The Collectors

I work at the Salvation Army on my day off, Friday and last Friday, I found a book, The Collectors by Robert Carter.  His earlier novel, Prints in the Valley is a favourite read and I expected The Collectors would not disappoint. So I bought it, a bargain at $1 along with some books for Seffy at only 50 cents each.  

     I also bought a spinning spice rack for Seffy, a handmade leather belt and pack of playing cards for Kibby who worked alongside me because he was not well enough to run in his school’s cross-country.  I took home at no cost because it was so old and would have been ditched, The Concise Home Doctor, circa 1960 and a collection of week-by-week 1970 editions of ‘the great new colour encyclopedia,’ Australia’s Heritage:  The Making of a Nation.  

And I kept a Thank you card written by a couple where they comment on why they love Atherton and a birthday card written by Titty to her brother, Jeffrey.  Oh, and Jeffrey’s social studies exercise book.   I can’t understand why people throw away such interesting and sentimental items.  I have this need to collect them, to keep them safe because I cannot bear for them to become landfill.

     
     Anyway, on Saturday morning I relaxed on the lounge and started to read The Collectors as I ate a leisurely breakfast of Tableland fruit and home made yoghurt.  Something wasn’t right.  One, I don’t read these days because any spare time I have is spent preparing material and writing short stories for my awesome literacy students.  Two, I don’t eat breakfast sitting down, ever.  And three, there was a ghostly silence in the house and that gave me time to think, something I rarely do.

     The reason there was a ghostly silence was Tony and the kids had gone to Cairns to help my mum, Bubu tidy her house for sale.  She’s signed a contract to buy a house at the end of our street and the purchase of that house is dependent on the sale of her Cairns house.  I really want her nearby since she hasn’t enjoyed the best of health lately and the kids really love being with her.

     And the reason Tony and the kids need to help Bubu tidy up is because Bubu is a collector. She collects many things.  Actually, she collects all things.  I have visited Bubu every six weeks or so since we moved to Atherton and each time I’ve walked in there have been many new items she’s collected.  A new sofa.  A new lounge chair. The coffee table was new, but I didn’t notice.  A new kitchen bench – bamboo!  A new set of cutlery. A new dining table and chairs.  Another new dining table without chairs.  That’s just in the lounge, dining and kitchen before I venture into the bedrooms.  Rarely am I able to venture into the bedrooms because they are full of new and interesting collectibles.  A very fetching cane day bed in one room with a gorgeous Egyptian cotton cover. Stuff concealed under piles of clothes, blankets and throws, good quality woollen or cotton, of course. A coffee table, perhaps the old one that was replaced by the new one I didn’t notice.  But sure enough, all the old items are in the carport waiting to be taken to the second hand shop (by my brother, Stephen) to enter the great household “recycle of life” and bring contentment to other collectors.  Bubu has a strong environmental commitment and saves many collectibles from becoming land fill.

     The word hoarding may come to mind, but Bubu doesn’t hoard.  Hoarding, from my lay understanding, is the inability to part with possessions, often of little value.  Commonly hoarded items are newspapers, magazines, clothes and food.  Further, hoarding behaviour often adversely affects family members and this is certainly not the case, except when Bubu lost the kneading blade to Stephen’s bread maker when she borrowed it.  I warned him against lending it to her.

     “She’ll lose it,” I said.  “And you’ll never find it in all the stuff she has.”

     After it vanished I suggested Bubu look behind the couch for the kneading blade.  But no one in my family ever listens to me.

     To be honest, the only time Bubu’s collecting has ever bothered me is when I’ve visited for the night and not been able to find the bed when I’ve planned to sleep.  But other than that, Bubu’s collecting has only benefitted me. 

