Western Australia | jmgoyder

Time, times, timing and a riddle….

by jmgoyder

From as far back as I can remember, I have had a problem with the seven-day week, its orderliness and its paradoxical unevenness – either Sunday to the following Saturday, or Monday to the following Sunday or any alternative combination. As a child this did my head in a bit and as for the 24 hours enclosed inside each of the seven days – well, we won’t go there. After all I failed high school maths, ha!

I would much prefer a Sunday to Sunday, Monday to Monday etc. arrangement but of course this would be impossible. Or would it?

As an adult, I still find days and times problematic if I am trying to accomplish something difficult (it used to be the writing of lectures to deliver at the university; then it was what day to do the washing; and now it is how many hours I can spend with Ants in the nursing home).

In wrestling with the aftermath of multiple situations, especially the traumatic ones, I have tried and failed several times now to get back to a normal week, a schedule, a routine, a way of fast-tracking a bad Monday into a hopeful Sunday – that kind of thing….

And earlier this week I thought I had successfully reinvented what my week would be. I had listed goals, routines, early morning meditations, bike rides, photo-scanning, photo-taking, writing ‘the book’, polishing the silver etc. and NONE of this happened!

Instead, I spent the week hugging Ants from time to time as we watched Luther, and, at home, hugging Ming from time to time as we watched Game of Thrones.

I now think it is impossible to reinvent the week. That whole seven day thing still does my head in. My preference now is for moments: Anthony’s unexpected grin; my Mama’s amazing pork with caramelised onions for dinner with my first nephew and his girlfriend last night; reconciliations with friends and relations; cheaper than usual watermelon; photos of my first great-niece, reading Elizabeth Jolley’s biography; picking the last fig today….

And the once-a-year blooms of the magical moonflower.

1977
Anthony: Jules, come out and have a look at this!
Me: What? (amazed that he has taken my hand in his)
Anthony: The moonflower – only happens once a year, kid (removes my hand from his and looks embarrassed).

2015
Me: Ants I brought you two moonflowers, but they’re closing up already! I’ll get a vase.
Ants: You are beautiful, Jules.
Me: Really?
Ants: Just brush your hair.

Is it possible to reinvent what a week was? No.
Is it possible to fall in love again with someone whose disabilities made things difficult? Yes.
Is it possible to reinvent a week in a day-by-day way? Yes! It’s a bit complicated when you use a calendar or diary but an eight-day week, ten-day week (or anything you like) is entirely possible (I think!)

If the moonflower here only has one day of the year to bloom (as has happened here) then what the hell is it doing for the rest of the 364 days?

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Values

by jmgoyder

On Tuesday, Dina and I arranged all of the stuff I wanted valued onto two tables ready for the antique guy, Mike, to value and/or purchase. When he arrived, introductions were made and he got his little eye-magnifier-thingy out and began what ended up being over four hours of a fascinating adventure into the history and mystery of everything from chinaware to silverware to walking sticks to coins etc.

Every time Mike said “Oh, you know what this is?” or “Now that is beautiful!” I felt quite chuffed. As Anthony was/is an antique enthusiast and, to some extent, a collector, it was interesting to find out what the things he had bought, or we had bought together (prints/lithographs; a piano stool, the grandfather clock, coins/banknotes, a silver egg coddler, willow pattern china, a Gallopili photo, etc.) were actually worth.

As the three of us went through the wares, I wrote down what things might be worth and what Mike would pay me for items he was interested in. Anything chipped or cracked was either discarded or put into the garage-sale box; most of the silver-plated and brass goods were deemed low in value as nobody wants to polish anymore. Mike wasn’t interested in any of that so Dina and I put these items onto a separate table for me to sort out later.

Interestingly, it was the little tangled-up trinkets plus my grandmother’s collection of Royal Doulton teacup sets, that had more value than the bigger, more impressive-looking objects! I sold a few of these to Mike but kept this one (see the peacock?)

Family heirloomy stuff for Ming went straight into my now decluttered office at the back of the house; give-to-relatives stuff went into a couple of boxes; stuff to keep (because I love it) will go back into the living room; garage-sale things ended up in several boxes!

Call me mercenary but I had not wanted to give away or sell anything that might be worth a fortune so, thanks to Mike, I am now in the position of being able to give/sell things more cannily – ha! And it is almost a relief to know that none of this clutter is particularly valuable monetarily.

This means that I can now retrieve the objects that have/had sentimental value for Anthony’s mother, Ants, Ming, my own mother and father, and me … and put them back on display. I particularly like the silver and brass because I can remember polishing it with Anthony’s mother, Gar, and then with Anthony. I haven’t polished any of it for some time so will not take a photo until I have, but it is beautiful!

