Obsequies

 

On Saturday the 15th of June Obsidian Norman Harvey, beloved cat, passed from this life after some weeks of illness. In recent times Obsidian had slowed down, standing under our feet like a three-dimensional shadow. Signs had been of concern for a little while: sleeping all day in the sunniest room of the house, not eating despite variations in diet, shows of disinterest in going outdoors. The diagnoses from the vet kept getting more serious with each return visit. We spent time living between the insistence of maintaining longevity and the knowledge of the grim meaning of certain medical words. In the end, the humane choice became the necessary choice. Saturday was the day that shaped up for the inevitable. By convention we bury our pets under an appropriate flower bush selected from the nursery. In this case lavender was the instant choice, Obsidian spending any amount of charmed hours beneath lavender bushes. Italian flags, English spikes, Spanish butterflies? Bridie read out the choices on her phone from the nursery. In the end we went with traditional French lavender — sturdy, reliable, fragrant, long-lasting. The final visit to the vet was, so I was told, orderly and civilised. Sunday the 16^th of June was rainy and, as it happened, Bloomsday: Mrkgnao. I ventured out early to the annual Joycean seminar at the Arcadia Hotel in South Yarra. Carol and Bridie went to Woodend to see their hairdresser, then lunch at the patisserie. But we knew that mid-afternoon we would be back home to fulfil what we called the Obsequies. Obsie puns abounded throughout his life and this was the most poignant, and obvious. A rainy Sunday, still the rain stayed off for the ceremony: no obstructions. Ground was prepared in the flowerbed under the clothesline, a favourite place for Obsie to coil mortally and observe the passing scene. Held firmly in a pillowcase, Obsidian’s mortal remains were lowered into his resting place. Jonquils went on top, rose petals were scattered; a small felt toy Christmas tree he played with; some dries for the journey. That was the shape of things. Then we had the formal readings. Bridie read Mary Oliver’s poem ‘The First Time Percy Came Back’. Carol read the cat poem from Old Irish ‘Pangur Bán’, the version found in haste (of course) on Wikipedia, i.e. the 1912 translation by Robin Flower. Philip read his own ode to Obsie starting, “Obsidian Norman Harvey comes in through the bathroom window, projected by a silver zoom. A wooden ladder rests against the outside wall, there to assist his scaling and abseiling …” The silver zoom is the stay holding the window open. That done, Bridie and I set the lavender in place and shovelled in good garden dirt. After due space, we went inside to toast some observable memories with our favourite wines.

Road

 

I can’t tell you how happy I am to share with driving companions views of morning light across miles of ocean below cliffs where the Road rounds new corners beyond inlets and indents; light that shines and flashes across water otherwise a wintry grey when a break in suspended raincloud lights up also towering inclines of towering eucalypts to something clearly green. It defies description, effortless or not, the workmen in thermals constructing the new bridge over Wye River at the Road, the birdlife through the trees, their clean distinctions of plumage, surprise showing of kangaroo or koala, a dog and his human doing two-step with the waves, despite all my (our) intensive and most imaginative efforts with English. Words cannot express the pleasure of seeing a fallen tree trunk long since cut into sections till only the base remains, resting after years at a Roadside creek crossing where moisture and rot cause grass and small flowers to sprout in abundance, reminiscent of Albrecht Dürer’s ‘Great Piece of Turf’, albeit near a sign warning that I am located at an Otways Weed Hotspot. Just as I cannot start to say how much of an effect there is when noticing the remains of the Christmas Day bushfire amidst regrowth nine years later, the whitened trunks and blackened stumps on hillsides deluged by so much green, the extensive earthworks on public land and private shoring up and stabilising the collateral erosion brought on by fire and exposure. Words cannot do justice, watercolour whatever, to the shy first buds of winter, new bends of fern like bass clefs at the base line, or even the casualties of blackberry spraying; and, given that, how can I possibly express (or anyone) in encyclopaedic, minute detail the character of birdsong, the Roadmap home without thinking “That’s one way”, and again, “Funny, that!” Countless efforts have been made to describe raindrops almost without notice beginning to land on decking, pathways, Road before increasing in force and suddenly landing in white torrential extremes, rising water streaming in floods wherever gravity sends the rushing downpours, but how many of the countless efforts are remembered hours or days later? I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am in the midst of creation finding the words, quickly or reflectively, plainly or reflexively, to key the Road into the window of light later, a page of language surfing in crests of cursives and dependings before gone again undertowed back into the mysterious depths of language; happy even at its hairiest, the hairpin changes of metaphor. The stories have never been told that are being enacted at windows of light on the riverside hills and above the ocean and Road now night silently falls, such dialogues as would captivate could they ever be turned into living fragments of theatre, as I lower the blinds on our windows of light to keep in the heat and keep out the cold and the solstice passes in reading and sleep.

