On a Facebook group about SDAM, someone had asked “What is your narrative about your life? Is it things like ‘I am a good parent,’ ‘I like to play football’. I got the impression they were really asking How do I describe myself when I don’t have access to my autobiographical memory? How do I know that these things I think are me, actually are a true representation of who I am?
It’s a valid question. A few years ago I was asked Who Am I Without My Wounds? I had no idea and it became a turning point in my life. I had no narrative about myself that I could rely on as being true. People with SDAM have little to no autobiographical memory. People with Aphantasia often have little to no episodic memory. Put the two together and you definitely have a memory that is ‘dodgy’ at best.
My narrative had become a lot of stories about me. But like stories that are told over and over again there is a chance of them turning into versions that are no longer the same as the actual happenings – a bit like Chinese Whispers. I had no idea how much truth these stories still held because the actual memories are lost. They could be totally true or so warped by constant re-telling that truth was lost. Most likely they were somewhere in the middle, but I had no way to know that. The stories I told were also of the traumas of my life. There were very few of happier times.
Did I really travel from one traumatic experience to the next in such a way for over 65 years?
And if I took away the stories, what would be left? Would I even be able to recognise myself?
That was a very freaky thought – that I was nothing but a heap of stories that may no longer even be true in the detail, even if the basis of each story held truth.
So I wrote them down. Published a book, and then, because all those dark stories were keeping me in fear, I allowed them to go, to disappear, knowing that if I ever need to recall them, I can simply pick up my book and read them.
But people got in touch with me. My tale had touched them and I discovered that my stories had helped other people understand their stories better, or had reassured them that they were not alone.
It didn’t happen overnight and a whole lot more understanding of how I function in this world had to be discovered and accepted, before I could fully let my stories go, but writing my stories – my narrative – was the first step to healing.
This morning, as I write this, a post appeared in my Facebook feed. It was a picture of a page from a book. I read the text, thinking that I really could relate to what the author was saying. I loved the syntax, the choice of words used and even the cadence seemed as if it talked to me. It felt like something I could have written.
Who wrote this? I wondered. And then I reached the final sentence on the page and realised that I had written these words. This was an excerpt from my book Hidden in a Dark Place.
This was confirmation that I had let my painful past sink into the obscurity of SDAM – and I am not lost as I thought I would be. I gave myself a lifeline by writing that book and accepting the risk of losing my past. I may not know who I am without my wounds, but I know that the wounds were not ALL I was. Now, I am stronger. Now I have learned to believe in me.
I now know that I stimmed as a child. Back then, more than 60 years ago, I would only know that I would do ‘stuff’ that annoyed my mother. It didn’t matter if it was tapping my toes, bouncing my knees, chewing my little finger, biting my nails, sucking my hair… it all annoyed my mother and that meant either getting yelled at or slapped.
My dad’s mum gave me something to do with my hands when I was about 6 or 7 years old, she taught me to crochet and my love of working with threads began to grow. The biggest pleasure isn’t in actually making something – and definitely not in finishing that something – but in working out, discovering, how to do it.
At school we learned to knit, starting with winter hat, gloves and scarf. We also learned how to sew, making our own summer uniforms. My mother was a seamstress and she took me way beyond basics in dressmaking. I made all my clothes and all my daughter’s. I also played with tapestry, cross-stitch, embroidery, tatting, lace making, latch hook rug making, rag rug making, Amish toothbrush rug making, twining, ojo de dios, traditional dream catchers. I expanded my explorations with flow art painting, twilling, mala beads, weaving, polymer clay and so much more.
But it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I realised that all this craft work, was my form of self-soothing. Of taking myself away from a world that is difficult. It is stimming in a way that is socially acceptable.
When I was diagnosed as autistic, I decided that I was no longer going to hide my differences. All my life I had hidden behind a mask which was such a part of me that I actually had no idea that I was anything but the mask. It even had a name – The Actress on the Stage. And after one particularly trying day, only a few months ago, when I had gone into meltdown and was really struggling, I gave into to a very primal version of me and I allowed my body full freedom to stim. It started with hand flapping, progressed to feet, arms, legs – my whole body lay on the sofa and flapped and shook, and bucked and vibrated. It took a long time to stop, and afterwards, I was calm. Relaxed. Exhausted. Yet it felt so right and natural.
Now, I stim. I do it a lot. Mainly it is just twiddling my feet as I watch TV; sometimes it is hand-flapping but most of the time it is me making something with some type of thread.
