Thirteen Things in a Writer’s Day (This Writer / This Day)

1. Stay in bed awhile after waking, reading a novel; get up a bit late.

2. After getting up, always a flask of black coffee to start the morning – NOT instant. (Never instant!)

3. Straight from breakfast to computer; get caught there for hours, writing poems and an article, posting a photo.

4. Loud knock on door. Man to check smoke alarm. Apologise for being still in pyjamas; turn it into mildly jokey remark, pretending insouciance. 

5. Close door to room where cat is sleeping, so smoke alarm man can’t accidentally let her outside, about which I am unapologetically paranoid. (In truth she is fast asleep.)

6. (Shutting gate after horse has bolted) decide to shower and change into actual day wear before getting lunch.

7. Naked daily witchy ritual between shower and dressing (brief; got it down pat after many moons of regular practice).

8. Very late lunch, while reading more of the novel.

9. Do dishes from last night and today-so-far. Feel virtuous.

10. Decide bed-making can wait until later.

11. Put out garbage bins. Discover, while doing so, huge dog shit on front lawn (I do not have a dog). Decide to leave it for now and pretend I don’t know it’s there; maybe nice, kind lawn-mowing man will deal with it next time he’s here.

12. Finally remember, guiltily, to open door to cat’s room, thankful she’s still asleep.

13. At last settle back at computer. Check mail; nothing yet from printer to say my books are ready. WHY did I tell her I didn’t need them until October? Do not jump up and down and scream. Write something. (This something.) Interruptions: squawking cat waking up and demanding attention, plus very close claps of thunder. Switch everything off and lie down with cat and novel.

Written for Thursday Thirteen for 31 August 2023.

Letter To the Man Who Sits on the Steps Across from the Park

 Dear Step-sitter,

That’s a good place to prop, under the overhang at the back of the corner shop, shaded from sun and protected from rain; the steps wide and deep enough for you to spread out a bit and lean back.

When you're there, you seem to own that spot: you look so comfortable, so much at ease, so much at home. Nothing in your manner says ‘homeless’ or ‘destitute’. (Though your clothes perhaps do.) Nothing in your expression says ‘lonely’ or ‘sad’. (Though you are always there alone.) There’s not a hint of either shame or resentment. 

I’ve seen you there so many times, you almost don’t feel like a stranger. But I don’t know your name, nor you mine. I know nothing about you. All I know of you, or you of me, is what we see of each other in our brief encounters.  And I can’t exactly say I see you there often – it can be months between times. It’s just that those times now span years, decades.

Yesterday I walked past with a friend, discussing the suddenly hot weather. 

‘The forecast’s for thunderstorms,’ I say as we turn the corner, passing you.

‘We need it though,’ you comment, catching my eye, raising the bottle you’re drinking from in quick salute.

‘True,’ I say, and we smile and nod at each other before my friend and I cross to our cars by the park.

It’s not the first time we’ve exchanged a word or two. You always speak first – invariably something cheery – and I respond. But we don’t chat. I’m always on my way somewhere else, and I don’t stop more than a moment.

Once you remarked admiringly on my colourful dress. I like tie-dye. So do you. I thanked you with a smile, and went on my way feeling warmed, brightened.

Sometimes you don’t say anything; neither do I. We don’t always even exchange a glance. Sometimes it seems you might want to be left in private thought. I leave it up to you.

Everyone else in the little town does the same. It seems we all have an understanding with you. I hope we do.

I remain,

One of Many Passers-by

Written for FridayWritings #54: Writing to a Stranger, at Poets and Storytellers United.

Here Are My Three Grandfathers (3)

Yes, I had three grandfathers. Two I never met. One was an army officer in British India. One was a drunk and a poet. 

The third was a Yorkshireman, and became an orchardist. He brought his family – my Nana, my Uncle Ian, my Mum and my Aunty Frankie – out to Tasmania. Where I was born. 

 

3.

And this is my Grandpa, Francis Sydney Holmes, here with me in my Launceston back yard – Mum’s stepfather, the only father she knew, the only Grandpa I knew, and more than enough. See how happy I look to be with him here!

