The Earthrise Diary (December 2013)

THE EARTHRISE DIARY (December 2013)

© Text, Don Diespecker 2013 (guest writers retain their ©)

I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities…if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

        Nelson Mandela, Speech, Feb 11 1990, after his release from prison. Mandela was reiterating his words at his trial in 1964.

Yasdi also is properly in Persia; it is a good and noble city, and has a great amount of trade. They weave there, quantities of a certain silk tissue known as Yasdi, which merchants carry into many quarters to dispose of. The people are worshipers of Mohammad The holy prophet of Islam.

When you leave this city to travel further, you ride for seven days over great plains, finding harbor to receive you at three places, only. There are many fine woods [producing dates] upon the way such as one can easily ride through; and in them there is great sport to be had in hunting and hawking, there being partridges and quails and abundance of other game, so that the merchants who pass that way have plenty of diversion. There are also wild asses, handsome creatures. At the end of those seven marches over the plain you come to a fine kingdom called Kerman.

                                          The Travels of Marco Polo, transl. Henry Yule

In Recent Times

The democratic South Africa of the post-apartheid era has certainly been a surprise for many of us who grew up in South Africa during the apartheid regime. Nelson Mandela was a surprise, too. There might not be many statesmen or stateswomen who have succeeded peacefully by being forgiving. 

Way Back

In 1956 there was a hotel in Yezd that I remember with a smile. As a hotel it was a modest place and not at all in the centre of the city but was more on the outskirts and always gritty with road dust. Yezd (aka Yazd) is east of Isfahan in Iran. Splendid mountains and the Dasht-i-Lut desert lie between the city and the Afghanistan border. Anyone who is a romantic person would want to include Yezd on a journey. The reason I still think fondly of the place is that I worked there on a site investigation for a proposed larger airfield. Wiki tells us that the city is 3,000 years old and has a population exceeding 400,000 and is a centre of Zoroastrian culture. I remember particularly the big solidly constructed rooms and unforgettably a set of astonishingly high cement or concrete steps inside the building. I like to think that perhaps an architect or designer or builder might once have intended a grand staircase, but that possibility had never been realised. Instead, each one of the steps was about 2-ft or 600-mm high and beyond the capability of an aged or infirm person. The flight (if one can call it such) being also so steeply pitched that anybody proceeding from the ground floor to the floor above and the roof would need the skills of a mountaineer to arrive safely at their destination: ascending or descending The Steps was akin to climbing a ladder placed less than a metre from the wall. Access to the large flat roof was a bonus: views of the nearby mountains and the Dasht-i-Lut desert were splendid although there was no safety parapet and sitting close to the edge was always hazardous. The roof was a place for good conversations in the cool of evenings made more pleasant by tea drinking and the eating of pomegranates. However exuberant were those recreational occasions nobody fell screaming from the rooftop into the street below, at least, not during my visit. It was, however, the challenging steps that I best remember.

Curiously, when walking from the path that leads from the house to the belvedere here at Earthrise I casually stepped up to the belvedere, rather than walk up a slight incline and around the belvedere’s supporting stone wall, and I suddenly realised the obviousness of what once used to be the almost metre high wall having subtly become the relatively easy step up to the belvedere that was now a lesser wall by a good foot (or 300-mm). I still have another six months to go before I can safely say that I’ve lived here for 30 years and although I’ve been reasonably observant for most of my time here and am well aware that high floods have dumped tonnes of loam on these lower parts of the property, I hadn’t entirely appreciated that the once ‘high’ belvedere stone surround was no longer high except on the river side: the belvedere has been made significantly lower by bigger and higher floods…

Everything changes. The Diary reader (I know there are only one or two of you, possibly only one at this time, during the silly season, who actually read this Diary, or dare I say the bored Diary reader) so the coincidence of my 1956 leg stretching and my 2013 hamstring tune-up will pass almost entirely unnoticed. J Nonetheless, this simple physiological experience and the old Yezd experience gave me pause for thought. I sat in my belvedere chair and watched the river for a while and thought about floods dumping loam. The flooding last February was the second highest here (in my experience), the highest flood having come to within about 250-mm of the deck/lower floor of the house in 2001. The February 2013 floods were about a metre lower. Whenever the river floods, relatively rich loam is slowed in the torrent and caught by long grass, by plants and weeds when the flood has peaked and the level is falling. Quantities of loam that were flood-caught and held by plants will remain undisturbed sometimes for years, depending on the gardener’s enthusiasm for removing and spreading the ‘new’ soils. Much larger logs and rafts of debris settle randomly and take weeks or months to remove, but loam is always welcome. The trouble with loam here, however, is that it’s making the property higher: stonewalls appear to be less than they are because their bases have been buried; high ground becomes a little higher. Once grasses and ground covers get their roots into rich loam the loam disappears from view: it has become the invisible and little noticed base of the lawn and is more or less a permanent geographical addition to the gardens.  

The original lawn that we made and cheerfully named Big Lawn was unfortunately scoured and either largely destroyed or was buried by debris and new loam. The loam is always a gift of the river and the ‘new’ lawn that grew following the 2001 flooding contained an abundance of mixed seeds (including those of native violets). I guarantee that if the reader(s) would care to test parts of this hypothesis they need only dig a test hole or two to discover the archaeological remains of the original Big Lawn (it included store-bought lawn-grass seeds) at varying depths. Each flood leaves behind gifts: the current lawn here is a surprising mix of grasses and ground covers, none of which are the present consequences of store-bought seeds growing into lawn. That ubiquitous weed, tradescantia, though fragile, is a very efficient trap for catching and holding light debris and loam: I’ll give you an example that you can see if you care to look at the cover of my recent eBook, Happiness: the greenery atop the wall in front of the house consists largely of stinging nettles happily settled in flood loam that is now almost 200-mm deep. (I’ll include the link at the end of this Diary). One of these days I’m going to wear all the protective gear I can find and clear the loam from this wall top: there are stone pavements beneath the loam; the nettles are of the Extremely Fierce kind and their sting will hurt for at least two days… This job has been on my ‘to do’ list for, um, ah, quite some time…    

Sorry about this loamy diversion. To return briefly to Yezd: it’s a fine city, far from the madding crowd and the reader will find beautiful pictures and much more information Online. My apology for this lengthy opening: my time in Iran, long before the Revolution, will always be affectionately remembered. I was reminded of the hotel steps because much of the low-lying gardens here are now higher than ever. The house remains more or less where it’s supposed to be, but by clearing land I’ve made it easier for the floods to leave new land behind here after floods have peaked, fallen and disappeared. It’s a curious phenomenon and it may take some getting used to… 

Of Late

I’ve grabbed hastily these December days, quick chances to sit outside early in the day. The weather has been peculiarly variable, sunny and hot for hours, then suddenly cool, cloudy and showery. The garden hardly seems to know what to make of this, much less do I, unless it’s all due to global warming and climate change (and I rather think that it is). I even wince when I see someone interviewed on TV, often enough a farmer who refers to This Drought, almost as though we all are experiencing very bad or unfortunate luck. I’m more inclined than ever, in my old age, to respect the views of anybody and everybody, but our weather and our climate is being hugely influenced and unsubtly changed by global warming and consequent climate change and all of us are responsible for that (remembering that we democratically put our beloved and frequently idiot politicians into office and that they’re presently and collectively asleep at the wheel). 

There has been a surprising amount of gardening this month (all of it done by your indefatigable editor): the bank below the water storage tank still has some hefty longs marooned there; more of the Euro privet on the lower riverbank near the bridge has been cut back (privet loves pruning); barrow loads of flood debris has been wheeled to the edge of the riverside lawn and if the floods will permit, that bank may become strengthened, less undercut and more stabilised in the future; the circular garden around the old white cedar at the back of the belvedere has been cleaned and weeded and a small new circular garden now contains more of the white begonia that has grown on both sides of this passageway for nearly thirty years (I like to think that midges need these white begonia as markers for their ‘flyways’); many more of the wall stones behind the belvedere have been removed and made ready for wall building elsewhere; the Dogs’ Garden, big and circular, still needs much cleaning and removal of debris, but the stone surround has been cleared by mattock and now looks almost presentable again: some of the flood-buried dahlias have reappeared and several roses, also; and the most difficult job (not finished) is the reclamation of the dahlia garden: it was flattened by last February’s floods and its steel pickets and masses of surrounding chicken wire buried. The recovery of star pickets and tangled masses of rusting wire has been laborious but most of that is complete and I’ve rediscovered eleven dahlias that have made their re-growth and recovery without my help, pushing up carefully among the high weeds. Strong winds broke a major white cedar limb (in the group of trees near the road and the bridge). I offered it to my neighbor for possible lathe turning or perhaps as a structural support, but it wasn’t very straight and therefore not suitable, but thanks to Doug, it was cut to manageable sizes (I always store some wood for winter fires but am seldom able to keep it: because playful rises of the river and floods generally sweep the wood away to new destinations). And the lawns have been mowed for Christmas and New Year! I’ve been asked why I’ve recently spent so much of my precious time making the gardens look good. My answer is that the gardens deserve to look better than they usually do (because of their servant, this gardener) because they deserve to be themselves and to look more or less like gardens. My gardening of them is a tribute to their being what they aspire to be. In my more rational moments I like to think that a garden has a pretty good idea of what it wants to be (i.e., itself) and if I think I can see what that seems to be, I’ll do what I can when I can to help.