Right now there is a lot of stuff going on in my life and my need to stim is pretty intense. There has been the flooding; the fall I took where I broke my nose; and now, after decades of chronic pain, it seems as if, finally, I am getting the help I need – but it’s all happening at once and that is starting to feel like a runaway train.
After waiting for years, I now feel as if I have had so many medical appointments, I started joking about buying timeshare in the hospital, and there are many more appointments in the next few weeks, including surgery. I am feeling a bit on edge. And so, about a month ago I started crocheting. I started a temperature blanket – one granny square every day which shows, through the use of different coloured threads, the high and low temperatures, and the humidity, of that particular day. I’ve also made a wrap for when the cooler weather eventually arrives, and a lovely cushion cover in a pattern that looks like 3D.
As all these appointments start to mount up, my need to stim increases. So the last couple of days have been spent in preparation for a second blanket. This one is an Historical Temperature Blanket and I have had to research historical weather records for the north of England from the day I was born up to my 1st birthday. Then I had to decide on colour schemes, and finally, I started crocheting.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh……. The world narrows down to that single length of thread, my crocheting hook, and the pattern that is slowly emerging.
A friend was exploring her beliefs regarding the formation of the Universe and the potential of the existence of a Being – an Energy – that brought about Creation as we know it.
I was drinking my first cup of coffee when she posed that question and my mind is usually barely working until that first cup of black liquid has been inhaled, but this question (as my friend’s questions often do) tripped my mind into deeper thought. This time, as to my beliefs on a much, much bigger picture than the one we look at everyday through human eyes.
As a very young child, I could definitely believe in the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas; in Dragons and Elves, but I could never get my head around the thought of an old man with a long beard, sitting on a cloud, listening in on all the trillions of things happening in the world and then still having time to punish bad people and send them to hell. Even as a very young child, that picture never raised fear. It raised puzzlement and disbelief. And I thought that this old guy with a beard probably couldn’t make himself a cup of tea, so how the heck could he build an entire universe?
If God, or some God-like Creator-being couldn’t have done it, how did the universe come into existence? That was a question that cropped up from time to time over the next few years and as I got a little older, and discovered atoms, it suddenly all became clear. I thought of us – humans – as being mere specks living on a single cell in the body of a much more giant being – who was a speck of dust living on a single cell in the body of an even greater being, who was also a speck of dust doing exactly the same thing. Maybe that was God – the biggest being, beyond anything I could actually conceive of. Maybe that was who had made everything. I was sensing Infinity. I was building my own form of Mandelbrot even as a child. It was a daydream – a child’s way of explaining the unexplainable, but this explanation, this knowledge of Infinity, has hovered in the background of my beliefs for my entire life.
It was a massive puzzle for a child to contemplate. Many great minds throughout history have pondered on this question – without answer. Ultimately, I was forced to recognise that I wasn’t ever going to find an answer, but that acceptance did raise another unasked question of my childhood: “Are we really as important as we think we are?”
If we are indeed merely fleas living on an electron zooming around the nucleus of a single atom in the body of a much greater being, why do we believe we are so important? What is it that shouts so loudly to us, in the much greater Mandelbrot of existence, that WE ACTUALLY MATTER.
Maybe it’s because we sense, in that Mandelbrot-dream, that if we are merely aspects of something greater, could we possibly also be the ‘greater’ of an infinitesimally smaller universe of life? If you’ve ever watched a Mandelbrot video and considered the mathematics of such a thing, you know that there really is no ‘end’ and that every step forward is dependent on the previous step.
Nowadays, when I ponder this question, my thoughts are, perhaps, a little more sophisticated than the younger me who questioned that an old man sitting on a cloud could be the creator of all that is. I still think that Mandelbrot vision of existence holds possibilities – after all, who really knows the truth of this? I think there is a continuum of existence that will never come to an end simply because the universe is eternal. If I try to give a definition of an eternal universe, I refer to the continuous double-sided flow of a Mobius Strip. From the point on that Mobius Strip where I may exist in Time and Space, there is no beginning and no ending. The physical aspects might end. I might end; Earth might end and so too might our galaxy. These are all things that hold Space.
For something physical to be created – for a universe to be created – there must, first, be Time. Time defines Space. Time is the boundary of Creation. Is it possible for Time to end? What would be beyond the end of Time?
