The Earthrise Diary (Dec 2012)

THE EARTHRISE DIARY (Dec 2012)

© text Don Diespecker 2012

Don Diespecker

Before sunrise the sky was grey with low cloud that looked like smoke in the early light, but now that the sun is up and I’m standing in the lounge room looking downstream I see the surface of the Bellinger glimmering with flashing sunlight. Away to my left the lawns are lighting in patches. At eye level I can now see several fine strands of silk between the riverside casuarinas: the light flashes along each length like a laser. These are only snares or hunting strands intended for some tiny flying creatures over the water. I wonder if the little spinners in the trees know how beautifully they have contrived this flashing display; their suspended strands are only microns in diameter: I see them clearly from 40-m away.

DD Dec 15 2012

Dec 9 2012. –Already this is the second week of December and the month is well under way and speedily taking us all to the conclusion of year 2012! I see that the eucalypts have begun splitting and shedding their barks. If I sit quietly and watch and might see some of that happening, live. This being Sunday I’ve allowed myself an entire hour to sit outside and to creatively write an outline description of one of my long stories so as to have something prepared for online self publishing in the next few days.

The past two weeks or so have been a busy time for me and one of my greatest difficulties is the Earthrise Connection to The Weather. To explain that: there have been frequent thunderstorms with sometimes heavy thundery showers here. This weather pattern has persisted through the last part of the spring and into the summer; consequently parts of the property are like a jungle. Also, there have been planned electricity interruptions (necessary for infrastructure improvements), as well as power failures due to noisy electrical storms (candlelight is useless when I have work to do on the computer or reading that always seems essential—reading implies the best of light) and there have been essential outside jobs (clearing debris; mowing when the weather allows). The lawns being so much in the shade have been more wet than dry and the grass is close to impossible to properly mow if it’s always wet—and growing apace.

At lunchtime I sit on the belvedere to make notes and to pass the time sensibly with a water dragon in need of sustenance (juicy stinging flies) after having left some food scraps in the compost area for Jason, the inimitable brush turkey (Jason is getting close to accepting hand-feeding, like certain dragons). Sunny warm days are not quite as frequent as I would like: thunderstorms and heavy showers are more usual this year—not a good sign because it implies another wet summer of flooding rains, a full river carrying big loads of debris and large portions of that being dumped here.

I had rolled up the TV Guide with which to swat flies that attacked me relentlessly. I saw two juicy stingers valiantly parked on the toe of my work boot where they were so determined that I assumed they were surely gaining nourishment of some kind from the battered leather. I rolled the Guide tighter and attempted the mutual assassination of the flies but failed, apologised to the dragon for my poor marksmanship and then noticed an item in the TV Guide and read that Marina Abramovic, had presented herself as an exposition in New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2010 (“The Artist is Present”). She did this by having sat in a chair from morning till night every day for three months, “allowing members of the public to sit in front of her for as long as they liked.”

This seems an attractive notion because a variation of this work could become a fashionable possibility here at Earthrise. I could charge visitors a reasonable admission price to my belvedere on days when the weather is fine and when I fancy an hour or so sitting diligently for the viewers who would be happy to see me reading, making notes and possibly even having conversations with the water dragons—so long as the visitors would guarantee to not block either my downstream view of the rapids or the slightly upstream experience of seeing and hearing the rapids running into the Pool. I would even allow at no extra cost, photos to be taken of myself appropriately reading, writing and from time to time mugging genteelly for the camera. And why would I not? I suppose that if this exhibition or more correctly exposition were to become the vogue up here in the Darkwood there would be a certain amount of competition between the locals as ‘performance artists’ or ‘living rustic treasures’ and some might risk spoiling the show by encouraging the customers to buy Devonshire Teas, on the one hand, or to request certain beverages like very dry Martinis or chilled chardonnay or even beer in cans. When I think more deeply about this I still felt encouraged because with enough paying customers I might then be able to invest in a laptop and do even more work while sitting benignly on the belvedere during these summery days while writing a book or two out there. I might have to draw the line at too large a crowd of viewers though because they would tend to obscure my best views (I quickly visualise a solution: I would restrict the location of viewers to seats below and on the river side of the belvedere so that only their heads would be visible over the edge of my lookout).

These playful possibilities remind me of my teenage years in South Africa: in Durban I would sometimes visit a Tearoom Bioscope called, I think, the Roxy. South Africans have long tended to speak of the cinema as The Bioscope or ‘the Bio.’ Puzzled readers will find plenty of information about these names and phenomenon by Googling the words. The Tearoom Bio is a cinema in which the price of admission includes refreshments. The one that I remember in the early 1940s had a continuous (I think) ‘table’ like a rack that was built on to the backs of the seats so that after an usherette had asked the customer for his/her preference for refreshment, she would return with ice cream on a saucer or a sweet drink and place the item in front of her customer.

I realise that although I could arrange something similar here (and remembering that the Roxy usherettes were uniformed and wore pillar box hats) I would have to employ kitchen staff in my kitchen and outside staff to deliver refreshments from the house to the belvedere. Problems might arise: some of the staff might resist being uniformed; others might insist upon it. It still seems a feasible idea, however, and so long as customers avoid making a mess or tipping over backwards in to the river I’m sure the scheme would work well enough. Think of it! My visitors would pay me an admission price, be seated at footlight level, be delivered refreshments and have the pleasure of watching me intently for hours as I creatively whiled away the time on summery afternoons! I’d probably earn enough money to retire all over again.

Some readers may be interested to know that I have begun self-publishing some of my many unpublished MSS hitherto stored in a computer (and there are also some printed text copies in cardboard boxes). More eBooks are now being published Online than regular text editions offered for sale by regular publishes. –Not because of me, I hasten to add, but because there is now a worldwide trend or ‘fashion,’ if you like, to do so. I won’t say more about this because readers may find abundant information about this and other DIY method of self-publishing at a number of Online sites. The one I have been exploring and using (self-publishing is free, by the way) is called Kindle Direct Publishing. –That, in turn, implies a Kindle reader or something similar: iPhone, iPad or iPod. Ebooks can be selected and paid for with a credit card Online.  So far and with assistance from friends and mentors I’ve been able to self publish in November and December, these:

“Finding Drina,” a novella in three parts and in three distinct styles (those approximating the styles of GG Marquez, Ernest Hemingway and Lawrence Durrell). In my narrative my characters meet the characters from other novels (this makes my novella, also, metafiction—fiction about fiction). Each part of the story, as a homage piece, is also a tribute to a particular novelist. The narrative is set in Venezuela, Australia, Paris and Rhodes and includes some so-called magic (or magical) realism.

“The Earthrise Visits” is one of my long (20-k words) stories and is set here (it’s a literary ghost story and includes magic realism).

“Farewelling Luis Silva” is another of my long stories; it unfolds partly in Canberra, Paris and Brussels and mostly in Lisbon. This is a dystopian story set about a decade into the future.