Towards the early afternoon, as Dina and I sorted things according to Mike’s valuations, I remembered to show him the coin I’d bought for Anthony in the Christmas of 2000. It is a one-kilo silver coin produced by the Perth Mint for the year of the dragon – absolutely beautiful and very heavy. Mike was impressed and suggested I do a bit of research into what it might be worth now (I paid $600AUS at the time).

Well, after doing a lot of googling and ebay-scouring and general research I found out that this particular limited edition coin is now worth up to $5,500! People appear to be selling them at lower prices than this, but it is interesting and rather wonderful to find that this random Christmas gift has turned into a worthwhile investment and I feel quite clever.

You should have seen Anthony’s face when I took the coin in to show and remind him, and tell him its value had increased so markedly. He actually grinned! Money does that to him.

Later that day, I was telling Ming about how it all went and he was a little nonplussed at my thrill. But, just as I was about to put Gar’s plastic tomatoes, which have hung in the kitchen for over 50 years, into the bin, Ming yelped “Nooooooo!” So they’re freshly washed and back where they were!

It is now the fifth week of my experience with Dina, who has helped me to declutter, reorganise and create space where there was chaos. I have discovered, in this process, that I can do such things without the anxiety of Anthony’s hoarding, my sentimental attachment to objects that just made me sad (eg. a pair of glasses once worn my my father), Ming’s fickleness. There has definitely been a bit of a power struggle between Ming and me but I have now reasserted my authority haha!

I have learned so much about the notion of value and it has got absolutely nothing to do with things. Of course I already knew that but the reminder has been wonderful!

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Taboo topics

by jmgoyder

I am always very careful not to write details of our story on this blog that might embarrass Anthony. The taboo topics are to do with matters of the groin area: sexuality, ablutions, incontinence, libido, that kind of thing. These topics are not taboo for Anthony and me of course and actually provide us with some rollicking conversations in a slapstick comedy sort of way and some of his male friends who visit love to tease him about his past exploits (not me, I can assure you ha!)

One of the things that most amazes me when I watch various television shows/series is that no matter how long a particular character is trapped, or imprisoned etc. he/she never seems to need to go to the toilet (I think Nicole Kidman was one of the first do so in her last movie with Tom Cruise – not sure).

Anthony is utterly unembarrassed by incontinence and made me laugh my head off the other day when he said, “I hate having a wet nappy!” when I tried and failed to get him to the toilet in time at the nursing home. Unabashed, he said, “Those kids will help me soon” (he calls all of the staff ‘kids’ for some reason.

But even writing the above paragraph makes me worry that (a) this would embarrass him; and (b) that relatives and friends who read this blog might think this is ‘too much information’. However, whenever I present my worries to Ants and/or read bits of the blog to him, about him, including the above, he reassures me with his half smile. He has a very healthy ego! Libido is of course another taboo topic but the hilarity with which Ants has approached this now diminished capacity (“This is a gold bar”) is, I think, an important part of a story of extraordinary resilience.

I remember thinking, years ago, that if this or that were to happen I would not be able to cope any longer. I was right; when this and that happened, the nursing home idea saved us – our marriage, friendship, love.

If I write the Anthony book, I want to be honest about these taboo topics; I want to demystify them, make them less scary, put it out there for those who are going through the same kind of thing.

Off to the toilet now!

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Gutsy

by jmgoyder

Gutsy, or Gutsy9, our pied peachick/hen, turned two last November. Anyway, she has now assimilated into our flock of peafowl but the others are still in awe of her audacity. If I leave the back door open even for a few seconds G9 will not hesitate to come into the house. This morning, for example:

She is often outside one of the four doors to the house, wanting to come in.

Or posing outside; yes, she is quite the poser and always has been.

Sometimes she still tries to fly up onto my shoulder but she’s a bit big for that now so I usually sit at one of the outside tables and she jumps up and lets me tickle her under the chin or stroke her head feathers. I wish I could take her into the nursing home to see Ants but it would probably freak her out now (not to mention the staff!)

Oh well, I can always show Ants the photos – the old and the new.

In the following photo she is resting on Anthony’s arm in the nursing home (2012).

And in this one, she is looking up at him during one of his last visits home (early 2014).

G9 has been, and continues to be, a very important addition to our lives. As many of you know, she was a bit of a foundling, rejected by her mother (whose identity I still don’t know) possibly because she is half white and half blue (‘pied’) and she has a very crooked toe on her left foot. Raising her was a learning curve for me because I had to take her everywhere with me during those first few weeks of her life, either in my pocket or underneath the collar of my shirt – a shock of course to anyone who spotted her. The funniest of these occasions was when I met friends for lunch at a restaurant and she poked her little head out of my shirt.

