Once Upon A Time

I started writing what might become my second novel, this way:

It’s not always easy to tell where a story truly begins; any story, all stories perhaps, this story for sure. Even as children, when the beginning seems simple enough to detect with “Once upon a time”, we still ask questions: How old is the Princess? Where was Rumplestiltskin born? Why were there forty thieves and does Ali Baba have any sisters as well as a bother, Kassim?

We'll see.
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A sigh of recognition

The breath of what might be
your life less firmly held
yet falling under nature's spell
settles on a frosted window pane
to crystalize this unsure moment
like epiphany
upon an empty road
at dead of night, amid some stones
strewn on some unknown hillside,
no more than uninviting,
no less than hostile
and not where once we thought
this road might lead
when there was light;
where it might take us
when the world was young,
at least was younger then
than now it seems.

So, sighing, here we sit
awaiting news of how it is
that nothing lasts forever.
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Remember When

Return to me the childhood songs of life
Borne high on music of some flute ascending
Like the poet's lark to lift the heart from strife
And call us home beyond the never-ending,
Never less than empty daze, the patient midwife
Of our weary gaze upon misfortunes pending,
Which all men fear: the mortal nature's knife
We keep as far from sight as fools pretending.
So let their sweet and youthful songs burst out
Like swallows bearing summer on their tails
To fill tired ears of frightened, lonely men
Who've long forgot old ways to make joy shout
Of who they were and all their lives' details
With truth enough for all to laugh again.

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Someone once told me that if you want to write good poetry that breaks the rules you need to be able to use the rules you'll break. So, sonnet practice. It's not quite Milton but it does follow his (Italian) rhyming scheme.
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Grounded

So I worked from home again, thanks to the broken motor in my van. Sharon will drive it tomorrow to the Tyson's people to repair or replace it, except it's not Tyson's anymore. They went broke but someone bought the remnants of the business. Let's hope they can fix it.

I've managed to get through a decent amount of work, so that's satisfying enough. When I've been waiting on recalcitrant colleagues to reply to my e.mails I've caught up with my blogging. Does it show?

I've also been reading a good book, which I borrowed from the library yesterday. It's the published version of six lectures in 1993 by Umberto Eco, entitled Six Walks In The Fictional Woods. God, that man is erudite, witty, thought-provoking, terrifically well-read, illuminating, thoughtful, sharp ... bastard! No, seriously, it's a good read; thoroughly accessible and I'm sure it will help me with my studies either now or in the future (if, in the end, I make my mind up to return to undergraduate endeavour).

Eco's little book (barely 150 pages long) comes from the same series as Italo Calvino's Six Memos For The New Millennium. It's a series known as the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures. I assume this must be the same Norton as the anthologies but I'll check. I had no idea about these lectures / essays until Spike returned from the college library with the Calvino. I'll have too seek oput others because the two I've read so far really do make you think.
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Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhh

The up/down motor of my van's driver's seat seems to have seized up/ frozen / burnt out; whatever it is they do when they're not working. Spike had to haul me back into my wheelchair. I went nowhere far from home today, although the trip I agreed reluctantly to make to the library and the shopping mall turned out to be more pleasant than I thought it would be. I'm glad Spike forced me to cross the threshold again.

I worked remotely from home, which is no great misery. I missed my university class on David Malouf's An Imaginary Life, which is a pain. And I fretted over the bill that might be coming my way ... a new motor costs one thousand bucks.

These days are sent to try us. Shit happens. Take your pick.
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Last detour of the day

We called into the workshop and gallery of lamp-work glass artist Peter Minson on the way home. It's in a small town called Binalong, which is only about 1o kms this side of Galong coincidentally. Spike had taken one of his bead-making courses a few years back.

We had a delightful, instructive couple of hours with Peter and his jewelry-making wife Lindsey Johnstone. We talked about glass, the biases of different schools, his family's history of making glass (his grandfather made the first neon sign in Australia), even Scotland (where they'd been visiting friends a month ago). Lindsey made us tea and coffee from her gallery cafe and wouldn't let us pay. I scoffed down one of her home-made Anzac biscuits, which was tasty enough to force me to re-appraise the humble oatmeal cake. So we bought one of Peter's 'signature' tea pots, which evened things out, I guess.
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Good bread, excellent tarts

Advised by Spike's friend Alecks, we headed south-west along the Olympic Highway out of Wagga Wagga, making another long short cut on our journey ... this time heading home. We found, as instructed the Quinty Cake & Bakehouse. The breakfast was wholly ordinary ... even I could have poached eggs that would have been, how can one say it ... less solid. But that's not why people pull over or go twenty-five kilometres out of their way when driving to Sydney. The bread is very good. The tarts are excellent. We left, adequately fed but well-provisioned to drive north. Stop there if you're passing. I recommend the lemon tart, and the quince & almond. Yummmeee!