Sounds in the Silence

Away from our beloved Mountains for a week, we couldn't resist the chance to regain some altitude, and drove to the top of Mount Vincent, one of the highest points between Coopernook and Lansdowne, north of the Manning River.  It was an interesting drive, often at little more than walking pace, through damp gullies and up steep, rocky ridges - always surrounded by soaring tree trunks.

We did so because my wife's mum and aunts had told many fond tales of their childhood days at Langley Vale, a village now vanished, that once thrived near the Langley Bros Timber Mill, on the Lansdowne River.  The men of the family had worked at the mill, or cut timber for it, and the children had walked for miles across neighbouring farms and followed the old Langley Vale Tramway up through the forested gullies and ridges to picnic on the rocky heights of Mt Vincent.

The first thing that struck us was the view.  Vast sweeps of farmland and forested ridges, cut through by slow winding rivers, spread out to the south and near west.  Further out to the west, mountain ranges framed the sky, while north west soared the jagged remnants of old volcanoes, now clothed in temperate rain forest.  Even northeast, the ocean view was partially obscured by a sudden mountain. 

Distant towns, and the city of Taree were tiny specks in the vista, and a long white line of surf marked the edge of Australia and the beginning of the Pacific Ocean.

The second, notable thing was not the silence, but the sounds we could hear coming to us from miles away - cows bellowing in paddocks half a kilometre below and several kms away - the siren of an ambulance - first heard while it was still ten kms away, drawing nearer until it stopped somewhere in the village of Lansdowne.  A dog barked, and we looked down to see a tiny black speck, far below, helping its master muster cattle.

Though we live in the middle of the Blue Mountains National Park, in one of the little towns threaded like shiny beads along the Great Western Highway, and thus imagine we are in a quiet place, the silence further out, away from the surf-like roar of highways and main roads, and the accumulated hum and grumble of myriad airconditioners, mowers, cars, stereos, and businesses, is at a different order of magnitude.

Most humans now live in an ocean of sound unlike anything that has existed for most of the history of the human race - back in the village, sitting in the sun on the front verandah of the aunt's house, I was privy to every conversation in houses a hundred metres away, to the half-cocked first crowing of a young rooster on another block, the distant conversation of cattle and farm dogs, and the many birds that patrolled the yards and gardens in their constant search for food, shelter, and company.

 Silence can seem a distant memory if too many of these guys are about, though.

That I could hear  all these things so clearly (despite old ears battered by decades of violent noises and now awash in the cricket like tones of tinnitus) is testament to the amount of noise we now inflict upon ourselves and the world around us.

We adapt to the background noise after a while, just as our noses adapt to ambient smells, and our eyes to the light available.  Yet even as we adjust our perceptions, and filter out the input our brain classifies as least important, we are still buffetted by it - often to the point of significant physical and psychological stress. 

So, when you feel the need to wander among the trees, or to sit on a rock and listen to the water tumbling downstream, or to luxuriate in the crackling warmth of a campfire, far from the hustle and bustle, perhaps you are not, as some would have it, being self indulgent.  At some deeper level, you are seeking what you need for the sake of your own wellbeing.

Am I Seeing it Right?

Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art?  An oft asked question, but the apparent assumption is surely wrong - that one might be true does not mean the other must be false.  Why did I even ask the question?

Yep - I'm once again lost in the pages of an interesting book, one that began simply enough but soon began to reveal layers of interwoven complexity that had me questioning my own perceptions - not only of the words I was reading, but of memory, understanding, and my experiences with life and other people.

My encounter with The Menagerie of False Truths developed from a simple beginning that soon took on twists and turns that echo its contents.  Awake before dawn, and not wanting to disturb a sleeping household, I often put earplugs in and turn on my tiny pocket radio.  At 5 am on most Saturdays of the year, the ABC Sydney station, as well as the one on the Central Coast, broadcast a show called The Big Fish.

The name, and even the promotional material, imply a show that might largely be a one hour fishing report from various correspondents around New South Wales, when in fact it is a radio stage, across which parade a remarkable array of characters, who tell fascinating, informative, and (mostly) amusing stories about people, fish, nature, weather, and, sometimes, politics.

