Asking (June)

Charpentier’s Kyrie goes over ten minutes, depending on how the ‘four choirs’ intend to sing the Kyrie. The feast day at our church is in June, reason for full show of red vestments, plenty of grand music, orderly processions, and well-worded prayers, readings and sermon. Each worshipper’s at work, some fully engaged, some occasionally distracted, some finding a way in or place to connect. The Kyrie’s uncommon length stretches some of us, reminds us to keep doing the only thing we may be left with, sometime, beyond vestments, beyond music and processions, beyond words of any kind: asking for mercy.

Connecting (June)

June 26. Elagabulus became Emperor (217): can someone really suffocate from being covered in rose petals? Richard III became King (1483): the ignominy of a carpark. Joseph-Michel Montgolfier died (1810): as did his balloon. Branwell Brontë born (1817): tragic, but was he, who’s to say? Eleanor Parker born (1922): delivers my favourite line in ‘The Sound of Music’, “Why didn’t you tell me to bring along my harmonica?” Malcolm Lowry died (1957): ‘Under the Volcano’ is a trial of a novel in which all people do is argue and drink. JFK says he’s a Berliner (1963): politicians will say anything.

Mapping (June)

It’s hardly Winston Churchill eyeing little flags along the German rivers, down in his war room. It’s Tony Abbott, gawping over a chart of outlying suburbs with some circles drawn on it. When someone was killed at Rosanna station during morning peak hour the line stopped. Google maps told us the street to take the girl for the emergency school car network. The maps help me to choose where in my garden to read my biography of Alan Turing or a new translation of Rumi. Last week of June, last week of school: the girls were in class by 8.30.

Waiting (June)

Once it is over we soon forget waiting. When our lover arrived at the doorway time went from an hour for a minute to a minute an hour, from wanting to being in its entirety. We do not anticipate waiting. The plane will be an hour. When it’s not our pleasures turn to trials. We should have known better? We always knew better. Some people will be late for their own funeral: we know not to wait for them too long. Much living is waiting, taken account of and planned for. Some people wait the whole of June, for July.

Invading (June)

Recuperating in the city named after the man who once protested “things are coming to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade private life,” I find myself being invaded day and night. What greater restorative is there than the selfless love shown to me and others, acting as needed for our improved health. I take what the doctor tells me, be they words or tablets or liquids. They invade my unsettled and exhausted body with calm healing. A week since the infection took over, I am able to walk in the wintry July street, letting the sunlight invade. 

Ailing (June)

One moment I’m sorting work, reading June Ulysses papers. Next moment, temperature, inattention, painful pissing, squitters. My doctor is such a jovial soul, we talk work, Ulysses, family. A urine sample must prove something. A letter to my employers, then home to bed. Pain is warning but at the time it’s pain. The test returns e-coli count up. I cannot concentrate, but the truth’s a relief. Attention turns to long white tablets taken twice daily. (Blessed Howard Florey!) Carol and I plan the measures: small bowl of minestrone, sips of Hydralyte, lots of water, sleep. Browse soothing Bonnard picture books.

Noting (June)

Noting that in everything we speak of something, not nothing. Noting the varied opinions at the emergency meeting, knowing nothing may come of it. Noting the clues in the TV murder mystery, knowing there may be nothing to any of them. Noting ideas in one’s reading that may be everything or nothing to your argument. Noting the day’s headlines, that will mean nothing in a week’s time. Noting the sounds music makes and the nothing in-between, giving them air. Noting the precious memories that nothing in time removes. Noting the winds and rains of June leaving nothing but clear skies.

Jiving (June)

Charlie Haden died last July and now Ornette Coleman in June this year. Obituaries laud how “melody can thrive outside predetermined structures”, with “no preconceived chord sequences”, “jazz played as an idea rather than patterns”, the players having their “own tonal centres”. Meanwhile Roy Eldridge is quoted, “I think he’s jiving, baby.” Jiving’s a word with opposite meanings, the perfect harmony of all the elements, but is also used to mean deception and lies. In jazz, jiving is a positive, on the street it’s a negative. Ornette Coleman was one of the greatest composers in American classical music, no nonsense.

