Farewell Dasha’s Mum

A celebration of a life well lived.

To have a celebration of a life that had ended inside a chapel used mainly for weddings was a somber but uplifting experience.

 

It was heart breaking to know we would never see that person again, however, the poem on the handout explained why this courageous woman left us too soon.

The Angels Saw You Getting Tired 

When the angels saw you getting tired

And a cure was not to be

They put their arms around you

And whispered come to me

They didn’t like what you went through

And they gave you rest

Their garden must be beautiful

They only take the best

And when we saw you sleeping

So peaceful and free from pain

We wouldn’t wish you back

To suffer that again

Today we say goodbye

And as you take your final rest

That garden must be beautiful

Because you are one of the best.

  

WhiteChapel Estate has a beautiful garden. The 19th century, historic, white weatherboard chapel is both elegant & charming.

The beautiful chapel and grounds were a balm to the soul. The estate has a relaxed, elegant feel in an Australian bush-land country setting, yet is only 45 minutes from the City of Melbourne.

I had never been to this location before. Situated on four lovely acres, the WhiteChapel Estate  must be the Peninsula’s best kept secret

With everything included in the one location, following the ceremony, friends and family were escorted to the “Terrace Room” and lawn area for refreshments and to share their favourite stories of a woman who had played a part in all our lives.

This peaceful property is the perfect place to celebrate the beginning of a new life together or for a final farewell.

No cash, No cards, No car

We are a bit at sixes and sevens at the moment. Approximately 2am Friday morning, while we were asleep upstairs, our house was raided. Someone grabbed our ipad and iphone, a tub of pasta off the bench, (true :>) a wallet, car key and garage clicker, and my bag and purse, walked out the laundry door, opened the garage and drove off in our car.

After living here happily for twenty years the result was not only a sense of violation,

• the act of doing something that is not allowed by a law or rule

• : the act of ignoring or interfering with a person’s rights

• : the act of showing disrespect for something

but also a loss of independence,  a shattering of our complacency and on the material side, no cash, no cards and no car. The police arrived and were kind and considerate. We were fortunate that this was what they call a ‘gratuitous burglary’ and no large items, like the TV or computer were taken and nothing was trashed.

Thank goodness our dynamic duo came to our rescue. Our son, Paul came as soon as he heard, handed us cash to tide us over and helped sort out what to do to protect and replace our cards etc. Our daughter-in-law, Marian offered us the loan of their two dogs for comfort and security. She also left us their second car until we get our new credit card in the mail and can hire a car.

There is so much to do and all of it as quickly as possible. We now have new locks on all our doors but it feels as if it’s like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

The amazing thing to us is the wonderful support we have received and the kindness shown. Friends have rung and offered to help, neighbours have visited and so many people have been so kind. It restores your faith in human nature. I know there are ‘takers’ in any community but there are also many ‘givers’. These are the people who nourish and support us in times of need. Bless them all.

Barb Biggs: The Accidental Renovator. A review

A Paris Story

How do you accidentally buy a Paris apartment?

This is a smart, snazzy, witty story set in the romantic city of Paris. As I expected, I am really enjoying reading Barbara Biggs’ latest book The Accidental Renovator. It is a sassy, ironic, exuberant book that holds your interest from start to finish. Smart, funny and written about the real world in a way that will make you sit up and take notice.

Barbara Biggs is also author of In Moral Danger, The Road Home and Chat Room. At 14 Barbara’s grandmother sold her to a pedophile; at 16 she was in a psyche hospital; at 18 she was a prostitute in Japan; at 19 she escaped Cambodia weeks before it fell to the Khmer Rouge; at 21 she caused national headlines and received death threats; at 30 she became a journalist. By 40 Barbara was a property millionaire. Just imagine her life in the years following. So how did Aussie Barb end up writing about renovating an apartment in Paris?

Incorrigible romantic, writer and renovator Barbara Biggs thought she knew about sex and real estate. Then she went to Paris. The self-described ‘foot-in-mouth Aussie chick’ can’t help ‘just looking’ at apartments for sale. Big mistake. She speaks little French, knows no one in Paris and has never thought of living there. But when the agent assures her the owner will insist on the asking price, she makes a low offer ‘just for fun’. It is accepted—and her life goes haywire. Biggs smuggles in a handsome Australian builder to renovate the apartment.
But he doesn’t speak French, doesn’t have any tools, and when the budding romance goes sour he vanishes and Barbara’s dream renovation becomes a nightmare. Undeterred, she joins the Lazy Pigs Millionaires’ Club and is soon lunching in grand chateaux, partying until dawn and learning about continental men in the nicest possible way. Then she writes about it.

