If my boy had been a girl, he would have been called Freya Francis. The Francis bit stuck, and it is with great sadness that I learned recently of the death of the source of, not quite his 'namesake', but the inspiration behind the choice of his name.
I appear to have overlooked this event, when it actually happened last year. I still consider myself to be somewhat out of circulation, so I recall it being hinted at, but not fully acknowledged or digested by me, until listening to a CD of the person in question, last night, at which point the penny dropped. But let me start at the very beginning.
Inspired by the movie Brother Sun, Sister Moon, I had, although not Catholic, been playing with the idea of calling my son Francis. His father and I realized however that, in Australia, it would inevitably be shortened to Frank, so it was set aside as a first name and reserved as a middle name, which would do for either gender.
Then, when I was around six months pregnant, I found myself at Fairbridge Festival. The child inside me slept for long periods, but clearly indicated his apparent pleasure on hearing certain music. While listening to Michael Kennedy, I felt him kicking during his song about animals, called Francis Has His Way, and this decided it for me.
I'd originally met Michael, or Mick, down at Nannup Folk Festival some years earlier, when I was first writing songs (1997?). I distinctly recall discussing songwriting with him, after his gig, somewhere on the main street. He'd been encouraged over by a mutual friend and choir director. After that, although I didn't know him well, there was a friendly rapport between us, perhaps in the way that happens for visiting musicians from over east, who are happy to see a familiar face at festivals in the west. I recall seeing him again at Fairbridge Festival in 1998, the year my choir, Ocean, sang in the chapel there. We must have been on the same concert or something and met backstage in the green room.
But 2010, the year our ukulele band Spiderfish Stew performed at Fairbridge, is my most significant memory, because I found myself in the front row in the chapel, listening to Michael and capturing some of his songs on shaky but historically significant video, on a now dinosauric smart phone, which are still up on an old you tube channel: http://youtu.be/mp7OzE9PuFw. I have a vague recollection of Michael writing to thank me for taking them, but I've lost sight of the details.
In August of last year, Michael's time on Earth, as someone with cystic fibrosis whose life had already been extended by a decade, due to a double lung transplant with a definite use-by date, came to an end. Ten bonus years in which to forge a strong marriage and to beget a child, now aged three. The same age as me, Mick was only 47 when he died.
I know not what force led me to put on his CD Seed last night, the one with the song about Francis, but I did. As I listened, it dawned on me how Mick often wrote about being taken back by the earth. Clearly, awareness of his mortality was something he lived with. Thankfully he chose to spend what time he had creating beautiful art, first as a potter and then as a musician and songwriter with a truly stunning voice. One of those men who didn't shy away from giving expression to their sensitivity, but who instead packaged it into astute observation and rich, heartfelt storytelling metaphor in the style of the contemporary folk tradition.
I believe Michael was awarded prizes of the 'best male vocalist' variety, at various Australian festivals, and also showcased his song Dunghala, about the ailing Murray River and the Yorta Yorta people who are its traditional custodians, in conjunction with the Melbourne Boite's Millenium Chorus. Directed by Penny Larkins and Carl Pannuzzo, who I also know personally and whose songs and music, individually and collectively, I just love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgfQAZaqKsY&feature=youtu.be
As I removed the insert with the song details from Seed's hard CD case, I noticed a handwritten, personalized autograph that I'd forgotten about. In silver pen on black it reads:
"Dear Ginny, I hope the next few months go REALLY well - another precious voice! Blessings, Michael K."
My memory is notoriously bad, unless jogged by other people and incidents, but I surmise from this that I purchased the CD while pregnant in 2006, the year the CD was released, and the Fairbrdige year when I decided on Francis. What a special gift and memento.
As we listened the other night, I explained to my darling boy the story behind his name, and how his enthusiastic kicking while listening to Mick was the clincher. Then I told him I had just learnt of Michael's passing, and how lucky we were to have his beautiful songs to listen to in spite of this. And then I wept. My gorgeous boy with the middle name of Francis came and put his arm around me, leaned into my shoulder, and had a cry too, as he digested the news, the story and the song. My little feisty extrovert-yet-sensitive, resilient-yet-easily-moved boy-child, who sings all day around me, finding his voice with its delightful vibrato as he sings everything from video game themes to Michael Jackson, to my songs, to world music. Another precious voice, indeed.
