They're Orange!

Soon I will be surrounded by roses. The little buds on my balcony are morphing into old-fashioned single apricot roses with a lemon throat and a soft, spicy scent. Further along is a yellow bud. It's hard to tell if it's a sport or a separate bush.

I miss my garden, especially my roses. People talk about leaving home, but it's leaving thge gardens that I remember. The last was one I was able to come back to, to revisit and celebrate six years of growth on my old familiars. Leaving it a second time was even harder.

It's a bit like that with a child. You plant the seed, nurture it, tend its needs, admire its flowering, stress over infestations and withered branches, fertilise it fondly with what you hope will be the right ingredients, then - a small twist - your child leaves you to continue her growth in other gardens.

Hopefully, her roots are deep and strong enough to withstand bad weather without your care. With luck, the fertiliser you used will have long-term benefits. And note to all future gardeners:please tend to her with care and respect. 

When you do get to revisit your child you find yourself in awe of the growth that can occur in a foreign soil, the confident branching and graceful strength that has been acquired without much apparent tending by outside forces. You can simply delight in her shade. For shade is what she gives you, and should do. Our job is not to over-shadow our children but to plant them out in the world and refertilise ourselves from their newer and bigger adventures, content in the knowledge you have gardened well and deserve your rest.

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

- Kahlil Gibran

Not four eyes! Amblyopia, stupid!

I have been wearing glasses since I was three. The only advantage in that is that, at three, I didn't have to choose the frames. In fact, in 1960-something there wasn't much choice. There were mini-cat's eye replicas of grown up glasses in various shades of pink or blue for girls, and shrunken Clark Kent goggles in black or tortoiseshell for boys. Mine were not enhanced by the piece of brown paper gummed over my 'good' eye.

How I hated that patch. I hated glasses. I hated the pictures on  paddle pop sticks I had to move back and forth in front of my eyes in a vain attempt to go cross-eyed. I hated the cheery orthoptist and her lions that never went in their cages. I hated the eye doctor with his refraction contraption that ever threatened to trip me up on the 'better' or 'worse' questions and leave me sightless for the next year, and I still do. I hated his stinging, blinding eye drops. But most of all, I hated being called 'four eyes' or 'goggle eyes'!  And I still never remember to take off my glasses before opening the oven, and we're talking the best part of 50 years now.

In retrospect, I have the patch, the glasses, the paddle pop stick, the lions and all the other paraphernalia to thank for being able to see as well as I now can. I have no binocular vision, but my 'bad' eye is not blind. I have the bullies at school to thank for still not being able to catch a ball, and I thank Dorothy Parker for the fact I squinted my way glasses-less through so many teenage parties I still don't know what it means to 'make eyes' at someone, because I could never see that level of detail.

But to this day, the hardest part of wearing glasses remains choosing the frames. Today there is nothing but choice and recently I stumbled upon an innovative use for my iPhone: taking photos of all the choices so you can email friends and family for an opinion. So now I have four possible choices, and four different opinions! Whah! 

The Fashionista was quite specific. Of these, she said, "They're cool, and that colour looks really great on you, but I don't know how I feel about the sliced-out-side line things ... it's perhaps a bit graphic/spacey, it seems to say 'I think I'm a 'cool' 49-year old', which you are, but you don't need glasses like this to say it, perhaps. That said, these would be my second pick."

I did ask.

Happy Birthday, J! Six years on ...

Oct 2014: This is my friend, J. She turned 96 the other day. I called her up at the aged care facility she now lives in. I was scared of what I might find. It was more than six months since our last contact. Six months is a long time at 96. I had been 'busy'. Perhaps she had died and no one had told me? Perhaps her dementia was worse and she wouldn't know who I was?

Thankfully, neither of my worst fears were realised and for a little while we chatted like the old mates we are. But after a while, the same questions were asked again and again and the same stories were repeated, and it was apparent the dementia had not gone away.

I felt, and still feel, sad for my friend and our friendship. Sad that she is in such a place after such a full and active life. But today, I came across this, written six years ago, and it reminded me why I called, why I need to call more often and why I will keep calling my friend until I get the final call that tells me she has gone ...

 

Oct 2008 ... This is my friend, J. She turned 90 the other day.

We can all only hope to be as active in mind and body as Joy at 90. But J's greatest gift is not her longevity, it's her ability to connect and stay connected with people. One of the other guests at the party was 91. She and J had been mates since they started Guides aged 11.

 

J got her first computer only a year or two ago and she's already a dab hand with email, but her main tools are the telephone, the letter and a brilliant memory for people and their special events.

 

She's never been rich. She comes from the 'make-do' generation who lived through the Depression and the war. She's a natural recycler. She manages to keep things to re-use and always remember not only where she put them, but that she did keep them so she does reuse. But every handmade card on handmade, recycled paper is a precious gift of something  most of us have little of today: time.

 

J's real wealth comes from the time she gives to other people: her large, multi-generation extended family, friends in every state and every decade and the host of community organisations she supports. What she gives, gives back. It's something that thousands of friends on Facebook can never give you.

 

Happy birthday, J. Many happy returns.

D-Day

I finally did it. Today's the day I have to face one of my worst fears. I've put it off for as long as I can but it had to happen sooner or later.

Today I am going to the dentist!

I've been scared of dentists ever since Mr Robson slapped me when I was six because I wouldn't sit still. Imagine that happening these days! That said, I must have been a chicken even then. I also tried to hide under the doctor's desk because my mother wanted me to have a polio shot. A couple of weeks later, they introduced oral Sabin vaccine at school. I never forgave my mother for that, but I certainly never got polio.

Thankfully, dentists, doctors and our attitudes to small children have all improved, though childhood fears are harder to divest. This dentist is a woman. I have never seen a female dentist before. Fingers crossed!

Just remember to breathe.

Enter in Peace

I am a pacifist. 

I respect each individual's right to their own beliefs, opinions and morals. But I also believe the onus is on the individual not to force those beliefs, opinions or morals on others without invitation.

Unfortunately, many people don't seem to get that. They believe their way is right, and that theirs is the only way.

I do not believe there is only one way ... in anything.

This is something I live by:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

than dreamt of in your philosophy." Hamlet, Act 1, Sc 5

An open mind, and an open heart.... just what the doctor ordered!

Namaste