Therapy

 New cuts over both hands again after another two/three hours in the garden. Handling a sharp frond resulted in a slicing of the soft flesh between fore and ring finger, which needed to be disinfected with some sljivovic. Ninety dollars for a 750ml dusty old bottle of Zuta Osa left on a shelf of a liquor store in Charles Street after two other outlets had been tried. Rather odd that the old Viet owner there would know the current market value of such particular stock. The first slug was yesterday with Veki sitting on cushioned milk-crates in the front garden; disinfectant dabbing today resulted in another half-shot. Boza suza, Tear of god, the old Bosnian Soaks used to say. After so many years of pencil and paper the hands were exceedingly soft, as any hard boy commonly remarked at greeting and shaking. All the generations behind returned to mind bending the back and getting the hands dirty. Ne moze sjedeci, Impossible seated, a slacking worker in the field might be upbraided by seasoned veterans. No need of gym or running, Bab used to remark in latter years when the tending of her back garden was being neglected. During her better years Hazel had found pleasure in the garden. Its state now was testament to her plantings over the decade and more of her occupancy. Wind through the trees on demand more or less offered a new music after the long term in Singapore in particular; a number of times a larger branch striking the pailing fence produced strident variation. Walking the bike across the overpass to lunch the streaming cars beneath would need to have their windows wound tight and the radio turned up in order to avoid the hellish roar. Two weeks later the penny dropped for Haze’s coal. There were pieces in the polished shelves on entry and others around on the rear porch, some of it crumbling and dusty. All natural elements drew Haze. A committed Catgirl who in the UK had since graduated to orphaned hedgehogs, Haze populated the gardens with variously coloured rocks, weathered fallen timber and bark, succulents, cacti and other plantings. Coal was not common indoors in any of the style mags one was sure. Eventually the penny dropped. Wales! Ah! Yes, indeed. All the reason and more. A grandfather with smears over his collar and a flatcap must have laboured under ground in the Welsh hills. Overnight Hayden’s Ferry Review had returned another Cock-Tease REJECT, damn them to high heaven! Terse and straightforward, “very impressive” nonetheless required that bulging folder rather than the Upper-Tier one. (Likewise bulging.) Islamic Studies—SE Asian Hemisphere, like a number of others, was reserved for the more notable journals. A year or more of submission might have delivered a dozen REJECTS and four-five C-Tease & Upper-T in addition. What to do? Soldier on. Heroes are known by their suffering, or trials, the South Slavs say. Groan…. By the strange calendar here that ignored the equinox, September 1 on the morrow was the designated start of Spring. A twenty degree day forecast after the weekend, on the Tuesday. In the slow run-up on the Saturday the plates on the drainer in the kitchen had given off some of the goodness of the morning sun. The guff on the Cornies pack offering mindfulness & situation in the moment by colouring in the sunflower pictured rather wrecked that blessing…. GROAN.  Big time GROAN! Even the better bookshops were well stocked now with colouring-in books, themes to satisfy the most discerning. Was it at all possible in the twelvemonth for a kind of socialist to be actually elected to the White House? A White of the right sort inclined in that direction able to bring off the miracle redemption in the Land of the Free?... The dark of renown had been returned to this traveller here in his hometown walking back from Footscray most nights after the late lunches and café sitting and mooning. A three-quart hour jaunt in the cold turned into a song going by the greenery and beneath the wide, expansive sky. Underestimated for the first week had been the added close darkness of night. Like Haze’s coal, it had taken some while to realise the strength of the new/old seduction of night. The street lights were few and far between in this neighbourhood and the trees acted to concentrate the darkness further still. There were few stars, but the restoration of the natural, diurnal rhythm seemed like a greeting. It was possible no place on earth was illumined from outer space like the tiny pinprick of Sin’pore. Perhaps only the island of NY could compare.