands over the arm rest, his pale arm resting lightly on his steering wheel, my veiny feet up on my seat.  Our hair flies behind us, struggling to keep up, wind blown and dried out, just like that sign.  We’ve let our guard down after passing the last town.  We’ve choosen to surrender.

I pull out the video camera.  There is something about videoing this deserted coastal road, as if this entire land belongs to us only.  As if we own it.  All this space, so big and vast, it makes us feel small after spending our city days believing we are big and important, puffing out our chests, and making our strikes with the click of the send button in our Email boxes.  We never video tape the drive back.

On the beach the rumble of the crashing waves along the coast is so loud, you can barely hear the birds, not that there are many around anyway.  It overpowers our thoughts, and numbs our human desires; we experience the closest thing to peace we’ve ever felt.  We huddle until only a few rays of light remain, cold from the wind, and we listen.  We feel.   We walk back to the car numb, empty, yet truly alive.

We hold onto that feeling tightly as we return to the city, so tightly it hurts, each Email received jabbing into it, so we fight back to defend it, to protect it, until it’s all gone, and all that remains are empty hopes, and angry desires.  That’s when we get in the car, we fill the tank with petrol, and we drive back to that beach.  The one that’s always deserted, with a sign that’s looking as beaten down by life as we are.   The one that will one day finally break and be replaced, just like us.

This piece of fiction was written for Creative Wednesday at World of My Imagination.  It’s been ahwile since I’ve written some fiction, and I thought I’d give it a late night go.  The prompt was the photo at the top along with a few key words (corner, video, CD, steering wheel, diving board), all of which have been placed in this story except Diving Board, I couldn’t quite get that word to fit.  

The Freedom to Explore

As I bid summer goodbye and embrace autumn which has slowly seeped it’s way into my life like tea leaves in a cold glass of water, I think back over the summer gone by.  I try to remember it, but it is all hazy like a Hong Kong sky, the memory hidden in a cloak of time.  Summer did not implanted itself into my memory as strongly as past summers gone by. Work was so busy this year, we had no time to travel and explore someplace new like we usually do.   One work day turned into the next and I barely remember when summer started, or when it actually ended.  It made me miss the summers of my past where I had time to be free.  When days were long, nights were warm, and I spent hours and hours outside exploring.

I believe every child should have at least one summer where they are given a safe space to roam free, explore, and truly be a child.  For me that summer was between Grade 6 and 7.  It was the most exciting summer of my childhood.  It planted roots, a foundation for what was to become a huge part of my adult life.  It was an experience that lingered over the rest of my childhood, hovering lightly in the background, quietly reminding me never ever to forget.

I was on the verge of my 12th birthday, still a child, and nowhere near puberty.  My great aunt Yvonne decided to spend the summer in Quebec with her youngest sister, my great Aunt Shirley.  She didn’t want to take the trip alone, so it was decided I would go with her.    I jumped at the opportunity to be able to leave the confines of my small Western Canadian city and travel across Canada and meet my cousins who were close to my age.

With money being tight, Aunty Yvonne and I boarded a Greyhound bus with a ticket to Montreal.  For me, this was the best way to go, because it meant I would get to see the whole country, or at least the parts of it I could see from the Trans Canada highway. We travelled on that bus for 4 days and 3 nights there, and then again on the return trip back.  I saw the tall sharp Rocky mountains, the flat rolling plain-ness of the prairies that went on and on long after I grew bored.  In Ontario we hit low lying sharp craigy mountains and great lakes that seemed as big as oceans.  We drove through Ottawa, the capital of Canada where Auntie woke me up from my uncomfortable slumber to point out the Parliament buildings we were passing by.  In Quebec the land was filled with huge maple trees and a breath taking simple beauty in the moderatly flat landscape , a beauty not found anywhere else in Canada.  We met Auntie Shirley in Magog our final destination, a sleepy town not far from the US border.  I will never forget Magog.  It was the first time in my life I was in a place where I could not communicate as  I had yet to begin learning French in school.  I was completely and utterly mesmerized by the feeling of being somewhere new, somewhere different, somewhere foreign despite it still being Canada.

We drove by car to their cabin on Lake Memphremagog, a lake that is partly in Canada, partly in the US state of Vermont.  It was at this lake, over the course of the month that I had a summer like no other.  My cousin Leanne and I went swimming in the lake, exploring the water, exploring the shore.  We went wondering through the trees, and walked along dirt roads through the surrounding lands.  We played inside old covered bridges and sat in boats and paddled around.  We had campfires at neighbours cabins, roasting marshmallows and signing songs.  We lay on our backs on the dock at night and looked up at the millions of stars, scanning the night sky shooting stars.  I remember there were alot of stary streaks across the night sky that summer.  Each day was so long, the month I spent there seemed to go on forever.