Imagine my surprise on reading the fist page of The Accidental Renovator to see, ‘I’d come to visit my French friend Lucy in Nancy, a university town three hours east of Paris.’ I was immediately back in Novel Writing Class, along with Barb and Lucy Mushita in the Professional Writing and Editing Course at Holmesglen TAFE. At that time Barb  was busy writing  In Moral Danger. Later, Lucy published her novel Chinongwa and I launched Pickle to Pie.

Biggs’ first book was a 2003 autobiography about her life up to the age of 22. The book tells of her sexual abuse from the age of 14 by a well-known criminal barrister. It explains the damaging after effects following her abuse, including time spent in a psychiatric hospital, escaping Cambodia weeks before it fell to the Khmer Rouge and being a prostitute in Japan. It also describes how she attempted suicide four times, received death threats and caused national headlines – all before the age of 22.

         

The Accidental Renovator shows how far Barb has come, not only in her life but as a writer. Both Lucy and I wish Barb good health, joy and every success.

Writing a Memoir?

How to make your story come alive

Writing a memoir might seem easy because you already know the story-after all, its your own. But to write a fascinating account of your life, you not only have to tell your tale compellingly, you also have to master plot, character dialogue, theme, and the other essential elements of great writing.          (Victoria Costello)

I’ve always found that belonging to a writer’s group or attending and even running a class where you workshop your story helps me as a writer. It inspires me to keep on writing. The prompts, exercises and inspirational examples help get the story out of  my head and onto the page.

You may simply want to record your story for your family, or may want to write it for a larger audience. But whatever your aim, it helps to know how to craft your story into a gripping yarn.

Don’t hesitate to stand on the shoulders of others. Learn from those who have gone before you. I read everything I can lay my hands on relating to the story I’m writing. Dishes are left in the sink, beds remain unmade but reading helps me to understand how other writers have overcome some of the problems I may be facing.

Here is a list of some of the books and authors who have helped me on my writing journey.

The Artist’s Way: A spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Naked, Drunk and Writing, Shed your Inhibitions and Write a Compelling Personal Essay or Memoir by Adair Lara.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Experience has taught me that if I’m going to write anything beyond the mundane I must accept the need for crappy first drafts. Anne Dillard, in The Writing Life says,

‘When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner’s pick, a woodcarver’s gouge, a surgeon’s probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. soon you will find yourself deep in a new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year’

Friends often ask when the book will be finished. My reply is ‘How long is a piece of string.’ Some people can write a complete memoir in half the time it takes me. Everyone is different. A book may take from one to ten years to complete, but who cares as long as it is a labour of love? The passion carries you through until you complete the journey. When writing the story based on my father’s life I pinned a quote from Bryce Courtney onto my wall.

‘There is no greater tribute than to lovingly record a life’.

Maya Angelou, author of the acclaimed memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings says,

‘What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat,’ you know. And it might be the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced I’m serious and says, Okay, okay, I’ll come.’

Fellow blogger and close friend, Mari Neil has a blog titled Up The Creek with a Pen. In her blog  A little moderation Goes a Long Way she believes writing classes are here to stay. I certainly hope so.

 

May the words flow freely. Happy writing everyone

Writing from Mourning

The dead leave us starving with mouths full of love. (Michaels 1997: 20)

Much of my writing is autobiographically based. Pickle to Pie, although published as a novel was based on my father’s life. This second book is about my thirty-five year pen-friendship with an older American poet. I was three quarters through writing our story when Mickey died.

My writer’s journal remained closed; the novel frozen. How to write the unsayable—to write through silence into a safe space? My mediated text, balanced between fact and fiction, meant that half of my writing was in the real world. I was telling another woman’s story as well as my own. I had worked through many writing issues, and told numerous stories of literary and personal goals, but I came full circle when faced with Mickey’s death. At the heart of the novel were two real women. Now, one was lost and I was grieving.