This particular morning I tuned in a bit late, and found myself listening to the host, Scott Levi, questioning a chap about some exotic location in which he had been fishing for trout.  The speaker, eventually identified as Greg French, was articulate and erudite, and it became apparent that he had written a number of books.  A casual angler myself, I had not previously encountered his work - audio or published - and made a mental note to check the catalogue of my local library to see if we held anything by him.

We did, though we are not yet in possession of his latest book - Water Colour - but held other items by him, including "Menagerie"  It was a title strange enough to pique my curiosity, and I ordered it sent up from the branch at which it had been reposing.

It swirls, as the pages turn, from disturbing, to amusing, to tragic, and back to disturbing, all the while informing as well as questioning.  French touches on - digs into - aspects of perception and mis-perception, understanding and mis-understanding, ability and its lack, art, life, arrogance, humility, love, anger, grief, and suffering.

Each new understanding, though, came with an awareness that there must have been much more that I had missed - a re-reading will be in order, along with diversions to investigate concepts and information previously unmet.

At the heart of this novel are the perceptions, understandings, and behaviour that arise from the differences of mind and thought that society refers to as Autism, or The Spectrum, and the effects that those differences send to ripple out through families and communities that surround such  people.  It can be too easy to forget that each of us has a particular way of perceiving and understanding the world around us, and that of course affects our responses to the world and the life in it, including other people - what we see and hear may well be quite different to what they see and hear and feel.

Like fingerprints, each world view has its own unique whorls and curls and patterns - fingerprints, like world views, are meant to help us get a grip on the world around us; each pattern, though unique, still does its job, though some do not fit their surroundings as well as others.

The world we live in is complex, from micro to macro, beyond our ability to fully understand - but understanding it is a journey worth taking. Surprises are guaranteed, but so is delight.

What's all the Crying About?

Mid Summer - The gardens are flourishing, though the pumpkin vines are running riot in every direction, threatening to overwhelm the more genteel vegetables.

Some are even threatening to rise up and strangle the apple trees.  I like pumpkins in the winter, and I like apples in the autumn - some hard choices and selective pruning will soon be in order.  But that's not what I came here to talk about today.  It's not the sights in and around my garden that have me wondering, but the sounds.

From dawn till dusk, there are two juvenile channel-billed cuckoos out there - sometimes in the trees beyond the creek, sometimes in a tree outside my bedroom window - begging, whinging, and generally harassing the poor unfortunate currawong who found herself saddled with them this year. At times it can sound so like the cry of a human baby that I have to go looking through the garden to be sure it is only the bird.

Normally this currawong raises one chick of her own and keeps it close and hidden in the trees along the creek, but something went wrong this year.  The koels had been circling the tree that the magpies had nested in, and, after much conflict and many alarms, the magpies seem to have abandoned the idea of child-raising this year.  Perhaps she was busy watching the fuss on the other side of the railway line and didn't notice the cuckoo intruder on her side.

But the noise, what a cacaphony!  It brings me to something I have wondered about before, but never had so many instances of it to compare as I have now.  There is a tone to the pleadings of the juvenile cuckoos, as well as that of juvenile currawongs, magpies, puppies, kittens, lambs, and humans, that is so similar, though it issues from such dissimilar creatures.  Few of us can resist responding to the desperate, disturbing cries of a baby, and not just human babies, but so many other babies of the animal world, who use a similar sound to express their distress, and to call for help. There are many instance recorded in various ways of cross species mothering, as canines care for baby felines, cats  for puppies, and so on.

Our mother currawong, for example, brings food to the begging cuckoo, but hesitates each time, until the cries from the young bird become absolutely frantic.  With her own chicks, the food is offered instantly - she knows there is something wrong about this one, but has raised this creature from a little ball of downy fluff, and cannot resist the impassioned and desperate pleading.  Our Magpie landlords are not impressed, and if she brings them near the house, they are quick to sound the alarm, and swoop in to drive them away.

