A Winter Garden

I didn't think much of August. On a personal level, I had three sessions at the dentist for a root canal and I had to wrestle the tax return into shape. The world was a miserable succession of bad news, ranging from a loved actor's suicide to Ebola. And winter took on a vicious kick, finally dumping rain everywhere except where the farmers really need it.
The best thing about August was a book. "The Daughters of Mars'" by the Australian novelist Tom Keneally, is a brilliant re-telling of the 1914-18 War as experienced by the women who worked as nurses. Such a big, grand book, wide in its compass of history and geography, compassionate in its understanding of human suffering. Read it, it's wonderful.

You would hope the lessons of the past might be useful to a new generation. But no, we pursue the same old dramas, maybe learning a little as we go. What can we do as we are bombarded with reports of war, carnage and atrocity?
We can rest in the peace of small reminders.
As though unable to wait for the first week of spring, the very first Peace rose has bloomed in my winter garden. Already the plump bud droops, as though unable to bear for long the weight of such an opulent flower. Unfolding soft lemony petals, fluted with crimson, it is as lovely as morning dawning on a fine new day.

MEMORIALS

On a wintery July day in Australia, I received a package on my front porch. It was a rose bush, spindly and spiky, as bare-root roses are. It was the Daniel Morcombe Memorial Rose, beautifully packaged, but there was no indication who had sent it. I did not solve the mystery, but planted it in my garden.

Yesterday I saw a TV interview with Daniel’s father and mother. Their 13 year old son, who would have been a young man now, had been abducted and murdered. Over the years, putting their unimaginable grief to practical use, these parents have created memorials in his memory. The rose is just one gesture. His parents have also written a book, and campaigned to have child safety programmes built into the school curriculum.

Another reminder of loss occurred yesterday. In Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne, a cross-faith service was held to acknowledge all those who died when Malaysian airline MH17 was shot down over the Ukraine three weeks ago. Priests and pastors of various faiths spoke words of comfort. There was singing. Strangers came  together and were united by this random act of violence.

We have all lost a partner, a parent, sibling, relative, friend or pet. Illness, a random act of nature or war can change our lives in a moment. It’s exactly one year since Jessica, our beloved golden Labrador, was put to sleep. Another puppy has recently come to help fill that void. In my garden, Daniel’s rose bush is putting on its gleaming coppery foliage, ready for a summer blooming. We go on. My wish is that our memories will be loving, and that all who feel grief and sorrow may receive a gentle healing.

Writing is valuable work

Is writing work? Recently a writer friend was very upset. Somebody had said to her that unless she was earning a living wage, she was merely a hobbyist.
This equation of writing success with earning money is misleading. Money is very useful and all writers wish to be paid. That's taken for granted. Yet writing is one of the last careers I would suggest to a person hoping to earn a living wage from their work.
A writer is not a hobbyist who picks up a work in progress now and then. What is driving this person, if it isn't money?
One way to decide whether a particular work is of value is to assess its effect on the worker over time. What kind of person constitutes a writer? Individuals we are, yet the work of writing forces certain qualities upon us. We are disciplined people who work alone. We must be resilient, or the knockbacks we have all endured would have finished us long ago.
We are curiously interested in life, people, language, customs, quirks and details.
We learn to develop empathy, which is the one quality that can change our self-centred lives.
We can never harm, rob or otherwise negate the being of any individual for whom we feel true empathy. Writing reaches out to people. It wants to be shared and in that sense is a loving impulse.