Between Reality and Realism: A Week in the Underworld
The rain didn’t stop: it got heavier, much heavier.
The heavens opened on Wednesday and before long the creek across the road was in full spate.
By then my own internal river system had been compromised and I was feeling sick, very sick. The poison was in my veins and I crossed the Styx into the underworld that is illness.
It could’ve been worse. I was on the verge of having a swim – despite my mounting symptoms – when Zeus threw down some thunderbolts and closed the pool. The gods were watching my back.
And I’ve been on it ever since, shuddering.
The mythical Styx – the name itself means shuddering – was based, some say, on a real waterway in Arcadia, one that teemed with bacteria. Legend has it that Alexander the Great died after drinking its toxic waters.
I certainly suffered from its effects. There in the underworld the realities of life became clear to me. Did I give a thought to the piano or the pool, to my book or my blog?
Nope. Health became everything and I wondered why we ever worry about anything else. Just goes to show how lucky I’ve been!
So what did I do, apart from trace the course of the fire in my veins? I slept, of course – a lot. And I watched the 7 Up series.
You know the one: part reality television show, part soap opera, part unscientific longitudinal study, in which the director, Michael Apted, follows fourteen Britons from age seven to seventy in seven-year intervals.
Like many viewers, I guess, I don’t quite know what to make of the series.
On one level I’m fascinated by its historical value; by seeing (from Apted’s perspective) what these people and their places were like in the past, and by watching them change over time. (Oh, the hairror, the hairror!)
Then there’s the series’ narrative appeal: it’s hard not become involved in the participants’ stories, especially when they’re so real.
But are they?
Yes and no. There’s a difference, of course, between reality and realism, the evocation of reality. (The series is satisfyingly realistic.)
As the participants themselves attest, it’s hard having your story shaped by someone else – every seven years.
The psychological and moral implications of the exercise are intriguing; alas, I don’t feel capable of exploring them right now.
I’ll wait for the waters to subside before I attempt anything so ambitious. Good health, after all, is everything.
Redemption Ark: Hi There, Brazil!
It’s been raining. Raining blog posts for the past twelve years!
Mid-week I hit a milestone: I published my 100th post on this blog.
One hundred!
I remember penning my first post, back when all I had was a vague desire to get online.
I’d gone to the library in central Hobart to write – always a sign of desperation. I sat at a desk sandwiched between shelves of depressingly real books, a high window beside me, through which the sometimes snowy lid of Mount Wellington could be seen – if I turned my head to look.
But for once this man’s head was not for turning. It was for writing and, eventually, write it did, spewing out a post about sleep, sheep and the Titanic.
‘My life [I wrote] is wide awake and fully dressed, even if my fly is undone. I’m a homemaker, a father, a husband; I’m the owner of a lonely blog. I am living, it would seem, at the coal-face of life.’
Little did I know that twelve years later I’d still be at it, churning out posts about cream buns, custard and curly hair. And that my little blog wouldn’t be so lonely…
I’ve had almost seven thousand visitors and over ten thousand views in all, so some people, it seems, have sampled my wares.
Surprisingly, my most popular post is the blog’s longest; unsurprisingly, it has nothing to do with books and writing. (It’s about hiking!)
Over the years there have been unaccountable outbreaks of interest from people in unexpected places. Like Spy vs. Spy, I had a bevy of Brazilian fans for a while.
My most loyal reader, though, isn’t Brazilian. That title goes to DirtySciFiBuddha, a mysterious figure who still likes my stuff. Thanks champ!
Like I said, it’s been raining here in Brisbane.
Life goes on. My son went to camp and came back with a tick that was making him cross. My daughter missed volleyball training and my wife finished a nasty assignment for the university course she’s doing.
My nephew crashed an e-bike, too, sending us into a spin. A spin which delayed my weekly – one-hundredth – post.
