New Books, here now and coming soon

Long time, no post… Apologies, dear reader, but life has been extra-ordinarily hectic and the time to think, compose and publish has simply not presented itself. But, in good news from the publishing front there are new releases here and now, and to come in a few weeks.

Here’s a bit of a run-down to whet your appetite and prise open your wallet/purse and do your best to support Indie publishing and my good self by buying more books. Fahrenheit Publishing are still hanging in during these perilous times for Indie Publishing so if you can spare some money, then buy from them, not Amazon…

If you support Indie Publishing then you allow them to support writers like me, who’ll never quite fit the mainstream, for whatever spurious reason, even if they can write decent and compelling stories. Remember we need stories and voices that aren’t restricted by whatever the current political correctness maybe in publishing trends, or from someone famous who’ll sell a book simply because of who they are. (Cynical – moi??) We need alternative rich voices writing across a range of genres and ideas and that’s why Indie Publishing is so crucial. So, buy from Fahrenheit, and not just my books!!

First of all there is the long short story, Bethany Never. This is a multiple voice narrative about a teenage school girl who takes direct action and does her best to assassinate a corrupt Prime Minister. Some resonance in our current world – be it the UK or Oz, or perhaps other devious and dangerous parts of the world…

Also, of note is that The Transit of Lola Jones has been re-branded and in a cover that much better represents the actual content has been re-released. Remember Lola, our eponymous heroine who suffers from dubious morals, cancer, desire and a need to put things right… Well, in her own mind anyway. Now, you can enjoy her in her brand new, much sexier cover.

And to come, in a few weeks (late March, early April 2022) is the second in the series, The Captains Club. This time Lola is entirely out of the frame, but brings her own special skills to help investigate a series of worrying accidents be-setting the senior boys eight, including her own beloved boy, Toby. Dear old Todd Rains is back, with more confidence and even a new girlfriend. He’s managed to move out from living with his mum and buy himself a new house, but there’s something odd in the house, something that Lola finds disturbing and Tabitha, even more-so, as her witchy-ways evolve and grow throughout the course of the novel. The secrets of Todd’s house will have to wait for a later story, but in The Captains Club we pull that thread in readiness for later unravelling.

Even though Daniel Blain is dead, Lola is not giving up her extra-curricular romantic liaisons… Oh no, she’s still being a duplicitous, deceitful naughty girl having fallen into the arms of another old lover who’s managed to find his way back into her life. Ah, Lola, not the woman she was before cancer, before Daniel Blain returned to her life. And poor old Nick is plagued by the accidents in his school, his wife’s newly important position, courtesy of Daniel Blain’s will, all the while remaining oblivious to his wife’s affairs. Nick has enough to deal with with the accidents and murder of one of his students, the press and Henry breathing down his neck, not to mention his own growing fears about the safety of his own son.

But, our killer is hiding in plain sight. And it isn’t just Lola sniffing around the crimes: Lily too, is buying into what seems to be a family affair, a gift for looking at the world in detail. I wonder, dear reader, if you can spot our killer before Lola and Todd do??

Happily, there are more Lola Jones books to come. The third one sits with Fahrenheit and the fourth one is 20,000 words into its first draft. And, there are a few more in the embryonic planning stages. Read and enjoy, dear readers, read and enjoy.

Images courtesy of Fahrenheit Publishing.

I’m Published: What Happens Now?

As you should be aware, dear reader, I finally achieved one of life’s goals when I was traditionally published by the lovely people at Fahrenheit Press when they launched The Transit of Lola Jones into the world on December 4, 2020. It was one of the moments of my life. Despite knowing that hundreds of writers have achieved this, it was a moment that was full of pride, special beyond words and utterly wonderful for me. 

I’ve had all sorts of things published over many years now, including a couple of full length novels, but as e-books and under assumed names (some dodgy erotica, dear reader). But nothing is quite as good as the feel of your own book in your hand – the hard copy, physical proof of your hard work.

Happily, Lola hasn’t just sat on the virtual book-shelf, mouldering away, being ignored: no, she is selling, and not too shabbily, thank you very much.

But what now? What happens now?

I am reminded of our golden cocker springer spaniel – Sandy (yes, a completely original name given his colour!) – who used to spend too many hours of his day chasing buses down our dangerous winding road. He’d set off full of hope and with a decent turn of speed and do his best but the bus was always triumphant. Still, his lack of success didn’t stop him. My parents, observing this were wont to wonder: what will he do with the bust when he catches it?

My memory also returns to those desperate days of teenage love and desire and hopeless crushes on some God-like creature that hailed from Olympus or the halls of Valhalla. The sort of male human that was just too gorgeous to be real and so captured the heart completely, rendering all sensible thoughts null and void, with the only object being how to get closer, how to gain some attention from this being. So much energy and thought went into the pursuit – knowing where they lived, who their friends were, what their interests were, how they moved about, where they went – all so you could be accidentally in the same place at the same time. But then what? What happens when I’m standing next to the love of my life, what do I do?

I think you can see where I’m going here. So much energy goes into the chase, into the pursuit of the desired object, into, as Frank ‘n’ Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Showsays, antici……………….pation that you have no idea what you do next. 

You’ve spent so long waiting, hoping, dreaming, failing, that you don’t actually believe you can obtain the object of your desire. And so when you do, you don’t know what to do. Just like good old Sandy, who was eventually hit by a car while chasing his elusive bus, I’m not sure what to do with my bus now that I’ve caught it.

I thought being published was the end, the culmination of the dream. But just like a wedding is the end of the courtship and the beginning of the marriage, so being published is the beginning of a whole different experience. 

I find that holding the book isn’t enough. I want to be read. I’m sure I always did, I wasn’t one of those writers just writing for myself, I wasn’t being deliberately commercial either but I was writing with a clear view to publication. I wonder what the point is of the endless hours alone writing if you don’t want a readership. I know it’s a calling all of its own and I know I’m a better and happier person when engaged with creating with words. But the need to be read, to be acknowledged is stronger than I had anticipated.

Over the years I’ve shared some of my writing with my students. I find it an interesting experience. I offer my work anonymously – not fair otherwise – and wait for the discussion and comments, shaped in response to a few key questions. I love the insight, the comments, the fact that they see things I didn’t intend, didn’t consciously know were there. Being read is wonderful, feedback is better.

That’s what I naively hadn’t anticipated: that I really want to be read and I want feedback too. I’m like Larry Durrell in the episode of The Durrells after his first book has been published and his family haven’t read his book and he’s heard nothing from his friends in the UK, or read any reviews. He’s desperate for a response, for someone to acknowledge his achievement, which finally happens, and we all know that he went onto be one of the foremost writers of his generation. But I felt his anxiety about his family reading his stuff: too much sex for my lot, too close to our familial bone perhaps?

Interestingly I’ve discovered it’s not about sales, although knowing the book is selling nicely is a serious comfort, let me tell you. I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t matter, of course it does. If The Transit of Lola Jones sells well enough then Fahrenheit Press will be happy to publish the following books in the series, which should lead to more readers, more feedback, more success and more stories. It should all build quite happily.

So, I find that post publication, it’s primarily about the reaction, the traction from the reading public. Thus, I trawl Twitter and Google looking for mentions. I check the best-selling option on Fahrenheit’s page to see how the book is faring relative to the rest of the stable of fine writers. I note I have a couple of 5 Star reader reviews. I can’t tell you how much that thrills me. I’ve had feedback from friends – messages to say how much they loved it. Well, they are my friends, I would hope they would be kind! But you don’t have to be nice, you don’t have to take the time to drop a positive word, so I really appreciate those comments.

