RIght Now and my happy death wish

"Right Now" rolled the die for this - choices were:  Wash walls (going to start washing the outside walls by hand, not enough water in tanks to use the gurney), washing living room windows, chip lantana, draw (nearly finished cloud drawing), blog or start weekly letter to Aunt Lee.

Aunt Lee.  Her husband, my Uncle Ben, died in January.  I wrote as soon as I heard but never received a reply.  Then, at the beginning of this month, I get a letter from her.  She's in an old age home in Canton, Ohio, hundreds of miles away from Grand Rapids, Lansing, where Linda lives, or Jake, wherever the hell he is (he was in North or South Carolina, then Mexico, so who knows?).  I don't know the story so getting mad isn't helpful.  Maybe Linda is desperately trying to get her in a home closer to her.  Aunt Lee doesn't mention the kids at all.  All I know is although she was trying to be brave, the letter was sad and spoke of a woman very much alone - and you can never be lonelier than when you're lonely in a crowd.  So decided I would write her once a week.  Can only tell her Dry Gully Road news, certainly don't want to write of my woes (not that I have any) but writing about the animals and Australiana and upbeat newsy stuff, well, it might just make her smile sometimes.  I am so glad Mom and Dad never went into a home.  I'm not going either.  I'll die first - and that's the only way to avoid them; stay healthy, stay active, keep your marbles, then die in the night or better yet, have a little warning that I am soon to be cactus so the animals are taken care of.

That was my only fear while Richard was away.  If something happened to me while he was gone and no one noticed then the animals would suffer.

So there's my death wish.  Suppose Aunt Lee is tired and perhaps no longer looks at dying with a jaundiced eye.  It's a long beautiful, well-deserved sleep at the end of a long busy life.

Remember reading somewhere that those who have recently died go somewhere where they get to recuperate from life's rigours.  And Wayne had that wonderful dream of Mom in just such a place.

Death is no enemy.  Death is called an angel with good reason.  It is love that releases us from the constant, miraculous, exhilarating, beautiful but ultimately exhausting embrace of life.

So tired I can hardly write - and I'm purposely writing slowly to avoid mistakes (after crossing out two paragraphs and having to start over).  Very little sleep last night from the worst and longest lasting episode of 'restless legs' I've ever experienced.  All due to running home (about 2km?) from where I found a female, a pregnant female, flying fox hung up on a barbed wire fence - about 30' west of where Helen Keller, the deaf and blind and starving wallaby was discovered.

By the time Peter arrived (neither Richard or I are vaccinated against the deadly lyssavirus), it was dark so we worked by the headlights and a torch.  The female was so entangled on the barbs Peter had to pass her in a circle 3 or 4 times around the fence wire and even then had to cut it in order to free her. 

Brought her home for a drink of water, some Aspro Clear (one tablet in 30ml) and to finally disentangle her soft brown skin from the barb.  There was no blood save for what was on Peter's fingers after she bit him.  And who could blame her?  The pain must have been excruciating.  She was hyperventilating and whimpering continuously.  I haven't heard anything so tragic since working at the vets.

The bat hadn't broken her teeth, her bones or punctured her palate, something they often do when biting the barbs.  Peter thought her chances were pretty good.  The wing flesh wan't dry or papery - she'd been on the fence during a cloudy day - but even with all these things in her favour she died overnight, her and her unborn baby.

We tried.  Then there are all those bats and birds and animals that die unknown and unlamented somewhere in the bush - or in a bush fire, but I won't go there again, have already had my rant.

Took Balthazar up to the Secret or Hidden Valley which is neither secret or hidden anymore.  John's burned it, luckily he burned very little of the bush but of course every burn encroaches just a tiny bit further into the hitherto untouched bush.  Besides that he's had a dozer clear the track.  The dozer cut a huge swathe up the sides of the ravine.  It's a great clear riding track now but at what cost?  The earth and rock overflow now clogs the seasonal creek, and the waterfalls that appear after heavy rain will mean blocked water gouging out new channels and causing more erosion.

Said to Richard yesterday how much I love this house.  And I do.  It's going to have to be a very special property to get me to move.  Now that I've calmed down after the fires have finished I lose that keen edge to move.  But if it needs to happen it will happen.  I leave myself in the hands of the god.

Right Now I'm Grateful

"Right Now"  I am enjoying this exercise as it gets me writing again.  Read yesterday that 80% of people would like to publish a book.  I used to but now realize it's not something I care enough about to make the effort.  It's like drawing/painting - the joy is in the doing not the doing with one eye on a publishing contract or a gallery show.  Sure, I would love to be 'discovered' but it ain't gonna happen so may as well settle back and enjoy the ride.

