Penelope Todd

We were hoeing into a lovely mess of eggs and tomato on toast just before one o’clock last Tuesday, when the tin shed we’d been holidaying in suddenly leaped east, west, east again, and made a long shuddering, swinging sigh. Perched on a stool beside the fire, I set my plate on the table and laughed as R hot-footed for the doorway. A bottle with candle dropped from the mantelpiece and the dog looked at me.

Must be the newly opened Waikuku fault-line jostling underfoot, we decided. I finished my lunch and let Polly lick the plate. There were a few more boomph-judder-judders over the next hour as we packed our bags, as intended, and prepared to drive the 20 minutes into Christchurch. Then our daughter rang on the cellphone, from Auckland. ‘Where are you both? Are you okay?’ and my brother in Christchurch texted: ‘As big as the first one but more damage’.

My brother’s home was a hub of calm and commonsense for streams of visitors. He dispensed warm welcomes, chai, and food from the fire in the garden, while hunting down a lost colleague by phone; meanwhile my sister-in-law had biked away into the city to exercise her own brand of calm strength and life-saving medical skills in the most challenging of circumstances.

Other family members have been harder hit; two are down south with us — but all are coming to the common realisation in this disaster: whatever was lost, we’re alive and we have one another. Of course not all the beloved others are alive, and that’s where the pain and guilt lie — for almost everyone I’ve talked to. The question scrapes at even those who have escaped by the skin of their teeth: why am I so ‘lucky’? Why do I still have my life/home/livelihood?

Well, that’s the question of all our lives, pressed home with force by the earthquake. Some will make radical changes of direction — the fabric of our NZ society has been torn, and is already being stitched into new configurations, as teams and helpers fly into Christchurch and families leave the city in droves — and others will deepen their commitment to the course they’re on.

Those of us whose lives are substantially undisturbed wonder how we should help. I think that until we have a clear sense of direction about that, we’re best to go on with our daily tasks, as fully and happily and healthily as we can. We will be called upon — whether to listen, or house, contribute, or actively help — but in the meantime, the more love and calm and well-being we can generate and share from our own homes, the more we have to offer when we visit those careworn and depleted, or when they come to us.

At times like this, we find ourselves in one another’s arms. At least for a little while, neighbours meet and hold one another; family rifts are bridged; compassion overcomes reserve. Like the animals in the photo above, we may be surprised at our new alliances, but I dare say they’re exactly right for now. These are privileged hours of vulnerability; let’s hope we can come away from them with bigger hearts.

Touched by Vespersparrow’s reflection on lacrimae rerum (the tears at the heart of things), the posting itself a wondrous lachrymal urn, I thought of a passage from Island where a few more are shed.

Soon afterwards Mrs Pearson announced that there would be no more deaths from diphtheria — and there were not. In the ward each day, heads were newly raised from pillows and gaunt bodies separated themselves from mattresses. They sat up and stepped away from the beds and went about like humans again, although coughs and retchings still smudged the atmosphere of calm that was like the aftermath of a storm, its survivors dazed and wondering if the flotsam strewn about them held any residual meaning.

Sorrow again lay balled and heavy at the base of Liesel’s chest. In the ward she joined in the efforts to raise the morale of the convalescents. There was time at last to attend to matters of the body that affected more than mere survival. She cut knots and combed lice from children’s heads, and washed and re-shaped hair that had been shorn, or matted by weeks of neglect. She trimmed and filed toenails and fingernails, and massaged borax and glycerine into sheet-roughened elbows, knees and hips. She filled bathtubs behind screens and knelt to wash backs and feet. Here tightened faces relaxed, and sometimes grew wet as the press of warm water on thirsting skin drew, by strange osmosis, answering tears. There was time to find clothing that fit and sometimes even belonged to its wearers, to help those who wished it to shave, or to take a pipe or a slice of sun at the sheltered end of the verandah. Later there would be shaky walks in the bright air, across the hilltop and down to the graveyard where grasses, leaves and paper flowers were pinned to wooden plaques, pathetic gifts pitched at the caverns of loss.

As I transfer this image from the camera onto iPhoto, from iPhoto to the desktop, from the desktop to this blog, I wonder what I might have to say that could possibly gild the lily.

