I've taken a week's annual leave this week, and am relishing just staying home with the "bounce-back" message on the email. I'm giving myself a week to re-familiarise myself with my book, and to try and get a particular chapter (the one on ritual reform and ritual criticism) drafted before the teaching semester starts.
But it's hard to concentrate, because I keep turning on the radio and checking various news pages on the web, to test out responses to this morning's apology.
I stood with Paul and several thousand others in Federation Square in the heart of Melbourne this morning. People stood quietly and attentively for around half an hour, applauding quietly and warmly at various moments after Rudd's apology and during the speech that followed. He spoke modestly, without flourish or rhetorical excess, but this was perfectly appropriate. This was a speech-act of a most profound kind; it was the act itself of saying "sorry" that needed to be foregrounded, and so it was, with great sincerity, with his three simple repetitions in the motion itself, and then his own first-person apologies in his supporting speech, on his own behalf, and of the parliament and of the nation.
I felt he not only captured the mood of the nation but also cathected it, in turn. We were not the only ones wiping tears from our eyes as he spoke, and as we heard him recount the devastating stories of children torn from their mothers, and torn apart from each other. Stories of reconciliation, too: the trooper with the whip who had taken three children away, and who many years later, sought them out, and asked their forgiveness; and finding it freely given. The insupportable misery of parents who lost their children and never saw them again. And we were reminded, too, that these policies were still in place in the 1970s, that there were still Parliamentarians in office today who had passed those laws.
Even when he finished, and applause filled the House, and filled the Square, under the big screen, the mood was pleased, but possibly still a bit overwhelmed. This was not a time for jubilation, but it seemed right to be filled with a sense of sadness and awe.
And then Brendan Nelson rose to speak. I thought he had spoken well yesterday, but today his speech seemed badly misjudged. He supported the apology, but seemed unable to find the same sympathetic directness of Rudd. Yes, Nelson's father had been taken from his teenage mother; yes, mothers had lost their sons and daughters in war; yes, Aboriginal people do still live in dreadful conditions. But so little of this seemed relevant; and much of it seemed hurtful and insensitive. To say that it was sometimes necessary to remove children from their parents; to discuss the problems of sexual abuse in Indigenous communities? On such a day? But we knew what to do. Almost as one, about three-quarters of the crowd turned our backs on the big screen. Some jeered and booed, some shouted. Mostly I just felt the instant dilution of the happy peace we had begun to feel.
Still, he too received a standing ovation, and the motion was passed unanimously. At least the members of the opposition who didn't support it were not there. Rudd stood, and applauded the one hundred members of the Stolen Generations in the gallery, and he was then presented with a ceremonial coolum. I hope it might find its place, eventually, next to the Mace which sits on the table when the House is in session.
Response around the nation is overwhelmingly positive. Of course some don't think it was necessary, or think it a political stunt; and of course it is not enough (Rudd has ruled out financial compensation). But listening to the radio I am hearing stories of news broadcasters not having enough tissues in the commentary box, of a man listening to the radio and being unable to get out of the car; and when he arrived late for a meeting, finding the receptionist watching the television with tears streaming down her face.
Radio talkback has picked up the themes of Rudd's empathy, and his love, his capacity to say, simply and directly, what the nation is feeling. I think he has surprised many people. I don't know when, if ever, an Australian prime minister has ever been described as "shining" before, as I heard him described a moment ago. But it's a good way to describe the day, I think, with its tears and its gladness. It's a good day. A shining day.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Apologies: national, institutional, personal
Three apologies to the Indigenous people of Australia.
The first comes from the Parliament of Australia. It will be delivered tomorrow morning in Canberra; and Paul and I will ride our bikes into Federation Square in the morning to stand, to be two bodies among the thousands standing in support of this small gesture, this symbolic attempt to begin reparation.
Here is the official text:
The second was circulated by my Vice-Chancellor this evening, and I am proud to cite it here:
The third, my own, is harder to post, since I must find the words myself, instead of relying on these polished and developed statements.
The first comes from the Parliament of Australia. It will be delivered tomorrow morning in Canberra; and Paul and I will ride our bikes into Federation Square in the morning to stand, to be two bodies among the thousands standing in support of this small gesture, this symbolic attempt to begin reparation.
Here is the official text:
I move:
That today we honour the indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.
We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.
For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.
A future where this parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.
A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, indigenous and non-indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.
A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.
A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.
A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.
The second was circulated by my Vice-Chancellor this evening, and I am proud to cite it here:
STATEMENT OF APOLOGY
To the Indigenous people of Australia
From the University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne, established on the traditional land of the Kulin nation, is a community that aspires to participate in the creation of a diverse and harmonious nation. Our aim is to bring greater benefits to the Indigenous people of Australia through education and research, and to do so by involving Indigenous people in those endeavours. On behalf of the University of Melbourne, I acknowledge,
* The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the original inhabitants of the continent;
* Recognise their loss of land, children, health and kin, and the erosion of their languages, culture and lore and the manifold impacts of colonisation; and
* Australia will only become a mature nation when the past is acknowledged, so that the present can be understood and the future confidently based on the mutual recognition of aspirations and rights.
The University records its deep regrets for the injustices suffered by the Indigenous people of Australia as a result of European settlement.
On behalf of the University of Melbourne, I join with other Australians, led by the Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon. Kevin Rudd, to say a heartfelt 'sorry' to the Stolen Generations and their families and to all Indigenous Australians who have suffered the hurt and harm caused by the forced removal of children and families and its effect on the human dignity and spirit of Indigenous Australians.
The University also acknowledges and sincerely regrets any past wrongs carried out in the name of the University which have caused distress to Indigenous Australians.
The University is committed to using the expertise and resources of its teaching and learning, research and knowledge transfer activities to make a sustained contribution to lifting the health, education and living standards of Indigenous Australians. As an
institution we aim to produce the highest quality outcomes in all aspects of our academic endeavour - from the recruitment and retention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to building our cohort of Indigenous academic and professional staff.
To this end we hope to contribute to realising Indigenous aspirations and safe-guarding the ancient and rich Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage.
The University joins with all Australians who see in Parliament's recognition and apology a decisive moment in our nation's progress. In justice is the hope of reconciliation, in acknowledging the past the hope of the future.
Glyn Davis
Vice-Chancellor.