Too bad, so sad. The boy is okay and this blog sails on, come what may, like Noah’s ark. It holds a lot of life – my life – and its existence somehow redeems mine.
Still, I’d like the real rain to stop soon.
Hi there, Brazil!
Image from StockCake
It’s Me, Folks, Just Me: Greatness (and Custard)
It’s a strength of mine and a weakness. My desire and determination to do something great.
I felt it during the week, after watching an episode of BoJack Horseman, the show about a washed-up sit-com star who wants to be something more. Something better.
Here’s what I wrote in my notebook: ‘BoJack – I want to do something great’.
Trouble is, BoJack is a mess of hangups and hatred, and he can’t help hurting others (and himself). In the episode I watched, BoJack bemoans his bad behaviour, attributing it to his upbringing and a whole suite of ‘setbacks’.
Eventually, his friend, Todd, runs out of patience. It’s you, BoJack, he cries. It’s just you.
Delusions of grandeur. It’s me, folks. Just me.
For most of the week I was planning on going back to university, on studying sport science. I mean, wouldn’t that be great? Make me great?
Nope, I decided soon enough.
‘Don’t think I’ll study,’ I wrote in my journal. ‘Too big a commitment and it would mess with my life too much. I love my life right now so why do I have an itch to make a major change like that?’
Restless spirit… It’s me. Just me.
Striving, always striving. To swim faster. Write better. Play piano more easily. (I ordered four used sight-reading books mid-week.) Even to be funnier.
Is that possible?
You be the judge. Here’s my latest joke of a joke…
I hear police are making more puddings. They’ve started taking suspects into custard, see?
It’s me, BoJack. Just me.
Imperfect Matches: Friends, Friendship and Curly Hair
Friendships – I’ve never worked them out. They always seem to burn too hot or too cold, like a wood fire.
Even so, I’ve had a few in my time, through no fault of my own.
I wasn’t encouraged to have friends as a kid. (I’ve got a brother, so that was okay.)
I finished high school with two friends, one of whom is still my best friend. The other was my first ‘girlfriend’, which is a whole different kettle of fish. (Tub of apples? Nest of vipers?)
I’ve always had one or two good friends at work, and I’ve stayed in touch with a couple of former colleagues over the years.
But apart from my bestie and my wife, I don’t have any close friends. (I’m friendly with everyone, of course.)
Like I said, I’ve never worked it out.
Forget the wood fire analogy; friendships, I’ve decided, are more like matches. They either sputter and go out (leaving you wondering why) or they burn your fingers.
(That’s why when one miraculously works we call it a ‘perfect match’.)
Enough of the similes. A few days ago someone asked me to be their friend. Just like that. Do you want to be my friend, she said.
It was a young person, of course – older folk aren’t that direct. Or so heedless of rejection.
Sure, I replied. Partly because I didn’t know what else to say, partly because I do want to be this person’s friend (whatever that means) and partly because, well, I was flattered.
Which just goes to show that I haven’t learnt a thing!
There’s a good reason why I find friendships tricky: most of my interests are solitary.
Can friends help my fingers go faster at the piano or help me sight-read music better? Can they help me write my kids’ book? Can they help me swim a two-hundred-metre medley faster? (Me me me – it’s all about me!)
Not directly.
Anyway, who needs friends when you work with kids?
You’ve got very curly hair, a girl said to me during the week.
Thanks, I replied.
Looking at me pityingly, she said, I don’t like curly hair.
The End.
(Image by Mirza Farhan)
My Kind of Success: Failing to the Very End
It’s grand final week here in Australialand and I’m sad.
Sad because the footy season is almost over and my Saturdays just won’t be the same. No more lazy post-shift lunches on the lounge in front of a game for me.
That’s not the only reason I’m sad. Thinking about those young men on the cusp of success (and failure, for some) gets me down. Imagine peaking in your twenties!
Early in the week a teenage colleague asked me a confronting question. We were showering (in separate stalls!) after a morning of teaching in the pool.