About two years ago I wrote a long story titled, “One morning in May.” Bruce Furner and I had been discussing our mutual admiration and fondness for that fine soprano, Miliza Korjus. I was a 9-year old kid in Pilgrims Rest (E Transvaal, South Africa) in 1938 when the movie, The Great Waltz was released and a copy duly arrived in our small (gold) mining village. Many will recall that one of the songs featured in that film was “One day when we were young,” (one wonderful morning in May, &c &c). Miliza Korjus, (aka ‘The Berlin Nightingale’) starred in that movie and sang the song. I can never forget her: in appearance MK was strikingly similarity to Mae West.

I had recently heard the song, was able to again see some of the images Online and also hear some of MKs singing. Adapting the title of that song was a nostalgic way of titling a story that had no real similarities to the 1938 movie, The Great Waltz. Long stories in this country never achieve publication in Australia—unless the writer is famous—and this narrative is nearly 23-k words long. The story depends partly on the notion of coincidence for it to work in the way that I wanted. There are several of these partly synchronous episodes in the story and there’s also one that startled me because I hadn’t planned or contrived it.

On Dec 9, I was doing a final check on the draft of this retitled long story. There is a brief mention in a short scene that takes place in an oyster bar in Lisbon where Sarah Hart and Harvey Giraud are having a light lunch: I had written into this scene that Harvey was preoccupied but that Sarah had distinguished from among the many sounds they could both hear, that particular music (above) from the movie, The Great Waltz (but not any particular voice like that of Miliza Korjus). I was re-reading the particular paragraph when I suddenly heard on my radio here at Earthrise a chorus of voices singing “One day when we were young.” It’s not a piece of music we might normally expect to hear at all frequently these days, but there was no particular reason that I was aware of for it to have been broadcast on that particular day and at that particular time. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I had shivers along my spine. It was an eerie experience.

Each of the above three eBooks are listed ($0.99) and the first two have their own covers (rather than one ‘provided’ by KDP). Though it’s possible to navigate from the Kindle Direct Publishing site there is a more direct way. I asked Kerry Smith and he recommends this: Go to amazon.com then select Kindle eBooks and then do a search for Don Diespecker and the above books will be seen listed. Or, more quickly: do a search on Amazon, kindle, eBooks, Don Diespecker.  

I’ve also been preparing and editing a quite long novel, “The Selati Line” and will self-publish this soon, too (this is a sequel to my novels The Agreement and Lourenço Marques, is also a post Boer War story, a train story and also an early flying story. The protagonists Alexandrina (‘Drina’) de Camoens, Louis Dorman, the prodigy/savant, Louise Dorman and a number of other familiar characters reappear in this full length novel (about 120-k words). Because it’s much bigger than the other three stories this eBook will probably be priced a little higher than the first three, but I haven’t yet made that decision.

Don’s Day Out (3 and 4)

                                                                                                                        DD

It’s December 11 and I’m up at dawn for an early start. Not only does the old 1987 Honda require a big Service (she’s doing very well at 190,000-km but she does require increasing attention). There has been increased concern because I recently discovered that the battery tray had become so corroded as to threaten the battery (this is a polite way of indicating that I suddenly was rushing pell-mell toward terminal neurosis because I feared the battery might fiendishly break loose from its once secure platform and fall through the corroded metal and on to the road (there would be blinding flashes and possibly large detonations and almost certainly a horrendous onboard fire developing into a mushroom cloud that would be seen from space by umpteen Intel satellites and which would alert Global Security Countermeasures as the crippled vehicle, now enveloped in flames, plunged from the highway into one of the coastal forests, destroying every forest in sight as well as Yours Truly). Fortunately for myself and for the ageing Honda, none of these terrifying events occurred.

A few days prior to the 11th I had wandered over to the Coffs Harbour CBD and the Palm Centre (I am now able to walk more or less normally thanks to the wonderful effects of silica tablets and the presumed reducing of the ‘spurs’ on my spine). I expected the Muffin Break café to have remained upstairs at the Centre where there is ample light and psychologically an airy feeling (and where there are appropriate distant views through the many windows up on that level), but the café has reverted to its downstairs location where, psychologically, there is gloom that approaches semi darkness, no windows, and the kinds of hoardings and temporary structures to be found in buildings undergoing renovations and reconstructions. Worst of all, there were unsettling reflections of criminal-looking and dangerous persons to be seen whenever I glanced at the dark shop- fronts in this area—until I realized that I was seeing only the pallid reflections of myself and other early morning beverage drinkers and that the most threatening of all images, strangely enough, was my own.

On Dec 11 there is a little more light and being a creature of habit I buy as a treat some black espresso coffee and a gluten-free blueberry muffin and wander away from the busy counter to a seat and tiny table nearby; I can see most of my fellow drinkers and they can see me. I adopt my casual Old Bloke on Day Out Publicly Drinking Coffee posture and look craftily about whilst peering through the fumes. The coffee is good—somewhat better than the rare brews that I make in an old coffee pot at home and the far more sophisticated drink that Kerry S makes with a dangerous-looking little espresso machine. I imagine my blood pressure going up rapidly and although I would prefer that my surging blood would relax a little I do enjoy the caffeine blast.

It is summer and crowds begin subtly to form before 08:00 hours. The temperature and humidity rise. The early morning crowd is moving at Coffs Harbour speeds which is to say that the people are all moving much faster than the average person either in the Darkwood (where most folks travel fast in motor vehicles if they can, rather than totter along the dangerous Darkwood Road with it’s loose stones and depths of dust, or in Bellingen where the pace is faster than Darkwood but slower than it is in the Coffs CBD. Again, that kind of walking speed is a notable psychological factor. If a Bellingen walker (some go barefoot) were to move at Bellingen speed in the Coffs CBD he or she would attract attention, if not suspicion, and that person moving at that ‘country’ pace could possibly become a Security Risk. In Coffs CBD one must learn to move at the appropriate pace (close to running before 08:00 hours).

There I am sipping coffee and keeping the locals under surveillance. Opposite me there is a brightly lighted chicken butchery; I am reminded of waiting for a kibbutz bus in Upper Galilee where I passed the time idly watching an open-air chicken butchery in action (live chooks at one end were dispatched somewhere along the conveyor line and chooks minus their heads arrived at the other end). That, in turn reminded me of a similar enterprise at the so-called ‘slaughter pole’ in Pilgrims Rest when I, all of eight years old learned where our table meat came from (I can see it all now and will spare you the details).

I am surrounded by the unforgettable and unstoppable sounds of Bing Crosby with orchestra and chorus singing ‘White Christmas.’ This music is suddenly and loudly contested by a quite different kind of music from a store nearby; the resultant noise is unbearable. Perhaps there are local psychologists, psychiatrists, counsellors who have set this up so as to attract hitherto innocent and now unhinged coffee drinkers?