I have to wonder what is happening in the cosmos, when appliances and other household items go on strike en masse. In one week, the pond pump broke, as did the DVD/ VHS player I use to review old and current teaching materials. The ceramic fish near the pond shattered (blown over by the wind), and two favourite pairs of sunglasses cracked. My u-Bass breakage, which happened in Melbourne, proved to be tricky to resolve in the replacement parts department; my ukulele tuner stopped working entirely and my camera went missing (presumed dropped into the wastepaper basket by a small child, and accidentally disposed of)! Not to mention the rather alarming spate of political events that have unfolded lately in Australia.
I'm sure Daniel Sowelu would do a fab job of explaining the prevailing astrological and archetypal currents at play, and the good old Fontana Dictionary of Modern thought entry on Resistentialism, summarized here on Wikipedia, offers a humorous secular explanation for the seeming conspiracy of material objects to confound our lives.
So, when a car break-in incident during an otherwise wonderfully sunny happy sandcastle building session with Bryn and his playmate at our local dog beach at the beach just over a week ago (several hundred dollars worth of useless to anyone but us gear taken), on the tail of assorted other contraptions breaking down, I become totally discombobulated, bodily-speaking. Very achy and with a migraine that lasted two days, then hung around as a vague headache for a few days more.
I don't know about you, but I am someone for whom acts of nurturing self-care definitely work wonders. Being HSP, my threshold for stressors including adverse life incidents and sleep deprivation will manifest bodily, perhaps more quickly than the more robust among us, for whom such things might be mere water off a duck's back. I can do a certain amount of it myself: soothing baths, music-
making, cups of herbal tea, rest, yoga stretches, meditation to relaxing music.
As a single Mum with no Significant Other to regular attend to such needs however, it is wonderful
to let go completely and have someone nurture me platonically, make the cuppa, and soothe away the pain. There was a time in my life when I was pretty switched on to the holistic bodywork options locally. As a practitioner myself (reiki, reflexology, sond healing and other forms of bodywork), I tried many different holistic modalities. I even wrote some freelance articles for a local holistic
publication called Nova. As I phased into music, I was happy to be on the receiving end, rather than the giving end of the deal.
But I seem to be less in touch these days with what and who is out there, and the landscape has changed a great deal since I was more fully in it rather than being busy at the Ministry of Music and Motherhood. So, while I can't always immediately know who to go to, I have a pretty good idea
ofwhat I do and don't like in a massage.
Darkened rooms are the business for many HSPs, not because we are drawn moth-like and Goth-like
to The Dark Side - quite the opposite- but because retreat from the overwhelming stimulation of the outer world is, as HSP doyen Elaine N.Aron puts it, "as necessary as breathing". I also find that most of my creativity is born of inward retreat, after outward observation or stimulation. So I am a bit fussy about the location of the massage venue, having experienced some massages in places or cultures where quiet doesn't seem to be part of the equation.
The other thing is that, at the very least, I need to be in a situation with a body worker who is responsive to request (soft hard etc), and not stuck on an autopilot routine, unable to give extra
attention to the sore spots, or unaccommodating of whatever feelings may arise. Thus, sports massage seldom cuts the mustard, being a product of a limited, scientific view of 'bodies as machines'. Maybe after a vigorous game of netball, for the players, it is just the ticket. But there is not enough
acceptance of the way in which our cells and muscle tissue store more than just post-workout lactic acid, in my experience. Massage can be like an awakening: as things shift and are released, new awareness arises. We can go to places we didn't even know existed, since the door to them is invisible from the mundane world. Only when we surrender, on a table, at the hands of someone respectful and open-hearted and wise, do we visit those lands.
I phoned a couple of known and recommended holistic nurturing spots to book a massage, to find they were fully booked. It didn't quite sit right anyway, in terms of price or the niggling intuitive
feeling that neither was where I needed to be. Then I happened to remember a special being advertised at the spa alongside my gym. I made the call and am so relieved that I did.
It was perfect! I was able to go to my tai chi class there first, after dropping Bryn off, park effortlessly
out front (beats heading into Freo and dealing with a total car scrum), then head on over to the spa, which is just inside the building near the front entrance. For the price of a regular massage, I enjoyed the milk bath special. In a small, round private spa, in aforementioned quiet, dark cave of a room, I soaked away my backache for 25 minutes to relaxing music, with juice cocktails, herbal tea and water served to me on request. A sweet and capable masseuse with strong but gentle hands then ironed out the various mind-body-soul wrinkles.
I returned to the spa yesterday to have my hair done, having spotted another of their specials. After a bonus eyebrow and lip wax, I had my hair cut and coloured by another sweet woman originally from Victoria and came away feeling truly renewed.
