42?

...for Knots in the String.

Before you begin to read, apologies for the late column. I am in fact trying not to panic and am saying 42 ad nauseum. My Terrier, my muse, my walking/beach buddy/shell collector has been really ill for 2 days and was admitted to doggy hospital early this morning. He’s in good hands, so while he is on his little dogbed with drips and things, I have time to de-smell the house, wash copious towels and dog beds and light candles. For him mainly…

Shall we move on?

Lately, I see so many writers examining the meaning of life. Is it because so much of the world is at a crossroads?

I can understand. If we are at a crossroads, then is it not natural that we should need answers? A form of security perhaps. But here’s the rub. Over millenia, not many folk have come up with the right sort of answers. Not answers that suit this bear of little brain anyway.

Honestly, even if the great and learned of the world did come up with the answers, I’m not sure I’d want to hear them because for me life is just life. It’s the air we breathe, the stars at night, the moon above, cloud patterns in the sky, the life beneath the waves, the way moss puts up tiny filaments which catch crystal dew and raindrops, cobwebs that glitter in the dawn. Wombats that waddle, magpies that warble or black swans that wingbeat in syncopation as they run across the surface of the water and then ascend into the skies. Life, you see, is complicated simplicity. Like a Vogue Couturier pattern.

Many pieces to stitch together with excruciating instructions, but the end result is the essence of simplicity. Breathe and we live, look and we see, hear and we listen, touch and we feel.

Do we need answers about the universe? I think Douglas Adams had the idea. The meaning of life, the universe and everything in The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, is as everyone knows- 42! In addition, read this, which underlines the fact that Adams thought very hard before delivering such a definitive answer. Also, and interestingly, there are connections to the number 42. Read the link and it might amuse and surprise you…

Doing:

1. In line with living with the meaning of life, I’ve been doing simple things.

   

   Cooking smokos for shearing/crutching (chocolate, banana and sour cream cakes, lemon ricotta slices, choc-chip cookies…).

2. Writing.

3. Embroidering the Kinsel bag (the end approaches).

4. Stitching hearts for those whose needs are great, whether because their health or their world is in flux. Just on that point – I’m thrilled that Sarah DeJong, the founder of 1000 Hearts, has been nominated for Australian of the Year.

   

   Deservedly so. She has contrived a service which has reached from the shores of lutruwita-Tasmania across the globe, one little heart at a time. It’s a wonderful feeling to stitch hearts for such a compassionate project.

5. Gardening: planting veggies and white annuals. Standing back and watching things grow and revelling in the simple beauty of it all.

   

   

6. Ballet: Fairly intense just now. Lots of extension and fine-tuning as we stream to the end of the year at the speed of light.

7. Hoping desperately that the downtrodden of our world, animal and human, are not forgotten in these vainglorious times.

8. Reading: on audio. The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding by Holly Ringland where I learned that the stars I gaze at by night were created long before our First Nation folk (who have a 60,000+ year old culture) even settled in lutruwita-Tasmania. And that the ocean that surrounds me as I swim is actually as old as the stars. I could ask why, but I just want to marvel at the fact. And conclude that against such magnitude, why does the meaning of life really matter? I’m just grateful that I get to stargaze and swim at all.

9. Grandparenting: We have had our grandson to stay with us for two days midweek whilst his parents were interstate. It’s from him, our little Yoda, that I learn the most about the simplicity of life, the value of love. We’ve ridden bikes, climbed down a cliff to his favourite beach and played for ages in rockpools…

   

   …he’s built involved Brio tracks (he has trains that are battery-powered and to see them chuffing over his engineering is brill!) We helped Pa muster the next lot of sheep for shearing and drenching and I was instructed on how the sileage was baled! We’ve had BBQ’s and we’ve decorated icecreams and have had little to no screen-time. He also quietly said to me as I mentioned that time flies, ‘Tempus fugit, Nanny.’ I almost coughed on my salad. ‘It means time flies, ’ he continued with the sagacity of Yoda.

   ‘I know it does, but how do you know?’

   ‘George and Peppa explained it on Peppa Pig…’

   I now know why I knew no Latin as a 6 year old. We had no Peppa Pig on TV in the ‘50’s.

   I hope he remembers this week when he’s 42…

Sometimes, I wish I was still 42. To be fit with no decrepitude. It’s a good sounding number, isn’t it? 42? Imagine my surprised delight then, when I saw my husband’s security pass for the organisation he works for. His number? 42! Is that some strange cosmic force at work?

Music this week? This song was released 14 years ago and still has the same sort of quirky relevance to life, the universe and everything now as it did then. Sweetly crazy little piece…