This part of the Centre looks very unfinished; I suppose that’s a consequence of builders building while trying to avoid being watched by coffee drinkers. The ceilings above the Muffin Break café look very unfinished. A crime thriller I saw recently on TV indicated that refurbished ceilings were opportune places in which to conceal murder victims. I wonder if there are any murder victims that have been concealed above my head here now? I also wonder if the Bing Crosby music fans and the more modern and clashing competitors would be driven to murdering each other? Is that why the ceilings look so unfinished directly over my head?

I finish my coffee and saunter off toward the escalator. Upstairs where it is more open and well lighted there is a Christmas tree with flashing lights and the top of the tree has a nice big star attached to it. Naturally I remember such trees and stars on the Christmas trees of my childhood, especially those in British Columbia. I remember that in one year in the 1930s our tree was so tall that deft and discreet surgery was needed to fit the star at the apex—it otherwise would have been affixed at a horizontal angle.

I wander over to the tree and then make a discreet inspection of several attractive wooden seats placed along the wall beneath the windows with the expansive views. Nobody sits on these grand benches that look like park benches, highly varnished. I wonder why. I discover that there are shining metal labels on each of the benches that reads: “Big W Courtesy Seat. We sell For Less.” I don’t think that Big W intends the sale of those benches. Another reason for their being empty may be that the benches are on the raised level where Muffin Break had once been temporarily located because of reconstruction and building on the ground floor. Anyone sitting up there would be able to look down on the rest of the crowd.

I sit on the now battered sofa I have sat on in the past. One book reader has just left; I take his place and browse my book of essays. Opposite young women assistants pace and chat moodily, each with an eye for parents with children to be photographed; business is slow; there is no photography because there are no indulgent parents while I read my book.

After a while I go into the Big W and browse their books section. I am at pains to show the Security lady at the entrance my bag of books, medical items, iPhone, notebooks, diary and my swish new external hard drive for the computer. When I come out again I again show my bag to the Security person and we chat. Sometimes an alarm goes off when a neglecting customer has failed to pay for a purchase. I learn alarming things about some of the customers.

Later, and following this casual little interview and chat about Security matters, I walk down the street to the Book Warehouse. On the way a car’s security system loudly begins to sound a warning. I turn to see why, but am none the wiser. Suddenly a young woman ahead of me rushes into the street aiming a hand-held device. I consider diving into the gutter there to take cover but realise that the device is not a firearm but an electronic instrument intended to switch off her car alarm…

Life in the city has undertones and sometimes overtones of danger. I later drive home in the rejuvenated Honda.

Dec 17. The year is moving on at breakneck speed. I am up early for the weekly Practice Run combined with Shopping to Coffs Harbour and Park Beach Plaza. The Honda moves delightfully along the highway as smoothly as Starship Enterprise. It is a fine summer day and humid. I note that Jason, the splendid brush turkey has used the Honda’s roof as a perch and left a mess for me to clean up. I pray that he hasn’t discovered how to get in to the dahlia garden and dig up all the tubers. I mention these matters to the bird when I return home mid morning. Jason is busy turning over everything loose on the slopes between the carport and the house; yet again. Brush turkeys are hard to reason with. I am pleased to see that there is at least one Christmas orchid on this path that has survived Jason’s predations and that it is flowering beautifully. Massed choirs of cicada percussionists greet my return. I can see clouds forming and there will surely be thunder soon. It’s almost Christmas again.

Dec 18. There was yet another electrical storm yesterday afternoon followed by heavy showers—by which time I had switched off and disconnected the computer and disconnected the phones. Just as well. The power failed at 4:30 pm. When the rain stopped I went out to check my incoming power line: it was secure and undamaged. Good. I found Jason brush turkey in the carport; he doesn’t much care for electrical storms and heavy rain. ‘Jason,’ I said severely, loafing about in the carport makes you a target for foxes; you need to roost—but not on the roof of the Honda.’ Jason cocks his head and stares enquiringly. ‘What’s more,’ I earnestly say, ‘I’ve heard all the fox stories and some can reputedly run up chicken wire, go over the top, terminate all the chooks down below and then escape by running up the chicken wire again. You might bear that in mind.’ Jason seems to toss his head before wandering away.’ I leave him to it and return to the house.

The electricity came on again after 90 minutes. Hours later I happened to look outside in the dark; the dark was nicely lighted by fireflies flashing on the slopes next to the house. In the past the fireflies always were seen only in the spring, usually in September. Here they were on a warm humid evening in early summer. Climate change and global warming, I suppose. –And of course Jason’s rearranging of the landscape.

I’m closing and posting the Diary early (there are hours of editing the Selati novel ahead). This has been a momentous year for me—the 1,000^th month, my citizenship, and now self-publishing Online.

Please see, also, Russell Atkinson’s blog at: 

www.theoldestako.wordpress.com/

Best wishes to all Diary Readers, from Don at Earthrise. December 18 2012.

  

THE EARTHRISE DIARY (Nov 2012)

THE EARTHRISE DIARY (Nov 2012)

                                                                                                       Don Diespecker

(© text Don Diespecker 2012). Writers whose works are included here retain their individual ©.

I wrote a short story because I wanted to see something of mine in print other than my fingers.

                                                                                                       Wilson Mizner           

A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair.

                                                                                                       Robert Frost

      

Dear Diary Readers, I was looking for an apt quotation concerning the powers and lordliness of brush turkeys and along the way I found the lines above: each provoked hearty laughter and now that I’ve borrowed them and put both almost together at the top of the page I’m suddenly aware of having doubled my laughter! How about that?

Both quotes are from one of my treasured books: The writer’s quotation book. A literary companion (Ed: James Charlton), published in NY by Pushcart Press. Do track it down especially if you’re a writer; although the book doesn’t provide comprehensive source information for the quotes it does include some wonderful small b/w illustrations of writers writing (the fevered brow, the rages, the crumpling and discarding of many drafts into the wpb...

Nov 1. Thurs. The first crimson flowers of the weeping coral tree near the birdbath are open today. The river is low and the air is hot with temperatures to about 32˚ in the shade. The garden is dry. I continue going outside in the heat for breaks with axe and giant secateurs. I’ve been destructing the dead cumquat tree. Later, at the end of the day when I finally lie down I hear something drop on one of the roofs upstairs: it’s a small goanna. 

Nov 3. Saturday. I’m enthused to get the mower down and to mow some of the now shaggy lawn. The machine has been used only once previously this spring and requires some subtle poking, prodding and cleaning of an oiled plug but the engine remembers its duty and roars eventually into life. My sore back takes a back seat; I am, after all, rattling with chewed chunks of silica tablets. It’s a warm and dry day and I’ve made the final assault on the poor old cumquat, now horribly expired and very much deconstructed. That ought to have been enough violence and exercise for one day but I’m in the mood for the trimming of the wild lawn grasses so I plunge ahead circling repeatedly the dry as dust centre of Big Lawn. In clouds of dust I reduce the leafed greenery to the semblance of a lawn (i.e., the centre portion of it). I have two sessions of dusty mowing and then stop to rest. As I sink comfortably into a garden chair I notice first one and then a second fishing eagle overhead; the first begins in slow spirals directly above and this bird has ragged wingtips. The second bird looks more streamlined and circles above the first in the opposite direction. Can they be scheming to land briefly, talons extended, to lift me into the sky and then to drop me on my head to soften me up for a snacked meal somewhere along the dwindling river?

