Small stone – 29-30.01.12

29.

The night is hot – the sound of crickets pulses in my window – I sweat and sit here – cursor   white   winking

30.

The kitchen is a wet, crowding hot.  I chop scrape chop – what’s the recipe say? – wash stir slice – quick, turn on the oven.  Outside I notice the early evening light has turned the world golden, mythic – I breathe it in – then get back to dinner.

Patriotism – cultivating a new maturity

Australia Day.  We had the holiday this past week but truthfully, it doesn’t mean much to me.  The surge of patriotic love just doesn’t come spontaneously.  And if it ever does it is less likely to come on Australia Day when people are taking it as a chance to drink too much and wear Australian flag paraphernalia.  It all feels a bit forced, a bit jingoistic and with a disturbing undercurrent of racism.  I know all patriotic people aren’t racists, and that it is possible to have a feeling of national pride without also being a close-minded git, but personally I don’t know very many of those people.

I have mixed feelings about ‘place’.  It’s another one of those paradoxes where it is at once something and also not something.  In my youth I felt the cultural cringe at being Australian.  Worse, a suburban Australian.  How could you be anything special from that bland and conservative environment? And up until recent times our own imagining and projecting of ourselves has often been, to my mind, painfully broad, inaccurate and caricatured.  Paul Hogan as Crocodile Dundee was funny certainly, but in the absence of any other more nuanced representations of Australian-ness it was hugely deficient.

These days I feel neither proud or ashamed of being Australian.  Though as I grow older I feel more connected to it and more accepting.  And just as I have matured, so have portrayals of Australian-ness in our culture.  I recognise myself and my own in our collective imaginings of Australian life.  Tim Winton’s ‘Cloudstreet’ is an incredible book, and also an incredible Australian book, creating a cast of people and a world that is achingly beautiful, complex and very Australian.  I also felt a thrill when I watched Adam Elliot’s film, ‘Mary & Max’ – it’s played for laughs and a little exaggerated but still, I understand Mary and where she comes from.

Ultimately though, while there is pleasure and comfort in the connection, it’s not all I am.  It feels to me like I could have been born anywhere, it just happened to be here.  So while I’m happy to revel in my particulars I also want to cultivate my sense of being a global citizen – a part of the human family, as Stephanie Dowrick would say.  Because yes, there are differences between countries and cultures and the things that shape us, but in the big picture our similarities are more than our differences.

Small stone – 28.01.12

the remnants of an argument muffle the air; I retreat into a book, into other . . . → Read More: Small stone – 28.01.12

Small stone – 27.01.12

Outside the day is rustling to life:
A kookaburra’s staccato call circles up into the air.
The white noise of the highway surges in . . . → Read More: Small stone – 27.01.12

Small stone – 26.01.12

The Old Man and The Sea – cover detail

I must read more. I vow. I am listing books to buy for a book club.  “The Old Man and The Sea”.  I have that in the bookshelf I think.  I have never read it, but I thought I would should one day.  I go to the bookshelf, the light is dim.  I remember it is an old book.  I think: it probably has very small print, and pages that are an alienating yellow.  I persist.  It would be wasteful to buy if I have it.  The words are the same, I . . . → Read More: Small stone – 26.01.12

Small stones – 20-24.01.12

I have to hit you with a few small stones in a row today, since I have been offline visiting grandparents in far flung country towns.  It necessitated a quite lovely train ride, which has given me much fodder for small stoning.

This doesn’t quite catch me up but I will endeavour to do that in the next couple of days.  I have also taken the liberty of submitting a photo as a small stone – I’m not sure that is entirely kosher but it feels right so I’m counting it as legit.

20.

At Werris Creek station

21.

We pass a dense stand of . . . → Read More: Small stones – 20-24.01.12

Small stone – 19.01.12

on the country train: we slip through bush and rocky tunnels in cottony quiet, heads straying . . . → Read More: Small stone – 19.01.12

Small stone – 18.01.12

within the rectangle of my window is a crowd of straight lines – blinds, bricks, bars – and a towering wall of . . . → Read More: Small stone – 18.01.12

Small stone – 17.01.12

A water meter, painted a pleasing blue, hunches up out of a neat rectangle of lawn
I wonder at the subterranean world of pipes, drains and cables beneath . . . → Read More: Small stone – 17.01.12

Small stone – 16.01.12

outside: a truck rattles and wheezes hydraulic puffs
inside: dots of darkness swim around me
further inside: a restless night’s sleep leaves me grainy at . . . → Read More: Small stone – 16.01.12

I am participating in…