He took me for walks, pointing out birds and insects, naming trees and flowers, showing me how to see. Birthdays and Christmases he gave me books: Dickens, the Brontes, Dumas.... He wrote me many letters – sadly, none kept – not as to a child, but an equal intellect.

The orchards were in Spreyton, near Devonport. In family gatherings at The Orchard House, my brother and cousins and I would fall asleep by the fire, listening to old family tales and reminiscences, until we were carried to bed. Daytimes we explored the bush. When I was very little I rode on the foot of the draught-horse, gentle Horace, hugging his leg.

Grandpa left me his Remington typewriter. (Everyone knew I would be a writer.) And he left money towards my tertiary education. He did that for all his grand-daughters. Parents, he said, if they must choose, would favour sons.

My father’s father gave me poetry, passing it along in the genes (my Dad had them too). 

My mother’s father gave me my Celtic heritage, the love of craggy rocks and rushing rivers, mountains, and Scotch thistles. When I finally visited Scotland, I suddenly understood. (Surely this heritage also enhanced the magic which came through the maternal line.)

My Grandpa (FSH, as he signed his many letters – not only to me but correspondents all over the world) gave me himself. And so much more. Gave me myself. Gave me the world.

Part 1 and Part 2 appear in previous posts.

I'm sharing this with Poets and Storytellers United via Friday Writings #53.

My Guity Secret

I wonder if it counts as a secret? I’ve never told anyone before. On the other hand, to those who know me, it will come as no great surprise. (Though quite possibly shocking.)

What makes us keep something secret? This one, I confess, I regard as somewhat shameful. I fear that those who find out will think worse of me.

They might want me to change – for my own good. (It’s a secret of behaviour.) If I reveal it, they might EXPECT me to change, taking the revelation as a sign of contrition, a prelude to atonement.

But I have no intention of altering this horrifying habit. Defiantly I say – as my Dad used to (about many things) – ‘It amuses me and does no-one else any harm.’ 

Could a case be made that it does some harm to some others? Their sense of aesthetics … their peace of mind…? But I live alone with my little cat. She doesn’t object. It doesn’t affect her.

People may even expect guilt! I do have a little. But not enough, nowhere near enough, to make a change – not one of the magnitude this would be.

I had been going along unthinkingly, getting away with it because no-one was around to observe; not worrying, not questioning myself. Then I recommended a book to a friend.

I know this friend is a reader, a lover of books. Indeed, she's very well-read. I know, and she knows, she would love this particular book. But what she said was,

’Thanks. If I make time to read, I’ll try to remember.’

WHAT?

I know she has a lot happening: cooking, gardening, housework, some current home renovations, constantly helping out with young grandchildren, and supporting herself as a working artist. And she has health conditions which mean she needs a lot more rest than most. Where indeed could she make time to read?

And yet….  

Well, we’re all different.

My guilty secret is: I never don’t make time to read. 

It takes precedence. (It's a drug.) The housework gets left; I go without hours of sleep; I neglect my correspondence, my filing, my shopping, watering my plants…. 

The hard thing is to refrain from a book.

Written for Friday Writings #9: Telling Secrets at Poets and Storytellers United.

Beyond the Black Stump

 Beyond the Black Stump

You want to know what it’s like out there? I can tell you. I’ve been. A few times.

You’ll hear different things from different people. Some will tell you of our native drop bears, their dangerous habit of dropping straight down out of trees onto unsuspecting travellers. (Don’t walk under the trees!) Or the bunyip calling from some lonely waterhole to entice you in. (You won’t come out again.)

Some will warn you about wild dingoes – which might sound more mundane, more believable. But though they look like dogs, they’re far from tame. Or you’ll hear about herds of marauding camels which could rampage through your campsite any night. And snakes and scorpions, too.

You'll be told to take much more water than you think you’ll need. A car repair kit would be handy as well. Also a good blanket; the desert nights are freezing. They’ll say, tell people where you’re going: your route, your destination, your ETA. They'll tell you over and over: if you break down, never leave your car. No-one will ever find your body out there.

Yarns to scare the tourists? Only one of those things isn’t true. 

