Stan was a very naughty man because he winked at his dear wife before dying and she had no chance to respond.
That is so typical of Stan, she said to Annie, her best friend.
Well, at least he went peacefully.Annie replied in a kindly tone
And to think I had just bought him 6 new pairs of pyjamas.
You can’t blame him for that.You always buy too much, Annie murmured politely
Well, I suppose I like to be prepared, Mary muttered.I felt so helpless as he went thinner and thinner.
QqWhat are you going to do with them all, Annie whispered.
There’s only one solution.I’ll have to find a man to fit the pyjamas and marry him
That’s a strange way of choosing a new husband, Annie said in a shocked voice.
In the end however rational we try to be, life is down to luck.
Yes, didn’t Churchill say, chance favours the prepared mind?
It wasn’t Churchill, it was Blaise Pascal.Mary told her in of voice rich with wisdom
Well, why not marry him? He sounds intriguing
He’s dead, Mary responded succinctly
Oh, what a pity.He sounded just right for you, Annie said tearfully.Are we going to the funeral?
I am afraid he died before we were born, Mary said in an anguished tone.
Well, he’s no use.Anyone else you fancy?How about Dante? Annie screamed
Which Dante do you mean?I thought he was Italian, Mary informed
her.
It’s not far by plane, though Brexit might be a problem, Annie said wisely.
Let’s be realistic.No dead, great genius will be revived by the Lord to marry me.Mary said as if she were lecturing to a big class on differential geometry and its use in economics.No wonder we had the Depression
That might be blasphemy, Annie informed her.After all, if God is omnipotent he can do anything at all.
To me, he sometimes seems incompetent, said Mary wildly.And of all the lonely people in the world, why should he aid me in my grief? Anway male geniuses are very demanding.I think a cook or chef might be more practical.
Oh, look, we’ve missed Mass again.
We’ve not been for 40 years and just when we decided to go we started talking about these powerful creatures and a husband for you
Never mind, why don’t we wait till Xmas?
And so say all of us.
Day: November 2, 2022
Reflections
I knew myself in his face when he lived
But now I have no mirror,I’m alone.
I learned myself reflected in his love.
An actual mirror seems like a dull stone
I was alive when mirrored his eyes
For those who hate us do not give us life.
What’s the answer when when the loved one dies?
Without a husband there can be no wife.
All alone my blood seems not to flow.
The wellspring of my heart is arid,dry.
My hands curl up protective on my heart
I have no tears and so I cannot cry.
Yet I bleed inside from every part.
So where is my reflection, where my grace?
I feel I cannot live without his face.
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The face
The face that was familiar is no more
Yet in my dreams he is alive again
Thus his image lives inside my store
In our sleep we find the open door
We see the precious faces of those gone
The face that was familiar is no more
A nightmare,anxious, running as before
To find our car, to bring home my dear man
Now his image lives within my store
His voice to me sounds muffled by great doors
He wonders how I manage all alone
The love that was so potent is no more
An anger at the doctors made me roar
A dying man ignored by every one
Now his love lives on in my deep core
Death will capture all but is that fair?
We live then die at last of all good bare.
The face that was familiar is no more
Yet his sweet love still haunts my deepest core
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Summer air
Summer
Feelings drift in summer heated air
As silent reverie gives minds their ample space
Trees so heavy with excessive leaves
Droop like shades across their garden home
Sun near horizontal in its streams
Creates deep shadows where it cannot reach.
The ripened plums are almost out of reach
Their fragrance lends a splendour to the air
And as their leaves fall gently by the stream
More gaps are made and sunshine gets deep space
Such a cherished respite is our home
Where small wild creatures rustle in the leaves.
Yet even here the world outside can reach
Despite our music sonorous in the air
For News we hear, and pity from us streams.
We cannot stay for always in quiet space
Technologies now stamp around the home
Take up our mind and good thoughts outward leave
And yet we must still reach for mental space
Streams of mercy leave homes aired with grace.