Nov 11. Armistice Day. Sunday. At twilight through the toilet window I see flashing lights everywhere outside, especially on the forested slopes: fireflies! Have the scratching turkeys caused this? If so, what is the relationship between industrious turkeys and the winking air show in the dusk?

Nov 16. Carl calls me at sunrise: he’s home from the US and happily in one piece. This Friday evening: the power fails and I call the electrical people and two guys arrive in a ute, then leave for more stuff, then return with another truck and extra crew members. They have replaced my stricken power line (felled by a high branch from a native privet tree). The crews complete their work in light rain and impenetrable darkness (they have their own floodlighting) and leave at 10:30. Back at the house I blow out the candles and switch on the Mac and keep working until after midnight; my files have survived the mishap. 

Nov 17: the power goes off again (less than 24-hours after the first ‘interruption’), this time for hours on a Saturday night: there was no mishap on this property, however and the fault was perhaps related to the storms in S-E Queensland.

The Turkey Supremacy

                                                                                                                   DD

My two volumes Field Guide to Australian Birds doesn’t include much information about brush turkeys, to my surprise. The description is reasonable, of course (although the illustration doesn’t at all do the bird justice). I’m very impressed by brush turkeys and keep a wary eye on the ones that daily visit Earthrise…

There was a time when brush turkeys were irksome enough for me to throw things at them and even to rush down to the gardens yelling and waving my arms. I no longer waste time and energy that way. Australian gardeners will perfectly understand what I mean. The turkeys have always loved revving me up and would ignore my unhinged approaches until the last moment before dispersing in several different directions and sometimes flying for fun just to upset the dogs that were never able to catch one; never ever. The big birds would stand three or four of them in the shade watching me plant dahlia tubers in the early spring and then saunter out after my return to the house and proceed relentlessly to dig all the tubers up. I suspect that they did this gleefully. Those turkeys! I was conditioned to thwart them by behaving idiotically.

Brush turkeys can be extremely difficult for humans: they are self-assured to the point of arrogance sometimes and they, in turn, keep a wary on me. They are also courageous and adventurous.

Nowadays, what with climate change and global warming and inconsistent weather patterns, there are only one or two regulars. The dogs have gone to the great paddock in the sky and the turkeys, being acute observers of the human comedy, have my measure: they know I can’t be bothered throwing missiles anymore, nor will I run madly at them, and I have of course been making easily assembled fences with chicken wire and star pickets to keep birds away from sprouting dahlia tubers. For desperate gardeners who have not yet learned The Way: keep your dahlia enclosures small enough to contain only the dahlias; raise chicken wire to at least waist height; prevent take-off runway space within the enclosure and further frustrate raiders with sticks and branches that will make fly-in/fly-out flights entirely too hazardous. Also, chemicals won’t deter turkeys: they love using those powerful claws to un-bury buried tubers and they relish tearing the tubers to shreds, wheezily laughing all the while.

Once the turkey-proof garden is established it’s my responsibility to get down on my knees (I use strap-on protective knee pads) and do some weeding. When the dahlias are sprouted and springing and tied to stakes and there are grasses and weeds between the rows the turkeys sometimes wander over to watch me from the shade. They always look slightly amused, very superior, benevolent and tolerant. I ‘m sure they’re calculating altitudes, drift, trim and all the flight stuff they might need to come in low (but with claws retracted) to clear the wire and then to lose height dramatically and without breaking anything, attempt to land short in the confined space…but they can’t do it because there is absolutely insufficient runway and no overshoot possibilities. The brush turkey, to be airborne, absolutely needs runway space to reach take-off speed. The sustained wheezing the frowning turkeys hear from down among the weeds is my gardening laughter. Crowded spaces deter brush turkey flying as nothing else can possibly can.

And I have slowed down, anyway. All of which means that there is a sort of truce here at Earthrise: if the turkeys want to stroll nonchalantly over the nearby road bridge and then fly in to Earthrise they will know that I have no objection. They repay my courtesy by aerating Big Lawn for me: for days and sometimes weeks following this operation the lawns appear to have been mortared or bombed because so many holes have been over-dug and made too deep…that sort of thing, but come the heavy rains and a close mowing when the grass has dried and you’d never know the ‘black peacocks’ had holed the green sward’s wholeness. Old gardeners surveying the unholy sight of an apparently blitzed lawn need only be super cautious for a few days: place your boots on secure lawn whilst avoiding the craters and shell-holes; otherwise risk twisting or breaking your ankles.

That’s the historical background. The brush turkeys and I are now so amiable that I stop to chat with them as I come and go outside and they are convivial enough to continue with their work with scarcely a sideways glance. It’s what the turkeys are currently engaged in that’s the worry: the neutral territory between my front steps and the carport has been excessively raked over and over-scratched repeatedly. I’m a little worried about this for a couple of reasons, one being that the hard and well-tramped surface of the footpath (ignored by the raking birds) is now invisible beneath a wave of debris: grass, weeds, and the sorry remains of my budding Christmas orchids. (These ground orchids grow wild in this area). The footpath is dead ground: too densely compacted to be worth spraining a claw for. These local turkeys, you see, have great cognitive powers: they endlessly think and probably a lot more than we do… If they aim to discharge the unwanted organics onto the path, the plants will cook in the sun and be well out of the way of the hunters—because hunting for food is what this turmoil is about: the big birds scratch to clear and more easily see insects, grubs and worms.

On Friday evening (Nov 16) when one of my more exhibitionistic trees broke and in turn broke my incoming electricity line there had been a thunderstorm and then light rain (and that epic affair which took two crews and most of the evening to repair is another story). As I tottered past the carport with my waning torch I found the most solitary of the brush turkeys next to the Honda, sheltering from the weather. We exchanged greetings of a kind and I noticed that there was now a surfeit of tradescantia and weeds in the unoccupied parking bay and that this organic mass was now jungle thick. I almost upbraided the handsome bird when I realized (as the bird had undoubtedly already done) that both parking bays are dead ground with the compacted soil there as dense as can be—the turkey knew that the weeds would quickly die and not cause me any great problem and the bird had nicely weeded and almost completely cleared the weedy area next to the carport. Well done noble bird, I said. As I later discovered, even this simple relocation of debris was overdone and the wide scattering of weeds was extended to the Honda’s uncovered engine… I always leave the hood (bonnet) open and up to discourage bush rats from nesting on the warm engine. Bush rats will chew on anything/everything for their amusement and nourishment and to the despair of humans who then must spend many dollars replacing chewed cables and suchlike vitals sharing space with the engine.