 

I am a writer and writing is the way I make sense of the world. Therefore I could not understand my inability to write. Mickey’s death was not my first introduction to grief. I had grieved for aunts, uncles and close friends, and the ultimate orphaning loss of both parents. During those difficult times, writing had been my salvation.

I write because then I do not have to speak. I write with the colours of memory. I write because I believe it can create a path in the darkness. So why was I suffering from writer’s block? Because, when Mickey died I was in the middle of writing a fictionalised account of our friendship. I was immersed in the autoethnographic exploration of the memories encompassing both of our lives. This grief was different from any others I had experienced. As Didion reveals in The Year of Magical Thinking (2005) each individual grief is ‘a place none of us know until it happens’ (Didion 2005: 188). T

The voices of others. ‘She was ninety-three years old’. ‘She had a long life’. ‘She didn’t suffer’. ‘You’re still upset?’ ‘Get over it’. ‘Move on’. ‘Mickey who?’ (Journal 4 2010: 126)

Before I could bring myself to write, however, I had to come to terms with my recent loss. Over ninety years old, recently hospitalised, Mickey had refused to eat; she had willed herself to die. I found this out by chance a week after she had died and my creative drive faltered. There was no funeral to attend nor a healing ceremony, just a hole that could not be filled. I gathered black around me and grieved.

I returned to my journal. When I did not want to write, when I was feeling brain-dead, writing about the ordinariness of life without sorting, sifting, editing, connected me with the living and with the dead (Adams 1998: 4). It created a place to be in ordinary conversation with anyone—from myself to my old penfriend. It connected me to Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Jolley, Margaret Atwood and Margaretta Jolly. I could smell, see, touch and taste the story waiting for its ending. T

he earphones hurt my ears and my fingers tremble as I turn on the tape recorder. Mickey’s highly opinionated deep voice permeates my being. Informal conversations we had in 2002. There are so few. When the tape recorder was on, she rarely wanted to talk, and the best conversations were when I turned it off. For me, it is the sound of her strong, opinionated voice that is important. It triggers deep emotions. I must believe the writing will come to life in her voice. Not mine. Yet woven within the writing is my story. Mickey and I in context with history, revealed via my recollections. (Journal 4 2010: 233)

Life is a tapestry and death leaves a hole. I looked at the empty space and realised I had never willingly allowed any empty spaces in my life. Life had been about hanging on to what you had. Anything I had ever let go had claw marks on it. Yet this empty space was different. With wonder, I began to see it as a creative space, an opportunity to move on through the process of creating (Riggs 2007). It became filled with possibilities. I began to weave the tapestry bigger so the hole was less obvious. Writing the ending to the story allowed me to make visible the size and shape of my grief and through language I could give substance to Mickey.

In May, in water-cooler conversation with another PhD candidate, for the first time I talked about Martha the character in the novel and thought of her as Martha, not Mickey. At that point I realised that a huge shift had taken place: a distancing.

There is a break between friend and character. I can write Martha, talk about Martha, think Martha and keep Mickey, friend and mentor safely tucked in my heart. I’m remembering the woman and writing the character (Journal 5 2011: 29)

But was I writing from an idealised memory of Mickey? Had my grief and mourning turned the novel into a representation of somebody perfect and had I ignored imperfections? ‘Hens Lay, People Lie’ was once again in danger of becoming a hymn of praise—until I remembered Mickey’s opinionated honesty. The character Martha now strides through the pages of the novel warts and all.

A motivating factor in my decision to include Mickey’s death within the novel was the belief that writing about my own experience would not only create a way through grief for me, but would also enable other bereaved writers to ‘witness the experience of reconstructing [their] own map’ (Frank 1997: 17) for writing from mourning. Louise DeSalvo’s writing (1999: 206) reinforced my belief that my story would help others to cope with grief and mourning. It was emotionally challenging to follow Caroline Ellis and the other exponents of emotive autoethnography, and reveal a vulnerable self. Whenever I wavered I thought of Hélène Cixous, Virginia Woolf and Laurel Richardson.

