OLYMPIC DREAMS

DAY 80-82

Two weeks of staying up late for Winter Olympics viewing has brought back memories of my own fantasies of Olympic glory. A lifetime ago I was a sprinter, of the Summer Olympic variety, and I say fantasies rather than dreams as I knew I wasn’t that good, recognising such an achievement was a far cry from the reality of my capabilities.

Natural talent is one thing, but where does that moment come in a person’s life when the dream is so strong it becomes real, it becomes achievable, and it becomes the ultimate goal you are willing to sacrifice so much for over so many years to see the dream become a reality. Where does that commitment come from? How do you sustain it?

What happens to that commitment when you launch out of the starting gate for the downhill, only to come a cropper before you’ve even made it to the first marker flag? What happens when a skating routine you’ve done to perfection over and over again falls apart on the night and you end up on your rear end with wounded pride? How do you get back up and start from scratch after an injury most of us mere mortals would see as the death knell of a sporting career? How do you put the past four years of training behind you and look four years down the track, reliving the moment and seeing a completely different outcome?

Where does that strength of character come from? No doubt the sports psychologists who deal with these men and women would have several explanations and more than one method of bringing their clients from the depths of despair and disbelief back to where they can re-engage with themselves and their sport to the point where the Gold is once more within their sights.

Austrian psychotherapist Viktor Frankl survived the Nazi concentration camps of the Second World War, and his observations in the midst of such horror ring true for any situation of great stress. He saw those who were so intent on their own survival they became immune to the needs and feelings of others, but there were others who maintained their dignity, those willing to sacrifice their own needs for others. They were prepared to suffer the indignities of starvation, degradation and possible death because they could still see beyond the present. They kept a clear picture of what they believed the future held close to their heart. Staying alive so they would be reunited with loved ones, staying true to their values, keeping their sense of humour, these things and more kept them alive.

For good or bad, the events of the past mould us and shape our character, but they don’t have to determine our future. Dreaming of what our own future could be allows us to break free of the mould and chart a new course, but to make it to the winner’s podium, that’s where the commitment and determination come in. All the wishing and hoping, planning and dreaming come to naught if you don’t actually do something, so I end up coming full circle back to whether I have what it takes to produce a literary ‘piece’ of any sort, doesn’t have to be a masterpiece.

Just something that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. To finish something would for me be the realizing of a dream. I’m tired of fantasies.

BRINGING GRANDPA TO LIFE

DAY 76-79

Another restless night. Between the bladder which doesn’t seem to have the willpower to last more than three hours after I go to sleep, and the persistent

Big M moments where the doona gets tossed off one minute and dragged back the next, it’s not unusual for me to be awake at 2 or 3 in the morning. Most of the time sleep returns quickly enough, but like many of my friends of similar vintage, there are those staring at the ceiling nights where the brain refuses to switch off in order to allow you to drift off peacefully. There comes a moment when you realise no amount of tossing or turning or pillow pounding is going to help, so you reluctantly drag yourself out of bed and go watch TV for a while or make a cuppa or read a book until the eyes get heavy again.

It was on one of such nights recently I propped myself up in bed and started writing some stories for my granddaughter. At 4 years old, Bella has never known her Grandpa Bob, as my husband died two and a half years before she was born. He would’ve been such a big part of her life, so working out how to bring him to life even though she is never going to know him is an interesting one.

So, with that challenge in mind I started scribbling, coming up with rough drafts of I only have one Grandpa, written in rhyme which touches on the differences between spending time with Nanny Marg and Parpy, and Nanny Di, Where’s Grandpa, a story about looking for Grandpa set as if he were still alive, touching on his favourite pastimes, The Night the Lights went out, about being scared during a storm, and Great Grandpa Percy’s Garden, a story about my own father who she will also never know, so she can get a sense of other family connections.

By the time I was finished the first light of dawn was filtering through the blind and sleep was not forthcoming, I was on a roll. Went for an early morning power walk, faced the day with gusto, but had a very mushy brain by the end of the day.