Could there have been existence before the start of Time?
Sometimes, especially when I try to wrap my mind around such questions, I start to think that the concept that everything is an illusion, that we don’t actually exist, that we are just players in a Game of Life, to be quite comforting.
I have no idea what I am about to write about. It’s been over two weeks since I last wrote pretty much anything except the very occassional entry in my Journal. And that is very strange for me. No blogs, no chapters in my book, barely any responses on social media.
I’ve mentioned a few times that I think best by writing, so the best reason I can come up with for being in the very unusual state of non-writing is that I have needed to rest my mind. I need to start writing again and so this blog is just going to be the un-thought words and emotions that need to be released. In other words (and be warned) I am about to waffle.
In the last month there has been the stress and worry of the phenomenal amount of water that has fallen from the sky and flooded a part of Queensland equal to the size of France. People have lost their homes and all their belongings. People have lost their lives. But I have also seen the best of people. I have watched the community become a community. I have seen people reaching to what has always been within them but is often pushed aside – compassion. I have seen the love of strangers – and it IS love for their fellow beings that drives someone to leave their own loved ones and get helicoptered into a strange, afflicted, town and do what they can to assist. Humans are often at their best when other humans hurt.
I was lucky. Only a small part of my home was flooded and I was assisted by heaps of people all aiming to help me get my life back on track. And my gratitude knows no bounds.
Then I fell over. I smashed my nose. It took a week for the swelling to go down enough to get a CT scan to learn what the damage was. And that week was needed in order for the floods to abate enough for me to be able to travel the 90 minute drive to where I could access a CT scan.
Now that all the rainbow colours of facial bruising have gone, there is very little to see. If you look closely you can see that the top of my nose has moved slightly to the right whilst the bottom is off centre to the left; and my nostrils are odd sizes. All the damage is inside and I’ll need surgery so that I can breathe properly again. But it’s not urgent. I could have done much more damage.
This accident led me to another understanding of how my body works. I was offered opiate painkillers because it was expected that the pain would be intense. I didn’t feel much pain at all. Some numbness, a weird sensation that my nose is not where it should be and some mild toothache. I didn’t use any painkillers.
That expectation of pain held by the medical staff got me looking at other times I have bashed up my body. Many years ago (1980’s) I fell off a stage and severely sprained my ankle. I taught three hours of high-impact aerobics on that ankle and then drove 20 miles home. About ten years ago I was knocked down by a cyclist going at high speed on a walking path. I snapped the medial ligament in my knee. I carried on working as a cleaner carrying vacuums and piles of linen up and down 17 flights of stairs (the building didn’t have a lift). Seven years ago I fell off a sea wall and totally smashed up my lower left leg and ankle. My body went into shock and my last memory was of a paramedic announcing that I didn’t have a pulse. Two surgeries later, throwing up all over the place after being given morphine, I came off all medication. I did not experience pain. There’s been a few other instances where there has been an expectation of pain, where I know there is pain, but my mind doesn’t accept it.
I recently read of new research into aphantasia where it has been discovered that people with aphantasia do actually get brain activity associated with visualising, but the information kind of gets stuck and isn’t translated into actual mental pictures. I’m wondering if a similar thing is happening with pain.
Now, four weeks after all this drama and trauma started, I need to make myself start writing again. In the place of writing I have been crocheting. When I fell off that wall seven years ago and was confined to bed for nine weeks – I crocheted. My mind is not engaged when I crochet other than to count stitches. It’s restful. My mind, much like a broken bone, has needed time out over these past few weeks, but now I recognise how it would be so very easy to just carry on, counting stitches, watching movies, and allowing both body and mind to atrophy. It is by conscious choice that I now sit at my laptop and start the journey to re-inspiring my mind into action.
Because without my mind, who am I?
And if you got this far, I thank you for reading this waffle which will, I hope lead me into getting back into ‘proper’ writing!
It’s been a difficult two weeks – and I was in a position that was so much easier than many of the people who live in this small town in the Far North of Queensland.
Two weeks ago, a monsoon trough met a tropical low in the Coral Sea. It almost sounds like a fairy tale – the kind where the beautiful princess meets a handsome prince and they dance around each other before falling madly in love. But that monsoon and the tropical low just clashed together and the ‘dance’ was more akin to Poseidon smashing his trident into the earth and marking a vast area where these two Titans could fight it out.