‘Timm,’ she said, suddenly. ‘How old do you feel?’
I let the water wash over me. ‘Eighteen,’ I said.
‘Wow! So there are more young people around than I think.’
In some ways the old-fashioned clock is the best marker of time. The big hand moves quickly while the little hand drags its feet. Years fly by and yet we change so slowly.
Clocks, you could say, are two-faced – like time itself.
My daughter has a new ‘boyfriend’. Turns out he’s scared to meet me. I know how he feels. Years fly by and yet we change so slowly…
Toshisuki Kanazawa is a Japanese body-builder. He’s a ninety-year-old man who still trains and competes. (So I learned from an article I came across during the week.)
That’ll be me one day, I hope. I aim to keep keeping on until it kills me. Swimming, writing, playing the piano – I won’t stop until my time runs out.
Good luck to the kids whose dreams come true, on the football field or elsewhere. Early success is a curse, especially when it takes such a physical toll.
I prefer keep failing until the very end – that’s my kind of success!
Fruits of Passion: Walks and Talks in the Bane of Briz
One of the hardest things about being a pool deck supervisor – something I am when I’m not in the water – is finding something new (and not too lame) to say during the pre-class teacher huddle.
This week I went with the ‘p’ word.
It was going to be a long afternoon. ‘Use your passion,’ I said, ‘to get you through. Let your love of swimming bring your lessons to life.’
Luckily no-one laughed. Instead they glanced meaningfully at the parents and kids massing beside the pool.
‘Off you go then,’ I added, in something of an anticlimax.
And off they went, emanating passion.
My love of swimming is matched by my love of fruit. (Yes, fruit!)
I start every day with a slice of paw paw (aka papaya) and a glass of water infused with lemon juice. I end every day with a bowl of fruit salad. (I’ll be happy if the one thing my kids remember from their childhoods is our nightly fruit salad.)
The week was a special one on the fruit front.
On Sunday the family and I walked around the base of Tibrogargan, one of the eleven Glass House Mountains.
The circuit was good but what followed was even better: cheap passion fruit on sale at a roadside stall. Heavy black wrinkled globes. Tangy juice-filled bulbs.
Passion fruit in the shops is usually too anaemic and expensive to buy. (And sadly I don’t have a vine.) So the find was a godsend.
Actually, that’s how the fruit got its name: Christian missionaries interpreted its flower as a religious symbol when they encountered the plant in South America in the 1700s.
We’ve spent the week savouring this manna from heaven.
I’m even considering going for another walk – there are ten more Glass House Mountains to circumambulate, after all!
To end, good news : I started working again on my kids’ book.
I didn’t do so, though, until I’d had a brain wave for a crime novel, one set in a quaint English village, the kind where murder is common (in British television shows, at least).
The village’s new mayor vows to put an end to the carnage. But to what lengths will she go to stop the killing?
To find out you’ll have to read The Murderous Mayor (when I write it).
Which is, like, never!
Foreign Objects Like Fences: Dealing with Damage
Not much writing this week. I was kept busy preparing for a first aid course, so work on my kids’ book has stalled. My mind kept whirring along, though, finding an outlet for its creative energy in the idea for a short film.
My wife and I had watched an (appealingly) amateurish documentary the night before. Why can’t I do something like that, I thought. For lots of reasons, of course, but that didn’t stop me from daydreaming.
Tentatively titled ‘Cast Offs’, the (imaginary) movie stars me, myself and I. That’s right – I play all the parts. (Mostly because I’d find dealing with real actors too daunting.)
The story centres on three brothers. The eldest is in prison for killing the youngest, and the middle boy decides to make a movie to raise money to try and free him.
But first the boy needs a cast, namely someone to play him. So he puts up some posters. A series of bizarre encounters ensues, mostly between the boy and three weird and wonderful would-be actors who want to play him.