The third, my own, is harder to post, since I must find the words myself, instead of relying on these polished and developed statements.
But I am sorry. I am sorry that my own life and my own happiness have been built, however indirectly, on a society that has enacted policies with such cruel effect on families and societies that have such ancient claims on this mysterious land we must now work so hard to understand. I am sorry that my own ancestors and leaders thought it right to take Indigenous children from their families. I can only imagine the ongoing pain and sorrow of a family broken up in this way, and the sorrow and anger of people suffering ethnic violence of this kind. In my daily walks along the Merri Creek, I try to understand something of the spirit of place, of seasonal change, of the creatures who live in its waters, its trees and its grasses; and perhaps glimpses of the people who used to live and fish there. And in some of my work, I try to comprehend different ways of understanding the past, trying to learn something of what we have lost, what we forget, and what we must try to remember. I join with others who see this day of apology - this day of saying sorry - to the custodians of this land, as a small beginning in a much longer process of reconciliation.
More strange conjunctions: Welcome to Country
Two days ago I was speculating on the uncomfortable yoking together of my work on the Order of the Garter and the prospect of John Howard joining the Order. David put it brilliantly: "two things you've had more-or-less emotion-charged relationships with in separate boxes suddenly tipped into the same compartment."
Today, another odd conjunction. This morning I was down at the State Library, reading John Nichols' edition for the Roxburghe Club of Edward VI's Literary Remains. (Does anyone else familiar with the Roxburghe Club frontispiece think that the man with a forked beard, wearing a floppy cap, and a long, wide-sleeved robe sitting reading looks a lot like Chaucer?)
Soon after he was crowned, Edward, at the tender age of about 14, set about reforming the Order's statutes, to get rid of all traces of "poperie and naughtines" (Ok, that was his first draft), like the references to St George. He insisted on the Sovereign's rights to make changes to the rituals and the Statutes whenever he wanted. His reforms were dramatically overturned when Mary came to the throne and restored the king her father's, Henry VIII's, Statutes.
What a contrast to proceedings in Canberra this morning. The opening of the new Parliament retained its long traditions, but began with a welcome to country for the first time.
It was done quietly, modestly, without undue fanfare. (I'm trying to find a video link to post, but have had no luck yet: if I'm successful, I'll update this entry.)
Quiet music of didgeridoo, sticks, and a shell accompanied Matilda House-Williams' dignified welcome to country, anticipating what we anticipate will be an even more dramatic and difficult piece of "sorry business" tomorrow, when the Parliament will make formal apology to the stolen generations of Aboriginal people. It is amazing, really, that it has taken so long for this ritual, now not uncommon in universities, cultural ceremonies, even the Commonwealth and Olympic games, to be performed in Canberra, but it was wonderful, even so.
Rudd looked moved, almost to tears, I thought (or was that just me? or was he offering up a quiet prayer?) as he sat holding the message stick presented to him by the grandchildren of Matilda House-Williams. He spoke to thank her, and hoped this would inaugurate a new custom for the Parliament, which was greeted by loud applause. Not a bad way to effect institutional change. Brendan Nelson, leader of the opposition, also spoke quietly and modestly, acknowledging human imperfection and agreeing that as long as he had anything to do with it, "we will have a welcome from Nunawal and their ancestors." (Is it churlish to remark that it might have been more graceful to say that they would always ask for a welcome?)
Then it was down to another form of traditional business, as the two houses gathered in their respective chambers; and then the Governor-General sat in the Senate and sent Black Rod off to summon the Reps for a joint sitting.
The Federal Black Rod seems to have dispensed with traditional court dress, perhaps when a woman took over the role? She was wearing a very subtly cut dark suit, with longish flared skirt, not unreminiscent of the shape of a frock-coat, with an elegant aubergine silk jabot. She walked out of the Senate, as straight and tall as the Rod she held upright, and the camera followed her down the deserted halls, corridors and courtyards. Her heels clicked authoritatively on the polished floors. When she arrived at the doors of the lower chamber, she raised the Rod to shoulder height, and held it perfectly level. She then tapped with its lower end on the door, and spoke her request. The doors could not be slammed in her face, as they do in some other Houses, because they are swing doors! Still they closed the doors and made her wait a moment, though, as is customary. But once she had delivered her message, the House then rose and followed her back down the corridors. It is sometimes traditional in Westminster for the lower house to take its time on this walk: there was no such show of autonomy and resistance to royal, or vice-regal command here.
As the members of the lower house came into the Senate and took their seats, I saw Julia Gillard (new Deputy PM), and I thought, she had gone to the wrong side, such was my habitual view. But of course, she now sits on the Government side! She and Rudd could clearly be seen waving happily over at their opponents on the other side of the chamber, and I bet that's an unofficial parliamentary tradition on a change of government. This is only the sixth in sixty years.
At the moment I'm working on the idea of "ritual change" in the Order of the Garter: the way the Order reforms and revises itself, and the way it so easily accommodates radical, even violent change. The official modern view is that the Order is sufficiently flexible and responsive to the demands of modernity that it can accommodate both tradition and innovation; an almost heroic blend of old and new, medieval and modern. This morning's ceremonies in Canberra look like a textbook case. Traditionalists will lament the loss of court dress, white lace, breeches, and marquisite-embuckled shoes, but quite frankly, I don't think a possum-skin cloak ever looked so good.
[Update: Pavlov's Cat has found a link of the first part of the welcome: the video skips a bit and goes back to Skynews, but if you persist, you get to uninterrupted footage:
Today, another odd conjunction. This morning I was down at the State Library, reading John Nichols' edition for the Roxburghe Club of Edward VI's Literary Remains. (Does anyone else familiar with the Roxburghe Club frontispiece think that the man with a forked beard, wearing a floppy cap, and a long, wide-sleeved robe sitting reading looks a lot like Chaucer?)
Soon after he was crowned, Edward, at the tender age of about 14, set about reforming the Order's statutes, to get rid of all traces of "poperie and naughtines" (Ok, that was his first draft), like the references to St George. He insisted on the Sovereign's rights to make changes to the rituals and the Statutes whenever he wanted. His reforms were dramatically overturned when Mary came to the throne and restored the king her father's, Henry VIII's, Statutes.
What a contrast to proceedings in Canberra this morning. The opening of the new Parliament retained its long traditions, but began with a welcome to country for the first time.