It puts me in mind of the effort I’ve expended this year on the enterprise called Rosa Mira Books. And I’m made awe-fully aware that what I’ve produced, while it looks pretty good in certain lights, is yet ‘seared with trade; Bleared, smeared with toil; And wears (my) smudge and shares (my) smell’.

But the lily, its flowers rain-flecked and ogling me through the window as I write, pressed up out of an unprepossessing potful of soil, with somehow in its bland stalk these blooms encoded, which, within a few days, broke open, displaying all their ‘dearest freshness deep down things’. There ain’t a darn thing wrong with them.

Hallelujah.

I’m weary and short of words, but praise be for Muriel Rukeyser…

THIS PLACE IN THE WAYS

Having come to this place
I set out once again
on the dark and marvellous way
from where I began:
belief in the love of the world,
woman, spirit, and man.

Having failed in all things
I enter a new age
seeing the old ways as toys,
the houses of a stage
painted and long forgot;
and I find love and rage.

Rage for the world as it is
but for what it may be
more love now than last year
and always less self-pity
since I know in a clearer light
the strength of the mystery.

And at this place in the ways
I wait for song.
My poem-hand still, on the paper,
all night long.
Poems in throat and hand, asleep,
and my storm beating strong.

Muriel Rukeyser

(Make it Friday, okay? That’s the day before Saturday.)

‘Please come on Monday
The day after Sunday
And mind that you start with
Something to part with;
A fire shall be ready
Glowing and steady
To receive it and burn it
And never return it.
Books that are silly,
Clothes outworn and chilly,
Hats, umbrellas and bonnets,
Dull letters, bad sonnets,
Whate’er to the furnace
By nature calls ‘Burn us!’
An ancient bad temper
Will be noted no damper —
The fire will not scorn it
But glory to burn it!
Here every bad picture
Finds refuge from stricture;
Or any old grudge
That refuses to budge,
We’ll make it the tomb
For all sorts of gloom,
The out-of-door path
For every man’s wrath.
All lying and hinting,
All jealous squinting,
All unkind talking
And each other balking,
Let the fire’s holy actions
Turn to ghostly abstractions.
All antimacassars
All moth-egg amassers,
All gloves and old feathers,
Old shoes and old leathers,
Greasy or tarr-ry,
Bring all you can carry!
We would not deceive you:
The fire shall relieve you,
The world will feel better,
And so be your debtor.
Be welcome then — very —
And come and be merry!’

A handwritten party invitation sent to their friends by George and Louisa MacDonald in 1885.

Most people I know have had a turbulent year. And then Christmas was suddenly upon us. Plenty have decided to flag it altogether: no cards, no gifts, no relatives, no fuss. I let it slide to a certain point and then suddenly I want: carols and oratorios, the scent of pine needles, tinselly evenings full of quiet expectation; my family. Some of that’s pure sentiment, or the longing for what won’t come again, but something vital endures in this festival that celebrates a new baby on the earth.

Whatever we make of the rest of Jesus’ life and death and after-death, with his birth a seed was planted in the soil of humanity, a seed of great pedigree, in whose growth was invested great hope.

And that’s the archetype that makes Christmas worth considering. Each new life calls forth a measure of that same royal hope and expectation — that the child will grow and thrive and live out the fullest expression of which it is capable — even if it takes 100 years.

Potent ideas and initiatives call for the same spirit of hope, and the same investment of time and attention, which might be called love.

I think that’s all I should say. I don’t want to make a sermon. Happy Christmas, friends. I long for your simple, essential, lovely hopes, plans, dreams (and where necessary, babies) to take root in the coming year.

Getting away is always worth it. I don’t know how I forget to, caught month after month in the loop of routine. Mt Peel was waiting just a few hours up the road and a friend joined me for the day walk, no, tramp, for which we were glad we’d chosen boots over gymshoes — for mud, roots, and a hill that rose and rose. Somehow we both managed to ignore the bold DOC sign telling us we’d taken the steep south ridge route.

Clouds rolled back as we climbed a hill mantled in Dracophyllum, Spaniard, celmisias, hebes and, pictured here, korari burning in the mist. Crickets flipped about and two women breathed heavily.