My earliest memories are of the family home in Victoria, BC, Canada. I started my life there in 1929, a few months before the Great Depression arrived. I often wonder now (and was never at all sure when I was a child) how we all managed to get through those Depression years in the early 1930s, yet we did. Dad liked to garden: his parents, especially Dad’s mother, Elizabeth (who died the year before I was born). I have a fading paper print of Elizabeth in s summer garden (at Adstock, Buckinghamshire) in 1907. She’s holding an infant in her arms and there are flowering plants in the background, many of which appear to be dahlias. The infant was Richard (or Dick, as he became known) and in later years he was a poet, a playwright, a journalist, a broadcaster, a soldier and also was my mentor (each of us have been enjoying the urge to write). In 1908 Elizabeth and Rudolph (aka ‘Louis’) took their five sons to the far west of Canada and that’s another story, parts of which are hair-raising and parts of which Dick has written eloquently about and I have bobbed along in his wake, adding bits and pieces of history, changing facts into fiction, searching for our heritage.

 There were gardens at Adstock House. When Cape Colonial Elizabeth Bradley met Rudolph Diespecker, in a garden in Durban in 1890, Elizabeth was living in her sister’s house, Rose Cottage, and Elizabeth was a music teacher at a splendid girls’ school; Rudolph had been a gold prospector in the Transvaal and then was an engineering contractor. When the couple married later that year, Rudolph’s Best Man was the British Consul in Lourenço Marques, Mozambique (and thereby hangs a tale). 

Some time later, when I was tottering around the family garden in Victoria BC it began to dawn on me that Dad was so keen a gardener that he regularly won prizes for his dahlias at flower shows: there were many red and blue ribbons in our house. He also grew vegetables: everything he planted grew.

Although I don’t waste my time trying to grow vegetables here at Earthrise (the wildlife loves fresh vegetables and even flowers and have been sufficiently inquisitive to have eaten and relished my flowering dahlias. I can only grow a few dahlias and some scented hybrid tea roses here if I put obstacles between the plants and the passing wallabies, nosy brush turkeys and sundry other beasties that love to dig up and destroy what I’ve so carefully planted.  The Reader will see now what I’m on about: gardens have ways of communicating themselves in compelling ways: Elizabeth’s 1907 dahlias at Adstock, my father, Durbyn’s, dahlias that he so fondly grew in British Columbia in the 1930s and later in South Africa, dahlias grown here at Earthrise between 1985 and 2013.

The floods here in February 2013 were impressively high. I’ve paid particular attention to the ‘dahlia garden’ in a sunny corner of Big Lawn. The fencing went down at night as the flood swept through the gardens from two directions, from the Deer Park across the road and from the backflow at the bend in front of the house. The garden has been overgrown and the chicken wire and steel supports have remained buried for most of the year. Now the garden is carefully being reclaimed.    

Quite Early On Warm Summer Mornings

If you visit and then join me on the belvedere (with its downstream view) be sure to wear a brimmed hat. Earthrise is on the Right Bank going downstream and there’s a deceptive-looking but sharp bend near the house. The forested slopes rise steeply here and because the higher parts of the forest are downstream the early summer sunrise takes a little longer to show itself at the skyline.

I arrange my chair and put my stuff on an adjacent chair. Then I sit and settle myself to see properly. The light is growing stronger. I want to get my posture right and my hat brim pulled suitably low against the coming glare. In the crowded air between the belvedere and the downstream view the air is busy with flying insects. They’re almost all small, tiny in fact and they hang in the invisible light river breeze that I can never quite understand because the breeze drags leisurely across the river’s surface from this bank, from the south, as it were, but the south side of this serpentine stream is densely forested. Somebody will know, but don’t say yet because I like the mystery of the movement. The surface breeze moves at a fast walk and is seen only on the surface of the water and just above it at this wonderful time of the day. Perhaps there’s a relationship between the wee flying beasties and the busy air?

The fliers seem to be made larger by the magnifying properties of the rising sun shining through them: sunrise gives them shining white auras to make them seem larger than they really are. They move leisurely in front of the belvedere as if uncertain about themselves and that’s all in my head because they’re surely moving with purpose. Most may be midges, but I can’t be sure and don’t need to know because leisurely or busily they’re as light as random snowflakes, small ones, or the light white ash that comes with wildfires. They even may look like tiny helicopters to some: if that surface breeze reaches them it has little effect: the fliers hang in the sunrise air and they move when it suits them to, not when the breeze decides. So there’s another mystery: how high does that surface breeze rise? I’m sitting probably three-and-a-bit metres above the stream and I can’t feel any breeze on my skin. In the foliage at the belvedere’s edge there are spider’s micron-thick silken strands that I think of as hunting lines (and perhaps they are, but I don’t need to know). The so-thin strands are gleaming and look thicker than they are because the air moves them in the light of the rising sun and they waver and waft as though they were each 5- or 6-mm in diameter: the light and movement make them look like thin rope and they’re probably as strong as steel, too. They flash attractively; perhaps that’s what their provider has in mind. If we were midge-sized or as small as mosquitoes wouldn’t we want to move closer, dangerously so, to investigate these strung-out brilliant phenomena? And this morning there’s also a proper-looking spider web hitched between the old bent tree fern and unseen grasses on the weedy bank. And though it’s too early for butterflies that move differently and at a different altitude, there are other small fliers, smaller than small butterflies and much larger than midges or mosquitoes, that bob, weave, tumble and whirl in this busy zone and at such speed that it takes my breath away and maybe these super-fast fliers are making mating ritual moves or are just out for a spin, tearing about in the sky like exhilarated Spitfire pilots: I don’t need to know; I want only to see them doing what they’re doing on a summer morning.

The air is also a busy medium for myriad cicadas that go like buzz saws all day and into the night. When I think about them and their dizzying noise I realise that I can hear them even when driving from here to Coffs Harbour and return: there are billions of them. As fliers the cicadas aren’t quite the magnificent cormorants and they don’t need to be: they’re big and seem slow and they cross above the river occasionally, nicely higher than the small fry cluttering the lower fly-lanes. I picked up another of their wings earlier: it was damaged and decaying on the ground under the white begonias, but when I put it in the light to dry and later compared it to another old wing the two wings looked so similar as to have been mass produced in an aircraft factory: they also are superb objects because you can see right through them and their black lacy structural components make each wing a work of art: they always look like Art Nouveau pieces or perhaps objects looking splendidly lie mysterious productions with influences from both Art Nouveau and Art Deco, at least to me: it matters not: they are each fine works, whatever they might look like.  

The sun is getting up warmly now and I move my head a few millimetres up and down so my hat brim will cut the glare. The dark brown or black river has changed in the light and is now running past looking like molten metal and the forest is showing its colours and the surface breeze has disappeared, almost. I’ve not noticed any early birds like swallows that might feed on miniature fliers and the cormorants haven’t yet flown in to demonstrate how river landings should be made. What kind of day will the tiny midges and mosquitoes have? It’s just as well that I’ve weeded and tidied the white begonia: if you follow my Midgeworld stories (caprices) you’ll know that midges need the begonias to be clearly visible because the two little gardens mark the White Begonia Flyways and the wee beasties need them to know where they are (the downstream views from 30- or 40-m above the belvedere are probably so stunning that midges may be aesthetically carried away, overcome emotionally and breezily blown away). Come to think of it, the white begonias also mark the Artists’ Quarter, the Latin Quarter of Midgeworld. Some of the midge poets, musicians and creative writers may be moodily sipping nectar in midge bars and dreaming of growing bigger wings like the arty ones that the giant cicada percussionists use...

Creative Writing

Below is Jill Alexander’s third memoir piece (the first two were published in the Diary earlier this year: “The Search” (August) and “Reunion” (September).

The Phone Call

Jill Alexander

It was Thanksgiving and, as we sat around the table, we had lots to be thankful for. It had been 20 years since my first son, Dougal, and I found each other thanks to the Adoption Reunion Registry that the Provincial Government had established. Soon after that memorable reunion I did my own search and found his birth father, Joe.  Now all of us were together at what had become our annual Thanksgiving gathering.

My daughter-in-law put forth a suggestion that we go around the table with each of us in turn saying what we were thankful for. There was gratitude expressed for our new family, for being together, for good health. When it was Joe’s turn he looked somewhat embarrassed and said he never knew what to say in situations like this. We all waited.   After a few minutes, he responded: “I’m so thankful to Jill for the phone call. If it hadn’t been for that call I don’t know what would have happened to my life.” He spoke quietly and with such feeling that we all felt the depth of his emotion.

I remembered the time 20 years before.  My newly found son and I talked at length about looking for his birth father and finally agreed that this would be a good thing. I was to go ahead with the search on my own.

It was not difficult finding the phone number. I had not thought to look in the Vancouver phone book and that we might be living in the same city now. Both of us were born, raised, and schooled in Victoria and I thought he would still be living there. However, I found a listing that I was sure must belong to him.