It was done quietly, modestly, without undue fanfare. (I'm trying to find a video link to post, but have had no luck yet: if I'm successful, I'll update this entry.)
Quiet music of didgeridoo, sticks, and a shell accompanied Matilda House-Williams' dignified welcome to country, anticipating what we anticipate will be an even more dramatic and difficult piece of "sorry business" tomorrow, when the Parliament will make formal apology to the stolen generations of Aboriginal people. It is amazing, really, that it has taken so long for this ritual, now not uncommon in universities, cultural ceremonies, even the Commonwealth and Olympic games, to be performed in Canberra, but it was wonderful, even so.
Rudd looked moved, almost to tears, I thought (or was that just me? or was he offering up a quiet prayer?) as he sat holding the message stick presented to him by the grandchildren of Matilda House-Williams. He spoke to thank her, and hoped this would inaugurate a new custom for the Parliament, which was greeted by loud applause. Not a bad way to effect institutional change. Brendan Nelson, leader of the opposition, also spoke quietly and modestly, acknowledging human imperfection and agreeing that as long as he had anything to do with it, "we will have a welcome from Nunawal and their ancestors." (Is it churlish to remark that it might have been more graceful to say that they would always ask for a welcome?)
Then it was down to another form of traditional business, as the two houses gathered in their respective chambers; and then the Governor-General sat in the Senate and sent Black Rod off to summon the Reps for a joint sitting.
The Federal Black Rod seems to have dispensed with traditional court dress, perhaps when a woman took over the role? She was wearing a very subtly cut dark suit, with longish flared skirt, not unreminiscent of the shape of a frock-coat, with an elegant aubergine silk jabot. She walked out of the Senate, as straight and tall as the Rod she held upright, and the camera followed her down the deserted halls, corridors and courtyards. Her heels clicked authoritatively on the polished floors. When she arrived at the doors of the lower chamber, she raised the Rod to shoulder height, and held it perfectly level. She then tapped with its lower end on the door, and spoke her request. The doors could not be slammed in her face, as they do in some other Houses, because they are swing doors! Still they closed the doors and made her wait a moment, though, as is customary. But once she had delivered her message, the House then rose and followed her back down the corridors. It is sometimes traditional in Westminster for the lower house to take its time on this walk: there was no such show of autonomy and resistance to royal, or vice-regal command here.
As the members of the lower house came into the Senate and took their seats, I saw Julia Gillard (new Deputy PM), and I thought, she had gone to the wrong side, such was my habitual view. But of course, she now sits on the Government side! She and Rudd could clearly be seen waving happily over at their opponents on the other side of the chamber, and I bet that's an unofficial parliamentary tradition on a change of government. This is only the sixth in sixty years.
At the moment I'm working on the idea of "ritual change" in the Order of the Garter: the way the Order reforms and revises itself, and the way it so easily accommodates radical, even violent change. The official modern view is that the Order is sufficiently flexible and responsive to the demands of modernity that it can accommodate both tradition and innovation; an almost heroic blend of old and new, medieval and modern. This morning's ceremonies in Canberra look like a textbook case. Traditionalists will lament the loss of court dress, white lace, breeches, and marquisite-embuckled shoes, but quite frankly, I don't think a possum-skin cloak ever looked so good.
[Update: Pavlov's Cat has found a link of the first part of the welcome: the video skips a bit and goes back to Skynews, but if you persist, you get to uninterrupted footage:
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Nnnnnnnoooooooo!!!
Hurrumph!! now here's a test of academic somethingorother.
The Age reports a rumour that John Howard has been selected to join the Order of the Garter to fill Sir Edmund Hillary's vacancy.
Not this year, I wouldn't think; as you are normally supposed to be knighted first.
Heaven knows it's not that I expect the Garter to be given to a union organiser or a humble health worker or a poet, for example; and it's not that I expect I have much in common with many KGs. I am usually able to preserve a healthy scepticism and distance between the cultural work the Order does, which is deeply fascinating to me; and the political and ceremonial honour it bestows, to which I am completely indifferent.
So why does this prospect disturb me so much? The prospect of sharing an interest with John Howard?
It would be pretty amazing: the commonwealth members tend to be of the vice-regal kind (Sir Paul Hasluck, Sir Ninian Stephen), while former PMs are British (Thatcher, Major, Heath, etc.). And before you ask, Menzies was a member of the Scottish Order of the Thistle, a different ball game altogether. It would be an extraordinarily partisan act to select Howard, so I'm sceptical. But a little scared, all the same. I do believe I find I think of it as my Order!
Time to just sit down and finish the damn book, Stephanie!
The Age reports a rumour that John Howard has been selected to join the Order of the Garter to fill Sir Edmund Hillary's vacancy.
Not this year, I wouldn't think; as you are normally supposed to be knighted first.
Heaven knows it's not that I expect the Garter to be given to a union organiser or a humble health worker or a poet, for example; and it's not that I expect I have much in common with many KGs. I am usually able to preserve a healthy scepticism and distance between the cultural work the Order does, which is deeply fascinating to me; and the political and ceremonial honour it bestows, to which I am completely indifferent.
So why does this prospect disturb me so much? The prospect of sharing an interest with John Howard?
It would be pretty amazing: the commonwealth members tend to be of the vice-regal kind (Sir Paul Hasluck, Sir Ninian Stephen), while former PMs are British (Thatcher, Major, Heath, etc.). And before you ask, Menzies was a member of the Scottish Order of the Thistle, a different ball game altogether. It would be an extraordinarily partisan act to select Howard, so I'm sceptical. But a little scared, all the same. I do believe I find I think of it as my Order!
Time to just sit down and finish the damn book, Stephanie!
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Three Excruciatingly Personal Blog Entries, No.2
The trouble with the grand plan I have now announced twice (viz. writing three posts that push the limits of the personal) is twofold.
First, I find that those limits are mutable. After a few days, Excruciatingly Personal Blog Post No.1 came to seem far too personal, with the potential to involve other people’s emotions and senses of privacy. And so I deleted it. It was an interesting exercise, all the same. Meredith made a beautiful comment, to the effect that poems usually take much longer than blog entries to grow and develop, and by implication, to develop a sense of the readerly exchanges they might invite, and the emotional effects they might set off.