Here’s a (mercifully) short exchange between the boy and his brother, set in the visiting room of the prison:
BOY: [Whispers] Here’s the file you wanted.
BROTHER: Not that kind of file. I need to touch up my nails.
Comic genius! Sadly not coming to a cinema near you anytime soon…
You’ll be relieved to hear that I haven’t given up my day job (as a swimming teacher). I got a shock the other day when my company’s Safety Officer dropped in on one of my lessons.
It was a class of three four-year-olds who are usually fairly calm. Not on this occasion. The first kid didn’t want to leave the wall, the second didn’t want to stay on the wall and the third seemed to be having some kind of existential crisis.
It was chaos. But I tamed it – somehow. I kept everyone safe and even had fun.
I’ve been tossing up getting some piano lessons, although I’m still trying to work out why.
Because I can afford them? No. Because I’ve got time for them? No. Because I want to learn how to sight-read duets with someone? Maybe. Because I’ve got a crush on the teacher’s daughter? Definitely not.
Remember that first aid course I was preparing for? Well I went, I saw, I conquered. (Has anyone ever failed such a course?)
I found the bit about imbedded objects fascinating. Leave them in, they say. Try telling that to the casualty!
The moral of the story, I guess, is that we must learn to live with our afflictions. Bandage them up and move on.
It made me think of trees, and how their trunks ultimately embrace and absorb immoveable foreign objects like fences.
One way to deal with damage: make it your own.
Perfect Technique: Holy Sea Cow, Batman!
Fifty years ago, in the lead-up to his fight with George Foreman, Mohammad Ali uttered two immortal lines.
He said he would float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.
And so he did, knocking Foreman out to reclaim the world heavy weight title.
I know exactly how he felt. (Well, maybe not exactly.)
Mid-week I had my biggest win ever in the water.
I was chatting with a fellow swim teacher about butterfly (that ‘crazy’ stroke as my co-worker called it), when our area lead (a senior swim teacher) walked in.
‘I saw your butterfly,’ she said, looking at me. (I’d just swum some laps in the pool.)
‘Whoops,’ I said, instantly embarrassed. ‘I’m glad you recognised it.’
‘Of course I did,’ she said. ‘Perfect technique.’
I stared at her. What-the what-the?
Perfect technique for the stroke I’ve been labouring over for the past year and thought I’d never nail?
Amazing. In that moment I felt like my work here on earth was done; like I’d reached the summit of my existence.
I can float like a butterfly, swim like a manatee!
I was looking for something in the notes on my phone the other day when I came across a poem I’d written in the wee hours of the morning a while ago.
A poem called ‘da rkn ess’. A poem I like. A poem/I’m going to/win a big prize/with. That’s right: I’m actually going to submit something I’ve written to a competition.
Wish me luck – it’s me verses proper verse. (Sorry.)
It’s Father’s Day in Australialand today and I’ve already been given the best gift ever. (My son and I swam some laps together.)
During the week I discovered that, according to my teenage daughter’s friends, I’m a ‘zen dad’ – someone who’s pretty ‘chill’.
I don’t know about that, bro. But I do know I’ve led a charmed family life.
My kids are great!
And, as it happens, we got good news about them a few days ago. My son has been accepted by the Aviation High School (to study aerospace systems next year) and my daughter made it into her school’s volleyball team.
Charmed, I’m sure!
Believing Our Eyes: The Beaus and the Beas
I met Harry Potter the other day.
This means one thing here in Australialand: Children’s Book Week.
To celebrate, kids go to school dressed as their favourite character. Meanwhile the Children’s Book Council presents awards to books ‘of literary merit’.
This year I practically won. Not by writing a winning book but by borrowing one.
That’s right – I happened to have Barry Jonsberg’s Darkest Night, Brightest Star out of the library when it was announced as best book in the ‘Older Reader’ category. (I’m in that category myself, ha ha.)
