THE EARTHRISE DIARY (March 2014)

THE EARTHRISE DIARY (March 2014)

Don Diespecker

Though long spoken of as a subcategory of the essay, the personal essay has rarely been isolated and studied as such. It should certainly be celebrated, because it is one of the most approachable and diverting types of literature we possess.

The hallmark of the personal essay is its intimacy. The writer seems to be speaking directly into your ear, confiding everything from gossip to wisdom. Through sharing thoughts, memories, desires, complaints, and whimsies, the personal essayist sets up a personal relationship with the reader, a dialogue—a friendship, if you will, based on identification, understanding, testiness, and companionship.

Phillip Lopate: The Art of the Personal Essay

Sickling a field full of corn is unbelievably tedious. A scythe used by a skilled man will cut two acres in a day, and if you can fit a cradle to it, it will dump the cut corn in sheaf-sized piles.

John Seymour: The Complete Book of Self-sufficiency

They moved slowly along the uneven lower edge of the meadow, where the old dam was. Levin recognized some of his people. There was old Yermil in a very long white shirt, bent over and swinging his scythe; there was the young lad Vaska, Levin’s former coachman, taking each swath at one swing. There was also Titus, Levin’s tutor in mowing, a small, skinny muzhik. He walked straight ahead without bending, as if playing with his scythe, cutting down his wide swath.

Levin got off his horse, tethered by the road, and met Titus, who took a second scythe from a bush and handed it over.

‘It’s ready, master; like a razor, mows by itself,’ said Titus, doffing his hat with a smile and handing him the scythe.

Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina

(Transl. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky)

But First, The Interior Monologue!

An unusual month perhaps because summer lingered and I had no problems with that: there were locals and non-locals turning up often for a swim in the downriver stretch and clothed fishers quite close to the pool, an occasional unhurried one inching through in a kayak, rod in hand. And not forgetting spellbound fishers in ones and twos fixedly fishing directly opposite where the rapids run to the pool and I mention those particularly because they seem unable to resist seeing the house, seeing me at the smoking keyboard, seeing me seeing them seeing me, frowningly. No matter. Perhaps I’ll get a mention in each of their diaries (“And there I was just dropped the line in the water and there was this green house suddenly looming and a light on and some weird-looking person glancing down at me, presumably: so somebody seemingly lives there!”) (“Could be a Mad Scientist?”) (“Nah, he looked local, you know, odd.”). We used to call it the Champagne Pool I remember, all those bubbles in your face when you open your eyes but that was long ago. The river’s doing nicely from the on/off showers: some showers were long and heavy, others not, but nothing suggesting flood or even a big rise; just as well. Upper air disturbance mingles with troughs in this region; they come and go and when they don’t the weather’s fine and just like summer: warm, balmy, often humidly hot and those big fluffy clouds moving across a sky that’s achingly blue and clear. Like summer. Cumulonimbus some of them I’ll bet rising thousands of meters. Like castles in the air. Epic cloud forms. Get’s the imagination going. Can’t get enough now that it’s rainy again, enough Indian summer I mean and now it may be gone till spring. Rainy weather lowers the spirit if you watch too long. Similarly so with the river rising. There’s white water at the rapids right the way across between banks. Oh for a warm dry day to do my laundry, mow the lawn’s scraggy bits, recover more stones from my walled dump and without clogging my boot’s soles. A quick look out through the circular window over my left shoulder and I see scattered on the grass a goodly number of the big orange Spathodea campanulata flowers, each bloom as big as a teacup, each one with a rim of gold: the mass of flowers look depressingly Over and Done with. A couple of days ago in sunny weather I watched the yellowing leaves of the white cedar trees falling in timely gusts and all swirling down together. These trees know what they’re doing: they let leaves go in bunches or packets: see for yourself when next you watch leaves in mid-flight falls. When I glance out now just to be sure I’m where I think I am I see there’s hazy sun and the rapids fully white losing their noise and non-rapids water gray-looking like molten metal except by the flood-draining outlet next to the belvedere wall: the bright bunches of yellow cassia flowering on that tree broken yet again by the floods last year and still determinedly flowering: can even see myself, imagine myself standing next to that brightness with the camera and taking a selfie, something I’ve never done which reminds me that Tracey took a bunch of pics with her phone when Bru and I and the fine little rough-haired Meg were mingled chatting then sent them to my phone good grief all those phone towers working in our favour to get a swag of pictures from one phone to another all those umpteen k’s through air and the final three meters between we three phone-accoutred humans and the Jack Russell on the belvedere. Hey! I know! I’ll include a Belvedere Piece in the Diary! What if nobody likes it? It’s too long for a scanning glance. I know not. Maybe the reader can skip if she doesn’t like personal essays? I’ll take a chance. Will readers write Letters to the Editor complaining? So long as the reader (there may even be two or three) doesn’t ask me what certain words mean. Reminds me: I saw a book blurb advertised (must get a copy)—about a Tassie stonewall and the question posed: ‘Did you know the drainage hole at the bottom is called a smoot?’ No, I didn’t although I’ve come across that word previously I can’t find it either in my battery of dictionaries or via Google. If somebody knows please say (especially if you’re reading this plea): etymology is all. It’s been so wet recently. I remember speaking on the satellite phone after that big flood years ago and how tinny voices sounded and the gap between words (“It’s Don. Over”) (“Hi Don. Over”) sigh. Umpteen k’s up go the signals to a satellite swirling at speed, then down they come to receivers: such a long way for voices to carry. It’s been so wet these past two days I’ve avoided digging stored stones from the wall-shaped stone dump under the cheese trees; always such good exercise to barrow-load poorly shaped stones to the river lawn next to and beneath the cassia if only to save the bank there from undercutting in floods. There will be a bonus because with the stones moved (the best will go to the roadside boundary as walling that might deter big rises and low flooding and stop a log or two from rampaging through the gardens. Hang on: some reality testing here, scribbler: the upstream Big Ones cut across the deer park, sweep over what we still call Darkwood Road as if it were not there at all and rage into the gardens leaving Big Lawn two to three meters under. It’s an ill wind &c because the flood debris and loam that crunched and buried the dahlias paradoxically also protected them: they’ve had a long sleep and although undivided some managed to push determined leafy stems to the surface again and then beyond (sending me urgent messages to GET DOWN HERE NOW, prop us and tie us if you want to see what else we can do! So I did and they’ve been putting out brilliant late season flowers: Mrs Rees in crimson glory, a big pale blue that first was given me years ago and smaller purple ones I’ve had for a decade or so, climbing out of the Dogs’ Garden flood debris like green miracles and then blooming with occasional white petals: not quite the late season prize-winners my father used to grow, each lovingly tied to its stake but surprisingly splendid, nonetheless. Ah those most recent best days here now and I began rebuilding the battered river wall close to the bridge: very satisfying and it’s standing nearly two metres again. Prior to the rain last Friday, 21^st the storage tank needed topping up, really rather more than topping because following another power failure the taps no longer produced the desired flow and there was not water enough in the pipeline from tank to house so the little electric reticulation pump under the house was reluctant to pump. I’d planned to pump within days but wasn’t quick enough. Peter arrived to do more renovating/restoring and confirmed imminent pumping was required. I lugged the fire-fighting pump down to the barrow, set it on the river lawn riverbank, then opened the tank, dragged my water-filled line into place, connected, and was jiggling (if that be the word) the intake line (that’s the big one with the foot valve attached) but it was scarcely half-filled and also I’d placed the foot valve apparently in mud that I couldn’t see from the top of the unstable bank—when suddenly a voice called my name. Sharply I looked up into the fluffy clouds and partly blue sky but saw not the speaker for he was passing by swimmingly midstream. My neighbour, Doug, obligingly swam over and checked below water the foot valve: it required repositioning from sticky mud to a better position allowing me further priming by jiggling. The pipe got heavier as the non-return valve favourably did its thing. Leaning hard on the almost full line hanging over the steep bank (not quite the North Face of the Eiger, but getting there) I completed the connection to the pump. The line topped up from the pump, the lines happily connected, the pump started with one pull but was labouring to lift water to the height of the pump when Peter arrived, his ears having advised that the pump choke was now no longer needed (your editor was waiting for the motor to warm before dismissing the service of the choke but Peter’s advice was that it was warm enough and that the pump would better oblige were the choke closed. And lo: it was so! Full throttle and the intake reached the pump happily and the good river squeezed itself through, climbed the further track and finally leaped gushingly into storage. Picture the scene: three men on the river, (one of them in it), the second (yours truly) about four meters higher atop the Eiger (my artificially extended bank and lawn) and the third arriving from afar (the house), already attuned to the not-quite-perfect-as-yet growl from the pump’s motor and the tank filling following the serendipitous involvement of three locals, each known to the others and all of us present at the right time on the right day. The motor part of the pump I can hear clearly from the house so that I know when the motor needs more fuel (usually when the cheery growl of the pump stops). The next tank topping-up will be from a different location so as to avoid the steepness of the Eiger: my bet is that closer to the flood-draining gap (now a dry pathway between walls) will be a better route for the output line because the water’s climb to and from the pump will be less, er, um, precipitous. Well done, everybody! I later was thinking over these excitements and remembered that my new motor car and the pump motor are, so to speak, of similar lineage and from the same stable: the car’s motor is as whisperingly silent as a glider and seems often to be so incredibly quiet when I stop at traffic lights that I’m convinced that she’s failed and has stopped, inert (it’s also bigger than the pump and it’s motor): small pump, big noise; larger car, like a baby breathing). Being sentimental I wonder if perhaps pump and motorcar ought to share the same accommodation? At the very least I could drive the car down to the pump (when both engines are live and active) and introduce them: Penelope the car and Ulysses the pump? Perhaps there’s a story there, a children’s story I mean. The rainy showers continue. I remember how timely was the arrival of showers after I’d removed some of the loam from the riverside gardens (now colonized by weeds), raked everything clean, and spread some loam on the patchy lawn: the rain settled it all nicely. These old stone-surround gardens were the first to be built here 30 years ago (the first caravan was set up here for a while until a flood discouraged the practice). I mention this because high floods carrying loads of soil leave loam behind. The loam is usefully deep in places, so useful that it covers the stone surrounds and packs higher than the ‘original’ ground level. That means that the loam has to be removed in order for the gardens to again be defined by their stone surrounds. The dahlia garden of recent times is in this riverside area. The flood swept away the chicken wire fence and the star pickets (the dahlia garden fence was intended as discouragement to midnight wildlife browsers that enjoy munching flowers). With the dahlia garden fence down and the plants still ‘inside’ the falling flood was further relieved of loam by the wrecked dahlia garden. Now that the fence has been removed the long grass and the re-emergent dahlias have been sitting atop a lumpy hill of their own. The excess loam is removed carefully and the long grass and the colonizing tradescantia aggressively raked with a steel-tined rake to reduce the elevation of the lumpy hill. The next step (after rain has further settled the lumpiness) is to mow (with the blades high) over the long grasses in stages so that the grass roots can adjust to being demoted and somewhat descended. In a year or so you’ll not be able to see where the dahlias and their garden once existed (I knew somebody would want to know this and, bless me, you’ve read all the way through these relaxed words without demur! Dear reader, there are just a few more words as a bonus; they are these: Peter Thompson, whose own reader-friendly words are also in this Diary, is a scythe person, a mower. He brought his scythe to Earthrise to demonstrate grass cutting. It was a remarkable demonstration that reminded me of those scything parts of Anna Karenina that Tolstoy so carefully wrote: the cutting of a meadow by men with scythes in the late nineteenth century (one of the finest pieces of prose in that very fine novel that he began writing early in 1873). I also remembered that my journeys to primary school almost 80 years ago (in Victoria, BC) sometimes were along a street with a vacant lot where an old man used sometimes to be seen wielding what looked to me like a very big and heavy scythe: I was intrigued to watch him cutting grass with that powerful implement. And I was intrigued to watch Peter scything with a lighter-looking scythe that was speedily effective (I was allowed to try a few strokes: the arc of grass cut by the razor-sharp blade is huge compared to what we lesser machine mowers and whipper-snipper beings can manage). The very old scythe beats the very new machines hands down! It’s absolutely no contest. Peter’s scything is an education. And so the month has all but gone: summery some days blessedly, rainy and showery the others. There were other words to be scribed and I did that, although so craftily they lead now to a confession: to trick myself away from copy typing a novel once typed but never computerised and I veered away to draft stories of fiction and non-fiction and also to submit some to editors less indulgent than I (which is less the submission of TSS and more the submitting of one’s self to merciless editorial judgment). Although I wanted a break from my own editing and re-writing I wanted most to avoid the drudgery of copy typing thousands of words plaintively squeaking to instantly be edited. I know it’s peculiar but I wanted to compile the ‘old’ story first before editing anew. And now on Saturday morning March 29 the sky having cleared before sunrise and the sunrise light being perfect whilst watching over and across my Saturday Indulgent Breakfast that extra egg that hand-pressed espresso coffee, the light scattering golden through the leaves and dancing the back-wall pine boards: I almost start the final read-throughs but first am persuaded out into the light. Whether by caffeine or by irresistible hidden force I drink, eat and quickly go to the belvedere the dewed grass the light on the water the fuller river flowing camera one hand and Anna Karenina the other. I sit in the now rare and also heavenly soft sunlight of autumn to read again in Part Three, how mowing by scythe is best described singularly by a master. It is not that those scythe-mowing passages are difficult to find: it is that there are pages of eloquent lyrical prose on scything, what mowing by scythe feels like how it deserves best to be done and every word worthy (and not forgetting the lyricism of the translators, too): those pages, all of them, deserve quoting.  Sigh.