Bird

 

Here at Wye River time may include birdwatching on the iPhone. ‘Superb blue wren’ opens the list in Notes, keeping in mind at all times the female, who is more superb brown wren. They bob up from the bracken below, in hope of seed. How they move from place to place in seconds is an optical marvel, ditto how they land on a railing from the decking in a trice. Not surprisingly, soon to show up amidst the tall timber of the steep slope is Item: ‘Sulphur-crested cockatoo’. Several in fact, they glide in packs, cocking their headdress towards an eighth of apple, or the vicinity in general in proprietorial air. Their stride is wide, but they’ll POQ if there’s a better offer up the valley. Pleasingly, ‘Kookaburra’ can be added to the list, usually heard before seen but this time silent swooping to the decking from powerlines. They grab a curl of orange peel and bash it against the timber like a snake, before seeing it’s not what they thought it was. Their bearing is calm, superior. They bide their time, as you do when in charge. Likewise disposed is ‘Magpie’, glancing from side to side, smart as. Today is thin pickings in wintry Wye, what with the residents up in Town or staying inside out of the cold. Exit with a brief warble, back another day. Happily the name ‘King parrot’ is added to the list in the iPhone, as they descend brightly in greens and reds from the forests of the hinterland. Shyer when young, they hold back from taking strawberry tops from our hands. Gathering about the decking table they bicker one another for a choice slice. If the day is sunny we walk down to the store and the beach: ‘Seagull’. On the way downhill the restored gardens of native coastal bushes twitch with, quick note in Notes: ‘Firetail’. Maybe a dozen of them darting up the ladders of banksias. At the river itself construction is underway on a new bridge, hence the stop-start of one lane traffic and grind of truck machinery grating against the familiar regularity of the surf waves. ‘Heron’ keeps its distance upriver amidst bulrushes and overhang. Birds that could only be ‘Cormorant’ grace the outlines of branch and reef. After chai at the store and inspection of the beach, time may include walking the long way home with the reassuring, some would say inevitable, appearance in air-bending numbers of: ‘Crimson rosella’. Headlong they weave between eucalypts, screech with what we always assume is happiness, to land up at the decking later in time for the funtime morsels. Then, when least expected, the moment: ‘Satin bowerbird’. Mrs Green more commonly than Mr Blue, but all the same we report the news back down the line in a soft voice. Shy as, but watching all the time, they reconnoitre just outside the edges of vision, grabbing the grape under the radar. The iPhone list includes sightings passed on to the scribe. For example, “one that seemed to have a beard,” which flipping through The Slater Field Guide to Australian Birds’ (Revised and update edition) we adduce to be a New Holland Honeyeater. “One with a yellow belly” requires more information, though on subsequent walks we conclude, after several sightings, it was ‘Wattlebird’. “A grey bird with a very long neck” is noted for future reference, and good luck with that! “A bird with a beak that goes chisssssssss” is recorded, the sound there described in the air by our reporter as protruding some distance from the head. Sightings later confirm it is: ‘Egret’. ‘Duck’ is another river bird, duly noted. Night follows day like some great &c. Variations on these sightings displace the notion of repetition, birdland being cyclic. Still, reports drift in for the iPhone: “A great seabird that is all black and bulbous and follows the line where the sand meets the ocean.” Over a fresh pot of chai we agree: ‘Great cormorant’. Sent from my iPhone.

