Eloquence...

... for Knots in the String

I think I may have used up everything from the Chalice of Eloquence when, blinded by the sun, I walked into the back of my husband’s ute today. With blood dripping, I emptied the Chalice - fulsomely. So please excuse content on Knots this week, it may lack a certain amount of fluency.

I did have success over the last week in not watching any sort of global news anywhere, either on TV or electronic media and one would think that would create space for eloquence to re-seed, but it’s not to be. Except perhaps in a page or two of Phoebe’s Prime.

We enter Stage Three water restrictions on our patch of coast. Everything is bleached, and in the pastures of those farmers not on irrigation – stark, dusty brown with no grass, the waterholes almost empty and stock waiting at gateways for their daily feed.

Here on the coast, it’s been maybe 20 years since we last had to save bathroom and kitchen water to bucket round the garden. I was much younger and carting water was easier. Now I have arthritis in my shoulders, spine and sternum (pretty well everywhere really) and I can’t say I’m looking forward to this next however-long.

But I love the garden and if I do nothing else this winter (or at least until it rains) I will try to keep it going. We haven’t had meaningful rain for perhaps 8+ months, only scouring winds and warm days. Even today, the 1st of May, it is a record temperature of 26, not recorded for over 100 years.

So – we’re allowed to hand-water from 6-8 AM and 8-10PM every second day. Our shed is filled with soil-wetting products, with glass demijohns which we fill with water, pierce the lids and upend everywhere. We have more hay for mulching, and once the trees have dropped their leaves, there’s composted soil to cart everywhere.

Yes, it’s dry and we face a tough time. But I can still dream, plan and be excited for the future – for when it does rain. That’s what gardening does! It’s never really over in nature. There’s always something to do, something to see, something to plan. This week, I found a valiant little autumn crocus battling away and the potted fritillaria are a short millimetre above the soil. Truly, gardens are a natural way to remain positive. Thus we plan our glasshouse, I decide what to pot up against the odds and I design (?) my bug hotel. I’m still able to be inspired!

Other things:

*Apart from reading about drought-proofing my garden and planning for better times, I find my lost Liberty hanky stuffed deep in a pair of jeans I haven’t worn for a couple of weeks. I also pick up the second pair of glasses frames to place in my ‘in case’ drawer. And we drive to the Channel nursery again (so much greener than our southeast), to pick up more drought-tolerant plants. We pull over so that I can record the polka-dotted paddock and on seeing the image, my son decides it’s a perfect thing for lambing - warm patches of higher, thicker grass in the paddocks and in which lambs can shelter. Unfortunately this year, the grass is too short to slash because of the drought.

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On to ballet class. Such a hard class this week, my mind stretching to capacity. We were doing a piece in the centre which involved half-turns in a sequence – a very elegant movement and done swiftly, it looks beautiful. But even a half turn for me is a half-turn too far and I stagger and almost fall. This annoys me. So I move to the back bar and have the security of the support. I’m hoping that eventually, my brain and the left vestibular nerve will connect (the right vestibular is beyond redemption), and I’ll be able to complete the move more gracefully.

Then there is a quick pas de bourée with delicate pointed feet; oh, and arms in the correct position. Ah, so much to remember and coordinate. Perhaps you think that I should know all this. But this class is the most advanced I’ve ever done, we’re learning more detailed routines and completion of each movement requires much more physical eloquence, shall we say. And so I must, as Shane Wuerthner decrees, ‘Practice. For Many years.’

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A beach walk, fossicking for kelp, other seaweeds, a handful of shells. Sea urchins and starfish, a dead cormorant, and the skull of a gull. Some things I leave at the shore, some I bring home to paint because the coast is such an enigma – life and death within metres of each other. I read of the brutal beauty of coastlines and of nature this week – it was like looking through a glass darkly.

there is tenderness

And so while my small finds are drying and de-smelling in the outside air, I decide to paint the last of our berries.

There were three or four washes used and as I watched the pigment settle and then begin to fade, it spoke of medieval alchemy, even magic. It’s such a curious, alluring paint that puts this beginner student right in her place and I hear the words ‘practice makes perfect' and wonder if Shane Wuerthner just paraphrased.

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This week, while watching The Assembly – a touching, revealing and heartfelt programme with neurodivergent adults studying to be journalists - I hear of a young autistic man who also suffers from Tourette’s. In order to counter his stuttering, he set himself the task of reading and linking every word in the OED. His persistence is a lesson, especially when you hear him speak clearly and without pause.

Perhaps if I practice with words more, I too shall become as articulate.

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Music for this week? A track called Eloquent - of course. By my favourite master of AI: Kelly Boesch.