In many ways, G9 represents the years of our transition (Anthony’s, Ming’s and mine) from Anthony being home/coming home to Anthony being in the nursing home permanently. It is now the beginning of his fourth year there which somewhat flabbergasts me as he has outlived his advanced prostate cancer now by years. It is the Parkinson’s disease that so incapacitates him. He is now (and has been for some time) a ‘two person assist’ meaning that it requires two carers to get him out of bed/chair to toilet/dining room etc.

It’s a peculiar comparison perhaps but G9’s adorability, tenacity and head-held-highness resembles the way Anthony is coping with his situation. He is never depressed, rarely complains and is able to glean joy from the smallest of things; my presence in his room; freshly picked flowers; the domestic staff’s attention to detail; food (the lunchtime roast, my gifts of blue cheese and cherries); the occasional brandy; a soft blanket pulled up around his arms (yes, even in the heat of summer!); quips and humour from carers; slapstick comedy via Ming and me; and the pot of fake silk roses I gave him some time ago that everyone admires.

G9 is gutsy, yes, but Ants is gutsier; Anthony IS Gutsy.

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A sublime sense of space

by jmgoyder

Dina, from Chaos to Clear https://www.chaostoclear.com.au/gallery.html came over this morning to help Ming tackle this:

Some of the stuff in this particular area was paperwork that I either didn’t know what to do with, didn’t recognise, and didn’t even remember putting there. But most of it was Ming stuff – lego (and lots of it!) brio trains and tracks, and a whole lot of other ‘things’ from Ming’s childhood. As this was Ming’s first experience of decluttering his own stuff with Dina, it was interesting to see his initial reluctance transform into a very healthy ruthlessness and we filled four garbage bags and two boxes with rubbish to be taken to the dump – wonderful! It was also quite moving to see what he was still sentimental about:

While this was happening, I sorted all of my plastic containers, got rid of all my old cook books and only put the Aga cook books in the kitchen drawer, and put all of the paperwork we found into the filing cabinet that is now functioning as a proper filing cabinet thanks to Dina’s labels. Bliss!

For me, the sense of space that has been created is the most wonderful thing! I have never known a cupboard, shelf or drawer in this house to be empty before so I am having a lot of fun thinking about how I can use these empty spaces. Wonderful!

And this is the beauty of Dina’s service; she helps you to cull, but she also helps you to put the things you want to keep back into the new spaces. Dina is way more organised than I will probably ever be, but she has given us such wonderful help and tips and sympathy!

She has also given us her friendship and is even happy to come and help me take Anthony out on occasion. Thanks again, Dina, for your tact, efficiency, respect and empathy. You are a wonder!

We even have a box of stuff to go into the nursing home.

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Treehouse

by jmgoyder

It is surprising how much continues to grow, and even flourish, here, despite the fact that this is the third summer I have stopped watering any of the garden. For those who don’t know why I stopped, the reasons are four-fold:

1. Even though I have an endless supply of good, clean bore water, turning the hoses on activates a pump which translates into a very high electricity bill;
2. I am not the least bit interested in gardening;
3. After Anthony went into the nursing home, I didn’t care much about anything except his well-being; and
4. I was conducting a scientific experiment based on Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

Palms, aloe vera, frangipani, cumquats, bottle brush, figs and grapes (as mentioned in past posts), and many other trees and plants continue to flourish regardless.

Even the house is sprouting!

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Miscellaneous

by jmgoyder

One of the things I have had to do in all of the recent decluttering is to toss some things into a miscellaneous box to be figured out at a later date. Despite the fact that this box is getting rather full it is good to know that I have one place to put anything that I don’t recognise. I will hold the object out to Dina and say, “Do you know what this is?” (Usually it’s some sort of ancient tool – an artefact from Anthony’s past). If neither of us can figure it out, it goes into the miscellaneous box – perfect. Then it’s over to ‘the Ming’.

I thought it might be quite fitting to write a bit of a miscellaneous post, having discovered that ‘miscellaneous’ is a definite, and quite acceptable, category. So here goes:

Most of the grapes are ripe now and I can just pick them and eat them whenever I go outside. I think it’s just the one vine and the wild birds get to them as fast as I can so there is almost no point picking them. They grow just outside the back door and I’m not sure if Anthony planted them or if they were there before the family came here.