At the end of the month we drove back to Montreal where we stayed in their grand brick house just off Rue St. Catherine.  I remember standing at the front of their tall brick house looking up awe struck.  There was no such thing as a brick house where I grew up.  Leanne and I took the subway into downtown Montreal on a rainy day.  I had never been in a subway before, or out and about in a city without an adult.  Montreal is so cold in winter, they have built underground passageways, shopping centres, which connects to the buildings above to save people from walking outside in the freezing cold.  It was the second big city I had ever been to, Vancouver being the first, and it was so incredibly different.

When I think back to that summer, what I remember most was the sense of wonder, foreignness, being so far from home in such a strange beautiful place,  learning about a new culture, being spoken to in a funny language, eating different foods, and for the first time in my life being free to explore it all in its entirety.    It was one of the most amazing summers and I knew then I had to experience it again sometime in my future.   It planted a seed which grew in my gut.

That little seed turned into an itch, which turned into a very strong desire, which led me to leave Canada at the age of 18 and plunk myself down in rural Japan for a year.  When I was 20 I backpacked through China over a summer, and travelled to Paris.  When even that became not enough, I left Canada for good at the age of 24.  I have never stopped exploring since then, and perhaps I never will.  But one thing is certain.  This world is a remarkable place.  There is so much to see, learn, and do, if only we open our hearts to it, and allow the experience to happen.  My summer on Lake Memphremagog taught me this, and I never forgot.

It is my wish that every child be allowed to be free to explore a totally new place at some point in their childhood, some place foreign and different, yet safe and allowing.   If every child is given this opportunity, how different would this world be?  How many more open and accepting people would there be on this planet?  How much more would we value our world, appreciate the differences, and strive to take care of this planet rather than destroy it.  This I do wonder.

This blog post was written for Free Write Friday and linked up on Kellie Elmore’s blog, Magic in the Backyard – the topic was “Your ONE Amazing Summer” 

What we observe

I don’t know how many times I say to my partner Sam “Did you see….” or “Did you notice…”  The answer about 90% of the time is “What….?”

It has in the past frustrated me at times.  How could he not have noticed?  It was so obvious, everyone saw it! Or so I tell myself.

After what felt like the umpteenth time of Sam simply not noticing, I decide I would try and find out why.  But how do I do this?  It would be simple I realized, I would observe him!

Fast forward to yesterday.  We took Sam’s parents up to the Dandenong hills, about 1 hour drive east of Melbourne City.  I love these hills and dream of living there someday very very soon.  The hills are covered in thick ferny rainforest, with plenty of cockatoos, rosellas, kookaburra’s and many other birds.  Sometimes you can spot the occasional wallaby, or wombat too.

We found ourselves at Grant’s Park in Kallista, part of the Sherbrooke Forest. Grant’s Park attracts tourists from all over the world because of it’s birds.  There is a little souvenir shop at Grant’s Park, and inside you can buy birdseed. After you have paid $4.00 for your tray of bird seed, you can go into a slightly enclosed area where the cockatoos and rosellas land on your tray, on your shoulder or arm to nibble on your bird seed.

I find this fascinating as cockatoos and rosellas usually don’t land on you to eat while you are walking or sitting in any other park.  At least not that I have observed.

So we are in the bird feeding area and I decide to take this as an opportunity to observe Sam.  He is holding the tray of bird seed.  A rosella has landed on the tray and is contently eating.  Another Rosella lands on Sam’s shoulder.  He stands still for a very long time peacefully watching the bird eat with a calm focus.  He doesn’t move at all nor does he look away.  Sam stayed so focused on the task at hand, that I’ll admit I got bored.  It didn’t help that alot of people came and I found my eyes darting around at all the action happening all around me.  All the stories taking place right before my eyes.

There was a cute little German boy in a light blue t-shirt so determined to feed a bird that he would run at the bird the second he saw one and subsequently scare it away.  His mother kept trying to get him to slow down, but he was just too excited. His face lit up like firecrackers the second he saw a stationary bird.

There was an older Chinese man in a brown half suit who kept staying still so that the cockatoo would come closer and closer and then he would quickly reach out and try and touch it. All the while a Chinese woman who was with him kept saying “Ec-cuse me” as she tried to shoo people blocking the way of her camera aimed at the man attempting to touch a bird.