So, dear reader, I discover that I am vain, I am needy. I want public approbation. I want acclaim. I didn’t know that before December 4, 2020. That’s been a bit confronting. Not that I am embraced by fame, but this toe in the water of life as a public entity makes me appreciate how fame and attention can turn a person’s head. I can see how the dark id of oneself could over-take the rational, and trump the sane parts of the self.

The journey to publication of The Transit of Lola Jones has been long. The story began life back in 2003. It sat for years, stalled, not going anywhere and then it took off again; finally finished many years later after intense revisions. And then the search for an agent or publisher. And that’s years too. Most writers will recognise this journey. Most writers know the joy, work, hope, anticipation and disappointment of all of those stages. Not as many of us know of the odd mix of emotions of the post publication stage.

Is it, I wonder, because writers spend long hours alone with their creations, in the metaphorical darkness, that when we suddenly come into the light of publication that we’re more like the ‘roo caught in the spotlight, not sure which way to jump?

I am going to jump away from the metaphorical hoons with their guns and 4WDs, out of danger. I’m going to focus on the joy of being published, enjoy my readers’ feedback, my modest but reassuring sales, my publisher’s support, and do the only sensible and practical thing I can and keep writing. I am moving away from vanity and ego as fast as I can. Lola2 is sitting with Fahrenheit Press – hopefully published later this year. Lola3 is about to under-go her first full revision. Lola 4 & 5 are in the planning stages. There’s a lot of writing in me, there’s a lot of life in Lola and hopefully there’s a lot of reading in you, dear reader.

Final comment: 

If you haven’t read The Transit of Lola Jones, you can get copies from Fahrenheit Press and on Amazon. Note: if you buy direct from the publisher it means more money for me and for them and keeps Indie published afloat – to wit they need your patronage more than Amazon does (but you know that)! https://fahrenheit-press.myshopify.com/collections/fahrenheit-press/products/the-transit-of-lola-jones-jackie-swift

If you’ve read Lola and had a good time and appreciate my prose, please drop a review on the relevant platform and tell your friends and family. In the small but vibrant world of Indie publishing, reviews and word of mouth is what makes sales and keeps us all afloat. 

Keep reading, my lovelies. (Images from Private Collection).

Education & the Pandemic: Don’t Panic

The Corona-virus pandemic continues to a greater and lesser extent across the globe and all sorts of ‘normal’ doesn’t exist anymore. And one of the not-normalscausing a lot of consternation is students notbeing in school. Oh,goes the cry, how can they be disadvantaged by being out of school for so long? How can they ever make up for the lost school time?

If you’re a parent trying to home-school you are no doubt doing your best, using the various school packages sent home or on-line, accessing an ever-growing range of on-line teaching modules and resources. Truly there is a monstrous plethora of learning to be had in our linked-up techno world. But even with all of this, with contact from teachers, with instructions and great resources parents feel over-whelmed, incapable of delivering what needs to be delivered. Especially if they have a family to instruct, and have a job as well, and so are working from home. Yes, it’s all too much.

Dear parents, please relax. Stop worrying. The end of the world is not going to come if your child doesn’t get their normal education diet for an extended time. 

There are many reasons for you to step back, take your foot off the worry pedal and be a bit more Zen about this home-schooling malarkey.

Remember:

1.Education does not take place exclusively inside a class-room shaped box.

2.Education in its current form is not fit for purpose. If you have a child with any sort of special needs you already know this. If you have boys, you know this. If you have a high achiever, you know this. Schools are one-size-fits-all. Many-many students are poorly serviced by Education systems in many parts of the world. Please note I am talking explicitly about the systems, NOTthe teachers. 

3.What is taught in school curriculums is by and large arbitrary. Why do we read 19^thcentury literature, why do we study 15 poems at GCSE Literature? Because Michael Gove, the Education Secretary at the time, decided he wanted it like that. Why do we study some periods of History and not others, why do we learn some branches of Mathematics? Someone, somewhere made a decision to bring some aspects of knowledge into the curriculum and to leave others out. Who knows why?

4.A lot of what happens in the school day is not learning. Your child is not learning/focused 100% of their school day. They can’t be – it’s impossible to concentrate fully from the time they arrive at school until the moment they leave. There is break and lunch and sometimes classes just aren’t that focused on learning. There is nothing wrong with that, it’s a simple fact. Are you working at 100% from the time you get to work until you leave?

5.Too much of school is focused on end-points: preparing for exams, not on learning for the sake of it, for the pleasure of discovering things, or knowing something. Too much time is focused on meeting targets, on the numbers. 

6.Not a lot of school is focused on the development or growth of the student. Sorry, but in the scheme of things your child is just a number for League Tables and Ofsted. The individual, your child, doesn’t really matter, not to those who make decisions about Education. (Yes, they matter to the teachers who do their best every day for your child)

7.Don’t mourn time away from what is essentially a broken system

Some time ago I worked in Distance Education. It was an eye-opening and enjoyable experience. We had all sorts of students on our books: remote students living on cattle stations or Aboriginal communities; local students who’d fallen through the gaps of traditional education; traveling students; prisoners; Aboriginal students in remote communities; Forces students up-grading their qualifications. All sorts of students with all sorts of different needs. We created materials, looked after key groups, were in weekly contact, made visits and held residential schools throughout the year. What was noticeable about the school-aged remote or traveling students was how quickly and successfully many of them worked through our materials; to such an extent that they finished the recommended curriculum work well within the allocated time for the year’s study. They could then move ahead if they wanted or pick up another unit of interest to work on. On the other hand, students who struggled had extra support, could have more time, be given alternative texts or materials. We also had much smaller loads than face-2-face classroom teachers which enabled a more personalised educational experience. Our distance learning provision was quite good at individualising the learning experience.

These students did as well at the various exam subjects as other students but they were often more mature, more able and wiser than their years. I suggest this was because they were enabled and supported to be independent learnersand were often helping on the farm, engaged in many other things in their daily life other than school. Their education worked around their lives, their families; it did not take all day. It was what was essential and therefore practical. They too were actively engaged in their learning, not sitting passively in a class-room waiting to be taught by a teacher.

Here is the point. Education is not just about what is taught in school. Parents need to remember this more than ever at the moment. Some educational leaders could do to remember this as well. For a long and considered take on what home schooling has meant in Italy, its challenges and rewards for both parents and children have a read here: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/24/italy-home-schooling-coronavirus-lockdown-what-weve-learned

Let me add to the various bits of advice about what parents could be doing to make home-learning a beneficial experience for all:

1. Use the amazing resources – but find the ones that work for you and your child – access Joe Wicks, David Attenborough; BBC Bitesize; there’s a ton there, no need to be bored by dull presenters or boing content
2. Organise some sort of structure for the day – but remember it should NOT ape a normal school day – if you try for 8:30-3pm you willfail
3. Tap into your child’s native curiosity and interests  
4. Foster these interests – this is where the love of learning really lies – engage with them about it – read with them, find them sources of information, help them use the internet effectively and intelligently (move beyond Wiki…); give them their head; if they find something they love to explore it could unlock all sorts of other learning and passions and perhaps their true calling in life
5. Let them read, watch movies, play games, complete puzzles
6. Talk to them about their world, their interests, their learning – engage with them, find out why some things are easy/interesting, why others are hard/boring. To wit, get to know your child as a learner. This will equip both of you in making home learning a more positive experience and help when they finally get back to school
7. Don’t force the hard stuff – don’t make this harder for either of you. If you can get help with the hard stuff, do so – your child’s teachers will be accessible at the moment. If you can’t, let it go. It will be caught up eventually.
8. Don’t worry about what they’re missing – focus on what they are doing, what they’re learning in this strange time – all those soft skills that really matter, like how to get on with people, how to work with others, how to share and communicate effectively
9. Teach them things you really want them to know: how to cook dinner from scratch; how to mow a lawn, how to load a washing machine, iron a shirt; bake a cake, change a tyre
10. Take this time to appreciate what a good education should be. How engaged are you normally in your child’s school experience? Perhaps this is a good time to get more involved, to be more empowered, to question more what happens in schools. To ask those questions of the powers that be. Perhaps it’s time for you to take more control of what your child learns.
11. You were their first teacher and so you are their most important teacher again, but once this is over don’t just hand the reigns back to the school.
12. Remember to praise them – their efforts, their focus, their progress. Now is not the time to focus on their failings – education at home is hard enough without you being a critical teacher – be the cool teacher, the one who ‘gets’ them

