Winter, spring, summer,
autumn, sometimes fall.
Falling into winter.
Never falling feet first
like the black cat,
green eyes shining.
No. I fall flat.
Not just flat on face,
but flat on legs
flat on back
flat on belly
flat; flattened
into the black earth
covered with the
chill blanket
of midwinter frost.
I fall down:
down side up
up side down
up side gone
down side down
Falling into winter
into the long dark
into the cold black
down side down
down
down
Solstice:
the light returns
up side rolls
over, slowly,
struggling to turn
up side up.
Even I feel the dark recede
just a little
up side rising
tempting
crazy.
Shall I let up side up?
Can I let up side up?
up side is fleeting
up side is fickle
down side is down
but so very reliable
down side up
down side down
Up side up?
A Possibility?
Up side UP?
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
The Older Generation
Last week I went to Whanganui (note my politically biased spelling!) for the funeral of my uncle, Moore. After my parents both died eight months apart in 1988, I thought I adjusted to the fact that my sister and I were now The Older Generation. But when Moore died I discovered that I'd only been pretending to be a well adjusted oldie - the death of this last parental sibling came as a shock: not the fact of his death, but the fact of my status.
Once There Were Ten: Five a Side
Just eleven years old
Nancy was first to go:
My mother’s twin
lost to polio.
Then Sergeant Robert
went off to the war.
died in Greece
just twenty four.
Ned was sick
before he died -
for so many years,
it was no surprise.
Much later was George
who clung to life
trying so hard
to stay with his wife.
Lyndsay left next,
nine months later she died
neither she nor George
met their sixth grandchild.
Then the other Robert,
Alison, and Guy,
and finally Moore.
the last to die.
My sister’s still here,
our children, and theirs,
but we have become
the Elders, I fear.
Once There Were Ten: Five a Side
Just eleven years old
Nancy was first to go:
My mother’s twin
lost to polio.
Then Sergeant Robert
went off to the war.
died in Greece
just twenty four.
Ned was sick
before he died -
for so many years,
it was no surprise.
Much later was George
who clung to life
trying so hard
to stay with his wife.
Lyndsay left next,
nine months later she died
neither she nor George
met their sixth grandchild.
Then the other Robert,
Alison, and Guy,
and finally Moore.
the last to die.
My sister’s still here,
our children, and theirs,
but we have become
the Elders, I fear.
Out of the Darkness
This year, for the first time in decades, I have managed to stay on top of depression by being very aware of how my body is reacting to the lack of daylight. Even when I know in my head that I have so much to be grateful for, there are so many times in my life when I can't feel it in my heart, times when depression is indeed a black dog on my back, and especially in winter. I have been counting down the days until Solstice, and reminding myself that soon the days will start growing longer again. Soon the chooks will stay laying again. The spring bulbs have already got several inches of leaves showing. However the last couple of days have been so wonderfully light-filed that I don't need the passing of Solstice - I'm already feeling like I'm on the way up.
Today, I rose before dawn - which is, of course, relatively late - because my sister was staying and was going to be leaving about 8.30 to go back to Auckland.
Looking wet from our sitting room, Mt Karioi was looking glorious in the early morning sun
The goat wasn't so keen on our frosty morning.
But though the stawberry plants were edged with ice,
I found this!
Ng Tong, the cat was enjoying a roll in the sun and dust,
and the chooks were looking a lot happier than on the bedraggling rainy days earlier in the week.
The ram pump that fills the chooks' water bowl, the cow's trough and our toilets, had stopped, but the chore of having to go down to the stream in the bush to clean it out and restart it, wasn't really a chore today
because the bush was looking so very lovely with the sun filtering through .
Even though it is winter, because we live in a temperate zone, I still have a bit of colour in my garden: the native flaxes and coprosma;
the arctotis;
the pineapple sage;
and even food - parsley by the bucketful, and look! a handful of pure sunlight to eat - Cape gooseberries.
I hoped the tagasaste would attract kereru and honey bees, but although all I see feasting in these trees are bumble bees and rosellas, I love their white flowers in the middle of winter.
I watered the hebe plants grown from cuttings that my friend Kate gave me last Wednesday when we visited her after my uncle's funeral in Whanganui. I love that my garden contains so many reminders of friends.
Bob the Dog ran away a few weeks ago, we think after being scared by nearby possum shooting neighbour. We spent a very anxious two days before Bob managed to find a car 4 km away on SH 23, and someone to drive him home. He drives us nuts some days (the cats as well, as you can see from his scratched nose) but we love him and are so glad he made it back safe and unharmed.
After all that, what a treat to sit down with a cup of tea and a piece of my sister's delicious chocolate caramel slice.
Then it was time to go into Hamilton for Jeff to get some Aussie dollars for his visit to Melbourne next week, and to sit his first university exam - maths.