The best bit was the head massage while she was shampooing and then again when she was rinsing
away the colour. My scalp delighted in it, and whatever vestiges of last week's headache remained disappeared down the gurgler, along with the suds. Having my hair done or my head massaged is a neat HSP strategy for dealing with travel stress, which I've used when in Bali and Thailand. I also availed myself of this little bit of pamper, last month while in Melbourne, when I had my hair cut stylishly, polished and straightened within an inch of its life, in the Vietnamese family-run salon in Victoria St Richmond. I forget quite what an effective and relaxing thing it can be, until I'm there at the basin, with someone's deft fingers working my beleagured scalp! It doesn't always have to be a full body massage- provided the water temperature is suitable. Warm water and some scalp soothing are a fine way to sink into a state of bliss and calm and to remove any ants that are dancing about up there. Of course, unless one is exceedingly wealthy, a splurge at a day spa is a first world privelege. it certainly isn't an everyday thing, but it is definitely something that needs to be factored into my life,
regardless of income, on a regular basis.
After many years, I know it to be true that healing and self- actualization don't always come from the Big Ticket approaches. Mostly, it's everyday acts of kindness to ourselves that achieve this: naps and 'time out' when we need them, enjoyable nourishing food, toothbrushing, haircuts, small treats and 'artist's dates' as Julia Cameron of The Artist's Way fame recommends. Hugs when they are needed, wanted and welcomed, solitude if we've been around people too much (for us), company if we've disappeared up our own fundamental for too long. As HSPs, it is so important to tune into our intuition regarding what we uniquely need, and then to endeavour to juggle it into our lives.
Of course, there is a place for the Big Ticket processes. I myself will be doing a six week program designed to dig a little deeper, because the time is right, and my intuition tells me now is the time to
address certain cellular memories that are proving resistant to diet and exercise, and to be impediments to deeper fulfilment of my life purpose (more on the later- I'm keeping a handwritten
journal. Meanwhile, check out Jeff Brown's work). But self-actualization isn't a thunderbolts and lightning event, in my experience. Most often, it's a process brought about by quiet acts of self-care, such as removing myself from the other world and into some sort of metaphoric cave for a time, in order to re-enter those outward spaces more depth-charged, authentic and resilient. And the greatest act of self-care is trust: to entrust ourselves to someone else's healing hands, having trusted our intuition about who to go to, to trust that whatever comes up asking to be expressed and released is just fine. In short, to trust the process of ourselves nd our lives unfolding towards somewhere better or at the very least, contentment with where they are.
Today, I donned my kit, bundled my aching body into Little Red Car Getz, and headed to the gym. Chi Gung with the lovely Sam, a sun-style sequence(pronounced like someone from the north of England would pronounce son or sun, i.e. 'suhn') was a very effective and timely way to ease my body aches, my finless feet.
By the time I'd hopped into the outdoor pool, wearing my Merfin, it was as much about allowing the water to sweep me up meditatively, a slow, languid reflection on the events of late, as it was about physical exercise. Up and down I paced, reviewing the events of the last few days (despite interludes of humour,e.g., my parody of Billy Field's song Bad Habits). The things that are going on politically in this country have really ruffled my scales and had me puffing furiously about the gills.
Beant Kaur, a friend and mother at my son's school, who is a devoted yogi, put it eloquently in her Facebook post to friends all over the world:
"Dear friends around the globe. We in Australia currently have a government which represents and has introduced policies on very many things that I and thousands of others find intolerable. These are far ranging - from dumping waste onto the Great Barrier Reef, removing ancient forests from the protection of national parks, committing human rights abuses in relation to asylum seekers interned indefinitely in "processing units", to cutting funding for all levels of education, introducing internet censorship, denying climate change and cancelling the carbon tax and giving corporations new levels of power even over government. And there is much more. Many people are very upset and on the weekend THOUSANDS marched on the streets all around the country and have today delivered a vote of no confidence document to the government in Canberra. Most alarmingly, this government, under the leadership of Tony Abbott, is introducing legislation which makes it illegal to protest!! Whats more, the prime minister has so far not commented on the protests and the media is monopolised by sympathisers of the ruling Liberal Party and is not reporting it either! In West Australia we have one newspaper which is essentially like a tabloid and not real reporting and in this newspaper there will be nothing. It's a strange and repressive land in which we now live at a time when the world needs progress. One last detail: the future is feminine, meaning the intuitive, community-minded feminine principle in ALL of us, man and woman, and the PM Tony Abbott has appointed himself, wait for it.. Minister for Women. Thanks if you read to the bottom of this. I am feeling disturbed by the turns being taken in my country, a supposedly developed country being extremely underdeveloped on the scale of human maturity. Apparently impossible things are happening and it's being glossed over. May truth and sanity guide and protect us. Even this is all part of the plan. Wahe Guru."
