Tweedle dee and beetle tweedle

Use a reference but draw your own

I sketched this beetle last summer when I was at a cafe in the city near the giant chess board in Hyde Park. I had recently picked up the print of a beetle from a young artist on Pitt Street. He was handing them out for free.

I loved his version of a beetle but I wanted to draw my own – half inspired, half imagined.

I don’t think the sketch is quite finished, but it was so satisfying and fun to draw and I’m oddly content with its half finished form. Sometimes the pressure of sharing work with someone else hinders my ability to enjoy the process of creating work in the first place. Finished products are good – but so are playful sketches.

a self portrait

I looked through the window and there she was: hair curled, hat on, blossoms protruding from her ears and pollen sitting on her eyelashes.

When I met her that day I realised I might never know what it was like to miss someone ever again. She was the mother and the gardener and the maid and the sister I had always imagined.

Somehow, in between all her coming and goings, we managed to forge a friendship of mutual respect. I was curious but shy and although I never expected for her to confide in me without invitation, she scribbled short, sweet notes for me on pieces of crumpled paper and then flattened them out and folded them before putting them into my palm.

“I can’t tell you who you are” she once wrote and I cried silently upon reading it. Later, when I was fiddling with the piece of paper, I noticed that scribbled on the back of it was another line. I can’t repeat what it said because I have long forgotten, but my chest hurt from laughing and I had to make a night time herbal tea which half knocked me out but at least calmed me down.

There she was. I saw her through the window.

The last time I needed her to be there she had already left and all I had of hers were blossoms that she discarded on the pavement. We had danced together in sleep and found each other among spirits but after she was gone it was as if I forgot my how to sing and all I had to console myself with were the bits of paper she had scrawled her uncertain wisdom onto.

I adored her but she left me. I think of her when rain pours onto the pavement but I can’t see which cloud is releasing it. And then I smile when I remember that it didn’t rain during all that time we spent together. The window I look out of now has a different view, but all I see is the shadow of her curls.

Stolen

First published 2011 in Sydney University Literary Journal Hermes

This is the summer I remember the most.

The melons had grown large and my sister and I hid together in the shade for hours on end, navigating our way through the ripe flesh of the watermelon and sucking all the sweetness out of the white rind.

We spat our seeds under the orange tree and laughed at the idea, laughed and hoped, that one day a large bulbous melon would poke its head through the soil disturbing the stubborn roots of it’s neighbour and the orange tree, alarmed and embarrassed, would fall.

“And no more oranges – only melons!” We sung.

This is the summer I remember the most.

My father decided he wanted a garden. A real garden. Not an accidental garden. (An accidental garden is something adopted from the owners of the house before you. Fruit bearing trees – no work required). My Dad wanted a garden of his own. A garden that would die without his steady working hands.

This is the summer.

The first thing that grew in our real garden were accidental pumpkins. They came from the compost bin, at night, when everyone was sleeping. The vines snaked out into the lawn and took hold in the soil. And then a few weeks later, we spotted green bellies, pregnant pumpkin bellies, unashamed and lying in the sun.

The pumpkin vines stayed the rest of the summer. They moved from the abandoned compost corner into the middle of the yard and stole our playing place. Only the dog ventured out to tread under the leafy hospital beds that housed expectant mothers. Our father forbade us to upset them. He was proud of his first “real” produce.

This is the summer the rats came.

They came in droves and feasted in the shade of the vines, cackling drunkenly, pointing and name calling and teasing the “gardeners.” They spat seeds at each other without any desire to reproduce, re-fertilize, or regrow the stolen veggies.

By the time our father hacked away at the vines, the swollen pumpkin bellies had been torn to shreds. Only a few orange stringly remains were left – oh and the hard shells. That was the rats laughing at us.

My father kneeled over and cried.

My sister and I watched him from the shade.

The rats watched him from the shade.

That was the summer they came.   

Silent conversation

First written in 2011

Snails like to ponder in puddles
thoughts lulled by the dull sounds of chewing –
comments on weather exchanged over breakfast
as company compliments the delectable foliage.

I keep faith that giant feet will simply miss them in the grass
but their shells are never broken
they are the homes of kindred souls.

When it’s raining softly
I can hear them humming gently
they dream of turning green just like a leaf but they cannot –
and so?
They eat the leaf instead.

They sweltered, then danced in the rain

It was 30 degrees before 9am today in Sydney and in the afternoon, when we drove around the city trying to keep the dog cool, the windows felt hot to the touch from inside even though we had the aircon blasting. How can you have a day like today and think the world isn’t ill at ease?

It seems like an odd time to decide to launch this blog. When I first sat down to write this entry I was sitting in an apartment without an aircon, fan on full force, dog under desk and ice cubes which I had tried to feed him melting into the carpet. Now, a cool change has come and I am at home with all the doors and windows open letting the wind gust through the house, rattling the doors, lifting papers and tickling the droopy leaves of our normally still indoor plants. How does one dance in the rain that hasn’t arrived but you want so desperately want to feel?

‘This blog will be imperfect’ I say to myself. ‘This blog will be practice’ I decide.

Even so, for an over thinker like me imperfection is hard to accept and practice is frustrating when it doesn’t immediately yield fruit – but I still think these points are important. Writing has always been a strange craft because it has always been about me and yet I desperately want anonymity. It’s kind of like saying ‘look, I’m here in the world and I have something to say but don’t listen too seriously, because actually I have no idea what I’m talking about.’

So I will go kindly into this unknown terrain. I give myself permission to loaf and lounge; to be messy and moving; to reveal, reflect and take risks; and say things passionately that I may not always love but will mean in the moment.

This is a place for me to write and just like any other place, it will be characterised by a history which is both personal and shared. What I write may not always be ‘about me’ but there will always be a little me in everything I write.

I hope that the little bit of me that might emerge for readers will reflect my wit, anxiety, charm, tenderness as well as my tendency to catastrophize, to find everything funny and be overly romantic. For those who do not know me: believe everything you read. For those who know me intimately: trust nothing.

Welcome and thank you. Now lets dance together.