     Only recently she bought me, from the second hand shop, A G2 George Gross ribbon embroidered skirt and a pair of pale, soft leather deck shoes, that don’t fit.  My favourite recent op shop purchase from Bubu was a Toulouse-Lautrec Moulin Rouge print dress by Gabriella Frattini whose designs are influenced by the fashions of Tuscany, Paris and the Medditeranean!  Every time I wear that dress people comment on how lovely it is. 

This famous artwork was so famous it was printed on the wallpaper that adorned our toilet walls in Perth in 1976!  I spent hours sitting on the toilet so I could gaze at the dancing ladies and the men in top hats. How could I not wear this dress?

      

     I’ve been the beneficiary of two pairs of Birkenstocks (that do fit) she bought for $2 each from the op shop, countless pairs of discounted undies and bras (not from the second hand shop) and a slow cooker.  She often buys the kids clothes and shoes from the second hand shops.  When Bubu collects new items, I’ll gladly accept her old ones - kitsch salad bowls, any blue crockery, tea pots, wine glasses, pots and pans, lounge suites, coffee tables, beds.  That’s not hoarding.  She's a crazy collector, but not a hoarder.  There's a saying that women grow into their mother's, but I am damned sure that won't be happening!

     If Bubu does hoard anything, it’s books, literary and coffee table books, quality books.  This is not surprising.  She has an Arts degree majoring in English literature.  I also collect books and I am proud to say two of the five metres we freighted from TI were boxes of my books.  If anything should be exempted from the definition of hoarding, it should be good books, much like The Concise Home Doctor and The Collectors by Robert Carter.

     All this I thought about in the silence left by Tony and the kids’ because they were in Cairns helping Bubu sort out her collectibles, some of which I am hoping will return with Tony.  And the silence allowed me to remember I’d forgotten to buy the small stainless steel container with the plastic lid (I am into stainless steel ware) and the collection of classics, three-in-one volume, absolute collectors’ items.  I’ll have to ring the Salvos on Monday and ask for them to be put aside. 

My spotted soul mate, my husband and my self-control

Tony and I didn't write our marriage vows mainly because we decided rather suddenly to tie the knot.  Also, the vow-writing process seemed a bit cringe-worthy to me.  But to be honest, I’d worked as a family law solicitor and knew there was a 40% chance we’d divorce. I wasn’t going to waste time crafting a declaration of love for a man I was likely to end up disliking.

Just married ... 'till death do us part.'

     So we had the traditional, ‘till death do us part’ spiel as part of a registry wedding (wasn't wasting money on a flash wedding, either).  But most of the clerk's voice was drowned out, first by Tony’s giggling and then the laughter of the seven guests crammed into the small office.  I was so embarrassed and was tempted to take hold of the glass paperweight on the clerk’s desk and smash it over Tony’s head. But I exercised the self-control of a saint.
     While photos were taken outside the courthouse, it occurred to me our marriage was founded on the notion that it would survive till one of us died a natural death … or killed the other.  And that almost happened at the end of 2010.

I miss my girl.

     I had travelled from TI to Cairns with the Rooster for his boarding school orientation.  I never liked leaving TI because it meant being separated from my spotted soul mate.  Yes, my beautiful Dalmation, Saidor, named after a village in Papua New Guinea.  

     Saidor and I were inseparable.  She slept on the floor beside my bed.  I always I lay on my stomach and let my arm hang down so I could rest my hand on her fur.  She sprawled on the kitchen lino when I cooked and she lay beside my chair when I worked at the computer.  She was at my side when I did yoga. When I was in labour with the last two children, Saidor was outside the maternity ward.  

       When I returned from my week in Cairns, I noticed Saidor was outside on the veranda instead of inside where she belonged.  I had my suspicions.  When it was time to sleep, I placed Saidor's mattress next to my bed as I did every night and called her inside.

     ‘The dog stays outside,’ growled Tony.

     Now, there were two problems with that statement.  The first was Saidor, as a member of our family, belonged inside.  The second, he’d referred to her as ‘the dog’ which was a fatal mistake.  I resisted the urge to fly at him in a rage. 