I sat for long stretches of time by the phone thinking about what I was going to say. I worried that he might not want to talk to me. I had conversations where I tried to tell him that I had something important to say, some good news. At other times I just sat beside the phone convinced that I would freeze when he answered. Or worse still that someone else would answer the phone. That he was married and his wife would answer and I would hang up. Next I worried that if this happened, how could I phone a second time?  I tried the approach of trying to convince myself that this call really wasn’t that important. This indecision continued for three weeks. Then one day the clouds parted and I calmly dialled the number. A man’s voice answered.

“Is this Joe?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“This is Jill.”

“Jill. MY GOD! I haven’t heard your voice in over 30 years!”

“I know. Listen, Joe I have something I would like to share with you.  Can we get together for a coffee somewhere?”

“Sure. Where?”

“How about the White Spot on Georgia, the one closest to Stanley Park?  Would tomorrow at three be OK? ” I asked?

“Yeah, that sounds OK. I’ll see you tomorrow then at three.”

I felt quite nervous as I drove to meet him the next day. The last time I had seen him was when we were both sixteen and I had told him that I thought I was pregnant. I remember his reply.

“Well, I’m going to take off for Uranium City.”

I thought this meant that he didn’t want to have anything to do with me and I had been utterly devastated. But now everything had changed and I was feeling confident about sharing my news with him.

As I drove into the parking lot I saw him standing at the entrance, waiting. I recognized him instantly.

We greeted each other with warmth but with some hesitation and made our way to a booth at the back of the restaurant.  The place was almost empty. The waitress came to take our order.  “I’ll just have a coffee,” I said.

“That’s good for me, too,” said Joe.

“Joe, we had a son! He was put up for adoption, but I’ve found him!” 

“I don’t know what to say!” he said slowly.  “I looked everywhere trying to find you but no one knew where you were.”

“My parents sent me away and told their friends that they had put me in a girl’s boarding school in another city. They did a pretty good job of creating the perfect cover-up.” I laughed as I said: “They could have got a job with the FBI!”

Then quietly I said, “I thought you weren’t interested, didn’t care.”

“No way! I think I fell apart when I couldn’t find you. I quit school and started drinking a lot. I went from bad to worse and ended up living in a room on Skid Row. I lived there for 20 years. Then one day I decided to stop drinking. Got a job on the tug boats and saved a little money. I ended up buying my own I bedroom apartment.”

“Did you marry? Have any kids?” I asked.

“No, never did. Thought I had ruined your life.” 

Then as he said “Couldn’t forgive myself for that.” He lowered his head and I sensed the despair he must have felt over the years.

Suddenly, as if realizing why we were here, his voice changed and he said, “I can’t believe I have a son! Tell me about him!”

“Well, he’s married and has two little girls two and six so you’re a grand father, too!” I exclaimed.

“I can’t believe it!”

Then quietly he said, almost to himself, “He probably wouldn’t want to see me.”

“He says he’s curious. Wants to meet up with you. I’m to give you his phone number,” I suggested.

“I don’t know what I’d say to him. I’ve never had to do anything like this in my life!”

There was a long pause before he answered, “OK, give me his number.”

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

 jillalexander@shaw.ca

About my eBooks

For those readers who browse for eBooks, here again are the first of the online books that I’ve begun self-publishing. These digital books can be found on Amazon/Kindle sites.

(a) Finding Drina is a light-hearted sequel to my two print novels (not available as eBooks) published in one volume as The Agreement and it’s sequel, Lourenço Marques. Finding Drina is written in three parts and in three different styles that also are intended homage pieces (to GG Marquez, Ernest Hemingway and Lawrence Durrell); thus this little book is also meta-fiction (novella, about 30-k words). 

(b) The Earthrise Visits is an Australian long story set at Earthrise (about 20-k words): an old psychologist meets a young literary ghost from the 1920s (his girlfriend meets her too) before a second old literary ghost, unaware of his spectral state, arrives unexpectedly.

(c) Farewelling Luis Silva is an Australian dystopian long story partly set in Australia, Portugal and France (about 23-k words). A sniper meets an Australian Prime Minister, an old lover and a celebrity journalist; three of them meet a terrorist in Lisbon where there is a bloody assassination. 

(d) The Selati Line is an early 20^th century Transvaal train story, road story, flying story, a caper and love story sequel to The Agreement and Lourenço Marques, lightly written and containing some magical realism. A scene-stealing child prodigy keeps the characters in order (novel, about 150-k words). 

(e) The Summer River is a dystopian novel (about 70-k words) set at Earthrise. A General, the déjà vu sniper, the Australian Prime Minister and the celebrity journalist witness the murder of a guerrilla who had also been an Australian university student; they discuss how best to write an appropriate book about ‘foreign invasions’ (novel, about 70-k words).

(f) The Annotated “Elizabeth.” I examine and offer likely explanations as to why my uncle published a mixed prose and verse novel in which his mother is the principal protagonist and I suggest why the book Elizabeth (published by Dick Diespecker in 1950) is a novel and not a biography, memoir or history (non-fiction, about 24-k words). 

(g) The Overview is a short Australian novel set at Earthrise (about 32-k words) and is also a sequel to The Summer River. 

(h) Scribbles from Earthrise, is an anthology of selected essays and caprice written at Earthrise (about 32-k words). Topics are: family and friends, history of the Earthrise house, the river, the forest, stream of consciousness writing and the Earthrise dogs. 

(i) Here and There is a selection of Home and Away essays (about 39-k words). (Away includes Cowichan (Vancouver Island), 1937 (my cabin-boy year), The Embassy Ball (Iran), At Brindavan (meeting Sai Baba in India). Home essays are set at Earthrise and include as topics: the Bellinger River and floods, plus some light-hearted caprices.

(j) The Agreement is a novel set in Mozambique and Natal during December 1899 and the Second Anglo-Boer War: an espionage yarn written around the historical Secret Anglo Portuguese Agreement. Louis Dorman and his brother, Jules, feature together with Drina de Camoens who helps draft the Agreement for the Portuguese Government. British, Boer spies and the Portuguese Secret Police socialize at the Estrela Café (about 62-k words).

(k) Lourenço Marques is the sequel to The Agreement. Mozambique in September 1910. The Estrela café-bar is much frequented and now provides music: Elvira Tomes returns to LM from Portugal and is troubled by an old ghost; Drina and her companion return with a new member of the family; Louis faints. Joshua becomes a marimba player. Ruth Lerner, an American journalist plans to film a fiesta and hundreds visit from the Transvaal. Drina plays piano for music lovers and plans the removal of an old business associate (novel: about 75,000 words).

(l) The Midge Toccata, a caprice (26,105 words).

(m) Happiness is a short novel set at Earthrise. The ‘narrator’ is again the very elderly ex-ATA flier who unexpectedly meets and rescues a bridge engineer requiring urgent hospitalisation: she gets him safely to hospital in his own plane. She also ‘imagines’ an extension to her own story, one about a small family living partly in the forest and on the riverbank: the theme is happiness. Principal protagonist is a 13-years old schoolgirl who seems a prodigy: she befriends a wounded Army officer and encourages his plans. Her parents are a university teacher and a retired concert pianist. The family pets can’t resist being scene-stealers in this happy family (65,390 words).

These eBooks may be seen on Amazon Kindle websites. This link will enable an examination:  Amazon.com- Don Diespecker

Cheers for Now

Having relocated the birdbath to a shady part of the belvedere and next to an old red salvia, I placed my early morning chair within a couple of metres and settled to see the river for a few minutes before completing the Diary. A small honeyeater arrived and pottered about in the fragile-looking salvia. The flower heads of the red salvia are all higher than the twigs they are set on and the bird spent some time dodging between and barging through silken (hunting?) lines and took some nectar by doing a humming bird impersonation. The he had a delicate drink from the birdbath and flew off. Nice.

Best wishes to all Diary readers and a Happy New Year, from Don.

                          

The Earthrise Diary (November 2013)

THE EARTHRISE DIARY (November, 2013)

Don Diespecker

© Text 2013 Don Diespecker; guest writers retain their ©

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina

Monologue

The editor at 132 months

It’s been quite a month: a significant number of severe storms along the coast, particularly, and on two occasions, hail. This will hardly be news for any Diary Reader in Australia because the storms have been almost continuous along most of the east coast for thousands of kilometers. Readers elsewhere will perhaps nod sagely and note that Global Warming and Climate Change are now making themselves felt everywhere on Earth. Lots of words (happily, mostly fiction) are being written at Earthrise; son Carl visited after returning from running the NYC Marathon (within hours, his brother, Nick, sent links from Ottawa that enabled our seeing static views of Carl in the race); the computer Mouse (the Mouse that prefers an Upper Case M) suffered a setback and stopped the machine in its tracks, said difficulty was sorted and a New Mouse installed. I began writing this Diary opening at a time when the river was painfully low, the ‘lawn’ dry and desperate-looking and covered with crisp brown leaves distributed by hot winds. Too much sitting at the computer writing is not good for anyone’s health, especially mine, and I’ve been averaging more than 2,000 words each day of fiction writing (and, yes, drafting a novel that grows by about 15,000 words a week is a joyful experience). Getting up and tottering about or wringing the hands or clutching the brow is also good and healthy; gardening and mowing are excellent aides during needed breaks and walking always helps. There are still decorative displays of flood debris in the gardens closest to the river and instead of wildly attacking this bizarre cleanup and finishing it (writing has priority), I apportion the cleanup jobs as being 10-minutes, 20-minutes or 30-minutes exercises and each one becomes a happy achievement rather than an onerous task. Mowing is a movement meditation. The mow always begins out in the centre of Big Lawn where the Dog’s Garden is and where Their Tree remains festooned with debris above where they sleep the Big Sleep. Mowing begins as a circular cut made wider and wider and becomes simply so much Ordinary Work that the mower becomes a tireless part of the Mow.

