The last six months has been laced with the buzz of a low grade stress. In the pursuit of health, my husband wanted to test his body, to check on its defences and to get a picture of its internal functionality, after 39 years of an interesting life. Most of the results came back with nothing to worry about, except one.
If you have ever undergone something like this, or even something like this which ended with an undesirable test result and potentially ongoing treatment, you will likely understand well, what it is that I’m trying to convey.
The short of the story is that after six months of testing and doctor’s appointments which culminated in a visit to a specialist and further tests, he was cleared from having any major and life threatening diseases. He was lucky, this time.
The journey to get there however, has been this.
When you are faced with the potentiality of death, your outlook on life changes dramatically. The possibility that you might be gone within the next five, even ten years, alters how you see everything as each new day dawns. And in this situation, it wasn’t my life that was in the lurch – but it seems not to matter, when it’s your life partner, your best friend and the father of your children. The effect is the same. I felt the ominous presence of death as if Death itself was following me around.
The knowing that your children may not have their Best Man supporting them on their most important days, is a crushing thought. To consider that every milestone they achieve may be in the absence of their father, depresses the heart in an inconceivable way; such that one experiences a novel anxiety that is difficult to suppress. There is a sad sense of panic when conversation about the future arises, and the eye contact you make with one another is penetrative; with both of you knowing that maybe, only one of you will be there. The frame with which you now approach each moment is different; the instances in which your kids demand your attention are altered – you will fully stop what you’re doing in order to properly adore them, and wonder how much longer you will be lucky enough to cherish them. You realise what it is that gives your life true meaning, and whilst you don’t want to see an unfolding of time with him gone, there’s a part of you that seeks to be prepared for what may just eventuate.
If you are fortunate, as we were, the relief that comes with a negative result is welcome, and palpable. But the experience arrives with a warning. A reminder of how, for so many others, a contrasting reality is faced. It’s a reminder of how fortuitous you are, to have received with such gratitude, a favourable result. But as with all things, time passes. Presently, there is a real sense of appreciation for life and a realisation that this feeling cannot be allowed to wane. This notion has weighed carefully on my mind and heart, as still within my circles, suffering is present, and dis-ease prevalent and it is unequal; it doesn’t seem fair that a person’s youth is tainted with illness, or that someone who prioritises their health is struck down, their life reformed adversely and for ever.
When a life hangs in the balance, you see others mistreating their bodies more obviously. You look upon those people with disdain; angry at how they could be allowed a long life, lived with such a lack of virtue. And then you wonder at your good fortune, questioning how you could honour those without it. How you could acknowledge those that are being tormented by ill health. And I’ve surmised that it can only be done by holding your own life sacred. By looking after your own body, the vessel you rely upon to hold you steady and keep you going. Hold your life sacred by prioritising a life of good health, by making choices that benefit your body and your mind. Hold it sacred by choosing not to abuse your body – because how dare you mishandle the blessing of a healthy life when there are those around you suffering, those who would give anything to be well?
Life is not always fair to us. Knowing this does not have to be to our detriment, however. If we live each day with the worldview that at any point, things can change, we’re going to live happier lives. Already our time on earth is short. For me, this means maximising this journey I’ve been granted and making choices that support my wellbeing and the good health I’ve been bestowed.
Most people do not understand the proper way to use an apostrophe. Where the tiny airborne comma is placed on a page is confounding to many speakers of the English language, with perpetual confusion remaining intact from one generation to the next, blunders in writing ignored or unnoticed as young scribes commit to the pen in error, whether conjecture or inattention at fault too difficult to decree.
Something must be done to address the Apostrophe Catastrophe that inflicts our nation. We must not degenerate further on the global scale of language ability, with Australian English already judged as inferior to that of our counterparts. But how do we fix this debacle in discourse, so that more importunate issues can be solved in its place? No longer should we leave home in a state of fear, knowing our intellect will be questioned, an inquiry made into our own education as we are aggrieved by the vexing affront of an ill placed apostrophe.
Let us band together to teach our future leaders of the contrasting meaning of “fools” and “fool’s,” so that the interminable decline of language is stagnated, and once and for all we all permanently understand how to use an apostrophe.
Once you’ve grown up, nothing is funny anymore. Every day existence has not the sweet mist of humour, as was the case in high school days. Smiles are less prominent than stern faces, especially those facing computer screens, rapid fingers typing, eyes darting forward and back. The responsibilities of an Important Life are too essential to pass by – there is little time, once taken care of, for Fun. The bright, white halo of Curiosity has been replaced with the reflection of artificial light, where Answers are obligatory, Authorisation of Things is necessary and Duties are ceaseless. As an adult, laughter is seldom, fits of it unseen, unheard. Nothing is funny, anymore.