Dressing (June)

Bostridge’s voice, clear and elegant. Owen’s shock wording, almost turned biblical with time. Britten’s range of tones, his slow massive effects fill out the silences. Dressing for the War Requiem is easy: white-tie for tenors, Melbourne black for June audiences. But throughout thoughts turn from trenches to today’s email words. The Vicar of Baghdad is addressing Karbala somewhere, where Isis is beheading hundreds of Christians. What is one meant to make of that? Our own little squabbles are so petty. He asks for prayers. I keep thinking of that, he asks for our prayers, for them, in an email, somewhere.

Consoling (June)

You write, “I more often find a bench or grass under some shady tree but it is too cool today for that. I am consoled somewhat by the riot of red, orange and yellow ivy clambering up the brick work across the way.” Warmth’s consoling, you imply: warmth inside your winter coat, perfect warmth of your own bed on freezing nights. There’s no call to say why you need consolation. On the right side of the window, in June, as it rains, following raindrops racing on glass, is like the consolation of watching the river flow. Colours may be consolation.

Dating (June)

Hereafter, New Holland Day, the end of January thereabouts, popularly Invasion Day. Neither Melbourne’s East nor Melbourne’s West agree yet on Resurrection Day, April thereabouts exactly, synods pending, moon’s mood depending. Then there’s Queen's Birthday, in fact her grandfather's, King George’s Birthday or thereabouts, June early hereafter. The herald of the Drover’s Dog pronounced Wattle Day: a quiet day wears a golden spray whithersoever. Also, Spring Carnival Phar Lap Day, moveable feast but always first Tuesday, enough rest after heart-stopping Derbys. Then the Birthday of God, unlikely to be late December so hereafter by universal agreement the end of December. 

Choreographing (June)

If choreography imitates daily movements into patterns, our dances are underrepresented in theatre. Walking the rooms of our house describes a ballet of survival and manners. Experimental lines of travel, freeway curves and stop-start of city blocks, suggest new journeys for pointes. Rituals of workplace, one June to the next, are their own performance of regulated gesture and step. How to choreograph the hours we spend sitting. Or the night stage of our beds where new acts open. We may re-enact the day in miniature. Our dreamscapes take off like a bird. We enjoy our own unique pas de deux.

Quoting (June)

Curtains drawn and dinner cooking, June nights slow, Charles Lloyd on the player. With supreme skill Charles performs the main lines, the quoting remarkable in its unremarked ease. If the wine is good we laugh at the quotes, but truer pleasure is to notice his understated quotes with a smile of recognition. Where words leave off, music begins (Heine) is one way of putting it, a thought given varieties of expression. Sharing is the thing too, as it is said: Who hears music feels his solitude peopled at once (Browning). Without music, life would be a blank to me (Austen).

Deleting (June)

Subject: I’m feeling lucky? Delete. Pinterest: Harold Pinter has new pins for you #superlatives. Delete. Facebook: Vincent Van Gogh also commented on Paul Gauguin’s status. Delete. Beware Infected Trojans Bearing Gifts. Delete. Russian girls have more fun. Delete. Do you waste hours of your office time deleting emails? Delete. The Gentle Art of Unfriending. Delete. Are you a Cyborg? Delete. Special offer: The World’s Greatest Letter-Writers (12 volumes) [Spam]. Delete. University Digest: The Day Virtual Went Viral. Delete. 50 places to visit before you die. Delete. EtCetera: Latin Word for the Day (June 5): deletus, past participle of delere. Delete.

Listening (June)

Start of rain, prestissimo of birds, flapping jacket of June. Listening is brought to our attention. Or we train ourselves to hear beauty, ‘on’ rather than ‘off’ the permanent airwaves. Listening to the symphony astounds us. But some nights it’s so familiar we wish it would end, the concert hall interrupted by frog choruses of mobile devices. People are different. He’s listening but not hearing means he hears but doesn’t listen. Same thing. You say something so amazing I hear and stop listening. Your voice is so beautiful I listen for years. Please forgive me when I don’t hear everything.

Writing (June)

Remember. Writing’s nothing to feel guilty about. The time it takes saves time, clarifies your thoughts. You cannot write while driving, but good thoughts occur while driving. Unlike phones, it’s not illegal to write while driving. Some people write to pass the time: you are not one of them. You write out of need. Some people write about wild city car trips on June nights. That’s okay, but it’s not the same as God, is it? Is it? June car trips may bring wisdom, a wise person probably needs to know about such things. Keep an open mind. Express yourself.