The result was rain. Over 2,000mm of rain in some places, in a matter of days, and many of the homes in these places were flooded right up to their roof tops. Homes were filled with mud; precious personal items destroyed; there has even been loss of life.
This little town I call home straddles the only road that travels up the north coast of Queensland – 1,679km. That one road, known as the Bruce Highway, is, once it leaves Brisbane and the more populated areas of the South East of Queensland, just like a normal street with one lane of traffic in either direction. I actually live on that street and I can cross it in less than 50 steps. Yet this is the main access for many towns, small and large, for the delivery of food and other supplies. Without the Bruce Highway, we don’t get essential supplies – it’s that simple, and for the past two weeks, the Bruce has been inaccessible due to flooding and bridges collapsing into the water.
The rescue teams have been awesome. Army, Fire and Rescue, State Emergency Services, a whole mob of electricians and more. Helicopters hauling people, equipment, food, came to Cairns and other places affected by the flooding. And work began. Hundreds of trucks spent days parked on the edge of the road waiting for the army to build a pontoon to get them over a washed out bridge so they could deliver vital supplies. And then they waited many more days to be able to drive their empty trucks home. These truckies, the absolutely life blood that flows through the one long artery of Queensland have done it tough. Living in their trucks, loosing money because a truck that doesn’t travel doesn’t earn a living, these belong to the list of heroes of this tale.
Yesterday, the flooding went down enough for the trucks to move – with care. Hundreds upon hundreds of huge double-length semi-trailers finally got to either deliver their goods or start the journey home.
I was lucky. Man! Was I ever. I evacuated for two days and when I returned I discovered that just one small room, that is on a slightly lower level than the rest of the house had been flooded. The floor was filled with mud. We had been warned that the water and the mud was possibly toxic – likely to have sewerage, melioidosis, and toxoplasmosis. The SES hosed it all out for me and also carried a sofa that that had been inundated by that toxic fluid out for garbage collection.
The tiny supermarket, which had been filled with empty shelves yesterday, today had fruit and vegetables. And eggs. And bread. I bought some lettuce and some strawberries; and some teabags – just in time because I only had four left! I did cause a few turned heads as I walked through the supermarket because most of my face is covered in medical dressings and what you can see is swollen and has some very lurid purple and yellow colouration. I had tripped over some debris in the garden and had landed on my nose. It’s probably broken, but I have to wait until next week to get a CT scan – if the flooding doesn’t return.
Now it’s time to look forward and I do so with a wonderfully uplifted heart. I have watched the young people of this town get stuck in with helping people. I have heard of people opening their homes to strangers so that they would have a place to sleep. I have heard of people who still had food and electricity, making meals for those who didn’t. The swimming pool opened its doors to provide showers and food. People who have stuff, donated it to those who don’t.
I have seen total strangers who came here, often by helicopter, to help the locals as we have fought to find a way to deal with so much loss and anguish. There is financial help, physical help, emotional help. I’m an older person and due to various things am considered ‘vulnerable’; I was in tears. I was in tears for me – for the fears I had held, but also for the beauty of so much giving and receiving that I was seeing.
When we look at world happenings – as shown to us through various media formats – we mainly see the hard stuff. The stuff that frightens, worries, adds to the loads we already carry. How often do we see the kindness, the sharing, the supportive hugs that humans can give to each other? It is beautiful – and it is so sad that we really only see this in times of disaster.
I’ve lived a long and varied life which held many difficulties and hurdles to cross, and every time I have hit rock-bottom for some reason, there has been someone there to help me back up. I often haven’t recognised that person. Sometimes it’s just been a compassionate smile or a kind word. Sometimes, advice I haven’t always taken. It’s been people who have literally picked me up off the floor. It’s been friends, neighbours, strangers. And as I look back over the past two weeks, I can see that almost every human will help another person if they are able. It’s what we do. We don’t need to shout out to the world about the help we give to someone, because this is what is is to be human. Love isn’t a grand drama – it’s a smile that one person buying eggs in the supermarket gives to a stranger doing the same thing, who just happens to have their face all bashed up. That smile says “It’s ok. You’ve got this.”
And the person with the bashed up face – me in in this case – smiles back and says, “Isn’t it great to see eggs back on the shelves?” And neither of us even blink at the $10.00 a dozen price tag. We know what it took to get those eggs onto the supermarket shelves. And we are grateful.
