My Dog George

My dog George and I walked happily along the street. The day was crisp. It was Autumn, our favourite season. The cool air was invigorating, bird song greeted us, and a breeze played gently in the tree tops, causing movement and a rustling refrain. Then, as George tired, we paused on a park bench to watch a lively willy wag tail dart here and there, in an entertaining dance. Once the performance was over, we stood to continue our walk.

However another dog - a large animal, unmuzzled and unrestrained – shot out of nowhere. George, a small dog , took fright immediately. He ran into the surrounding bush with the large hound in pursuit. Imagining the speed of the larger dog my heart beat wildly and my anxiety momentarily paralysed me. I stood frozen with fright. Then I found my legs.

Aware as I was that a pug is no match for this large animal I rushed in the direction of the chase. Dogs are enlivened by rabbits running ahead of them and how like a rabbit George must have seemed to the larger animal! Yet I could hear my little friend yelping as he ran, which gave me hope that he was holding out and I ran harder in the direction of his call. I held a branch in my hand that I had only minutes before retrieved from the foot path, and envisioned a fight with the greyhound which must surely result in George’s safety.

Alas, however, as time went by George’s call became less distinct. My heart sank, yet I ran on. If he had any chance of survival I must continue the chase. I must quicken my pace. But time was running out. My little dog would be tiring. Thus I was forced to find the strength to continue. And then it happened. In the distance I saw the greyhound, stationary, head bowed, with a small limp cream coloured furry animal in its mouth. I fell to my knees and sobbed uncontrollably, before composing myself. With a deep breath I stood. I moved forward reluctantly, on weak legs, raising the branch above my head. Sickened and distraught I saw the greyhound munch on his prey, oblivious to my approach.

But someone was watching. From the entrance of a small concrete pipe I heard a frantic wimpering. Could it be my little friend? Sure enough, George, hot, distressed and panting desperately, with burrs and scratches on his ears and nose and tail, crawled clumsily out of his refuge and scrambled into my arms. I stood in a state of stunned relief. Clinging together we willed ourselves to walk onward to find the greyhound, casually chewing on a soft toyt. The little furry plaything had saved my dog’s life. We turned homeward, happy and relieved.

Humphrey Meets the School Bus

Humphrey was so excited. He could hear his mummy’s school bus coming down the road. She would be at the end of their driveway soon.

Humphrey and Spot the cat set off together. It was a sunning day. A slight breeze blew Humphrey’s fur, this way and that.

Humphrey’s ears trailed behind his bead as he walked down the drive way.

“ This is my favourite time of day, Spot!” he said cheerfully. “ I have so much to tell Rosey. I chased some kangaroos and ran after the family car when they went to the shops, today …”

Spot smiled. Humphrey was her friend. She liked to see him happy.

Humphrey and Spot stood like soldiers at the bus stop and in only a few moments the bus arrived.

“ Rosey decided not to come home, today, Humphrey old boy!” joked the driver as he opened the door of the bus.

But Rosey burst out of the bus with her school bog over her shoulder! She shrieked with delight to see her pets so patiently waiting. She scooped Spot up in her arms and held Humphrey’s head against her thigh.

“Humphrey,” she said. “I have so much to tell you! “

And she did. It had been such a busy day at school that Humphrey didn’t have a chance to tell his stories.

Rosey talked until bedtime! And Humphrey smiled while he listened.

Lucy Loses the Sausage

Lucy, the pug, usually likes to spend time in the kitchen when her owner is cooking.

From time to time a small piece of cheese will be thrown her way, and if she is quick enough to beat young Jeremy, she eats it up quickly. Yum!


At other times something falls on the floor accidentally. Old George tells her about the time their owner was carrying a plate of salmon rissoles to the table. Miraculously, and happily, all of the rissoles slid from the plate onto the floor, for no apparent reason. "What a feast that was!" George tells his companions. "Yum!"


That was before Lucy was born, and she really doesn't believe him. Yesterday though, her owner was cooking four sausages. Suddenly the smallest sausage landed on the floor right in front of Lucy's nose. It smelt so good!


However, just as Lucy was about to take the sausage in her sharp little teeth, a human hand reached down and snatched it back. She was annoyed, but that is not the end of the story.


As the day wore on she found opportunities to sit at the feet of her owner. At such times she would casually talk about her day...


"What happened to the sausage?"


Later, in front of the television, as her owners watched and discussed the television news, Lucy was keen to contribute...


"What happened to the sausge?"


Last thing at night her owner took the pugs down stairs to their beds. Just before lights out Lucy made eye contact to say her last words for the day, as she always did ...


"What happened to the sausage?"