Earlier, as I walked through the village, having bought milk and bread for the grandchildren I knew would be visiting a bit later in the day, I found myself instinctively turning around everytime some child yelled "grandma" or "grandpa" - it happened several times, as Wentworth Falls and its cafes attracts many families during the school holidays.  Most of us seem to be affected by it, as I saw other heads turning, too. 

There have been papers and articles aplenty over the years looking at the topic, for example, this one here   As the wonderful Professor Sumner-Miller used to so often say, all those year ago "Why is it so?" There was an excellent story teller - eccentric, and at times erratic, but we knew that he would take us to interesting conclusions, so we were happy to sit through those moments in return for the drama in the middle, and the interesting conclusions.

Having trouble telling your own story?  So was I, this morning - the temperature outside, and in, is soaring beyond any reasonable level for the Mountains, and I am weary from too much furniture moving and driving (an adult child on the move) but, as usual, once the words begin to flow, I remember the joy that comes at the finish of each creative effort.  The effort of working is never as bad as the pain of anticipating the work - though I have to admit that if the weather were cooler, I would have found it much harder to abandon the garden for the keyboard.

The Graduate

Recently I watched The Graduate (Dustin Hofman, Anne Bancroft - music by Simon and Garfunkel) - made in 1967, the year of The Summer of Love.  The USofA and the world in general was in the throes of great social change.  The waves made during that summer spread through society - its morals, work, culture, and politics. The Graduate seemed to be meant to reflect the cultural clash between the generation that had survived World War Two, and their children.

At the time it was promoted as both a drama and a comedy - now, at times, in modern eyes, it seems quite creepy, and I struggled to find any humour in it at all.  Almost everyone in the movie is trying to impose their will on someone else.  Hofman's character seemed very wooden by any modern standard of acting - was that meant to depict some internal emotional turmoil, or perhaps an attempt to show a character we would now describe as "On the Spectrum"?

His treatment of the ultimate target of his affections - Elaine, the daughter of his lover - can only be described as stalking, and the denoument at the wedding looks more like an abduction than a mutual flight into a romantic future. Although Elaine finally reacts against the demands of her parents and older relatives by fleeing the church in which she was about to marry the man her parents had chosen for her, their reactions to each other as the bus takes them away from the church left this viewer wondering if she was already beginning to wonder which future was the frying pan and which the fire.

I was in High School when this movie was released, and not quite old enough to be allowed in to the cinema to watch it on my own.  If I had seen it then, I wonder what effect it might have had on my developing adolescent personality.  The music was great, but the plot and resolution of the movie were disturbing, to say the least, and must have seriously confused many an adolescent as they went through that difficult time of trying to establish an identity of their own.

How, I wonder, would I have reacted to that movie, as a teen?  Watching it for the first time in my sixties was to see it through the eyes of someone who has personally experienced, as well as observed in others, the complications, both joyous and tragic, that love and lust can bring to life.  I am sure the two viewpoints are vastly different - have you belatedly watched a movie that was part of the canon of your youthful times, and how did you find it, compared to the way it was received back then?

Book Review

Last Hope Island, by historian Lynne Olson, is a moving and informative book that takes the reader, by way of personal stories, deeply into the heights and depths of Europe as it slid towards, suffered through, and struggled to recover from, World War II.

Many histories of major events tend to follow a similar road - attempting to take the reader on a linear journey along the  time line that runs from an arbitrary beginning through to some official end.  Olson doesn't obscure those moments, but cuts away the often confusing morass of "facts and figures" by showing us the involvment of individuals, as well as of various groups.

Many of these individuals - their actions, behaviour, and personal qualities, good and bad - will come as a surprise to even the best read devotee of this part of recent human history.  Likewise the involvement of many national groups - politicians, military personnel, and civilians - who recognised the need to escape and resist Nazi control, and for various reasons, ended up in Britain.  Many arrived during those darkest of days, during and after Dunkirk, though there was also a remarkable exodus of Poles and Czechs who managed to reach Britain before the invasion of France, Belgium, and Holland, and who went on to do great things in the what looked like being Britain's last stand.

I won't spoil the surprises to be found in this book other than to say that the tales that Olson relates will offer you great insights into acts of heroism, brilliance, tragedy, triumph, cowardice, and bungling that are rarely remembered nowadays - and into the reasons the world took the shape that it did in the second half of the twentieth century.