Recently I'd been getting anxious about the state of the world and the monumental stupidity of humans.  Thinking 'good thoughts' wasn't working nor was the anxiety eased by recalling the many wonderful unselfish caring acts of everyday people.  Those thoughts were swamped by global warming, fracking, Syria, Somalia, Egypt, the USA (esp,. the USA which should know better!), Tony Abbott, Putin, Cambell Newman, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, ad nauseum, even ad infinitum!  The world committing a slow and excruciating suicide when we have the means, the know how, the intelligence to turn it all around.   All we lack is the will.

Even me.  Had an email from GetUp Australia.  Would I organize a rally for November 17 to protest against global warming?  No, I would not.  It still bothers me that I'm one of the guilty ones who allow evil to flourish because good women do nothing.  I sign every peition, write letters and send money but don't really put myself out there.

More anxiety.

Then I remembered the sure fire, fool proof way to happiness.  Gratitude.  I'd forgotten to be grateful - grateful for everything from my breath, to my bed, to my food, husband, this house, this table - and the storms coming our way, possibily severe according to the news, but which will bring much needed rain.

Right Now I'm Almost Mindful

"Right Now" - I've just finished yoga and meditation (if you can call that mishmash of htoughts and stillness meditating) and have made the dice list.  This - the blog - was number 4.  So for 10 minutes I will write and see if anything of note emerges. 

We went to an auction today.  I bought 6 wood frames with mats (and one plastic frame) for $30.  Not bad.  I have many frames now so no excuse not to draw or paint.  Just got another pen - what a difference a nice pen makes.  How must it have been for quills and ink - or cuniform in clay tablets.  Rather difficult to get a stream of consciousness going.  Maybe that was a good thing.  Now we, I, write any old thing without thinking it through and think it gold.

Think I'll write about speed.  The speed and sloppiness of thinking, of writing, of eating, of most everything.  There's a certain pride I take in doing everything quickly.  I walk quickly.  I think I probably talk quickly, when I do a job I do it quickly - but quickness kills mindfulness.  In the rush to move from this thing to the next thing I am not present for either.  (I'm finding it a real effort to slow my handwriting down but in doing so it is more legible and I make fewer mistakes).  Anyway, this rushing from one thing to another colours my entire life or perhaps I should say obscures it.  Without mindfulness, being fully present in the moment, I don't see it except through the veil of the next imagined (because I am already placing myself in that future) moment superimposed over the top.

It's quite clear when I stop - stopping and breathing being the key words here - to think about it.  Logically or intellectually 'getting' something doesn't make it true however.  And then there are distractions.  I feel the need of R, who just came in looking for me, wanting me to distract him from the enormity, infinity and finality of the present. 

"Right Now" a Spider is Dying

"Right Now" there's a spider dying on the pedestal base of the computer monitor.  Only noticed it because it was raking its legs like spiders do when they are pulling out silk but I don't think, because the spider is on its back, that is the reason.  I think it's a death dance, an eight-legged tarantella in reverse.

Have thought about death alot recently.  Just lost another bird, a juvenile magpie found on the road when walking the dogs.  Feathered but flightless it had horse hair, probably mane hair, wrapped around the joint of one leg.  Tried to remove it but it had cut in so deeply I couldn't be sure I got it all.  Took him to UQ yesterday morning.  In the afternoon they rang to say the joint was septic.  They couldn't be sure he would regain full use of it it or be pain free so they'd put him down.

Again I'd looked in the eyes of this little being, as I did Maggie (magpie) from a month ago, and had seen this very individual one-of-a-kind being staring out at me.  I was so certain he'd come home to heal, to be rehabilitated, to learn to fly, to be released.  I was crushed when I got the news.  That "person", that one-of-a-kind, no bird like him before or ever after, had graced this earth for only a short time and now is forever absent.  His paents will rear others babies.  I will forget him in time.  What was the purpose of his existence?

All life is sacred, all unique - even as I vacuum the dozens if not hundreds of invading bugs which have swarmed through the house this spring.  Soft-bodied brown beetles with orange flashes visible when they fly.  I feel guilty even as I position the vacuum nozzle over them.  I am sure each one of them is an indiidual too.  Why don't I squirm with guilt?