I begin this Diary with a description of a typical walk that coincides with the start of the storms here and the arrival of much-needed storm rain and showers.

I remember the time I went boldly out the front door and a snake was playfully hanging in my face and there were no untoward eventualities other than some hectic sidestepping and back flipping and a soaring increase to my blood pressure.  I go slowly down the new front steps, looking and listening. The local birds are singing like mad. Perhaps it’s because of the rain, the new greenness abounding, everything moving at high revs. This is the Earthrise spring in 2013: droughty and as dry as a chip one week, then Crash Bang Rain and Big Hail, the next. Even the eucalypts are splitting and shedding their barks early this year and the jacarandas too have flowered early. But it’s the birds that are significant: they sound happy, dare I say. Why else would they sing so melodiously? They’ve been doing that for days now, ever since the electrical storms and the thundery showers started. There have been such heavy showers that they broke into the ABC RN weather forecasts and even ensured their getting a mention: “a flood watch for the Bellinger River” (this famous river, this meandering jewel, this serpentine stream bending light; our river, my river). I duck my head and wander through beneath the house and as I come down the track to the lawn level I see the air busy with wee flying beasties and although I can’t be sure quite what they are, that’s unimportant. What’s important is that they’re busy, using airspace, doing their flying thing and probably happily so. To wonder whether flying insects are happily flying is perhaps not a frequent practice in the local community (I’m guessing) but I do it frequently because this is perfectly OK for storytellers and I tend to see myself these days as a teller of stories, some of them true and even newsworthy stories and some that are fictions inspired by being precisely where I am in the world. Perhaps that’s also an Old Age thing? I see too that the air is again showing many silken strands catching the light, some of them anchored, a few drifting in the heavy morning air. These silken strands as we all know have fashionably skinny diameters to be measured in microns yet the rising sun makes them appear to be more than they are. I think of the anchored ones as hunting lines: as webs trap flying insects so might single lines perhaps achieve the same result but don’t quote me because this may merely be a fanciful notion. On the other hand why else would a quite small insect make astonishingly strong silken strands that must be like steel wire cables in the Small Insect World? And it’s early enough also to see a slight river mist rising downstream in the cool wet air. When I reach the road and can see almost clearly beyond the trees and their canopies the sky is pale blue. I come quietly to the bridge. The road surface is loose with broken stones (perfectly normal up here) and no matter how lightly and carefully I walk, some vibrations apparently reach the creatures below in the river’s shallows. When I peek over the edge of the bridge a half meter long eel winds sinuously through the bank weeds on its way to cover beneath the shadow of the bridge and a few meters further along a small school of moderately sized fish, mullet I think, dart away as though my almost silent arrival has been as loud as the vibrations of a passing truck. We humans are excessively noisy. I’m reminded of stalking trout early or late in the day: there is an advantage to be had when you come up behind them because they often hang midstream in faster water: they face upstream in fast or in white water, watching for incoming food, either in the stream or in the air and where their environment is dynamic and noisy. Heavy storm showers have made the river rise quickly; and it’s starting quickly again to fall so that the concrete ford alongside and downstream of the Plain’s Crossing Bridge is reappearing, drying, encouraging the eye to move to the water alongside where very small fish (not the mullet that were of catchable size) are also darting in the shallows and they’re as alert as any trout I’ve seen in colder rivers than this one. Because I live partly in the forest the appropriate place from where I can see straight up to the sky without trees obstructing my view is the far-side (east) approach. There is clear blue sky, at least for a while. I stroll on, camera in hand, its carrying cord tight around my fingers. The storm gutters on each side of the road have bee running and partly now are filled or filling with debris from the roadside and it’s this filling up of the otherwise deep roadside ditches that enables vehicles some purchase when they have to move over to allow passage to vehicles moving in the oppose direction. I have to remember to tell you that all these minutiae are details I feel I need to come to terms with because the story I’m writing is also in parts the true story of what I am able to see when I walk along the road. When driving, the road and the roadside world are seen differently, if you see what I mean and one has to be able to appreciate both views. The driver of any vehicle must necessarily see straight ahead most of the time on this road that is barely single-lane in places and a dodgy almost-two-lanes in others; the walker can pause and then see through windowed foliage what the driver may never see: glimpses past huge clumps of bamboo, my across-the-river neighbor’s picturesque gardens in chiaroscuro light and shade, gardens at their early morning best. The walker also will be more aware or aware in a very different way of loose stones along the road (we are, up here, Beyond the Bitumen and the ‘road’ is crushed aggregate only, well pot-holed, not often graded and compacted, and seldom if ever compacted to optimum density). Here now is a real-life example of a childhood injury fitting into the current drafts of the new story I’m writing. One afternoon in 1940 or 1941 I was riding my pushbike at the side of the bitumen road in Pilgrim’s Rest (the old gold-mining village in the Transvaal). A worker on his way home from the Central Reduction Works passed me going in the opposite direction. Precisely as he passed opposite me one of his car tires caught the edge of a stone on the road and propelled it violently to strike me on the right ankle. The driver was unlikely ever to have known this, but the shock and sudden pain was intense and I’ve remembered it for more than 70 years. At the time I was amazed that there was no break and no permanent damage. That long-ago incident came in handy when I was drafting a short scene in the novel, “Happiness”: one protagonist, during a rehabilitation exercise (having been wounded in the right foot and ankle by shrapnel in Afghanistan), is pushing a bicycle (and using it as a walking frame) along Darkwood Road (i.e., in the road next to Earthrise) when the wheel and tire of a passing car flings a stone that strikes him on the ankle: he stumbles and falls heavily &c &c. I remembered well my own accident as I describe this scene in the draft. The driver in my story who had pulled out to pass the stranger is mother of the principal female protagonist in the story and she provides first aid and in ensuing scenes it becomes clear that this meeting will have been a happy one and the start of subsequent happiness between the ‘victim’ and a family that befriends the soldier; and so forth. 

On another matter entirely: a few more words about birds this November. Each time I walk along the road I see small finches alongside me hopping along the top strand of the barbed wire fence that is the boundary between Darkwood Road and the long Happenstance paddock. Perhaps this is just a coincidence; perhaps not: the little birds seem very aware of me plodding along the dusty road and it’s as if this is a game of sorts for the birds. Noticing this innocent scene also constitutes research if I mention it somewhere in the draft novel. It’s just an observation, something seen in passing that might support some of the prose I write elsewhere in a fiction. Or it might even be serendipity? Wikipedia has something to add here: Serendipity is an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident. Horace Walpole so named a faculty possessed by the heroes of a tale called The Three Princes of Serendip. Naturally I enjoy serendipitous experiences and highly value them when I’m properly aware of them.

While walking I pass the horses and the new foal in the above- mentioned paddock. The foal is getting used to me stopping and gazing, and my seeking a photo. This reminds me that I’ve written a scene set in this paddock and it now needs some repairing (rather than redrafting) because the fictional paddock has accommodated an aircraft taking off and flying out of the valley and I need to arrange to have the fictional horses elsewhere. I need hardly say that flying out of this valley from a paddock may be possible for certain pilots flying particular machines and that such an operation would be dangerous in the extreme: overhead power lines, high trees to 50-m, extremely tight turns, lots of horsepower (sorry) to climb powerfully and fast).  Why not simply exclude the horses from this fictive airfield that’s really a big paddock and so remove all difficulties, do I hear you cry? Because, dear Reader, I want the fiction to approximate the reality, if that’s at all possible. Yes, it’s a novel, a fiction, and that hardly matters; nonetheless, I feel the need to explore umpteen different bits of research to determine whether my fictional aircraft scene has veracity (and that’s all part of the fun of writing).

Having recently included in the Diary the photo of a flowering jacaranda, I’m also aware that the jacaranda is in my neighbour’s paddock, rather than at Earthrise. I might be exploiting my neighbour’s tree, paddock and the horses, so I’d better be more careful lest I’m presented with an Invoice or a Lawsuit (and what if the story is a success, sells like hotcakes and major movie companies fight for the right to make “Happiness” into a Big Motion Picture)? I’ll have to watch my step…

  Seriously, though, I’m not giving away Secrets of the Craft: it seems entirely reasonable for a writer to write what he or she knows, is familiar with to some extent and can also describe more or less competently. On my walks I take photographs, particularly of the river in its different moods and in the present story now being drafted, the river (almost) as character in the narrative plays its part, too. Believe it or not, I generally learn something new every time I walk for exercise, observe and photograph: noticing Potential Literary Stuff is often what I do; it’s part of my life.