Someone might mention the deep red earth, stretching flat in all directions; the grey-green scrub; colourful rocks rising suddenly out of nowhere in gigantic curves; anthills as big as trees; the white bark of the ghost gums.

The silence of the desert night. Impossible crowds of stars, so clear in that enormous sky.

If they went through in a good year, they’ll have seen evidence of rain – birds thronging the pools (water in the pools!), flowers blooming in the scrub.

They might describe a natural spring, deep outback where you’d never expect to find any such thing – skin temperature, surrounded by lush vegetation, deep and wide enough to swim.

Perhaps someone will whisper of rock paintings so old no-one knows their date; of special rituals for greeting the earth in particular places; of the spirits of ancient elders who might appear; of a mighty rainbow serpent … or mutter about mines wounding the land.

Tales to dazzle visitors? Only one thing I’ve listed is a lie. (It’s not the bunyip. It’s not the rainbow serpent.)

Written for FridayWritings #3 at Poets and Storytellers United, to the prompt: 'Describe the scenery beyond the black stump' – which should speak to Aussies in particular.

Photo of outback Queensland by Greg Spearritt, on Unsplash.

Saturday Morning Lazy

Saturday Morning Lazy

I sleep in to 8.20 – after reading in bed until 2.30am.
 

Warmth wakes me. Our late (sub-tropical) Winter resembles early Spring.

My little cat has had a vomit after eating grass, as cats do. Aha! the new passage floor is vinyl – quick and easy to clean.

I find her drowsing on one of the rugs brought from her old home five months ago. It's one she's previously ignored. She settled in here well – already knew me, soon loved and trusted – but perhaps craves extra security just now? Recent renovations have changed some details of the space.

A gentle pat, then I leave her be.

I go to my computer for another look at my revamped poetry blog. Another gloat. I finished it last night, and I love it so much! I changed the theme so my ‘Follow’ option is visible without hunting. I found a deep red background reminiscent of both the elegant, stylised roses of my original ‘Enheduanna’s Daughter’ and the naturalistic rose of its predecessor, ‘The Passionate Crone’.

I’m renovating all my environments!

A little play on facebook ... suddenly it’s 9.14 and I haven’t had breakfast. Not even coffee! Well, it’s the weekend. Late breakfasts still in jammies are the way to go. On weekend mornings I can treat myself to lovely, unhealthy raisin toast. I do.

I look out my front door through the flywire. Not rainy, but not all that sunny either. 

I fetch a jug of water and give my jade bush on the porch a quick drink, with an overflow to my geraniums in the ground below.

Inside, I refill the vase of the sunflower a friend gave me eight days ago. It’s wilting a little. I draw back the curtain further and turn the flower to the light – but this heat-proof house doesn’t let in much sun.

House? It’s a unit. Two bedrooms. Poppi-cat thinks the spare room's hers. When I moved in there during renovations, she was thrilled. Relationship, to her, means togetherness – what better could I possibly have to do? But my nurturing space is my own bedroom. She joins me sometimes. Mostly we have daytime cuddles.

I write. The morning passes. Now a shower before lunch.

Sharing with Writers' Pantry #83 at Poets and Storytellers United.

The Other Cats #2: The invader

The Other Cats #2: The Invader 

(Continuing the tales of cats I tend to forget I ever had.  See #1.)

Rainbow (named for her unusual, multi-coloured eyes) moved in shortly before my firstborn started crawling. 

A big cat, white with some grey and tan patches, she was a stray. We already had my beloved Guinivere. But Rainbow was insistent. She started coming in the cat door and helping herself to Guinivere’s food, boldly and blatantly. Unwilling to refuse an animal in need, I began setting out another plate for her.

She fed like a stray, growling possessively, gobbling fast. If Guinie came close, Rainbow hiss-growled, threatening with raised claws. I started feeding them in separate places. Distance established, they ignored each other.

I never warmed to Rainbow. Despite moving in, she wasn’t sociable. I hoped time would soften her.

Then she had kittens in the laundry. So that was why she muscled in! Our Scotch Collie appointed herself guardian of the kittens, allowing Rainbow to leave them occasionally to feed or relieve herself. As they got older, she left them longer in Lassie’s care, to explore the house.