If you’re still not convinced read this article about students in the wake of the Christchurch earthquake a few years ago. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-17/will-missing-school-due-to-covid-19-matter-for-school-students/12154266?utm_medium=spredfast&utm_content=sf232871082&utm_campaign=abc_news&utm_source=m.facebook.com&sf232871082=1&fbclid=IwAR01yrVwgm8601OfTFQBDFZY9EebqUG1jb_6FfTDB-h8o6h0A4kyq3ExjsU

Not all gloom and doom at all. I’m reminded of students not being formally moderated in the NT due to cyclones mucking with our end of year formal assessments – yes, we all had to stay at home for several vital days. No harm was done: students got their grades, went onto the rest of their life with barely a blip.

The world is frightening. We don’t know what it will be like when this pandemic is over. We talk about returning tonormal. We need to be very careful with that word: normal.A lot of it we don’t want to go back to. And Education as it is, is one of those things. But that’s not my main point here. 

Today I want you to stop worrying about your child not being in formal Education, about not being in a school, about the struggle to home-school. Your child is more resilient than you realise and will quickly make up whatever has been lost to them in terms of the curriculum. Certainly, their teachers will make sure they haven’t missed anything truly important. 

You have a golden opportunity to re-light their curiosity, to foster a genuine love of learning, to teach them something useful. Don’t mourn the loss of school, celebrate the opportunity to engage in learning in a more organic, authentic, relaxed and, most importantly, rewarding way for all concerned. Learning isn’t about classrooms, or even books, or the internet. It’s about life and people and how we live and do things and make things. Hopefully we can learn to make a better world.

And perhaps, as well as appreciating our health care workers more, we can be much more appreciative of just what a big and difficult job teaching is. You’re struggling with a couple of kids, maybe a handful – think what it’s like to deal with 30 at a time, all with different needs and personalities within a system that doesn’t value them and invariably criticises rather than praises. Still think it’s any easy job…

Note:I am very aware that for some students and families lock-down remote teaching is a terrible thing. I know that for a lot of disadvantaged children this is the worst thing for them, something that exacerbates their disadvantage. Please don’t think I’m being glib or light-hearted about the impact of the pandemic. But for an awful lot of kids and families there is too much stress about this matter. Life is still too short to worry about a lot of things and several weeks away from traditional schooling is really only a blip in the grand scheme of things. (Images from Private Collection)

The Joy of re-Reading: Margaret Atwood, John Irving & Peter Carey

A couple of years ago I came to the realisation that even though I earn my living from books (reading and teaching them and extremely-modest royalties) I was not, in fact, actually doing much reading for myself. Yes, there was the blitz over Summer, in the little walled garden in our little French cottage but even some of that was for work. It dawned that I was doing very little reading for myself, for pleasure at other times of the year: most of the year! I set to remedying that and embarked upon Sunday morning reading in bed, along with a tasty breakfast and good coffee.

And it did its job: it made me much happier and nourished my soul. I like to think it made me a better person. 

There are your old friends. Your favourite stories, your favourite writers. Many years ago – the uni years – I used to read The Thorn Birds by Collen McCullough at the beginning of every Summer holiday. It was a bit of romantic fluff, I guess, but just what I needed after a year of Chaucer, the 19^thCentury Novel, the Romantics, Shakespeare’s Contemporaries; the Psychology of Visual Perception, Dreams and Their Meaning, The Origins of Psychoanalysis, etc, etc. The Thorn Birds was a great way to unwind, to shake off the heaviness of study and relax into Summer. I knew that book very well. And, needless to say, was very fond of it.

I have my doubts it’s stood the test of time. Some books don’t, some writers don’t. I was made aware of this – and I may have told you before – by my dear friend Helen several years ago when discussing our favourite books, the ones that had made a significant effect on us when we were young. It was our section of the school’s year book and I decided instead of biographical detail that we should share a book that mattered to us. Helen’s book was The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney. But she’d not read it in 40 odd years. Why not?I asked. Because, she said, very wisely, I fear it would ruin it, that my memories of it would be changed and damaged by reading it again.

Helen’s words haunted me during a spate of re-reading for my PhD, when I returned to EM Forster, who had been a staple of my education as a young person – HSC Literature, the 20^thCentury Novel. I had read, if not all of his books, then most of them. I loved him. I would have said he was one of my favourite writers. And Howard’s End one of my favourite books: only connect. But, dear reader, Helen was so right. Howard’s End had not aged well, had not travelled the many years between reading and I felt a great sadness as I read, knowing the book and EM Forster himself, were now ruined for me. I should have left him in my reading past, where he would have remained admired.

Undeterred I am again indulging in a spate of re-reading: Margaret Atwood, John Irving and now Peter Carey. Happily, the experience is altogether more positive. 

I imagine a lot of people are re-reading Margaret Atwood in the wake of the uber-success of The Handmaid’s Tale and her recent follow up Booker Prize winning novel. I’d avoided it originally but went back to it as well (for work actually) and was reminded how much I liked her work – she hadn’t been damaged by the years in between. And so I read a couple of newer ones: The Penelopiad and Hag Seed (a very clever re-working of The Tempest, which I highly recommend) and then the older ones: Cat’s Eye, The Blind Assassin, The Robber Bride. 

I could have read more but that was enough to remind me of why Atwood matters to me. She writes of female experiences so well, the pain of friendship, not belonging, never feeling quite right in your own skin, the challenge of relationships, parents. As I read I remember feelings from long ago, those outsider feelings that she captures so well, that waiting to feel okay about yourself, recognising yourself in her characters, if not all of the situations. And I remembered my dad. 

Now my dad was a difficult man with whom I had a difficult relationship. We had some strong connections: sailing and boats and being on the water, and books. After his massive heart attack at 42 he retrained to become a librarian. But I think he was always a reader and so through books we found common ground. He would often recommend novels or buy me books for my birthday, as I would him. He was very fond of Margaret Atwood and I remember talking about Cat’s Eye and The Robber Bride. So, re-reading took me back to my father in a wholly positive and happy way. Some of Atwood’s descriptions of 1930-40’s reminded me of what it must have been like for my dad growing up in Australia with some of the same challenges of poverty and work, and how much the world has changed. Atwood was born 9 years after my dad but her experiences and descriptions of the times link to my dad. And he loved to talk about books, to share thoughts and responses, to discuss characters, events. What did you think, Jac?

Re-reading Atwood unexpectedly took me back to my dad, to happy times with him, to good memories. And happily she has not faded over time but remained as vibrant and effective a writer as ever. Perhaps that’s what makes her ‘classic’ – there is a clear timelessness to her writing, a relevance of topic, a beauty in her prose, a palpable connection to the reader.

