Solitude

Ode on Solitude

~ Alexander Pope

 

Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air,

 In his own ground.

Whose heards with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire,

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

 In winter fire.

Blest! who can unconcern'dly find

Hours, days, and years slide soft away,

In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease

Together mix'd; sweet recreation,

And innocence, which most does please,

With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

Thus unlamented let me dye;

Steal from the world, and not a stone

 Tell where I lye.

***

The children have gone off on holiday with their grandparents.  It's strangely quiet without them and there's less structured activity to pad out the days.  It's the catering that I notice the most.  Dinner and washing-up for two.  Cut lunches for two or not at all. Bliss.  No mess on the floor.  No crazy bedtime routine.  No... little faces, little conversations, little books and learning.  No little hugs.  I can't imagine what it will be like when they have grown and gone away.  It's nice for a week but not for an endless period, as it will surely be one day.    Empty children's bedrooms are the saddest places, I think.

Fan mail

“Seventeen, eh!" said Hagrid as he accepted a bucket-sized glass of wine from Fred.
"Six years to the day we met, Harry, d’yeh remember it?"
"Vaguely," said Harry, grinning up at him. "Didn’t you smash down the front door, give Dudley a pig’s tail, and tell me I was a wizard?"
"I forge’ the details," Hagrid chortled.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley...He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter - the boy who lived!”

 ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Batement Tendu

Childhood

~ George William Russell

HOW I could see through and through you!

So unconscious, tender, kind,

More than ever was known to you

Of the pure ways of your mind.

We who long to rest from strife

Labour sternly as a duty;

But a magic in your life

Charms, unknowing of its beauty.

We are pools whose depths are told;

You are like a mystic fountain,

Issuing ever pure and cold

From the hollows of the mountain.

We are men by anguish taught

To distinguish false from true;

Higher wisdom we have not;

But a joy within guides you.

***

Beautiful end of term open session at ballet this afternoon.  A room full of little girls in lavender, alternately graceful and squirming.    At seven years of age, they are starting 'intensive training' with classic routines at the barre and on the floor.  It's hardly the Kirov, but so sweet to see my girl point her toes perfectly and step out on long, lean but muscular legs.  She can tie a mean bun all by herself in the back of the car too.

Bravo.  Encore!

Rainbow steps

Rainbow toes for Annie.  

A wander around the Australian Institute of Sport Swim School.

Thinking about life. 

One step at a time.

Reflecting about what is important. 

Decisions.  Hopes.

Childhood.  Aging. 

Constancy.  Change.
Self.  Others.  Friends. Strangers.

Lost camera, lost time

In Childhood

~ Kimiko Hahn

things don't die or remain damaged
but return: stumps grow back hands,
a head reconnects to a neck,
a whole corpse rises blushing and newly elastic.
Later this vision is not True:
the grandmother remains dead
not hibernating in a wolf's belly.
Or the blue parakeet does not return
from the little grave in the fern garden
though one may wake in the morning
thinking mother's call is the bird.
Or maybe the bird is with grandmother
inside light. Or grandmother was the bird
and is now the dog
gnawing on the chair leg.
Where do the gone things go
when the child is old enough
to walk herself to school,
her playmates already
pumping so high the swing hiccups?

***

I seem to have lost my camera and have lost my sense of equilibrium with it.  I've had to use an iphone and Charly's little junior Kodak number to capture the moments, and there have been plenty of memorable and beautiful ones over the past few weeks.  The autumn tones in Canberra's old streets, merriment in the backyard over the Easter break and abundant other daily vignettes reminding me that childhood is fleeting. Clothes have become outgrown and conversations more mature.  Decisons about high school loom.  I want to capture every second before it disappears.  Oh, where is Peter Pan?

Oh, where is my Canon Ixus?