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Intimacy and solitude: S.Dowrick’s fascinating book
D
the answers she gave to a New Zealand journalist recently about the effects of loneliness and the “beautiful benefits” of solitude. And here’s her blog about how desperately important connection and communication can be in a time of pandemic.
“I know how distracting it can be if you are having an interesting conversation and have to eat and order as well,” she says. “Although I won’t be eating much. But you must order something that you would really like, perhaps duck or prawns; that would make me feel a lot better.” I tell her that I am happy with her vegetarian choices of golden tofu (which she says “sounds lovely”), crispy dumplings and pad Thai.
Infuzions Thai in Cammeray is our venue because of its proximity to a studio where the Balmain-based Dowrick has been recording the audio book for Intimacy and Solitude. As it happens, recording has been completed, so there is plenty of time to move around the largely empty restaurant in search of the best spot for recording and photography.
Dowrick’s vibrantly patterned dress, in what interior designers would call “jewel” colours, blends well with the richly coloured Thai cushions and warm woods. “Lead, Kindly Light,” she jokes, quoting a famous hymn, as we search for the most flattering spot. In addition to being a versatile author of almost 20 fiction and non-fiction books, and a psychotherapist, Dowrick is an interfaith minister who was based at Pitt Street Uniting Church from 2006 to 2017. More recently she has been co-leading “sacred gatherings” at the InnerSpace Centre in Five Dock.
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It quickly becomes clear that the meal is secondary to Dowrick, who I have met several times over the years through her publishing work and journalism. She wrote a popular Inner Life column for Good Weekend between 2001 and 2010, and was a regular guest of both Geraldine Doogue and Tony Delroy on ABC radio. These days she contributes opinion pieces to newspapers, primarily on social justice, human rights and ethical issues. And as she is my friend on Facebook, I am also aware of the joy she reaps as a mother and grandparent – and of her “later life” marriage in 2017 to Darwin-based paediatrician and health activist Paul Bauert. (“Because he lives 4000 kilometres from my home, I can continue to evolve my understanding of intimacy as well as solitude!”)
Today, and perhaps always, conversation and ideas interest her. Dowrick is a woman of intense blue eyes, a direct gaze and gently probing questions; she invites confidence and confidences, and indeed becomes the interviewer as much as the subject. It is fortunate that she arrived with her background dossier.
First published in 1991, Intimacy and Solitude was an international bestseller and has been revised and expanded several times since then. The latest edition was sparked by a recognition that the unpredictable events of 2020 had made the book’s message more relevant than ever. It is an encouragement for readers, a message of hope that blends readable case studies with deeply considered but accessible wisdom. Dowrick is convinced that we all have the potential to respond to both familiar and new situations freshly and creatively, especially if we renew our closeness to ourselves and to other people.
Comedian and author Magda Szubanski, musician Clare Bowditch and politician Kristina Keneally are among her raft of fans.
“If the pandemic taught us anything at all, it is that we are utterly and inevitably connected – and not only with this earth on which we wholly depend in all its brilliance, beauty, fearsomenesss and biodiversity,” Dowrick writes in her new 7000-word introductory essay. “COVID-19 showed us plainly that we protect ourselves best by willingly and generously protecting one another – even when separate or ‘distanced’.
“As powerful as those two potent words are individually – intimacy and solitude – they together describe and evoke a steadiness of inner support and resourcefulness that brings more than resilience and inevitably extends beyond ourselves to other people.”
‘My instinct has been unwavering: that not just I, but most of us, want to do at least somewhat better in our connections with others.’
Dowrick says that in addition to interviewing many people for the book, and “surveying screeds of psychological wisdom for the finest ideas”, she reviewed her own rich catalogue of “missteps” as well as what had made life “most worth living”. “My instinct has been unwavering: that not just I, but most of us, want to do at least somewhat better in our connections with others.
“A relatively healthy sense of self lets you accept what others can give you, even when it isn’t quite what you yearned for … It’s also dependent on trusting that your life matters – whether or not it is lauded by others. And that you deserve to care for yourself as respectfully and supportively as you would a trusted and cared-for friend.”
