Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Falling averages







Think it is time to get a bit of a move on here, or the old Wild Dog road will curl in on itself. I think the scarcity of posting only attests to the fact that I am not getting the breathing space to meander in blogland. So to give my averages a lift here goes with some pictorial reflections of the last month. They are taken on or in the water during the Two Bays project.

I had blogged directly but often obliquely about my sister's illness last year. It was a terrible year for her and for us to watch her go through so much both mental and physical pain. She managed to shine through all the time which always astounded me. As she was hammered by the cancer; her sense of herself only seemed to grow, to catch up with what was happening to her. She died on the 27th of December, beating the odds to get that far. We held her funeral a week later and four days after that I was launching a 24 day community project on Pelican. I really did wonder if I would get through it. Having witnessed what my sister had been through it also made me more determined to make a good shot of it.

So the first month of the New Year has passed. Now over a month since my sister died. And it is still impossible to let go.

I can only float when I have the opportunity to immerse myself in watery moving worlds. Enjoy watching the way light travels through water and catches the myriads of gardens that are normally out of sight.

7 comments:

austin said...

Thank you J Bar- yours aren't too bad either. Thanks for the visit.

Aaron Thomae said...
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Sydney Harbour Cruise for Party said...

nice blog

Honeymoon bed breakfast said...
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tpe said...

They are good photos, I agree with J Bar. I especially like the top two. (The colours work for me very nicely.)

Hello, Austin. A while back I was looking at a post you wrote about your sister. She was still alive at the time. I came back to it on a fair few occasions and still didn't know what to say -nothing that wouldn't have sounded hopelessly inadequate, anyway. And certainly nothing that would have helped in any meaningful way. But then nothing really helps, I tend to find.

I've had people die on me, of course, but never someone so closely related as a sister. I can only imagine that this was a deepening agony for you.

I hope that these past five or so months have seen a gradual lessening of the pain. I know it won't ever go away - how could it? - but maybe the rawness is at least and at last beginning to gently recede.

I see you've been telling another guest to your blog that you sometimes wonder why you bother to share your "tangles". Less of that, please. Your tangles seem suitably tangly to me and you write about them so well.

I'm up far too late. Must go to bed.

How are you doing?

Kind regards etc...

TPE

austin said...

Aye, aye, min. Hou's aw wi ye?
Lovely to hear from you and thanks for your thoughts.
My sister's birthday is actually tomorrow and I am kinda dreading the family get together we will have in her honour. You are right that the pain is not quite as raw as it was but we all seemed to go through the awful trauma of realising how bad it was in retrospect. While it was all happening it is like a hurricane around you but when the tumult fades you are left with all the occurred and what my sister had to go through.
I certainly have had my capacity for compassion deepened and have a very different perspective on death.
Oh and the tangles. Yes I do feel conscious of them as they are the bits of me that make me want to strangle myself. But I suppose we are all the same, human and unwieldy, and these funny posts are our strange fires burning in the cyber air.

Enjoyed your posts as usual, though I can't tell you that! And you hint at tough times too and I do hope that things are a bit better now. That chook seems to think so as she sneaks into the house.

Before I go just wanted to show off a bit more of my Scot's speak.
Goad a'michty! Ma dampt hoovercraft's breemin' ower wi bluiddy eyls!
And on that note I wish you well,
All the Best,
Austin

tpe said...

Spooky. It’s like walking into a bar in Scotland. That’s exactly how we all speak and that’s exactly what we all talk about. I think you should immediately offer yourself up for audition should the part of an impossibly authentic Scot come up for grabs on TV. You’d walk it, Austin. I’m also thinking you must have spent years perfecting this – and the hard work has certainly paid off handsomely now. That’s a very useful turn of phrase and a very useful skill you’ve got yourself there, Australian. Well done.

Oh yikes, yes, I can see why you might be a bit frazzled at the thought of her birthday. Birthdays – especially if you are all getting together to mark the occasion – could prove particularly difficult. On the other hand, however, these things can often go entirely the other way, turning into bitingly funny remembrances as people celebrate and retroactively enjoy the lives of those people no longer alive (often leading to wild speculations as to what they might have got up to next). You’ll have passed the day by now, anyway, and, no matter how it went, at least you’ve got this necessary milestone out of the way and behind you. We plod in one direction, Austin, marking the dates as we do so. I’m not sure there’s anything else for it.

(I know what you mean, though, about not really appreciating the extent of how awful something has been until it’s finally over. The very awfulness, as it unfolds, tends to distract us from the very awfulness, if that doesn’t sound too convoluted and tricksy? It’s only when there’s nothing left to do that the mind can start to process and finally begin to accept what just happened.)

Don’t worry, you’re not alone in wanting to strangle yourself. Wait. I don’t mean that I want to strangle you, just to be clear – not yet, anyway, but let’s not jump the gun – I mean that I would often dearly love to strangle myself. Writing it all down in a blog (or any diary, really) can often be terrifically helpful, though. Like therapy, only cheaper (and more useful). I very often use blog posts or comment threads as a form of therapy. Not joking.

I'll resist the temptation to speak Australian in a tit-for-tat act of retaliation. Things would just get messy. You had a lucky escape.

Nice to collide with you again.

Kind regards etc.....

TPE