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The Journal of Anne Howe

Home is where the bard is
03/02/2005 02:31 a.m.
I've just come back here after maybe a couple of years of no muse and it's like coming home. I've slipped in occasionally and pulled up a chair in a few libraries but that's as far as i got. Old friends are good friends though and it's nice to be back 'til the muse goes on holiday again. I wish my friend Fam was still around but she decided she would renovate her soul and ship out her library. Still what could be better than actually seeing her in India last year and the prospect of meeting up again this year? I'm tidying my house, my mind and thinking about my soul :)
I am currently Happy
I am listening to the breeze blowing through the gum trees

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Thoughts that's all
02/27/2005 09:45 a.m.
I don't believe in God or Heaven really but I have this feeling that after death the breath of a person joins with the atmosphere and I look up in the night sky and like to think that maybe one particular star shines more than the rest. When my cousin Peter committed suicide 12,000 miles away I looked up, not to Heaven, but searching the atmosphere carefully because I knew that somewhere his breath still remained. Then what? Well I don't know.

Have you felt death? Like touched it. The cold of death is different, almost instant marble kind of toughened up and oh so chilly.

Sometimes I think I believe in reincarnation and that people come back until they're just about as good as they can be and only then is that life really over.

I don't see a state of punishment like purgatory or hell or anything like that; no, more another shot at life. Someone who's murdered a child by molestation will suffer in prison and no mistake and I'd have to say, so 'he'** should because no-one has the right to treat another badly. Couldn't it be though, that some of the kindest people we know were actually less so in a previous life. No, it's not for us to doubt or judge or presume. Good is good. Love is love. Let's take it for what it is and wrap ourselves up in a nice warm blanket. Some people never have the opportunity to feel it.

Well, I guess that sort of wraps up that little thought here. My mind's tired and I need to sleep.

** not meant as an implication of male only gender.


(I'm feeling 'thougtful' but with only one 'l')



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I am currently Thoughtfull
I am listening to listening to my teeth grinding-they do that when i'm thinking

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Where I'm at right now
06/23/2004 04:54 a.m.
Just talking on the phone with L. about her wedding dress etc. ..sometimes seems strange to think I'm going to be the mother of the bride.....Pale ivory with delicate pink tracery....unfortunate they don't now make the veil which she really likes :( Lilies or roses...perhaps roses she thinks; cream, pink and raspberry pink.....that sounds yummie ........ P. moves to his new police station after the weekend ..... that was meant as some far away happening and now it's happening which makes the December wedding seem even closer.........I was playing the piano this morning and wondered if I should take up piano lessons again...54, but what the hell...I suppose life can start anywhere really can't it? ...... Last night finished Arundhati Roy's The God of Small things...so rich in metaphor ...at first some of it was slightly clawing but then i got used to it and there's no doubting that she writes beautifully.....During the past month I've read, that plus Vikram Seth "a suitable boy", An Equal Music and the Golden Gate is on the book shelf inviting a read....Salman Rushdie's "Fury" which had my mind turning inside out and working overtime, Anita Desai's "IN Custody was brilliant" as were Shiva Naipaul's "The Chip Chip Gatherers and Graham Swift's "Last orders"........I'm now getting into Martel's "Life of Pi" ....such a 'readable' style and i'm looking forward to seeing it unfold.....yes, perhaps I'll look in the music teachers' directory for a teacher....My Mum was 81 years old yesterday and apart from her eyesight apparently failing she is happy and well....Last year myself, PJH ,TCH, C. and K. were in the UK helping to celebrate her 80th....it would have been very much quieter for her this year ….mm thinking
I am listening to My mind and I am currently optomistic

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Sydney and gum trees (for a friend)
12/04/2002 12:36 a.m.

