Spring 2010 #9

On school mornings my limited contribution to getting our fifth daughter out the door culminates in a wonderful moment when Bugger and I roll down the driveway, hot on the trail of my Favourite Wife in her cute little car. Cassie has just turned ten. She loves school, but she also loves every smallest alternative to school that presents itself between 5.45am when we rise and 8.00am when we start the car. Her head-strong creativity is exasperating and, it must be said, sometimes nigh-on intolerable! Just as they start down the road I pull alongside, chair set to its fastest speed, and in the thirty or so feet it takes for the car to accelerate away Cassie and I exchange our top-secret “Blue Team” handshake through the passenger’s window (the Red Team, by the way, is made up of my Favourite Wife and our puppy. They always loose, Blue always wins! Life is so simple at ten). Then they are away, little one leaning most inappropriately out the window waving frantically and cupping her hands to yell, “I love you Dad”, over and over as they disappear. I head back home (wondering what the neighbors make of this routine ruckus), and round about then the sun will crown the steep green hillside, its first excited rays striking towering gums and searching out a few stray ‘Roos that have briefly paused in their breakfast grazing to consider the spectacle playing out on the road below. I catch myself laughing out loud now and then (which must aggrieve the neighbors yet more); it is a moment of sheer, pure, exultant joy. And it comes around most days!

And just a fortnight ago I was scooting along a stone breakwater on the New South Wales north coast, my grandson buckled firmly on my lap, his mum and dad trailing behind us with their newest one in a stroller. Shrieks and giggles as we dodged the spray and splash of ocean waves crashing against the rocks below us. We looked for crabs, we tried to keep warm and failed to keep dry!

And four nights ago my son, our daughter in law, two more daughters and a boyfriend joined me around a Wagga Wagga pub table for a great night together on the evening of an out-of-town medical appointment (about which I shall not speak!).

And yesterday I trained up to the south coast to be with my fourth daughter and her husband of only six weeks. My girl and I spent a couple of blissful afternoon hours exploring the rainforest trails along the spectacular escarpment on which they live. Rough gravel, mud holes and gradients very nearly too steep for Bugger to go down – let alone back up! But there was a distant waterfall that she just had to show me; and we would be rescued … somehow. How much fun; bouncing and slipping around, overheating motors cutting out, and my little girl valiantly pushing us back uphill to the point of near exhaustion. It’s been too long since we’ve gone adventuring together; or caught frogs, or thrown stones in ponds, or since we laughed quite so much together!

And this morning the whole world, it seems, is celebrating last night’s announcement of my third daughter’s engagement to the young man I like so much who was last week merely a boyfriend. We should have been at church but there were messages, phone calls, emails, facebook, people! It’s too much fun!

And now, before I head off for the home-bound train, we are sitting down to a gourmet meal of grilled venison: hunted, dressed, marinated and cooked right here on the mountain during my stay. We heard the rifle’s crack in yesterday’s early hours; a sharp report echoing through cliff and timber, scattering flocks of birds into the air.

And in a couple more days we will all be back around a table somewhere in Wagga, celebrating my daughter’s twentieth – under strict orders not to celebrate the engagement. There will be another party for that!

And these are high points, mountain tops, glory days.

And, of course, there is just as much that could be written about the valleys in between. The days I spend alone at home without the buzz of trains or busses or cafes or friends to draw my eye up can be a challenge, indeed.

And sometimes I fall to wondering: for how long can the good times roll? Is there a turning point in the track, a fork in the road beyond which the joy of experience cannot be sustained? Is the exhilaration of life only for a time; or does the landscape of mountain and valley continue through each and every season? I do not know the answer to my question.

And sometimes I am fearful, chilled by what the answer might contain.

And sometimes I realise that it would take faith to live well, no matter down which path my question finds its truth.

And I read, “Do not be afraid, little flock, because it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom”.

Rejoice!

Spring 2010 #8

Now and then a new wind blows, a moment arrives, something shifts irrevocably in the way the world appears; or perhaps in the way we appear in the world.  Today I met Christopher, a youngish fellow I see often enough, cruising around town on one of those battery powered mobility scooters.  Chris’s Gopher is distinctive.  For one thing it has a dog; a surprisingly large animal whose obvious attachment seems to be divided in equal parts between master and scooter; and it also has a rather expansive canopy among its several add-on accessories.  I’ve occasionally come across Chris at the Doctor’s practice (where scooter and dog come happily – if incongruously – right into the waiting room).  Today we met at the Rehab clinic that I frequent. In the waiting room, of course!