I started to write a poem, or maybe even a song, of despair and compassion for our current crop of hapless 'leaders', so sure of themselves, yet so far off the mark.
This is the second song I have penned, that is inspired by the poetry of T. S Elliott. The first, written many years ago in the days of Ocean choir, was based on a poem from The Love Songs of J. Alfred Prufrock: " I have heard the mermaids singing each to each, I do not think they will sing to me". This one is based on the famous Hollow Men:
Mistah Kurtz—he dead.A penny for the Old GuyI
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multi-foliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
VHere we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
While swimming, I moved through my frustration towards a place of grief, and an acute awareness of how empty and desperate the lives of despotic politicians must be, because they are cut off from parts of themselves that they don't even know exist. It is up to every mermaid and merman to reveal these things, these places, these hidden treasures.
A Mermaid's Song for Hollow Men copyright Ginny Webb March 2014
The last twenty four hours have been peculiar, to say the least. Yesterday began after a night of broken sleep, as happens after falling asleep with a child and then waking up with a start at 3am, to find myself still there, sweat-velcroed to a small but tenacious boy, all arms and legs akimbo, and all the lights in the house blazing.
We both woke up late, and from then on I had the sensation of paddling frantically but going nowhere, like one of those dreams where you're wading through treacle, or quicksand, or like Fred Flintstone's blur of cartoon feet while he and Barney Rubble attempt to drive a stone car which is rooted to the spot. With the added drawback of a sawdust-filled head. After what felt like an interminable amount of time spent running around getting ready, I managed to penetrate the force-field that seemingly surrounded my front door, and eventually dropped my son off at school (late).
During this time, I'd received an SMS via my neighbour, from a mutual friend who had some sad news to pass on. While driving home after realizing I'd left my ukulele behind, instead of heading straight for Tuart Place, I also received a phone call from an old friend with the same news and a little more detail. And so it came to pass that, instead of heading to the beach or the gym for some mermaiding, I spent some time in Fremantle Hospital yesterday after work, saying goodbye to someone whose life is ending all too soon.
Memory is a funny thing. Mine is notoriously unreliable and relies on friends, songs, photographs and smells for detail. I suppose I first met N around 1987, when I'd returned to Perth to study at UWA after living in Melbourne, working in Sydney and travelling around Australia in a Kombi for a couple of years. I can't exactly remember how, but my early memories are of sitting around the kitchen table in our big old share house in High St Fremantle, with my other good friend J (an actress and singer now living in Sydney, she who some years later became my first comedy duo singing buddy), singing Triffids songs. Those were the days of early music and singing explorations. A time in my life when I was floundering a bit, having done none of the grieving or healing I needed to do, but was also struggling to give myself permission to do creative things again, after a long hiatus.
Later, after he had separated from his long-term partner, and I was living in a little gingerbread house in Cottesloe with a colleague from the Reid library where I worked while a student at UWA, N. and I were lovers, briefly and somewhat awkwardly, before reverting back to being 'just friends' again. I guess we needed to get that particular thing out of our system, as you do when you're a twenty-something, with the rest of your life ahead, and are largely unfazed by consequences!
As I lay on a massage table today, desperate to iron out the bumps and corrugations acquired of late, it came back to me how N was a regular client of mine, when I practiced various forms of bodywork mostly for friends and friends of friends. I worked from the living room of my flat, on the second floor of the famous, now long since bulldozed Myuna flats, with it's stunning vista over Rocky Bay and the river in North Fremantle. I recall how I'd set up my bed in what had originally been an open balcony, later transformed into an enclosed space by the windows that had been fitted. It was a divine place to sleep!
N, by co-incidence, later partnered up with someone I was at uni with and caught the bus with sometimes while living in the gingerbread house (she lived with her parents in Cottesloe). For the last several years, they have been living and working interstate and have a four year old daughter. Thanks heavens for Facebook. They invited me to stay with them some years ago, during a brief stopover in Brisbane, but it didn't work out and so I haven't seen them for what seems like ages. How terrible that their recent return to Perth, for the family support that is on offer here from both sides, has had such a difficult outcome. My heart goes out to little M.
At 1pm, I entered a darkened hospital ward after following B's directions, and sat with N for a spell. He was full of morphine, woozy with fleeting moments of lucidity. So I went in, let him know who I was, held his hand until it was uncomfortable for him, then let him drift in and out of sleep and awareness. I silently willed for his passage to be smooth and painless, and for his loved ones to find meaning and comfort in its aftermath.