Yesterday, a Prado rolled down the gravel driveway which was white, originally, but looked as though it had been sprayed with red dirt. It had a trailer attached, and inside were three little goats.
I was putting the little boy down for his nap when I heard my older child gasp and then obnoxiously open the bedroom door. “The GOATS!” he whispered loudly. Naturally I told him to shush and close the door.
The next two hours was spent altering some existing accommodation to accommodate the new friends. Weaned, six months old, two girls and a boy. They were flighty after having travelled 170km and quivering, the winter’s day not being too kind to their lean bodies and young coats.
We enclosed them in a disused vegetable garden, which had most fences already intact. The husband turned Farm Man in his red flannelette shirt, which he insisted was absolutely necessary now that we live on acreage, was literally handed a small goat to move from trailer to pen, and it seemed to attain a relative sense of calmness in his arms.
They started nibbling grass straight away, and we set up a piece of colourbond scrap against one opening. Having seen them run, it would not be a pleasant experience to have them free on seven acres set between two roads and not properly fenced. Writing this now, I feel like we were somewhat unprepared for their arrival. In fact, I found out they were coming a mere 36 hours before – not a lot of preparation time.
They seemed quite content, and when I told Shane they needed a shelter, he set up a makeshift one for the time being. I then disappeared for a few hours to clean our other house, and it was only after dinner and once the kids were asleep that I got down there to check on them. I was worried about them in the rain and the cold, so wanted to make sure they were using the shelter.
Now, I have a thing about living “remotely;” we are not at all remote because we have neighbours within walking distance BUT being surrounded by trees and darkness at night has certain a creepiness to it, which reminds me constantly of the last scary movie I saw, YEARS ago whereby a woman who is living on her own is attacked by a free range murderer who actually first kills her friend, having just left her place to walk back to her own property next door. There are several pretty huge dissimilarities with myself and this woman, the big one being that the main character is actually deaf, BUT going out in the darkness puts me on high alert for lurking murderers.
Shane knows about my unreasonable fear of being murdered. I think that it’s for this reason that he approved me going down to check on the little goats before bed, in case he was ever out and I had to do it all alone. “Practice,” I believe they call it these days. AND OF COURSE. When I’m down there, a car pulls up outside the fence and remains there with its high beams on me – the only moving object for many many metres around. It was obvious that once the lights hit me, they decided not to continue driving. I turned my torchlight off my phone, and froze in the darkness hoping someone wasn’t coming to kill me. I sent Shane a quick text. I remained there for several minutes and so did the weirdos in their car, engine running alongside my growing suspicion.
I decided I couldn’t stay there all night, despite knowing that moving to the gate would put me in direct line of sight of the headlights. Bravely, (I know) I took the plunge and moved to open the gate, squatting down then quickly twisting the wire back through and hooking it as firmly as I could under the pressure of Flight Mode. As I was finishing what I thought was a stable closure and preparing myself to run, MF, run, who appears but my husband. In his new Nike slides and pyjamas. Gratefully, I hurriedly pointed out the car still parked with bright lights shining, though I needn’t have done so because in the darkness it was as clear as day that this wasn’t normal.
It was wet, cold and dark and accessing the exterior of the property would involve ducking and weaving through dirt and bush, so after trying to to signal the car by using our own phone lights pointed in their direction, we retreated to the house and checked that all the doors were locked. I also then called Crime stoppers (131 444) and reported this little occurrence. The car remained there for some time – we checked every few minutes from the house, and I continued to wait for some creepo to appear at one of my windows.
We found it funny that of course, something weird happened when I went down the back, given my aforementioned trepidation. Anyway, the rest of the night passed uneventfully – unless you count several wake ups courtesy of two small boys, one husband snoring very disagreeably and one toddler trying to sleep literally on top of your face. We weren’t killed, and that’s a bonus.
Scene set: Monday morning. Work day, school day, daycare day. One human trying to get herself and two small ones out of the house dressed, fed and prepared for the day. New goats in the backyard…let’s take them some vegetable scraps and check in on their welfare. Long shot: Goat pen. Close up: ONE goat in the pen. Close up: Gabrielle’s face – despair. Two goats had escaped the pen, the girls, actually, and our boy was inside the enclosure clearly forlorn at his mateys having exited. Panic. Time was lapsing literally by the moment, and the goats were foraging in the scrub. I glanced up at my bedsheets hanging on the Hills Hoist and wondered how long it would take the goats to realise they could have something other than grass for morning tea, given the clichéd and popular notion that “goats eat EVERYTHING!”