To me my texts are elements of a whole which interweaves my own story, are the seasons, days in the Great Year of my life. (Cixous 1994: xv)

Writing is what I do, in spite of the problems. What I had to reclaim was the sheer joy of writing; the intimate relationship between me and the page. Through this practice I hold communion with my deepest self. I did not want to bury Mickey or to praise her, but ‘…to exalt her exceptional contribution to my own happiness and belief in the worthiness of life itself by the testimony of her own’ (Barthes 2010: 260). Perhaps this is the gift of every daughter—even a proxy one. The blackness of loss and grief woven through the text added depth to the colours already woven through the story.

I have always wanted wings. To fly where I belong, to become who I am…winged and moon-swayed. (Griffiths 2011: 3)

Ultimately I learnt to trust myself and find my own safe space to write from mourning. On my magic carpet I let my imagination soar—to follow Jay Griffiths and fly to the moon, to live in my imagination, to experiment with plot and characters, to swoop and fly and write from multiple stray moons.

Morning sun gilds the topmost leaves of the melaleuca gums. I drag my kayak out onto the lake. Suspended between water and sky, my oar dips into reflected clouds. Between two worlds I find the end to our story. (Journal 5 2012: 233)

ANZAC Day 2015: The Solitary Soldier

One hundred years of memories.

Recently I was approached by a 97 year old friend, Margaret who wanted me to help her collate extracts of letters, photos and artefacts from WW1 for a book for her family. I thought she may have a couple of letters etc. When she arrived with a bag filled to the brim with faded letters, diaries, photos, cartoons and coins I realized she had an invaluable record of what life was like for the everyday Australian foot soldier during World War One.

Margaret managed to print several copies of letter extracts and memorabilia at Officeworks to give to the family on the 100th Anniversary of the ANZAC landing. It was a labour of love.

Writers are always trying to see things from another’s perspective and as I read the letters, some written in pencil, others in fading ink that Margaret’s father sent to his mother I found myself asking the questions that nag all writers: How, When, Where and Why? But the biggest question of all was,  ‘What if … What if Margaret’s father had not returned, like so many other men… How would Margaret’s mother (a young fiancée at the time) have felt after losing him.’  How did all those women, forever bonded by the loss of a loved one in a universal sisterhood  feel year after year? The result was the following story.

MY SOLDIER

 ANZAC day. The last post has long sounded. The plaintive call lingered in the early morning mist and slowly died as the first flush of dawn lightened the sky. The speeches are over, marchers gone. I bend to touch the delicate blossoms placed at the base of the tall granite column. Blossoms that will soon fade and die. Red roses, bright camellias and a handpicked bunch of hardy daisies that will outlive the others by a mile. How many years have I come to this spot? Too many to remember. Beauty Spot, it is called. An integral part of Carrum, right on the mouth of the Patterson River. A place where mothers bring their toddlers to play and fishermen sit on the low stonewall dreaming of the catch of a lifetime. There is the fresh clean smell of salt and spray: a fitting place to close the eyes and dream of what might have been, to remember the handsome face, coiled puttees, kaki clad faded figure in the ornate frame over the fireplace.

The diamond you slipped on my finger that wintry night in June flashed promise and hope. The dream of manly boots next to my fluffy slippers. A line full of nappies and a cradle to rock. The joy of a family to cook for, a family to love.

That last night we danced and clung to each other before we hurried home to the rented two-roomed flat. The next morning the gate squeaked and I wept into my pillow.

I quietly read the words forever-inscribed in stone. To the imperishable memory of the soldiers of this district that gave their lives… Simple heartfelt words from a grateful community. I am always surprised at his simplicity. This is not an ostentatious crowded statue with flags flying and rifles raised in anger.

Here is one solitary soldier standing upright and alone, hand gripping his rifle barrel, the butt resting on the ground. At ease, but ready and waiting for…, what?

I have never known war, but when I gaze at him I can smell the acrid smoke, hear the whistle of shells and the cries as mates fall. I have lived my life under sunny skies and yet I can identify with his quiet sadness, his overwhelming sense of loss. The telegram read, ‘We regret to inform you that corporal T K Wells VX1068 of the AIF Infantry…’ I thought of planting a tree. At least then there would be something living and growing.

Recently I drove in heated comfort past an Avenue of Honour where row upon military row of silent trees flashed past in the kaki haze of a misty morning. Tall old trees, some over fifty years, planted when young soldiers fell. They no longer stood at the edge of endless paddocks. Ballarat was running out to embrace them, to include them into the teeming life of what is now a city. There were so many trees. Each one a son, daughter or husband and I saw the ghosts of their kin stretching back as far as the horizon. Like a stone in a pond, so may lives caught up, like mine, in the far-reaching circles of the wars to end all wars.