The new wind started to blow later in the afternoon when I was rolling home on Bugger, and found myself travelling in a curious convoy with dog and driver for several blocks.  Now, I must confess, I don’t particularly like those scooters!  They rush along footpaths at ungodly speed, their driver’s faces fixed in grim determination to make landfall by dusk – or else!  Whereas I, in my entirely dissimilar battery powered wheelchair, conduct myself in an altogether more civil manner.  I am, by my own admission, vastly superior to the scooter mob.  But, to be honest, I wasn’t just immersed in judgemental supremacy; I was uncomfortable.  A year or so back, when I was still a bona fide pedestrian, I had occasionally offered Chris a friendly smile, or even a few brief words.  But – and I am ashamed to admit this – it was an entirely different experience to meet eye to eye and wheel to wheel on a very public street corner. 

Chris doesn’t speak, and as we slowed for successive intersections, making way for one another, he made repeated gestures indicating that he was thirsty.  Then we came to a corner cafe, and I realised that his gesturing was an invitation for me to join him inside for a drink.  Me, him, our wheels and the dog. So there we were … …  and I made my excuse: I was hurrying home in time to meet a friend coming to spray our weeds in just a few minutes. 

I travelled half a block further on my own, and then I backtracked to the Cafe and wrote on Christopher’s note pad a time and day next week for us to meet back and the same spot for coffee.  He was delighted!

Elitism, condescension, superiority, segregation, snobbery, racism; call it what you will, there is something sinister that universally divides man from man.  Sadly I feel its appeal.  Why are our differences from one another more enticing than our commonality?  Where does this need to set ourselves above other people spring from?  Perhaps it takes a lifetime to meet ourselves.

Another odd thing happened this week. Waiting for an end-of-day bus a scruffy, agitated man began calling at passengers at the busy stop; his language obscene and intimidating. He turned his attention to a boy in school uniform, a mild looking fellow in his early teens. This lad was visibly afraid, more so when the disturbed stranger strode right into his space and launched into an incomprehensible, offensive rant.   So I drove Bugger in between them and held the man’s manic gaze; insisting he leave the boy alone. He was livid, but he backed down, and I shadowed him at a distance until the bus took us all away.  I suspect the reason I succeeded, and why he didn’t take a swipe at me as I thought he might, is that in a weird manner we were no threat to each other. It may be reading too much into the moment of confrontation, but I felt there was an instant of mutual recognition, a disarming and pacifying glimpse of the team colours we share in some strange way.  Disability in all its diversity can have an oddly unifying effect.  After all, aren’t we each dealing, as best we can, day by day, with our own unique patch of human frailty?

Rejoice!

Spring 2010 #7

The distant thrum of the diesel-electric engine. The sway and rattle of the carriage. The endlessly progressing vista … now coastal grazing land, greened by our best season in a decade … now a banking river … now a stand of paperbark, ringing a tannin-stained lagoon.  Clanging bells of a level crossing retreat as fast as they appeared … now cattle idling beside dams brim-full with waterlilies in spring flower … now chugging switchback bends through rocky hills.  Suddenly the startling pitch of a blackened tunnel … now mystic runes graffitied on the forgotten brick of factory walls … now the voyeur’s glimpse of unkempt, cheapside real-estate that a railway window uniquely affords. 

Forty-something hours spent absorbing this sensory feast has a hypnotic effect, lulling one into some serious introspection.  I can’t help wondering if there isn’t something more than a little frenzied, manic even, in all this travel?  Six months ago it was several weeks spent in the Gibson Desert, pushing my manual wheelchair (good old Bugger!) to the limits of our combined endurance. I’ve not counted the trips since then; but this week I am notching up a rather stunning 2900km by rail, taking in the length of two States, our denomination’s annual conference, a flying visit to my daughter and her boys, and a wonderfully rushed weekend in Melbourne with my Best Girl.

The two most obvious dimensions of motion seem to have engraved themselves on my subconscious; embedded beneath every thought. Speed and Direction. How fast are we going? When will we get there? Where are we headed? What’s coming next?  Are we there yet?

