April
Swarms of corellas have come to raid the trees setting my nerves on edge. When a car stops by the white lake of them on the road, they barely move, so completely bold, they make you smile. Today the light still holds smoke from the scheduled burn-offs and now at night, I hear the trains again. Reminds me of the trains passing our house with a rhythm that rocked the streets Placid creatures passing through the sea of night.
Maybe there’s a comfort in the corellas, something to make us see the season and the cycles because reliably each year, their small white bodies lift up to the sky like scraps of paper and into the sky as the blue as your eyes. Daylight saving is over and feels like the world is back to rights. Dark nights, bright mornings and a certain familiar coolness settling around us.
A is out at a dinner for some bank. Can’t believe he would want to go to such things.
Since H is in the UK, we have seen more of the kids and Alice, and I have loved it.
Yesterday she put her head back by the pond in the autumn sunlight and said this is so lovely. It made me happy. Hazel has not been well. Baby girl, you are so loved. This time of their lives is full of bugs that march like armies out of childcare.
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Just did some ironing and am enjoying the warm smell of cloth. Today it’s soothing.
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Down at the beach, all a bit rushed, the fridge needed a tradesman to look at it. He fixed it by putting a bit of wood under the back of it and for that, he charged $350. And it was our wood Bought a small bowl coloured blue and pink like the purple girl, my favourite picture. A told me I make things up! Now I’m wondering.
It’s dark and I can hear the cars swerving on the road, lights like diamonds. Dinner was utterly awful. Curried sausages that went straight to the compost. Made a cake. No comments. Ate cake and tea.
Birds swoop at insects with their little arrow beaks. The sea roars and the waves rise and fall. The moon is a perfect half in the midnight sky and the milky way spills everywhere. You can hear children’s voices bickering in the wind. It’s cold out there where bunches of them collect and you think they need somewhere warmer.
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Since it’s coming on to our anniversary, thoughts of the past arise. We don’t argue as we did. More peaceful now. Though in this muted age, everything is still full. I remember you when you were young. Such beauty. And I see it in the kids. So many secrets then. But I suppose you could say that about all of us.
I remember you so clearly. Your dark brows and eyes. The picture of you with the gum leaves from the eucalyptus tree we happened upon in Greece is unforgettable. The record is there. We tucked the leaves on the back of your bike for luck. Your smile was for me. You are the great love of my life. I knew it immediately. I don’t think you did know it. Maybe you still don’t.
Still, the unbalanced aspects create space. Who loves whom and how much? Just because you love him, should he love you? How do you get it to be equal, especially when you’ve got kids and all the responsibility of that and he’s off in the big office, the latest gun reporter working on those vast floors in the now long gone newsrooms.
It is 44 years this month. Acres of our time has been spent together, and some of it was even wonderful. The kids are each a complete universe. I suppose we were our own universes too. Mum said she’d never seen me love anyone like I loved A. This has been true for most of my life. Some see love as a shelf for your trophies to sit on. There was this one and that one, but most are just minor-league distractions and only one or two are the real thing.
Now I think back, I held the first version of our love so close to me for so long and probably still do. When it all gets tiring, it’s only that I’ve lost sight of the 25-year-old with all the answers. I believed in you like I never believed in anyone. What was that all about? Probably about me.
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Still, late in the night, there has been rain, fine, like a web of lace. Outside, amber glow in the garden.I’d like to live in a rainy place one day. But not in Europe. Not that, not ever. Far too many people.
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The next morning, shafts of weak sun flash in the window and cast light on the carpet and passing cars, dashing around the room like little trolls from old books. All rushing to cause trouble.
Arctic blasts today and needles of rain in small dense pockets. Has summer skipped us this year? No, it may have come back, because the sun rests on the outdoor table like a golden creature ready to slip away at any moment.
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Cleaning the kitchen that night, I think of the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke who wrote: ‘When you go to bed, don’t leave bread or milk on the table: it attracts the dead.
A perfect sentence. If a little strange. It often comes to me in the evening as I clean up, especially the bread and milk.