The figs are nearly finished for the year as the heat is getting the better of them – and the butcher birds (which Gar, Anthony’s mother, used to hate). Last year I just let most of them fall of the tree and frizzle in the sun but this year I have given many bags away to friends, family, the local pub, the restaurant where Ming works (my mother and I went there today for lunch and the fig and coconut muffins were a hit), neighbours etc. I have also eaten quite a few with Ants in the nursing home. I also went to another restaurant and asked if they wanted figs and they said YES and I asked what I would get in exchange, suggesting a lunch voucher and they said yes to that too, though a little less enthusiastically.

After lunch with my mother today I went in to the nursing home to spend some time with Ants before my 3 – 7pm shift in the dementia house. I had my camera with me so took some photos through his window of the outlook from his room. This garden area – one of many – is where he often ‘sees’ calves and often asks me to go out and check if they are all okay, which of course I always do and the calves are always okay.

Periodically, I rearrange or change the pictures on his walls. The photo of younger Anthony has pride of place very high on one wall where there happened to be a hook and he rather likes looking up at himself!

Me: You really like looking at yourself don’t you! Such vanity, Ants.

Ants: Men need to love themselves.

Me: Why?

Ants: In case nobody else does.

Okay I am kind of cheating here as the above conversation happened over a year ago. Ants doesn’t articulate so well anymore but he sure as hell likes looking at the photo and so do I. It kind of pulls us both into the time warp of when we first met.

Then there is the oil painting of cattle that I commissioned from an artist friend years ago; a calendar my mother made of moments/months in our lives (e.g.. Ming recovering from his first spinal surgery); and one of the few photos of Anthony and his mother in her latter years, that I had framed for him once upon a time.

Then I took a picture of the rose plant I gave Ants not long ago. Everybody has remarked on their blooms and many people, including Anthony, thought they were real until I finally had to own up to the fact that they were VERY expensive fake roses made of silk. Some people are still fooled though, especially when I spray them with rose perfume – haha!

Well now that all of the ancient rose trees on the driveway of the farm are either dead or dying, the fake rose tree seemed like a good idea. In my defence, I am hopeless at gardening and every time I water something the pump makes the electricity bill soar!

Just before 3pm, after watching Judging Amy with Ants, I went into his bathroom and quickly changed out of my t-shirt into my new uniform, put my name tag on and explained I was going to work. He always only remembers a bit of this new situation so I have to explain again that I am not going somewhere else but will be working just next door and that I might be able to see him a couple of times during my shift. This reassures him and whenever he gets anxious I just tease and tickle him into his new half-smile and all is well.

This afternoon it was a bit too humid to take many people for a walk outside or through the complex and it wasn’t until I took a teary S for a wheelchair walk that I saw Ants again (just as I saw many of the people in the high-care section as S and I did a lap of the gardens and hallways).

S. Who’s that old chap?

Me: My husband.

S. Not bad-looking!

Me: Keep your hands off him, S!

S. (chuckling and sticking her tongue out at me) All right.

Miscellaneous….

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Feb 13

Feathers and figs
by jmgoyder

Well the whole lawn is strewn here and there with the feathers shed by our peacocks. Periodically I go around picking them up and last week Dina (my decluttering expert) tied them into bunches to be sold and she bought 20 herself, so I made $20!

Don’t worry. I don’t keep a display like this on top of the stove ordinarily; I just put them there for the picture.

As you can see, peacock feathers are varied. The above picture shows the underneath feathers.

The lawn underneath the two ancient fig trees is also strewn – with dead figs. Tip: never step on a dead fig and, if you do, clean the sole of your shoe immediately. Dead figs are like superglue!

I have been picking and giving away as many figs as I can because the heat is killing them off fast. This morning was a bit cooler so I picked heaps and they are now in a sink full of water to drown the ants. I’m taking them into the guys at the restaurant Ming works at. They go very well with blue cheese.

Picking figs always reminds me of Gar, Anthony’s mother. She would always want me to try to pick the topmost fig by hook or by crook and, yes, we usually used her walking stick to do so.

So, with the figs and feathers, I am feeling quite rich!

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Feb 4

Anthony’s 79th birthday
by jmgoyder

Today is Anthony’s 79th birthday and yesterday I promised him I would take him for a drive down south to Golden Valley, his childhood home in Balingup. He asks to go to Golden Valley much more than he asks to come home here and, as it’s been months since I have taken him for a drive anywhere, except around town, I decided to do it.

I was nervous about our little expedition because it is very hot here at the moment and Ants is really hard to manoeuvre when immobile (which is most of the time now). But at 11am he was able to walk, with his walker, the short distance up the hallway and to the outside front driveway where I bottom-shoved him into the car. This bottom-shoving method is very effective; I just get his right leg into the car while he is standing up clinging to the open car door, then I sort of swing my right hip against his left hip to plonk him into the seat. This is not a method I recommend to care staff, who are not allowed to assist once outside the building anyway, but I don’t have to adhere to the care staff rules when it comes to Anthony because I am not his carer, I am his wife. And he seems to get a bit of a kick out of my rough handling – ha!