Sunday March 30 2014. The past two days having featured long sunny hours I’ve been able to do some outside work (and get some necessary exercise): first further deconstructing the stone dump by the barrow-load, then raking cut grass, axing a grass-bound flood-log from last year’s flood, removing, by rake, those loamy build-ups that bury the base stones of all the walls here and enable weeds and palm grass to colonize. Similarly, the rake helps lower the above-lawn loam trapped in the long ragged grasses of the old dahlia garden and the new soil spread as lawn’s top dressing. A good raking is satisfying. DDD.

I include here again the link to a remarkable video, ‘My Stroke of Genius,’ one that my cousin, Jill, passed on, because it’s an admirable presentation made by a person in the healing professions who experienced and then recovered from a severe stroke. The presentation, made to her colleagues and peers, is outstanding: lucid, clear and wonderfully motivating. I commend it to all Diary readers:

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

 

CREATIVE WRITING

The Ho Chi Minh City Thongs

Peter Thompson     

Vietnam is a country we've long wanted to explore for many years and we’ve always known it was only a matter of the right timing. Recently first Dee's parents and then even more recently, our son's incredible adventures in Vietnam, inspired us to make that difficult decision: the hardest part of any trip, as Tony Wheeler (author and creator of The Lonely Planet books) writes, is to decide to go...the rest is easy. So true, Mr Wheeler!

To date, Vietnam brings our total countries explored together to approximately forty. Although that might seem a considerable number we know that we’ve hardly scratched the surface of world travel.

So there we were on a very hot and humid afternoon resting in a shady park in Ho Chi Minh City. The park was beautifully landscaped like most Asian parks. It had very formal pathways, garden beds and delightful benches to sit and rest on or for escaping the relentless heat and humidity, if only for a few minutes.

Normally when the decision is made to sit and rest we are very aware that it won't be long before we might receive a visitor of one kind or another. Often these visitors want to sell us something, but in Vietnam a new (to us) type of visitor had started showing up, a very pleasant type of visitor.

These new visitors want just to talk, to speak English and practice conversation as long as we might be willing. Sometimes we have a whole crowd around us all wanting to join in or perhaps to just listen. In fact this has become one of the most enjoyable aspects of our midlife traveling experiences through South East Asian countries: the conversations. The beautifully kept lawn areas are very often just for looking at but not for walking on or, heaven forbid, for languishing.

Dee, my wife and traveling companion of thirty three years, had decided to lie across the bench with her head resting on my lap, her hat shading her face for a short time and although this was a little uncomfortable for me one of us needed to remain alert—just in case. In case of what, one might ask? Well, for example: robbers, bag snatchers, hawkers, food vendors and even those persistent shoe repair guys that we'd been warned about. All these examples were mostly in our imaginations and fueled by ridiculous stories and rumours.

The notorious wandering shoe-smiths seem simply to appear out of thin air and they must have a very keen sense of the potential in every foreigner they spot, invariably focusing their gaze on our footwear. Perhaps they wait in the trees like Ninjas or maybe their survival depends on their developing that sixth sense that we often hear about and that arises only through necessity: the ability to spot grotty or worn shoes from a distance.  

While we rested on that firm and comfortable bench I happened to notice nearby a police officer pointing in our direction and waving his arms in an unmistakable No! No! No! pattern. Was he pointing beyond us or at us? I looked around and quickly realized that we were apparently doing something unlawful or wrong, but without knowing what that was. As I looked down at Dee, still resting with her head on my lap, the penny dropped: lying across the bench and maybe with head on lap, were the reasons for the policeman’s excitement. I whispered in Dee's ear so as not to alarm her that the police wanted her to sit up. Dee, hearing the word police, sprang up as if she had never been sitting in any other way (blink-blink)!

Whilst resting I flicked through our Lonely Planet Guide considering our options for lunch, perhaps in an air conditioned café. It was at about that time that a new experience started to unfold. A young man approached us, said Hello and then squatted just in front and a little to the side of our bench. He was perhaps in his early to mid twenties. I can't remember his name but will refer to him as Mr Tran.

Mr Tran, who had shuffled around and was now squatting down in front of us, introduced himself. He had a nice smile and spoke good English. At first we weren't sure what he wanted; perhaps he was just practicing his English, but then I spotted his shoeshine/repair box just a little out of my line of sight at that point. All those warnings came flooding back: the rip-offs, overcharging, arguments and even Police involvement. I asked Mr Tran where he was from assuming that he would have been very local, but I was wrong. Mr Tran and his younger brother, who had also just joined us, were from a small town in the north of Vietnam. By now the two young men had spotted my cheap, fake leather thongs (aka flip-flops), with fake designer branding, that I'd slipped my feet out of, in order to cool off.

Mr Tran picked up my left thong and his younger brother picked up my right one and they both started polishing the fake leather at the same time. As they worked we continued our conversation. At this point I pointed out to our new friends that my cheap Balinese thongs were not worth the effort, let alone spending any money on. Evidently, there was little work on offer in their hometown area other than seasonal farming, so the Tran brothers were having a go in the big city. Most likely the same kind of situation could be found all over the world. The brothers told us that business was slow and there was lots of competition in and around the parks of Ho Chi Minh City.

We continued our conversation and were then joined by a third man. Dee's grip on her shoulder bag tightened. Mr Tran directed our attention to my thong: a separation between the fake leather and the sole, his thumb in the gap. The once tiny split had become a significant gap that I'd never noticed but before I could respond, Mr Tran produced a small tube of glue and the repair was made in less than a minute.