The most persistent and almost regular brush turkey is here almost every day. I’ve started calling him Jason, after Grisham’s legendary character, Jason Bourne: he is courageous, adventurous, wonderfully imaginative and he’s always thinking as he works.

–But just you watch it, Jason, or a fox will get you sooner or later because there are always foxes on stakeout duties and foxes are also prone to a lot of thinking…

 

Pictures

      

                                                                                                                        DD

I’ve been thinking a lot about pictures. I have a few in this big downstairs room inside the Earthrise house and while discussing pictures with friends recently (paintings in particular) I realised that each of the pictures here I had placed in a position that now seems on reflection to have suited both the picture as well as myself. Pictures are of course interesting or beautiful or motivating and they also are distractions. If I have hung a picture or propped one on the bookshelf behind me, then that ‘back location’ has probably been chosen for a good reason. It’s about time that I take a careful look at that notion: the locations that I’ve chosen—and why I so chose.

Just behind my left ear are three postcards propped on a bookshelf. Facing me when I turn around to see them: there is, on the left, part of the Manet-inspired Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (1866) by Claude Monet. To my mind this is not the best reproduction I’ve ever seen and as much as I love Monet’s paintings I prefer my remembrance of Manet’s unforgettable peopled picture (1863) of the same title. Both paintings are in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. The Monet version is on a birthday card sent me by my son, Carl. The large and long spread-out dress (or gown?) worn by one of the women, her back to the painter, almost dominates the scene (and the eye is also drawn to the luncheon invitingly spread on a white tablecloth on the grass next to this woman.

The middle picture is a photographic reproduction (postcard) in soft and diminished light of Notre Dame, Paris with one of the Seine’s bridges in the foreground: it’s a muted reproduction with a pale, misted sun shining (this little postcard picture was sent to me by a friend, L who was travelling overseas). The third picture (on the right) is a postcard reproduction of ‘A summer morning,’ (c 1908) by Rupert Bunny: the original hangs in Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales and shows two young women in the foreground and a maid in the shadows. The women wear long gowns or dresses and shading hats and one sits with a cat on her lap; the maid stands in a shadowed doorway and is serving tea or coffee. A little further to the right and attached to my circular window is another Bunny reproduction (on clear plastic film so that local sunlight shines through images). Two young women sit in a garden at a table in dappled light, one reads from what seems to be a letter—and, yes, both women wear long light dresses that gleam whitely and the reader wears a big shading hat… Paintings by Impressionist painters that are eloquent manipulations of light have a marvellous emotional as well as aesthetic appeal: if I so much as glance at such a picture whilst working I am instantly enchanted and tend to remain in that reality for surprisingly lengthy periods. Such pictures are meditations and inspire memories and new visualizations of the old.

The Paris postcard is central to these small reproductions and Paris has been important to me since my first visit 62 years ago; and this pc is a link to that place and to art in Paris and to people I met there and whom I still love.

Impressionist paintings of women in long dresses and wearing big shading hats, the subjects of artists who painted them long before I was born, touch me deeply and it’s very difficult for me to explain precisely why this should be so. –Working on these reflections is itself a work in progress.

The books behind the three postcard reproductions are mostly history texts that describe South African history—e.g., The Transvaal from within; The Randlords; Lost trails of the Transvaal; and two that I published (One Mind; The Agreement (which includes the sequel to The Agreement, Lourenço Marques).

When I arrived in Delagoa Bay (Mozambique) with my family aboard the SS Bencleugh in 1937 I hung over the mid-ship rails to look down at the Harbour Master’s launch coming alongside. Hot morning sunlight danced on the Bay. My mother’s sister, Ellen, sat in the stern-sheets looking up from beneath a parasol: she wore a long lightly coloured dress and a big shade hat and she was laughing joyfully and waving up to her sister, Grace. Nobody was quick enough to photograph her, but the image or picture in my mind now is almost as clear as when I saw my beautiful tall aunt in the launch 75 years ago.  

Ellen and Grace were the two daughters (their two brothers, George and Douglas were deceased) of Scots migrants, Lesley and Sarah Singer and the family had once lived in Pilgrim’s Rest, high in the Transvaal Middleveld; and our small family of four was soon to disembark and travel to Pilgrim’s, as we used to call the place).

From that long ago time there arose other related images: Ellen and Gerard Bier’s two children, Corinne and her brother John, my cousins. Now I’m remembering an afternoon in London when Pam and I were visiting Corinne and her husband, Vernon. John and his girlfriend, C, were there, too. I was about to leave for Iran and a long contract job (on Iranian airfields). Corinne and Vernon, John and C have passed away. Corinne, in the 1930s had worked for a solicitor in South Africa who had been a member of the Johannesburg Reform Committee (1895/1896) (some of the Committee’s members allegedly helped prepare the way for the Jameson Raid (one of the Second Anglo Boer War triggers). More information about the Raid and the Committee may be found Online via Wikipedia).

Corinne used also to recount some of the intriguing stories of the 1940s in Mozambique—I remember one about the effrontery of a U-boat Commander who sauntered into the posh Polana Hotel in Lourenço Marques and ordered a hot breakfast…

Corinne’s brother, John, used to be a writer and producer (South African Broadcasting Corporation, Johannesburg. Vernon Kretzmann and John Bier met at Rhodes University, Grahamstown: Vernon, a novelist, later married Corinne. Years later Corinne and Vernon came to live in retirement in Australia (one of their two sons lives in Perth) but were not allowed to remain. They returned to Johannesburg where they both recently died. Pam and I are the two remaining in this little anecdote.

Perhaps there are other connections as well; my past visits to galleries and museums, particularly in Paris and tall elegant women who favour wearing long dresses. Perhaps I would (I imagine) experience such images as described above even more emotionally were I to sit facing them…   

November 19. Kerry Smith, my friend and teacher, demonstrates and show me the practicalities of how to self-publish Online.  With Kerry’s considerable help and guidance the novella Finding Drina is at last published as an E-book. Finding Drina is also meta-fiction (fiction about fiction), and mine is written in three styles, those of GG Marquez, Ernest Hemingway and Lawrence Durrell. Characters from my novel The Agreement ‘meet’ and ‘interact’ with characters from Love in the time of cholera, Fiesta (The sun also rises); and The Alexandria Quartet. Finding Drina is a tongue-in-cheek espionage story set in Venezuela, Australia, France (Paris), Egypt and Greece (the island of Rhodes).   

Nov 21.Wednesday night near midnight I rescue a firefly languidly flying circuits above my bed. When he or she lands gracefully nearby I delicately pick it up upon a slightly dampened fingertip and return the little flier to the noisy night.