One day my baby son crawled towards Rainbow. I never let little kids near animals because they treat them like toys. They don’t understand, until taught, gentleness to living things. But Rainbow didn’t know me well enough to trust me to protect her. Before I could intervene, she lashed out, clawing his face just beneath his eye, drawing blood.

(A thing Guinivere, knowing both herself and the baby as family, would never have done.)

They were nowhere near the kittens. Still half-wild, Rainbow was protecting herself. I nearly fainted at the thought that, a fraction higher, she might have blinded him!

I phoned the Cat Protection Society, who agreed to take Rainbow and family. When the kittens were old enough, they’d find them homes. They suggested Rainbow might suit an older couple without children. 

The kittens were too young to leave their mother, but old enough to travel (contained) by car. It was easy getting Rainbow to come: she wouldn't be parted from them.

In some ways I admired Rainbow, although I didn’t like her.  She chose cleverly where to be looked after while having her babies. If she hadn’t attacked my baby.…

 

She was never 'my' cat.

(Continued with #3)

 

Shared with Poets and Storytellers United via Writer's Pantry #71.

The Other Cats: #1. The forgotten

The Other Cats #1: The Forgotten

I say my latest is number eight. Not true; she’s really the eleventh. I could list my eight in loving detail. Those other three I don’t count, and tend to forget. 

Let’s count them, this once.

#1 The forgotten.

#2 The invader.

#3 The feral.

I mostly forget #1. How could that be? He was my first – or she? – and I’d always longed for a cat. I remember what she looked like: small, black-and-white, scarcely past kitten-hood.

Where did I get him? What was her name? I probably answered an ad. Something in a shop – or house – window? A neighbour whose cat had kittens?

I was renting a house with two other young women: my first independence. Of course I got a cat! They didn’t mind, so long as all care and feeding was mine. 

They worked full-time. I was a student, living near the uni, with time between lectures. I guess I spent some time home with the cat. I recall she was outside a lot during the day. I think I brought him into my bedroom at night.

I was poor. A scholarship took care of student fees but little else. There must have been a meagre living allowance. Also I pawned things; seldom reclaimed them. Many weeks I lived on a head of lettuce; sixpence worth of mincemeat (a lot back then) which I shared with the cat; and oranges which one of the others had plentifully, from her family who grew them. I remember the cat eating eagerly, at her little bowl near the laundry. I must have named him; no idea what.

After a year, our tenancy ended. I went home for long vacation (across Bass Strait, from Melbourne to Tasmania). What did I do with the cat? I vaguely think I advertised, and gave it to a neighbouring family.

How could I, always feline-besotted, forget my first cat?

‘Some people break down very quietly,’ said my psychiatrist, a few years later. 'No-one notices.'

I look back and see I was already starting to break down then: so quietly, I myself didn’t realise yet. 

Could I even connect with a cat? Surely I was kind, responsible? 

I don’t remember.

(To be continued. See #2 and #3.)

For Weekly Scribblings #70 at Poets and Storytellers United, Rommy asks us to write a list poem, or a piece of prose that incorporates the idea of a list. Although this piece does that, and even supplies the list, I apologise that it doesn't complete the details. I expect that will take two more episodes.

Trees and Seasons

Trees and Seasons

The trees are full of leaves in this land of evergreens. I like these trees – now heavy with rain, their shine dulled. But not like death; like resting. Like going within to absorb all that nourishing water. 

In this small town, the rainforest is ever present – on the surrounding hills, and still in welcome remnants lining our streets.

This is Autumn. Some few trees do lose their leaves. My frangipani which has grown to cover my whole front wall, begins its shedding. It will be beautifully bare for Winter, its curving branches stretching and crossing in a random, leisurely lattice-work.

My childhood trees were willow (introduced) and blue gum (native). The willow I liked best in Spring, making a canopy around me when I sat on the swing my Dad made, hanging from a strong low branch. In Spring that canopy was tenderest green. Soft light shone through, filtered. Hours I dreamed and swung … or simply dreamed, trailing my feet on the ground, seeking the sky through the topmost arc: invisible, private, safe.