It's funny the things that touch us and trigger memory. We were joined by several friends and family members, including N's mum who was delighted to be reminded that we used to go to her house to swim in the pool sometimes! Each brought something- photos to attach to a pin-up board that someone had assembled, vases of flowers.
The photos of N playing guitar are what made me weep and sigh. I cannot account for the years, nor can I have them back and I was engulfed by that strange sense of "if only I knew then what I know now, I would have made better use of my time". But life happens as it does, there are no time machines, and we have to stumble on, mistakes and all, with nothing but the memories and the present to sustain us.
The vases of wildflowers equally undid me. I recall the little house that N, who works in the field of environmental science, shared in downtown Fremantle: a tiny, white-painted, stone warders cottage near the old gaol and the police station, right behind the Fly-By-Night Musicians Club. There was always a vase of beautifully-arranged dried wildflowers: hakeas, banksias, wattle, and beautiful Margaret Preston prints adorned the walls with similar motif.
After I'd said my farewell and kissed N goodbye, possibly for the last time, I bumped into both my 'sad news messengers' on the pavement outside the hospital, on their return from lunch at a nearby cafe. I had a good old natter with both, especially B who had flown from Victoria at short notice, was returning that night, but who has invited me to catch up while in Melbourne in two weeks time. He may even bring his teenage daughter, apparently a keen player, to the ukulele festival.
We reminisced about clearing the pine plantations and noxious castor oil trees out at Piney Lakes, and rehabilitation of old mining waste lakes down in Australind, in the late 80s, while he was team leader for a conservation group, and I was a regular volunteer. I asked him if he was still a hoarder and he confessed that yes he still collects many useful objects! We laughed about all the bikes. I myself was the recipient of at least one such 'recycle'. Two other mates and I once borrowed a car from B to go walking down in Walpole-Nornalup national Park. We hit a roo and put a large dent in the fender, which B very graciously repaired in the face of our practical incompetence.
One of the friends, C, a former competitive runner who jogged through the bush to find us some water, had a terrible accident shortly after this and has been a quadriplegic in a wheelchair ever since. He gave me his classical guitar, which he could no longer play and which I had on loan, and which I still have. Such things we could not predict back then, such memories come flooding back when there is someone standing there in flesh and blood to remind me.
B and I, too, had a brief and passionate 'fling' back then, the outcome of an impulsive skinny-dipping detour to Leighton Beach one Summer's night, after we'd been on a date to see a movie at the Somerville. All water under the bridge, and all before he committed to the woman he is still with, the mother of his three now almost-adult children.
He, greyer and distinguishedly bearded but essentially the same, said "you haven't changed a bit", to which I jokingly replied that there was perhaps more of me than there used to be! We were both incredulous about how much time has passed since then. He said to me "I can't believe M (his oldest boy, aged twenty one, who has just completed three years of a degree at Melbourne uni) is older than we were when we first met each other and N!" I needed him to remind me when that was, in order for me to have these recollections, such a blur is my memory! I really look forward to more chats while in Melbourne, if at all possible.
I'm glad I had sung with gusto yesterday, just prior to the hospital visit. It fortified me. We had a particularly great session down at Tuart Place, including a spontaneous rendition of the Macarena, complete with choreography! But in my sleepless-night-tiredness, I struggled as I sang, conducted and played my uke, to remember exactly which songs N and I used to sing together. It was only later, talking to mutual friend and messenger S, who had brought her guitar to the hospital, that I remembered The Triffids, and the expeditions to pubs in the city to hear bands like The Black-eyed Susans. N was very much of that era in Australian music- indie-heading-towards-mainstream live acoustic. Ed Kuepper, David McCombe. Never much of a 'pub person' myself, and with acoustic folk and world music leanings, he and his friends were my introduction to some of those grungy places in the latter half of the eighties.
The afternoon offered very little time for reflection. I picked up my son, who wanted to know why I was a bit subdued, and then made a trip to my local music shop to pick up some things, as well as a brief detour for provisions (Turkish bread, hummous and bargain watermelon). Followed immediately by a productive rehearsal with Uke-Ooh-lala!, my French band, at home, and good news about various aspects of our forthcoming Melbourne trip falling into place. A hurried, improvised meal of bread and dips and fruit, before falling into bed and repeating the wee hours shock wake up phenomenon.
