Each and Every Day

This afternoon I ducked under the half-open roller-door of our car-garage only to find four frantic baby swifts dive-bombing a side window. They were bashing against the glass frantically trying to find the wide blue sky they could see out there but not fly into. 

"Over there!", I pleaded with them. "Look! The door is now wide open!"

But they couldn't see the wide open door inviting them into the sunshine, so intent were they on bashing and crashing, over and over again, into a dusty pane.

So, I grabbed a soft hand-towel and, one by one, took hold of those tiny throbbing baby birds and released them skyward where they needed to be.

"Goodbye, Basher!", I said to the first.

"Fare thee well, Crasher!", to the second.

"Good luck, little Smasher!", to the third.

"You'll be ok now, Thrasher!", I whispered to the fourth.

And each, in the blink of an eye, a soar in the sky, was gone like an arrow of joy.

Note to self - Sometimes we need a friend to help us out. We can resist that wise, guiding hand extended out to us, but what then? We crash and bash against a hopeless window until we collapse.

Or, do we accept that sometimes we need someone else to help us find the sunshine? 

There are patches in life where all seems dark and hopeless but you and I both know that the sun does rise each and every day.

Each and every day is a new opportunity to be set free.

Bocelli in My Bubble

I awoke at 5am to watch Andrea Bocelli sing "Music for Hope" live from the Duomo di Milano in Italy, one of the countries most ravaged by Corona-19.  I sat here in the office in my pyjamas with a cup of tea in front of my computer, my hair unbrushed and a duvet wrapped around my legs.

Andrea Bocelli was a solemn figure, suit and bow-tie, singing from his heart in the magnificent Milan Cathedral. Lasting just half an hour, the concert included favourites like Ave Maria and Domino Deus, the mood all the more poignant in that this famous man stood amidst stained glass windows, pious statues and lit candles, in this awe-inspiring cathedral, through which, normally, thousands of tourists traipse through every day, but today he had no audience. Got no applause.  It was beautiful but haunting in that he was seemingly singing forth into a silent vacuum but, in actual fact, was being beamed into living-rooms all over the planet.

When at the end, Andrea Bocelli sang 'Amazing Grace' outside the huge front entrance of the Milan Cathedral, well, who could not be moved by the words, 'I once was blind but now I see", coming from his serene face, eyes closed by blindness?

But, metaphorically, blind eyes can, given hope, see and a sick Covid-19 locked-down planet can be healed.

These words, translated from Italian to English, drifted across our screens before the concert started.

"I believe in the strength of praying together.
I believe in the Christian Easter.
A universal symbol of rebirth that everyone,
Whether they are believers or not, truly needs right now.
Thanks to music, streamed live, bringing together
Millions of clasped hands, everywhere in the world,
We will hug this wounded Earth's pulsing heart".

Sometimes what we see in life is determined by what we choose to focus on.

When I went on my first lock-down walks I took along a big bag in which to collect the tossed-out-of-car beer-bottles and RTD cans that seem to litter all New Zealand rural roads. All I did on those utterly stunning blue-sky, sun-in-your-face days was gaze at the ground and resent the dumb-asses who were too lazy to take their empties home with them.  I saw glass, tin and plastic. I saw old milk-shake containers and disintegrating KFC cardboard boxes.

I was intent on rubbish and that is what I saw, That is what I collected and carried with me.

All very commendable of course but, after a week, I knew I still had to exercise my body but relax my mind. Just enjoy. So I took no bag along. I let the simply gorgeous day caress me. I looked here and there at cows and horses, wetlands with quacking ducks, manuka and cabbage trees.

It did me a lot of good looking up, not down.

"Hello, fencepost, what'cha doin'?
I've come to watch your cows a mooin'" 

Light at the End of the Tunnel

An overly-familiar Shropshire forced me to eat lunch in the car today. When he lunged at my ciabatta bread-roll (it had peanut-butter and squished banana in it), I fled from under the vines to the passenger's seat of my car and wound the window right up.

While the sheep snorted miffed nostrils against the glass I grinned back, munched on black jelly-beans and contemplated the life-lessons I learned in the last seven weeks while I sawed and lopped and tugged at those three rows of shockingly entangled kiwifruit vines. My leather gloves fell to bits, my arms ached, my legs bruised, my forehead perspired and an inner-voice often taunted me with, 'Dummkopf!'.

Yes, there were times I almost gave up the mammoth task.

But when the last cane fell and sunlight danced where darkness had reigned for so long, well, what an incredible sense of achievement!

So, while imprisoned in my own vehicle, here are the principles I came up with:

1)  When life is just a long dark tunnel of tangled-up problems even the tiniest determined action to improve things lets in a tiny pinpoint of light.

2)  When enough tiny pinpoints of light gather together they become a sunny patch.

3) When enough sunny patches merge we dare to hope.

4) When we feel hope the necessary energy seems to well up within and we find ourselves chopping away with increased gusto!

5) Even if there is still plenty of problem to tackle, glance back now and then to enjoy how far you've come.

