Saturday, November 6, 2004stand by your messI was thinking about my earlier post concerning the master of studies. Now I spend a lot of time tilling the soil of my memories, playing it through my fingers to feel the texture and wondering what new things might grow out of the old matter of my experience. One striking thing I remember from my... Sign in to see full entry.Friday, November 5, 2004walking down the coast and listening to cloudsOn a train rushing past the purple scrawl of jacarandas writ across the suburbs. Lantana pushing at the tracks and suburban skylines gradually dissolving as gum trees rise to make a wilderness. Suddenly bush freed lungs undone, back into a dirt honest reality that's spelt with scrub and rocks and... Sign in to see full entry.Thursday, November 4, 2004words that could tranquilize a rogue elephantYesterday I started reading Death Sentence: The Decay Of Public Language by Don Watson. It’s a great read if you want to have a critical and, in places, amusing look at the increasingly meaningless jargon which is spreading through our societies. We are becoming used to this jargon: the endless... Sign in to see full entry.Wednesday, November 3, 2004the wonder and seduction of epic consciousnessThe movie A Beautiful Mind had a certain significance for me. It brought home the extent to which an individual’s psychology determines their experience of life but, more importantly, it was a story about a man with the courage to work at re-building a saner life for his own sake and the sake of his... Sign in to see full entry.Tuesday, November 2, 2004crossing the river when elvis diedI remember the morning they announced Elvis was dead. I must have been ten years old. I was on a ferry which, if memory serves me correctly, was called the Harry O’May. It was a vehicular ferry, nicknamed the Box, which had been put into service transporting people across the river after the bridge... Sign in to see full entry.Monday, November 1, 2004making something of nothing and biting into itA couple of years ago one of my brothers died. He had an aneurism in his brain and, one new year’s eve, it burst while he was gardening. The other day I was reading and came across a passage that reminded me of him. It described a certain look of disdain one brother gave to another. When I saw my... Sign in to see full entry.Sunday, October 31, 2004a certain flowI’ve been saying it’s time to move on since I began this job over three years ago. Within the first week I’d drafted my letter of resignation and it sat in my top pocket waiting for my sense of being overwhelmed to move up just one more notch. But instead of resigning I adjusted and became... Sign in to see full entry.Friday, October 29, 2004sculpture by the seaEvery year in Sydney there is a sculpture exhibition which is set out along the rugged coastline between Bronte Beach and Bondi Beach. I love going to this exhibition. It's a mixture of serious art and some tongue in cheek works and as you wander along the coastal walk there's the sound of waves... Sign in to see full entry.Thursday, October 28, 2004moments when memory is a tyrannyWhen I was studying theology I used to do pastoral work in a geriatric centre. Every week I visited an old lady who could always been found sitting in the same seat neither reading nor watching tv but just staring at the walls. Sometimes she had some glimmer of recognition of me but at other times... Sign in to see full entry.Wednesday, October 27, 2004coffee with disappointmentWhen I was a child I suffered from terrible insomnia. As the rest of the family drifted off to sleep I used to feel a desperate sense of abandonment. It was like being stranded on the shore while everyone else sailed into the sunset. I think those sleepless nights gave me my first experience that... Sign in to see full entry. |
