This is Woodroffe, navel-gazing.
This is Woodroffe reminding me, sternly, that geese and ganders do not have navels and that, even if they did, they wouldn’t waste time gazing at them.
“How is Anthony?”
I am home after a day with cousins and Anthony and our next-door-neighbour drops in with a freshly cooked meal. I am gobsmacked at her kindness. She doesn’t ask about Anthony because she already knows and cares more than any neighbour I have ever had. Every morsel of her meal is a gift.
I am at the local shop getting milk and bread etc. and I am trying to be flippily quick but the woman serving me catches me eye’s heart and asks, “How is Anthony?” And I dissolve into tears in the middle of the shop, and she hugs me across the counter and, beyond embarrassed, I hug her back. She doesn’t even know Anthony but she must see him in my clumsy stance, inside my bones; it’s probably the limp I’ve developed to counteract the impotence of my sorrow.
How is Anthony?
Not good.
I am helping the wheelchair taxi driver to get Anthony into the taxi and he is sullen and sad and I am bereft and all of a sudden his brother turns up unannounced and shakes Anthony’s hand as if everything is normal – as if this is normal. As the taxi drives off, this brother says, “He looks well, doesn’t he.”
A lot of people say that these days, and these words are either inane, naive or just plain stupid.
How is Anthony?
Not good.
I am home after a day with cousins and Anthony and our neighbour drops in with a freshly cooked meal. I am gobsmacked at her kindness. She doesn’t ask about Anthony because she already knows and cares more than any next-door-neighbour I have ever had. Every morsel of her meal is a gift.
This wrinkled soul
This soul has developed crinkles like the white linen shirts I used to wear but gave away because I hate ironing.
This soul has developed wrinkles – frown wrinkles – not very becoming at all.
This soul is like a boiled egg – perfect until you crack the shell, peel it off and mush the egg for a sandwich.
A splintered windscreen.
An improbable jigsaw.
This soul has also become argumentative and I am getting really sick of the way it nags, nags, nags; no wonder it has wrinkles.
No wonder it has crinkles.
I know I should probably try to iron out its crinkly wrinkles.
But that would be as stupid as ironing a Sebastopol goose.
I’ll try to make friends with this soul on my way into see Anthony in the nursing lodge.
His soul is much better behaved!
Love story 100 – Do males always love themselves this much?
Prince (our only white peacock): I just love the smell of my feathers – glorious!
King: I know what you mean, Prince – I love the angles of my shadow on the lawn.
Okay, years ago – well before Ants and I got married and had Ming and well before Ants got so sick – I asked him to explain his arrogant, strutting self-posturing.
He said (and I will never forget it), “Jules, men have to love themselves just in case nobody else does.”
Oh!
Roof rats
Yes, I am over-posting, I know! But the thing is that there are rat races happening just above my head in my little office (you know, the one I just cleaned out). The pest control man who came over the other day and did several hours of work to eradicate the (possibility of) termites, charged us a small fortune, and told me that the rats might be possums who might be rats, was too nervous to get into our ceiling even though we gave him a ladder.
Tonight I have made a decision. I will buy rat poison and throw it into the ceiling cavity because I cannot stand it anymore. Anthony used to do all of this stuff but he never taught me how, or where, or what – so I flounder with what I am supposed to do. It is a very old house so the electric wires are already old and a bit dangerous which is another thing I have to figure out.
I remember when my beautiful mother at 44 had to suddenly deal with all of the stuff Dad did before he died – all that supposedly manny stuff. She did it with more alacrity than I will ever have and anyway Anthony isn’t dead.
I am going to kill those rats because if I don’t they will fall through the ceiling and swallow me whole.
Are you there?
Angelina: Are you there, Jo and Terry?
Angelina: Are you there, Robyn and Rhonda?
Angelina: Are you there, BB,CC and WW?
Julie: Angelina, will you stop it! Go to bed. Yes all of those people are there/here – angels like you!
