Thursday, January 7

The Work of Mourning


And now.... because Sir though she might be ready to face the future. And because Sir thinks that Freud sucks but ultimately made some good points on mourning. And because writing is never neat and sequential, even though authors who are actually published always tell their story as though it is so.

On the 14th of Novemeber, Sir got married. Hurrah!! Then, later that same November...

Last week there was a day when all things in the North seemed to awry. Trains to and from Rosanna went up shit creek, the Greens borough Mall collapsed, and Sir was stuck in traffic for 2 hours trying to get from Eltham to Diamond Creek to see Rose. When Sir got to Kilara Retirement home I had forgotten that one can get in to these facilities quite easily.... however getting out is quite another matter.

Never mind, Sir's mind was made up once the door was closed.

Suffice to say, Sir wasn't prepared for the musty flooded floors or the twelve sets of hopeful eyes that turned from the cricket on television to her when she walked into the living room. Sir's mind flashed back to the Christmas sing-a-longs that she went to in her teens, playing Violin, Piano and singing to the oldies at Mum's salt mines over the years. Shit.

So Sir found her notchalant fosterling sister. Sir realised that the path that brought us both togther have now forked away from each other. Notchalant fosterling sister told Sir that she was "happy for me to do what I though was best" to do, and to do so without her.

So Sir did. This is the story.

Today Sir went to that really expensive Nursery on the Maribyrnong in Alberfield. Sir went because Sir's dead Matriarch was jumping out of her skin (so to speak) all last night and Sir was just about going mental (literally... a normal reaction of most to the mother pressure).

Sir bought a Jacaranda, a Blueberry Ash, two bags of bourgeois potting mix, and two passion fruit vine seedlings. Sir came home, got a call from her wife and picked her up from Heidelberg Station with a box of succulents that she bought from the old-lady-with-the-card-table-stall at Deakin University. It's Dr Wife now (blush) and it seems that plants have been calling us both the last two days.

When we got home it was dusk. We dug two deep holes, one medium and two little ones. We distributed the Matriach's ashes between the Jacaranda tree, the Blueberry Ash, a succulent in the fairy garden, and the two passion seedlings on the back fence. We shared wine and watched the huge full moon rise up over the trees against a mauve sunset. Then we put up the fairy lights in the fairy garden.

So it is done. The garden is beautiful.


In the last 6 months or so you may know that Sir has refined the art of the Banana Lounge Lizard... interspersed with the last remnants of Sir's mum's estate, getting married, mowing the lawn, a daily walk and general hours of house and Proto-Doctor maintenance. Its been a real breeze of a time.

Well, yesterday Sir had the privilege of sending off the thesis emendations and henceforth have a wife whom is a real one, and Sir is no longer in the position of phD widow. Hurrah!!

The other big hurrah type is probably known to you. It comes slowly, from a place of great depth and usually some form of grief. It creeps up on us in our dreams at first.... , mine were fairly literal and strangely soul burning dreams of Jacqueline DuPre, playing in a cheesy sound stage set, playing with the MSO etc etc, you get it. In Sir's case it manifested its self as "Christ! I can't spend the next 3 weeks of my summer holidays playing Tomb Raider every day!!" Sir realised that even though her mastery of Lara Croft's triple back flip and remarkable skill in reaching relics in a time trial rivaled any 12 year old titty raider fiend... sigh, the sad truth is that Sir cannot share this with her grown up friends and stay a respected member of her chosen family.

Yesterday, Sir went to visit a dear friend who is struggling to finish her phD. We listed to music, ate and played with the pug puppy who was also visiting. Then she suggested that Sir borrow her Bodhran. As Sir was attempting to play this crazy Celtic beast she realised what She needed to do. Her soul needed feeding, desperately.

Now Sir has a beautiful new creature who will need a few months of playing in until Sir can get the new, better set of strings. Maybe later this year Sir can trade her up to a more professiona model. Far from 30 year ago when Sir first picked up the Violin, and many years of wanting to wring it's scrawny neck, she is delighting in the body memories of playing the Suzuki Method, but for 'Cello. Happiness. My soul as woken up and wants to be fed.

Moments like this make Sir remember that there is more to life on the inside as well as the outside. Not too long now until the teaching begins again. Sir got in just in time....