When and If - About Time

When you’ve written a book and done final edits you will find yourself doing final final edits. At the same time you will most likely develop INSOMNIA. Well, a version of. You can go to sleep, but you will wake any time from 1, 2, 3 or 4am onwards. Worrying about any number of things, like how to organize a book launch, what to wear to a book launch and what to SAY at a book launch. As well as how to fix that re-worked sentence that just doesn’t seem quite right. Yet.  Moreover, WILL THIS BOOK EVER BE FINISHED.

No matter, because when you’re awake in the middle-of-the-night it’s the perfect time to take your iPhone under the covers and check your emails from your illustrator, going about his arty day in Barcelona. However, when an hour and a half has passed you might find yourself looking at your facebook, twitter and Instagram feeds hoping your eyes will get really tired and send a message through to your brain along the lines of - go the fuck to sleep.

If you are the nominated Supper Monitor in your home, sometimes you wish this wasn’t so. Times when you are frazzled, knackered, anxious, oh and preoccupied with finishing that exciting thing which has paper and a spine and YOUR name on the front. You might say out loud at 5.30pm, “I’m going to school interviews, we’re having steak and potatoes,” and nod towards the bucket of freshly dug early potatoes. The ones the seed suppliers stated were not keepers, but have been preserved for months deep in the potato patch under a crust of frozen earth. At the same time, you’ll send a telepathic message, ‘roasted would be nice, garden salad also.’ Upon your return at 6.55pm you might be greeted with a cheery, “What would you like me to do with the potatoes?”

WTH. No mind, The H is on overdrive too. Organizing an event. A series of events in fact, ultimately celebrating a friend and a hero. Youth and life. You sip a black ale. Peel and chop and microwave those Murphy’s for 4 minutes, mop up all the ju ju they expel, drizzle them with olive oil and rolled rosemary and blast them for 20 mins in your preheated oven. Fry the steak, toss the salad and serve. Because YOU are the Supper Monitor.

When  you’re trying to get out the door, the following night to the main event, which starts at 4pm and it’s 3.45pm (and you’ve just got home) you might ask daughter 16, to put the chickens away. ‘Don’t get chook poo on your Docs though,’ you warn, as she strides off. Chances are, on her return, she races through every carpeted portion of the house with a fresh avian turd squidged into the tread of her left boot. No mind. After promptly abandoning the house and letting it dry for 14 hours approximately you take the hoover pipe to these khaki heel prints and they come clean away; without having to employ Cavalier Bremworth Dry Stain Remover. (BTW this stuff is brilliant and is marketed by this really nice guy called, Murray.)

If the following day, you find yourself trying to get the next event on time, 20 minutes before departure you naturally decide the time is right to experience the, Dr Lewinn’s Private Formula – Line Smoothing Complex High Potency Mask. The mask that has been waiting patiently beside your basin for well over two weeks. You apply the hydrogel sheets to your face correctly. You allow the potent ingredients to activate as you RELAX. Hurriedly getting dressed and drying your hair. Realizing you must remove the mask in order to draw in the sparse prairie of your eyebrow etc, you whip it off and gasp at the ‘instant smoothing radiance’ your $20 has achieved. You make note to self: will buy again! And apply more carefully so’s not to make MORE creases.

Thankfully the eucalyptus and freesia wreath you felt moved to make for the commemoration service is complete. You grab it and run out the door. Drawing a lipstick line into the fading points of your cupid’s bow in the car mirror as you zip down the road, praying as you do when you pass the mad cat lady’s house (only 46 furry residents at last count) that none of them cross the road at point of passing.

When you reach the quiet gathering of friends and family beside the 20 year old rata tree, the massive rock and the brass ice axe sculpture that marks the climber friend and hero, you’re early. You place the wreath, you’d planned to be small and discreet and which turned out 40cm across, upon that rock alongside the spring posies wrapped in tinfoil. You stand square footed and listen to the tributes, try to imagine that mountain summit. K2. You see a smiling face, a strong chin. You only lean on The H when the Cold Play chorus sings about skin and bone. But for the first time in 14 years you don’t think of your own lost brother. You think only of theirs.

The family plant a kowhai tree. Friends plant daffodil bulbs.

Time moves on. If and when.

'Broadbeans' - A Short Story for Children

This is a short story I wrote for, The NSW School Magazine. Based on a true story, it covers the grief and confusion a child may experience when losing a grandparent.