At the moment I am writing my first novel. It is, as you may imagine, a totally different experience to writing these short blog posts or the short stories which make up some of my other books. There is a satisfaction when sitting at my laptop and finding that the story has circled to a completion in under 1,000 words.
I’m really enjoying the challenge of writing this novel – and it IS a challenge. There is so much to remember – and I have a dodgy memory, so there are spreadsheets involved so that I can keep track of who is doing what to whom!!!
BUT
However exciting writing a novel is, sometimes a short story screams to be released…. Enjoy….
More than a thousand years ago a seed fell and took root. The sapling grew, stretching tall through the shadows of the older forest to reach the sunlight. Small creatures sought safety in her branches, and her leaves cast a protective canopy on the forest floor. The mycorrhizal network beneath the earth connected her to her sisters and parent trees, enabling a sharing of knowledge and nutrients. The forest thrived and within in that community the circle of life blossomed and grew.
Then Man came to the island, and with him came his religion and his need for a place to worship. In the way that Man does, he slaughtered the forest, the birds, the animals – all in order to build that place, formed from dead and silent stone. All that lived was slaughtered to Man’s greed, except a single tree. These men did not see that the very place they truly needed was right there under the trees where the songs of ages thrived.
That single tree, grown strong in its reaching for the light, once friend and protector of all living things, was now bound by barren land and stone walls. Over time, the tree twisted, seeking company. The trunk and branches rotated around as the tree once again strived to reach the sunlight.
A thousand years later, when the tree trunk was old and gnarled; when leaves had fallen and regrown a thousand times, the walls of the Abbey started to crumble and fall. The light, and the magical creatures, began to return and, eventually, the Songs of Ages could once again be heard in the whisper of wind in the leaves and in the laughter of children.
A single tree, old and gnarled with a twisted trunk stands of rocky ground surrounded by the crumbling walls of an ancient abbey.
I am Crow Medicine. Crow is The Messenger, bringing Knowledge and Discernment.
Always in my life there have been corvids, mainly magpies, but also crows, and for me when a crow makes itself known to me I know that I need to be very aware of what is happening around me, especially if I am planning to travel anywhere.
The first time that crow went a bit overboard in warning me not to travel, was many years ago when I was to fly to Melbourne. Two days before the flight I found a baby crow in the garden. It had fallen out of a nest. I went mountaineering up the tree to return the baby. I wasn’t sure whether it would be accepted back by its parents, but I had to try.
The following day, as I was packing for my trip, there was an almighty thump against the window. A crow had flown straight into the window and killed itself. Very saddened but still not hearing the message, I held a funeral.
Early morning on the day of the flight, a friend was to drive me to the airport and when we went outside to her car there was a crow sitting on the roof. We tried to waft it away, but it refused to leave. Eventually we just set off, hoping that the crow would fly away as we were moving. It did. I hope. I never saw it.
We reached the airport and my friend dropped me off before heading into the town for a shopping spree. I went through baggage check and security and settled down to wait for my flight.
It was only a small airport with no particular arrivals or departure halls, just lots of people milling around. I hate being in crowds – there is a likelihood of a full-on meltdown! I bought a scotch and a sandwich and put my nose into my book and pretended I wasn’t there until an announcement asked for the travellers on my flight to head towards the boarding gate. No, we were not boarding, they just wanted us all together and eventually we were told that there was a delay and that the plane would arrive soon and that the turn-around would be a quick as possible.
In my group of wanna-be passengers were a whole heap of older folk in wheelchairs and even on stretchers, they were being transferred to the major hospitals in Melbourne. And even in my growing distress I felt sorry for them. There were also a lot of families with small children. This was going to be a very full, and noisy, flight. My anxiety went up several notches.
Eventually the plane arrived and half and hour later we were moved on-board. Oldies first, parents and kids, then the rest of us. I’d booked a window seat thank goodness, I could look out the window and try to pretend that I was alone, but first we had to get aloft.
We sat in the plane for ages before it moved towards the runway and once there, we waited for about 30 minutes before the Captain announced that he had found a small issue with the radar and was waiting for someone to come check it out. It was well-worth the wait, he informed us, because if we ran into nasty weather we would really be better off with radar rather than without it.
Another half an hour or so (that felt like three hours) we were informed that the radar needed a new thingamabob and one was being sourced – we’ll be up and flying to Melbourne before we knew it.