What am I too make of it all? Sweet Old Friend N's days are numbered, for the morphine alone will surely kill him; another Old Friend also has cancer and is reeling from the shock of invasive treatment for it, and yet another Significant Other from the same 'twenty and thirty something' epochs of my life ( also a lover but mostly a friend) died a few months ago from a sudden stroke, aged a little over fifty. Truth is, I hadn't see much of any of them in recent times. We all move on. Becoming a parent late in life has the effect of drifting you from Old Friends whose children are older, or who have none, or who end up living in different cities and precludes seeing them in terms of actual day-to-day sharing. Yet there remains a fondness and familiarity, despite time and distance.
Something has shifted in me, ever so imperceptibly. The world has turned, just a little, on its axis. Some butterflies wings have flapped in a far flung corner of the earth as my Old Friend N's spirit prepares to fly free. Life is taking him away, and there is nothing for it but to let go and say So Long. Onto the next leg of the journey, wherever that takes place. There truly is nothing like 'premature' death to make me take stock of the passage of time and to test my sense of how I feel about things like ageing and seizing the moment. Garfield, meanwhile, helps the tears to flow...
For some years now, I have identified with Mermaids and Selkies as an expression of the archetypal feminine. Among my earliest childhood memories is that of playing Marine Boy with my slightly older brother, after watching my favourite sixties cartoon of the same name. I was always Marina the mermaid, my little legs ensconced in my pillowcase tail, which rendered me deftly aquatic, yet hopelessly clumsy on land (in which regard, nothing much has changed!). My earliest memories of swimming are of my Dad taking us to the Changi swimming pool while living in Singapore where, utterly unafraid of swimming underwater, despite being unable to float, I would wiggle my bottom determinedly, like a little fish. Dad would pull me up for an occasional quick breath, before I dove down and swam towards the bottom of the pool again.
My happiest memories are of time spent at the beach and the pool, once we were in Western Australia, a windswept, coastal landscape with all its salty tang and beach scrub aroma.
I whipped through swimming grades during many a carefree Summer of Vacation Swimming lessons, including advanced certificates in survival and lifesaving, due in part to my reasonably developed mermaid-esque ability to hold my breath under water for considerable periods of time.
Apart from the promise of sweets (10c would buy you 8 or so lollies in a small white paper bag, in those days!), I loved the post-swimming lesson frolics with friends; the synchronized swimming team moves we emulated; the under water tag and early puberty kissing games with boys at the end of the year, on the cusp between primary and high school. I vividly recall my first foamy (surfboard); body-surfing at wild beaches south of Warnbro, in Rockingham; the hot tarmac underfoot as we roamed to watery places; mirthful sprinkler play before the days of water restrictions, and being allowed to fall asleep in my bikini, night after night, only to wake up and do it all over again the next day.
As a student of Anthropology at university, I was drawn to mythology in a safe, academicway. It was only later, after much letting go and re-invention, that the archetypal motifs of myth started to resonate deeply, and later still that I became a songwriter with folk leanings and wove them into my musical storytelling. This included a five-year stint directing a choir called Ocean, formed in 1998, The International year of the Ocean, during which time I also wrote and a performed a lot of ocean-inspired a cappella songs.
'Ocean' Choir logo by artist and choir member Paul Rubie
One of my favourite myths-retold-from-a-woman's-perspective-in-modern-times is Clarissa Pinkola Estes' story "Sealskin, Soulskin", from her best-selling book Women Who Run with the Wolves. This, along with a TS Elliot poem (from The Love Songs of J. Alfred Prufrock:" I have heard the mermaids singing each to each, I do not think they will sing to me...") and a recent trip to Thailand, have all given rise to songs about these most mysterious and elusive of sea creatures.
The Legend of Naka & Marisa, from Southern Thailand
If there's one thing the rise of a particularly destructive masculine political and social milieu does, it is to activate my Inner Mermaid. Somehow, the mermaid is a link between the unfathomable feminine realms, offering a wisdom that mediates and moderates the dogged 'masculine' desire to control life on the planet out of its very existence.
A recent decision which perhaps epitomizes the resurgence of this backlash against the gradual reclaiming of some territory by The Feminine in recent times, is the current situation facing sharks in Western Australia. I would like to think the many macho mutterings, warblings, rantings, tantrumings and Destructo Man antics of the incumbent administration are the death throws of The Old Paradigm. Whatever the case, they have thoroughly flushed Marina out of any of her hiding places, the sea caves in which she has taken refuge, and now she is out and proudly basking on the beach.