Sentence

 

The sentence goes along nicely until, nearing the end, the sentence explodes. This sentence, for example, is just about to disintegrate. Conversations between sentences display the same proclivity to blow up upon conclusion. All good things come to an end, the sentence states, demonstrably. Sentences like walls that fall with the city they surround. While some say this is nihilism run rampant, others argue that all sentences have an in-built timer that goes off right near the full-stop. Or, as Americans say, right near the end, period. Sentences snap, crackle and pop like a long-running serial. Sentences break the speed limit to arrive first at the delete key. Artificial Inelegance generates thousands of new sentences in oh point one seconds none of which will survive disappearing without trace upon completion and without warning in less than oh point one seconds. Potential readers are none the wiser as Artificial Interference forthcomes new locutions for unknown so-decreed interfacers that unforthwent in a puff of smoke. A sentence attempts to contain a ‘puff of smoke’ within its limits, transitorily. The sentences have not been uttered that endure no longer than their duration before meeting unutterable ignominy. This cannot be said often enough, the sentences passing the vanishing point. Sentences fog up only to evaporate in midmorning sun. Well that’s one thing, but this sentence is a paper boat about to capsize into its own end point. And here is a sentence that through no fault of its own is about to go in the deep end. Generations of words are sentenced without trial to dissolution. Then there are sentences that no sooner generated perform the ultimate disappearing act: they remain permanently unread. The human race of poets, writing as if they have everything to lose, lose everything. Their sentences of exorbitant length and prolixity come abruptly to an end, dissolving before their eyes at the moment of closure. Artificial Indifference announces the dearth of the author, ending in a bang, a whimper, an unplug, no apology, no explanation. Sentences repeated ad infinitum item by item, their reverberations in the air conclude without echo. Words that stick in the throat resemble words that never reached the page. A sentence has a visual way of describing a river flowing into the sea. Snow melted from sight, like unread sentences. Dying words, by definition, end in ellipsis. Anyway, people with heartbreak want the heartbreak to end, like a sentence of calm authority. Likewise, there’s the need for a sentence that says it all, regardless of all this talk about exploding sentences. Verily there are sentences that get straight to the point, sentences witha definite end in view. There is an internal necessity to make definitive sentences, even as they cascade over the edge of the world.

Nerd

 