Now John Irving has been and remains one of my favourite writers. I have now read everything he’s written. Every single one of his 15 novels and given the length of his stuff that’s no mean feat! Like a lot of people I came to Irving throughThe World According to Garp and then The Hotel New Hampshire. I circled back to his earlier works and then over the years read everything else. But, as with Atwood, there was a bit of a hiatus. Years where I read not one Irving word. I guess life and work and other books got in the way. As mentioned, Irving’s works are long and you need time and commitment to engage with anything he wrote after Garp. I guess I just didn’t have the time. Until this last year, where matters have taken me back to him. As with Atwood I began with some re-reading – Garp, Hotel New Hampshire (2 novels I absolutely adore), Last Night in Twisted River and then to the ones I’d missed: A Son of the Circus, In One Person, Avenue of Mysteries.

I returned to Irving as a writer mostly. My most recent effort – The Track (first draft completed last Summer) was stalling and suffering from a lack of shape, of purpose. I had this great story (2 mates who drive up and down the Stuart Highway picking up road kill), this compelling voice but wondered what was the point of it all, why did we want to know all these things about these characters, why was my narrator telling us this story? Irving is a bit of rambler, lots of detail – most of which is relevant but some just excessive detail to enrich the whole experience. Re-reading Irving last Summer helped me find the shape of The Track and gave me the confidence to finish it. Reading in the morning, writing in the afternoon. Re-reading so many Irvings close together made me really feel like I knew him: similar ideas kept bobbing up – slivers from one novel were being developed in detail in another, similar pre-occupations were being revisited, examined in ever increasing detail. His characters were vividly created though action and relationships, through inner turmoil and their own obsessions. But I liked that, I liked feeling like I knew John Irving – writing, sex and wrestling obsessed John Irving, who invariably had a character who’d spent time in Vienna too.

As with my dad and me and Atwood, so I’ve gifted several Irvings to my boy, also an avid reader, who likes to engage with texts and then discuss them. Christmas this year I gave him The Hotel New Hampshire and A Son of the Circus– he read Garp some years ago. We are yet to resume our conversation about Irving but it will come, especially as my boy is dipping his toe in the wonderful waters of writing. Will Irving inspire him too?

Now I am back to Peter Carey – my favourite Australian writer. But one whom I also lost and will now revive through re-reading Bliss, Illywhacker and Oscar and Lucindaand who knows, hopefully go onto some of the ones I never quite got to as The Tax Inspector put me right off Carey for many years. So far Bliss has stood the test of time and the beginning of Illywhacker is not disappointing. It’s nice to be in an Australian fictional environment, back to the land of the larrikin, of Carey’s brand of magical realism of times long past. Illywhacker invariably takes me to my little verandah in Nhulunbuy where I read in the afternoons in the heat and sweat of the tropics, with bright blue skies and frangipanis and the vague aroma of rotting mangoes, lost in the world of a 139 year old liar, while my 26 year old sarong wrapped self was getting on with being young and alive and in love.

There’s a lot of talk about how smells and sounds take you back to special moments in your past. Perhaps there should be more said about how books take you back too, back to the time and place where and when you first read a book, how it made you feel, what you thought, what you were doing when you were reading it for the first time.

No, dear friends, re-reading is a wonderful thing to do. It’s like having your own Tardis, into the pages you go, and providing you’ve chosen wisely, you’ll be in a different time and place and as a happy as a polar bear on an ice floe, or a wombat in her burrow. (Images from private collection)

New Year – New Decade – New Hope???

2020: Respect, Kindness, Integrity

As we age we don’t necessarily indulge in resolutions for the New Year. Experience has told us that good intentions are paramount at this time of the year, and so with celebrations and excess bobbing in our wake, we make plans to be a better version of ourselves, give up all sorts of things, promise to take up all sorts of things for the betterment of ourselves. But usually before the month is out we’ve fallen flat on our faces or our still fat arses. So, no point. Resolutions make us feel virtuous for about a day and shit for the rest of the year, isn’t that so, dear friends?

Better though that we stop, pause and reflect. Ends of things are good for this: end of the day, end of the week, end of relationships, end of jobs. Serious illness can have the same effect, but we’ll leave that alone for the moment. So, it is right that we stop at the end of the year and consider how it’s all gone. This year, this ending is a bit special as it’s the end of the decade as well. Ten years is quite some time, isn’t it? 

If you haven’t already I urge you to press pause and have a think about life over the last year, last ten years. Further, if you’re feeling game, if you can remember.

Ask yourself some questions, use them to make your resolutions; if you wish, use questions to think about your life, your place in the world, your impact. Try these on for size:

*Am I where I want to be? 

*Am I pleased with my progress? 

*What are my successes? 

*What else is there to do?

*What about my failures?

*How do I learn from them?

*How do I do better?

You should go further with these questions, consider the paradigms within which you exist: your family, your friends, work, the world at large.

The older I get the more I realise that I want to leave a positive mark, now and after I’m gone. I guess that’s mortality knocking on my door. But the essence of Resolutions, of Reflection is that we want to be better. We want to improve who we are and what we do. Well, some of us do: those who make resolutions do so in a spirit of hope and a belief in change, even if only personal and small. But perhaps, given it is the start of a new decade we should be thinking beyond ourselves, to the wider world.

In the worlds of Commerce and Politics it seems to me that Reflections and Resolutions are about profit, about giving less for more to the many, about looking after mates, not consumers or society at large. But, hey, that may be just cynical old me watching a world being increasingly hostile, unkind and deadly. A world which increasingly disappoints me.

Which brings me back to 2020. It’s a number to conjure with. I remember looking at it from way back when I was young realising how old I would be when the year came around, and remembering how far away it seemed: how would I ever get to be that old? But it’s here, we’re 20 years into the New Century, and all the brave and wonderful hopes of that moment seems to have been completely squandered. 

As a planet we have lost our way. It’s clear to all, isn’t it?

The divide between rich and poor is greater than ever, across the world. Those who are meant to govern for all only govern for a few. Things that should have made us greater have weakened us: IT behemoths dominate without responsibility or care, feeding hatred and misinformation across the world, squashing our ability to think, debate and disagree without fear. We are destroying our planet: the forests, the oceans – our home. The science has been out ‘there’ for years, but no-one with enough power cared to do something in enough time. While powerful people with vested self-interest drives the planet it will continue to burn and flood, increase the intensity of every natural catastrophe, smashing apart food production, homes, wild-life and us in the process.

We should not be in this place. It should not have come to this. How can a species that is so clever, so inventive and productive be so stupid and damaging?

But don’t lose hope. It is dire, it is end-of-days stuff but we can still make a difference, we can change things. But we must act now. All of us, in small ways.

So, dear reader, good friends, reflect on your year, your decade; think deeply about your resolutions for the future, and along with the earlier questions, consider these three things:

Respect

Kindness

Integrity

If you proceed in all matters with these qualities at the heart of your endeavours you will make a difference, you will improve the quality of your life and have a positive impact on those around you. Three simple concepts, that if we all put at the centre of our lives, our way of being in the world, will make a difference. 

Respectfor self, others, the planet. Be thoughtful in all you do, in how you interact with others, be respectful of differences. You don’t have to think the same, be the same, agree with others to show respect. Think about your purchases, your clothing, your food: do you need that bit of ephemera that pops up in your feed begging to be bought (how many ornamental elephants do you need)? Are you buying things with less packaging, are you growing your own vegetables, mending and making do, are you re-cycling, re-purposing, walking more; all the small things that lessen your carbon foot-print?

Kindness, to yourself too but importantly to others – you just don’t know what other people are dealing with. If in doubt, shut up, don’t say the cruel, nasty, bitchy thing hovering on your tongue, or worse, at the end of your typing finger-tips. In fact, do the opposite, say something kind, do something kind. Don’t judge the homeless guy with his dog: give him a pound, pat his dog, reach out. You never know the impact of a small act of kindness. It may make all the difference to that person, not just today but forever.