Is it just the mesmerizing effect of locomotive clickety-clack, or are these traveller’s queries not also the big questions of life?  Such thoughts are often in all our minds, sometimes appearing as vision and anticipation; sometimes as fear and trepidation.  At this junction in my life they have a new poignancy.  I can’t but wonder….. What does my future hold? Where am I heading? How fast am I going? How much of my current wander-lust is born from a ‘now or never’ paradigm?  And is that prudent or impetuous?  I once boarded a train in Tamworth to farewell a friend, and soon discovered the need to ring another friend to rescue me from Werris Creek.  It must have been an emotional send off!  But I do feel like a passenger trapped unwillingly on a nameless train to an unknown destination.  Are we there yet? 

Coincidentally (or perhaps providentially) while on board I have been reading of two travellers in the ancient world.  These two men of calling, Paul and Jonah, centuries apart, were also ‘trapped unwillingly’.  Travelling by sea they had both, for different reasons, become subject to forces far beyond their control. But where Jonah (soon to be in the belly of the whale) is fearful and self-absorbed; Paul (in Roman shackles) is purposeful and assured. As the stories progress the two men deal with destiny very differently.  Jonah, who was given great opportunity, seems unable to shed his own neediness, and his world becomes starkly self-centred and contracted.  His final words vividly display his inability to re-align himself with a changing and grace-filled world: “I am angry enough to die.” How tragic!   In contrast Paul – who faces imprisonment and eventual death – remains assured and fruitful.  I find his determination and his generous spirit so appealing! Although he is held captive by Roman soldiers, he refuses to limit himself to their confinement, often describing himself instead as “a prisoner of Christ Jesus”.  How magnificent!

With just a few hours left before my Favourite Wife joins me on the train for a weekend celebration of our 21^st Anniversary I posted this on facebook…

From this morning’s Sydney Morning Herald … Tim Fisher’s list of luminaries who have boarded the broad-gauge rail at Albury Station:  Mary McKillop, Don Bradman, Ben Chifley, Billy Hughes, Robert Menzies, Dame Nellie Melba (both vertically and horizontally), General Douglas MacArthur, Mark Twain ……… and ……… at 3.16pm today ……… KAREN ALLEN!

And a little further down the track the loud speakers crackle to life, “Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen, CountryLink regret to inform you that flood waters have cut the rail line to Melbourne and this train will be terminating at the next station”.  Heart break! It wasn’t to be.  Our much anticipated Melbourne jaunt never happened; and although a cab driver made a valiant attempt to ford numerous turbulent crossings, we were to remain flood-bound, stranded in different towns for another night. 

So, you see, even fastidious attention to speed and direction is no guarantee of destination.  Are we there yet?  Indeed if I look too deeply into what cannot be seen, I might miss the view from the train. Just keep travelling!

Rejoice!

Spring 2010 #6

For starters, he’s not blue at all.  It’s a white person on a Royal Blue background.

The ubiquitous if incorrectly named Little Blue Man is a friend indeed, and unless you have need of his services you may not fully realise his prevalence.  It’s like buying a car: once you settle on a particular model they suddenly seem to be everywhere!  There are thousands upon thousands of Little Blue Men; in fact I suspect he might actually be the mythical  ‘Common Man’, simply because there are so many of him.   He is nigh-on omnipresent; and every Little Blue Man is a gift. They are personal invitations, carefully placed by anonymous civil servants with me in mind.  They beckon welcomingly, trail markers on my journey. While the greater horde of (unwashed) pedestrian humanity contends with crowded steps and busy footpaths; I have a VIP pass to priority parking and purpose-built ramps. I have been lifted from the nameless throng; appointed to a path of privilege.  An un-numbered host of beacons confidently declare their message: “Roderick Allen!  Welcome!  We have been awaiting your arrival, we are here to serve!” 