I didn't mind the boys working on my sandals because it was directly aiding them and most likely their families. I remember wondering: how much are they going to want to charge for all this? I was also aware that we were now outnumbered as the third man (each with his own wooden box) had now joined us. I looked up to see if the local policeman was still nearby, but he had disappeared.

Mr Tran was doing what he does all day every day and doing a fine job indeed, whilst chatting away with a big smile. At this point, after shuffling around in his box of trade tools and materials he produced a piece of sole material. Quickly I managed to get out the words, ‘No No,’ in Vietnamese. My thongs are only cheap ones with a fake designer label. He then politely asked if I would like a new sole. Dee and I now looked at each other, both of us wondering about the cost of all this work. I quickly responded with: "These sandals are very cheap ones, very cheap and not worth the trouble…” But it was too late.

By the time I got the words out, my new sole was already glued in place, a large curved and very sharp-looking knife was out and was being used to trim the edges. Not wanting to argue with a man holding a large curved knife, the type used for doing damage to ones opponent, I simply allowed him to complete his repairs. I remember thinking, Wow, that was fast and that knife… As I looked across at Tran's younger brother, my second thong was having major surgery as well and he also had one of those sharp and curved knives.

Both the boys worked quickly and the quality of their work appeared to be good. They smiled a lot and chatted as they worked. Although the third man scarcely spoke he smiled a great deal. At this point I felt that I should start talking money. This particular experience was new for me and I had no idea of what the going rates were. We also remembered some of those horror stories that seem to stick in the back of the mind.

Dee and I quietly discussed what we thought might be a fair and reasonable price to pay the boys, but what to offer? Getting in first was our idea of being able to offer a fair price thus preventing the possibility of being asked an inflated price. I whispered my ideas to Dee using my usual justification method of comparing almost everything cost-wise to the price of a cup of coffee. My whispered aside was: “OK. Aussie coffee, $3:50 mm, seems a bit stingy between two. Well two Aussie coffees is $7:00. Between two is $3:50 each. That sounds reasonable for us.”

“Well gentlemen, would you be happy with 70,000 dong each?” Silence…and then: two big smiles and a nod. It seemed we’d come up with a fair price for the resoling and polishing of my cheap Balinese thongs. We shook hands and thanked these talented young men for a job well done—and for the pleasant conversations.

I remember thinking that my $4 thongs had speedily become very up-market and now were also hand-made $11:00 thongs. I wondered who would spend that much on a cheap pair of thongs in South East Asia?

Much later I remember reflecting back to a Mr Minit experience I'd had years ago in Australia and the exorbitant prices (ten times the Vietnam prices) charged for resoling shoes or sandals; also, how long that can take: sometimes days. I also remembered that those delightful, hard working, honest and appreciative young shoe-smiths were the real deal and that it was them who were in fact the Original Mr Minits (or Minutes.:-)

Peter Thompson is a retired pastry chef and TAFE teacher who together with his wife, Dee, practices self-sufficiency on the banks of the upper Bellinger River and is now a Jack-of-all-trades.

petede61@yahoo.com.au

The Scythe

                                                                                                        Peter Thompson

The scythe is one of the oldest agricultural hand tools still in worldwide use today. A scythe is used principally for mowing grass and reaping crops. Scythes were used in Roman agriculture and early writings about scythes date to about 500 BC.  This one-person implement is used basically for cutting pasture plants (grasses) such as lucerne, grain plants like wheat, and even lawns and weeds. In its modern form (almost identical to it's original form) the scythe is now described as an "ecological alternative to the lawnmower, whipper snipper and brush cutter." In the present era the scythe has generally been replaced by horse-drawn and more recently by tractor-drawn equipment.

The Austrian Scythe consists of a blade, a "snath," two grips and a collar or ring for attaching blade to the snath. My scythe is Austrian-made. The hand-forged blade is from the Schroechenfux factory that has produced hand-forged blades since 1540 (474 years ago). The "snath"(handle) is made from Swiss ash; its shape is curved, it is very strong and light and it has two shaped timber grips that must be adjusted to the height of the individual.

The hand-forged blades are made in six lengths for different purposes, from 40-cm to 90-cm. The 90-cm blade will cut a swathe of almost three meters through the pasture negotiating landscape ups and downs, a feat that would be almost impossible for either a horse- or tractor-drawn implement (a swathe or swath is the space covered by the single stroke of a scythe, or the cut of a mowing machine)*. The blade must be kept razor sharp and be honed about every five minutes in the field with a "whetstone" that is normally kept in a copper sheath or a cow horn partially filled with water and attached to the waist belt. Austrian scythes are sharpened in two stages: first the blade is "peened" (a kind of cold forging) and then honed to a razor-sharp edge with the whetstone (riven from a solid stone) that gives it a lovely smooth curved finish (300-grit on two sides and two rough sides for gripping whilst sharpening the blade). This sharpener is known as a natural Bregenzer Whetstone.

Scything grain plants is normally done when the plants are dry and pasture plants are cut at dawn whilst still wet. The sweeping action of scything naturally ‘forms’ the cut plants into convenient "windrows." Once mastered the action and the all important thought process together make for a most enjoyable experience; the scything action also aids staying fit.

In recent years scythes have begun to grow popular again: scything websites and U-tube videos now make it possible for anyone to join what is becoming a popular new Agricultural Revolution. My interest in scything was sparked in 1982 when I gave a first edition copy of John Seymour's 1976 classic The Complete Book of Self Sufficiency to my girlfriend for her 21st birthday. This Handbook for "Those that seek an improved quality of life" was to become and remains, to degree, our ‘bible.’

Fast forward to 2012 on my 50th birthday when my thoughtful wife and kids presented me with a genuine Austrian Scythe.

Look out pasture!

* [The expression ‘to cut a swath’ means ‘to attract considerable notice.’ ‘Swath’ (pronounced swoth) and swathe derive from the Old English swaeth, a footprint. The sizes of Peter’s scythe-cut swathes or swaths are astonishingly big] Ed.

Peter Thompson is a retired pastry chef and TAFE teacher who together with his wife, Dee, practices self-sufficiency on the banks of the upper Bellinger River and is now a Jack-of-all-trades.

petede61@yahoo.com.au

Leftover Associations, Nostalgias and Lasting Memories Provoked by the Recent Diary Themes of ‘Camps’ and ‘Camping.’

Don Diespecker         

The notions camps and camping, still linger (at least, they do for me) so I’m adding some further reactivated images that would otherwise remain snoozing somewhere at the back of my mind: long-ago camps of the military kind as well as more recent ones some that were venues for workshop training in Gestalt therapy.

My teenage years were enjoyed in Durban and at Mansfield High School where almost all of us chose to be members of the school cadet ‘corps’. Most of that national loyalty and near-military zeal was expressed between 1942 and 1948 so our enthusiasm for some kind of military training was popular although not quite as popular as were rugby, cricket, swimming and boxing. Those schooldays were of course during the apartheid regime in the Union of South Africa.  Additionally, we then also had even more adult military adventures to look forward to: after leaving school we were enabled to join the Active Citizen Force (the ACF) for four years of part-time training. As high school cadets we identified with and were affiliated with Permanent Force infantry regiments (e.g., the Royal Durban Light Infantry (the RDLI). The high school cadet did lots of drilling, marching, standing up straight while being shouted at and marching with a swagger when our drums and bugles band urged our enthusiasm. The best parts of those times were live firing 22-calibre rifles at targets.

Suddenly I remember my high school teachers, two in particular, Oscar Palin and Joyce Kidger. Although it was Ms Kidger who best motivated me to write (beyond classroom essays and exercises and the School Magazine), it was Oscar Palin, our science teacher, who also was hugely motivating. Oscar Palin (OP) had other important duties and one of them was teaching us, as cadets, to shoot straight. On one unforgettable occasion I was so eager to start shooting that I fired two or three rounds having neglected to raise the rear sight and was appropriately yelled at. (‘It’s NOT a shotgun!). Years later when we were shooting together on a farm I fired a shot at a pigeon so distant that I had first to raise the barrel—of an air rifle—about a foot: neither of us could entirely believe the far away view of feathers flying.  OP was also our First Fifteen coach: thanks to him I began to appreciate the urgent skills of the loose forward, a position I quickly learned to relish. And thanks again to OP I discovered the stunning difference between a decent straight left and some of the pawing and dabbing of boxing encounters. School days and good teachers are impossible to forget and I remember my good teachers with affection.

The school cadets in my high school and in many others, had opportunities during school vacations, to leave home and travel (supervised) by train to military camps to receive further training. I remember two of those camps particularly: one consisting of timber bungalows (barracks) with invigorating outdoor showers that were open to the sky (they were fine in summer, but not in winter). That camp was a bus ride from Pietermaritzburg, the Natal capital (aka ‘Maritzburg’). There was a similar camp near Ladysmith, also in Natal. In winter it was unpleasantly cold (there was no heating in the barracks, of course, although there was snow on the nearby Drakensberg Mountains. What we liked about the place was that it was warm enough during daylight to enjoy playing games when we were off duty. Training of high school cadets was always by Union Defence Force (UDF) personnel. Most of that training focussed on three weapons: the old Vickers Machine Gun; the BREN machine gun; and one of the mortars (I forget the calibre: 3- or 4- inches, probably). Racing to set up a Vickers and carrying some essential part was hard work for small kids (lugging the armour-plated barrel of a Vickers was just about too much for some youngsters). I mention these exotica because many of us marched one hot afternoon to a weapons range and one of our best cadets and friends was given the dubious honour of inserting a live mortar round in the accustomed manner; unfortunately the sleeve buttoning tag on his fatigues inadvertently caught the sight mechanism on the mortar barrel and he frantically jerked his arm free (over the open barrel) a microsecond or two before the descending round discharged. There were scores of us in attendance: I know I expected we were all about to be killed, but I was fortunately wrong: the shot was fired, dwindled high in the blue sky and exploded more or less on the target: high up on very rocky ground where small cliffs soaked up the blast (we all stood quietly and thoughtfully listening to those singing and ricocheting sounds that shrapnel makes).