I was shell-shocked for months until it finally seeped into my unwilling brain that you would never again be by my side, your arm around my waist as you kissed everything better. But life goes on and I have known love. Not your love but the worn tartan slippers beside mine in front of the dying fire are comfortable.

I shiver as I gaze up at the long list of names etched into cold stone and run trembling fingers over the rough rock. So many did not survive to witness this new millennium, to drink in the beauty of spring blossoms, or to come here year after year. I gaze up at his strong young face and wonder what he would think of my knotted veined hand pressed against my heart. Time shall not weary them…

The glow in the west bathes him in gold as I sit and dream. And there’s talk about moving him. Some people want a car park, others, townhouses with sweeping bay views. Cart him away to some easily forgotten spot? Over my dead body. I’ll not let them take my soldier. Not this time.

Writing, Food And Friendship

Sharing Two Favourite recipes

Life can revolve around the dinner table where we share daily events, joys and sorrows. But is this becoming a thing of the past? Many modern families take a packaged dinner out of the freezer and zap it in the microwave. Quick, easy and to all accounts nourishing. For the body, yes, but not the soul.

                     Several years ago I attended the Qualitative Inquiry Conference at the University of Illinois USA. While there, I had a chance to meet for the first time, a friend I met over ten years ago on the internet . Cindy took me to a home cooked lunch in an Amish home. We sat with other guests and discussed families, friendship, different cultures and of course the unseasonable heat. Without air-conditioning we sweltered. United by a common bond we reached for chicken and salads, laughed and swapped stories. It was as if we had known each other all our lives. I arrived home to Melbourne to rain, hail and a top temperature of 10 Celsius. I soon grabbed my slow cooker. There is nothing better on a cold winter’s day than sharing a hearty beef casserole, crusty bread and stories with family and friends. however, for me it is the getting together, the talking and sharing that counts. If I had a put a feather on our plates we would have thought it was chicken.

On the wall of the Amish home was a beautifully needle worked sampler.

Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness.

My passion is writing and the journey it is taking me. Years ago I would never have believed the novel I was sweating over would be published. I certainly would not have believed that I’d have completed my academic journey and, for the first time in my life, travelled alone to America. I love the old homily; Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is the gift: the present. I can’t wait to see what the future will bring. In the meantime here are a couple of recipes that have become favourites in this household.

Amish Overnight Pasta Salad 2 cups lettuce (cut up) 4oz cooked tiny shell macaroni 2 hard boiled eggs (sliced) 1 cup ham (strips) 1 cup Frozen peas (thawed) ½ cup Swiss cheese (shredded) ½ cup Miracle Whip ¼ cup dairy sour cream 1 tab onion (chopped) 1 tab mustard. METHOD: Put lettuce in bottom of a casserole dish. Sprinkle salt and pepper. Top with cooled macaroni. Place egg slices on top. Layer ham, peas, and cheese. Combine Miracle whip, sour cream, onion and mustard . Spread over salad sealing to edge of dish. Cover and refrigerate 24 hrs. Sprinkle with paprika if desired. Toss before serving. And below is one of my all time favourite recipes.

 Auntie Clarice’s Quick And Easy Casserole 1 kilo scotch fillet (cubed) or 6 forequarter lamb chops (cut in half) Dip in seasoned flour In pan, brown meat and 2 large sliced onions. Add 1 cup chopped green and red capsicum, ½ cup chopped carrots, ½ cup chopped celery. Broccoli can also be added. Place in slow cooker or casserole dish Mix 1 large tin tomato soup 1 dessertspoon Worcester sauce 1 tab vinegar 1 dessert curry Pour over ingredients and simmer or bake 1 1/2 hrs (or 8 hrs in slow cooker).

These days I also take short cuts and buy some of the tasty seasoning packets for slow cookers/crock pots available in local supermarkets.

I love sharing a meal with loved ones because I revel in the communication and conversation that bounces around steaming bowls. It’s a chance to keep in touch, to celebrate successes and empathise with disasters. It gives me the opportunity to show the people in my life that they mean the world to me.