There was an Indian family that came in, a girl of about 7 in a pretty red dress and a boy of 5 in an action cartoon charactered t-shirt.  The boy had alot of aggressive energy in the way he moved and talked, and I wondered why.  I turned at one point and saw him trying to kick a bird, and that got me wondering about the boy for a good 5 minutes.

There was a tall man with a grey bushy beard and round glasses whose wife in a long plain baby blue dress was timid and stayed back as he stuck out his tray to some cockatoos.  When a rosella landed on her shoulder she went into quiet disbelieving shock while he fumbled to get out his camera.  In the process a cheeky cockatoo seized the opportunity to knock over the tray of food.

I could continue to enlighten you with all the many stories, but I will spare you the details.    I think you get my drift.  I’m an observer.  I see stories everywhere.

Back to Sam for a minute.  There he sat, watching the bird eat, that same rosella with the ruffled and faded red feathers on his head, as if he had a few run in’s with something hard.  Sam probably didn’t move for what felt like an hour, and neither did that bird.

When a tour bus of Mainland Chinese pulled up, I nudged Sam and his parents away.  The place was about to get very crowded.

Later I asked Sam if he noticed the boy who was kicking, or the man with the beard, or the older Chinese man, or the little boy running at birds.  He saw none of it.  In my frustration of wanting to share all the stories with him,  I asked him what did he actually see?  I had my sneaking suspicion after observing him that all he saw was the rosella on his tray and not much else,  He told me he just stood there watching and observing the Rosella on his tray eating and that was about it.  He was so focused on that bird that it soaked up all his attention.  I realized this is why it “feels” like I see everything and Sam sees so little, when in reality this is not the case.  Sam is the kind of person that focuses on what’s in front of him, and gives that his entire energy and attention.  I suppose this is why he can focus on a task for hours on end without stopping, without changing, whereas my attention loves to jump, especially when there are a few things happening.  Can you believe that after more than two years together I only really truly got that about him this weekend? And yet a part of me knew it all along.   Sometimes I think I’m so observant I miss what’s right in front of me.  Hee hee hee

As with all things I like to find a learning in my experiences as I believe this planet and all that occupies it has plenty to teach us.  I had some beautiful realizations with my little exercise and I’d like to share them with you.

I realized that so often we humans want so badly for another human, especially one that we love dearly to relate to us, to get us, to understand us, that when people can’t, or don’t, we get frustrated.  But there will never be the “perfect” human, the kind that sees everything we see, experiences everything we do thus being able to completely relate to us fully and completely.  We are all different, yet we all share fundamental similarities.  We each walk a path, but the steps and directions that we take are all different.  Paths cross, similarities and common occurrences can be found, but we can never truly walk in another person’s shoes for a day.

So what does all this mean for me?  This means first of all, I need to stop asking Sam “Did you see…?”  And start asking him what he observed, what he focused on, and stop assuming he just gets me (and as a result just saw that cool thing that I just saw).  But not just Sam, all humans.  For we all see the world differently, yet we all see the same world.  It’s our differences in observations, in perspectives, in opinions that makes this world so interesting, enticing, and keeps me distracted with all those wonderful stories.  We all have a story to tell, and yet we don’t always stop to hear each others.

Next time you can’t believe someone didn’t see what you just saw, ask them what they did see.  What were they feeling, experiencing in that moment as they observed?  You might learn that they saw something you completely missed. 

A wrong day right

It was one of those days where nothing seemed to go my way, but not just my way, everyone’s way.  One of those Monday’s where everyone in the city wakes up to a dark grey sky, rain pouring down, and would much prefer to roll over and go back to sleep than crawl out of their damp soggy bed’s and make their way through the miserable rain to work.

It was still dark when I slumped out of bed.  Sam continued to snore lightly beside me despite the fact that the alarm had been chattering away at us for the past 40 minutes.  Today is a day that will go down in the history books as Kevin Rudd challenges Julia Gillard for the position of Prime Minister of Australia.   I am reminded of this by Tom & Alex, the two boys who wake me up each morning via the Triple J morning show.  Their voices coming to life and lifting me out of my subconscious state at 6:00am with their bright and sunny Sydney “Morning’s!!” and talk of Gig’s and live shows around the country.  I learn later via a link on Facebook posted by a high school friend in Canada that Kevin Rudd has lost the challenge and Julia Gillard gets to keep her job.