Second, the genre of the blog doesn't naturally lend itself to plans. I've been caught out many times planning a blog entry - even taking the photos for it - and then because I don't write it that day, feeling the moment has passed.
But in this case I do feel that my blog has been working towards this second of three posts, for some time now, and I think I'm ready. So here goes:
I have never been a purely cerebral thinker or writer. I'm always deeply conscious of my surroundings: light, temperature, sound, bodily disposition. I've never been good at working in cafes, for example. I notice everything around me; and I think it's both a strength and a weakness in the kind of work I do. But ever since I announced my cancer diagnosis and made the decision to keep on blogging, I have been even more conscious of the fact that I am writing, here, and other places as well, both as a body, and as a mortal being. So in fact, this will probably turn out to be a post about menopause and ageing, not just the former.
It's more than a year since I began the hormone therapy that will last five years in all. I'm being treated as part of a global clinical trial that is testing the side-effects and recurrence rates of cancer under drugs that are normally prescribed according to one's menopausal status, being used in a range of conditions. It will amuse many readers of this blog to know that it is called the "TEXT" trial. So while Tamoxifen is routinely given to pre-menopausal women, I'm being made post-menopausal by an additional regime of ovarian ablation: this takes the form of a monthly injection to suppress ovarian function and the production of estrogen. Tamoxifen works to "lock up" any breast cancer cells that might remain after surgery and radiotherapy, and to stop them feeding on estrogen: the Triptorelin injections suppress the production of estrogen. There are a number of different kinds of breast cancer: mine was of the slow-growing, estrogen-feeding kind.
So, while menopause usually involves the gradual diminution of estrogen, its onset in my case was very sudden. Menopausal symptoms result from changes in estrogen levels as the body adapts to this changing hormonal environment... But I should put a disclaimer in here. Of course, I'm no medical expert. This is just what I have picked up.
The breast cancer booklet available from the National (i.e. Australian) Breast Cancer Centre lists these as the side effects of anti-estrogen drugs like Tamoxifen: menopausal symptoms, blood clots, stroke, cancer of the uterus and changes in vision. And the good news? lowered risk of osteoporosis, lowered cholesterol levels.
Menopausal symptoms are also spelled out: hot flushes, sleep disturbance, vaginal dryness and/or discharge, decrease in libido, no menstrual periods or irregular ones.
This is a shortlist; the leaflet with the Tamoxifen lists many more, though they affect only a tiny proportion of women.
Here's another list I found:
Of all these potential symptoms, the only one that's caused me any significant discomfort, to the point of thinking about any kind of medical or psychological intervention, are the hot flushes. It's like functioning with a broken thermostat. It's a little easier now but for most of last year, I would wake many times in the night, alternately freezing cold (even cold to the touch) and then burning hot. Imagine the most embarrassing deep blush you can; and imagine it spreading over your whole body. Twenty or thirty times a day. Every day. Then imagine being so cold, half an hour later, that you could see the sense of a nose-warmer, just to add to the dignity of proceedings. The flushes are often accompanied by a rush of perspiration, running down the back of your legs, say, when you have just introduced someone at a conference, or yourself at a "research lunch" hosted by the vice-chancellor.
My oncologist says if it gets bad enough, it can be treated with a low-dose anti-depressant, but whenever we have this discussion, we usually say something like "well, let's see how it goes, and we can review in three months".
I've written elsewhere about heightened levels of anxiety, especially when I went back to work last year. Of course it's impossible to say whether anxiety — which I've learned is sometimes regarded as a form of depression — is a direct result of hormonal changes, or compounded by other things like a cancer diagnosis and treatment, or major changes to the work environment, such as we've experienced at Melbourne over the last two years, or the general condition of trying to juggle several writing and research projects with teaching and administrative tasks. (Truly, most of you academic readers in the US: You Have No Idea how many such tasks senior academic staff are expected to take on in Australia.)
Other symptoms come and go a bit, while there seems to be a bit of dispute in the medical profession about what is a symptom or not. Heart palpitations? maybe. Changes to the constitution of one's tears? possibly. Weight gain? disputed.
And then we are quickly in different territory. Because of course it's not just menopause we're dealing with here: it's also the after-effects of serious illness; and it's ageing, too.
About six months ago I looked in the mirror and thought I must have absent-mindedly let my pen draw a vertical line down the side of my mouth. But it was a long crease in my skin, a new wrinkle, or a fold. I'd heard of people's hair going white overnight as a result of shock. This seemed to me to be of the same order. And very shocking it was, too.
Now I've read enough feminist theory to have a sense of the social and cultural climate in which women experience menopause and ageing, but I'll admit I was still unconsciously thinking of both these things as a kind of end, or even as a kind of failure, or flaw. I see myself looking at women younger or older than I am, and see myself making judgements about them. And I've lived enough of my life in the light of The Gaze to anticipate its withdrawal as a loss. But on balance, I thought I would mind much more than I do about starting to look older. OK, seeing that line on the side of my mouth was a bit of a shock, but it certainly hasn't provoked any lasting trauma.
But what I can really see now is that one's mortality is a much bigger deal than one’s ageing, or one’s hormonal status: that really is an end.
I never anticipated what it would really feel like to turn 50, as I will do next month. I think I have quite a strong capacity to empathise, but I could never identify with academic folk who talked about retirement, or with characters in fiction who were concerned about their life's work coming to an end. I can, now. I don’t mean to sound too dramatic: of course I have lots of good and productive years ahead. But I can see, now, that just as the ovaries only have so many eggs, I might have only so many books and essays left to write, that there might be a finite number of years ahead. Unexpectedly, thinking about my own mortality makes me, if anything, less anxious about writing and finishing project after project. It seems to take some of the pressure off, somehow.
And so, really, there's nothing very special about this set of menopausal side-effects, or really, effects. I am just about the perfect age to go through this, and I'm sure this makes it much less traumatic than for younger women, especially those who were planning to have children, or more children. My friends and I now regularly talk about our symptoms; and they all seem to be perfectly calm and cheerful about it, even about the anxiety and moodiness that beset us. There’s no doubt that naming and sharing the process is of immense comfort.
Menopause, then, turns out to be like so many of things we go through: childbirth, marriage, love, death, puberty. The experiences might be universal, or at least common, but the "going through" is not. It still feels, each time, for everyone, like an individual rite of passage. It’s made for blogging.