Integrity– this is about you, your personal place and way of being in the world. Humans get things wrong, we are selfish, we are rude, arrogant, foolish. But if you proceed with a good heart, doing what you know is right, even when doing so costs you, doing your research, engaging with respect with others when disagreeing, doing your best, then you have acted with integrity and added to the betterment of the planet. This is about respect for yourself, about being a good person, for being able to live with yourself, about trying to be the best youyou can be. At the end of the day, we have regrets, we know we could have done things better, but if we’ve done our best, or make amends for fucking up, for being rude, then that’s integrity and that’s what brings respect from those you love and even those you despise, and that, my friends, enables you to sleep at night.

Make it your missions this year to look at how you can make the planet a better place, for you, your family, your community. Do all you can to make a difference before it is really too late for all of us.

Happy 2020. (Images from personal collection)

Anzac Day 2018: wither our pride, Australia?

Anzac Day 2018: wither our pride, Australia? 

Anzac Day is one of those days that matters. It’s central to my being and even though I am far away, it’s a day, as is Australia Day, that causes me to pause and consider my home, my country, my nationality. I remember, as a child, attending Dawn Services at the Cenotaph on the Domain in Hobart, visiting the trees planted for the fallen of my family – handsome young men as you can see from the photos – who made the ultimate sacrifice on a foreign field far-far away.

As an Ozzie abroad you are more aware of your nationality than ever you are at home. You are defined by it: it makes you different, something of an outsider and so, to an extent, you cling to your Ozzie-ness even more. I think this is a common thing and might go a long way to explaining why exiles – be we self-exiled, or refugees or migrants – feel our nationalities more on foreign soil. To wit, I am more Australian here than ever I was at home.

And so, recent developments offend and upset me perhaps more than when I am at home because I feel a responsibility to be able to explain and, to an extent, excuse our behaviours, even though I am anything but connected to the idiocy that is our political land-scape, the callous treatment of the more vulnerable in our society, and the foolishness of our sportsmen. Actually, it’s because people here expect me to… I have become Australia– indeed my room at work is the warmest class-room around and was dubbed ‘a little bit of Australia’ by one of my wittier students.

And so as Anzac Day hoves into view I find I am quite angry. It’s not a matter of pride being an Australian abroad these days. It wasn’t under the embarrassment that was Tony Abbott but it isn’t any better with Turnball. I despair of the Greens and wonder about Bill Shorten too. I read about more tax breaks for big business, I read about big coal mines being subsidised, I read about the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef. And of course the on-going stain that is Nauru and our reprehensible treatment of refugees.

Education is no better, health care is in decline. Home ownership is harder than ever; the under-privileged slip further behind, bullied by a vile Centrelink who pursue the poorest members of society over fake debt and bills. Young people have the invidious pleasure of huge debt if they go to university. Zero-hours contracts stalk the semi-skilled. Penalty rates are a thing of the past. We are one of the worst countries in the world in terms of standard of living for pensioners. And our Indigenous people moulder away in jail in numbers still hugely disproportionate to their numbers in society. The gap between the haves and the have-nots has grown inordinately.

What the fuck is happening Australia?

It may as well be England.

We are not the Lucky Country, we are no longer the land of the fair go. We have become a nasty country full of nasty people. A country that no longer cares for all, a country that is racist and sexist, and ageist and anti-youth as well. Indeed, how have we managed to be so anti-everything? So full of double standards and shut-you-down vitriol.

We used to be about fair-play, about having a go. We weren’t always about money and position and privilege. Or am I deluded? Am I remembering some imagined past that never really existed?

Yes, we’ve been an overtly macho society for years – the lone stoic stockman, the bronzed Ozzie surfer, the larrikin taking the piss out of everyone. It’s been a hard country for women, foreigners and the Indigenous inhabitants. But we were getting there. We were open to equality, to hard work and people being able to be who they wanted to be if they worked hard enough and long enough. Yes, our own American Dream. An ideal of equality, not of rank or status. Born of being a bunch of convicts I guess, a radical irreverence for position and rank – respect for the person not the title. (Something that certainly got me into trouble over here!!) And then hacking them down, because we don’t want no tall poppies here, mate.

So, because it is Anzac Day – a day that unites us, that reminds us of the debt we owe the past, we need to pause and consider what was fought for, what came out of that catastrophic slaughter over a hundred years ago so far away from home. Too many young men were sacrificed for the Empire, for an engagement that had no merit, that was certain death for those involved. Yes, members of my family travelled to Europe for the great adventure of war, but they didn’t come home. Yet, because we were in thrall to Mother England, to king and country, because we were young and naïve we signed up in droves and we died in droves too. Like thousands of other (mostly) young men: horrid deaths, many needless and then carrying home scars – external and internal – that were never healed. World War One was a brutal, pointless exercise, one that was meant only to last a few months and then to be the war to end all wars. Yes, we can laugh at that incredible irony now.

But out of the war, and especially out of what happened in Turkey in 1915, rose the Anzac spirit; the core of our character. We celebrate bravery and sacrifice; we thank those who laid down their lives for us, as we should. Those who fought and died, those who fought and survived, who protected us and make our country safe and fit for heroes. Our romanticism has it that Gallipoli was the event that turned us around: it was when we grew up, it was what made us into a nation. It was certainly a turning point. And it is right that we continue to acknowledge what happened, in that war and in the (too) many since.

But what has happened that we now are more like the England of WW1, when the gaps between the haves and have nots were appallingly wide and led to pointless sacrifices of young men who were mostly much further down the social ladder than those in charge, who remained at the back of the theatre of war, often not engaged in any sort fighting with bullets or gas or tanks? Why have we let ourselves become that sort of country? Why have we become callous and brutalised – uncaring of the suffering of others, unwilling to make a difference, unwilling to share the wealth of this great country.

Make no mistake about it, Australia is still a rich country, full of great things, good people trying to make a decent life: most of my friends and my darling daughter, her wonderful partner, and my gorgeous grandson are there. I count the days and months until I can go home. But I wonder, what am I coming back to, will I be horribly disappointed by what my country has become, will I regret coming home?

Consider the following:

*Why don’t big businesses care about their clients or employees; why is it all about profit?

*Why don’t the banks give a shit about their customers?

*Why do the politicians (on all sides, in all state, as well as Federally and locally) repeatedly sell out the population to the highest bidder?

*Why aren’t they, or government agencies, held accountable for their behaviour? Barnaby Joyce anyone?

*Why is it okay to hang sportsmen out to dry but not politicians, bureaucrats, CEO’s?

*Why is the media allowed to peddle lies and untruths and stir up hatred and division?

*Why are we not protecting our environment – the Great Barrier Reef, the old growth forests of Tasmania, etc?

*Why aren’t we investing in smart tech, looking at a clever future, dreaming big dreams, planning for a big future?

*Why are we accepting an increasing divide in our country between the haves and have-nots?

*Why do we pursue the under-dog so relentlessly and cheerfully keep on kicking him when he’s down – students, unemployed, pensioners, the disabled, refugees?

*Why do we remain so anti-women, why do we persist in out-dated sexist behaviours, advocating bloke culture at the expense of genuine respect and equality?

Australia is not a powerful international player, despite what various PM’s and others like to believe – there is so little about Australia in the media over here you wouldn’t believe it – but that doesn’t mean we should be sacrificing our national identity on some foolish belief that to be more like the UK or the USA is somehow a good thing.