Marjorie’s Last Dance

Live now. Seize the day. We all know these things, but it can be hard to live by our beliefs.

Not so for Marjorie Jean Nash. She lived life to the full and loved every minute of it. But all long and fruitful lives must come to an end. How fitting that Marjorie’s adored family ensured that her send off was a celebration of her life.  Where? In a beautiful little chapel used mainly for weddings at Inglewood  Estate located in a secluded valley of Kangaroo Ground.

I arrived far too early, even before the guest of honour had arrived. To fill in time I walked in sunshine past the ivy covered chapel and around a small lake by a curtain of trailing weeping willows

  Peaceful, meditative, a chance to reflect on the extraordinary life of an elderly, vibrant, fun-loving woman. I remembered writing a brief biography for her eightieth birthday and would like to share it with you in memory of Marjorie.

The music swells, skirts twirl, feet tap to a staccato beat. It is 1943 and a handsome Australian flying officer grabs Marjorie around the waist and rocks her high above his broad shoulders only to deftly roll her back onto her feet. She twirls away, but he catches her outstretched hand and pulls her to him. Everyone is looking, applauding their energy and vitality, their skill.

To dance with the famous Australian actor ‘Chips’ Rafferty, and to have him tell her fortune, leaves seventeen year old Marjorie breathless and with memories that will last a lifetime. But Chips isn’t the only dancer in the room and soon she is twirling and spinning with another young officer, and then, another. Marjorie loves to dance.

Life was not always bright lights and fun. The First World War took her father, Percival William Icke, away for five years. He left behind a wife and six children and when he returned he had another five children. In 1923, Marjorie was born in Ballarat, a famous Australian goldmining town. She was the third child in the ‘second family’ and her big sister, Myrtle, from the ‘first family,’ looked after her. In such a large household big siblings cared for little siblings. However, Marjorie’s mother was the undisputed matriarch of her large brood. She always called Marjorie by her given name, but her father had several nicknames for her: Marnie, Minnie or Mickey Mouse.

The entire family of Mum, Dad and eleven children eked out a meagre existence on a settlement farm at Pashendale. A soldier’s settlement was a small parcel of land allocated by the government to returned soldiers in recognition of their contribution to Australia. It was a great idea, but impracticable. The farms were too small to do anything with, apart from raising a few cattle, pigs and a couple of sheep. During the great depression, burdened by financial difficulties, many soldiers and their families simply had to walk away from their farms to search for work in the city. Although times were tough, Marjorie has many happy memories of growing up with enough children to form a cricket team. “Pashendale is very hilly,” she says. “We used to blow up a couple of car tyres and have races sliding down a steep grassy hill.”

However, the time on the farm was short-lived and the family moved to a house in Merino. “At that time,” Marjorie says, “My grandfather had a goldmining shed out of Ballarat. I wanted to go to the toilet and he told me to go behind a tree.” Marjorie doubles up with laughter when she says, “A little fox terrier dog bit me on the bottom. I wondered what had struck me.” She shows me a mark on her wrist. “See this,” she says. “When I went to primary school I was living in Ballarat with crabby Auntie Gertie. One day I went to school with a lolly in my mouth and the teacher whacked me with a ruler on the wrist. You should have seen it swell. It was one time Auntie Gertie stood up for me. She really told that teacher off.”

Marjorie also vividly remembers the day her sixteen-year-old sister, Dorothy Pearl, died. They were living in Casterton at the time and Dorothy’s young man let her drive his car. The wheels caught the gravel; the car spun out and overturned. He only broke an arm, but Dorothy died from head injuries. Marjorie says, “She was going to a ball that night and I remember her lovely white, silk and lace party dress and pearl bag laid out on the bed where she had put them.”

When Marjorie was sixteen, and had just started training as a nurse’s aid at the Ballarat Base Hospital, the Second World War began. In 1940 she joined the Women’s Australian Air Force (WAAF) and was based at Melbourne University. The one part of her duties she really enjoyed was looking after medical students. “They were just like my brothers, and I knew how to keep them in their place,” Marjorie says. She eventually completed her training at the Prince Henry Hospital.