Back in Peel Forest we pitched a tent, threw a meal together and one of us nipped back to the village for two small lagers — quite enough to set us on our ears for the night.

The stars out there are a river of light. They fell and flared and seethed.

Next day we talked and read, walked through the kahikitea and over the Rangitata riverbed, cooked lunch on a fire, had a final coffee in Geraldine and said goodbye. She went north, I went south.

Reconstituted.

If you get a chance, do it. 36 hours is all it took.

Perhaps I’ve spent too long on the same project, too many hours in my own head, had too many weeks of routine. I didn’t know how susceptible I was.

Last night at the Dudley Benson concert I almost drowned. Inundated by wonder.

After the opening performance by Cat Ruka with a metronome, a chair, heavy black ropes about her neck and the presence of a goddess, Dudley introduced the Dawn Chorus: four achingly beautiful, clear-eyed young men mixing golden, grainy harmonies like a dunking in Demarara sugar. For the repertoire of Dudley’s own songs and Hirini Melbourne’s bird and insect waiata, beat box champion Hopey One joined them with her mesmerising array of percussive oral sound effects. Then Dudley and his sister Jessica sang a duet. Don’t you sometimes find that beauty threatens to undo you?

We clapped and cheered and stamped for more — and they gave it to us, including a heart-wringing tribute to the 29 men lying in the mountain at Pike River. Perhaps that’s another reason for the loveliness: our sensory membranes are worn thin just now by collective sorrow.

All this took place before a huge canvas backdrop painted by Nigel Brown, of a sombre and splendid river valley probably not unlike the one where the nation’s thoughts have been brought to bear.

Dudley’s moving to Dunedin. Lucky us. See him if you possibly can.

There were a lot of sticking plasters in the pool this morning. My new togs aren’t as comfy as the old ones but it was a good swim. I came home and read a woman’s story of how she tried as a child to kill herself. The cat curled up in the dog’s basket. I fretted a little about the challenges of the week ahead. I made coffee. The dog lay down at my feet. I thought of the discussion with Claire last night about how, whether and when we need to revisit the past, and when we might just let it be. Many old things are beautiful before they dissolve into another form.

I don’t know that that applies to other people’s sticking plasters, and harsh or horrific experiences. But I know that life is hastening us onward. There seems little time to look back. Everything is being changed.

Aaah, there’s nothing like a lovely object. I’ve spent so much of this year tinkering with words and ideas on screen, in order to create a book that I’ll never hold in my hands* — and I accept that this is how it is for now. Anyway, it was delicious to go and buy 12 boxes the other day, to have book cover stickers made up, and to peel them gently onto the box lids — then to hold these vibrant things, to stack and stroke and admire them.

Sometimes (often) we who live at our laptops need to go and touch things: earth, fur, vegetables, water, skin, and maybe now and then a book.

You can find out more about the lovely objects at the Rosa Mira blog.

* print on demand’s a possibility next year

Zac, 10 months, takes the world by mouth. Visiting the other day, he was unfazed by brass on the tongue as he alternately licked and tinkled, one bell in each hand.

The lilac’s just coming out, reminding me of the poem I wrote some years ago.

Canterbury

On this day of gifts
my mother’s familiar hand
remembers my birth
in the time of nor-westers
and lilac.

The nurses fed her whitebait;
my father made shortbread.

Her card takes liberties,
vasing up together
helebore, anemones and erlicheer.

I make my own posy:
Granny pegging underpants
huge and white
beneath the violet arc of sky;
a sailor dress from Ballantynes;
Victoria Park’s dark track;
a hot wind
and the mountains
propped at the end of the plain.

Daughter closing up her bags.

Five-year visa.

Heart-squeeze.

Life is painful

and wonderful.

Calafate, Patagonia. You might not be able to discern the pink bird in left midfield. A flamingo: I was stalking it across the wastes. Elena followed loyally until she stepped in up to her ankle. She mightn’t want to come to NZ, she said, if this was the kind of thing we did there. Nevertheless I found a pink feather and tucked it into my camera case thinking I’d remove it (or not) before I went through Customs. It’s above me as I write, pinned to the wall and faded to the softest shade of salmon.