On a less dramatic note, but one excitingly different: several of us, off duty on a Sunday, were exploring some stone-built ‘forts’ (or ‘fortifications’) within walking distance of the Ladysmith camp. There, gently easing aside some of the stones at the foot of the walls I found a much tarnished but very much alive Mauser round, a 7x57 rimless cartridge. It had probably lain harmlessly between rocks and stones for about 45 years. Better that I had found it and it hadn’t left the muzzle of a Mauser as a high velocity round aimed to kill. It also seemed appropriate that it be found by a schoolboy because all males, aged 16 to 60, during the Second Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902) were required to join and to ride with their District Commando. The 1890s Mauser rifles were standard at the time.

I remember too that one of our schoolboy colleagues in the same camp that year had managed to fire a live round from one of the old Martini-Henry carbines that we used (but never fired) in arms drilling during training. The old Martin-Henry’s were 450- calibre. The live round, if I recall correctly, was merely 303-calibre. During the 1939-1945 Second World War weapons were removed from school armouries and although we all (I’m sure) felt extremely silly, we then did our rifle drilling with wooden dummy rifles. Wince. Shudder. There were also 22-calibre shooting contests and I was good enough to shoot for our school.

The ACF camps where we all went for basic training (despite years of training at high schools) were train journeys away from Durban. By this time we had all left school, were in employment, and had started our part-time training (nights, weekends) at various depots. I had joined a Field Artillery Regiment. We were considered adults by then (1948, 1949) and although we were hardly supervised at all on our way to camp, we had by then begun to learn drinking (considered to be a rite of passage) and further extended the practice on such train journeys. On the second such journey and having boarded as a gunner (no rank) I was first promoted to bombardier after a couple of hours on the train and had no sooner got over the wild celebration of bully beef and rock hard Army biscuit, that an officer returned with more lists and further Authorizations and I was again promoted to sergeant hours before we got to Johannesburg, changed trains and arrived late at night at the long established (wooden barracks again) Army Camp and the associated Artillery School at Potchefstroom in the southern Transvaal close to the Orange Free State border. (I’ve often wondered about that train journey: who had been drinking what: our glorious leaders or we humble gunners?). I remember how privileged I began to feel being in the Sergeants’ Mess where after long days at Artillery School I was able to further extend my knowledge of beer, wine and spirits legitimately and in a fairly civilised way in the Sergeants’ Mess. Only the year before in the same camp I’d been a lowly gunner with no privileges and what I remember well was eating a midday meal in a hot crowded mess with spilled apricot jam on the table that magically stuck to my fatigues. Ah, that was the camp then: the following year was better.

I can’t fairly describe a few days at a time on the artillery range as ‘camps.’ A ‘bivouac’ is probably a more accurate word (“a bivouac is a military encampment made with tents or improvised shelters, usually without shelter or protection from enemy fire”). The weather being hot and summery it was cool at night but on the ground cold in the open even with a blanket or two. I remember one such place being a quite posh bivouac on high ground close to a rocky crest: we rigged a tarpaulin between two vehicles, one of them the Major’s armoured car. Our position was an observation post. We had a kindly and very civilised Major who shared beer with us and we all helped heat some food. We went to sleep on the ground and were free of dew and then were up early to justify our presence there: firing started at breakfast time. I’m sure we all prayed silently that the shells (from batteries of 25-pounders) would clear the crest (which they all did) and that our colleagues below were all sober, filled with responsibility and bursting with care and attention. On another occasion I spent an uncomfortable night curled off duty on steel bolts in the open turret of the armoured car and, oh yes, it rained. Sigh. Memories. ACF Camps.

Some of the Gestalt training workshops I used to offer were residential camps both at ‘Jasmine,’ a property adjacent to Richardson’s Bridge (the next bridge downstream from the bridge here): there, the participants were accommodated in timber buildings. In later camps here at Earthrise some members were accommodated in our old bunkhouse (later severely damaged in the 2001 flood and eventually demolished) and others brought their own tents. Almost all swimming, both at Jasmine and Earthrise, was naked and these workshop camps also included nude sessions. Psychotherapy training in the raw seemed beneficial: there were no complaints or objections from the participants and our quite public skinny-dipping here at Earthrise encouraged a slowing of passing traffic and scattered applause from those in vehicles (I hasten to add that skinny-dipping in the swimming holes of the Upper Bellinger was a regular practice about 30 years ago and that it was normal for many swimmers to swim and sunbake in the buff at what I’ve been calling the Champagne Pool (in front of my house). These days Bellinger’s swimmers are well covered for reasons not known to me.     

I include here, as personal essay, a similar version of “About My View” that was recently published in my eBook, Scribbles From Earthrise. Readers won’t be surprised to know that questing scribblers often draft umpteen versions of a story, not because we’re obsessive, but because we’re trying to find the best way, the better path to communication and understanding. (‘Story’ applies to both fiction and to nonfiction). “Views,” below, is one of those alternative versions of “About My View” and is written as an ‘abbreviated interior monologue’. A hint: the first 800 words may seem challenging, but the rest is easy (it’s just a style: not cuneiform). If however you feel madness coming on when the prose isn’t entirely what you expect it to be, proceed no further. Readers unused to my quirky styles may become unsettled or even quite annoyed. For those readers who might suffer either one or the other or even both maladies: stop right now: your psyches may be at risk and I don’t want you being catalyzed into exploring your old psychological stuff unless we’re sitting chatting together (when I’ll probably be distracted by the downstream view that’s always changing)… So please, if you’re still reading and you feel an enticing madness that might cause you to swoon because the prose isn’t conventional, scroll through and save yourselves from pathological disruption. Confession: although the prose style might assist speed readers, those who read at a more leisurely pace might want to slow right down because the text is fiendishly contrived to intentionally slow you so that you be liberated from the cut and thrust dash of everyday reading. In other words, your understanding of my playful text will be increased when you read the piece slowly, as if it were a meditation. For those readers who may be wondering at the notion personal essay, yes there is such thing. And for the one or two readers determined to continue healthily persevering and adventurously exploring, welcome to my whimsy.      

Views

Don Diespecker   

Imagine this: me seeing the downstream view from the belvedere at Earthrise and thinking how best to write truly about that. Umpteen ways creatively there surely are. Eyes open drinking the view thinking and musing in mid-February’s softer summer’s end mellow light of lyrical beauty all the views excitingly changing. Meantime must avoid upsetting editors unused to my inner life’s scribbling style. Do belvedere and Earthrise look too grand too majestic? I named it Earthrise 30 years ago and my belvedere’s a sweet place now and: welcome to my belvedere.

Can you see me sitting thoughtfully, feasting on the downstream view? How can I best write this?

I know: nonfiction shall it be: factual where possible, aspiring to literary nonfiction. There! Immodest thought’s out the open all hubris and chutzpah! Literary nonfiction’s grand but impertinent lest writer’s famous. Well-known would do. Well-published acceptable. Decent publication record might help. Think seriously lightly occasionally musing. Imagine the intellectualness of the piece. Posh word. Literary writers with epigraphs might begin with fine words from Tao Te Ching absurdly in English. English unknown to Lao Tzu and ancient Brits but we intellectualize translated poetry in English. Are Lao Tzu’s words in English intellectually sound and posh? Fanciful however. Antiquated words translated. Lots lost translated. Normally grace top of page one. Phony? Epigraph distinguished won’t start this piece peculiar. Not my considered words. LT’s words barely imply my notions. Would be intertextual. Oh! So Lao Tzu’s quotation decorative borrowed by me would be incorrect? Vain? Depends. Contemporaneity necessary. Awful word too. Likely Lao Tzu’s mob would copyright sue infringing. Even in English. Would launch my writing unfashionable in self-assured words trolled for and personally netted. Dare quote I my intertextuality? This vantage point enables seeing the beautiful river. If anything here’s like the Way the Bellinger’s surely a contender. Imagine my waterfront Bellinger Brando-like mumbling I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody. Rivers aren’t egotistic. Can be imaginative. This piece won’t explore Tao Te Ching meanings or praise Lao Tzu. Much exploration and praising exist. No need of mine. Unkind thought? No. Maybe include old poet’s lines to follow mine. Nothing’s wrong with that. Or begin blandly without quotation. Sacrilege? Hmm. I’m aware that fuzzy line twixt confidence and uncertainty. That shadow-line mine.  

Suppose he’d met Lao Tzu, or, chaps similar? Like to think we’d chatted about writing. Speaking Universal Lingo of course. Writing and outlook could be good topics. We’re contained within a splendid view my visitor might say and here there’s a myriad of stuff to write about! Ah yes I’d say were the river to see back to here now the river would see itself as well as us. Indeed this river would contain majestic poetry Lao Tzu cheerfully would agree. Or has she different names this stream of light he’d ask. Or what does Bellinger mean and I’d explain that Bellinger means clear water. We’d chuckle indulgently. Old Lao I’ll call him Lao or should that be Tzu? The old sage would say certainly clearness is obvious even when greenly passing. Should I offer my esteemed visitor a glass of red? I have a bottle and extra glass right here. Alas! Lao Tzu fades before abruptly vanishing. Thought he said yes. Something I said or thought? Maybe was preoccupied by poems?  