An hour and a half later we arrived at his childhood home.

We parked there for awhile and admired the scenery and I asked him questions that he had already answered years ago, like about the hedge that he planted and trimmed obsessively for years. “Looks like someone is doing the same thing,” I remarked but, by this time, Ants was finding it hard to articulate anything and his words were skewed.

Then we drove the short distance to the tree park and he suddenly got a bit excited and mentioned the name of a woman he told me about years ago. She and her brother owned the farm adjacent to Anthony’s parents’ and, as a boy, he used to walk up to visit her. I am going to call her Eleanor for the sake of privacy despite the fact that she probably died years ago. So little-boy Anthony used to walk up the hill to visit in-her-30s Eleanor and she would feed him with home-made cake and sometimes play the piano.

At the tree park, I stopped the car and we admired the view and I said, “She was obviously a wonderful person, Ants” – then, right out of left field, he said “There was no sex.”

Right, okay ….

After that, I asked Ants if he wanted to go to the old pub which has been refurbished and he nodded yes but I could see he was getting very tired. This pub is a place we’ve been to from time to time over the years, but this time I knew I would be unable to get Ants out of the car, let alone into the pub, so I parked the car in a shady spot and ran inside to check it out.

I ordered two light beers and asked if it would be okay for us to drink these in the car because my husband was too disabled to come in. Yes that was fine. Then I asked to see the menu and they had oysters – joy, bliss! So I hurried back to the car with the beers and told Ants about the oysters and went back to order half a dozen.

I had to feed these to him because his hands don’t work very well anymore but he vacuumed them down as you can see! So then I raced back into the pub and ordered another half dozen and the chef delivered them right to the car – amazing!

By this time I could see that Anthony was utterly exhausted and there was still 100 kms to travel back to the nursing home. So I drove with the radio on (Ants loves music) and, periodically, put my non-driving hand into his or around his shoulders. We got back nearly four hours after we’d left and the very thing I’d dreaded happened. Ants couldn’t get out of the car or stand up or speak, so I went inside and got a wheelchair but that was still very difficult. Nevertheless I eventually got him back to his room and asked the care staff if they could attend to him soon. Then I kissed him again and asked if his birthday had been okay.

“Not too bad,” he said.

This photo shows what happens when I ask Ants to smile for the camera – mmmm.

Happy birthday to my beautiful, incorrigible, resilient, fantastic, sarcastic, wonderful husband!

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Feb 1

Missing Missy!
by jmgoyder

Well I miss Fergie too but Missy was definitely the most mischievous of the two. No matter what yard we put her in she Houdini-ed her way out of it almost immediately. As a result, we got into the habit of letting all of the dogs (our two and the two we were dog-sitting) out for much of the day.

So, the other day, when Missy was conducting an aerobics lesson with Fergie, Blaze and Jack, I drove up to the local shop to get some groceries and returned 15 minutes later
to
find
that
they
were
GONE!

Not Jack and Blaze; they were resting on the front veranda and initially I didn’t fret about Fergie and Missy having been assured by their owners (my nephew and family) that they would not run away. But, after about half an hour, I began to wonder where on earth they were so I did a preliminary search of the acreage around the house, including the pond,
with
a
growing
sense
of
absolute
DREAD!

Two hours later I was in a state of panic and texted Ming who was at work but he didn’t answer so then, with a lump in my throat, and tears in my eyes, I messaged my nephew’s wife and admitted that I had somehow lost their dogs. Then I went back outside to continue the search. “Where are they, Jack? Where are they, Blaze?” I kept asking our rather subdued dogs but of course dogs can’t talk so they just looked up at me sadly.

When I got back inside, having given up, and having resigned myself to the fact that my nephew, his wife, and their two small children would NEVER forgive me, I checked my messages and was
overcome
with
a tsunami-like
sense
of
RELIEF!

“It’s okay – they’re just across the road with J and P” (my nephew’s parents).

OH! THANK GOD!

An hour or so later J and P returned the little rascals and Missy recommenced the aerobics lesson from her preferred position on the table on the front veranda. I have never seen a dog with such kangaroo-like abilities. With gravity-defying agility she simply springs upwards and lands on whatever happens to be higher than the ground. Extraordinary!

But she was a bit tired after her adventure across the front paddock and over the road, so she concluded the aerobics lesson in relaxed mode.

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