Another hour later and the plane taxied back to the airport and we all disembarked. The radar bit needed to be flown up from Brisbane. It’ll take an hour or two, but everyone can enjoy complimentary drinks and sandwiches.
In that departure area it was bedlam! The old dears were uncomfortable; needed assistance to the bathroom; were overdue their medications… The kids were rambunctious and argumentative, hurtling around the room annoying everyone except their parents who were getting to know each other over the free drinks, and my anxiety was well over explosion level. I was going to really let rip very soon if I couldn’t escape – and I couldn’t. I wanted to go to Melbourne and see my daughter and grandchildren. I would travel through Hell to do that and travelling through Hell is exactly where I thought I was.
And then I remembered. I’d recently learned how to meditate. How to build a protective, energetic, barrier around me and how push out peaceful energy to those around me. I did something that is so not me, I went into the middle of the room, sat down on the floor, made sure that my hand luggage was secure (no point in being overly trusting) and went into meditation.
I went deep. I went into my place of sanctuary and peace and then I set the intention that with every breath out I would send that peace and knowledge of safety into the world around me. I have no idea how long I was in that meditative state but when I did eventually come back to this reality the room and the people in it were very different.
The oldies were laughing and having fun: chatting, playing cards and sharing photographs. The children had made a plan and had moved a whole heap of chairs into a large circle. They were all inside the circle and playing so well together, and the parents were chatting with their neighbours over glasses of wine and beer.
Had I done this in my meditation? I will never know, but I like to think that in some way I had contributed.
Eventually we were notified that the flight was cancelled. I called my friend to see if she was still shopping and could pick me up. She was actually just getting close to the airport and would be there in about 15 minutes!
Crow had warned me that this journey was destined for trouble and since then crow has joined me whenever I have to drive somewhere. If crow swoops in front of my car, I know to slow down and take care, because somewhere up ahead there would be an accident, roadworks, a speed trap etc.
When I moved to the Far North of Queensland, I discovered that crow doesn’t inhabit my new part of the world and I was devastated, but birds work together and Kite took over the role. Now, as I get older and more creaky in my joints, driving is not something I do very often. In fact, I no longer even own a car, but I can access a car and driver when I need to go to hospital or other important trips – and tomorrow is one of those times.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw three crows in my backyard. They are slightly smaller than the crows I know and love, but they are definitely corvids. Highly excited I went to Google and found that they are probably Torrisian Crows. For the last few days they have been hopping around close to the house and on a couple of occasions have even been peaking through the window at me, and knowing that they are my Protectors I have been watching and taking notice.
My part of the world is experiencing monsoon rains. Horrendous rainfall with a lot of flooding. There are three tropical lows just off the coast which may develop into cyclones. And I am supposed to travel 2 ½ hours to the hospital.
I discovered that the roads north and south of me are flooded and that no traffic is getting through. I remembered that Crow has appeared out of nowhere and has been hanging around. I know Crow. I know that he is warning me. So today I cancelled my driver, phoned the hospital, and told them I need to reschedule.
There is no way, especially during Cyclone Season in the Far North of Queensland, that I am going to ignore a direct message from my totem animal.
I almost committed murder this morning and it was a tricky decision to choose not to.
I’d gone outside to have a walk around my back garden, check how the weeds are growing, seeing if there is anything edible ready for picking. I always keep one eye out for the wildlife. Just in case.
Mainly it is birds. I’m often joined by Willy Wagtail, and Pee Wee; sometimes by Bush Stone Curlew or African Minah, occasionally by Cockatoo or Torrisian Crow. Today a startlingly blue Monarch Butterfly joined the trail from herbs to vegetables to fruit trees to all the weeds and the knee deep green stuff that is supposed to be grass that was cut just a week ago.
It was when I got to the birdbath that things got interesting. ‘Birdbath’ is a bit of an ambitious euphemism for a plant pot base balanced on top of two bricks. Yesterday it had been filled with frog spawn. It might have been toad spawn but I needed Google to check the difference. I tipped it all out anyway and gave the birdbath a good scrub and set it up for the bird posse to have a drink.
Today it was full of spawn again and once again I tipped it out. The bird bath was not a good place to lay eggs – way too shallow to allow a batch of baby frogs/toads to reach maturity, but this time, as I tipped out the gelatinous mess, Mama jumped out from between the bricks.