Mind fell into flurries of near-awareness glinting like carp in shallow water. Reminded to refocus attention. Yes. Remember enjoying water references in Tao Te Ching. Lines streaming my mind don’t mention water but imply my thinking his experience was when thinking about writing his appropriate words. Surely thought he about thinking how to write that?  

Awareness gleamed. Here belvedere‘s an understated place for viewing and re-viewing yet the river’s flowing commands my eyes.  Flowing-away river insists my eyes see it. River’s abundant flowing compels. Flowing-away river influences my thinking particular ways. Influence is capacity or power to produce effects on others by intangible or indirect means. Such power the river has here! The river being itself in every moment is itself a power having effects on my thinking and perceiving and affects me emotionally too. This river’s power’s enormous! Not too abstract to write?

Did Lao Tzu understand that? Did I pour that red for my intermittent guest? O! He’s here again the next chair holding his empty glass. A refreshingly excellent drop says he. Pour another Shiraz. This is surely the perfect time and place and company for such a friendly wine Lao Tzu sighs. Graceful. Would it were Grange think I scribbling my clipboard the lines imagine will make an arresting epigraph. LT places his empty glass on a white cedar round. Then again vanishes. Just thirsty or did I offend reproducing his lines my clipboard? Sorry mate but my words first shall be top of the page my imagined composition. No disrespect. Imagine lines not at absolute beginning but slightly below beginning following introductory warm-up words. See, like this:  

In the riverside garden

February light is softer

Than summer’s glare

The river runs greenly

Autumn thinking starts

DD: A Garden Exercise

O! That earlier word greenly did think it mine or had LT spoken it? Green’s obvious in this light. Poet would surely agree softer February light is perfect?  If he’s a touch intermittent for non-stirring chaps need his host uncertain be? Redeeming to include his lines. Loads of certainty my guest writer. That’s an intertextual point for me. Ancient poet’s certainty nails important points for host. Your words Lao will balance mine.  

‘Without stirring abroad

One can know the whole world

Without looking out of the window

One can see the way of heaven.

The further one goes

The less one knows.

Therefore the sage knows without having to stir,

Identifies without having to see,

Accomplishes without having to act.’

Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching   

(Transl. DC Lau)

Sir, your fleeting appearances are like images in the stream. How many glasses poured I? O I’ve forgotten streaming by James (William not Henry of the mind-bending pars)! Henry’s psychologist brother! Sorry! Was idling along my consciousness stream heedless of William James long surfaced his paramount phrase the key to mental psychological literary notions. This semi conscious thinker lulled into unawareness. Wayward very. Can yet recall essential words. Perspicacious William James coined the stream of consciousness characterising continuous flow of thought and sensation in our minds. William wrote wilfully the stream and his phrase characterises writing style sometimes in literary fiction. Stream of consciousness writing broadly comprises interior monologue and free indirect style. Think rhetoric of Ulysses or Mrs Dalloway mixed styles too and some free indirect style even in Jane Austen. Sorry William. You deserve your quote:   

Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as ‘chain’ or ‘train’ do not describe it fitly… It is nothing jointed: it flows. A ‘river’ or a ‘stream’ are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life.

William James: The Principles of Psychology (1890).

Where I before the obvious stream of consciousness? Where my thinking, not having stirred this chair? Back of my mind are fleetingly imaged brown fruit pigeons in bleeding heart trees feeding. Time to ponder seeing and thinking. Ah! Another epigraph remembered not for placing at absolute beginning the imagined composition but near the absolute beginning.  

Looking is a gift but seeing is a power.  

Jeff Berner: The Photographic Experience (1975)   

Enough quotes perhaps. May want more insights while seeing and thinking. These few fine for now. A late-arriving awareness lands. Remember the investigative journalist I once aspired to becoming. And the more reserved scribe. Both joust now behind in mind. Not watching them brings waves of trouble. Reserved scribbler wants all prose on even keel balanced designed and constructed. Radical writer salutes principles manifest the New Journalism. Modest writer keeps personality off-page writing objectively. Gonzo journalist insists fully engaging writing subjectively all aspects the composition. Should caution the bickering duo. Fat chance me resolving their stances. Inclined am I toward the radical but my Clark Kent part contrives participating every millimeter. The Way. Maybe add orthodox descriptions explaining this place?     

Here Goes. The belvedere is an eastside area of the riverside gardens on the edge of the riverbank at Earthrise and with Big Lawn westward and behind it. Earthrise is a 10.2-ha property in the Darkwood Forest having 50-m or so of river frontage on the serpentine Bellinger River in the N-E corner of NSW. The N-E corner of Earthrise is within a long jump of the Plains Crossing Bridge (its ‘west’ side) and also adjacent to the rural Darkwood Road (its loosened aggregate, its eternal dust). Most of Earthrise is forested hillside and much of that so densely covered by varied undergrowth that it’s unlikely anyone has ever set foot there, nor seen the fall of ground beneath the groundcovers. Thus, most of Earthrise is unavailable to most humans and less than a hectare is partly cleared near the three-level pole house that commands pleasing views of the river (its upstream and downstream prospects, the bridge and its adjacent old concrete causeway, and the principal three river bends). These geographical data are flagged for the benefit of attentive Earth-watchers wanting to see authentic locations and settings via computers. To see the Bellinger from the belvedere on the Right Bank at Earthrise is to see it flow from left to right: on the left, there’s a little of the upstream view to a distant bend (Hello Bend) beyond the bridge, the close-by rapids tumbling also on the left and centrally, the Pool (aka Champagne Pool) in a wide part of the river as well as the long view downstream to Farewell (aka Good-bye) Bend. The river frontage reaches to a small quiet bend a few meters away to the right (historically, Rum Corner) and if the viewer further studies this ‘front’ or Right bank, another 50–m downstream, s-he will see the almost-concealed mouth of a modest sub-tropical rainforest creek and its confluence with the river. On either side of this vantage point the gardens and lawn meld into riverside scrub from which big old flooded gums raise their pale trunks high above the land and river.  Two long jumps to the left of the belvedere a birdbath stands near a weeping coral tree; the bath is often busy with splashed fluttering to distract the river viewer.  

This is a belvedere where the unwary are seduced from any tendency to meditate and instead become enchanted sitters compelled to see.   

For those accustomed to it the belvedere is the focal point of the woodland pleasure-ground gardens and a place where the world-weary river-watcher may be rejuvenated and often inspired, a place where falling asleep is a difficulty. Sitting a few meters behind the belvedere, beneath a young bleeding heart tree and also in the shade of the much bigger and older white cedar, an old cheese tree and the tall flooded gums, is always a good place for a river-banker to rest in awareness. Here there are three chairs, some sawn rounds from fallen or broken decades-old ‘native privet’ and casuarinas and a white cedar, a 1-m dia. knee-high stone ‘table,’ seating that’s irresistible to potential viewers (imagine enticing chairs placed before Leonardo’s Mona Lisa). The best sitting times are before sunrise when vapors rise from the Bellinger and when platypus are too busy to be troubled by voyeuristic humans; the middle-to-late afternoon when the sun declines behind the forested slopes above the house and when the reflected light of the high forest shines green and gold along the darkening river; and also when the midday sun in summer allows warm but pleasant views provided the sitter moves his or her chair a little to the right where there’s a corridor between walled gardens and a friendly draft (scarcely a breeze) wafts between clumps of white begonias and where that breath of air, on hot days, also is a cooling welcome in an otherwise too-bright location. Dusk and twilight are good times too, and full moon on cloudless nights at any hour is highly recommended. The belvedere is presently being grassed and repeatedly weeded and until that ‘ordinary work’ task is completed the current seating arrangement seems to suit almost everyone who visits there, with the exception of visitors unused to the attentions of gnats, midges, mosquitoes, stout biting flies, and the barging effrontery of water dragons that sometimes use the legs or the shoed or booted foot of a cross-legged viewer as lookouts and launch platforms against the biters (biting flies being a popular fast food of water dragons). Considerations have yet to be made for unplanned changes to the rustic nature of this place caused by a mid-February 2009 flood and now yet another flood in late March. Floods change everything; one then becomes accustomed to the new arrangement until there comes another flood.  

There. Orthodoxy redeemed. A useful explanation hopefully is. My garden includes the belvedere. Forest includes all. Garden and belvedere are understated. Could say everything here’s paratactic within a unitary whole. Seamless really.   

Unbidden new versions of old images appear. On soft rainy days I see meandering streams within and upon the river’s mainstream. It’s beautifully true: those spirited surfaces flat, unmarked by rain it seems and quite unlike the ruffled surface on breezy days. Perhaps the wet days cooler waters the rainforest’s creek push and wander the larger river along. Comforting seeing the smooth insistence that intrusive creek its compassionate inclusion and loving embrace of the river. Seeing two waterways becoming one. No need of their competing.  

Again insistent the pigeons clatter in consciousness and feeling February’s humid heat. The brown fruit pigeons twist and flap gymnastically the bleeding heart trees tirelessly feeding hard green seeds. Brown pigeons less frequent this year. Always dedicated to these trees.