Broad Beans

by Jane Bloomfield

Mum got the call one afternoon before school was out. Lucy and Ben had to wait with the next door neighbour. When she got home she held their hands too tightly and said, “Chester died this afternoon – I'm sorry.”

Chester – was our grandfather and the maker of swings and silly songs. He was also the grower of beans, all sorts of beans, most especially Broad Beans.

Over the next few days people kept bringing casseroles and lumps of meat. Lucy wondered who would eat them. She felt empty but she wasn't hungry. It must have been all those tears inside her.

“What's all that food for?” said Lucy to Gran, who was trying to stuff a piece of corned beef into the fridge.

“Darn it!” said Gran. She pushed her shoulder into the fridge door then slipped quietly onto the floor. Lucy curled into her lap and Gran gently rocked her, like she used to when she was a baby. They stayed like that for a while. Then, as if nothing had happened Gran scrambled up and said, “People always bring food at a time like this.”  

The next morning she overheard Gran saying; funeral and 1pm and church and wake at the cottage. When Ben yelled, “Luce, time for school,” his voice sounded different.

“I don't want to go,” said Lucy.

“We have to go,” said Ben. “Come on.”

Lucy let him drag her backwards down the path, while she kept an eye on more strangers arriving with plates.

At lunch, Lucy went to look for Ben. “Want your brother?” said a big boy swinging on the maypole. “He went home.”

The school bell rang the end of lunch. 1pm - church – funeral.   Ben must have gone without me. They've all gone without me. Everything became incredibly bright, as if the sun had pierced Lucy's eyes and was shining inside her head. The twirling maypole sprinkled white stars. A wild roar rang in her ears all the way home.

The little cottage was empty. They must be still at the church. Lucy crouched beside the grapefruit tree and waited. Soon cars started arriving. Men in dark suits and pale women in stiff dresses with matching hats filed in.

Chatting, laughing people spilled onto the front lawn. Gran handed around sandwiches and her Mum handed around drinks in crystal glasses. This must be the a-wake part – it's more like a party. Everyone was talking about the same thing, about Chester. They chinked their glasses for him. They said: “What a good joker he was” - “a real family man” - “loved his grandkids” -  “especially Lucy” - “a pity to bury him so young” - “I always hate the church bit” -  “poor bugger” ...

Lucy found it comforting listening to the grownups talk about Chester. But spying was wrong, so she made a run for it down the side of the house and hid behind the compost heap. The warm grass clippings sweated in the sun and gave off a strange musty odour - a bit like Chester's work socks used to.

          As the afternoon wore on she took shelter in the corrugated iron woodshed. Just as she'd settled into to her new hiding place she heard footsteps – and sobs. Ben appeared at the entrance of the shed and plonked himself down on the chopping block. His back was towards Lucy hidden in the shadows, his head hung in his hands.

Lucy had been so busy feeling sorry for herself; she hadn't thought what anyone else might be feeling. “Do you want to borrow this Ben?” she said, offering him her soggy hanky.

Ben jumped up. “What are you doing here? Why aren't you at school?”

“Why aren't you?” said Lucy.

“Because I'm older,” said Ben. “I guess.”

“Does that mean you don't get sad,” said Lucy.

“No,” said Ben, sucking in his tears and spitting into the dust.

“You're only ten,” said Lucy.

“I know,” said Ben.

As the last of the mourners left the cottage through the front door, Lucy and Ben appeared at the back, their faces smudged brown with dust and dried tears. The fronts of their shirts bulged with broad beans.

Gran was putting some leftovers into the fridge. “Any lemonade left, Gran, I'm really thirsty,” said Lucy.

“Yes dear. Hot day at school by the looks,” said Gran.

“Yep, really hot,” said Lucy. “Ben helped me pick some beans for Chester. I'd like to go and see him,” said Lucy.

“You mean see his grave, up at the cemetery?” said Gran.

“Yes, his grave. To say goodbye,” said Lucy.

At that moment Mum walked into the kitchen and hugged Lucy and Ben close.

            “We'd probably all like to say a quiet goodbye now, wouldn't we,” said Gran.

So Lucy and her Mum packed a bottle of lemonade and some leftover sandwiches into a wicker basket. While Ben helped Gran back out the Holden. Then they drove up the hill to the cemetery – as the sun set they scattered Chester's beans on the fresh mound of dirt. And said goodbye.