Next morning, the pugs were eager to greet the day as the sun was already shining. Their owners had slept in because it was a Sunday. When the door was opened Lucy ran up the stairs as usual and started to enjoy her day in the big house.


"Hello, Lucy!" her owner said.

"What happened to the sausage?" Lucy said.

"Lucy! You are like a dog with a bone," her owner replied.


That gave Lucy an idea. The rest of the day she spent happily chewing her bone.


She chewed it ...

and chewed it...

and chewed it ..

and chewed it.


She chewed her bone with such complete concentration

that she forgot all about the sausage

and everything was quiet in the household again.

Apart from the sound of chewing, that is!

Unconditional Love ...

It is said that babies love those whose voices they hear while still in the womb. I am prepared to accept that that sometimes isn't the case but certainly it was the case for me. I love my mother's voice. I not only heard that voice while still in the womb but felt it's vibrations and rhythms while my body was part of hers.  I love my mother. I love her so much I don't know how it will be when she dies. What will I say at her funeral? Surely what I feel is beyond words. Or is it the muffled words and mixed emotions of travelling inside someone for nine months? I love her more than anyone, and that love is unconditional.

I have written in an earlier e mail that I have made recent contact with a teacher of my youth after a forty year separation. Upon seeing her and particularly upon hearing her voice I realised that I loved her. I have loved her since she taught me in 1968 and 1969. I was not the only one, and can say with some confidence that most of our class did, and still do love her.

So, some teachers are very important to young adolescents on the very first step of adolescence with blurred and muffled hopes and dreams of adulthood on  their horizon and in their imaginary. Unfinished songs playing inaudibly in the background. It all merges. This young woman - not much older than we were ... still only twenty one or twenty two years old -  became the rock that held those dreams and unfinished compositions in an important place.  She held them in the place of possibility - of hope and trust in the future, of hope and trust in our young selves. Afterall, what more does a good teacher have to offer than a belief in her students - in their ability to succeed, to grow, to flourish? If a teacher can't communicate that then surely a student can't flourish. Surely to offer subject content on a plate without trust in her students would have been to doom them to failure.

So, when the times became tough, that is the vibe I held. I was found to be interesting by this teacher. As the third of four daughters I often felt like a fifth wheel in my family- the same as the other wheels, so of no real consequence. That is not unusual and no blame is intended. As the third repetition of the same what can one expect? I grew up expecting very little. Yet in my ninth and tenth year of schooling that changed slightly and forever.

I know I will hear my mother's voice for ever - metaphorically at least and hopefully in my imaginary. This is unconditional love. Recently I sent the fave teacher an e mail, though  in my somewhat autistic way it came across all wrong. I perhaps severed something very important then. It has been weeks and she has not replied. I have apologised by e mail but know that one cannot unbreak an egg.  Unconditional love is an egg that when broken can be unbroken. It's a magic pudding which will nourish us for ever. A rare and wonderful thing. A security.  Perhaps the love between this teacher and myself was unconditional in my heart and mind but not in hers. We'll see. I wait, and hope, but expect very little ...

First impressions: Helsinki.

My partner and I recently arrived home from a European trip. When the rubber hit the tarmac at Brisbane airport I felt relieved. It isn't easy living out of a suitcase for a month. It isn't easy feeling compelled to visit every tourist attraction imaginable, including run down castles; another bloody church; and markets selling reindeer antlers attached to bottle openers. It isn't easy eating Finnish food. No. It's hard. So why do we do it?

Well maybe we won't do it again, but being easy is not the point. Being easy is never the point. As tiring and at times disappointing and frustrating as travel may be, this time my life feels changed. Was it changing already? Well, maybe. But I'll reflect on some of differences - different thoughts perhaps - that occurred to me on or because of the trip, before I forget them.

Firstly I did not know, before going there, that I would find Helsinki and surrounds to be the most easy going, desirable, friendly, creative place I have ever visited.  I did not know that if someone said that I had to live in a European city I would choose Helsinki - well maybe I'd negotiate a concession and live in the country just outside Helsinki, from where I would commute. I'd choose Helsinki-ish ...

Interestingly, and surprisingly,  on day one, when leaving Helsinki central railway station with luggage trundling behind, I heard a sharp crack as two young women, dressed for work in a Brisbane kind of fashion,  walked towards us. Looking down - following the sharp sound - I saw a clear takeaway plastic cup with a few centimeters of ice in the bottom, roll briefly from side to side on the uneven Medieval cobble stoned street before coming to a halt. I looked up just in time to take in the appearance of the young woman who had just thrown it down with such decisive force, before she passed us by forever.  I commented to my partner that that was something I had never seen before. But surely I had. Was the difference the sound the ice laden cup made against the stones of the cobbled street? There are no such streets in Brisbane.