As an apprentice carpenter I was regaled with tales from ageing Public Service tradesmen about extraordinary behind-the-scenes preparations for the visit  of Queen Elizabeth in the early 70’s. Touring Australia to open the Sydney Opera House, the Majestic Itinerary was  extensive.  Public buildings were renovated, so the old chippies claimed, in the most exclusive manner. Only the corridors down which the Imperial Feet were scheduled to walk needed painting; and on each such corridor one single loo was completely refurbished in readiness for the Royal Flush.  While my crowd-drawing capacity may not quite rival Her Majesty’s personal magnetism, I still I know exactly how she felt.  Everywhere I go I am spoiled with the best of everything.   I enjoy reserved seating on every bus; neat little private lifts on train stations; and (best of all!) my own private washrooms across the nation which are invariably clean, spacious and elegantly appointed.  As a member of the Royal Family, the path marked out for me by Little Blue Men attracts an entirely elevated level of courtesy and cheerfulness from each person I meet.  Nothing is a problem; everyone – civil servant and commoner alike – stands ready to help with a generous smile.

But it wasn’t always so.  This innocuous blue and white cameo once intimidated me in a way that nothing has since great big enormous high school kids scared the freckles of my primary school face.  When we moved house just over a year ago an Occupational Therapist provided us with a list of features to look for.  Things like wide corridors, no steps, good doorways, and other details that were essentially about wheelchair access. But I had no wheelchair, and I wouldn’t for the next six months.  In those days I was deeply troubled by the Little Blue Man.  I turned involuntarily away when he came into my field of vision, and the idea that I might one day need his company was fearful and bewildering.   

Isn’t it true that the thing from which we cower will often make us rich; and that which we covet sometimes disappoints?  This transformation from fear to favour is something I have noticed now and then through the years; and have finally begun to comprehend.  Apprehensions prove unfounded, and possessions unrewarding.  In the taciturn, convoluted passage of life I see a Grand Design.  Many things have not gone the way I might have wished, and yet time and again I have stood back to marvel at the outcome.   St Paul put it this way:    “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose”.  I believe that implicitly; and yet I’ve often found it the core of my unbelief. 

The Little Blue Man makes a colourful tale, but it’s flawed.   For one thing it’s a singularly self-centred story.   As any adult must learn the fruitfulness of life is not concerned simply with me; it’s about us: my family, friends, community, church.   The ups and downs of my life are part of a far bigger picture and the “good” that St Paul speaks about is often seen only from a higher vantage point.  My story also lacks candour; after all I don’t regard my dependence on Bugger (et al) as the best thing in the world that could have happened.  But I do think that the human ability to know what’s best could well be the most overstated thing in the world. 

The Little Blue Man has one more lesson to teach.  He is ahead of me on the road; he’s waiting down the track.  I don’t know when I will find him next, but I’m pretty sure he will be there when I need him.  And that’s good news, because tomorrow I am catching a train!

Rejoice!

Spring 2010 #5

Joy of my life
You make me laugh more,
You make me smile,
You remind me,
You soften me.

We share one life, two views.
We stand together and apart.
Things I miss are plain to you,
The things I see you see more clearly still.

We shared a beach, quite unknowing, for who knows how many childish years.
Was it chance or the Divine Will that crossed our paths, years on and far away?

Your patience is a deep well.
Mother, carer, life to how many children?
Was it three?
No, five.
Now six!
All so different, so unique in themselves, all growing,
All doing so well in this world because of you.

There aren’t so many children round these days,
Who have a mermaid for a mum!

We are a good team, you and I.
We’ve seen a bit!
Our path has seldom been as straight as we had hoped;
But on every bend we’ve stood together, side by side.

What was that you said?
Sausage Hot Pot!
Let’s not.

These are good days;
Living, as we do, in Paradise.
These are hard days too, no doubt.
But I guess we two are somehow built for that;
And we believe!

Nine homes we’ve shared so far; too many I think!
But each has been an advent, a chapter in our book,
And each has had a richness of its own.
Each would have been a house, no more, save for your gifted touch.

We sailed the seven seas (minus six, and I think we flew).
Seven days, not seas! The longest we had spent kid-free in twenty years.
A birthday to remember.
50!
50?
Fifty!
Who would believe?
We climbed mountains, walked seashores, ate well, slept well, explored dungeons, stalked eels, we sat, we listened, we sailed a ship and paddled across the harbour, deep and green!

And this week we turn Twenty One!

Pearl of great
Price.

Paramour
Par excellence.

You are the butter to my bread,
The breath to my life!

The only girl I’ve ever kissed,
The only girl I’ve ever missed.

My Best Girl,
You are…

My Favourite Wife.