Bewitched by water’s flowing I ruminate in shade at the grassing belvedere that seemingly belies her name herself not entirely beautiful. Belvedere defines a building designed for seeing a beautiful view. Belvedere Italian from Latin subtly a beautiful vedere view also videre to see. Apt that. My Earthrise belvedere’s less a building more a structure and say all visitors a pretty place but not itself the view: that viewing point’s a place affording views of other places. My belvedere’s misnamed, but still a magical platform in the same sense as, blijvooruitzicht is a happy prospect in Dutch. Here premier viewing’s the downstream vista not forgetting prospects charming pleasurably those other 359 degrees also seen.

Sometimes I suggest the area’s a grand meditation place knowing the views won’t allow easy meditation and always feel mischievously guilty about that. Just fun. Knowledgeable friends tolerate meditation suggestions as whimsical eccentricities. Strangers and city folk take suggestions seriously trying to appreciate surrounding beauty. Guiltily too think it’s my pleasure dome my belvedere mine. I made it. Possessiveness. Sigh. Filled with remorse and guilt I struggle to relinquish the belvedere and much discursive thinking. I’m tempted to compose labored explanations of guilty thoughts as scourge calmly now let that go too slyly hoping further redemption may yet arrive. Reviewing that mentally I change redemption to atonement, at-one-ment, so the three-part word better fits my more generous mood. Occurs to me Belvedere’s not the right place to decide old Petrarch’s concern that right balance between an active and a meditative life he being a chap who climbed mountains for summit’s views. Such pleasure.

Mindfully letting go again I fall leaf-like into reality where impressions stream by like random flotsam and some ordered jetsam.  Can here enjoy imagery my eyes open in reality where see I myself drifting widely falling lightly through friendly sky above the rainforest reality and no urgency to land. My consciousness partly a feuilleton waiting for words. As recovering casualty of conditioning I must ponder everything. Can only smile at the river’s pastel images the Bellinger easing away ahead and green the afternoon river slipping eastward from crowded present to the oceanic feel of a nicely arranged holistic future. Seeing teases my thinking. Can see the downstream shadow-line distinguishing that place in the flow where the river slips away into forest. Enjoying blissful hints of universality but there’s that aspect of consciousness wanting to observe intellectually while leaf-like that all’s as should be. Yellow brown reddish spent leaves discarded forms now let go falling through warm air demand attention. How do we look? Nobody will notice. We’ll cover green grass and leaf fragments and mowed parts of bark. How may anyone have a free lawn when ambitious lawn elements compete one another? How arrives grass gracefully the state of being lawn?  

Can see eddying leaves float adventurously over the stream. I almost float with them then spot Lao Tzu also drifting the leafscape. He’s reading his Tao Te Ching its pages fluttering the river air. Perhaps annotating? Bad time to chat? Put Lao Tzu on temporary hold. Determined to resume seeing what I see before critical appreciations of old poetry wonderfully clear Very Special Old Poetry. Poetically possibly the real deal but is the real thing necessarily so prescriptive instructive so certainty-filled? Shall return to leaves versus grass shortly. Can’t quite subdue guilt panging remembering everything’s interconnected interrelated and interdependent. Like it or not I and Tao Te Ching are yoked bursting with certainty. Indeed. If LT and I aren’t literary pals we’re social drinking mates cheery fellows nonchalantly drifting the stream. Could discuss writing fiction and non-fiction and styles we could and structure and form and literature!

My querulous mind struggles to return to the reality where I see the river streaming independently of me. This extraordinary discovery enables impressions once thought mine that suddenly perfectly independent of me are and entirely self-sufficient streaming by without any jostling. How so? These impressions don’t pile up or collide like used leaves on thriving lawns. Impressions surely buoyed by the stream of consciousness the marvelous stream in which everything passing is itself that same stream have often thought my very own. The stream of consciousness becomes for me what’s always been like the river a moving example of profound simplicity.  

From the stream I land scenes arriving prefabricated. Characters actions even dialogue and conversations appear like lively video packages like leaf ships docking like templates for wordy stories. I share these unasked presents with others explaining they use the stream too. And remember to switch the imagination on. Tell everybody writing to humbly accept lively pictures then compose fleshed-out story. Such stunning experiences being moved by images magic. Does anyone not write like that? The umpteenth time I wonder if such predictive experiences may be heaven-sent God-given and available to all. Or could imagery more worrisomely be benign hallucinations? How to know the truth? Who might know? Do you know?

Surprise! Here’s Sarah Hart beautifully visiting the theatre of my mind the most striking character in ‘Earthrise’ and ‘The Summer River’ and ‘The Overview’ stories currently crafting or crafted with unceasing help from the stream. Sigh. Sarah’s like several women a mysterious composite. No one’s quite like her. What if somebody is like her? What if Sarah’s real? Is being in love with one’s characters acceptable? Steady on! Going too far. Absurd really. Such thoughts seem fantastic but thoughts and images are as real as any aspects of this inner life. Sitting seeing thinking and allowing images to flow’s a humbling aspect of being a person and fundamental to our being sentient, prescient.  Imaginative qualities make us magical animals. We need only sit quietly empty the mind see what comes along. And then attend fully.  

Sitting quietly now can just perceive something streaming past. I hear a muted yell heard from the back of mind. Look there’s something! I see myself sitting as now in patterned shade that recent summer day dreamily following the serene river’s passage away from me. Again see myself as if seen by another I’m half-rising suddenly at a vertical blur then resounding splash directly ahead that startling splashed penetration midstream made by a fishing eagle diving. Feel the excitement again sighting and relive my settling back in my chair the rising bird struggling. And re-view that climbing the damp air beating away climbing downstream with no fish. Can one by one hold those brief images as if invited to see the repeat. And see myself grounded seeing the eagle working the great sky. Was weeks ago. Second time only I’d seen an osprey drop like a stone through space. That earlier bird lifted struggling to climb with a twisting fish talon-ed. And now I see another but unfulfilled strike and why now? Same eagle? Did I consciously choose the eagle double-act from the recent past? Both sudden scenes theatrically compelling while sitting at the belvedere the images included me as audience? That second eagle descended with aplomb the descent pure verticality. Straight down self-assurance! Aplomb’s the word from French a plomb ‘according to the plummet’ aha!

Remember too sitting with son Carl. He’d frowned staring up at the house then said There’s a snake hanging on the edge of the roof and I turned glimpsing a dark body falling the late afternoon light hearing it hit the ground. We walked up cautiously. A heavy black snake patterned not red-bellied black but a rock python likely. Then a second snake similar the first hit the ground too and hurried away. No injuries seen. Was falling from roofs a familiar old turn? Odd. Years ago sitting the same area twice had I seen snakes race riverward brushing my boots. Perhaps was a jeu d’esprit a swift snake’s game?   

Again the running river draws me. As if for moments no river was there and only those snakes. Everything’s here in this wonderfully strange place. It’s always beautifully so, yet is a stream flowing away to the sea. When we glimpse faces in the stream think of their meaning. And reflect on those images shining in memory’s archives. How are they held so well? Again the fictive Sarah Hart flashes by in stream mode. She’s straight from the story swimming like a racer. How do I repeatedly image imagined persons? Do I contrive images of imagined persons or come they ready-made randomly without effort freely?  Now see I images myself the recent past again. Somehow they‘re fair dinkum kosher and only show me as if seen by another and as described in Jaynes showing me snapshots of me those views not something I actually experienced! How so? O magical animals we are though not yet ourselves able to figure out how we do what we do. And my imagined Sarah swims fondly the Bellinger remember that changed river dystopian rising distantly the unknown hot future the same river as now seen and the diminished river yet to run its droughty course. How can I know? O there was a time too a different river a different Sarah swimming that cold mountain torrent. Remember? Can’t forget. See us now both in the stream laughing. Presently I’m a camera filming actors one of them me. We swam that chill stream a hot summer day and dripping. That was then this is now. Sometimes remembering perhaps all voyeuristic the wanting to see again old intimacies and not wanting to see.  

I’m free to move another time another place a roving cinemagoer in a multiplex. I remember the young me reading beginning exercises for apprentice magicians. Had to imagine being top of tree seeing down seeing myself beneath the tree. All too simply easily achieved. Anybody could. Couldn’t they? When I put consciousness partly downstream the real-time river’s surface sees back to this belvedere and sees me sitting comfortably seeing the river’s downstream run to another aspect myself. The running-away river’s authentic. The contemporary riverscape containing the river makes the river seem permanent even as the swirling changes. We all see the ephemeral as permanence though the river’s a transient flowing energy. The river exists in each moment yet exists being sparkles and flashes as seen the night sky. River’s a collective that changing collects itself integrating thus it’s seen as steadily flowing energy. Easier seeing the river as mystery? What do others see seeing the river from here? Do you see the river as such even when meagerly low, the river, I mean?

I wriggle for comfort. River’s the reason for Belvedere’s location though the river view’s snug in my mind. There’s never too much of her. Being open to its flowing I know how easily she tempts me whenever I engage with the view. I can see misty-eyed the transient river seemingly permanent implying very much more. You move me my lovely your beauty beyond tears. At midnight high in the house I see your unseen depth flowing the dark. Lying abed my waking self composes for sleep. There I visualize that daylight bubbling swirl spilling the Pool to the Rapids. Can see the river eyes closed read it’s flowing readily as open-eyed on the daylight belvedere.