Even in the carpark at The Base (Hamilton's biggest shopping centre) there were beautiful things to see.
And then while Jeff sweated through his maths exam, I spent a lovely afternoon with friends, Chantal and Cate: what could there possibly be to get depressed about?
Today, I rose before dawn - which is, of course, relatively late - because my sister was staying and was going to be leaving about 8.30 to go back to Auckland.
Looking wet from our sitting room, Mt Karioi was looking glorious in the early morning sun
The goat wasn't so keen on our frosty morning.
But though the stawberry plants were edged with ice,
I found this!
Ng Tong, the cat was enjoying a roll in the sun and dust,
and the chooks were looking a lot happier than on the bedraggling rainy days earlier in the week.
The ram pump that fills the chooks' water bowl, the cow's trough and our toilets, had stopped, but the chore of having to go down to the stream in the bush to clean it out and restart it, wasn't really a chore today
because the bush was looking so very lovely with the sun filtering through .
Even though it is winter, because we live in a temperate zone, I still have a bit of colour in my garden: the native flaxes and coprosma;
the arctotis;
the pineapple sage;
and even food - parsley by the bucketful, and look! a handful of pure sunlight to eat - Cape gooseberries.
I hoped the tagasaste would attract kereru and honey bees, but although all I see feasting in these trees are bumble bees and rosellas, I love their white flowers in the middle of winter.
I watered the hebe plants grown from cuttings that my friend Kate gave me last Wednesday when we visited her after my uncle's funeral in Whanganui. I love that my garden contains so many reminders of friends.
Bob the Dog ran away a few weeks ago, we think after being scared by nearby possum shooting neighbour. We spent a very anxious two days before Bob managed to find a car 4 km away on SH 23, and someone to drive him home. He drives us nuts some days (the cats as well, as you can see from his scratched nose) but we love him and are so glad he made it back safe and unharmed.
After all that, what a treat to sit down with a cup of tea and a piece of my sister's delicious chocolate caramel slice.
Then it was time to go into Hamilton for Jeff to get some Aussie dollars for his visit to Melbourne next week, and to sit his first university exam - maths.
Even in the carpark at The Base (Hamilton's biggest shopping centre) there were beautiful things to see.
And then while Jeff sweated through his maths exam, I spent a lovely afternoon with friends, Chantal and Cate: what could there possibly be to get depressed about?
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Book making
I've decided that I really am going to build up a decent quantity of stock and have a go at selling at the Raglan Market, though wet, cold, winter weather makes the prospect daunting. Apart from the physical misery, there's the problem of trying to keep paper goods dry!
Oh, what one can achieve when left alone for hours on end on Mothers Day:
This one is a lot greener than it looks in the photo.
Plus one from a couple of days ago:
Oh, what one can achieve when left alone for hours on end on Mothers Day:
This one is a lot greener than it looks in the photo.Plus one from a couple of days ago:
Monday, May 4, 2009
Empty Nest 3
The fear of loneliness
has become reality
now my twenty eight years
of days shared with sons
has come to a gradual end.
A walk on the ocean beach
on a sun-shiny winter day,
holding hands along the sand
with my man, their father,
shadowed by a new cloud of fear:
Please, PLEASE!
Any god who will listen!
Don't let us become
that couple with two dogs
on long, red leashes and
a third fluffy, white precious
carried like a baby
in a designer front pack!
has become reality
now my twenty eight years
of days shared with sons
has come to a gradual end.
A walk on the ocean beach
on a sun-shiny winter day,
holding hands along the sand
with my man, their father,
shadowed by a new cloud of fear:
Please, PLEASE!
Any god who will listen!
Don't let us become
that couple with two dogs
on long, red leashes and
a third fluffy, white precious
carried like a baby
in a designer front pack!
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Independence Days
Quince jelly - Cape Gooseberry Jam - Feijoa jelly
I love the idea of the Independence Days movement - it seems it has grown sufficiently to be called a movement. It's the reality that I'm struggling with! I certainly could do it daily, and indeed, I'm struggling to do even half of it weekly. But I guess the important thing is being aware, and striving towards the goal. So the following is what I have achieved over the past week.
* Plant Something - failed there!
* Harvest Something - the last of the chestnuts, apples, feijoas, parsley, lemons, cape gooseberries, potatoes, New Zealand spinach, a few tomatoes - this section looks a bit better, thank goodness.
* Preserve Something - fruit chutney, bottled apple, cape gooseberry jam, froze chestnuts
* Reduce Waste - I made a determined effort to remember my reuseable shopping bags, going back to the car for them, rather than ask for a plastic bag (It's not so long ago that I was told at The Warehouse that I had to have a pink plastic bag for 'security reasons', and now you have to ask for a bag and, I think, pay for it.) I also took as much of my shopping from the bulk bins at Frankton Organics, using their plastic bags (which are later composted) rather than buy the prepackaged food.