First, I find that those limits are mutable. After a few days, Excruciatingly Personal Blog Post No.1 came to seem far too personal, with the potential to involve other people’s emotions and senses of privacy. And so I deleted it. It was an interesting exercise, all the same. Meredith made a beautiful comment, to the effect that poems usually take much longer than blog entries to grow and develop, and by implication, to develop a sense of the readerly exchanges they might invite, and the emotional effects they might set off.
Second, the genre of the blog doesn't naturally lend itself to plans. I've been caught out many times planning a blog entry - even taking the photos for it - and then because I don't write it that day, feeling the moment has passed.
But in this case I do feel that my blog has been working towards this second of three posts, for some time now, and I think I'm ready. So here goes:
The Menopause Post
I have never been a purely cerebral thinker or writer. I'm always deeply conscious of my surroundings: light, temperature, sound, bodily disposition. I've never been good at working in cafes, for example. I notice everything around me; and I think it's both a strength and a weakness in the kind of work I do. But ever since I announced my cancer diagnosis and made the decision to keep on blogging, I have been even more conscious of the fact that I am writing, here, and other places as well, both as a body, and as a mortal being. So in fact, this will probably turn out to be a post about menopause and ageing, not just the former.
It's more than a year since I began the hormone therapy that will last five years in all. I'm being treated as part of a global clinical trial that is testing the side-effects and recurrence rates of cancer under drugs that are normally prescribed according to one's menopausal status, being used in a range of conditions. It will amuse many readers of this blog to know that it is called the "TEXT" trial. So while Tamoxifen is routinely given to pre-menopausal women, I'm being made post-menopausal by an additional regime of ovarian ablation: this takes the form of a monthly injection to suppress ovarian function and the production of estrogen. Tamoxifen works to "lock up" any breast cancer cells that might remain after surgery and radiotherapy, and to stop them feeding on estrogen: the Triptorelin injections suppress the production of estrogen. There are a number of different kinds of breast cancer: mine was of the slow-growing, estrogen-feeding kind.
So, while menopause usually involves the gradual diminution of estrogen, its onset in my case was very sudden. Menopausal symptoms result from changes in estrogen levels as the body adapts to this changing hormonal environment... But I should put a disclaimer in here. Of course, I'm no medical expert. This is just what I have picked up.
The breast cancer booklet available from the National (i.e. Australian) Breast Cancer Centre lists these as the side effects of anti-estrogen drugs like Tamoxifen: menopausal symptoms, blood clots, stroke, cancer of the uterus and changes in vision. And the good news? lowered risk of osteoporosis, lowered cholesterol levels.
Menopausal symptoms are also spelled out: hot flushes, sleep disturbance, vaginal dryness and/or discharge, decrease in libido, no menstrual periods or irregular ones.
This is a shortlist; the leaflet with the Tamoxifen lists many more, though they affect only a tiny proportion of women.
Here's another list I found:
Other symptoms that can occur include anxiety, poor memory, poor concentration, insomnia, fatigue, palpitations, decreased libido, muscle pains, crawling skin and urinary problems.And to really cheer you up, here's a list of 34 symptoms!
Of all these potential symptoms, the only one that's caused me any significant discomfort, to the point of thinking about any kind of medical or psychological intervention, are the hot flushes. It's like functioning with a broken thermostat. It's a little easier now but for most of last year, I would wake many times in the night, alternately freezing cold (even cold to the touch) and then burning hot. Imagine the most embarrassing deep blush you can; and imagine it spreading over your whole body. Twenty or thirty times a day. Every day. Then imagine being so cold, half an hour later, that you could see the sense of a nose-warmer, just to add to the dignity of proceedings. The flushes are often accompanied by a rush of perspiration, running down the back of your legs, say, when you have just introduced someone at a conference, or yourself at a "research lunch" hosted by the vice-chancellor.
My oncologist says if it gets bad enough, it can be treated with a low-dose anti-depressant, but whenever we have this discussion, we usually say something like "well, let's see how it goes, and we can review in three months".
I've written elsewhere about heightened levels of anxiety, especially when I went back to work last year. Of course it's impossible to say whether anxiety — which I've learned is sometimes regarded as a form of depression — is a direct result of hormonal changes, or compounded by other things like a cancer diagnosis and treatment, or major changes to the work environment, such as we've experienced at Melbourne over the last two years, or the general condition of trying to juggle several writing and research projects with teaching and administrative tasks. (Truly, most of you academic readers in the US: You Have No Idea how many such tasks senior academic staff are expected to take on in Australia.)
Other symptoms come and go a bit, while there seems to be a bit of dispute in the medical profession about what is a symptom or not. Heart palpitations? maybe. Changes to the constitution of one's tears? possibly. Weight gain? disputed.
And then we are quickly in different territory. Because of course it's not just menopause we're dealing with here: it's also the after-effects of serious illness; and it's ageing, too.
About six months ago I looked in the mirror and thought I must have absent-mindedly let my pen draw a vertical line down the side of my mouth. But it was a long crease in my skin, a new wrinkle, or a fold. I'd heard of people's hair going white overnight as a result of shock. This seemed to me to be of the same order. And very shocking it was, too.
Now I've read enough feminist theory to have a sense of the social and cultural climate in which women experience menopause and ageing, but I'll admit I was still unconsciously thinking of both these things as a kind of end, or even as a kind of failure, or flaw. I see myself looking at women younger or older than I am, and see myself making judgements about them. And I've lived enough of my life in the light of The Gaze to anticipate its withdrawal as a loss. But on balance, I thought I would mind much more than I do about starting to look older. OK, seeing that line on the side of my mouth was a bit of a shock, but it certainly hasn't provoked any lasting trauma.
But what I can really see now is that one's mortality is a much bigger deal than one’s ageing, or one’s hormonal status: that really is an end.
I never anticipated what it would really feel like to turn 50, as I will do next month. I think I have quite a strong capacity to empathise, but I could never identify with academic folk who talked about retirement, or with characters in fiction who were concerned about their life's work coming to an end. I can, now. I don’t mean to sound too dramatic: of course I have lots of good and productive years ahead. But I can see, now, that just as the ovaries only have so many eggs, I might have only so many books and essays left to write, that there might be a finite number of years ahead. Unexpectedly, thinking about my own mortality makes me, if anything, less anxious about writing and finishing project after project. It seems to take some of the pressure off, somehow.