I am hot and sticky but feeling too lazy to have another shower.  Didn’t I just shower before bed last night?  The rain always brings a muggyness to Melbourne that brings back memories of my days in Asia where it was muggy all the time.  I always seem to move through life at half speed when it’s this hot and sticky.   I throw on the first clothes I find that are suitable for work and carry on getting ready.  I feel that since I work in the beauty industry at present, I should at least try and use some of the product I’ve gotten from work and do something about my uncontrollable hair and panda eyes.  Sam has finally become conscious at 7am.  He hears the heavy rain outside and in his half asleep state offers to drive me to the station.  I am grateful for the offer.

The train is more crowded than usual, and the windows have slightly fogged up as we travel fast along the tracks before coming to a complete stop metres from Richmond station.  It seems our train driver was a bit heavy on the throttle and we have caught up to the train in front of us.   We sit there waiting, minutes feeling longer than what they are as the air thickens in the car.  Someone around me smells like half digested cereal, the bar I am holding onto tightly is slightly sticky.  I am relieved to finally get off this train.

At Prahan station I meet a colleague and we get so caught up in our conversation of weekend adventures that we don’t see the looming large puddle.  It’s not until we are ankle deep in the warm water we realize we’ve just walked into a sidewalk swamp.  3 mini swamps later and we have pretty much stopped caring about our soaked feet and laugh when the other steps in yet another brown puddle first.

I walk into the office and sit down at my desk.  The office is hot, even hotter than outside and eerily quiet.  I realize the air conditioner has not been turned on.   I take off my soaked shoes, clean the mud off my feet and start my day barefoot.  I am on my way to the printer only to find it offline. Upon returning to my desk I have learned 3 things.

1. That the carpet at work is the kind of carpet that little pieces of staples and other sharp things gets easily caught in, and not so easily sucked up by the cleaners nightly vacuuming job.
2. The carpet is so rough my damp sensitive feet feel like they have rug burn after walking from one end of the floor and back.
3. My Email has finally loaded and there in my inbox is a message to all staff: due to the aircon being broken, all non-essential IT services running from the over heating server room has been shut down, and this includes the printers.

I pull my feet up to sit cross legged so that nothing more could hurt them, and only leave my desk to fetch myself some lunch at 1:00.

My day continues much the same, as does all of those around me.  We all seemed to accept that today was just one of those days and we left each other be.  My office is normally a bustling busy place with workers darting here and there, and phones ringing constantly.  But today it remained quiet, everyone was in the same solemn weather reflecting mood and we stuck to our desks and didn’t travel far.  The rain continued to fall outside and the sky stayed dark and dreary.

I left work at 5:00 and caught the train to Richmond.  Richmond station was in chaos as part of the power was out on my train line and so they were unable to announce on the overhead screens which train was coming next.  The slightly hoarse announcer was announcing as quickly as he could which stations the express trains were stopping at as they pulled up.  While I waited for a train that stops at Surrey Hills the screens continued to be black and unhelpful.  Most express trains don’t stop at Surrey Hills, but when they do, they are crammed full with everyone squeezing into the front two carriages so that they don’t have far to walk when they get off, especially when it’s raining like today.

I am back to back, bottom to bottom with a girl, shoulder to shoulder with two others, and my handbag I am tightly clinging onto is digging into the back of the man in front of me in a red pin stripped shirt.  I can’t move.  He is tall, so tall I can only see is his shirt.  I notice the white has faded, it is not a new shirt.  I smell someone’s breath, sweat, and the hot dampness of the carriage.  We are ploughing along when all of a sudden the train comes to a fast and sharp halt and we all gasp while flying forwards and land on each other.  This is followed by urgent shuffling and muttered sorry’s.  Australian’s are a polite lot, in Asia people would accept that it just couldn’t be helped and focus on getting back upright.  We hit the jagged tracks at Burnley and we are hurdled right, then left, then right again.  At Camberwell we are thrown in all directions.  My right foot lands on something, an elbow digs sharply into my side and someone’s high heel lands on my left toe.  I am glad my damp shoes are thick and not open-toed.  As we recover ourselves by shuffling our bodies off of each other, we are able to get a glimpse of each other for the briefest of a moment.  An Asian woman gives a slight chuckle, another smiles at her reaction, we are all glimpsing around at each other at the same time as we shift and move, while the train sways and we all have the same “It’s one of those days, it’s been non-stop all day, there is absolutely nothing we can do to change it, and we’ve plain and simply just accepted it” look.