She was UGLY. Yes, capital letters UGLY. So like almost every well-trained ex-pom I went to my kitchen and found a plastic bag. The next five minutes would have been hilarious to see and I am very grateful that my back garden is private. An almost-70 year old granny running around the garden in her nighty trying to catch a large, warty, amphibian in a small freezer bag would possibly have broken Tik Tok.
The plastic bag is because there is no way on this planet that I would consider picking up a possible cane toad in my bare hands. I might die!!!! I probably wouldn’t… but it’s at times like this that you realise that you do, after all, have a strong will to live a bit longer.
The hand protected by that freezer bag did actually catch the frog. The bag was inverted, knot tied in the top and the whole thing was put into the freezer – which I have been assured is about the most pain free option for euthanasia for an amphibian. It’s certainly better than the other common options I’ve heard of.
Safe, once again in my little world in front of my laptop and suddenly had a thought. I’m pretty sure it’s a cane toad, but how can I be sure? I’m not exactly an expert. Off to Google where I discovered that toad just MIGHT be frog. In fact, it closely resembled a native frog with the unlikely name of Pobblebonk. (Don’t ask me where that name comes from – I don’t have a clue!!)
Frog/toad came out of the freezer. She’d only been there a few minutes but she was wasn’t moving. Had I committed murder?? No, thank goodness she was still alive just a tad cold. I needed to check if there were pouches on her shoulders; if her toes were webbed and if her eyes were slits. No, no, no. Oh no… what colour is her belly – white. I think this is a native frog and not am invasive cane toad. But I don’t know.
By now frog had woken up so I loosened the top of the plastic bag a little to let more air in – and she jumped!!! Luckily, I still had hold of the top of the plastic bag so I didn’t have to contend with an escapee in the kitchen!
I still don’t know if she is a cane toad or a native frog, but I wasn’t about to take a chance. I’d rather let nature decide life expectancy and I definitely didn’t want the possibility of my having frozen a native frog. I let her loose in the weeds. I suspect I won’t have frog spawn in my birdbath tomorrow.
I’ve seen a number of posts on Facebook recently that are expressing disappointment in the way that family and friends have apparently failed to give requested support for something that means the world for that person. I’d be surprised if most people haven’t experienced something like this in their lives. For example: you have been working on something and you have spent a lot of time and effort developing it, and before submitting the project, you’d like someone you trust to give it the once over just in case there are any glaring errors. So you ask members of your family or close friends if they could help out – and they agree.
The particular post on Facebook which jumped out at me, was from a gentleman who is neuro-divergent and had just finished writing a book despite the fact that he found it difficult to read or write. He had a story to tell and the need to tell that story was so important that he was prepared to climb mountains to do it.
Many writers take years to finish a book even without that kind of challenge. These are years of passion, dedication, determination, and tears. That first book is our Magnum Opus. We make ourselves vulnerable when we publish a book. It is our soul laid bare for the world to see and dissect.
For that gentleman, not one of his family or friends had pulled through for him. From his perspective, he was faced with the knowledge that no-one he cared about and trusted enough with this part of his soul, cared enough about him to even read the book. When this happens it is a huge reality check. A betrayal of everything you thought you knew about the people you love and trust.
I experienced something similar before publishing my first book. Most of the people who had agreed to read it didn’t come through at all, although one person came through in spades. She actually went through the book in detail and gave me so many valuable insights and corrections; and all them were presented with respect so that at no time did I feel she was judging my work. It must have taken her hours to do that, and I am still so very appreciative.
But from others? Silence. And in that silence, I felt judgement. I felt that I was not as important in their lives and as they were in mine. I felt as if they just didn’t care and I grieved at their betrayal. But as I thought about this, I realised that this probably wasn’t betrayal at all. It was only my disappointment at play. There were two other things that I had failed to consider.
First, I had asked, and they had agreed to help out. My expectation was high that they would follow through. I’m a very literal person, and in my world, if you agree to something, you do it. If you are not sure that you can do it, you say so. That might upset the other person, but not as badly as if you agree and then fail to deliver.
My expectation was, really, the main problem. They had said yes to helping me out and I did not even consider that they would not do what they had agreed to do; and it never crossed my mind that just maybe they agreed because they do love me and didn’t want to hurt me by saying no.
In my anger and pain, all the many different reasons to possibly explain why they had not kept their promise were not even considered at first. In my personal excitement, I hadn’t made allowance for other elements to be at play. People really do live busy lives and however good intentions can be when they are made – life happens.