A little more on birds: I’ve been pleasantly surprised this month by a shrike thrush that daily sings close to the house. Sometimes these grey quite large songsters potter about on the decks here hunting insects in nooks and crannies: they sing magnificently in a strong complex voice. My bird guide has considerable information, e.g., “The name “shrike-thrush,” a conjunction of the names of two dissimilar families, is not an ideal one for these birds, but until a more suitable alternative becomes popular (perhaps “gudilang” from the Aboriginal) it is preferred here to the alternative “thrush” which suggests even more strongly an untrue relationship. Shrike-thrushes, though plain in plumage, are remarkable for the richness and purity of their songs. Of particular note in tis respect is the tropical Brown-breasted (or Sandstone) Shrike-thrush, whose liquid notes are heightened by echoes among the sandstone gorges.” There is much more, but have a look Online if you’re curious. I think, and can’t be sure, that the species doing a gig here is the Grey Shrike-thrush. Its voice has a: “Wide range of melodious calls based on “pip pip pip pip ho-ee;” harsh “yorick.”  There! That’s what the book advises and it certainly rings a bell for me. (See Peter Slater’s A Field Guide To Australian Birds. Volume Two. Passerines.  Rigby: 1979).

On an oppressively stormy Sunday afternoon, November 10, I glanced up from the keyboard toward the tail end of the rapids and the rocky bank opposite the house: a big fluffy bird had a talon hooked through a silvery fish and was dragging it laboriously over the stones and away from the water. The big ball of fluffy feathers looked like a young sea eagle or osprey; the fish looked surprisingly big and was perhaps an old perch.  I grabbed the camera and craftily eased through the front door, bent over the rail along the deck and tried to get a picture but couldn’t without becoming obvious and interrupting both the bird’s meal and it’s lifestyle. The fish was a good 300-mm or a foot or so long. I couldn’t see either head or tail clearly. The bird held tightly to the fish while glancing about and only started using it’s beak to tear off mouthfuls when it was sure that nothing was about to disturb the kill. I was relieved that nobody appeared for a swim: it was baking hot and the storm was imminent. Nature red in tooth and claw and all that, it seemed. 

Creative Writing

My guest writer this month is Sharon Snir. I’ve included below an excerpt from a longer piece of writing describing Sharon’s home.

Dog Days

Sharon Snir

PK arrived as an 8-weeks old puppy and became our sixth child. For the first few years he found more ways to escape than we thought possible. No sooner had we built a new fence and closed another exit than he would find another way to roam the streets and visit his canine pals. He was our ever-loving loyal companion for fifteen years.  Deeply loved. He was my footrest for the three years I wrote my first book, The 12 Levels of Being and he allowed us to walk over and around him as if he were a breathing rug, especially in the last year or so.

 On his last night, I brought my pillow down and lay on the wooden kitchen floor beside him. His back legs could no longer raise his body. I placed a towel under his rear end because I knew he was humiliated when he could not control himself. It is painful to see a dog in shame. Arm over his old shoulder I whispered that it was time and he would be all right.

We all gathered around him in the morning and called our eldest daughter, Sheli in Israel to be part of the end. The vet, a very kind and compassionate man arrived at 8 am. Each of us thanked PK for giving us such unconditional love. We all placed out hands on him as he turned his head as if to say good-bye to each of us. Orly sat guard over his body wrapped in a pink sheet. We carried him up together, covered him and said a few words. Our three boys and Oren dug a deep hole in the back of the yard. We placed a piece of wood near him and mourned for a few years. I missed him with all my heart.

Five years later Oren and I finally agreed we would buy another dog and tiny sweet Chino arrived. He was my baby and I love him beyond words. Never in my wildest imagination could I have believed I would do with him what I am about to do.  After Daddy died we inherited Beau and after a little time of getting used to each other Chino and Beau became dear and wonderful friends.  They sleep next to each other, eat from the same bowl, walk together and with the exception of the times I allow them upstairs, where Chino lies on our bed and Beau on my meditation rug, they are together all the time.

The time has come to move on. I feel ready to leave this wonderful home but there is pain too. For Oren his need to return to Israel is obvious to those of us who know and love him. It is time to reconnect to his spirit that has patiently waited for his return to the land of his birth. We are going back for a few months to see and touch and taste and feel the healing energy of Israel. And with that decision comes the pain. Not in leaving the house or even Australia, though leaving our granddaughter for a few months will be hard, but having to find a new home for my Chino and his adopted brother Beau, my father’s beloved dog who, rescued at the eleventh hour by my sister, Donna, we inherited when Dad died.  And now: to actually hand him over to another family and say goodbye. He is an amazingly intelligent dog: wise and very chatty. We have talked telepathically since he was a baby and I have told him. He knows. He is not particularly happy about it but he understands. That does not make it any easier for me.  All I want to do is hold him, smell him and tell him I love him.  He came into my life when I was not laughing very much. Oren had retired and life was not flowing easily. I needed a dog and Chino was my fluffy angel. I called him my substitute grandchild.

In a few weeks I will leave this home and close the door for the last time. Will I turn around and shed a tear?  I’m sure I will. I’m sure I will look back and say ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’ for being our sanctuary for the past twenty-three years.

As for the future: I have no idea how it will unfold, but one thing I am sure of, it will be an adventure, a great and wonderful adventure. And I’m ready.

Sharon Snir is an author, psychotherapist and consultant living in Sydney, NSW, Australia

Sharonthru12@gmail.com

Afterword

I was completing this month’s Diary when a tree branch broke from an old tree next to the house. The crack came from high above, from one of the old eucalypts next to the front steps. The break was loud and clear and was immediately followed by a loud swishing noise: either the top or a big branch was arriving from on high, crown first. Had it fallen butt end first the heavier part might have come through the roof close to where I was working, but it had not and when I went out to have a look I knew the house and I had escaped disaster by a mere couple of meters. I separated the remains with a machete and had to cut the main portion of the branch in three places before I could drag the remnants from the area. Very heavy green branches 150-mm or so in diameter and falling from about 40-m will punch through galvanized steel sheeting as if through paper. Luck or chance here plays its part and has done for almost 30 years. Maybe I’ll be fortunate and lucky a while longer. Being able to write at all is a blessing and one’s writing capabilities benefit from good health and the writer being more or less in one piece. I always reflect solemnly and gratefully on near misses because I’m attempting to publish such writings as I can whilst the going’s good.

Another fast month begins to dwindle and summer rushes in. The weather now is atypical or dramatically new: it once was very different here in spring. I’m assuming that there will never again in our lifetimes be ‘steady, predictable and quite ordinary weather in each season.’ As much as I admire our meteorologists and their fine abilities to accurately forecast the weather, I’m hoping for even more accuracy in the future, viz, one or two minutes warnings on my computer screen that lightning strikes are imminent in the area where I live. I write this tongue in cheek, of course, but wouldn’t it be great if such a facility were available to computer drivers? This month the power has several times failed and then come on again within a couple of seconds; but a couple of times the power has remained off for the more expected extended period, once when I was drafting the story mentioned above. Scary weather is no accident and Global Warming and Climate Change are well and truly upon us. And wouldn’t it be salutary if our politicians could determinedly address these phenomena positively, rather than behaving like mad babies? Fortunately this Mac is able to save what’s being worked on (though I sometimes lose ten or 20 words I hadn’t managed to save before lightning zapped the electricity supply or infrastructure). Losing a long multi-chapter file would be a very bad experience and not at all good for one’s health. Remember how that kind of thing happened only a few years ago and happened to a variety of computers?

We can but hope.

The cicadas have been tuning up and practising their repertoires. The eucalypt barks have been splitting and clattering to ground almost all month: the shedding now seems complete and the trunks shine pristinely in the Wet. The local birds sing as beautifully as ever (whilst putting up with severe thunderstorms, lightning strikes and heavy showers). Darkwood Road and its verges continue slowly to be improved and drivers and riders daily dodge potholes and loose stones and pray for their windscreens. And everything changes; it always has and always will.   

With best wishes and Season’s Greetings to all Diary Readers wherever you may be across our stormy planet, from Don.

The Earthrise Diary (October 2013)

THE EARTHRISE DIARY (October, 2013)

© Text Don Diespecker 2013; guest writers retain their ©

Don Diespecker

Smuts was in no hurry to go and when his people suggested going, he said, ‘Not yet, we are so comfortable and there is lots of time.’ I gave him a sample of reef and a specimen or two with which he was very pleased and said he would keep as a memento of a very pleasant visit to the Diespecker Gold Mining Company and wished every success so I was glad there was no trouble or hitch of any kind. All went smoothly and pleasantly.

 Rudolph Diespecker (from a letter to Elizabeth Diespecker, August 1911).

September slips away and October begins hotly. Days of hot weather follow and the river reduces, becoming noisier whilst the level falls and the rapids become more exposed and then dry to become an ugly black stretch of broken bedrock and tumbled sharp stones from the riverbed (the river in flood is relatively quiet once it gets up high because the riverbed is the relatively deep; the forest is noisy too when the wind blows strongly. Hopping about on midstream stones and bedrock during a progressive drop in the river level is fraught with danger: the bedrock surface is often like glass at such times and a fall is likely to break bones. Also the midstream run is through a diagonal trench that I’ve seen trap a kayaker who had to be rescued…

There has been no good rain for weeks and although the bush here is dry there have been no fires (fires down south have been horrifying to see on TV).