I realized that normally on a train that crowded, I hear grumbling, complaining, huffs of impatience, or annoyance.  But today my cramped train car was quiet just as my office was.  Sometimes days are just so miserable and dreary, that the mood of it all settles over the whole city like a soothing blanket, and we all accept it without much fuss or complaint as just another part of life, and get on with our lives.  So much today went wrong, and yet it all felt acceptably right.

Being Human

I awoke earlier than usual to a clear blue sky, a tiny hint of autumn lingering in the air, waiting patiently for summer to finish up and head north for ahwile.  I decided to catch the 8:06am stop all stations train towards the city so that I could enjoy a seat and the time to read as I have grown weary of the 8:11 direct express train which I have crammed my way onto so many a rushed morning and hold onto a railing for dear life to prevent myself from landing on top of the person next to me as the swaying train moves along the tracks.

A few chatty school girls sat to my left fiddling with their school bags whilst talking about all the things their teachers let them get away with this week because it was their first week back to school after a long holiday.  In front of me sat a very proud looking Vietnamese man dressed in simple attire sitting next to his small son dressed in an oversized Melbourne High School uniform with the emblem of a unicorn on the pocket.  It seemed certain on the man’s face that this land of opportunity that we live in had brought him fortune by awarding his son with entry into the most prestigious government boys high school in the state,  thus providing the boy with a chance for more opportunities than he could ever have in Asia, as it had done for my own partner who attended that school so many years ago.

The night before I had been exploring the topics of togetherness and separation, of uniqueness and oneness, and tried to get a better understanding of human nature.  We all look different, we all act different and talk different.  We all see things different, and experience things differently.  I sat on the train and noticed the school girls all wearing the same matching blue and white high school uniforms, each with unique hair styles, faces, voices, and ethnic backgrounds.  We all have such different stories to tell, and yet we are all human with bodies, emotions, and a voice.

At Richmond station I got off the train and walked down the ramp to the tunnel below that connects passengers to the other platforms.  I rounded the corner on my way to platform 2 to catch the Sandringham train and came face to face with a tall thin man a few years younger than myself.  We made eye contact as I stepped to my left at the very same time as he did as well.  He had a kind gentle face, and was wearing a plain collared shirt and trousers, clearly a man who works at a fairly typical Melbourne office.   I did not loose eye contact with him as I stepped to my right at the very same moment he did.  We both stepped back to the left as if in a choreographed dance to silent music  that we had both memorized in another lifetime and followed on queue.  Then we both paused and stood still, looking at each other questioningly as we waited for the other to decide on their next move before deciding where to step next but seeing only that yet again we had made the same decision at the very same moment.  Our two faces broke into a wide smile, and then cracked open to reveal a happy laugh that echoed through the tunnel as we stepped each to our own lefts gracefully around each other and continued on our way.

As I walked towards platform 2 I couldn’t help but marvel at how different him and I were.  Two complete strangers, different ages, backgrounds, heading in opposite directions and yet for a brief moment, we were exactly the same, responding to a situation in exactly the same way.  It was like my core human instincts were briefly aligned with this man as we gracefully moved in the same direction without much thought at all.  It made me realize that despite all the external differences in appearance and style, and the feeling that most people don’t truly understand us, as humans we really do have our moments when we are exactly the same as someone else, even if just for a brief moment, thinking the same thoughts, going through the same motions, or feeling the same way.

It made me realize that we are actually alot more alike than we think we are.   We may believe we are very unique, but we have alot in common too.  We are after all, human, and there really is only one species of us.

All I want…

“All I want,

All I want

When I don’t even know myself.”

I read the writing prompt, and Sarah Blasko’s haunting song enters my head and stays there, from mid week until now.  It haunts me and taunts me and coaxes me into writing my deepest desires, my secret dreams of longing, of passion, of clinging hope, and desperate knowings. All I want is to write, to unleash the power that is held tight fisted within.  To breathe magical words across my blog page and blow it out into the universe with the wind of my breathe & being.  I want those words to dance and play, and inspire me to, to heal me, to know me.  To become me.

Sarah sings of finding herself before she can begin another relationship.  But I have a relationship, and for the most part I have found myself.  Or so I tell myself, so I believe.  But the truth is, there are parts of me I do not yet know, parts which I have lost and still have not found.  Like why I want to write, where the energy comes from, and which direction this buried fire of longing words wants to burn.  I just feel it burn, I feel it pull me inwards, towards the computer where I freeze, where I pause and then make up excuses and walk away.