Tell Me The Story of Leaving

Years ago I read and worked through The Artists Way by Julia Cameron.  That book and that author were directly responsible for the writing of my first book.  Well, my only book.  The second book languishes somewhere in the guts of this computer along with essays and feline memories.  Have just stumbled upon a website called Writing From the Soul wherein you are urged to write for 10 minutes straight without editing.  Then, when finished, you are to read it aloud.  Interesting that, for if I read it as though I'm reading it for an audience; slowly and with soft but definite inflection, it reads well.  Do I copy it here?  Why not.  The prompt is:
"Tell me the story of leaving."  I leave when I need a break from reality.  Reality is right here, right now and sometimes it is too real, too now.  Not sure what I want to avoid.  I think it's the future but the future, if left alone by busym ind, remains the future.  I don't honestly know.  Am I bored?  How dare I be bored!  I feel guilty when I'm bored and do boring things.  It's the opposite ends of the spectrum; the thankfulness and *gladness* I felt this morning when returning along our road after cutting forage for the birds, and seeing the quarry mountain lit up with golden early morning light while the western side was clothed in blue and seeing this magnificent view punctuated by two birds flying across the sky - punctuation marks in the empty page of blue sky.  So all this beauty and gratitude, for I was filled with gratitude and then much later in the day after chores and meals and a trip to Toowoomba, I come in here and "leave" by playing one winning game each of solitaire, free cell and spider solitaire.  Why?  Why do I do that?  There's enough work to keep me occupied untiil the end of days.  I've a graphite drawing which has finally passed the difficult state and *invites* me to play with it - but no I come in here and park my bum in this too comfortable chair and bring up Games.

"Tell me the story of leaving".  Sometimes, although grateful and happy most of the time, I would like to trade responsibility, safety, serenity for a life on the road going solo, owing no one and no thing my allegiance.  But it is just a passing fancy.  I'm not 22 anymore.  I like routine and pencil sets and cleanliness and food and a soft bed.

Richard home Saturday after 17 days away.  Didn't think I'd miss him as much as I did.  Have always been fairly content with my own company.  It wasn't loneliness.  That's a different feeling altogether, once experienced never forgotten.  No this was just plain garden variety missing his company.  As much as he occasionally annoys and irritates it is his annoying habits, his irritating behaviours.  Although he, and I won't mince words anymore and pretend that it is something that it isn't or worse, that it doesn't exist, so although he is aging before my eyes and it seems sometimes as though he's 80 rather than 67, beneath the fogginess, the slowness, the shuffling, the dreaminess that isn't dreaming, he is still my Richard. 

Slowly our roles are reversing.  Before he took care of me.  He was the nurturing partner while I faffed about and did my thing at 90 miles an hour.  Now I have had to slow down and nuture him.  Thank god I've finally learned to like cooking!  Making delicious nutritious meals is such a sweet and simple gift I can give him every day.  But the nurturing extends to doing the heavy lifting (not that I'm capable of much either), problem solving, being the instigator of things (something I've always done just more so now). 

It sounds as though Richard is non compos mentis and that isn't true at all.  He's off to town this morning to work through a list of errands.  He still does all the banking and handles the insurance and all those accoutrements of day to day living.  Because he worries about those things and spends alot of time thinking about them he does them well.  He can build anything.  He built the new aviary and has just replaced a rotting railroad tie with boards which blend in perfectly with the deck (or will when they age).  He can do all that standing on his head. Anyway, no matter.  In that cliche'd but perfect phrase, 'it is what it is'.  If I start to worry about the future I am undone. 

And then there are other people's problems.  The Gold Coast has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.  Bikie gangs are making their presence known, intimidating civilians and trying to intimidate the police by surrounding a station where one of their members was being held.  There are several different gangs which are at war with one another.  In the course of this, two men from different gangs were arrested. 

At this point I would like to mention the professionalism of the newscaster.  She reported this story without cracking a smile. 

These two men, from opposing gangs, were arrested for various violent offences.  One of them was 21.  He was shown leaving the watchhouse, black t shirt stretched across a body which is familiar with the weightroom of the gym.  Tattoos everywhere and a big white necklace (of bone?) around his neck.  Aware of the cameras he strutted down the ramp like the conquering hero.  I think he was with the Lone Wolf Bikie Gang. 

The other chap, a Sergeant at Arms of the Comancheros was also shown.  Stocky, bull necked, again familiar with the gym.  A high ranking member of a well known, violent and criminal gang.  39 years old.  Charged with assault and GBH.  I think. 

The punch line?  Both of these tough bikies live with their mommys.  No wonder they're in a bad mood.