And so, really, there's nothing very special about this set of menopausal side-effects, or really, effects. I am just about the perfect age to go through this, and I'm sure this makes it much less traumatic than for younger women, especially those who were planning to have children, or more children. My friends and I now regularly talk about our symptoms; and they all seem to be perfectly calm and cheerful about it, even about the anxiety and moodiness that beset us. There’s no doubt that naming and sharing the process is of immense comfort.
Menopause, then, turns out to be like so many of things we go through: childbirth, marriage, love, death, puberty. The experiences might be universal, or at least common, but the "going through" is not. It still feels, each time, for everyone, like an individual rite of passage. It’s made for blogging.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Three Excruciatingly Personal Blog Entries, No. 1A
Two days ago, I posted an entry that began like this:
The entry then launched into a long post that did indeed test to the limit my sense of how personal a blog entry could be. It was about a poem written by a former partner that seemed to refer to me by a mole on my shoulder. I might not even have seen the poem, except that my beloved spoke to me about it. The blog entry then tried to untangle the knot of emotions about poems (and blogs) that seem to refer so closely to people's intimate lives, and the way poems (and blogs) can be read as personalised messages, while seeming to be impersonal or intellectual or artistic exercises. I wrote about how uncomfortable, even angry, I had felt previously (sixteen or seventeen years ago) when people would ask me about the poems the poet had written about me after our break-up, even though they could be read perfectly well without knowing anything about me (or him, for that matter). Despite our best formalist reading practices, we still love a good autobiographical reading. And how much more so with blogging.
I wrote, as I say, to test the limits of what I felt my blog could do; and I still plan to write the next two entries in the series. But if the test of this is "how do you sleep at night?", the answer is, "very badly indeed". That's two nights, now, I have been awake between three and five, anxious about the potential for damage and hurt and the infringement of others' privacy. So I've deleted the bulk of that post. (Of course, I've kept a copy for myself. You never know!) I'm keeping the comments box alive there, because part of this process is rehearsed there, in the remarks of some of the bloggers I admire most; and as usual, Pavlov's Cat has helped me articulate how I feel. And of course I'm glad they got to read the post. But now I'm glad its potential for emotional damage has been restricted. I must also thank the blogger who wrote to me off-line (I had you in mind as I was writing, I hope you realise!).
If you missed that post, you haven't missed any great or scandalous revelations; heavens, the poem in question is far more revelatory of whoever that woman is than my blog entry was about the poem's readers!
I wonder, though, am I cheating the blog genre, by putting out my post and winning such lovely engaged comments from my readers, and then withdrawing it?
I remember being very struck by reading Ross Chambers' Story and Situation, in which he distinguished between narrative and narratorial authority. Narrative authority belongs to the story-teller at the beginning of the narration, and is gradually passed on to the reader as the story is told, as they take possession, as it were, of the story. But by giving their attention, and hopefully, their admiration for the way the story is told, the reader or listener gives back narratorial authority. It seems to me that this episode is in large part about narratorial authority. Who gets to write about whose body, and publishes it where? And who reads that text, and who gives that text to someone else? And in the case of a blog, who gets to post, and who gets to delete?
But in terms of my three Excruciatingly Personal Blog Entries that test the limits of the blog, this has got to be a definite strike. Two more to go.
The new academic year is about to descend upon us, and all kinds of cycles are drawing to a close. I'm now into my second year of breast cancer treatment, and settled into a routine of monthly injections and daily tablets. The blog has also seen me through an entire cycle of applying for a research grant (this was one of its initial aims), through first-time rejection to second-time success. I've finally made the breakthrough of making the Garter book my highest priority, the first thing I do on a good day, while I'm also just about managing to juggle the several other projects I have in hand, as well as fulfilling my teaching and administrative obligations.
It seems to me that the Humanities Researcher blog may also be winding up this phase in its life. Before I make any big decisions, though, I have in mind to write three long posts. Each will be full of embarrassing personal revelations, and each will test to the limit the territory I think of this blog as inhabiting, as space in which I attempt to reason my way through some of the personal and emotional vicissitudes of intellectual work in academic and familial communities. This first entry takes its spark from a recent event, and will become a second-order meditation on privacy and the personal in the poetic text: the relationship between poetry and life, if you will. The second will be the long-promised Menopause Post. Third will be the most embarrassing of all, when we move from emotions and the body to the world of spirit.
The entry then launched into a long post that did indeed test to the limit my sense of how personal a blog entry could be. It was about a poem written by a former partner that seemed to refer to me by a mole on my shoulder. I might not even have seen the poem, except that my beloved spoke to me about it. The blog entry then tried to untangle the knot of emotions about poems (and blogs) that seem to refer so closely to people's intimate lives, and the way poems (and blogs) can be read as personalised messages, while seeming to be impersonal or intellectual or artistic exercises. I wrote about how uncomfortable, even angry, I had felt previously (sixteen or seventeen years ago) when people would ask me about the poems the poet had written about me after our break-up, even though they could be read perfectly well without knowing anything about me (or him, for that matter). Despite our best formalist reading practices, we still love a good autobiographical reading. And how much more so with blogging.
I wrote, as I say, to test the limits of what I felt my blog could do; and I still plan to write the next two entries in the series. But if the test of this is "how do you sleep at night?", the answer is, "very badly indeed". That's two nights, now, I have been awake between three and five, anxious about the potential for damage and hurt and the infringement of others' privacy. So I've deleted the bulk of that post. (Of course, I've kept a copy for myself. You never know!) I'm keeping the comments box alive there, because part of this process is rehearsed there, in the remarks of some of the bloggers I admire most; and as usual, Pavlov's Cat has helped me articulate how I feel. And of course I'm glad they got to read the post. But now I'm glad its potential for emotional damage has been restricted. I must also thank the blogger who wrote to me off-line (I had you in mind as I was writing, I hope you realise!).
If you missed that post, you haven't missed any great or scandalous revelations; heavens, the poem in question is far more revelatory of whoever that woman is than my blog entry was about the poem's readers!
I wonder, though, am I cheating the blog genre, by putting out my post and winning such lovely engaged comments from my readers, and then withdrawing it?