 

“What I want

What I want

‘Cause I don’t even know myself”

I want a house in the woods, with a fireplace with a chimney puffing out hot smoke.  Laughing kookaburra’s,  beautiful Rosellas and the occasional lyrebird gone by.  I want little pattering feet, both furry and child-like.  I want a warm blanket, a pot of herbal tea and my laptop, curled up in a pillowed large windowed room or outside in a garden where I can watch nature and all it’s life dance before my eyes.  Where I can see it, breathe it, feel it, and be it.  I want to dance with the fairies, and I want to talk to trees, and I want to know how to listen, to breathe, and to unleash these burdens, these setbacks, these walls that surround me, that hold me inside, that suffocate me, that make me feel ‘normal’.

“But all I want

All I want…”

…Is to understand myself, these secrets locked up inside me, to find the keys I’ve hidden elsewhere, that I have to search through childhood memories, through subconscious dreams, through the spiritual tuning into of universal energies to find, these reasons I feel called and don’t know why.  These beliefs that magic is everywhere and somehow I hold a power of being included in it, being a part of it, and yet like a misplaced item, I don’t know where i’ve put it, it’s lost and I’m confused, incomplete feelings burden me.   I have this feeling that I know of who I am, yet the feeling of holes, of gaps, of things out of sorts, out of place, confused and lost emotion dominates me.  I am lost, yet I know where I belong.

 

“All I want

See all I want

All I want

Is to one day come to know myself”

I will move to the Dandenongs, I will dance and sing in my backyard.  The fairies may join me, or they may sit on their tree limbs and flower petals and silently watch.  I will solve the mystery, I will find myself, I will fill these holes, and find the lost keys.  I will hunt down those lost memories and glue them back into place.  I will fix myself, and I will know myself, and I will find my answers through words finally typed, through words said, through words thought, and through the soul, the soul of the universe, and the soul of all that is, I will find my place, I will find my power, the power to be me, the power to be free.

 

That is all I want.

Whatever happened to the handy hanky?

Photo taken by Akeeris

It was by chance that I came down with a cold Monday night and found myself spending Tuesday day in bed.  I felt dreadful and my nose had turned into a bit of a rain cloud, sputtering out water as heavy as the recent Melbourne rain. My garden has been loving it, but my tissue box was a little worse for wares.

It was then a thought occurred to me.  Whatever happened to the handy hanky, always in your pocket, multi-purpose and great for blowing noses?  The handkerchief is still a word that exists in the English vocabulary, so surely it cannot be extinct.

I took a few moments to think about the last time I had seen a hanky. It seems our disposable replaceable convenience loving society has killed the washable reusable always handy hanky. Thus I could not even remember the last time I saw one in a shop. I suppose that’s because health experts have deemed tissue to be more sanitary, much to the horror of all the trees slaughtered as a result of this prognosis, and the cotton which was no longer wanted by noses.

Not being one to fear germs and other nasties, I decided in that moment I had to have a hanky!  I’m all for buying local, but clearly hankies have long been replaced by tissues in my neck of the woods.  Sure, I could pay $7.00 to hop on a train into the city to wonder through the Myer and David Jones department stores to find an expensive made in China hanky with a brand name logo on it, but being sick, I wasn’t in the mood.  Seeing as we live in a packaged society where so many things can be bought elsewhere for cheaper, I decided to abandon my buy local determination just for this one thing and hop online.  .

Much to my surprise, Google popped up a website of a lady who makes handkerchiefs in Mudgee, NSW, Australia.  My first thought was: where is Mudgee in New South Wales?  Clearly it’s a very small country town, so small that even my Australian partner doesn’t know where exactly it is, so good on this lady in Mudgee for taking her business online to reach a larger audience for her seemingly dying craft!  10 minutes later I had ordered two hankies.  They were lovely and beautiful and the perfect size.  She was all too happy to send me my order straight away, and not only that, she only charged me $3.00 for shipping.

I suppose this is why so many people want to buy local, but end up buying overseas and online.  For two little hankies to go into a package, onto the back of a van and driven for 4 hours down the highway to Sydney, then onto an airplane to be flown to Melbourne, and hand delivered straight to my desk at a lesser cost than for me to take a train into the city and back, no wonder Australian shops are suffering more than usual and online shops are growing in popularity.  Clearly moving things can be much cheaper and easier than moving people!

My handy hankies should be arriving Monday or Tuesday much to my anticipated excitement.  Unfortunately (or should I say fortunately?) for them my cold is all but gone but that doesn’t matter to me.   They are cute, and they will save me alot of money overtime that would otherwise be spent on trips to the supermarket to buy boxes and boxes of tissue.