Now, I’m not convinced this ‘unique and compelling novel’ is a masterpiece. But I’m more open to the idea now I’ve started reading it aloud with my 13-year-old daughter, who loves stories but is, as they say, a reluctant reader.
She loves it!
The main character, Morgan, is a middle-school misfit who’s mad about soccer. His story, according to my daughter, is real and relatable. (She plays soccer and, let’s face it, what kid doesn’t feel like a misfit.)
Masterpiece or not, Jonsberg’s book is clearly very good – the worthy winner, I guess, of a prize. But then so are many others.
We do love our literary prizes, don’t we? As if we can rank works of art on merit. Perhaps we should try ranking them based on other, more measurable, qualities. On weight, for example, or bouyancy. This year’s prize for The Most Bouyant Book goes to… Moby Dick? The Life of Pi?
Good for reading in the bath.
Speaking about baths – about books, I mean – I inadvertently learned about the birds and the bees from one when I was very young. (I came across it on an aunt’s bookshelf and read it in secret, not quite believing my eyes.)
This week, though, I inadvertently learned about something else: the Beaus and the Beas. I was calling school kids to the side of the pool for their swimming lesson. When I got to the end of the list there was – horrors! – one sad lonely little girl left.
Her name was Bea. I’d missed it because it was listed below ‘Beau’ and my mind had clearly seen the two names as one. What were the chances!
It’s a reminder that we can’t quite believe our eyes. That to see some people we have to look harder.
Not Finishing is Fine: Birds and Books in the Bane of Briz
I got an email from my local library last week. Not one of the good ones telling me my holds had arrived, but one of the bad ones. First overdue notice.
Here’s the thing: I borrow a fair few books. Here’s another thing: I don’t finish many of them. Here’s the best thing: it doesn’t matter!
Huh, you say. Why borrow books you’re never going to finish?
Two reasons I can think of. (Apologies in advance for what follows!) First, there’s the idea that the meaning of a book is ultimately made by its readers (not its writer). If a reader makes meaning without finishing the text, then the book, you could say, has worked.
Meaning has been made.
Here’s the second reason. You might actually learn more about books by not reading them. This claim is made by Pierre Bayard in his cheeky How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read:
Being culturally literate means being able to get your bearings quickly in a book, which does not require reading the book in its entirety – quite the opposite, in fact. One might even argue that the greater your abilities in this area, the less will it be necessary to read any book in particular.
So, you see – not finishing is fine.
Mind at ease, I deleted the offending email and returned the overdue books to the library…
And borrowed more. I can’t wait to not-read this latest batch!
Spring has almost sprung here in the Bane of Briz. How can I tell? The birds have broken their silence, especially at dawn.
Like them, I’ve started singing again. I stopped a few weeks ago because I was worried about losing my voice. I use it a lot, you see, as a swimming teacher, singing to babies and calling out to kids (‘bend your legs, eyes down, GO!’).
On Wednesday, though, I threw caution to the wind; I strapped on my upside-down acoustic guitar and ripped through my repertoire of cover songs and originals.
Guess what? My voice was better than ever! Turns out it might be a muscle and get stronger with use. Looks like I’ll be putting it through its paces more often now…
How many households have two graters? Mine does: a lesser grater and – wait for it – a greater grater. (Confusingly, I prefer the former.)
As you know, I fancy myself as a writer. And not one of those high-strung superstitious types. That’s right – I’m a writer who isn’t particular about his tools.
Me, I’m happy to write with anything (just as long as it’s a blue 0.7mm Pilot V Ball Grip Roller Ball pen) and in anything (just as long as it’s a ruled Moleskine Cahier Extra Large Notebook).
I’m not even fussy about the colour of the notebook’s cover!
Which means I’ve had a worrisome week. The pens I ordered online have arrived, but I’m still waiting for the notebooks. Will they arrive in time? Or will I be forced to suspend my literary endeavours until they do?
If that doesn’t lure you back then I don’t know what will!