I remember being very struck by reading Ross Chambers' Story and Situation, in which he distinguished between narrative and narratorial authority. Narrative authority belongs to the story-teller at the beginning of the narration, and is gradually passed on to the reader as the story is told, as they take possession, as it were, of the story. But by giving their attention, and hopefully, their admiration for the way the story is told, the reader or listener gives back narratorial authority. It seems to me that this episode is in large part about narratorial authority. Who gets to write about whose body, and publishes it where? And who reads that text, and who gives that text to someone else? And in the case of a blog, who gets to post, and who gets to delete?
But in terms of my three Excruciatingly Personal Blog Entries that test the limits of the blog, this has got to be a definite strike. Two more to go.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Three Excruciatingly Personal Blog Entries, No.1
The new academic year is about to descend upon us, and all kinds of cycles are drawing to a close. I'm now into my second year of breast cancer treatment, and settled into a routine of monthly injections and daily tablets. The blog has also seen me through an entire cycle of applying for a research grant (this was one of its initial aims), through first-time rejection to second-time success. I've finally made the breakthrough of making the Garter book my highest priority, the first thing I do on a good day, while I'm also just about managing to juggle the several other projects I have in hand, as well as fulfilling my teaching and administrative obligations.
It seems to me that the Humanities Researcher blog may also be winding up this phase in its life. Before I make any big decisions, though, I have in mind to write three long posts. Each will be full of embarrassing personal revelations, and each will test to the limit the territory I think of this blog as inhabiting, as space in which I attempt to reason my way through some of the personal and emotional vicissitudes of intellectual work in academic and familial communities. This first entry takes its spark from a recent event, and will become a second-order meditation on privacy and the personal in the poetic text: the relationship between poetry and life, if you will. The second will be the long-promised Menopause Post. Third will be the most embarrassing of all, when we move from emotions and the body to the world of spirit.
[Update: the remainder of this entry has been deleted by the blogger. See the discussion in the next entry]
It seems to me that the Humanities Researcher blog may also be winding up this phase in its life. Before I make any big decisions, though, I have in mind to write three long posts. Each will be full of embarrassing personal revelations, and each will test to the limit the territory I think of this blog as inhabiting, as space in which I attempt to reason my way through some of the personal and emotional vicissitudes of intellectual work in academic and familial communities. This first entry takes its spark from a recent event, and will become a second-order meditation on privacy and the personal in the poetic text: the relationship between poetry and life, if you will. The second will be the long-promised Menopause Post. Third will be the most embarrassing of all, when we move from emotions and the body to the world of spirit.
[Update: the remainder of this entry has been deleted by the blogger. See the discussion in the next entry]
Friday, January 11, 2008
Wildlife update
OK, so my last entry had a link to a photo of a flying fox skimming the Yarra river. No photos this time, but some real wild-life sightings to report, from four separate walks along the Merri Creek. First, a long-necked tortoise, dark green and mossy-looking from being underwater, sitting on a rock in the middle of the Creek, demonstrating exactly why it's called what it is. Next, a blue-tongued lizard, though he's an accustomed sighting. He lives under the concrete path and just extends his head, or the curve of his body, to pick up the morning sun. Third, eight wee ducklings exploring the weeds with their mother, yesterday. And just now, what I'm pretty sure was a tiger snake, sprawled across the path. I was walking along casually thinking that piece of bark dropped in the heavy winds today looked like a snake when I realised what it was. It slithered through the grass down towards the water, and I pointed it out to two women passing by. One of them, Amelia (we had introduced ourselves years ago when I used to push Joel in his pram along the creek), went poking towards it with her stick. "Come out," she said, "we're friendly!" The other woman and I exchanged glances and decided to head our separate ways...
Bats, Boats and Books
Another burning hot night and day, with the temperature already at 34 degrees at 10.00 in the morning. The hot northerly wind is howling around the house, sending the birds flying in all directions under a pale white sky. Clouds are drifting south, but really, waiting to be sent north-east by the cool winds that are anticipated this afternoon. The hydrangeas are struggling on, and the basil and parsley plants we bought two days ago are still in the kitchen; we won't plant them till it's cooler.
Here's a link to a wonderful photo of a bat, cooling off by swooping along the river. Well, technically it's called a flying fox, but we like to think of them as bats. We see them after dusk, if we are sitting outside in the garden.
(I'd love to post this picture, but I'm assuming there are all kinds of copyright reasons why I can't...)
It's the last day of my "holiday" today. Since we aren't going away anywhere, this is code for "not going in to the office till next week". I've sent off my essay on Wade's Boat, and have one grant application to read today before I sit down seriously amidst the horrendous files and piles of papers and try and sort them into my filing cabinets. I am "shepherd" for my school this summer. I'm an appalling filer at the best of times, but the problem is compounded by my working on lots of little projects last year, and then moving all my papers and books when my study was renovated. Still no bookshelves, but no reason not to sort out the files. The good news is, I've now cleared my list of "things to write" that aren't my books, and I am determined to get this Garter book finished this year. Just as soon as I sort out my files.
Here's a link to a wonderful photo of a bat, cooling off by swooping along the river. Well, technically it's called a flying fox, but we like to think of them as bats. We see them after dusk, if we are sitting outside in the garden.
(I'd love to post this picture, but I'm assuming there are all kinds of copyright reasons why I can't...)
It's the last day of my "holiday" today. Since we aren't going away anywhere, this is code for "not going in to the office till next week". I've sent off my essay on Wade's Boat, and have one grant application to read today before I sit down seriously amidst the horrendous files and piles of papers and try and sort them into my filing cabinets. I am "shepherd" for my school this summer. I'm an appalling filer at the best of times, but the problem is compounded by my working on lots of little projects last year, and then moving all my papers and books when my study was renovated. Still no bookshelves, but no reason not to sort out the files. The good news is, I've now cleared my list of "things to write" that aren't my books, and I am determined to get this Garter book finished this year. Just as soon as I sort out my files.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Wade's Boat, Summer in Melbourne, and Four White Flowers
Another burning hot day in Melbourne. I spent a pleasant few hours this morning, though, in the State Library, comparing three — count them, 3! — copies of Thomas Speght's 1598 edition of the works of Chaucer (from 1598, 1602, and 1687); and for good measure, John Urry's dreadful but lavish edition of 1721. The Library has an excellent range of early Chaucer editions: a page of Caxton's 1478 Canterbury Tales, and six other sixteenth-century editions of the Works. I'm writing up a discussion of Speght's annotation to the mention of "Wade's bote" in the Merchant's Tale, and so I'm not really looking at the pre-1598 editions. The Baillieu Library at the University has another two copies of the 1598 imprint for comparison, too.