Following this, I sent several spam-like texts to Shane conveying the sense of alarm I was feeling, and when he didn’t immediately reply or call me, I called him…twice. Because he didn’t pick up the first time. And then the second time, he answered with a somewhat exasperated tone, as I had clearly inflicted a disturbance upon his morning ritual. Absorbing the information that the goats were loose, however, Farm Man threw on his imaginary Akubra and galloped home to save the day. He and our five year old spent the next hour low to the earth, channelling their inner goat in order to herd the chicky babes back into their pen. Wild.
To think that two weeks ago, we lived on a normal suburban block with the biggest issue being our neighbours disliking the dachshund barking is a little bit mind blowing. It’s real and true that now, we are facing a different reality entirely, which is certainly going to evolve rapidly. An interesting adventure, it’s sure to be. Stay tuned!
I’ve been reading. And at least I’ve been reading, whilst I haven’t been writing. For this reason, I’ve decided to share the books I’ve finished, because I only finish them when they’re worth my time. I can pick up a book and drop it (either instantly or within the week) because I know it’s not going to tickle my mind in the most perfect way. I have friends who persist, purely because it’s a task they’ve begun and feel the need to finish…but not me. I will not drink a glass of bad wine, and I will not read a bad book.
Here are the titles I’ve read in the last 12 months, that I wholly believe are worth reading. They are in no particular order, except for those written by Lian Hearn, as they’re part of the most wonderful series I’ve ever experienced.
There are 14 books here. So if you can manage to read one book per month of the year, you’ll get them all done with two spares. And if you devour words, of course you’ll be done sooner. I’m not going to review, I just want to share them so that others can experience the melange of emotions I did when I had the privilege of turning those many hundreds of pages.
Thank you to my friend Helene, who has the same taste in printed word as I do and recommended many of these.
Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
American Dirt – Jeanine Cummins
The Last Migration – Charlotte McConaughey
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
Melmoth – Sarah Perry
Across the Nightingale Floor – Lian Hearn
Once there were Wolves – Charlotte McConaughey
Grass as his Pillow – Lian Hearn
Pony – RJ Palacio
Brilliance of the Moon – Lian Hearn
The Harsh Cry of the Heron – Lian Hearn
Goldfinch – Donna Tartt
All the Light we cannot See – Anthony Doerr
I would love to hear your reports, if you do get your hands on these beauties or if you’ve read them already. Comment on this post or get in touch with me if you have my number.
Sleep quietens the hive of action from the outside world. Once slept on, if the mind settles deeply enough to allow it, a problem is no longer seated at the height of unease and uncertainty, but seems more approachable and solvable. Such is the glory of a full night of rest. It is simply that – glorious, for brain and body to stop. Because at this moment in history, us young people are overwhelmed with doing life, working hard trying to look like we’re not struggling, not even a little bit, in fact not at all.
It is not now, as it always was. Of course, such is the passage of time; expectation and understanding of change is compulsory. Now, no longer is it suitable to simply find a girl, settle down, if you want you can marry. You can do these things, yes, but it doesn’t either abruptly or even slowly finish at that.
You have to grow, in any way possible.
Grow your body in the right way. Look after it and continue to learn how to nourish it, and then teach others how to fix their own, which they have probably lost control of themselves.
Pass on information in the hope for the altruistic success of those also on the path. Don’t hold one single job – do many things, most of the time and perpetuate learning and growth by learning and growing. Find things out, and lodge them somewhere accessible in the recesses of your grey matter. Share them too, because the wealth of one is the wealth of all.
Develop personally. Receive information, layer it onto your person and embody its code to keep improving yourself. Grow. Be better and strive for more, and don’t stop there – teach others the way how-to and what-with because what good is a life alone?
Keep your temper at bay. Practice methods to calm it, for uncontrolled rage is the enemy of mediation. Practice accepting your flaws but continue to try and outwit them. Learn some more. Keep your hair untangled, your skin unblemished and your attitude clean. Be outspoken – stand firm on your values and do not be stamped upon by compliance if all things are not aligned for you. Save your money, but not too much because you have to live now, now, now.
Take time to yourself, for looking after yourself improves your ability to look after others. Don’t overdo it though, because others must come before the self now and always, all the time, for ever and that’s why self care is necessary at all.
In your everyday be careful to be carefree, but not careless. You have to care some, yes, but with only exactly the right amount. Too much will be seen as obsessive and not enough classed as selfish or ignorant. It is a challenge to balance it all but what would life be if it wasn’t the top balancing act of a show played out by absolute amateurs?
Gabrielle Gassin 