We have people living it large on the international stage – usually our sportsmen bring honour to us – playing hard but fair, punching above our weight. Remember it was Australia that broke the longest running sporting record in history when Allan Bond with Australia2 finally won the America’s Cup after 132 years (no, we won’t go into what happened to AB…) Our celebrities do us credit – people love Hugh Jackman, Chris Hemsworth, Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, Kylie, Tim Minchin, Barry Humphries. We have world class creatives – Richard Flanagan, Peter Carey, Thomas Keneally, Clive James, Germaine Greer, Baz Luhrmann: AC-DC just keep on rolling. Our celebs are seen as grounded, good people, not part of the up-yourself-don’t-speak-to-me-now-I’m-famous lot. We can be proud of them; they bring credit to us.

So, Australia, on this Anzac Day, nearly 100 hundred years since the end of WW1, what do we stand for? How do we define our character now? Would the fallen of WW1 be proud to lay down their lives for what the country has become? How would those who died at Gallipoli feel if they could see us now?

Somehow, I doubt they’d feel their sacrifice had been worth it. (Images from Private Collection)

Find Your Happy: be it at work or elsewhere…

Find Your Happy

I find myself, as the Easter holidays shuffle to their inevitable end, a happy person, despite the return to work – something I’m not as enamoured of as would be useful. I am happy because I have spent most of the holidays indulging my passion. Yes, I’ve been writing like a mad-woman, making up for lost time, living in my own strange worlds, playing with words, having a wonderful time. Actually achieving all the little writing tasks on my list.

I have, in no particular order; revised and submitted a poem for a competition; revised an old story down from over 4000 words to 3000 words for another competition; re-cast the opening of my PhD novel and had a lovely couple of days re-reading and lightly editing that – perhaps time to send it off into the harsh and brutal world of agents and small publishing houses again? And I’ve returned to my sequel to my murder-mystery – which could probably do with some revisions too. And written a couple of blogs – this being one.

In fact the original blog for this week was about being envious of people who love their work, who find their passion in their work, and wondering where mine went. But it wasn’t going well, it was turning into a big moan, an extended bit of self-indulgent self-pity. Not a good writing place to be. And, I have blogged on such things before.

Yes, I am envious of those who find joy in their job – it is the best way to be. But I am not without joy; in my life, or in my work. It’s just buried under a load of shit and cynicism from being in the job for too long. It’s better that people love their work, and especially those who work in my profession and my envy was about a former colleague (Rose, you wonder) who loves her work, who finds her passion in her job, which augurs well for a profession constantly under attack and struggling to attract newcomers.

If I think about it I can find joy in my work, and it’s important that you do too. Work matters: we spend an inordinate amount of time there; it pays the bills, keeps our world turning, gives shape to our days and brings a degree of self respect and self worth. Despite my frequent moaning about my job it has brought a great deal of satisfaction.

At the end of my career I will rest easy knowing I have actually done something positive with my working life: that I have added to the value of the world; that I have helped a great many young people along the way – either into books and the wonders of literature, or into becoming wonderful people. It is the best part of my job – young people becoming who they are, becoming good people, decent citizens: assets to the planet. Grades matter, but it’s all that other stuff that is more important, more rewarding. Just a shame that politicians and Ofsted don’t really get that bit about the wonder and importance of education…

And what if there isn’t enough joy at work – well you must find it or make it elsewhere.  Life isn’t just about bills, having things, and keeping your head above water, about paddling madly like the duck on the pond. But it isn’t about doing it alland having it all either. Despite the plethora of memes telling you to ditch the shit of life, most of us can’t just take off to the depths of the Brazilian rain forest, ride the trains and planes of the world living on beans and rice, or hide in some cabin in the woods for a year… Remember life isn’t a series of Face-book posts, memes or Instagram photos.

Joy comes from the small moments, the everyday things. You may be missing them being caught up in the drudge of your work or the nonsense of social media. Joy comes from family – you know that. Being with them, being in contact with them, having them in your lives. And friends too – just the same. And like me, hobbies or interests where your passion can thrive and keep you from going insane. Not to mention being outside. Get moving, be in the fresh air, feel alive.

Work is important, we can’t get away from that. And we need to give it some credit – it does pay the bills, it gives shape and meaning to our existence, it does reward us (even if not as much as we might like) it gives us friends (I’ve made some of my best friends at work, met my beloved there), it allows us to appreciate our holidays more, and it allows the rest of our life to happen.

But being happy matters too: it is not to be over-rated. Don’t subsume your whole life in a job that makes you miserable, don’t let the bastards grind you down, don’t let the ‘company’ own your very soul – once they’ve sucked everything from you and you have nothing left to give they willthrow you on the scrap heap. Most of us do have a sell buy date. But equally, don’t throw away a decent job on some vague belief that work doesn’t matter, that somehow it’s the other idiots you work with, that there is some magic perfection of a career somewhere, if only you could find it. Perhaps it’s you that’s the joy-sucker, not the job???

You know what to do: find a way to have both – a job that sustains you and a life that enriches you. You know it’s possible – it’s about being smart, about balance, about small joys every day. Go get it, find your happy. (Images from Private Collection)

The Magic and Relevance of Stories.

The Magic and Relevance of Stories: why they matter more than ever.

It seems fitting this Easter weekend to focus on stories, given we are commemorating one of the most famous stories of Western culture – the crucifixion – the death of Jesus. Whether you regard it as fact or fiction, it essentially a story (note how fixionsounds), one that has stood the test of time, and one that is simple but profound. A sacrifice for others, for the greater good. Lots of emotion, lots of suffering, lots of depth. But importantly a story that is told and re-told over the last 2000 odd years. Like the myths of the ancients, stories of Gods and heroes, monsters and quests, stories that have been told around fire-sides for aeons.

I grew up with stories – being read to, reading voraciously, loving certain things on the telly and movies too, which we now recognise clearly as belonging to the broad church that is story-telling. I went onto evolve that love of stories and writing – if not actually orally telling them – into my life. I trade in stories – it is my work, my hobby: my passion and it started at home, when I was very young. I grew up on Pooh and Paddington, the Magic Pudding, Anne of Green Gables, Katie Did, Little Women. Indeed, I wanted to be Jo. After all, I had the same sort of nonsense name – too long, too many syllables but usefully shortened to a boy’s name.

Mum used to tell me stories of the Tudor monarchs as we washed up before Bellbird was on the ABC at 6:40 every evening, just before the news. Now I didn’t care about the news but I loved Bellbird (about which I had long discussions with my Nan) and Mum’s stories enkindled a love and passion for history that took me through HSC and almost into university, and remains with me still. The first story of mine that reached an audience was an historical story set at the court of Elizabeth 1, based on time-travel staring myself and my then boyfriend. My English teacher, (Diane Patricia Peacock) God love her, took it upon herself to read it out loud, in instalments, to the rest of the class. I was allowed to absent myself from the event, so hived off to the sewing rooms where I explored my other great love, sewing, and made my first pair of stretch shiny jersey bikinis. But I have remained a writer and a lover of that period of time. If you love the Tudors, you must read Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Halland Bringing up the Bodies– brilliant.

As a person of a certain age and a teacher, we deplore the diminishing reading activity of the young – most notably the teenage young. The stats on how much they fall away from reading when they hit secondary school is worrying and damaging to their success (and enjoyment) in English. Yes, reading does all sorts of wonderful things to the mind, the vocab, written and verbal expression; the empathy one develops.

But stories – reading, viewing or telling remain currency. Even if the young aren’t so aware of it. We all tell stories every day. It isn’t just Homer around the fire at the end of battle telling tales of the heroic and God-like, it is us too. We tell stories to make sense of our world, to know who we are.

How many of you sit around the dinner table at the end of the day and share your day? Not as many as should, and this, as we know, leads to problems with diet and obesity, with problems with socialisation, with the inability to interact effectively with others, to be able to socialise. How do you know about those close to you if you don’t talk, if you don’t share the stories of your day, of your life? These stories let us share our lives, be they simple accounts of the events of the day, or a funny incident well told. We learn about what is important, if there is a problem, if there is something to be celebrated.