And to conclude my story of the handy hanky, last night I decided to head out to the western suburbs of Melbourne to meet my friend David for dinner.  We were eating at a local Vietnamese restaurant which was lacking in napkins.  David spilled a bit of soup on his hand and so he reached into his pocket, and much to my surprise pulled out a red and blue hankie!  So the hankie has not died.  It still exists buried in the occasional person’s pockets.  Hankies can still be bought at David Jones & Myer, and from the Swanky Hanky lady in Mudgee, NSW, and I’m sure elsewhere in the world.   Perhaps they may never die and maybe someday grow again in popularity.  So it seems the trees and cotton have reason to cheer after all.

If you live in Australia and my story has inspired you to do your own part in saving trees and supporting cotton farmers, along with country Australian businesses, you can order your own handy hanky from Donna the Swanky Hanky lady in Mudgee, NSW.   Just click on the linky here. 

February 7th Update:

My handy hankies arrived in the post and were quickly washed, folded and placed in my handbag where they are most accessible.  Between bouts of hay fever, wind, and a dusty storeroom clean-out they have been put to good use and still working great.  The tissue box that sits neatly on my desk untouched and collecting dust is suddenly getting much use as my team has come down with a summer cold.  I moved the box to the centre of the room for all to use as I really don’t need it anymore as my handy hankies are getting a good workout.  I wish I had hankies to offer everyone instead, and once the tissue box runs empty perhaps my co-workers will be more keen.   It doesn’t matter to me at the end of the day what they choose.  I love them and that’s all that matters.

Linked up at 6 Word Saturday  

Family and Christmas Day

It’s already December and by now in Canada the Christmas decorations are up, the Christmas lights strung across rooftops everywhere, and the happy Holidays music would be broadcasted from public sound systems everywhere.  The temperatures will have dropped and everyone will be hoping for a beautiful white Christmas.  You can’t help but feel the Christmas season as it’s everywhere. But I don’t live in Canada anymore, I live in Australia where things are just done differently.

A few Christmas decorations dot the city, though here in Surrey Hills, my little Melbourne suburb looks ever the same.  No Christmas music plays on Triple J national radio that wakes me up in the morning.  Work is still decorating the space with the latest product launches, and it gets dark so late this close to summer solstice I’ve been home before sunset every night and haven’t noticed any lights.   I am sure the malls and the shopping areas of the city are all decked out inside with decorations, holiday music and all the holiday sales, but I haven’t had time to begin my shopping.  It just doesn’t feel like the Christmas season yet in Melbourne.  Like everyone else I am excited that it’s finally summer, and the holidays are near. Sam and I will have two weeks off work, and my thoughts these days are more towards weeding my garden, evening walks through fragrant jasmine neighbourhoods, and upcoming BBQ’s and picnics in flower filled parks with friends.

Sam announced the other day that the family Christmas gathering will be held on December 28th.  Why December 28th, I asked?  We had the family get together after Christmas last year too!  I found myself feeling disappointed and a bit upset by this news.   How strange it is that his brothers and sisters just seem to always have other plans on Christmas Day and we will be spending yet another Christmas Day home alone, with only each other.   Christmas Day with my family back in Canada was such an important day, all the family would come over either just before Christmas or throughout the day itself, even those few who didn’t have a family to celebrate with were invited over.  No one was ever left out.   It was the one day on the calendar we all came together and as a child it was the most special day of the year because of it.   The past 10 years I have rarely been home for Christmas, but my family still includes me in their own way, and they always feel my absence.  I felt confused that Sam’s family didn’t seem to feel the same way about Christmas Day as mine, especially as they are such a close family.

Sam the calm and patient person that he is, reminded me that his family didn’t actually start celebrating Christmas until they immigrated to Australia back in the 1970s.  Being an Australian holiday, and one which everyone was off work and school, the family picked up the Christmas spirit and started to celebrate their own way, by having a day together as a family, to eat spit roast like Australians do, give a few presents to the kids, and play a good game of Mahjong.  Now that Sam and his siblings are all grown up and married with their own kids, and in-laws, they each celebrate Christmas a little differently now, but the getting together of the family for one day over the holidays to celebrate the way they have since they first landed on Australian soil has withstood time and still remains the same.  Sam said Christmas Day has never had the strong meaning to his family as it has for Australians or Canadians.  What does have meaning is family, and so to his family, the date itself is not important, making the effort to come together during the holidays is.  So on Christmas Day, Sam’s brother takes his family to church, Sam’s sister spends it with the in-laws.  And when there are no chess tournaments, or choir practices or musical performances, they take that day when they are all free, and they come together to spend it as a family, year after year.