 

The blue gum, in a different corner of the yard, was the tree I climbed. I was timid in some ways, and fearful of heights, but this was a solid, spreading tree, easy to access from the wooden fence underneath. The horizontal support beams were just the right heights to make a cling-and-scramble ladder.

My first big step from fence to tree put me in a wide hollow in the lower branches – a resting-place with a floor, a firm back, and safe walls. I used to tuck a book into my belt as I climbed, then sit up there and read for hours among the air and the leaves. When I heard Mum calling, I didn’t respond.

‘Where were you?’ she'd ask when I finally showed.

‘Just reading,’ I’d say, deliberately vague. My blue gum sanctuary was secret.

Robert Graves told me years later, in The White Goddess, that repeatedly sitting under a willow would make one a poet.

Later still, trained in various forms of energy healing, I was given one 'from Spirit', characterised by colour – the same grey-blue, I eventually recalled, as the leaves of my nurturing gum.

Written for Weekly Scribblings #63: Trees at Poets and Storytellers United

 

 

Fragipani image: my own photo © Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2019

Willow image uncited, no copyright statement; used in accordance with Fair Use. 

Blue Gum Image: Hunter, John. (2017). Monitoring of Eucalyptus rubida subsp. barbigerorum. 

Never Say Never

 Never Say Never

A cat’s advertised, needing a home. I’m surprised by sudden longing. I said ‘No more’ after my last darling died. I realise – two years of processing the grief; now I’ve become lonely.

L phones just then. ‘Quick!’ I say, ‘Talk me out of this.’

Instead, she says, ‘M knows of a beautiful cat needing a new home. Otherwise she’ll be put down.’ 

(The cat in the ad was safely in foster-care.) I phone M. Then I phone the cat owner, and arrange a ‘let’s see’ visit. 

We click! We have things in common including our ideas about cat care. The family must move; there’ll be no room for Poppi. She needs her own zone: she hates and attacks their other three cats. Or she needs to be someone’s only cat. They’d rather put her to sleep than let anyone have her who wouldn’t look after her properly.

Poppi is 9, Burmese, sable coloured (dark brown that looks black to me). She is very deaf, very affectionate, and she’s a completely indoor cat. Owner explains, Burmese are too fearless for their own good so must be kept in. That suits me. I don’t want her out killing birds, or being killed by a snake.

I visit three times over two weeks so she gets to know me. At the first visit, I say, 'I'm in!' The owner does too. Poppi indicates she likes me. I let her come to me, as you do with cats. She becomes progressively more affectionate.

‘Bring her to me on the 13th,’ I say. ‘I’ll have four days free then to be with her.’ They bring all her toys and paraphernalia, some of her favourite foods, various instructions, her papers, their own palpable grief … scoop her up in one last hug, then leave quickly.

She has a good explore, then politely tells me it's her dinner time by going to her water dish and looking up at me expectantly. After dinner she settles in the bed atop her giant scratching post, parked by the window.  She welcomes my strokings and scritchings. 

Next morning she lies on the floor, stretches, turns over, asks for a tummy rub. I oblige ecstatically – such a sign of trust!

 

369 words written for Poets and Storytellers United's Weekly Scribblings #61: Starting a New Relationship. 

If I knew then what I know now …

 If I knew then what I know now …

I’d take better care of my body,

so it would take care of me now that I’m old.

I would never start smoking, never eat sweets;

I’d exercise daily and strenuously.

I’d get enough sleep, the full eight hours:

going to bed before 10 every night, I promise.

Or would I? Because really, I did know. 

We all really know the simple rules of health.

But we think we can cheat –

only a tiny bit, just for now.

We don’t understand we’re building habits.

Bad habits. Lifelong habits.

The sweeties tasted so good 

on the tongue and in the mouth.

And the cigarettes stopped me

from putting on weight.

(Too bad about other effects! I quit

in time to miss cancer; not emphysema.)

Least possible exercise, intermittent,

can soon slide into almost none. And 

anyway, it’s much too early for bed. 

There are poems to write. There’s Netflix.

There are friends to visit on facebook.

And I must get a late-night snack….

The title is Magaly's prompt for Weekly Scribblings #54 at Poets and Storytellers United.