In the midst of hot winds and blown dust here I’ve been busy writing: the new novel set locally, editing selected Letters from Earthrise (originally published in The Australian Gestalt Journal), writing endless To Do notes to myself, and many emails. My breaks outside dreamily watching the river go by are less frequent and some of this time has to be used to clear the windfall branches and twigs and to sweep away leaves to allow some clear space close to the house. Sweeping the roof in the early morning before the sun is up is also important. Living on the fringe of the forest means there is always fuel on the ground. Much of the wood discarded, like flood debris, will break down and make good firewood but there is nowhere close to the house where it might safely be stored.

Occasionally during beaks I use the time to find recent and old TSS (hastily moved during floods) and have been rewarded by rediscovering my plays and a prize-winning film script (re-reading press cuttings is fun too, but that soaks up more time).

This October has been a significant month of stress for gardens and also for big trees: deadwood and living branches break frequently and crash from on high: I’ve been impressed with the size and placement of such dangerous missiles: a significant amount of Big Bits have fallen directly on the path that winds through bracken to the belvedere: some are too big to carry and have to be axed first; the big ones also partly bury themselves and have to be hauled free, leaving holes and small craters behind.

That reminds me: the power supply this month has been interrupted far too often: sometimes by weather conditions and also by Country Energy. At least the Mac is designed to save the file when the power fails whilst I’m pecking at the keyboard. The other days lost (in terms of computer time) have been due to “Planned Interruptions” made by the supplier of electricity during which times their work crews do essential work on infrastructure (city folk may smirk, but I still prefer my rural retreat to the mean streets and varied pathologies of the Big City). We have our rural pathologies, too, of course: dust being one that comes initially from the road here. Windy clouds of dust billow from the metalled road: it hangs on trees and all foliage and settles in the grass; it also settles on the river surface, then sinks and covers the river’s bottom stones with silt: slow silt I call it because there has been practically no rain: the lower the river falls, the siltier the river becomes, particularly near the bridges. The adjoining Darkwood Road, in this area entirely lacks macadam and simultaneously annoys all drivers by breaking up and scattering surface stones (late in the month Council road machinery, signage and a road crew pass by and head upriver: they are now working at the bridge here as I write). I think of dust blowing from road to river as an unpleasant problem that starts in the upper sections of Darkwood Road simply because the road up here is not macadamised: the bitumen ends at Richardson’s Bridge (some rural roads are more ‘equal’ than others). The upper reaches of the Bellinger River that deservedly should be pristine (or as close to it as can be) are being needlessly fouled by dust as well as by surface rubbish (tyre fragments, oil, grease) washed irregularly into the river particularly at the bridges.

These are also days of early morning starts: chores, a medical procedure or two, distant shopping, IT consulting with Kerry, farewelling my old Honda and switching to a new Honda Jazz. I enjoy the early light on those upstream reaches of the Bellinger that can be seen from my bathroom (one of the best views seen from inside the house) whilst shaving. The hot shower is followed by the reality check of cold air when I step from the glass Tardis to dry and dress, then there is breakfast. I suspect that the cold air has something to do with the lack of ceiling upstairs at this end of the house; perhaps there’s a part of me that is Scandinavian and craves sauna-like situations. There are occasionally days when I have to have blood taken (a medical check) so breakfast is preceded by a big intake of Much Water; similarly, other days, once a month, when chelation therapy beckons: being well hydrated is important (that means water, by the way, not tea or coffee). Smartly I grab my bag of Don Stuff and head for the old car and one of our last rides together. There is a dry snakeskin hanging from the cheese tree near the front steps, more than a metre of it swinging in the hot air. I can’t see well enough what species might have left its old unwanted covering behind. Rough bark and a forked branch are good for power-shedding old skins (for snakes, I mean). 

Today is a blood day. I leave Earthrise with the sun lighting the top branches of the big trees and with the sounds of birds warming to their various songs. After I’ve left and the sun appears over the river there will be river light to see, but I’ll be elsewhere, driving. River-light is like yellow green fire: it flickers beautifully in green foliage on the banks because the suns rays are bouncing from the rippled or undulating surface of the water before projecting through the trees. Early mornings late this month are again cool to cold following the worst of times during the unprecedented fires further south in NSW.

Do we completely understand why early birds start the day with singing? Can there be reasons for their singing we don’t yet know of or understand? I know from listening to ABC RN programs that the butcherbird learns repertoires, songs that several birds will sing parts of in turn, each at some distance from the other singer. Is that not amazing?

 I get to Bellingen in one piece and am so well hydrated the swishing seems to slow my walking. It’s cold out of the car and all because we’re now on daylight saving time here and the morning has begun an hour earlier than usual. Blood comes more easily from the newly holed vein and quickly fills the little tube. The first job is ticked off. I’m on my way again: I remember the nurse saying, ‘Water makes all the difference.’ If you’re aged, the plumbing will have become difficult to correctly and appropriately get a needle or canula into. I zoom along to Fullers and fill up with fuel (the car, I mean) and head for the highway whilst listening to Breakfast on ABC Radio National. I like my news and current affairs served up by intelligent journos who not only can write decent copy, they can articulate the stories On Air. I’m not exactly alone in this liking but so many others listen to commercial radio stations, some of which broadcast news that is sensational (the usual violence of umpteen kinds, the ‘human interest’ stories, a surfeit of pop music at every possible opportunity to fill in otherwise unpaid-for so-called dead air. Onward to The Highway and Coffs Harbour and the morning traffic which is fast becoming like Big City Traffic.

I peel off, so to say, and come to rest in a parking place near the Honda Agency where I meet John and we finalise the agreement. Much of this little meeting entails Paper Work and Signing and even a telephone call to the Insurer. I look, listen and learn. And I think sadly on Old Honda parked nearby on the warming spring morning. She begins to take on mythic proportions; she is a she, like other fondly remembered experiences and items that aren’t quite people or friends or lovers; she has safely carried me through all weathers and I feel myself a sad traitor to her now: that feeling is certainly not akin to the end of a human relationship for whatever reason, yet it also is somewhat like losing someone from a relationship: there are similarities. And more gently I move away from that summery street in Coffs Harbour to rejoin the morning traffic and to stop at the surgery along the way and collect yet another script, then forward to the car and another launching into the thickening traffic until I sweep finally into the shadowy and almost cold parking station at Park Beach Plaza. Next is the Post Office, followed by a grand tour of the supermarket where I select an ill-chosen trolley made noisy by some fiendish wretch (or wretches) who has ruined the wheels, probably to replace plaything wheels on some unseen, unknown hobby or pastime vehicle requiring half decent supermarket trolley wheel replacements. Then the return to Bellingen, the PO, and having the prescription filled at the pharmacy. Rituals. The heat is excessive for spring: it bounces and surrounds one in the city and streets. There are slowdowns going through the cutting and a red traffic light along Waterfall Way. I keep to the speed limit. There’s an off-road monster with its lights on behind me that I’m sure wants to be Out Front and More Dominant but resists rushing past because he, she or it will be breaking the speed limit, the one I’m correctly driving at… Am I passive aggressive? Not really, but maybe just a little when illegally urged by an impatient driver.  

The next time I go to Coffs Harbour I’m the new owner of the new car, my fourth Honda: it is only the second time in my 1,013 months that I’ve purchased a new car. This Jazz model has so quiet an engine that I can’t hear it at all when I stop at traffic lights: it’s weirdly silent and I’m inclined to think more often than not, that the engine has died on me… This car has so many controls, knobs, buttons (electric windows!), switches that I need an engineer and translator to unpack the meanings in the manual (the fat manual resides in a fat wallet together with innumerable other booklets and papers). I have the fantasy that when I walk from house to car I am accompanied by a ghostly co-pilot and engineer, and that I am carrying an enormous attaché case of Codes, Ciphers and Authenticating Procedures. The new Honda has umpteen airbags ready to be deployed at the slightest bang or bump. I will be glad of them one day, but I’m very afraid I may trigger them all to deploy simultaneously when trying to engage fore and aft windscreen wipers or if I should accidentally press the wrong button seeking ABC FM Fine Music. Perhaps I need days of instruction from a specialist teacher? I dimly remember that my father once drove a late 1920s Model A Ford in the early Thirties in Victoria, BC when there seemed to be a short lever on or near the steering wheel that was the throttle (prior to those times when the foot accelerator became standard). And I very clearly remember that the last car Dad owned in Canada was a Graham-Paige, a quite big and old saloon c 1928 or 1929 and that it was a grand automobile for summer holidays: I still have a c 1935 photo that shows my mother and I at our campfire and the Graham-Paige near the family tent in the background. Cars in those distant times also had running boards and the spare wheel was also outside the vehicle. Some running boards also accommodated a small cage for the family dog (my first dog, Wolf, a larrikin Alsatian insisted on riding with my sister, Deirdre, and I in the back seat. Long, long ago. 