I realized that Sam is right.  Yes traditionally Christians celebrated Christmas on December 25th as it was the day they celebrated Jesus’s birthday.  And before that Pagan’s celebrated their own festivities on December 25th.  But in this day and age, Christmas has lost it’s traditional meaning to so many including myself.  It has become to me and my family about family as it has for Sam’s family, so why am I so hung up on the actual date?  Why does the actual date have to be so adamantly celebrated when family is so much more important than a day on a calendar?  Is it because society does it and therefore so must I?  Is it because of tradition and history that has locked itself firmly into place?   I need to stop getting so stuck on the date and just appreciate the fact that I am marrying into a family that values family so strongly that it makes an effort year after to year to come together as a whole family over the holidays for one day, to spend time with each other, to value each other, and get their butts kicked at Mahjong by dad.

So this year on December 28th, after Sam and I get back from a short trip to Sydney, we will all come together as a family.  The kids will open their presents, there will be a spit roast over a backyard fire, it’s juices dripping into hot flame and hissing when it lands.  Dad will turn into a Mahjong-eer slotting tiles together in a series of “Kong’s” and “Pong’s” of high score brilliance, draining us of our multi-coloured chips.  The kids will draw, play the piano, and play kiddie games both inside and out, the cameras will be clicking and filming away, and just like every year, the whole family will have a special day.  There will be cuddles, kisses and hugs, and lots of love, and the excitement of knowing we will all come together again in another month as Chinese New Year comes early in 2012.

Linked up at Free Write Fridays.

A Pretty Red Sofa

 

A Pretty Red Sofa

 

 

A pretty red sofa was left out one day, it’s life was over,

So to say

 

It had lived so happily, inside that trendy home 

Now it’s a symbol of fashion decay

 

It was a gift of roadside rubbish, for anyone to take

Preloved and worn but still in tack

 

Grabbed in the dark of night, by a man with no ute

That little red sofa seemed back on track

 

He heaved and he howed, and he dragged that sofa 

When suddenly his poor back gave way

 

Painfully he rested there, under a trainless bridge 

Until the morning birds bid him G’Day

 

He gathered up the cushions, and carried on home

Sofa incomplete it now lay

 

Twice abandoned, is this pretty red sofa

Much to an op-shop lovers dismay. 

 

This poem is a tribute to all the roadside hard rubbish that has adorned the streets of Melbourne’s Eastern Suburbs these past few weeks, sadly awaiting it’s December 1st fate of the Melbourne rubbish dump.  It’s been crying heavy tears of spring rain recently which has made the collection of mouldy beds, cracked chairs and old TVs  all soaked and soggy and thus no longer appealing to the opshop lovers, parts collectors, and backpackers looking for temporary furnishings.   Rest in peace dear Roadside Rubbish, and to you too Pretty Red Sofa.

 Written for & linked up at Magpie tales.

Whole weekend free, think I’ll write!

It’s a rainy spring weekend here in Melbourne, summer starts on Thursday, but with all this rain as of late, it still feels like we are in the midst of spring.  It’s been raining heavily all day, but I don’t mind as it’s it’s always easier to write when my garden isn’t calling me.  

Sam is off all weekend long making a film for Tropfest.  It’s the first full weekend I’ve had to myself since he was away in Europe for a business trip last April.  The idea of writing all weekend excited me and my only worry was that I would run out of inspiration and get sick of the computer half way through.    

I’ve never actually taken a whole weekend to write before.  Paint yes, meditate yes, garden yes, but writing, that’s a first.  I figure if I’m going to write a book someday I’d better get practicing because books don’t write themselves and one of the few things that never changes is the constant ticking of time. 

So in honour of the beautiful cool Melbourne rain that’s watering my garden, and cleansing this gorgeous city, I give you this little rhyme. 

 

He says good things can happen in the rain. 

But only to those who don’t mind

 

For the rain is for the heavy hearted

As it brings a sense of time

 

It washes away a dirty scab

And cleanses the inside

 

It calls deep into a heart within

Where hurt and pain reside

 

For no one can see you cry in the rain

As droplets and tears become one

 

Not everyone is ready to go there you see

Which is why I write this rhyme.

 

But I tell you this as I know its true

It’s actually not so bad

 

For when it’s finished cleaning and clearing

A sense of new appears

 

Written for 6 Word Saturday at Show My Face.