Dowrick was born in New Zealand and spent some of her formative years in isolated Maori and Pacific Island communities, where her parents were teaching. Her mother, Mary, died in her late 30s, when Dowrick was eight. It was, of course, a truly terrible experience and not one that she wishes to dwell on overly in an interview.
However, in her book she writes of the loss, which has affected the rest of her life: “Unsurprisingly, I was incapable of much self-care, never mind what ‘independence’ adds up to. I had gained immeasurably from the years of unstinting love my mother could give me when she lived. She was also, in her moral and emotional intelligence, in her creativity and pride in her profession as a gifted teacher and her commitment to service to others, an exceptional example to me.”
In the late 1960s, a lack of career opportunities in New Zealand for a clever and determined young woman led Dowrick to head for London where, with delight, she fell into book publishing (where senior women were still a rarity and her colleagues, mostly men from public schools, addressed each other by their surnames).
Her star rose. At the height of “second wave” feminism, in 1977, she convinced British publishing entrepreneur Naim Attallah to back a groundbreaking feminist imprint, The Women’s Press, and became its first managing director. Writers Janet Frame, Andrea Dworkin, Michele Roberts and Lisa Alther were among those who joined the list and, in 1983, with the Commonwealth publication of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Color Purple, commercial success was added to its cult status.
Shortly afterwards, Dowrick moved to Sydney and had two children, Kezia and Gabriel, in quick succession; her first novel, Running Backwards over Sand, which tells of a journey of self-exploration by a young woman who has lost her mother, was published in 1985. Subsequently, she worked part-time as a publisher at Allen & Unwin and broadened her writing to focus on self-development and further explored spirituality, most particularly through the work of German poet Rainer Maria Rilke (on whom she wrote a PhD thesis that evolved into a book, In the Company of Rilke).
On learning to live with isolation, the author, an “impatient patient” who fell ill for four months and was in hospital for 10 weeks before the pandemic hit, says that while the lockdown was a crisis of communication for social beings it could also offer “an opportunity to consider with fresh interest how we can more thoughtfully support others – receiving with grace and gratitude what they may have to give”.
While many have been feeling “flat”, she says it is important to be more consciously open to receiving, even when what’s coming your way doesn’t quite fit your expectations of how things should be. Like any change, some detachment is needed to see things anew, as is stillness, which is best achieved by not being constantly busy. (“Being busy is for me a psychological defence.”)
“In illness, our world shrinks. In social isolation, our world shrinks. Yet it’s precisely now that our vision must enlarge. Choosing to be the smallest bit more generous, perhaps more tolerant in both directions (giving and receiving), is itself an act of empowerment, an act of self-respect and even love – for ourselves and for all with whom we share this planet.
“When we’re down, our thoughts leap into a future that’s frightening. When we slow down, by contrast, we can experience this moment and – when we can – infuse it with greater vitality and hope. We can surround people and situations with the energies of loving-kindness and care, rather than anxiety or raw terror. And when we do this, we ourselves will benefit.”
The afternoon is slipping away, but Dowrick proposes we move on to coffee and pavlova. She wants to ask me some more questions.
Infuzions Cammeray
439 Miller St, Cammeray
(02) 9957 1122
Daily, 11.30am-9.30pm
Intimacy and Solitude by Stephanie Dowrick is out now from Allen & Unwin.Save
Shona Martyn is Spectrum Editor at The Sydney Morning Herald. She was previously the Publishing Director of HarperCollins, the founding editor of HQ magazine and an editor of Good Weekend.Connect via email.
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Interview – Stephanie Dowrick
https://stephaniedowrick.com/interview/
What did you learn from this success?