Now it’s the last week of October and I’m looking through the window at the breakfast-time river, thinking again while seeing that magical river light. It’s early on Saturday morning and I’m replete with coffee and eggs and toast. Coffee is now a Saturday Morning Only New Rule, recently self-imposed. I stand thoughtfully at the window. The announcer on ABC RN is speaking about the concert pianist, David Helfgott (regularly seen chatting with friends and fans in Bellingen). Geraldine says he’s playing better than ever. She mentions the Oscar-winning movie Shine (Helfgott played by Rush), the film that celebrates his career. Shine is the word: I’m looking at the river sparkling and shining. And I see the river light again in the old cheese trees down on the Right Bank. If flickers, it glows, it’s almost impossible for strangers or visitors to see it because they aren’t expecting to have to focus differently. There are no strangers that I’m aware of at the moment. My eyes know where to see the pale fire of the river light: it fluctuates movingly in and across the tree’s foliage. Downstream (adjust focus, please) a couple of fish jump in air, not big fish at all: quite small ones. And there’s a suspiciously platypus-looking swirl closer to the bank.

I continue sipping coffee, thoughtfully. The view is like a movie for me: its sparkling and flashing provokes many disparate thoughts: from the radio news: Malala, the Pakistani schoolgirl recovering from an assassin’s bullet to the head has come close, also, to almost winning the Nobel Peace Prize. There is more sectarian violence in Iraq. Boat people. Illegal immigrants. Would-be migrants in leaky boats have drowned off Lampedusa. Wikileaks. Drive-by shootings. And crimes against children continue. Surveillance. Hacking. Corporate crime. Spies.

And there’s such a crowd of us now, of humans on the planet. I think foolishly of the Roger Ramjet cartoons: Roger, who could be relied upon to make everything nice again.

Creative Writing

Spies remind me of a photo in an old Boer War history, After Pretoria: The Guerrilla War. The Supplement to “With the Flag to Pretoria.” By HW Wilson (1902). P 702. (The Public Library of NSW owns a copy). The photo caption is: Willowmore’s Defensive Preparations: The Telephone Section of the Town Guard with their Field Apparatus. There are more than twenty men in this picture: all except one are looking at the camera. The officer wearing a black arm band (marking Queen Victoria’s death, January 22 1901) is looking elsewhere and is very obviously doing so; he is the Commandant of Willowmore and of Steytlerville and also The Special Intelligence Officer, as he is described (very intentionally) in local Cape newspapers of the day: he is my late grandfather, Capt RS Diespecker (not identified in the photo). Rudolph was a British Field Intelligence Officer who had learned his craft in Mozambique, earlier in the Boer War: that’s another story, too, and you can read my fictionalised version (generously based on historical fact) in my eBook novel, The Agreement). The Guerrilla War story has also been written (“Opsaal!”) and will be published as an eBook if I can keep up the pace.

When I was researching the Anglo Portuguese Secret Agreement (1899) and the related history of the region, all central to my novel, I realised that agents of President Kruger’s (South African Republic) secret service (De Geheime Dienst), the British Secret Service and the Portuguese Police (and probably, too, the Portuguese Secret Police) were frequently in the same place at the same time (in the old Lourenço Marques, the then capital of Mozambique). I’ve always thought that odd: it was as if Portugal had declared neutrality so that Portugal (particularly her huge province, Mozambique) would seem to be decidedly neutral. Even more oddly, the British Government had bullied their oldest ally (Portugal) into not declaring neutrality in the event that there would be a war between the two Boer Republics and Great Britain. The British in Mozambique interdicted state of the art weapons that were being shipped through Mozambique and imported into the Transvaal with the permission of the Portuguese, (A friendly relationship existed between the SA Republic and Portugal). British interdiction of armaments and weapons destined for the Boer Republics were directed from the Lourenço Marques British Consulate-General. Those operations were the responsibility of a retired Royal Navy officer. No doubt there were good times shared by friends and enemies dining and wining in the bars and cafés of Lourenço Marques. I couldn’t resist writing fictional stories around those times and some of the events because truth is so much stranger than fiction. 

The Cape Colony legal expert who earlier reorganized De Geheime Dienst for President Paul Kruger was Jan Christiaan Smuts, a Fighting General (one actively leading commandos) in the ensuing Second Anglo Boer War and later Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa. He was also the philosopher who whose book, Holism and Evolution played s significant role in the development of the modern psychotherapy, Gestalt Therapy; and he died a (British) Field Marshal in 1950, having also contributed to the organization of both the League of Nations and the United Nations. Smuts and my grandfather met in Pilgrim’s Rest in 1911 following the last phase of the Boer war (the Guerrilla War in Cape Colony). Rudolph Diespecker had a special mission in the Cape. Jan Smuts had been a Fighting General and a Commando leader in the Cape at that time. In 1911 the two men, no longer enemies, enjoyed a friendly discussion. Jan Smuts was the only person to have signed both peace settlements reached at the end of WW1 and WW11.

Why am I discoursing on Boer War espionage here? Why not? Some of my writings are research-based Boer War narratives. All written histories may engender further narratives: nonfiction articles and books, novels, movies, documentaries and plays. And when I make time and take a break to sit dreamily in my garden, much of what I see inspires imagination to meet with my patient muses: flying insects on windy days are an amazing sight if you’re focused (see, e.g., my The Midge Toccata) and so do ants climbing big trees (see my “Lightly Flying” in Turning The Page. Coffs Harbour Writing Group (2006).

When recently I wrote of observations made at a Coffs Harbour Muffin Break café, (see recent Diary pieces, e.g., “Don’s Day Out”) I also speculated about the identities of some who so busily were at the café and concentrating on using their mobile phones. Were they ordinary people chatting about shopping, extraordinary persons who are thinkers, scientists, artists and writers, punters, the captains of industry, assassins, or spies? Eating a gluten free muffin and moodily sipping coffee in a café is a choice. I don’t have to be a spy in that milieu, being a shopper taking a break enables my also being a diarist, a novelist, or anonymous citizen idly seeing the crowd. Now think three sets of spies appearing in public in Lourenço Marques in 1899, telephone users (and at least one spy) in Cape Colony 1901, and telephone users in a Coffs Harbour café in 2013: there may be similarities and parallels. Some Coffs Harbour patrons sit quietly at the Muffin Break café and may even read a book; some are enjoying meeting with friends; and some use their mobile phones, intensively. I wonder what’s going on when the mobile seems at least as important as the refreshments?

I mentioned this to my friend, David. Below, Dr David Tuffley discusses some of the reasons why busy mobile users may sometimes be seen at cafés.     

Free Internet For The Masses

David Tuffley

With SmartPhones and Tablet computers (like iPads) being so inexpensive in 2013, almost everyone who wants one can have one. But there is a trap: the telcos still charge high prices for mobile Internet access. 

More and more businesses, particularly fast food and coffee shops, are offering free Internet access via WiFi to their customers as a way of getting them through the door and keeping them there for longer. There is a clear benefit for the business because it costs them a lot less for their wired Internet access than the extra business brings in. 

Towns and cities hoping to attract tourists are also offering free WiFi in their signature spaces. In Brisbane, for example, you can access free WiFi in the Queen Street Mall and Botanic Gardens. There is a fairly modest limit on how much data you can download, so you can't watch endless YouTube videos, but it’s plenty for most purposes.  

So what is the shape of things to come? Well, it’s going to become more and more pervasive. If we look at San Francisco, we see that WiFi is more or less available across the city. Companies like Google are trialing new technologies there that rely on constant access to the Internet that guide you about and tell you what is interesting in the place you happen to be. The trend is spreading to other urban areas around the world. 

The next generation of SmartPhone can be housed in a heads-up display like Google Glass, a pair of glasses that work like ordinary optometric glasses, but which have a tiny video display projected onto them that only the wearer can see. You could be walking down Market Street in downtown San Francisco and it tells you that there is a highly rated Mexican restaurant nearby. It tells you that because it already knows you like Mexican food and it is close to lunchtime. 

For some, this is way too much information, too scary, too privacy invading. For others it is a step closer to techno-utopia. It’s ok though. It is all consumer-driven, so no one is going to make you do anything you don't want to do. 

So: when next you are enjoying a nice cup of coffee take a look around you. Quite a few people will have their attention locked onto their mobile computers, using the free WiFi to check their email, read the newspaper, scan the latest stock prices or plan their next holiday. You can choose to notice the richness of the sights and sounds all around you. Or you can slip into cyber-space and find diversion in the millions of interesting things that exist just a click away. This is the modern dilemma. 

Dr David Tuffley is a lecturer in Socio-Technical studies at Griffith University's School of ICT in Brisbane.

 d.tuffley@griffith.edu.au

A Postcard from Rajasthan

                                                                                                Sharon Snir

Time arrived and I took advantage of her. Here I am surrounded by hills on all sides. I’m in this gorgeous valley called Lebua. We have been staying in a tent for three nights. It’s a huge five-star tent with bathroom, a sunken bath and God help me, even a TV.  One cannot hear the traffic and that’s such a strange experience here in Jaipur as there is so much of it. The traffic looks like a combination of safari, circus, city and village. It’s common to pass ten elephants retiring after a busy day carrying tourists up the steep hill to the Amber Fort. Between the elephants there may be any combination of tuk-tuks (auto rickshaws), their drivers and passengers, Mercedes Benz cars, tourist and local busses (with twenty Locals hanging on to the sides because there is no more room inside), thousands of motorbikes with women riding side-saddle carrying tiny babies and one to three children squeezed between the mother, and in front of the father holding the handle bars of the bike, and smiling...