Imaginatively now there’s Big Lawn behind my chair the trees the slim old cassia the surprising bunches bright yellow flowers hanging like grapes like seeing a movie clearly behind me. So much seems newly obvious in soft February light. Proper name that other cassia long ago seen in Buntie’s imaged garden faraway in 1940s Durban? Cassia floribundas I think? Something like. Matters the name? That cassia’s here now behind my chair dropping bright yellow flowers the roadside. Big long bunches of five-petal flower-grapes! Just like the Durban ones were!  And behind now too in my Dead Dogs Garden the dahlias and scented roses. The invisible garden felt beautifully behind my chair. 

Ahead this flowing water’s the profound sight to see. Even swollen by flood the filled river’s bigger yet remains its self the gigantic over-sizing of an awesome transient! Usually the river’s obvious and compelling to see. Viewers accept this fluid reality its marvelous flowing obvious. Yet I question that obviousness. Obvious from Latin obvius meaning ob viam in the way means unmistakably to be in the way. There’s something about me being where I am and obvious that enables me being in the way too. I’m already contained by the world embedded casually in this place. The Bellinger riving and flexing couldn’t be still if she tried. If I’m a part of the world then I also am this world this river this place! Holism. Thanks to Smuts and those before him. Smuts the philosopher, the Fighting General, the Table Mountain annual climber.

Seeing the river run is awareness of its obvious wholeness. Yet nobody’s seen the whole river because nobody sees all its dimensions her depth being the difficulty. Nor in any moment may the perspective wholeness be seen entirely because of changeability. We’re limited in our seeing so we imagine the whole river! What we can’t see the poet suggested we call evanescent. He wasn’t describing a river. Evanescent means vanishing. Evanesce means fading away. Consider a river’s depth. The invisible depth can’t be seen though it’s sometimes measured. How could that fade away? Hmm. Another shadow-line.  

Now I visualize this spot from behind relaxed seeing my back from behind seeing me sitting pondering the river ahead. Visualizing easily managed. We’re born to make pictures our minds. I’m watching the watcher (so who is doing the watching?). I the mere watcher in the everlasting present imagine my chair having wheels allowing full circle turns always seeing what’s directly ahead. Imagine turning slowly the circle the chair a moving arrangement of a moving world whirling and wobbling through space.  Can see the oneness of the panoptic view the unbroken panorama see everything to be seen complete undiminished all the way round this beautiful view because to imagine is also to see flowing water the trees the garden the roadside the Deer Park across the road glimpses of high ground up at Dorrigo and misted parts of the ranges. You could imagine all from above you seeing me here seeing what I see. Everything’s constantly moving continually changing.

I’m remembering intending mowing part of Big Lawn beneath that ancient riverbank that overshadowed back lawn struggling against writhing jasmine tendrils maddening Madeira vine sundry other groundcovers compelling the usually submissive lawn to feral unruliness. Without intervention the back lawn loses its lawny identity. Yet lawn in times past meant glade meaning nothing more than the forest’s open space akin to glad in an obsolete sense bright. The sun shines. Know without turning parts of Big Lawn gleam in afternoon sunlight. How worthy are words! And most of this lawn was gifted by the flooding river’s abundance.

Lao Tzu manifests again surfing the bosom the surging river and dryly dressed. A long blue robe enables his relaxed look elegant and un-splashed. His baldhead gleams in river mist his friendly smile’s Carl-like he reclines the rolling billows. The poet’s again seen from behind soaring down away going forth the river into the future feet first strangely then the rest and last of him dwindling as head turned back he waves me languidly. Seems a sort of river surfing without a board. LT’s smiling face remains in mind the poet bobbing away to Farewell Bend evanescing. He’ll be back possibly forward again soon. Likely he’ll ease westward around the bend to incline the forest shining a distant glow in the sky before declining the circuit again somewhere along the upstream river. As if cloud-issued east he’ll swing low then run the Valley once more. I smile at LT’s images his afternoon excursions every fifteen minutes regularity his virtue.  

I continue thinking strategy maybe or tactic to recover back lawn. Raking may be associated with lawn mowing. Could possibly reclaim rebellious parts turned wild the lawn’s periphery by mowing and raking making Big Lawn majestic again. I imagine a rising and falling lawn again anywhere scarcely level. My worthy Earthrise lawn I could discuss with Old Lao Tzu. Did he once a lawn have too? I sense my own lawn poem coming along the stream. Not yet. There’s learning first art science of rakes steel and rakes plastic. And belvedere weeds my intervention await. Note eager groundcovers their shady work burgeons on belvedere. Can imagine sitting here raking. Radical. No. Big Lawn has priority. Wreaking changes I want while wanting to ruminate too. Indecision and intention make another fuzzy line. Happily the lawn remade is magically imagined. Raking and mowing will be the keys. Compelling obviousness the flowing-away river blocks my intention. Fluvial rolling is all. Both Bellinger and Big Lawn have their contours. I can think new ways of seeing.

Belvedere’s new soil’s eight years old flood loam. Loam has preserved riparian weed seed collections the weedlings now rampant. Loam’s fertility means my kneeling precisely removing those weedlets selectively. I’d prefer sitting and noticing. Sigh. Never shall find I the Way mine anyway if everything I cause to change. So many jobs queuing must first do the lawn. Make plans to accomplish the difficult before it becomes difficult wrote the Old Poet. Make big starting with small if not too late. I years ago took jasmine from friends well intentioned. Treacherous jasmine tropical chickweed and crazed groundcovers went feral. –And ubiquitous tradescantia. Divisions between grass and groundcovers like lightness and darkness. Maybe can subdue small lawny portions then expand till big portions reclaimed? Philosophy’s a hard life. Uncertainty clashes with ambition.   

I muse on sitters not LT here recently. There’s old friend Bruno the teacher therapist the black belt karate our cheery assessments Shiraz and soft cheeses while skirmishing the fierce leeches. Leeches deserve a treatise Consciousness of Darkwood Leeches or maybe a novel The Tiger Leeches of Darkwood. And old teaching lecturing pals John physicist psychologist soldier and scholar and Ronald once ship’s officer psychologist aviator criminologist philosopher professor. Almost 250 years collective experiencing of shared knowledge. Professors profess to know. And The Boys Nick the snowy wastes of Ottawa a Government man wildlife observer traveler too and Carl footballer lifesaver photographer his Fine Arts certificate. Father and sons talking rugby and there’s Des wise polymath autodidact the once deft boxer artist inventor engineer skillfully anything makes.  There’s Bru and Tracey erstwhile therapists gardeners Tai Chi devotees grey nomadic off beaten track travelers lovers the written word.  

New bleeding heart tree seedlings reminds me Petrena the sculptor Steve the musician her husband strangers becoming new friends on Big Lawn meeting. I showed them Earthrise parts I was scheming while working. Remember Steve walking belvedere’s weeds from the edge viewing over the river. His light passage weed-cushioned the seedlings were.  Earlier was our Big Lawn meeting with me raking into awareness seeing their arrival explaining raking of groundcovers and jasmine sparing adroitly the new grass gainfully to flourish! My discovery moment was epiphany it seemed! Contemplative raking coincided with the artist’s arrival. Could write a manual now my new raking tactic. Visitors would see obvious groundcover colonizers ending. And see friendly new grass that smothers no trees as groundcovers do. Plan for the difficult. Make big by starting small. Success loves planning. Could call my manual Subjugation of enslaving vines and groundcovers or possibly Sorties with rake and mower: from liberated herbage to lawn’? Or compile a book of imagined titles alone? Would be fun. My belvedere’s the perfect spot to write from. Writings best made alertly but almost in a drowsy state close to estivation. Requires rigorous training. Would move my bed here but think of the snakes. That late summer writing reality the best of times is mid-February mid-April that mellow near-torpor time of lazy hazed days of time untroubled. Not forgetting floods. Do I write from or on the Belvedere? Writing from this beautiful vantage implies a destination to possibly one on high like votive offerings to writing gods maybe. Writing on beautiful belvedere suggests belvedere as platform implying launchings. Not missiles books. Published writers aid publishers launching books but proto writers may only launch writings aspiring to books so on or from makes sense of sorts. Would belvederes somewhere be a good place for book launchings? Hmm. Imagine part of me up there godlike in the eagle’s sky seeing down to chortling self by the riverside scribbling. Why not? Perfectly reasonable that belvedere writing launches might catch on. Music. Presenters. Memorable shows.  Buttered scones strawberry jam deadly cream.

This writing season I also study towering great stacks of cumulonimbus through 10x binoculars open-mouthed at and on and from my belvedere as enthrallingly superior to cloud watching from cramped aircraft. Everybody should try. Aircraft limit viewing by moving so fast.  Cumulonimbus stacks binocular-entered are grand palaces. Reminds me too the insect-filled view through the air over the river that lively space in dappled light all flying.  

O! The surging stream inside my mind’s so like the one here now. My thinking runs the banks both streams. I recall old Lao Tzu’s frequent phrase the myriad creatures. Again remade images remind me the time those February’s ago my doorstep river all to myself as if gifted both the day and river. Later wrote that shimmering day my Lightly Swimming discovery piece. Will always remember that scene sublime the view across the river’s surface. Can see again sharply the myriad creatures dabbing Bellinger air. In the late summer days of humid February and contained by some airy metres above the water there were white butterflies that moved slowly, bobbing gracefully, even languidly, and they sometimes came lower toward the surface but never touched, never landed and there were whirring dragonflies, heads down like dipping helicopters, always really close to the water, seeming to touch it every so often and they all flew about like that whenever he glanced across the water all through the day. Although they moved endlessly and were busily alive they also all seemed movingly embedded in the supporting air. The butterflies reminded him of other ones, yellow, so much quicker, that bounced, bobbed and weaved for most of the late summer days up above in his garden, stationed in a different, waterless air.   