During her time with the WAAFs, Marjorie became a corporal and eventually rose to acting-Sergeant. At one stage she was delighted to have one of her brothers under her command, but her most important memories are of enduring friendships, parties and fun with her mates. Young, intelligent and full of life, the girls would catch a tram every chance they got, for a short ride to the heart of the city. The teashops in the Royal Arcade were great meeting places. They would drink coffee, chat and laugh as they watched the world go by. Marjorie had a great war.

It is fifty years since she was in the WAAFs and every year on ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corp) commemoration day she still meets her mates to reminisce about the experiences they shared during those difficult years when Australia was at war. It was at Prince Henry Hospital that she met the love of her life, Henry Edward Tynan. They lived for each other, became engaged and planned their wedding. One day, when he was driving home from Sydney, the wheels caught in the gravel, the car spun out and crashed into a bridge. Marjorie felt that life was repeating itself when, just like Dorothy Pearl, Henry died of head injuries.

In the 1950’s a polio epidemic hit Australia and Marjorie was sent to nurse polio victims at the Ballarat Rehabilitation Hospital. She worked in the children’s wards caring for babies struck down by the terrible disease. To try to strengthen and straighten their limbs she would put the baby into a bath and exercise their joints in the water. These days polio has almost been eradicated, but water therapy is still highly regarded; only now it is mainly the elderly who exercise stiff limbs in hydrotherapy pools.

In 1955, when she was thirty-two, Marjorie met Harry Nash. Born on the Isle of Dogs, England he jumped ship to come to Australia. She says, “He was a merchant seaman. Totally handsome and always a good worker. He told me he was looking for a good sort.” He obviously found one because they eloped and married in Wesley church in Lonsdale Street, Melbourne. They had been married forty-six years and had four children when one day he arrived home unexpectedly and Marjorie knew something was very wrong. “His face was as red as a turkey. I knew that he wasn’t well and needed to see a doctor. I tried so hard get him to go, but he refused. Instead, he went back to his ship. Later that day they called to say he’d had an ‘accident.’ He’d really had a stroke and was paralysed down one side. It changed his personality. Over the following years sometimes I wished his tongue has been paralysed as well.” Harry died on ANZAC Day, 2002. Marjorie’s family and many friends gathered around to love and support her through this difficult time.

Arm in arm Marjorie and her ninety-one year old sister, Myrtle Annie, face the future. They may be getting older, but both look and act much younger than their age. Marjorie in particular is very active, and as her daughters say, “Mum’s heart is bigger than her body. When we were growing up, she was always helping anyone in need and it was nothing to come home and find some one sleeping on the couch, or extra chairs pulled up to the table. She fostered a boy for many years and took in a woman and her child because they needed a roof over their head and a good square meal. She’ll talk to anyone on a bus or tram, bring them home with her, and they soon become part of the furniture.”

  After a celebratory service where family and friends shared with us anecdotes and memories we quietly filed out to the toe tapping strains of The Good Ship Lollypop (Marjorie’s favourite song). Marjorie was an inspiration to us all. Always busy, always happy she lived on her own terms, independent and proud of it. She took great delight and pride in her family and loved every one of them with a passion. Farewell, Marjorie. You will be sadly missed.

Writing Healing Life Stories

For writers, writing is how they make sense of their world.

There is a long human tradition of writing to make sense of events that effect the self. Writing can be a way to heal the emotional and physical wounds that are an inevitable part of life

Some people use writing as a way to work through emotional issues by privately writing of grief in personal journals and diaries. Others write and publish memoirs such as the heart-rending Paula (1995), in which Chilean writer Isabel Allende interweaves autobiographical fragments into a letter to her dying twenty-eight year old daughter. Two recent memoirs about coping with the loss of a loved one are Megan O’Rouke’s The Long Goodbye (2011), about mourning her mother and Joyce Carol Oates’s A Widow’s Story (2011).

The most touching of all is perhaps Sandra Arnold’s Sing No Sad Song: losing a daughter to cancer (2011). These books add to a growing sub-genre that includes Joan Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking (2005), a memoir of her husband’s death, daughter’s illness, and the wife and mother’s efforts to make sense of a time when nothing made sense. In her latest book, Blue Nights (2011), Didion mourns the loss of her family, youth and ability to write. David Rieffs’ Swimming in a Sea of Death (2008) is a loving tribute to his mother, the writer Susan Sontag, and her final battle with cancer. In a similar vein, Anne Roiphe’s Epilogue (2008), explores late-life widowhood.