     ‘Saidor sleeps next to me.’ My voice was calm.

     ‘She’s staying outside.  I’m sick of her being inside.’

     ‘You don’t understand.  Saidor and I sleep beside each other. We always have and we always will.’

     ‘If you want to sleep with her, you can sleep outside on the veranda.’

     ‘Okay,’ I said.  I took Saidor’s mattress out to the veranda and fetched the swag for me.

     Oh, how glorious it was laying, curled around my furry friend and gazing at the sequinned sky.  We dozed as the flying foxes fought over ripe paw paws, green tree frogs croaked in the downpipes and the banana leaves brushed against each other in secret whispers.  When the spray of rain blew in, I pulled the waterproof flap of the swag over me and covered Saidor with a sheet. We slept like newborns.
     At dawn, we were woken by the crowing of roosters as the sky turned pink. 

     This went on for three weeks.  Each night, I unrolled the swag and placed Saidor’s mattress down.  In the morning, I rolled up the swag and put it in the office.  It then occurred to me that our marriage was actually founded on the notion of ‘till a slow and painful emotional death do us part.’  Really, I didn’t care.  I had my soul mate.

     On the twenty-first night, I unrolled my swag on the veranda then Tony opened the screen door.

     ‘You can come inside now,’ he said in a quiet voice.

     ‘Okay,’ I said.

     I rolled up the swag and put it in the office. Then I went back to the veranda and picked up Saidor’s mattress.

     ‘Come on, Darling’ I said to her, holding the door open.

     She followed me to my side of the bed where I placed her mattress.  She curled upon it and I got into bed, draped my arm over the side and rubbed her neck.  We slept like newborns.  

     And Tony and I were back on track till ‘natural death do us part.’  

Len the Leech and the fair deal (Comprehension strategies - Author Purpose and Facts & Details).

Yesterday Tony, Gina Rose and I set out on a walk up Mt Widow Maker.  Five minutes into the trek we were joined by a fourth party.  Actually, I was joined by the fourth party, at the shin to be precise.  It was a leech. 

  It was firmly attached and I couldn’t feel a thing.  

     ‘Crikey,’ I said when I first saw the leech.  I knew that without Lindsay’s Leech Lifting Lotion, the leech would be sticking with me. 
     ‘Crikey,’ I said again.

     That’s when the leech said through its teeth (they have them), ‘G’day.  It’s me, Len the leech.  I hope you don’t mind, but I need a lift up to Mt Widow Maker.’

Len the leech joins our walk.  No 'Shave for a Cure' jokes, thank you!

      Call him a stowaway, a bludger, a scab (he will certainly leave one behind), whatever, they are people who want something for nothing.  But this slimy guy had attitude and he was no imposition because I couldn’t feel him thanks to the anaesthetic leeches inject.  Len was stuck fast and we were off, now four in our group.

     On the way, I considered some riveting facts about leeches who bear the flash scientific name Hirudinea.

     *Leeches have 32 brains (which explains why Len was so articulate).  
     *The leech brain is very similar to the human brain and is often used for  research into human brain conditions.
     *Leeches like beer!  I wonder if Queensland leeches prefer XXXX and Victorian leeches like VB.  
     *Leech diets and habitat vary.  Most leeches live in warm, wet places like the Far North Queensland forest in the wet season.  But one-fifth of all leeches live in the sea!
     *They inject an anticoagulant, hirudin to stop the host’s blood clotting.  
     *The anaesthetic and the anti-coagulant have been used in medicine to make drugs.
     * Medicinal leeches were used for bloodletting, an old treatment practised by the Ancient Egyptians and Romans.  Doctors believe bloodletting cured a whole range of illnesses and continued into the 20^th century, but today the practice is considered a waste of time.  And blood, of course.
     *Leeches can eat a huge amount – 5 times their body weight.  This means they can go for a year without food.
     *Leeches are hermaphrodites meaning they have both male and female reproductive organs so they don’t need partners to reproduce. 

     Finally, after all that thinking, we summited just before six p.m. I wrote in the Visitors' Book before the light faded.

     

Len enjoys the view from the summit of Mt Widow Maker.

Tony and Gina Rose take in the scenery.

I'd be very grateful if someone could solve the mystery of the hanging rock.  Was there a picnic here?

     Eventually we began our descent. I noticed Len had put on a bit of beef.

     ‘Len,’ I said, ‘You’re a bit thick around the middle.  Been grazing the top paddock, have you?’

     I didn’t actually say that aloud.  Tony would have thought I was a raving lunatic if I talked aloud to a leech!  So I said it in my mind and hoped Len, using one of his 32 brains, could pick up on my mental energy.

     I noticed Len went quiet.  A few strides later he was gone without so much as a goodbye or thank you. 

     I had offended Len, but the good thing was Len got to where he wanted (up Mt Widow Maker) and Tony, Gina Rose and I had a lovely walk in the freezing wind and drizzling rain.  
     It wasn’t true that Len took the free ride and gave nothing in return.  He gave me anaesthetic to relieve the pain and hirudin so my blood wouldn’t clot.  And a small wound that seeped fire engine-red blood for the next 12 hours … all over my pale cream sheets each time the scab (he left that, too) was rubbed off.  I guess in leech terms that amounted to a fair deal! 

A boy and a hen named Leura

Hanging out after school!

A poem for Scarlet Fever

A withered current 
Is my poetic brain
Words incoherent
Flow like flat champagne.

With stony grace
I bear this curse
Tense my face
And fashion verse.

Words are lean
My will almost gone
Strong caffeine
Helps me soldier on.

But the reader’s grief
Spills with my twaddle
Blessed relief
Is in the empty bottle. 

Duckingham Palace

Duckingham Palace (Mark 1)
Despite Tony's threats to deal with my ducks according to the instructions of various recipes, he built this in June last year.  This model is able to be disassembled and is snake-proof.  Unfortunately, it has primitive flooring and unreliable roofing.

Duckingham Palace (Mark 2)Sustainable architecture to withstand monsoonal rains including features such as recycled decking and a double ceiling.

And a roost to accommodate the diversity of the blended family! 

The happy blended family.  Mother (centre), daughter (left) and aunty.

The World Is Too Much With Us

The Rooster wanted to come out for the weekend.  I’m a self-confessed pain in the environmental arse when it comes to fuel.  I can’t take a drive unless I consider my carbon tyre-track.  Am I able to do other errands on this trip?  Could it wait?  Could I walk?  The Rooster coming out for the weekend involved a bus trip from Cairns.  Surely a bus is a more energy efficient way to travel. 

     After I made peace with nature for my vicarious recreational abuse of fossil fuels, the Rooster arrived on the bus on our tenth day of rain.  What better place to spend a wet weekend than the farm.

     The Rooster is a giant, silent presence that moves slowly, mostly towards the sofa where he sprawls or to the kitchen to refuel his ever-growing body.  The Rooster never wastes words.  When he finally talks, it’s for good reason.

     “Mum,” he said on Saturday morning.  “Can you help me with my English?”

     I’ve always found it difficult to help the boys with their work at boarding school.  Email and the phone is no substitute for presence. Worse, the Rooster tends to ask for help the night before his assessment is due.  I can’t do anything, but a quick edit for spelling and grammar.  I am still working with him on his time management, but time has little relevance for him apart from Time to eat, Time to sleep, Time to go hunting, Time to play footy and so on.

     So I was surprised to learn his English draft was due on Tuesday.  The Rooster has never been an early bird and I was excited to actually have a chance to help him, in time and place.

     His task was to analyse a poem from history and relate it to a contemporary issue with reference to the historical context and author’s circumstances.