 

 

who knows ...... i might even get around to tidying this thing up :))

 

 

Some gum trees shed their bark like mud packs

To reveal a new complexion for summer

Smoothe and grey

From their hundred foot gaze

They overlook the various parts of this city

In which they are planted

 

Though creating carpet for the bush track floor

And much sweeping up in the backyard

They are not deciduous as they always retain some leaves

Afterall, these ‘folks’ must maintain their dignity

 

Most of all, they are familiar with blue skies over Sydney

A good feed by the October rains just before the summer heat,

And the odd nibble from a koala, depending on their location

As well as playing umbrella for the many

Who choose to explore, on two feet or more,

the many tracks through the bush

Which forms part of the city’s environs

 

Those by the harbour see the usual comings and goings

Of any sea port and experience the sounds of aircraft

Large and small as they traverse the skies before landing

At Kingsford Smith, the city’s airport

All against a magnificent backdrop of wavelike architecture

Which is the opera house and, of course, the ‘coathanger’ (for such is its nickname)

Shape of the famous Harbour Bridge

 

The water seems forever blue

and is a watery highway for trade, travel and of course sport,

For people approaching the city from the leafy ‘north shore’

Train and road travel provides a magnificent vista as the Harbour Bridge

Links the north with the city and the south

What better way to start the day than with a glimpse

Of this breathtaking postcard, though for those with their heads in the ‘Financial Review

or taking a quick nap,

the scenery often goes unnoticed

 

Gum trees are great friends with the palms with whom they co-inhabit

The botanical gardens which are right in the heart of the city’s CBD

Still maintaining their room with a view the gardens gently curve around

The outer edge of the harbour and provide lunchtime respite

As well as an educational stroll, through its fascinating array

Of flora, representing many other countries, as well as its own.

 

The gum trees form welcome shade and the palms are exquisite

In their fronded frocks, well that’s good alliteration but really if the palms

Were wearing frocks they would be upside down

…. Mm perhaps they’re doing the can-can

 

Ferries used to chug from shore to shore, but now it’s more of a swish

As the huge catamarans bring in others for whom there isn’t a train route

Or who just prefer the ferry anyway

The famous Taronga Zoo is over on the other shore,

just a short ferry ride away

And there it’s the giraffes who have the magnificent view

For their ‘home’ over(longneck )looks the harbour

 

The summer time brings many visitors and locals to the city

In search of the sea food which is rumoured to be ‘top notch’

Fish (and other) restaurants line the length of Circular quay, and also Darling Harbour

Providing more than adequate choice for those in search of a tiny morsel

Or a ‘slap up meal’

Both areas were, in the city’s beginnings, busy dockland areas

And indeed the QE2 as well as less famous liners and commercial ships

Still dock at Circular Quay

which is also the terminus for the several ferry routes

 

Gums trees are used to swaying with the breeze

And their movement often provokes relief

As it can herald the approach of a cool breeze from the south.

After a day of summer heat the ‘Southerly Buster’ is indeed

A welcome visitor to Sydney

 

Too often in recent years though, they have been the victims

Of fires, willfully lit, which have created havoc for them

And all the creatures of fauna that choose to inhabit their branches

Or shelter in their shade

 

Koalas, kangaroos, the red and blue rosella and green and yellow lorikeet parrots, the sulphur-crested cockatoos and magnificent frogs and lizards

Are just some of those who have lost members of their families

And of course the flora suffer as well

Though there are some species of trees which require the fire

At some stage to open a seed pod to enable future growth

Bush fires are part of Australian life

 

The city’s tower block buildings are numerous

Representing, as they do, this bank and that

As in any other city

One building, recognizable by the fez which it wears

Atop its pole-like figure is ‘Centerpoint’ originally

Known as the Telstra Tower it has now taken on a new name

But for Sydneysiders I think it will always be ‘Centrepoint’

 

Unlike many other international cities today,

Sydney does sleepat night,

though of course it does have its share of insomniacs

Evidenced by the solitary lights in offices and lone travelers on the

Trains late into the evening

The airport closes at 11.00pm each night

And more gum trees than people, I suspect, witness

The arrival of the first planes as they approach the city

For opening time at 6.00am

 

There is exciting entertainment and much cultural activity

Happening in the city but for the many who pile out of offices

And squeeze themselves onto the escalators in the rush to catch a train

A relatively short journey takes them home to houses,

townhouses units in high rise buildings or flats to rent

But wherever you live in Sydney you can guarantee

You’re never far away from at least a view of the gum trees.


I am currently Happy
I am listening to kookaburras :)

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