Having decided I am something of a terrestrial misfit, a mermaid lacking an actual tail, I remedied the situation by getting myself one. Let it never be said that mermaids are luddites: indeed this one can surf her way ably around the internet. And so it was that, in the vast ocean of Cyberspace, I serendipitously found my missing body part: a flipper-like, eco-friendly aquamarine--and-gold coloured monofin made from recycled rubber, in a size 7.
Kazzie Mahina, inventor and manufacturer of the Mahina Merfin, is living the dream of embodying the mermaid archetype as professional mermaid. I'm blown away by the story of how she worked on her free-diving, and how long she can consequently stay under water! But beyond the carnevalesque spectacle, the freak-show novelty value, Mahina's vocation touches on something significant, with which I couldn't agree more:
"Realising how potent the mermaid was as a metaphor for the connection
between humans and the natural world, Mahina began to explore ways she
could use her talents and her fins for environmental conservation. She
felt education was the key, and what better way to inspire future
generations than to create tails, with tales.
"
Mahina, professional mermaid and manufacturer of the Mahina Merfin
Apart from having my 7 year old son and my dog as witness on one occasion, my mermaiding expeditions so far have been furtive and solitary, so I have no photos yet. Perhaps I could swim with one of those waterproof cameras such as surfers use, to take mermaiding selfies?!
What I have discovered, despite a few concerns about anatomical incorrectness, is that having a mermaid tail, although it requires some modification to the way I move in the water, in no way deprives me of fully functional genitalia. I have to give up any ideas of doing the Aussie Crawl, since there is no independence of leg movement such as one experiences when wearing flippers, however a frog kick can still be achieved while swimming face down, albeit with my feet connected. Backstroke makes for a good tummy and thigh workout and offers improved propulsion, as does general underwater swimming and body-surfing. I am learning to refine my underwater movements. After the long, slow, languid, undulations my 'tail' makes strengthen my empathy with whales and dolphins. I feel a bit naked, quite the amputee, once I have taken it off!
The most useful achievement though is the smiles and other quizzical expressions it brings to the faces of other beach goers, when they realize I am wearing or carrying a mermaid tail. Perhaps we can bring about a quiet revolution, we mermaids? Slipping into the water in our splendid fins, proudly and worldlessly declaring the imminent arrival of a world in which the watery realms of depth, imagination, nature, feeling and wisdom prevail over clumsy, tired, terrestrial gallumphings that no longer serve us and the planet, other than as a reminder of how NOT to go about it.
It's so lovely to be in the garden & to feel a surge of energy, after mostly lying around sick for a few days. My first passionfruit! The rain-loving snails did their best to decimate the vine during Winter, but it persisted & there is a profusion of blossoms at the top along the fence line, chasing the sun. The new grapevine is also doing well- a couple of years I reckon, before it looks like a vine & bears fruit, but there's lots of healthy new growth on a plant which started out as a bare twig eight weeks ago. And I now also have some umbrella shade to sit in as I type, to enjoy it all: a red, oriental-style umbrella for the bigger outdoor table & green for shade on the north sun, until the grapevine matures...
Day or night, if I lie in my elevated bedroom, I find myself immersed in a soundscape that is variously soothing and disturbing. Today, as I did yesterday and the day before again, I lie here with a flu-riddled body, perhaps more sensitized and attuned to these and other sounds.
Always, although I must strain a little to hear it, and cannot see it, there is the constant daytime evidence of human activity and the built landscape. The hum of distant traffic forms the chorus, punctuated with cameos by soloing 747s- all those happy Perthites winging their way to Bali and beyond. The determined purring of the community mulcher turning twigs and bark into something reusable, a short way away on the verge. My neighbours on all sides engage in outdoor, early morning, over-the-fence conversation, at variable volumes: The high school teacher, used to addressing distracted youth; the ex-model whose finishing school elocution lessons still serve her well in the voice projection department; the woman with the uninhibited laugh .
Several nights back, a strange thooking sound halfway between bright and dull assailed my ears and woke me at roughly two minute intervals just before and just after midnight. Some sleuthing revealed two teenage boys engaging in a nocturnal ping pong match, seemingly unaware of the hour and the passage of time in their euphoric state of recent liberation from the routine of high school.The intense but usually short-lived Death Metal blasts from my easterly neighbour's vegan teenage daughter have replaced the incessant drum kit drumming from my northern neighbour, now that Number One Son has moved out. They move like wraiths about the place, the teenagers, here but not here. Furtive conversational boy-girl games and persistent doorknocking at front doors, that they think cannot be overheard!