Again see myself imaged there swimming. Astonishing! Shall always see that lively zone over the water filled with myriad creatures winging it the living air!  

If my visitors remember sitting here how alike might their images be? Imagine all friends like Sergeant Pepper cover all present like a club. Friends give readings their books manuscripts make music themselves paint their pictures right here sing their songs sweetly presenting at Earthrise!

Highest good’s like water wrote the old poet. Water excels in benefitting the myriad creatures cooperatively. Might say water’s close to being the Way. What if water as river or river as water has its own way what if it also is the way that for LT’s the Real Thing? Can I use this river Way as my guide to restore lawns? The submissive overcomes what’s strong and unyielding. Hmm.  

And I also can see what’s ahead those work choices of mowing weeding endless raking as flurries of leaves frequently fall each choice to be made in a welter of competing thoughts. Each small change made and each beautiful view shall appear to be itself yet be more beautiful than before though each view will be it’s own self-chosen self. Do the myriad creatures reason like this? No. How I see each prospect’s only an arbitrary choice imposed. How gardens the gardener and not change what’s seen? Gardeners must study natural order of things seeking balance without meddling. Can that be the Way for we who mow and rake and weed?  The weedy soils between here and the river aren’t separate. Nor am I separate and the belvedere’s weeding is to be done on the knees.   

I see the smooth sweep of belvedere’s wall now newly dressed. And suddenly see images unbidden myself making the long ago Butterfly Garden. There’s a visual of me digging and clearing. This from about 1985 while attended by yellow robins watchfully parked the wheelbarrow. Another bird sits atop handle of an old spade. Two more birds tug worms to gorge near my boots all waiting to feast on fresh worms. See clearly still the day dull overcast. See myself seeing the robins of history freeloading. Freshly viewed history no re-focusing needed! Mental snapshots pristinely accurate! Similarly contemporary robins hurried the belvedere as dedicated gardener dumped loads of loam fertile. I spread its richness raking. In the loam modern worms and centipedes millipedes and wriggling offspring. Now see me sadly say sorry disturbing those myriad creatures. But I’m here now and laugh uneasily. I can still see and reflect and remember back then. In this special place and space I see old parts myself called from my psyche and I’m privileged in the golden scene surrounding. It’s as if I’m embedded within the lighted landscape while parts of me monitor presciently the riverscape the woodland perspective this place. Discursive mind reduces to pilot light wavering. Summer’s here still. February light’s for easeful summer thinking. Arrives that great word estivation again that summertime word enfolding summery ways when reading lacks concentration and heads may nod. Summer’s the reality when we’re lulled by heat humidity yet still hear subdued sounds of birds and background pulsing of cicada choirs. I stay awake on the belvedere embracing summer. I know I’m behind the belvedere sitting and seeing downriver. Awareness of ambient sounds drifting toward threshold and the river sounds obvious always still delightfully noticeable after 30 years. Nearby the sharper sounding rapids touch attention like easeful music. Percussive rapids sound like faintly resonant marimba or sometimes like voices murmuring. Birdsong too through woodland scrub steeply forested slopes along the serpentine river easefully draining down through forest to ocean. Not forgetting seasonal changes and sudden flash floods and slow-rising floods. Different the low water droughty trickles.  

Plains Crossing Bridge catches the eye meters left upstream. Ahead the Bellinger slides downhill the late afternoon glinting. River’s always here front centre engagingly in perspective bigger closer thanks to belvedere this good place sited. Sometimes seems everything’s seen without moving. Seems my head’s separate though nothing’s separate from anything everything’s joined interconnected interrelated interdependent. It’s all One and this spot’s a tiny part the whole. Whirling or steady the world’s holistically whole undivided. If part of the whole also the whole am I. There’s that other thing that subject/object misperception. Choosing and accepting conditioning is choosing to force everything apart.  

O now the weather’s changing? Dry air goes and wet air hangs heavy. I leave Belvedere to sit inside seeing the rain coming. Subtle low pressure deepens a trough. Rain falls again after no rain at all a time when thundery showers or drizzle at night might soften everything to make weeding a simple pleasure. But this wayward system hastens a downpour monsoonal. Hundreds of millimeters fall in close order.  

The Bellinger floods big-time with logs the whole kit and caboodle. O! Mid February the rains have come. The forested mountainside seems a hanging garden the bloodwoods flowering again their pale white blooming smudged by river mist rising those small clouds born of the river. In the falling rain the cooler creek stream wanders out into the wider Bellinger displays clear water patterns like overlaid maps on maps. Rainy beauty.

I prefer being on the belvedere in sunshine but the rain’s beautiful too.  

The flooding river rives and bends easily against the mountain while lifting debris from the banks. The higher the rise the more flotsam there is. The brown torrent speeding takes whole trees and logs. The mountain takes a pounding. The river eddies back against the flow runs over Rum Corner swirling. A debris whirlpool rakes the remains of old stonewalls breaching and the tangled mess shoves into Earthrise.  

Then the flood peaks the river falls. Rampant debris uncertain drags back to the mainstream but most crushes gardens in settling my weeks of cleanup yet to come and debris’s buried belvedere softly.

The burdensome flood has been and gone. I return to belvedere raking shoveling log-axing stopping ruminating thinking writing then resuming again. Then selectively I weed enthused without realizing. I carry old newspaper for kneeling while facing the river. Familiar heat humidity and aching knees are contradictory pleasures of weeding. The belvedere deserves my attention. Aware that belvedere’s a she. All her weeds withstood the flood and strong-stemmed thrust skyward and some exceptions have pliant tips that hang gracefully. Some others cassia seedlings their thin red stems breaking easily breaking but with roots tenacious. Not floribundas but embarrassedly I’m removing proto trees. And a fine new grass once gifted by flood the belvedere’s new carpet shall be and there’s space for maybe a second tree since this flood selectively weeded bleeding heart seedlings before I could. There’s now just one bleeding heart gifted the belvedere’s pigeons my balancing shade and companion to an older red cedar.  

Maybe I’ll see Lao Tzu soon see him surfing the Absolute effortlessly each of us seeing Nature taking its course seeing the whole world from here and furthering our dialogue. Meantime my motivated words from imagination rise to run their course through mind their images value-added and gifted to me. Floods come and go river views change. As under-stated as she is my belvedere in time shall disappear unless traces linger for archeologists ahead in time. In that future they’ll find ruins of here and now thinking new stories from old traces. Hope patiently tolerantly seeing Lao Tzu soon further surfing effortlessly each of us seeing Nature taking its course seeing the whole world without stirring.

References

Berner, J. (1975): The Photographic Experience. (New York, Doubleday). Quoted in Gross and Shapiro, 1996 p.185.

Diespecker, Don. (2004): “Lightly Swimming.” The International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 23 (2004), pp. 99-105.  

Frager, Robert and Fadiman, James. (1984): Personality and Personal Growth (second edition). (New York, Harper & Row).

Gross, P.L. and Shapiro, S.I. (1996): “Characteristics of the Taoist Sage in The Chuang-tzu and the Creative Photographer.” Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1996, 28, pp. 175-192.

James, William. (1890): The Principles of Psychology (2 vols.). (New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston). Unaltered republication, New York: Dover, 1950, I, p. 239. Quoted in Frager and Fadiman, 1984 pp. 246-247.

Jaynes, Julian. (1976): The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company). p.28.

Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching (translated by DC Lau. Harmondsworth, Middx.: Penguin). 1963.  

Lodge, David. (1992): The Art of Fiction. (London: Penguin).  

Popenoe, Cris. (1976): Books for inner Development. The Yes! Guide (Washington DC: Yes! Inc).

I include here a list of my Kindle eBooks together with brief descriptions:

About My eBooks   

For those readers who browse for eBooks, here again are the first of the online books. These digital books can be found on Amazon/Kindle sites. E.g., see

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Don+Diespecker  

(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 32.5-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 Intelligence Officers, 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-k words).

(l) The Midge Toccata, a caprice about talking insects (inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories). This book has a splendid new cover designed by my cousin, Katie Diespecker (fiction, caprice, about 26-k 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 (novel, about 65-k words).

(n) The Special Intelligence Officer is part family history as well as a military history and describes the roles of my late grandfather in the Guerrilla War (1901-1902). The Guerrilla War was the last phase of the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). The title of the book is taken from Cape newspapers of the time: Capt Rudolph Diespecker was a District Commandant and his responsibilities included intelligence gathering that led to the capture, trial and execution of a Boer Commandant who was wrongly framed as a ‘Cape rebel,’ when he was legally a POW (Gideon Scheepers was never a Cape rebel, having been born in the Transvaal (the South African Republic,) one of the two Boer Republics (non-fiction, about 33-k words).

(o) The Letters From Earthrise, an anthology of my columns and other essays and articles written for the Australian Gestalt Journal between 1997 and 2005 (fiction and some non-fiction, about 70-k words).

(p) The Darkwood, a dystopian novel set here in the not too distant future (about 80-k words). Earthrise is again central to other themes.

Guest writers retain ©. Thank you to my guest writer, Peter Thompson.

To all Diary Readers, I send you greetings and my good wishes. don883@bigpond.com

This month’s final words are Leo Tolstoy’s:

The old man, holding himself erect, went ahead, moving his turned-out feet steadily and widely, and in a precise and steady movement that apparently cost him no more effort than swinging his arms when walking, as if in play, laid down a tall, uniform swath. Just as though it were not him but the sharp scythe alone that swished through the succulent grass.

Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina