All at Sea

The spring has sprung and the grass has riz. The fresh new air of spring envelopes my world. I sit outside looking at the amazing native bush backdrop, across the vast lawn. The daisies have popped up all over the lawn, in no particular pattern. It is incredible to think that there are so many different types of green and here they are, displayed before me in all their glory.

The native bush is like a stage set providing a magnificent backdrop of shapes and colours. The interlaced branches of shrubs and trees make a magnificent canopy through which the light filters. Each puff of wind provides a light show of gentle flickers as the branches stretch and weave allowing the light to shine here and then there.

I have always wanted a house with sea views. The ultimate dream. But now, I wouldn’t swap this setting for that.

It is ever changing, like the sea; it sings and swirls, moves and shakes in high winds, like the sea; it presents an amazing show of shadows and light, like the sea; it is a living, whispering, ever changing entity, like the sea; it is home to many different living species, like the sea; it is magnificent, like the sea; it replenishes and refreshes me, like the sea; it caresses my spirit and mind, like the sea; it soothes my soul, like the sea; it somehow allows me to breathe deeply and fends off the panic and claustrophobia of living, like the sea.

I sit at the outdoor table under a magnificent green shade sail, looking out at this vast expanse of green sea. I am the captain of this house/ship, confident I can steer her through the sea of grasses and trees. I have my trusty wind rainbow sock, (from San Francisco) at the helm, to assist me. I am peaceful and confident I can make this journey.

Sometimes, when night has settled her blanket over the sky, I wake thinking that I can’t breathe, that I must get up early in the morning and head out to my favourite beach. Piha, the beach that had been my sanctuary, my salvation when it had become claustrophobic for me to be in the city, to be in my house. I feel like some land-stuck fish out of water, fending off the panic that there is not enough oxygen around me and that if only I can get to the sea, I will be able to breathe again. I drift off back to sleep with my plan for the early morning. When light starts the day again, I will run away to the sea. I will be fine, by the sea.

The morning arrives, I get up and go outside to my bush sea. I never do get into the car and drive to Piha. It just seems so far away now, and I don’t want to waste time getting there. So I sit viewing the vista at my own back door and I breathe easy.


Arohanui

KGXX

Razzle Dazzle Me

Challenged by the blank paper, I have again been waiting to find the “perfect” words, realising all the time that there are no such words. And that this is becoming an obsession of mine!! So I have shaken of that particular prerequisite and am “just writing.”

I do think of amazing things, sometimes in the middle of the night and even go so far as to say to myself, “remember to put that in the blog in the morning.” Of course, you know it, come morning and it has gone. That thought, that snippet, that insight, those seemingly perfect words - evaporated into the place of dreams, left free to float uncaptured.

The essence of things is much the same.

The peacefulness that I now have from doing a job that I love. The knowing, that I can do it, and do it well. The growing confidence each time I go to work and the incorporating of a new peacefulness with this and the removal of fear of making a major fuck up. I still might I guess, but I never did before in those five and a half years, so I have decided not to waste negative energy worrying about something I do have control over. I just need to keep doing my best.

The parallel travelling companion of grief, like a tried yet unpredictable friend, is ever present. It accompanies the peacefulness, suprises me with a snippet of a thought, a gentle kiss on the cheek, a child’s hand tangible in my hand. It drags me back and forth in time, rerunning a memory, projecting a disaster. It enrages the monster within me, and I struggle to take the air back from around it.

The quest for the perfect words, the frustration at reading what I have written and not being satisfied that I have conveyed “it”, whatever that particular “it” might be at that particular time, has made me more aware of other people’s words, language. As I have mooched my way through some of the rainy four days off I have, every 10 days, I have observed much more keenly the use of language.

Some of these observations have been through watching the American election campaign on Fox TV, (forgive me from succumbing to the nauseous presenters but they come with the territory!! I am not sure, if they are meant to be taken seriously or not but I find them quite hilarious, caricatures in fact, of serious news presenters.) Anyway, I watched Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama’s speeches. I thought they did a good job. He has wonderful rhetoric, inspiring, motivational words delivered exquisitely. She said all the right things, and while I kept waiting for her to choke on her disappointment at not being the nominee, she didn’t. She appeared gracious and to be acting for the “greater good” of the Democratic Party. Well done those two. You are left wondering at the depth of substance and the ability for the actions to match the words.

One week has elapsed from the above start to this entry. I have just spent a little bit of time watching the Republican Convention. To be honest, I feel sick to my stomach. There was a video honouring a soldier, a Navy Seal, who had thrown himself on a grenade, to protect his fellow soldiers. He was an honourable young man, with a family, doing his job with commitment and passion. It cost him his life. His family now have to learn to live with his death, willingly entered into or not. It will make no difference to their grief.

What made my stomach churn was not the honouring of this man, but that his contribution and his death, was being used to prop up the Republican point that seems to me to be that they are better equipped to safeguard America. That a death in war for one’s country, is an acceptable cost and one that they as leaders, will not shy away from. The genuine gratitude and respect for the members of his family who were present at the convention, was I am sure sincere. It all just seemed too rah rah rah for me and while heart strings and patriotism was rampant, all I could see was that there would be more young men and women sent to their deaths, in the name of politics. The speakers, of course, do not themselves face these dangers or the reality of their decisions. They can stand there and make emotional speeches, squeeze a tear or two out of their eyes, say he/she will never be forgotten, but they are at risk, only on the political battlefield, where ego and power are the prizes.

Who will win the battle for President, is anybody’s guess.

Ah well. Other words that have taken me in, lifted my soul and my heart, have been in the Janet Frame book, “Toward Another Summer.” I began reading and was unable to put this book down, until I had finished it. A bittersweet achievement, in that I didn’t want the words to end, but was compelled to reach the end. Her words have the ability to say so much, to contain so many layers of insight, emotion, to reveal to you the reader, so much family history, to take you into her life as a child, a young woman and a writer. I was totally transfixed and in awe. She found the perfect words. I have been inspired to keep stuttering along in my own way.

Words frame our reality. Actions define our lives. My by line – and damn near perfect!

Arohanui,
KG
XX