When we tell stories we shape our experiences to make sense of them – we leave things out, we emphasize certain aspects, we show ourselves in different lights, sometimes we are the fool, sometimes we are the hero. We shape our experiences to suit our audience, to suit our purposes, to test the waters. We watch their faces, gauge their reactions and adjust our telling. And so we learn how to interact with people – how to communicate. We learn about others. And so telling stories is as important as reading stories.

Last year when I asked my year 13s what had been the high-light of their year several of them made much of my stories, my asides – especially the one about how I (along with select members of my family) had drowned a protected species with some glee after catching it in a possum trap, the same evil creature who had brutally and ruthlessly killed nearly all of our chickens and then started in on the turkeys too. My class laughed about how that was not what I had meant (where was their connection to A Streetcar Named Desire,Carol Ann Duffy’s amazing collections – Feminine Gospels?) and then had great fun tracking the connections from what we were meant to be talking about to drowning a protected species. It reminded us all that stories are everywhere and connections take us to odd, bizarre and sometimes amazing places.

We learn to tell stories from others. From books being read to us and stories being told to us. So as parents we must not forgo the responsibility and huge pleasure of reading to our children. And, more than ever, of reading ourselves, so they see us read and ape what we do and become readers, not just passive receivers of all sorts of messages. Stories are important because of the human factor. Stories are about characters – people usually – doing human things, regardless of the time or place. Stories of fictional people matter just as much as stories of real people. All imagined characters have a connection to someone’s real life, to the experience of the writer, even if not directly to her/him. Those experiences connect with us, explain things, help us solve problems, give us examples of how to prevail; help us to know ourselves and others better.

I am very pleased that all three of my children remain readers, despite their busy lives and interests that don’t necessarily allow for the, now, luxury of reading. I always buy books for my boy for Christmas and birthdays. Recently both girls were reading Animal Farm,while I was teaching it. We all had interesting conversations about the wickedness of those pigs and the wretched ending of poor old Boxer. See, stories connect us too. Do you wonder why book clubs are so popular? People like to share stories and to share their experience of stories.

You shouldn’t be surprised by the timelessness of Shakespeare, you shouldn’t wonder why he remains performed across the world and a staple on school curriculums. His stories are rammed full of human frailties, our weaknesses as humans, as well as our better parts. Witness Macbeth and his ambition over-whelming him; Lady Macbeth’s love that drives her to plan and execute murder of a king; Iago who is burned by jealousy and wreaks havoc on those around him; King Lear who is so full of himself that he doesn’t see where love and loyalty are until it is too late; or Petruchio and Kate who really know how to mess with each other’s heads in the pursuit of love; and wouldn’t we all love to feel the intensity of the madness of Romeo and Juliet’s tragic love?

We love the Myths and Legends of old too for the same reason: so much tragedy, so many fools doing dangerous and fatal things – for love, for honour, for revenge. It’s good to read stories from other cultures too, it reminds us how much we have in common – so many stories echo each other – Pandora opening that silly box, defying her husband and ruining the world is just Eve taking the apple and being thrown out of Eden. The Phoenix can be found across the world of mythical beasts and there’s always a Dragon somewhere too; be it a dangerous Western dragon or a lucky Eastern one.

We are all story-tellers, every day we tell a story about something to do with ourselves. If we watch TV we watch stories. Even if we play computer games we are involved in stories. Young people may not read books as much anymore, or even go to the movies like they did, but they are involved in stories. We need to make sure they are involved in the right sort of stories, are accessing stories that help them make the right decisions about their lives and are not attracted by the dark stories out there that can so easily tempt them and take them to a violent and terrible future – one without stories of striving and struggle, of triumph and success.

Whatever you do make sure you are telling good stories, you are reading to your children, you are sharing good books with young minds. It matters, it really does. In these dark days of fake news and false facts one of the best places to find the truth and make good connections is in fiction, even if it is your own. (Images from Private Collection)

The Importance of Things: The Joy of Possessions.

The Importance of Things: The Joy of Possessions.

There’s a lot of emphasis in our world on consuming, on buying things – either being exhorted to buy more and more, or to eschew the whole thing entirely and go for experiences and a life well lived; not basing our meaning or reason for being or status on having things, increasingly expensive and pointless things.

Anyone who looks at land-fill and visits charity shops on our high streets or is sickened by the amount of plastic in our oceans cannot help but be appalled by our greedy consumer based society. Indeed, there are endless memes about how we wish to be remembered, for the person we were but not for our fabulous collection of shoes – Imelda Marcos, anyone???

But we all consume, we all buy things, useless things, expensive things when cheaper ones will do. Is our rampant consumerism about status, about greed, about a selfish need to have more and more?

There’s nothing wrong with liking sparkly shiny things. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to surround yourself with beautiful things. What’s wrong is making the acquisition of possessions the focus and thrust of your life. It’s not good to compete or keep up with the Joneses; it makes for a life of empty soul destroying avarice. You’ll never win, you’ll always be behind, second best: a loser. You’ll end up in a stupid amount of debt, in a house that is devoid of love and the rough and tumble of life, in a suburb full of people you actually despise, driving a car that costs too much to insure, that loses value the moment you set foot in it and isn’t really the car you actually wanted.

Now, consider for a moment the possessions you hold dear. There is probably a reason why an object or collection of objects means something to you.

I have several things that have travelled the world with me; things from my childhood, things that have not been destroyed by fire (1967, Hobart), cyclone (NT x 4) or floods or snow-storms or smashed or lost by various removal firms. Yes, they are toys – my panda bear who at the time he was given to me was almost as big as me, a gift from my grandparents, who knew how much I wanted it; my Paddington Bear, the last gift from my mum that I still have. Yes, I have her WW cook-book (as mentioned last week) and a few items of jewellery but the only thing left that she gave me is Paddington.

For the last Christmas before she died she gave me a glomesh wallet. Do you remember those? Quite sophisticated items at the time. It was my first wallet, a step up from my cheap Indonesian leather purse. It had all sorts of compartments, as well as a coin purse and a place to keep your notes without folding them origami like to fit inside your small purse. I loved it but it became more important when she died – the last item, the last gift, the last connection.

You know what happened, don’t you? It got stolen. Twice actually – once from the Uni Rowing sheds in Newtown Bay, but recovered from the rivulet whence it had been abandoned. And then again many years later in Darwin after we’d moved back from Alice. This time it was never found. The lost was deep and compounded by the fact that inside the cream lining I had secreted the plastic hospital baby-tags belonging to the Dragon and Phoenix. I lost a couple of hundred dollars too – right before Christmas – but the loss, the heart-breaking loss was that of things that cannot be replaced: gifts from a dead parent, and once only identification tags, irreplaceable mementoes of birth. Thus Paddington can never be abandoned or given up as something from childhood that should have been put away years ago.

But now I have another special wallet that has a story with it. It is beautiful, functional and makes me happy every time I use it. I smile when I look at it, remembering the agonising I did over buying it. I have struggled to buy things for myself over the years, especially if it is a tad on the expensive side. And so this pink leather wallet on sale in an up market department store near our hotel in Barcelona caused a great deal of anguish. Which shade of pink, which style – this one at this knock down price or this one – more originally expensive, or this not quite as nice but more reasonably priced one? I looked, contemplated, went away, spent the day at the various beautiful attractions that Barcelona has to offer and then went back with Pallas to agonise again. Finally, as all good children do, she made me choose and ‘allowed’ me to buy myself something lovely. It was a bargain and we all love a bargain; it’s why all the discount web-sites thrive – we all think we’ve got a steal of a deal and it makes us feel better. We have made good purchases at a more than reasonable price. You can never knowingly over-spend ever again!!