6) At a certain stage we do indeed see the light at the end of the dark tunnel so be sure to pay yourself a compliment or three about how determined and resilient and amazing you are.

7) If the going gets tough and your progress seems pathetically slow ask a friend to remind you how determined and resilient and amazing you are.

8) Be sure to do the same for them when they struggle with something. Only the dead are burden-free.

9) Take breaks when fatigue strikes and make mini-celebrations of them whether your coffee  is poured from  an old thermos flask or dripped from the finest Italian espresso-machine.  Both brews are beautiful if you decide they are.

10) Mission accomplished? Rejoice! Sure, another wilderness will challenge you again one day but is there any harm in being happy and relieved in the meantime?

Tangelos and Tears 11-11-11

For several months I have wondered what today - the 11th day of the 11th month in the year 2011 - might bring. Would a mini-asteroid hurtle itself right between my eyeballs in some kind of cosmic baseball game or profound words appear written in the sky at exactly 11 minutes past 11am?  Neither happened.

When all those number ones lined themselves up so obediently in a row, we were busy picking tangelos, standing on wooden-benches to get at the higher ones. My senses were bombarded by nature's loveliness. The fruit glowed brilliant orange against a bright blue sky and zillions of pretty white blossoms filled the air with a heavenly scent. As I reached up to snip each tangelo my face was warmed by the sun that shone gently through the branches.

When I got thirsty all I had to do was pierce a large ripe tangelo and squeeze the sweet juice straight into my mouth. It trickled down my face and arms and I was a grubby little toddler for whom life is simple and good.

But life isn't always simple and good. Sometimes it is confusing and unfair.

This afternoon the same gentle sun shone down on a group of us as we gathered at the cemetery to farewell a baby in a tiny white coffin all covered in yellow flowers. He had never even taken a breath or cried or gurgled in delight because he was still-born last monday.

There is something so wrong in this scenario where a baby, so eagerly awaited, is lowered into a hole in the ground as we all shed tears and wonder why. I watch as the mother and father toss rose-petals over their son and then step softly and sadly aside to let the rest of us do the same.

Back in 2009, Kristen insisted that our family go to the Simon and Garfunkel concert to be held in Auckland because, as she correctly pointed out, "They are incredible and they might never ever perform together again". She was a poor university student at the time so, of course, the idea was that Cossack and I pay for the very expensive tickets which would provide an evening so special and beautiful that our family would be bound by the memories thereof  for ever and ever, Amen.

Those of you who were at that wonderful concert on the 13th June at the Vector Arena will remember that during, "Bridge over Troubled Water", the sound system mucked up leaving just the stage sound and a confused-looking Simon and Garfunkel.   The crowd took over and sung the words until the sound came back on.

"That was the nicest thing an audience has ever done for us", remarked Garfunkel.

And tonight, by beautiful planning on the part of Radio New Zealand, they played a 1969 Simon and Garfunkel concert at 11pm while I sit here tapping out this blog on 11/11/2011.

"Feeling Groovy" was followed by "Bridge over Troubled Water" and "Homeward Bound" and the others that stir up our souls.

When you're weary, feeling small, when tears are in your eyes, let us carry you through. And after however long it takes, we can one day get back to kickin' down the cobble-stones, feeling loved and feeling groovy.

Rest in God's peace, Ethan.

In Which Loppers Hack at my Mid-Life Crisis

Armed with a make-belief sense of menopausal power and a large pair of loppers I have been pruning kiwifruit vines over the last couple of months and, with each cane that I flung to the ground, came the intense satisfaction that comes from seeing order emerge out of chaos. Neatness from a tangle. Sweetness from a wrangle. Each particularly difficult hunk of wood that I lopped and then had the pleasure of kicking into the middle of the row for mulching came to symbolize my last boss whose  sarcastic words and withering glances caused me to quit a job I really liked. 

I departed that cafe job there and then before my ego could be minced any more  like flour, eggs and spinach in a pasta machine and then boiled of course. So, with head held high and any would-be-runaway-emotions tightly corseted to my chest I calmly but fearfully walked out.

My grin started out in the car-park and got as wide as  a banana while I contemplated my freedom.  I have a life to live. Things to do. Sensational moments to stumble upon. 

It wasn’t until I got home that I doubted that very much. "So much for your  magnificent bravado today, Bernadette!", I sighed to myself. "You have cast yourself upon the rubble heap of unemployment.  You are a middle-aged, impulsive and incredibly stupid woman".  I was about to thump my forehead several times in succession against a very hard wall when the phone rang. 


Thank God for our orchardist friend who said, "See you at 8 am, Bern, and not a minute later". He didn't ask. He instructed. He had obviously heard about my self-inflicted predicament and felt either sympathy or intense amusement.


And so I turned up next day at 7.46am looking like a scarecrow in clothes so old that even the Op Shop where they came from once upon a time would never consider taking back.

I threw my peanut butter-sandwiches and banana into the Smoko Room and thus began the new chapter of manual labour mentioned above.  And if it has proved to be a little harsh on my scrawny body, it has also been a little bit good for my soul that thirsted like crazy for a breath of fresh air.