     He had chosen the following poem and I read only a few lines before I felt I was on a dinghy in the Torres Strait in heavy seas and boxing tide with a bad case of motion sickness.  I’ve never been keen on poetry which stems from pure ignorance and a little fear of words that aren’t garden-variety Standard Australian English. I seriously regretted not paying attention when poetry was on the class menu thirty years ago.

The World Is Too Much With Us

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

     The Rooster saw my distress, but he had it all worked out and gave me a run down.  He had annotated the poem, defined the whacky words like “sordid boon,” “lay waste our powers” and “bares her bosom” and checked out the identities of Proteus and Triton (I was thinking a South African flower and a Mitsubishi ute).  We Googled a bit of history and I could see why the teacher set the task.  That’s when I started to get very depressed about the state of our world.

     Wordsworth wrote the poem in the early 19^th century.  He is lamenting the First Industrial Revolution which led humanity away from the glory of Nature towards machines, chemicals, mining of coal and iron ore, gas lighting, manufactured products and the construction of roads, rail and waterways.  People flocked from the countryside to the cities to get work in the factories and enjoy a better standard of living for the first time in English history. 

     Wordsworth was a Romantic poet who wrote, not mushy declarations of love, but about the beauty of Nature, favouring emotion and intuition as opposed to the current trend of the time (the Age of Enlightenment) which praised reasoning and analytical thinking.  That he capitalised Nature suggests to me he’s keen on it having proper noun status rather being an ordinary abstract noun. 

     “We have given our hearts away” is a reference to turning our backs on nature.

     The “sordid boon” is the sick materialism people have embraced following the increase in the standard of living brought about by the First Industrial Revolution.  I thought that was a bit hypocritical considering Wordsworth was socially privileged and with ‘help’ he would have had the time to enjoy nature.  On the other hand, if you are illiterate and spend sixteen hours a day in a factory weaving fabric, I understand a ‘get and spend’ approach to life. 

     “For this, for everything, we are out of tune.”  Humans are on a path of devastation.

     Wordsworth wishes he was a pagan so he wasn’t so disturbed by the way humanity has embraced consumerism.  

     Hang on!  Isn’t he talking about the digital revolution of the 21^st century and the materialism that sustains people using money they don't have (credit) to live unsustainable lifestyles?

     If Wordsworth thought things were bad 200 years ago, he’d be writing in his grave today.  Humanity has declined to new depths and we are headed for unprecedented disaster; an increasingly warmer world, the loss of natural habitat through urbanisation and rising temperatures, uncertain food security, political instability, an overwhelmingly indolent first world population that has caused the problem and then, ultimate anarchy, war and death.  Of course, there will be whimpering.

     I’d had enough of poetry. It was depressing.  I felt like a drink, but I did some yoga to calm my nerves while the Rooster worked on his assignment.

The Glade.  Before the rain.

     Then the two of us went for a long walk, he slashing weeds with his bush knife, me revelling in this little pocket of nature largely untouched by industry (except that it is tertiary growth rainforest and there are more weeds than native grasses!).

     There had been torrential rain during the week.  I’d never seen the Dirran Creek in flood.  Where there had been a crystal-clear stream meandering around sentinel-like boulders, there was a single milky river, swollen with rage.  What I saw wasn’t the peak of floodwater.  Metres higher, trees, logs and debris had been discarded on the path we walked.

     A tree, thirty metres tall, flicked asunder.

The Glade, after flood waters have receded.

     It occurred to me Wordsworth might not be so disturbed if he knew nature could deposit a tree, weighing a tonne, two metres up a hill.  Perhaps he didn’t credit nature with enough resilience.  For a few moments, till I returned to the house and listened to the road trains rumbling on the highway transporting imported electronics, clothes manufactured in Asian sweatshops and mixed berries shipped from China (more on this one), I thought Nature might come through the 21^st century with nothing more than bruises, cuts and abrasions.