That I am lucky enough to be writing about what eventually matters most to people – their personal and social relationships, their questions about meaning. This is an incredible field to work in. You can never run out of new things to know, reflect on and puzzle through. My subject matter never fails me. But – it is also extremely daunting to work with these topics. I take it seriously. I doubt myself over and over again. I spend months and months sometimes on a single chapter. The first section [on the Self] of Intimacy & Solitude took me a couple of years! Perhaps I wrote it fast
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Where does our hate come from?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/27/opinion/rich-poor-immigration-fear.html
In his 2019 book, “The Human Tide,” Morland wrote: “If the biggest global news story of the last 40 years has been China’s economic growth, the biggest news story of the next 40 years will be Africa’s population growth.” It’s striking, Morland continues, “to realize that in the continent as a whole in 1950 there were far less than h
Morland wrote: “If the biggest global news story of the last 40 years has been China’s economic growth, the biggest news story of the next 40 years will be Africa’s population growth.” It’s striking, Morland continues, “to realize that in the continent as a whole in 1950 there were far less than half as many people as there were in Europe. Today, Africa’s population is around a third larger than Europe’s, and by 2100 it is likely to have quadrupled again, while Europe’s will have shrunk.”
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An Era Defined by Fear
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/opinion/politics-fear.html
Fear runs ahead of the facts and inflames the imagination. Ninety percent of the time we’re not afraid of what’s happening to us, but of some catastrophic thing our imagination tells us might happen.
DD
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The cat
O
We walked as one like partners in a dance.
Such grace such joy such live, such happenstance
The world was new and visions met our eyes
Until that bloody cat took ill
and died.
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Right direction
If you are going in the wrong direction there is no pointt hurrying.
Don’t start walking until you have had a very good look at where you are literally or metaphorically.
.Have you got a map?
If you wear spectacles clean them
In any case .more haste less speed
How do you no if it is the right direction?
By instinct or intuition and by conversations with a good friend
But don’t wait for too long as you might grow roots.
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A bloody shame: Britons find a new favourite swearword
When we walked I warmed your hand in mine
When we walked I held your hand in mine
We walked round a small lake to see geese fly
We sauntered, in a rhythm were aligned
Time had stopped, the geese in circles climbed
Then swept onto the path as we came by
When we walked I held your hand in mine
Like a natural god, the geese divine
Landed in their beauty with a sigh
We entered a new rhythm, were aligned
On the shining water geese in line
Float and hunt for food with little cries
When we walked I held your hand in mine
In our garden for your love I pine
I may never love another till I die
We sauntered, in a rhythm were aligned
God is on the mountain with his lyre
Singing of the beauty of desire
When we walked I warmed your hand in mine
We lived attuned to love until you died
Photo by E.L copyright
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Advent flight
The ducks swim in the gaps between the ice
Cold blooded , yet kept warm by fluffy down
The river looks uncertain in this light
The sky hangs like a curtain of snow white
The sun, precocious, shines and then it frowns
The ducks swim in the gaps between the ice
Ah, think of Morecambe Bay in sunshine bright
Across the sea the Pikes stand out so proud
My river looks uncertain in this light
Britain’s mountains fierce attract like vice
Like alcohol or sex or low cut gown
Unknowing ducks swim on despite thick ice
Thanks to God for hearing and for sight
The mystery is the Love which was disowned
My river looks so cold as comes twilight
Here is Bethlehem, the little town
Where Christ was born and grew to be cut down
The ducks swim by, the swans walk on the ice
Look up and see the geese in Advent flight
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Wild Geese
Leaves have gone so suddenly
Small birds float on the wind
Like boats astride a choppy sea.
Their swaying soothes my mind.
Wild geese fly past at dusk again,
They head towards the North.
The holly berries glow in sun,
Nature gives joy birth.
I gaze intently at the sky,
The clouds hang dark and low.
If I too were a mere wild goose
I’d know which way to go
But I am left with only words
To find my destination.
Yet words do carry down to us
Wisdom from past generations
We use old words in unique ways.
We structure them to form
A new design not seen before
A new sentence is born
I send my words with love to you
I hope you safely catch them.
Give me answers from your heart
And I’ll do my best to match them.
How my heart sings 