Back then I wrote home: what a place. Wild with the big cold wind blowing across it, and beautiful like Canterbury but everything 50 times larger … we were befriended on the streets by dogs like loving wolves … now to bed, full of lamb and red wine.

Today I’m missing Elena and her big, wild country.

The day after Canterbury’s buildings underwent their first trial by earthquake, the nor-west wind roared through Otago, shoving at trees. This beauty used to supervise the playground. Falling, it considerately divided for the park bench. Its heart was worn out. Today the DCC sliced and carted it away.

Sap is rising in the garden, bringing flesh and blushes to the magnolia next door, and making trees vulnerable (does it?). A roguish nor-easter felled the pink-flowering manuka across the front fence and footpath last week.

Sap glistened under the bark. Its wood was wet in the saw’s teeth, and weighed in our hands as heavy as meat.

On the most interesting walks, only a short portion of the track is visible at a time. Unless you’ve travelled that way before, you can’t know what lies around the next corner. Or the one after that. If you could see the tiger crouching up ahead (or, let’s get local, the dead possum ponging, or the tract of pure, shoe-sucking mud), you might stay home. This is my niece Zeynep on the outskirts of Naseby, setting off toward Mt Kyeburn. She has what she needs for the forseeable future: sunhat, sturdy shoes, semi-reliable and curious companion tethered by affection and a red lead.

…but as purposeful?

Do you sometimes wonder, after a day of buzzing hither and yon on the internet, if you still have what it takes for solid reflection, retreat, and rich, slow creative endeavour? Here’s a prod for contemplation: an essay Driven to Distraction: Cate Kennedy on the internet and the writing life — in the Australian political and cultural magazine Overland.

And if, after that, you still want delightful distraction, check out Rata Weekly’s latest offerings: why movies are bad for girls; how to pop your baby on an elephant; the world’s scariest jobs.

(To tell the truth, most of these are drones: kicking back but looking busy. It’s an art.)

One of the residents (chez moi) said there’s no excuse these days for putting out food that looks less than enticing. He suggested I go and try ‘enhance’ and ‘crop’ and ‘brighten’. I did all of these things. I think the plate comes over a little garish, that the centre of the pastelito resembles rather too closely a pregnant belly (a beautiful thing in its proper context) and that the oil shimmering on that belly is an unfortunate reminder of the way the pastries were probably cooked (by deep f**ing).

Nevertheless, it’s up to the reader now. Take your pick.

Talking of food, I beat same resident in an impromptu race to the end of the pool this morning (no, alas, not OUR pool) and we agreed it was probably because he had eaten porridge and I had not. Next time we’ll test the theory. I’ll porridge and he’ll (be) fast.

I saw treats like these in the pastry shops in Buenos Aires last year but Elena would always say I mustn’t eat those ones; wait until we got home.

‘Home’ was Jujuy in the far north, on the outskirts of the city, and early in my stay we wandered out the gate onto the gravel road where untethered horses browsed the verges and trimmed garden foliage, until we came across a young man to whom Elena gave a message for his mother.

A few days later he reappeared at the door with a heaped plate of hot pastries. A pot of tea was made, a cloth thrown onto the table and we sat down to eat.

Como se dice en espagnol? I asked Elena.

Pastelitos de dulce — dulce de membrillo y dulce de batata.

Melting pastry filled with grainy quince, or sweet potato, jelly. I ate enough to tide me over until my next visit.

Meanwhile I’ve begun to talk about Rosa Mira Books. To learn more, click on the green leaves in the side bar.

Lest anyone gain the impression that Polly’s merely a pretty face among cushions…

She does her bit. Structural edits mostly. We of the five digits do the close work and the proof reading.

Thanks everyone who tripped through the intertidal zone the last couple of days, and said so. That was fun!

Now and then, despite your best intentions and efforts to be Present, Here and Now, you’re struck by a sudden longing to be somewhere else, such as here on a wild Ahuriri River tributary where the air smells of wet rock, beech litter and snow.

Or in some other homeland, heartland of your own. And if you want to enough, you can go there.

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon — don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon — you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind —
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

C.P. Cavafy, translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard. As found on

the Cavafy archive website.