People rush into burning buildings to collect possessions – photos and other trinkets, worthless things that seem like junk to the wider world but are worth a fortune to the possessor. Yes, because they are full of all that stuff that is beyond measure, beyond any rationale calculable worth. During the Tropical Years in Darwin I had our photos boxed up and wrapped in heavy plastic ready to grab should we need to head for shelter during a cyclone. My box of writing over the years was similarly readied for emergency matters. I knew what was impossible to replace; I knew what I needed to keep and yes, all of those things are with me still.

Of course, people and relationships matter more. Of course, possessions are not more important than the living. But when the living are gone or far away it is fair and reasonable to keep things from them, or related to, them close by. The other precious things in my life are to do with my children – photos of them across the years, things made by them (yes, Pal – your Garfield and penguin will be with me until the end of time); cards and gifts from them (yes, Phu your ‘Zanzibar’ and polar bear and elephant watch over me as I sleep); and I wear the heart necklaces (one rose quartz, one Murano glass) from the Dragon every day. Sentimental things, lovely things that when you use them, wear them, look at them, fill you with love and warmth.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to own nice things. Why shouldn’t you have a good set of cast iron pans, or an extensive collection of scarfs? Why shouldn’t you have a nice car, that Jaguar F-Pace, if you want and you can afford it? Why shouldn’t you expand your collection of vinyl, rare books, elephants? Life isn’t about being frugal or mean, or without pleasure.

The point is that materialism, rampant consumerism, isn’t doing the planet or your well being much good. Buying things to be in fashion, to keep up with some sort of imagined standard is pointless. Buying things instead of putting time into relationships or doing things, traveling, having experiences, is counter-productive – what are you doing with your life? Amassing a load of rubbish for others to just throw out when you’ve popped your clogs?

But buying things keeps a whole range of people in work – especially if you buy lovely original items – a range of artists able to keep on working, adding beauty to the world and your living room. Buying a new kitchen is reward for your efforts and keeps a whole retinue of people gainfully employed. Buying things when we travel brings the story with it, recreates that experience (hence the pink purse from Barcelona). Buying something expensive or simply something that you just love that you’ve worked hard for and saved for brings a feeling of accomplishment too: I earned this, here is a testament to my efforts. It makes the grinding and sometimes unrewarding realm of work worthwhile. Why shouldn’t you have a crushed velvet Chesterfield sofa? It’ll probably last a life-time and be beautiful as well as functional.

I now have a collection of 57 elephants. They come in all shapes, sizes and materials. They are quite lovely and give me a great sense of pleasure. When I clean and dust them I think about who gave them to me (being a collector of things helps others in the gift-giving dilemma; thank you, Dear), or where I was when I got that one, and where will I put them all when I eventually get home again!

Possessions for the sake of possessions is pointless. Possessions that mean something, that have an emotional richness, that bring you pleasure and comfort are important. Don’t feel guilty about spending money on yourself or others. But make sure that what you buy is worth it, that doesn’t add to our throw-away, mindless, avaricious society. Buy things, own things but buy wisely and well.

Possessions should be about connections and stories, utility and beauty – they shouldn’t be about competition or expense or acquisition for the sake of it. Remember that and you’ll not make foolish or wasteful purchases, and you’ll have things that are worth having. (Images from Private Collection)

Comfort Food – for when you need something to make you feel better.

Comfort Food.

In the midst of the snow last week and being (sadly and oh so reluctantly) forced to stay at home instead of going to work I had a sudden odd yearning to make scones – fruit scones to be exact. And so I did. Hunting out my mother’s old, battered, world travelled Women’s Weekly Cookbook I made scones. It was a bit of a challenge, given it is years since I’ve made scones and given the age of the cook-book it was all imperial measures, so some time was spent converting with the help of the internet – oh, helpful & wonderful thing that it can be.

 

My first batch were more like rock-cakes: the mixture rolled too thin with old SR flour, still they tasted fine enough. The second batch were a marvel and a delight. And it set me to wondering what is it about scones that is so comforting, indeed it set off a whole train of thought on comfort food. Which, as I publish on Mothering Sunday here in the UK, seems entirely appropriate.

Scones are things connected to my mum and nans – ladies who belonged to the CWA (Country Women’s Association) for whom baking was a part of life. Mum was only a so-so sort of cook but still she could manage a decent batch of scones and a few basic cakes; so making my scones, using her book made me feel close to her again and it was a comfort to me – even now, after all these years it’s nice to feel close to her.

 

Perhaps this cosy feeling we have from baking – either baking ourselves or receiving the fruits of the baking – explains the run away success of the Great British Bake Off, and many other cookery shows. Indeed Nigella springs to mind.

Home make food is a comfort. I am of an age when a home-cooked meal was the norm, and for my own family it was too. We associate home-cooking with love, care; with home and feeling safe. We are comforted by home-cooking, by the smell of baking, by the aroma and taste of freshly cooked meals. Who doesn’t love the smell of baking bread, of roasting lamb, of pumpkin soup? Even the simple smell of brewed coffee and toast – who doesn’t feel better with those aromas in the vicinity?

Food has become an area of danger and politics, of fashion and trends, and obesity is the newest disease and every day some new study warns us about sugar, or fat or bacon. Governments set out healthy eating advice, legislate against sugar and fat and push for honest labelling. We can’t escape food – be we thin, fat, poor or rich.

We all have our own comfort food – our go-to bit of nourishment when we feel crook, or unhappy or tired, or even for celebrations. Comfort food is exactly what it says it is – food that comforts you, that makes you feel better, that lifts your mood, or makes you feel a bit less wretched about yourself or the world.

When I’m sick I want tomatoes on toast, with lots of butter and salt and pepper. I have no idea why, but every time a cold sweeps in, even post-migraine, I want fresh fat red tomatoes on toast. It’s wonderful. And every time I do feel better afterwards. It puzzles me as I am not usually a great tomato eater … clearly my body knows something my brain doesn’t!

 

Comfort food is simple, plain honest food. It’s easy and quick to prepare. It hits the spot in moments and so you feel better in minutes.

I have a list of things that make me feel better… the afore-mentioned tomatoes on toast, scones, fresh and warm with melting butter or jam and cream; peanut butter on toast, vegemite and toast, jam and toast (there’s a theme here!), melted cheese on toast, ham and cheese toasties, sardines on toast; soup – chicken noodle, tomato pumpkin: packet, tin or homemade; plain Cadbury dairy milk chocolate; eggs and bacon, egg and bacon pie; cold lamb sandwiches with tomato, and sausages – especially thin beef Australian sausages (although I just love the simplicity and honesty of sausages, be they English French or Australian), barbecued and in a slice of white bread with tomato sauce. Actually there is a lot of tomato in a range of guises herein…

 

Mostly this is winter stuff – I guess that’s when we get sick the most and the need the most comfort – snuggled up in bed, or by a roaring fire, feeling sorry for ourselves, needing lovely simple food stuffs to make us feel better. But in Summer there’s nothing more comforting on a stinking hot day than an icy glass of coke, a chilled slice of watermelon, a lemonade icy pole – the cheap ones! And, of course, the most comforting drink of all – champagne, because it comforts and celebrates and is good with so many food stuffs, especially the wantonly naughty and comforting KFC and pizza (homemade or take-away – thank you Pizza Hut) and at any time of the year. Stick a frozen strawberry or raspberry in your bubbles and you have an utterly blissfully comforting drink for all occasions.

So, have a think, what is your go-to comfort food – is there only one? (Images from Private Collection)