The second thing I hadn’t considered was that the book simply wasn’t in a genre that they like to read. Just because I am excited and passionate about my writing doesn’t mean that they are. In fact, when I sat down and thought about it, I realised that my sister, for example, is not in the least bit interested in the same things I am, and I wouldn’t expect her to be. For her to sit and read my book it would have felt like medieval torture! And it would have taken time away from the things that she is really passionate about. She’s my sister and I love hearing about her life – but could I read a book about it? I doubt it.
My reality check didn’t actually take too long, and I did not ask anyone else to sit and read the next three books. I am, though, very fortunate to have a friend who is also a writer, and each day she listens to what I wrote the previous day and makes some very valuable comments. In return I listen to her work – mainly as a sounding board because most of it goes straight over my head!
With those posts that first appeared on Facebook, I was taken back to a time of pain and betrayal. They were my emotions and I am sure that the gentleman I mentioned earlier also felt those thing like a stab to heart, and I hope that, like me, he can eventually come to understand that sometimes we place very high, unrealistic, expectations on people who do care for us but don’t know how to say “Sorry. I’d love to do that but realistically I’m not the best person to help you out.”
We can get lost in the emotions of our passions, and it can be hard to understand that the rest of the world is not feeling the same way. We are the ones asking others for their assistance – and it doesn’t matter what that is. It could be writing a book or it could be giving someone a lift to the shops, or helping an older person change their bedding. If we are the person doing the asking, we need to make sure that the person being asked knows that its OK to say no. And if you are the one being asked to help, and even though you are very willing to be of help, but it’s just not going to work out with other stuff you are committed to – don’t be afraid to say, ‘Sorry, I’d love to help but it’s not possible.’
Six months ago I moved into my little, old, cottage. It’s on a quarter acre of land and has a whole host of different fruit trees. Here in the Tropical Far North of Queensland, at this time of year, that means mangos. I’ve been told that the big mango tree, which covers almost the entire width of the plot is over 150 years old, but it is the younger tree that has been prolific this year. The cockatoos have chomped at least three times the amount of mangos that I have had and I’ve had a couple of hundred. They (the mangos – not the cockatoos!) are now either chutney or mango sauce or still waiting in the freezer to be made into something else!
It’s garden produce time in this very lush part of Queensland and this cottage garden shows much promise. It’s not been looked after for many years, but already I am finding a huge availability of foodstuff – providing I can get there before the wildlife. As an example, there are several mulberry trees. These trees are at least 40ft tall and at the start of the season they were laden with baby mulberries – I didn’t get a single mulberry, but the birds had a wonderful party, and I had a lot of fun watching them.
Then there are the lychees. Again the trees are beyond tall. My 30ft fruit picker didn’t stand a chance – all four lychee trees tower over the house. The flying foxes are even messier than the cockatoos and walking down the driveway was like walking on marbles! I did get to taste the lychees though: 6 fruits to me, 6,000 to the flying foxes!
I discovered a strange red berry a couple of months back. Off to Google to find out what they are – Brazilian cherries. They became jam and I have a big bag in the freezer waiting to be made into gin!
I discovered that the leaves of sweet potatoes are edible – and I just happen to have a big bed of sweet potatoes that are almost ready to harvest. Of course, I had to experiment and I discovered that they are really yummy when wilted with a little garlic and tomato. I suspect they will be awesome in a stir-fry with the mango sauce.
But just recently my sweet potato leaves have been feeding whole colonies of caterpillars and as I hadn’t realised that I could also eat the leaves, they, like the birds, have become well-fed. Most of the leaves show signs of being chomped, but I did manage to find a few hundred that didn’t look like lace! They were washed, soaked in vinegar (just in case there are any bugs still there that I can’t see), dried in the humidifier and crunched down to a fine powder for my morning smoothie!!! Next batch of sweet potato I grow will be apportioned a bit more in my favour through the use of protective netting, although I’ll still leave some for the caterpillars!
I am also bread making, but I am taking the easy option. I can no longer knead because neither of my shoulders work very well, so I bought a bread maker. I used to love kneading bread dough by hand. It’s one of those activities where you can really release any emotional upset. The bread from the machine is divine!!!
Now it is time to get back to writing. The pantry shelves are filling with produce from the garden, and the oranges and guava are a long way off being ready to make into marmalade. Wonder when the ginger will be ready?
Stories and More from Auri'An 