Ma Wa Gray

Dolly Parton died two days ago. I have learnt more about her in her death than I ever would have before her death. About growing up in poverty, her illiterate father, the town skank who her mother called 'trash' and from whom Dolly got her sense of style, the millions of books children have recieved because of her, her hysterectomy at 38 that led to her childlessness but also her mothering of countless others... How sad that the true beauty, generosity and courage of so many people are only ever revealed to all once that person has gone. 

 Across the valley the dogs start their long distance relationships via bark. Several horses graze in the field at the bottom of the valley. The poultry farm clucks itself into awakeness and the echoes of late night peacock calls still reverberate through the gum trees. The fiery necked nightjar has long given up her post at the bottom of the garden and the morning birds fill her silence. The day has begun. 

  Last night we all slept in a tent in the garden. Gray and Eva had made a very cozy bed on boogie boards under the palm tree and we pitched a tent next door. Gray was the first to buckle and join us in the tent and then Eva joined us when a frog jumped on her face.  I'm not going to lie, it wasn't my best night's sleep. My mattress options were two ill shaped couch cushions pushed together (and they so happened to be on a slight slope), or our cheap camping mattress that is so synthetic that one just slides off it.  I went for the camping mattress. Day two after a gym workout hit somewhere at 1.00 in the morning coinciding with Eva giving up her fight against gravity and rolling down from the couch cushions onto me and the kak camping mattress.  Judging by the contented snores and sighs of the rest of my adventurers it appears to have been a good night for everyone else.  This morning I woke with the ubiquitous dew halo on my head from the condensation on the t...

Two children, aged 7 and 11, have slept together in a cozy nook next to their mom's bed. Its about 6 o'clock in the morning and the sun hasn't risen. Their mother hears her last born whisper to her first born, 'Lets have a midnight snack.'

Yesterday I was in the St Marys parking lot loading Eva up after her first piano lesson. My brother Tom happened to arrive to watch Holly play hockey.  We both had other places to be.  But for a good 10 minutes we spoke absolute crap to each other. Every possible irreverent inside joke was thrown, relics from our childhood were dredged up and anyone who didn't share the same home with us growing up might have thought we had actually lost it.  I haven't laughed that much in a while. A laugh where none of the humour needs to be explained because it is literally in our DNA.  I know Tom has had a hectic week. I know I have had a hectic week. Being an adult is hectic.  But the blessing of siblings is that we carry in ourselves safe places for each other. We carry all our shared experiences together. And sometimes a brief moment in the past is all we need to feel safe in the present. 

Stephen is going on his annual fishing trip with his good mate Andy, who also happens to be a botanist.  While other men plan their golf trips, and their hunting trips, and the bars they're going to hit, and the fines they're going to give each other, my Stephen is planning which ready made soup to buy and which flies to pack and which dam to hit first. Bless him.