So the goal now is to complete them, not simply the stories but the whole thing, and that is where the crunch comes. I can see the illustrations in my head, I can see the finished product, but to nurture the dream into a reality will be the real test. Wish me luck.

SYMPHONY UNDER THE STARS

DAY 75

From France to Finland, to Mexico and back again, from the great masters to Rogers and Hammerstein and modern composers, a packed City Park in Launceston was treated to an evening’s great music last night from the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.

The plan was to get there about an hour early in order to find a parking space closer than a kilometer away and a good spot on the grass. Seems like everyone else had the same idea, they’ve obviously been before, but as first time TSO Symphony under the Stars attendees, our group did pretty well. Armed with rugs and low chairs (you’re relegated to the back if you have a regular chair), we joined the throng and spread out with our picnic dinner. Surrounded by lively chatter, the sharing of camembert and blue vein, grapes both whole and fermented, the chink of wine glasses and the quaffing of more down to earth brew, the crowd continued to build in anticipation of the night to come.

MC Tim Cox from ABC Radio greeted the crowd and guided us through the works and their composers as the night got underway. Lying back on my rug gazing up at the speckled cloud with the reverberations of the big drum vibrating through the ground made me realise I have to get out more, experience more of what this wonderful State has on offer on a very regular basis.

Guest soloist, soprano Jacqueline Porter delighted us with three songs from Die Fliedermaus, then in the second half to My Favourite Things from The Sound of Music. Diabetics were forewarned of the sweetness to come as Jun Yi Ma’s violin solo carried on the night air, charming us all. In vivid contrast the night wound up with vigorous foot tapping and clapping in time to the music as many danced can-can style a la Moulin Rouge. To whoops and whistles and hollers for “more, more” the conductor rallied the troops for four encores much to the delight of an appreciative audience who obviously had no desire to go home.

With a light cloud cover the stars did manage to wink here and there, but what better way to spend a balmy summer’s evening. My knowledge of classical music is scant at best, I don’t know my Brahms from my Beethoven, but I do know a great evening out when it comes along. How am I going to wait a whole year to experience it again?

HERE COMES THE AEROPLANE

DAY 73-74

I occasionally watch The New Inventors on the ABC, and am amazed at what the mind can conjure up when the need arises. What I enjoy about the show is that by and large it is those who are confronted by the absence of a resource or the gap in technology or safety, who are putting in the hard yards and churning out these gadgets, large and small, to make our jobs safer and easier, conserve energy either on a personal or environmental level, refine what is already there, or simply come up with a whole new way of doing something. Great way to get your product known.

On a much smaller scale, a seemingly insignificant little invention has come on to the market which to my way of thinking has the potential to have global impact. How many parents have coaxed their toddlers who are well and truly strapped into their high chairs so they can’t escape, with “here comes the aeroplane” as the spoon laden with unappetizing mushy something or other flies through the air destined for their mouth which shuts tight as soon as it comes into land.

Well, now you don’t have to pretend any more. Some enterprising somebody created an aeroplane spoon, probably a mum either through sheer frustration or the foresight to anticipate the market. Of course, there are still no guarantees the hangar doors will open when the attempt is made to land, but at least you can have a little more fun trying.

IF YOU EAT FISH IN A DREAM, DOES IT COUNT?

DAY 71-72

Interesting question, one of the many conundrums dispersed throughout Arundhati Roy’s debut novel The God of Small Things, an insightful and tragic revelation of life within India’s caste system. The disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples, the unwritten laws of the Touchables and Untouchables, the power and powerlessness structured into the culture governing who can do what and how, or even who is permitted to love, and how.

The early rumblings of discontent, concealed under a thick layer of loyalty.

….despair came home to roost and hardened slowly to resignation.

Her characters come to life, in no small part through their description, such as with a frilly apron and a vinegar heart or she looked like a bottled foetus that had escaped from its jar…..and unshrivelled and thickened with age. What Roy also manages, is to get us to care about them, hate them, to fear for them, and to want to protect them as tragic events unfold and reach their logical conclusion with lifelong consequences.