Vaguely bemused and even a touch shocked, with the crack of the ice on the cobbles ringing in our ears, we continued our trek to our hotel, all the while aware of the very unusually uneven cobbled streets and footpaths of this as yet new city, which was still a stranger to us. After covering at least half the distance between the station and our hotel another young woman - still well dressed but this time in a different style - a touch Goth but moneyed, not in any way unkempt - cut across our path from the right as she crossed the street and stepped on and walked across the foot path in front of us.  Synchronous with her crossing, a clear plastic takeaway ice cream cup - empty but with a coating of ice cream or yoghurt clinging to the inside - left her hand, hit the ground, more softly than the previous one,  and rolled from side to side, briefly and gently on the cobble stones.

When  arriving in a new city all my senses are very much open to discovering the salient characteristics of this city of my imaginings, but not as yet of my knowing. I gave voice, in this second moment, to my surprise at witnessing this wanton disregard for rubbish bins, by young, well dressed and purposeful women.  The young woman in black - the young woman of the ice cream cup- swung around on hearing my words, briefly and dismissively making eye contact, but just as quickly - as quickly as she had discarded the ice cream cup - turned her head and thoughts to the front again, to what was important to her, as she lost not a beat and continued on her way.

So these are some reflections on the city of my dreams. They are not the only reflections I am able to share, but they are kind of interesting,  helping to develop a little the idea that travelling is not easy, and frequently contradictory. I have created not only contradictions but a knife edge in the telling of these anecdotes however. Is Helsinki indeed a livable city, as I claimed I found it to be? Or is it a city whose sights and sounds   are hijacked by a tendency for the well healed to dispose of disposables unselfconsciously, loudly, and in public view, like an unconscionable belch for which no apology is forth coming?  Happily I cannot claim the latter to be true - such observations did not dominate my six days in Helsinki. First impressions can, indeed, be misleading ...

School Reunion...

I recently attended a school reunion. Forty years on... Not a youth in sight... Furthermore I went along  despite a bad case of the flu, leaving home at 4.00am , driving 30 kms to the airport and catching an hour long flight. While apologetic, 'me and my germs' just had to be there. And it was well worth it, for me at least.

This was our second reunion. Perhaps we broke the ice at our first. But it is ten years since then and forty years since we were at school together and we connected instantly, as if we had seen each other the previous day in a Science or English class. Forgive me if I am a little speechless. The sleeping giant awakes. What more can I say?

Friendship is important, and shared experiences at an important time of one's life count for a lot, I guess. I have had time to experiment with friendships in the last forty years, and have not always found them easy. Furthermore any that have been easy I could claim were forged from the stuff of shared experiences - experiences of some gravity or significance - shared fun comes to mind.

So, the kiln has been cooking my high school friendships for some forty years now. Some characteristics have shattered in the firing; yet, as is not uncommon when the creative process throws up gems, some human potential, long dormant, has not only weathered the firing but has realised a more sublime object than the artist ever imagined.

I'm sure I'm talking about more than my friendships and myself when I speak of the reunion in question. Many friendships make a successful reunion, of course. If so, the topic is beyond the scope of this brief blog, and beyond the scope of my imaginings. But allow me to start with my gaze upon myself and those I connect with and to see what is realised in the process of reflecting, which by its very nature requires time ...

The intelligent eye ???

As a visual artist who had always had an uncomfortable relationship with schooling, and hence with the idea of intelligence as judged by teachers in schools, I always pride myself on my visual intelligence - for example my visual memory. I have been known to choose a bra from a display in a shop from some metres away, and on at least one occasion,  found it to fit perfectly. On another occasion, when living in a workers' cottage, I bought a traditional tin window shade from a restoration  station, without measuring the window of the cottage  first. The carpenter hired to attach it to the house looked at the window and said, "I don't think it's going to fit." But it fitted perfectly.

I don't mean to sound immodest when I say that that was not mere coincidence. It was, I reasoned, attributable to my visual memory - or spatial memory perhaps. Who knows which. Still, neither are really taught or rewarded in school.

I was therefore a little bemused to hear on Radio National during the week that a prize winning scientist had been studying a sea creature - was it a  squid-like creature? Perhaps. And very small. Without a brain in fact.

Yet the scientist claims to have found that this creature, while without brain but with many eyes, is capable of responding to visual clues.

Sure, I am not a tiny brainless squid with many eyes, but it makes one think, doesn't it? Perhaps there is a message here for visually gifted or oriented creatures. Were schools right after  all? To recall visual data expertly may not in any way be worthy of academic reward - if one were a brainless squid, that is ...