There are open trucks too with children sitting in the back, feet dangling perilously close to the exhaust, breathing in the black fumes to no-one’s concern but mine. And there is of course the occasional Toyota, Tata and bath tub (motorized with a lawn mower motor) joining the throng of beeping horns and near misses as millions of people miraculously amble through it all, without injury or concern.

I have been writing. My day in Varanasi (once Benares) was so extraordinary I can say without any hesitation that we were carried, guided, gifted, whatever the right words are for a journey of spiritual synchronicity. I want to write a novella about this and how it all came to be. My late father has played a role in it, I know. After all, it is because of him that I am here at this time: celebrating his life and acknowledging one year since his passing. 

I almost forgot to mention that there are more cows here than ever before and lots and lots of pigs. Oren swears never to eat one again. And goats! The festival of killing and eating a goat draws near, thus flocks of goats are everywhere.

Sharon Snir is a Sydney NSW, teacher, author and psychotherapist.

sharonthru12@optusnet.com.au

Oct 24 2013. Thursday. Thursday. The cool change has dropped the temperature nearly ten degrees since yesterday. The river is dappling in a light breeze and the sky looks stormy again. Yesterday there was a thunderstorm and some thundery showers in the afternoon. Stronger winds earlier brought down more twigs, branches and leaves like brown rain. I live in the forest, after all. Falling leaves and timber never stop even in still air. I see another big branch on the path to the belvedere (yet again): it’s gouged another hole, was hefty enough to have erased me. Flying ants arose after the showers; the air was ready for their hatching. There followed furious flight activity just above the lounge room roof as seen from upstairs. What does this mean, I wonder? My head is still whirring from too many hours at the Mac. 

Oct 29 2013. Tuesday. Blankety blank! It’s surprisingly warm in the early morning. Stormy weather is predicted. The morning walk is almost hot at 07:15. I totter down the dusty and stony road (the roller, the grader and a front-end loader have left the site). Away from the bridge and further along the road the surface is littered with dislodged stones and all our windscreens are again at risk. I ready the camera whilst walking because the foal and a couple of mares are close to the fence. I come to a sudden stop and take a picture before the mares glare close protectively around the little one, but I have my picture.

For the record: the Council road crew (plus machines) have been sculpting the banks at the east side of the bridge. What was almost a 4-WD descent from Darkwood Road close to the concrete approach to the ‘beach’ on that side (much used by locals and others for car parking, picnics and sometimes camping) now has a grand sweeping wide access and looks like a splendid car park. It will be used excessively, I imagine. Loose sandy spoil from this work now lies next to the concrete approach and on the downstream side of the concrete. Those who use the bigger beach opposite my house plunge down as if descending a sand dune. I hope no vehicle does the same: it will have difficulty in returning to the road. I mention this because it so often rains immediately after the Council road guys repair the road…and I’m sure it will rain today.

A storm is brewing. I see the hot wind blowing clouds of dust. About noon I take a break and wander through the dry garden but the wind is getting up and the big trees are swaying and bending like huge fly-casting rods. It’s not safe anywhere near the belvedere. I have a quick walk over the bridge and down onto the upstream beach: dust and silt lie in the big tyre tracks made by the Council machines. River water has run into the tracks to make strange little billabongs. The dust has settled in the tracks and become silt. Tadpoles swim in from the river. I select a few small stones to use to repair the garden wall behind the belvedere, damaged in the February flood, and hurry back. The big brush box trees between the house and the carport are creaking and groaning. One of the big three trees there has been dead for years; each of the three leans toward the carport. I have a bad feeling about this. I go inside and start switching off the computer, disconnecting the phones, pulling plugs, closing windows. Branches are flying now, big ones bouncing and battering the roof and blowing leaves away then blowing and further distributing more leaves over the steel roofing. The storm breaks. Within ten minutes the electricity here fails and the power is off from a bit after 13:00 to about 18:35. Two storms visited here this afternoon with clear blue sky in between.

I switch everything on again in the early evening and write on for a while longer, and so to bed.

Finally: remembered events and scenes this month. 

The weeping coral tree next to the belvedere was almost destroyed in last February’s flood: limbs were torn off and flood debris hung in the remains for months providing a screen of privacy between the sunnier parts of the lawn in winter and visitors on the beach across the river. After pruning and cleaning the tree has new branches and green leaves and the first of the seasons sprays of flowers. Viva the indestructible weeping coral tree!

I heard a radio program about leaves, particularly eucalyptus leaves: they don’t easily break down and disintegrate: they’re unusually tough and seem designed to remain hard and whole for long periods. I’ve been raking them for exercise: they are as tough as old boots and show little sign of decomposing, even when rained on, even when dried crisply on hot days.

I’m hoping to encourage the country life for the new car. When next I drove to Coffs, I took the Honda into the big parking station next to Woolworths and left her at the second level in line with the green trees in the Mall (beneath which sit many coffee drinkers texting and phoning). I revisit Muffin Break. It’s very different here at 09:00. Where do the 08:00 mobile phone persons go, other than to work?

I remember a childhood interest and stand watching small black ants ascending to heaven or thereabouts: they take food scraps from ground level and walk straight up the great trunk of an old Flooded Gum. Though I can’t see their destination my inner romantic imagines them going all the way to the top (about 50-m) where they perhaps have one of the best downstream views of the Bellinger slipping past Earthrise. I wonder, do small black ants dream of the river and tell each other stories of adventure?

About my eBooks

For those readers who browse for eBooks, here again are the first of the online books that I’ve begun self-publishing. These digital books can be found on Amazon/Kindle sites.

(a) Finding Drina is a light-hearted sequel to my two print novels (not available as eBooks) published in one volume as The Agreement and it’s sequel, Lourenço Marques. Finding Drina is written in three parts and in three different styles that also are intended homage pieces (to GG Marquez, Ernest Hemingway and Lawrence Durrell); thus this little book is also meta-fiction (novella, about 30-k words). 

(b) The Earthrise Visits is an Australian long story set at Earthrise (about 20-k words): an old psychologist meets a young literary ghost from the 1920s (his girlfriend meets her too) before a second old literary ghost, unaware of his spectral state, arrives unexpectedly.

(c) Farewelling Luis Silva is an Australian dystopian long story partly set in Australia, Portugal and France (about 23-k words). A sniper meets an Australian Prime Minister, an old lover and a celebrity journalist; three of them meet a terrorist in Lisbon where there is a bloody assassination. 

(d) The Selati Line is an early 20^th century Transvaal train story, road story, flying story, a caper and love story sequel to The Agreement and Lourenço Marques, lightly written and containing some magical realism. A scene-stealing child prodigy keeps the characters in order (novel, about 150-k words). 

(e) The Summer River is a dystopian novel (about 70-k words) set at Earthrise. A General, the déjà vu sniper, the Australian Prime Minister and the celebrity journalist witness the murder of a guerrilla who had also been an Australian university student; they discuss how best to write an appropriate book about ‘foreign invasions’ (novel, about 70-k words).

(f) The Annotated “Elizabeth.” I examine and offer likely explanations as to why my uncle published a mixed prose and verse novel in which his mother is the principal protagonist and I suggest why the book Elizabeth (published by Dick Diespecker in 1950) is a novel and not a biography, memoir or history (non-fiction, about 24-k words). 

(g) The Overview is an Australian novella set at Earthrise (about 32-k words) and is also a sequel to The Summer River. 

(h) Scribbles from Earthrise is an anthology of selected essays and caprice written at Earthrise (about 32-k words). Topics are: family and friends, history of the Earthrise house, the river, the forest, stream of consciousness writing and the Earthrise dogs. 

(i) Here and There is a selection of Home and Away essays (about 39-k words). (Away includes Cowichan (Vancouver Island), 1937 (my cabin-boy year), The Embassy Ball (Iran), At Brindavan (Sai Baba in India). Home essays are set at Earthrise and include as topics: the Bellinger River and floods, plus some light-hearted caprices.

(j) The Agreement is a novel set in Mozambique and Natal during December 1899 and the Second Anglo-Boer War: an espionage yarn written around the historical Secret Anglo Portuguese Agreement. Louis Dorman and his brother, Jules, feature together with Drina de Camoens who helps draft the Agreement for the Portuguese Government. British, Boer spies and the Portuguese Secret Police socialize at the Estrela Café (about 62-k words).

(k) Lourenço Marques is the sequel to The Agreement. Mozambique in September 1910. The Estrela café-bar is much frequented and now provides music: Elvira Tomes returns to LM from Portugal and is troubled by an old ghost; Drina and her companion return with a new member of the family; Louis faints. Joshua becomes a marimba player. Ruth Lerner, an American journalist plans to film a fiesta and hundreds visit from the Transvaal. Drina plays piano for music lovers and plans the removal of an old business associate (novel: about 75,000 words).

(l) The Midge Toccata is a caprice: a little collection of stories about very little taking insects, the midges at Local Sector 1655 (aka Earthrise). These tales are tongue in cheek fables as well as homage yarns inspired by Lewis Carroll and intended largely for readers of all ages who enjoy literature, particularly literary fiction (about 26-k words). 

A special thank you to my guest writers, David and Sharon.

Best wishes to all, from Don.