The Diespecker Family—A Partial History

                                                                                                                    Ilse Vogel

(From a speech made at The Diespecker Family Reunion, Vancouver, BC. July 21-23, 2006). (© text Ilse Vogel 2006)

[Text of the speech below was used by Ilse Vogel for her address to the Diespecker family given at a dinner on Saturday night during our 2006 reunion in Vancouver; the address was accompanied by a booklet of maps and pictures prepared by Ilse for the family (the booklet shows some of the people, the places, and the period described in the address)]

 A Rabbi David, with the name Diespeck, was born at a place called Diespeck in 1715. 

This place still exists. On a German road map, you can find it in the northern part of Bavaria, halfway between Nuremberg and Wurtzburg.  The family name means “die Specke,” which is a corduroy road made with logs laid side by side over the ground. Nowadays they pronounce it “Dies-peck,” but if I look at the Hebrew spelling on tombstones it is spelled and pronounced “Disch-bek.” That is the way everyone born there pronounces it.

Not much is known about the town. The only records that remain are the church registers. Most of the other records, together with much of the area itself were destroyed during the Thirty Years’ War from 1618-1648.  New records were created when the noble family of the area, the Seckendorffs, took a census of people, livestock, and lands in 1697. In those documents, we find the spelling “Diespeck.” We also find 7 Jewish names among the 34 family names registered. The word “Jew” was always added after these 7 names. Among those listed is a certain “Joel Jud,” perhaps David’s father.

Registers at the States Archives of Bavaria show a protected Jew of Bamberg paying taxes in Fürth in 1716 in the local currency called tischbeks (table baker). This Jew was Jekutiel, son of Joel. He was a Mohel in Fürth, called upon by Jewish families to do circumcisions. The death registers say he died at the age of 70 in 1771, so he was born in Diespeck in 1700, son of Joel Jud.

David Diespeck was born in 1715, 15 years later than his brother.  Perhaps this means he was born to a different mother. Jekutiel left Diespeck when David was born, perhaps because of his father’s second marriage. I suspect that David was born in one of the houses in the Jews Court in Diespeck.

Special rights and taxes were assigned to each house on the Seckendorff lands. That’s why we know about the owners. There is one house with no names given until the middle of the 1800s. This house has a special design of windows in the gable. This window was the usual opening for the shrine of scrolls that was hung out when the synagogue was not facing east. And what did the scrolls face when they were hung out of the window? The Diespeck church tower!

A tax record of 1741 notes a change in tax regulations: instead of paying every 20 years, an annual tax was begun. The 2-story house in Diespeck was probably a community house with an apartment for the rabbi who was the teacher and leader of the services and daily prayers. Maybe Joel was the teacher and David his pupil in cheder (an educational process beginning at age 3 or 4 and ending at age 13 or 14 with the bar mitzvah).

Who was David’s mother? In his book, PARDES, David remembers her as a pious and devout woman who worked hard to support his studies, although he does not give her name.  Like most Jewish women of her age, she would have listened dutifully at the beginning of the Shabbat dinner to her husband reading from Proverbs 31 – the “Ode to a Capable Wife.” Another reading often used was the prayer of Hannah in Samuel 2. But we really know very little about David’s mother.

The protected Jews of Bamberg, living in Fürth were given special privileges in 1719. Students and scholars could move to Fürth without the usual requirement of having a certain amount of money. Additionally, they could marry a first-born daughter of a family in Fürth.

Families in big houses in Fürth had their own Schul, a room for daily prayers and studies. The big Schul was the synagogue for community services on the Shabbat and high holidays.

When David was 5 years old, in 1719, he left Diespeck and came to live with the Schneor family in Fürth. They ran the Fromm printing business and a schul that had been founded and endowed in perpetuity by a wealthy Vienna Jew by the name of Barmann-Frankel. While in Fürth, David also went to the yeshiva directed by the chief rabbi for more advanced studies.

Intelligent students continued their studies at the yeshiva in Frankfurt/Main as soon as they had their bar mitzvah at the age of 13 or 14.  In 1728 or 1729, David’s father died, though we have no record of it.  It is possible that David’s parents never left Diespeck and that they both died there. They were buried in the central cemetery of Ullstadt in the Seckendorff territory, since the Jewish cemetery at Diespeck was not opened until 1785.

As a student in Frankfurt, David Diespeck attended the yeshiva of a well-known Jacob Cohen Poper – a “cohanim,” Jewish priests whose ancestry could be traced back to Aaron. Frankfurt had the most severe restrictions on the Jews of any German city and David learned to live in a ghetto. Only in the early 1800s was the city council forced by Napoleon to relax the restrictions. But for a yeshiva student, there was no time to explore the wider city. Their studies consumed their whole lives. They observed all the daily traditions of Jewish life, studied the Torah and the Mishna Torah by Maimonides and practiced a method of intense debate called “pilpul” (literally, “pepper”) that focused on a detailed analysis of apparent contradictions in the text of the Talmud. Students “peppered” each other with questions and answers to gain greater understanding. The teachers at Frankfurt and Metz were appreciated for their high standards, but were also laughed at by some of their colleagues for focusing on the method rather than the spirit of their studies. David was one of the most outstanding students and became an expert on Maimonides.

David moved back to Fürth where he served as a scholar and rabbi. He took a position as rabbi in Bruck, halfway to Baiersdorf. The community of Bruck has always had a rabbi from Fürth. The number of Jewish families there had grown because of the support given to the synagogue by Samson Salomon, the margrave’s court agent at Bayreuth. By this time, he had married Rosel Schneor, a daughter of the family he had lived with in Fürth. They had 3 daughters. The first-born was Sara, named after Rosel’s grandmother. The second was Bunla, named after Barmann-Frankel’s second wife. She died in 1736. The third daughter was Rickel or Reichle, born in 1740. In 1742, Rosel died in Fürth. This means that David must have left Bruck. He probably served for 9 years, the usual length of 3 terms of 3 years.

For some reason, between 1743 and 1747, David Diespeck travelled around from place to place. His name appears in community documents at Hechingen in the district of the Black Forest. Jews were persecuted during this period by both Catholic and Protestant princes, so a scholar needed to support his fellow Jews. The chief rabbi in the district was Nathaniel Weil, a former teacher at Fürth, a scholar in Prague, and, as a refugee, now living in Mühringen. Perhaps David lived with him in Mühringen.

David married again in 1747, this time to Miriam Sulzbach, the daughter of a rabbi. She must have been very young. David was 32. Until now, I have not been able to find out anything about Miriam’s family.

Their first son, Joel, was born in Fürth in 1748. David must have returned from the district of the Black Forest earlier, perhaps at the time he was married.

David continued his studies, was soon discovered to be highly intelligent and was elected as a member of the Rabbinical High Court, called Bet Din.

In those days, Fürth, often known as the Franconian Jerusalem, was home to a number of prominent Jewish scholars.  David lived there for about 25 years.