Butterfly haiku
The utterfly looks
for the B that will heal it
under the grey rocks.
The utterfly has
enormously big nostrils,
like big purple eyes.
The utterfly finds
its missing B in the hug
of an old, old man.
The utterfly finds
its missing B in the smile
of a young, young man.
The utterfly speaks,
sheds its mothy shabbiness,
enfolds its own B …
And becomes a butterfly.
Love story 99 – Pip
After the kidney infection episode and I was out of hospital, Anthony rang to say he would come and get me and bring me down to the farm to convalesce. I was surprised at this gesture as (a) in those days Ants would not leave the farm; (b) he wasn’t that great with generous gestures; and (c) he never bothered to see me when I was actually in hospital.
“Do you have to come to Perth anyway?” I asked on the phone.
“Well, yes, to pick up Pip.”
“What do you mean?” (Pip was my own little mini-dachshund who Ants was looking after while I worked and undertook my postgraduate studies in Perth.)
“I’ve just had her mated, Jules – it’s no big deal.”
“Okay, but she is my dog, Ants – you could have asked me!”
The next day he came up to my flat to pick me up and, expecting to see Pip in his arms, I became a bit alarmed. Ants sat down at my little table and sipped the coffee I gave him and then told me she was dead – that she had tried to get out of the pen she was in and strangled herself. He wiped at his eyes as I sobbed, then took my hand in his and said, repeatedly, ‘I’m so sorry, Jules.”
Little luxuries
1. A hot bubble bath.
2. A food processor that will make meals all by itself and not cut anybody’s fingers off.
3. A clothes dryer that dries everything in an emergency.
4. A vaccum cleaner that works properly.
5. A lawnmower that works properly.
6. A Spring that stops raining.
7. A bonfire that keeps burning instead of fizzling out.
8. A son who doesn’t answer back.
9. A husband who smiles.
10. A different me.
I don’t have any of these things but I live in hope!
Counselling
There used to be a real stigma attached to the idea of counselling – i.e. that you needed someone to help you sort your emotions out etc. This is no longer the case with most schools employing professional counsellors (psychologists or social workers) and many people seeing counsellors on a regular basis. Ming and I have sought this kind of help a few times, especially during the months when Anthony was still home but deteriorating fast, Ming was getting angrier by the day and I was getting beyond sad.
As I’m sure is obvious from various posts in this blog, I have not adjusted nearly so well as Ming has to Anthony’s moving into a nursing lodge. I guess I had always envisioned that one day Ants and I would both be old people (him 90 and me nearly 70), sitting in rocking chairs on our front veranda, and Ming would be gone, exploring the world in one way or another. I had no way of knowing that instead it would be Anthony gone away and Ming and me here together.
We are not coping well with what Ming continuously refers to as ‘our relationship problems’. The fact that he even cares about our relationship astounds me; after all, he is 18! He gets very angry with me, then gets the guilts and that whole vicious cycle repeats itself. So we have decided to seek the help of a counsellor again. Ming wants a man this time (our previous psychologist was a woman and she was great but it seems Ming is now at the age when he needs a man-to-man talk with someone). The trouble is the guy who has agreed to help us is on holidays for a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I emailed Ming’s primary school headmaster because he has always understood and liked Ming and he agreed to come over tomorrow afternoon to talk to Ming about his angst.
As I was driving Ming into music school this morning (well, he was driving to practise before his driving test in a couple of weeks), we were having our usual bitsy verbal wrangles. So I told him that Henry (name disguised to protect the innocent) was coming over to counsel him tomorrow, and Ming thought is was a great idea – phew!
This was our conversation:
Me: I told him you had angst issues.
Ming: What’s angst?
Me: Aggro.
Ming: Yeah, but that’s only because of you.
Me: What – the fact that my presence irritates you all the time?
Ming: No, not ALL the time, Mum.
You gotta laugh!
jmgoyder 