There are also visitations from The Troubled One, a blustering Rapper of a prodigal young man in his early twenties, who has been showing up noisily most days with his wounds exposed. He arrives suddenly, his moods and insecurities most likely invoked by sultry or stormy weather. Lately, if he rages and rails for too long against my neighbour, his beleaguered Mother, a platoon of vigilant bouncers emerges to calmly and sternly have the last word, at which chastisement he skulks off again into the night.
The most intrusive human noise by far though is the police search helicopter, which arrives without warning late on Summer weekends, in its 2am pursuit of a fleeing vehicle, or with its beam trained on our gardens in search of a pedestrian fugitive. I groan at the indignity of being woken at such a time, and wonder exactly how the police are Keeping the Peace, when an entire innocent town is woken from its slumber, in the pursuit of a single felon.
The sounds that give me the most joy are those of the natural and animal world. Little dusky doves cooing sleepily in the eaves outside my room, and the high pitched, gentle chirpings of New Holland Honeyeaters whose home is my garden. This includes the smaller two-footed critters, spending many hours together in a boyish tumble of trampolining.
Sometimes, as the Summer approaches, the hot easterly off the desert sticks its obscene tongue into the open orifices of the house, exhaling its hot breath and whining irritably. More welcome are the reassuring mutterings and soothing massage of the breeze coming off the ocean in the afternoons, known affectionately as The Doctor. Unless or until it reaches fever pitch like a screaming dervish, whistling up the staircase and rattling the cowering windows in their befuddled frames. At such times, the tin panels of my roof pop and groan warily against The Doctor's doggedness to liberate them. When the breezes are subtle, the faint tinkles of Balinese mini-gamelan chimes can be heard. When the wind is fierce, they clang together like harbingers of doom.
This morning, lying here in an ailing sweat and celebrating 'the calm after the coughing fit', I became aware of another sound that signals Summer: chirruping cicadas somewhere among the shrubs and the passionfruit vine. The soundscape dropped back to the quiet traffic hum and The Doctors early mutterings, when suddenly a squadron of a dozen and a half noisy ravens alighted in a tall eucalypt not fifty metres north, on the next property. They squawked noisily for perhaps five minutes, sharing news of where to find the juiciest spoils. They split into two groups, one of which circled a few times, before returning to the tree and flying off noisily together.
Perhaps they got wind along the crow grapevine of the ponds full of motorbike frogs here. Over the last fortnight, I've heard the mating calls of the frogs getting closer and closer- starting out in my neighbour's garden. Apparently, after a particularly wet winter, we've had an unusual spawning of tadpoles who, even more unusually, made it to maturity this season. The young froglets conversed for a while in the open expanse of garden between our houses, and eventually made their presence felt in my own garden where they can take refuge among the burst of pond reeds without fear of predation .
And now, they cavort each night, fat and horny, close to my bedroom window, like a bunch of rowdy youths on two-stroke trail bikes, showing off to an audience of girls. One even made its way into the house, where it was accosted by our Jack Russell Terrier, who remembers how disgusting they taste and no longer tries to eat them, but won't give up the thrill of the chase. The high-pitched squealing sound of a terrified, cornered frog is a disquieting one. In concert with excited dog barking, it has woken me and propelled me into wee-hours rescuing (frog) and quarantining (dog) mode, a few times already this year.
The frog song is both reassuring and irritating. A sign of a happy garden ecosystem, which will presumably keep mosquito numbers down this Summer...but it keeps me awake at night if I indulge my preference for open windows at night to allow the sea breeze to apply its cooling balm to the interior of the house. With the result that I'm not getting enough night sleep and have ended up with a cold...
The motorbike frogs' song reminds me of, but is nothing like, an animated Rupert the Bear video, Rupert and The Frog Song, featuring a marvellous froggy chorus written and sung by Paul McCartney, who is also the voice of Rupert. I'm nostalgically fond of the song (which we have on a hand-me-down, dinosauric VHS video). As is my son, who knows all the words by heart. Rupert's frogs, the stereotypical top hat-toting, politely ribbeting froggies of the verdant English countryside, who apparently sing in exquisite harmony, are perhaps to their two-wheeler-impersonating Antipodean bikie gang cousins what the sweet-voiced English robin red breast is to the uncouth raven rabble of our rugged Western Australian landscape?!
Although I've been mostly resting in my bed, when I can I venture out into the garden to be among it all. I can see but not hear the frogs at close range and, ah what's that? A passionfruit, the first of the season, emerging from a profusion of blossoms that has burst into bloom with the advent of hotter days. The lone fruit is fully formed, still green, shiny and not yet wrinkled, promising more Summer delights ahead.