A rabbinical scholar and judge would develop many relationships with prominent members of the community. He would have led members of the community in prayers and services throughout the day. He would have arbitrated difficult cases in Jewish law at the Bet Din. But he would not have made a lot of money. Miriam complained about their poverty and David had to go into business to support his growing family. He took up the gold and jewellery business and some banking. After Joel, Fradele was born in 1749, Loeb in 1750, and Hendle in 1760. In 1761, “the Jewish tradesman David Diespeck,” signed papers to loan between 4,000 and 5,000 guilders (about $80,000 CA) to another businessman. By 1763, David was able to buy his own house.

In January of 1763, Miriam died giving birth to Abraham, who also appears to have died. The widower was left with four children ranging in age from 15 to 3. David was linked with the wealthy Neuburg and Henle families; his daughter Bunle has married a Neuburg and his daughter Rickel, a Henle.

David himself married again, this time to Chava/Eva Dessauer from Ansbach. Her family were court agents for the Margrave in Ansbach.  Chava was young, but brought her own wealth with her into the marriage, adding to David’s prosperity. The marriage took place in early 1766 and a son was born on December 6, 1766. They named him Simon and he is the ancestor of Louise from Los Angeles. The parents were delighted.

There is a Jewish proverb that says that luck is like a wheel. You never know when it is going to start turning the wrong way. David was very prosperous, then suddenly bankrupt because of a bad loan to a friend equivalent to over $400,000 CA.

It must have been a tragedy for all of Fürth, at least for the Jewish community there. Friends arrived from everywhere to offer their help, including family members. But David refused to accept their help. He interpreted the situation as an indication that he had come to love money more than his studies. In his PARDES, he acknowledges the support of Chava during this period, saying, “She opened her mouth with wisdom, lifted my soul from sadness, and encouraged me to choose this way,” being that of the scholar and rabbi.

Chava Diespeck was strong and self-confident. I like to see her as independent of mind and heart, a strong woman within the community who was not afraid to challenge the men. She might have been the friend of and influenced by the chief rabbi’s wife, Grendle, who was much appreciated by her four brothers and her father for her wisdom and intelligence. Her father called her “his little crown.”

From the portrait of David by his grandson, Joel, and from these stories, we learn much about the character of David Diespeck. He was a wise man of good character, understanding of others and accepting each person as “God’s good child.” “The older you get the more difficult judgments become,” he sighed when he was the rabbi of the district of Baiersdorf – a very wise insight.

In 1768, David sold the house and by 1772 all his debts were paid off.  The house was old and would not have brought much money. The household items – silver plates, cups, bowls, candlesticks, carpets, linens, silks, furniture, and other items – might have brought more. Chava was forced to care for the family like any other poor Jewish woman. It must have been a terrible change for two-year old Simon. It seems to have affected his development, especially his speech. Much later, while serving as vice-rabbi in Baiersdorf, Wolf Abraham Lichtenstaedter complained that did not promote the emancipation of the Jews strongly enough – “he does not speak more than 3 words in one flow, he often repeats himself, stops frequently, and nobody can understand him.”  Lichtenstaedter became an outcast from the community because of this complaint, since it was not acceptable to criticize one of God’s creatures.

As soon as he was free of his debts, David was also free to take up a new position – this time as a rabbi, not as a businessman. In 1772 he moved back to Mühringen with his wife, 12-year old Hendle and 6-year old Simon. The rabbi soon set up a yeshiva and his income became guaranteed by several communities. The Jews of the district were dealers in horses and suppliers to the army.

Hendle was married, and later Simon. The contacts he had say something positive about his reputation in Alsace, where the Jewish communities had a special status with France but were as traditional in their practices as the communities David had served in Franconia.

The village of Bischheim, near Strasbourg, was one of the most respected of these communities and the Lehmann family one of the wealthiest in that village. Leime Isaak Lehmann married his son to David and Chava’s daughter, Hendle, on March 3, 1778 at Bischheim and her dowry was almost 5,000 livres. David signed the wedding certificate as rabbi in Metz. Hendle is Eliane’s ancestor.

It could have been at the wedding in Bischheim that David met the Netter family. Isaac Netter was the General Representative of all the Jews in Alsace. His youngest daughter, Miriam, married David’s youngest son, Simon, in August of 1783.

Metz had a special status within France.  It was a German Episcopal territory, with a German population, but it was under French administration. Although they spoke French in business, the Jews had to live their family lives in ghetto conditions. As in Fürth they ran several schuls and followed traditional practices.

David was almost 70 when he decided to leave Metz in 1784. He seemed disturbed by the impact of the French Revolution on the traditional beliefs and practices of the Jewish communities he served.  Fewer students were attracted and his income declined. It was this context in which he collected his lectures, sermons, and meditations into his PARDES.

David and Chava moved to Baiersdorf. On their way there, they stopped off in Ansbach and Fürth. In Ansbach the synagogue was built in a Baroque style within the margrave’s residence. It still exists. It was traditional for a visiting rabbi to be invited to give a sermon. I enjoy imagining David rising in this beautiful synagogue to do just that. The following Shabbat, he was invited to do the same in Fürth. And the next Shabbat, he was in Baiersdorf, taking up his duties as rabbi of that district where he lived out his life surrounded by a large family in Baiersdorf and Fürth.

The Jewish community in Baiersdorf was older than Fürth. Their cemetery was located within the city walls, an unusual location, since most Jewish cemeteries were far outside the town walls. The Jews of Fürth used the Jewish cemetery at Baiersdorf before they established their own in 1611. The schul in Baiersdorf, established in 1652, was located in the community house and overlooked the cemetery, a daily reminder of the traditions being passed down.

Besides tending to his rabbinical duties in Baiersdorf, David prepared the PARDES, to be published in Sulzbach at the printing shop of his friend, Aron and his son, Seckel. David’s first-born son, Joel, was his editor. He must have been a scholar in his own right and familiar with the printing business.

The problem was that by 1786, very few people would have been interested in such a book. Hebrew was no longer a language many studied or understood. Jewish education was in decline. The book was probably meant simply to honour the rabbi as a gaon, or spiritual leader and teacher.

Looking out the window of his study, viewing the cemetery, David would have been able to read the inscriptions on the tombstones of many famous rabbis who had died at Baiersdorf. To the west he would have seen the huge castle, very similar to the one in Aschaffenburg, designed by the same architect. He might even have remembered, from time to time, his second wife, Miriam.

On November 9, 1793, David died, just at the end of Shabbat. He was buried the next day. The men in his large family took the body to the cemetery and prepared it for burial in the earth from which he had come.  The women stayed home. The mourning went on for one week.

David left his wife Chava, his many children, and about 30 grandchildren. A year later the tombstone was erected with a long inscription paying tribute to Rabbi David Diespeck as a gaon (spiritual leader) and morenu (learned Talmudic scholar).  