It's a lovely annotation. Chaucer's rich old man January determines to marry, but won't take any older woman.
Speght comments: “Concerning Wade and his bote called Guingelot, as also his strange exploits in the same, because the matter is long and fabulous, I passe it over.”
In the paper I gave at the London Chaucer conference last year, and again in my response to Carolyn Dinshaw in Hobart in December, I looked at the responses to this annotation, particularly the vexation of commentators who cannot help reveal their frustration at Speght, so much closer to Chaucer than we are, but unwilling — or unable — to fill in this unknown gap. Robinson said, "it has often been called the most exasperating note ever written on Chaucer”. Various scholars have explored traces of the story of Wade, but the Merchant's meaning here remains relatively obscure. I myself think that's part of the point: I read the Merchant as alluding to women's knowledge, lost beyond all traces of official (written, scholarly) culture.
I am writing up this part of the two papers, which are both really more about multiple temporalities and the relations between medieval studies and medievalism, for the La Trobe Journal of the Library, so I am really focussing on Speght's edition and the kinds of knowledge it presents about Chaucer.
How lovely that these books are only a bike ride away (well, they would be if I could get around to fixing my puncture).
I got home early afternoon, to find Joel still in his pyjamas, playing his gameboy with Holst's Planets Suite roaring away at top volume.
Paul came home soon after, regaling us with the Kafka-esque tale of the day he had spent at the Customs Office, the Quarantine Office, and the Ports office, filling out a thousand forms, and commissioning an agent in Queensland to fax the forms back and forth, to take delivery of the large egg-shell laquer panels he had bought in Vietnam. Here's a glimpse of a lotus flower:
The sun is still really hot, as I'm writing at 6.30; and it's still about 34 degrees outside. I took these photos just a half an hour ago: here's a pile of white table linen, bleached and soaked and sun-brightened after the Christmas and New Year festivities, awaiting the iron.
These range from the long rayon cloth that I think was part of my mother's trousseau; the length of damask she bought at the Victoria market and hemmed up for me; and the round cloth she embroidered with white flowers for my 21st birthday. This photo was taken inside, but you can get a glimpse of the bright sun in that line of light along the floor.
Outside the garden is struggling, and I'm amazed to see the gardenias are still able to put forth their flowers. They last about a day each, flaring up in the intense heat and light of the day, and softening into a heady perfume at night:
And finally, the crowning glory (etymological joke): the stephanotis plant we put in last year has just started flowering.
Again, you can see how harsh the sun is, but these flowers have been out for several days now. Their fragrance is more delicate than the gardenias, but I have always wanted to grow these, ever since my father told me I was named after the Greek ho stephanos, "crown, garland". And there's the link to Pavlov's Cat: Y is it so? Naming Australia's women, 1950-1955. Yeah, she says I'm out of her chronological range, but I still want to play.
It's a lovely annotation. Chaucer's rich old man January determines to marry, but won't take any older woman.
I wol no womman thritty yeer of age;
It is but bene-straw and greet forage.
And eek thise olde wydwes, God it woot,
They konne so muchel craft on Wades boot,
So muchel broken harm, whan that hem leste,
That with hem sholde I never lyve in reste.
Speght comments: “Concerning Wade and his bote called Guingelot, as also his strange exploits in the same, because the matter is long and fabulous, I passe it over.”
In the paper I gave at the London Chaucer conference last year, and again in my response to Carolyn Dinshaw in Hobart in December, I looked at the responses to this annotation, particularly the vexation of commentators who cannot help reveal their frustration at Speght, so much closer to Chaucer than we are, but unwilling — or unable — to fill in this unknown gap. Robinson said, "it has often been called the most exasperating note ever written on Chaucer”. Various scholars have explored traces of the story of Wade, but the Merchant's meaning here remains relatively obscure. I myself think that's part of the point: I read the Merchant as alluding to women's knowledge, lost beyond all traces of official (written, scholarly) culture.
I am writing up this part of the two papers, which are both really more about multiple temporalities and the relations between medieval studies and medievalism, for the La Trobe Journal of the Library, so I am really focussing on Speght's edition and the kinds of knowledge it presents about Chaucer.
How lovely that these books are only a bike ride away (well, they would be if I could get around to fixing my puncture).
I got home early afternoon, to find Joel still in his pyjamas, playing his gameboy with Holst's Planets Suite roaring away at top volume.
Paul came home soon after, regaling us with the Kafka-esque tale of the day he had spent at the Customs Office, the Quarantine Office, and the Ports office, filling out a thousand forms, and commissioning an agent in Queensland to fax the forms back and forth, to take delivery of the large egg-shell laquer panels he had bought in Vietnam. Here's a glimpse of a lotus flower:
The sun is still really hot, as I'm writing at 6.30; and it's still about 34 degrees outside. I took these photos just a half an hour ago: here's a pile of white table linen, bleached and soaked and sun-brightened after the Christmas and New Year festivities, awaiting the iron.
These range from the long rayon cloth that I think was part of my mother's trousseau; the length of damask she bought at the Victoria market and hemmed up for me; and the round cloth she embroidered with white flowers for my 21st birthday. This photo was taken inside, but you can get a glimpse of the bright sun in that line of light along the floor.
Outside the garden is struggling, and I'm amazed to see the gardenias are still able to put forth their flowers. They last about a day each, flaring up in the intense heat and light of the day, and softening into a heady perfume at night:
And finally, the crowning glory (etymological joke): the stephanotis plant we put in last year has just started flowering.
Again, you can see how harsh the sun is, but these flowers have been out for several days now. Their fragrance is more delicate than the gardenias, but I have always wanted to grow these, ever since my father told me I was named after the Greek ho stephanos, "crown, garland". And there's the link to Pavlov's Cat: Y is it so? Naming Australia's women, 1950-1955. Yeah, she says I'm out of her chronological range, but I still want to play.
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