* Preparation and storage - Spent a bit extra when shopping, to start building reserves for the first time. Toilet paper was first on the list (I remember childhood days, living in the country without a car and having to use torn up newspaper - yuk!), rice, beans, lentils, and a few extra cans.
* Build community food systems - not much here - have made a feijoa cake to take to a friend's place tonight, along with a jar of cape gooseberry jam (if it has set.) I'm a fairly private person and find it hard to get involved, as well as living out in the country.
* Eat the food - well, I have done that! But nothing new or adventurous.
Oh well, maybe better next week, though as winter has arrived it will be harder I suspect. But I'm feeling that the really important thing is to become aware - without constant awareness, it is all so easy to slip into a lazy I'll-do-it-tomorrow way of living.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Slicing Up My Life
It's 23 years since I started homeschooling and as the years went by and we became less and less 'homeschoolers' and more 'unschoolers', I found it more and more difficult to split our lives up into Subjects. I had to stop and think hard when it came to review time, because our lives had ceased to be a matter of Maths and History and Science and English: we just lived, and all those things became a part of our life in a seamless kind of way.
I've been reading blogs lately and finding that increasingly people seem to have several blogs, each covering a different area of their lives, so I just looked back at my blog since I started and realised that it is a total jumble of poetry, craft work, ideas, thoughts, feelings, gardening, life happenings. I started to wonder if I too should have several blogs, but then looked at what it says at the top of my page underneath the name: A mishmash of some of the poems, pictures, ponderings and everyday happenings that make up my life. And you know what? That is how my life is - a jumble, a mishmash, just like my unschooling, and I don't think I can untangle the parts.
When I am gardening or doing housework, my mind often wanders to politics or poetry or an idea for a new book cover. Which blog do I write that in? When something significant happens in my life, I often write poetry about it. When I find some interesting leaf while working the land, it is likely to find its way into a book. When I'm making a book, I'll be listening to the radio and find out something interesting to talk to family about or hear about some event someone may want to go to. When I'm cooking I'll think about what I need to plant in my garden. When I'm playing on the computer, I'm chatting to friends and family.
So it seems I can split neither my blogs, nor my life, into pieces. As in my days of homeschooling, I admire and sometimes envy those who can, but it's not my style. Oh well, hardly anyone reads my blogs anyway, no one is clamouring for me to be more organised, so it's not really an issue!
It's just one of those 'shoulds' that hide in bushes and leap out to bite you on the leg every so often - and I am reminded once again that the only genuine 'should' is that one 'should' not do things just because someone, even yourself, says you 'should'!
Miss Smith, my Standard 1 teacher told me my mother had very bad taste, that one 'should' never wear blue and green together (I was wearing a skirt made in my mother's family tartan). Well, I won't listen to 'shoulds' and these days I still wear blue and green in the same garment! Nyah nyah!
I've been reading blogs lately and finding that increasingly people seem to have several blogs, each covering a different area of their lives, so I just looked back at my blog since I started and realised that it is a total jumble of poetry, craft work, ideas, thoughts, feelings, gardening, life happenings. I started to wonder if I too should have several blogs, but then looked at what it says at the top of my page underneath the name: A mishmash of some of the poems, pictures, ponderings and everyday happenings that make up my life. And you know what? That is how my life is - a jumble, a mishmash, just like my unschooling, and I don't think I can untangle the parts.
When I am gardening or doing housework, my mind often wanders to politics or poetry or an idea for a new book cover. Which blog do I write that in? When something significant happens in my life, I often write poetry about it. When I find some interesting leaf while working the land, it is likely to find its way into a book. When I'm making a book, I'll be listening to the radio and find out something interesting to talk to family about or hear about some event someone may want to go to. When I'm cooking I'll think about what I need to plant in my garden. When I'm playing on the computer, I'm chatting to friends and family.
So it seems I can split neither my blogs, nor my life, into pieces. As in my days of homeschooling, I admire and sometimes envy those who can, but it's not my style. Oh well, hardly anyone reads my blogs anyway, no one is clamouring for me to be more organised, so it's not really an issue!
It's just one of those 'shoulds' that hide in bushes and leap out to bite you on the leg every so often - and I am reminded once again that the only genuine 'should' is that one 'should' not do things just because someone, even yourself, says you 'should'!
Miss Smith, my Standard 1 teacher told me my mother had very bad taste, that one 'should' never wear blue and green together (I was wearing a skirt made in my mother's family tartan). Well, I won't listen to 'shoulds' and these days I still wear blue and green in the same garment! Nyah nyah!
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