A Time to Plumb

Late November. The plumbing requires finessing; it sometimes does because houses in the bush (like this one at Earthrise) attract bush plumbing by bush plumbers. Trees fall and damage equipment; floods rise and tear away lines that have lain ignored or forgotten in the grass and sometimes the infrastructure bits and pieces demand maintenance attention. The pump that pulls stored water from a big storage tank across to the house and then pushes water for domestic use in the house, as required, suddenly cuts in for several lengthy periods when least expected: this has to be checked out and quickly.

It is Middle Spring, I remind myself: dangerous snakes, goannas, funnel web spiders and much more roam and bustle about. The little house pump is beneath the house. I fetch my You Beaut little torch with the LED light, my flexi-grip pliers and the Stillson wrench and go downstairs and enter the Dark Underside. I am certain that the line filter needs replacing (it’s probably clogged with gunk after recent rains and floods) and that might explain why a tiny trickle of excess water leaks into the toilet bowl after the water stored for flushing has filled the small reservoir; but, alas, it doesn’t.

I joyfully succeed in the plumbing job. The pump behaves splendidly the system is clean and raring to go. The leakage has vanished and there is a somewhat cleaner filter in place. All seems well.

Sasha

                                                                                                    Jill Alexander

Nothing in my life has given me more joy than getting to know Sasha. She is the first grandchild from my middle son, Michael. I always knew that a grandchild would be something very special. However, what I hadn’t known was that I would be so special to her. When she was 6 months old her mother went back to work. She was a nurse specialist and worked in high- risk delivery at BC Women’s Hospital.  The job consisted of 12 -hour shifts and she needed help, so my new life with my granddaughter began. I started taking her everywhere with me and she seemed to thrive on being buckled into her car seat in the back of my car and taking off. 

Sasha developed her speaking skills early. I can remember pushing her in her stroller along Commercial Drive when she was about 9 months old.  A lady with a dog walked towards us and as they passed by Sasha exclaimed with great delight, ‘Goggie.’ After a few paces the woman turned around and came back ‘Did she say Doggie?’

‘I think she did,’ I said. That was when I realized she was ready to talk.

My life began to change in a wonderful way: that of experiencing the world with a little hand tucked into mine.  Every week was brand new.  Sometimes we would go for a picnic and afterwards we would lie on the cool grass together and look up into the sky. We would see a bird flying overhead and I would tell a story about the mother bird that had her nest in the tree above us and how the tree protected her babies from the rain. As we looked up through the shimmering leaves of the giant oak tree we were sure we saw the nest way up high. There would be imaginings about the puffy clouds and how we were lying on them and floating along in the sky. And sometimes we would just be quiet and feel the wonder of everything.

Ambleside Beach was a favourite destination on a warm day. Sasha had a bright pink bathing suit with beach shoes and a large floppy hat that matched. Often she would walk down to the water’s edge and just stand looking out onto the ocean. She would stay very still, sometimes for a long time, and I would watch her and wonder what she was thinking. She was so little and the ocean so vast. Was she experiencing the greatness of the universe in her own way?  On all occasions, Teddy came along.  He was important and was not to be left out. When I pushed her on the kiddie’s swing, Teddy had to have his own swing, the one beside her, and it was important to her that Teddy be pushed as well. When we went to the concession for ice cream Teddy always had some too and usually ended up with a very sticky chin!

Her hair began to grow into beautiful auburn curls. One day at the concession when the sun was catching her hair in a brilliant red glow a little girl exclaimed to her, ‘You have red hair. Why is your hair red?’  Sasha was quiet for a moment and then replied ‘That’s just the way I be.’

 I started taking her every year to the Christmas train in Stanley Park and this became our Christmas tradition. The second year we went was the day after she turned two. We rode the train together and she was in her magic world at the sight of all the beautiful lights. When the ride was over I suggested a hot chocolate and her eyes lit up at the idea. So together with her little hand in mine we walked away from the train and its surroundings and headed into the darkened park toward the concession. I let go of her hand for a second or two to get my wallet out of my handbag. When I reached back for her hand, it wasn’t there. She was gone. She had vanished. Fear overwhelmed me as I searched with my eyes, straining to see her in the dark night. Suddenly I saw a slight movement coming from the parked golf cart, obviously the concession owner’s mode of transportation from the parking lot on the other side of the park. I covered the short distance in an instant and there she was sitting on the seat with her hands on the wheel.  ‘I’m driving,’ she said with a big gleeful smile. With an enormous sense of relief, I vowed that I would never let go of her hand again for the rest of my life.

Another outing that Christmas was to take in the Walk to Bethlehem: a pageant put on by one of the local churches. The pageant was set up in several adjoining areas, each one depicting a progression of the Christmas story. As people moved through each area they eventually arrived at the manger scene with Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men, a few live animals, lots of straw and a very lifelike baby Jesus. This was a popular event and there were many families who came every year. For the manger scene children were permitted to sit on the floor close to the performers but behind a well-marked line. As Sasha and I walked into the room, she stood quietly for a moment taking in the scene in front of her. When she saw the baby Jesus she walked slowly and purposefully right up to the manger and put her little hands under the baby and gazed down into his eyes. The crowd went very quiet and everyone seemed to be focused on this little girl who believed in her heart that this was her rightful place. A short while later as we left hand in hand a person came up to us and said, ‘I want you to know that was a Divine moment.’

In two weeks, Sasha turns seventeen and seems to have carved out a unique place in the world. When she was thirteen, she informed her mother that she wanted to be a farmer. She joined an urban 4H club and learned how to plant a vegetable garden. I watched her exuberance as plants sprouted up and she was able to begin harvesting her vegetables. She asked if she could have a few chickens and her parents agreed. So she and her friend Sky built a chicken coop together and raised the funds to purchase three chickens. On her Christmas wish list that year she had “more chickens” as top priority. So in January we headed off to the country with a cage in the back of the car and found a farm that had baby chicks for sale. She bought seven chicks and lovingly put them in the cage and we headed home. This was my Christmas gift to her.

Last Christmas Sasha asked for a turntable and some jazz LPs. For her birthday this year I am taking her to a favourite Jazz Club to hear one of the groups that play on her favourite jazz album she has been listening to all year. 

She never misses the Christmas train in Stanley Park, an outing that I plan each year for all the family. Some members have decided they have outgrown this event. Sasha tells me she loves all the family traditions and wouldn’t want to miss the train ride and all the beautiful lights. This year I have no doubt that we will be having a hot chocolate after we ride on the train together as we have done together for the past sixteen years!

Jill Diespecker Alexander is a retired nurse and business owner and is presently writing her life story.

 jillalexander@shaw.ca

For readers who may be interested to read my Finding Drina, the Ebook may be found listed in the Amazon Kindle Store.

Please see, also, Russell Atkinson’s blog: 

www.theoldestako.wordpress.com/

With best wishes from Don at Earthrise, November 30 2012