This mourning of mothers, daughters, sons, husbands and friends shows the reader that their experience is not unique. They are not alone.

Last year I ran workshops concentrating on teaching the craft of writing and discovered that many students were recording their own traumatic stories. They wanted to make sense of their lives and hoped sharing their experiences would help others. The stories were far reaching and covered how life threatening illnesses, drug addiction etc. changed the lives, not only of the person involved, but also the extended family.

For this reason I’ve decided the 2015 workshops beginning in April at the Living Now Wellbeing Centre, Studio 7/14 Hartnett Drive Seaford will focus on the writing of Healing Life Stories.  The ten week course begins Tuesday April 14th until June 16th (10am -12noon).  If interested ring 97724566

Writing can heal your life. It allows us to find our creativity, write our stories, become more whole and expand our horizons.

 

Random notes jotted into an exercise book helps us to sort the tangled web that is our lives. My début novel, Pickle to Pie began in this way. Ostensibly I was writing my father’s story, but after the book was published, I realized it was my way of dealing with my hidden German heritage.

Before I was born, because of the ill feeling towards German people after two disastrous world wars, my Australian born father renounced his German ancestry. He also changed the family name by deed poll from Schlessinger to Sterling. When I was seven I found an old photo album in the bottom of a wardrobe and asked my father why the sombre groups of people looked different. He hesitated then replied that in 1885 his grandparents migrated (not from Germany) from Belgium. I didn’t meet my German grandmother until I was twelve and by then knew not to ask questions. The feeling of release once the story of my father’s life was published was incredible. I finally understood the whispered background to my childhood and could let go of the past.

Recently completing my second book, ‘Hens Lay, People Lie’ I now see that I’ve done it again. Written a story that explores my life journey. This book has moved beyond my childhood to enable me to make sense of my adult life. However, when I was three quarters of the way through writing the manuscript about two women, two countries and a life altering pen-friendship, my penfriend died and I was grieving. I found myself trying to writing while mourning. At first I couldn’t write, until I realised how much words like regret, love, loss, guilt, memory and remorse have power over our lives.

Hélène Cixous, a French feminist philosopher, claims that, ‘Words are the doors to all other worlds. At a certain moment for the person who has lost everything, be it a being or country, language becomes the country. One enters the country of languages’ Cixous 1992: 19).

When Cixous was eleven, her father died. She describes this event as having a formative influence on her as a writer. Loss and the need for consolation became key motivating forces in her writing life. Her advice to those struggling with trauma in their lives is, “We should write as we dream; we should try and write, we should all do it for ourselves, it’s very healthy, because it’s the only place where we never lie.

IS TRAUMA WRITING CATHARTIC, OR IS THE WRITER RETRAUMATISED?

If the writer revisits painful emotions there is extensive literature about the risk of slipping into depression (Kammerer & Mazelis 2006; Stone 2004; Wurtzel 1999). Joy Livingwell, online columnist for the Neuro Linguistic Programming website, for example, warns of the danger inherent in reliving grief when she advocates that it is essential for the person involved ‘to get the useful life lessons from less-than-positive memories, without getting upset or re-traumatized’.

Therefore, if writing can be cathartic, it can also be dangerous. To avoid the danger of slipping into depression, writers need as safe space. A journal can be such a safe emotional space; a gap between reality and imagination where feelings and emotions can be intuited, articulated or performed. A space to write. Yet, there is the constant danger of being brought undone by your own words: stabbed by your stories, bowled over by both understanding and misunderstanding. Terry Williams writes: ‘Words are always a gamble, words can be like splinters of cut glass’. Writers attending the 2015 Healing Life Stories workshops will explore this aspect of trauma writing and learn how to protect themselves.

I’ve found writing can take you places you’ve never been before; some good, some bad. However, for me, writing about my life has been an uplifting experience. It has enabled me to let go of the past and move on with anticipation to the next exciting stage of my life journey.

You can write your healing stories about yourself or someone else important in your life  either for your own benefit or with the aim of helping others. When writing the story of my father’s turbulent life,  I found myself writing with passion and compassion. Above my computer is a quote by Australia’s famous author Bryce Courtenay 

‘There is no greater tribute than to lovingly record a life.’