{All present felt as though something exciting was about to happen. (A third postcard received in original state from Kristi.)}
In the silent house, I sit on the floor, laptop before me and I click clack at the keys in a tempo all of own making. A Siamese cat snoozes behind me, occasionally shifting position, but only occasionally, it should be noted. Omar has slept all day long, on the couch, on the kitchen counter, in a chair in the full sun, on a patch of carpet free, he sleeps anywhere. Coiled in tight ball or stretched out long, he sleeps, he can sleep, anywhere. Olive laps gently at the water’s surface of the fishbowl before me, and the fish bob to the surface to meet her nose. All is quiet and calm, the light still bright in the sky and the sun still hot. The day has been a long one, pleasantly so. The day has been a good one to make new collage works and to think loosely of future things. Soon it will be time to curl about book, to loose mind in the words of my selected guide. Tonight I return to the streets of Istanbul, to be shown through a museum by its guide, to read The Museum of Innocence.
Were I to think of my collections and keepsakes as a museum, I would guide you through the various rooms, through childhood through to present day. In my suitcase still there is a map of the road travelled recently to Canberra. It is cut in odd shape so as to reveal only the roads travelled. It is like a broken arrow, straight until a point. I would show you the gallery Pass Out on thick orange card, and perhaps I would present on the wall a photo captured quickly. It would bear little resemblance to Max Ernst’s collection housed within the NGA but it would follow premise similar. Here lies a collection of the things I like. Here lies a collection of things that mean something to me. Seeds collected from a family lunch outdoors, from the flower commonly referred to as Love-in-the-Mist. “Scatter them wherever it is you do not want them to grow for that invariably will be what happens.” And I have done so, intrigued by the name and the curious shape of the dried flower heads that hold tiny black seeds no bigger than that of a sesame. The very same save hue. I would show you a tower of books earmarked for summer reading. They serve as my calendar for the month of January. When one is read a new home for it is found until there is nothing left. Well, that is my intention, at least. Thus far I have read The Disappeared, a novel set also in the period of the mid seventies, and been taken willingly to a country I have yet to travel to in person. I am part way through The Bedside Book of Beasts too and I am discovering a world of facts and mythology I never knew. January is for dreaming it all to be possible.
January is for a slow start. For quiet and calm. For painting toenails rose-red and slicing into the skin of a mango expectantly. It is for ideas and light. And it should allow space for silliness to grow.
Were I to think of my collections and keepsakes as a museum, I would guide you through the various rooms, through childhood through to present day. In my suitcase still there is a map of the road travelled recently to Canberra. It is cut in odd shape so as to reveal only the roads travelled. It is like a broken arrow, straight until a point. I would show you the gallery Pass Out on thick orange card, and perhaps I would present on the wall a photo captured quickly. It would bear little resemblance to Max Ernst’s collection housed within the NGA but it would follow premise similar. Here lies a collection of the things I like. Here lies a collection of things that mean something to me. Seeds collected from a family lunch outdoors, from the flower commonly referred to as Love-in-the-Mist. “Scatter them wherever it is you do not want them to grow for that invariably will be what happens.” And I have done so, intrigued by the name and the curious shape of the dried flower heads that hold tiny black seeds no bigger than that of a sesame. The very same save hue. I would show you a tower of books earmarked for summer reading. They serve as my calendar for the month of January. When one is read a new home for it is found until there is nothing left. Well, that is my intention, at least. Thus far I have read The Disappeared, a novel set also in the period of the mid seventies, and been taken willingly to a country I have yet to travel to in person. I am part way through The Bedside Book of Beasts too and I am discovering a world of facts and mythology I never knew. January is for dreaming it all to be possible.
January is for a slow start. For quiet and calm. For painting toenails rose-red and slicing into the skin of a mango expectantly. It is for ideas and light. And it should allow space for silliness to grow.
+ According to the language of flowers, Love-in-the-Mist (Nigella damascena) is for Delicacy and Perplexity.