Nerd is a word, absurd, daily heard and regularly inferred, but what does it mean? I know what it means, or thought I knew, but hesitation persists around its use in mixed company. Hesitate, because I can never be sure of its negative or positive import. Urban Dictionary online has 275 pages for Nerd. And counting. Browsing this encyclopaedic entry reassures me that I am not alone in feeling the word means what it means to individual users. It is what it is. But what is it? Information Technology, I suggest from my own experience, must be the origin of Nerd. Computer nerds are a stereotype. I have yet to meet one who wears thick glasses, has sallow skin from living 24/7 in a box room, or whose every third word is gigabyte. Variously also known since time began as boffins, wonks, or geeks, they were usually dedicated and efficient; some of them, like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, have been among the richest people in the world. My interest in them was not gigabytes but the way they changed how we read. This is because I’m a word nerd. Bill Gates is rich because he applied his highly specialised interest and knowledge (read: nerdish) in IT. I am not as rich because I’m always attending to my passionate interest and knowledge (read: nerdish) in words. Googling ‘nerd’ I find within seconds that our world is inhabited by algebra nerds, bird nerds, camellia nerds, Dungeons-and-Dragons nerds, emoji nerds, fruit nerds, grammar nerds, hair nerds, intellectual-badass nerds, jazz nerds, keyboard nerds, Lord-of-the-Rings nerds, music nerds, nutrition nerds, object nerds, physics nerds, queen nerds, also Queen nerds, romance nerds, skate nerds, theatre nerds, university nerds, vacuum nerds, whisky nerds, X-File nerds, YouTube nerds, zoo nerds. I should worry. Virtually any enthusiasm under the sun can be nerdish, on this evidence. In context Nerd can be total affirmation, a badge of honour, admission to being one of the gang. It has a humorous chiding quality, warns or warms the listener of more to come. Yet still Nerd can sound to someone else like discrimination, a joke on the wearer, a label. Further discussion over dinner at home clarifies things, not. Is it praise or accusation? Nerds are academic, I am told. Nerds have special interests. But then, Nerds are socially awkward. No, a music nerd is not nerdy because of music, but due to their levels of sheer passion and knowledge: then they’re nerdy. After dinner Venn diagrams are designed. Overlaps abound! Maths and computers can still be Nerdsville, I am told. (What a relief!) Sometimes physics or chemistry. Then talk gets personal. Apparently I’m a graffiti nerd, given my current in-depth abstract art responses to the written urban environment (illustration attached). Armed with Venn diagrams and multiple definitions I could add to Urban Dictionary, I can now venture forth into a nerdy world. But I’m still no clearer as to when Nerd is a compliment, a characterisation, a jibe, or what? But apparently it doesn’t matter, nerdiness, so I’m told. So chill!  

To-do

 

Hours of constructive time can be spent browsing our files of to-do lists, crossing out to-does done, contemplating if the to-do not done made any difference, dwelling for some time on the meanings of certain to-does and what were we thinking at the time. The world outside the window accumulates with demands. The front door is a list of wishes, going out and coming in, opening and closing. Much ado about something! The rate at which one to-do list is superseded by a second and third to-do list is regular as sunrise and sunset. A fresh page provides a sense of newness, purpose even. We dash off the latest concerns in a serial hurry. No problems! The claims on our attention proliferate. The universe must be investigated. Loose threads have secret strings attached. Shopping awaits and errands that otherwise elude the mind. What a to-do! And thus former to-do lists drop off at dusk or to-does from former lists go onto new lists and so on till the third cockcrow. We are aided by to-do apps. Though paper has no built-in obsolescence. Apps that ping the to-do hour, sing when sung to, ring in for new information. Of the compilation of mounting to-do lists there is no end, requiring lists that keep a check on all the lists. They come to describe our days, as if time is made to complete the items on the lists. It becomes exhausting, or mindless. To the extent that we would divest ourselves of all to-do lists. We lose them in a glovebox. They nestle out of sight in pockets. They disappear behind a fridge magnet. Half crossed-out, they linger in the in-tray. Instead, we may contemplate the nothing that needs to be done. Hours of constructive time may be spent avoiding the construction of any to-do lists, with their onerous expectations, their prompts to conscientiousness, their pseudo-imperatives. The fresh page may stay the blank page, neither an ode to labour nor a manifesto of procrastination. Napping apps may stay secreted. Or we imagine others’ to-do lists. Tinkers, tailors, soldiers, dictators. Doctors, lawyers, clergy, punks. As if our own to-does were not enough for a lifetime, or just the next 24 hours.  We hanker temporarily after the innocence of a child, free of any concern with lists, as though memory is made of what comes next. We could add that detachment to our upcoming list of things to do. When we are not busy unlearning the habit of preparing such aides-memoires, left about the place like snapshots of yesterdays, the haiku of our voluntary actions. Only then, something in us would overcome forgetfulness. We must not be caught out, caught short, fraught with nought. We sort it, find a pencil and scratch out our next list, staring at the day with practical familiarity. Much to-do about something.