He left behind a hole in the Universe through which darkness poured like liquid tar.

Childhood tiptoed out. Silence slid in like a bolt.

Roy’s adept descriptive skills unveil some beautiful images conjured up at moments seemingly at odds with the events occurring at the time.

There was no storm music. No whirlpool spun up from the inky depths…..Just a quick handing over ceremony. A boat spilling its cargo. A river accepting the offering.

Madness slunk in through a chink in History. It only took a moment.

Brown millipedes slept in the soles of their steel-capped, Touchable boots.

…Past giant spider webs that had withstood the rain and spread like whispered gossip from tree to tree.

And through it all, twins Estha and Rahel, inseparable brother and sister, caught up in the snowballing of the events around them, innocence and childhood sacrificed.

The moth with unusually dense dorsal fins spread its wings over both their hearts.

By playing out the drama of one family against the backdrop of a culture of contrasts at every level, Arundhati Roy has succeeded with her first novel in portraying a nation in very human terms.

MEL'S KITCHEN RULES

DAY 70

Move over all you cooks choking up the airwaves, professional or otherwise, churning out lavish dishes ad infinitum “which only take minutes to prepare”. Yeah, right. I’ve never felt the need to go all out with presentation, it’s enough for me to simply sit down to a good nutritious meal which I know is going to satisfy me, and anyone else who happens to be around, without arranging it all on the plate as if it is about to come under the scrutiny of a panel of Olympic judges who we know are subjective anyway and rarely give a newcomer a second glance.

I mean, I don’t just slap it on the plate, but I reckon last Friday night’s dinner which came from my daughter in law Mel’s oven looked and tasted good enough to rival anything turning up on TV. A rolled garlic and macadamia chicken roast with oven roasted potatoes, pumpkin, squash, zucchini and red capsicum, all infused with herb and garlic oil, topped with fresh asparagus, was a delight to behold and inhale, and even better to eat.

Spurred on by last year’s Master Chef (I gave her the recipe book for Christmas) and My Kitchen Rules, she is living proof that even after a hectic day of take daughter to Kinder, report into work for a while, run some errands, come home, run around after her eight month old for the afternoon, back to pick up daughter from Kinder, do some shopping, come home again, juggle two children while preparing dinner, you can still churn out something a lot more appealing than fish and chips or bangers and mash.

Take my hat off to you Mel.

CURIOUS COMPOST

DAY 68-69

I am pondering which of the previous inhabitants of my house would have buried a sardine tin. Not that I ever knew any of them and the nature of their garbage disposal habits, but a sardine tin, with its top dutifully curled back and key still intact, decided to exhume itself today while I dug over what used to be my veggie patch in order to extend a garden bed. It’s not like there wouldn’t be enough room left in the rubbish bin to toss it in, so burying it in the garden did seem a trifle odd.

And there, right alongside it, was the T-bone of a T-bone steak, also still intact and not showing any signs of decomposition. Oh, that’s right, it’s all the flesh that disappears over time, not the bones, otherwise there wouldn’t be anything left for forensic anthropologists and pathologists to investigate, crime writers to write about or film corporations to make endless TV series about.

I’ve lived here for fifteen years, the longest I have lived in one house, or any town for that matter, and in all my garden excavations the sardine tin has remained undisturbed. I did suspect at one point that a previous household dog might have been buried in the general vicinity though (presumably after its demise), as my initial establishment of the veggie patch did unearth an interesting array of bones, none of which appeared large enough to be human so I felt assured no dastardly deed had befallen my abode which might come back to haunt me some time in the future.

As for the sardines, maybe the family moggie ate outside and the occupant was just too darn lazy to chuck it where it belonged, maybe the tin got so on the nose in the house they decided to bury it as far away as possible in the back corner of the yard. Who knows, not really worth pondering about.

Anyone for sardines on toast?