Many of those acts have slipped from the official histories -  sometimes for good reason, and sometimes to protect people in high places.  You will find in these pages some names that will suprise you, and you may gain a fresh understanding of  the lives and actions of those people over the decades after the war ended - though there are some who wonder if that war did end in 1945.

The book also shows just how sadly history does repeat itself, and I wonder if you, as I did, will find at many points some very poignant and disturbing parallels with the world we are living in today.

Many people and peoples were betrayed - before, during, and after the war - for reasons that were later glossed over as "matters of state" or "grand principle" but were, at the time, decisions made on the basis of prejudice, personal ambition, or personal ignorance.  Olson's writings cannot but help to make us wonder just how many of our current leaders are acting the same way.

Look closely and you will find more than one "war hero" who is famed for some action that shortened the war and saved many lives, who at some other time made a decision that had the opposite effect.

No single book could possibly encompass the entirety of a period like World War II, but Olson, in this book, has cut to the heart of some of the most crucial, world-shaping moments of that time, and has done so in an eminently readable fashion.

Those Freakish Moments

I have often noticed that people are killed or injured in incidents involving nature or weather that are deemed by the witnesses or the media to have been "freak" - a freak wave, a freak storm, a freak flood, and so on.

But, take those freak waves -  how freakish were they, really?  There is a growing body of science dedicated to understanding such waves - they do exist, but any properly taught rock fisherman, surfer, or boatie, knows just how life preserving are those minutes and hours spent standing back from the water, observing.

I learned while quite young that watching the rock platforms I was intending to fish from could be the most important 15 minutes of the whole trip.  I also learned the hard way that even those 15 minutes of observation might not forearm me sufficiently against the waves that the complex interplay of wind, tide, and current could throw at me - and that even the most experienced fishereman in my family could not always predict all of them.  Likewise, my years in the Boy Scouts were replete with lessons that helped me identify potential hazards when hiking, or camping, and techniques to deal with those hazards.

Failing to learn about the risks, and failing to maintain vigilance towards every aspect of the environment you are in will too often prove fatal - whereas learning about the risks inherent in that environment, and staying alert to them will vastly improve your chances.

As an example, how often do we see images or videos of people doing insanely dangerous things, like fishing for Barramundi while standing waist deep in muddy waters, only metres from a big, bold, brightly coloured "Beware of Crocodiles" sign?

In our socienty, signs, brochures, websites, and TV shows that inform and warn of the dangers of fire, flood, storm, slippery cliff edges, dangerous animals (and humans) and so many other risks, are abundant, and are too often ignored, or treated as mere entertainment, whose lessons need not be carried over into the real life of the viewer.  Perversely, the more signs there are, the more inclined people seem to be to ignore them.

YouTube is awash with clips of people risking disablement, disfigurement or death doing risky things for the camera while their friends urge them on and laugh at their falls and collisions - the people from The Darwin Awards are never short of material to consider as they choose the annual winners of their "prize".

As someone who has lived, worked, and played in city, bush, river, and ocean, and who spent much of his life in some sort of emergency service (both paid and volunteeer) I can only ask, over and over, "Why?".  Most people would be astounded to know how often the Blue Mountains Rescue services are called out to retrieve the body of another tourist who felt the need climb over the safety railings so as to add to their holiday snaps a selfy of themselves at the very edge of one of our many 500 metre high cliffs.  One retired Police Rescue officer I know has often called such people out on their behaviour - it worries him so much that he finds it hard to enjoy the simple pleasures of walking one of our beautiful, cliff top trails.

I was fortunate - as a child and young adult I heard a lot of stories from family - fishers, farmers, police - that taught me a great deal about the risks.

Did it scare me into staying inside?  Not at all - those stories were full of the clues and signs I would need to watch for, but also full of the sense of joy and adventure to be had in the wider world.

Those stories inspired me, even as they made me safer.  Did they make my life risk and trouble free?  No way - I was a young human, full of curiosity and over confidence.  The stories didn't stop me from trying new things and going new places, but they also saved my life more than once.

More than ever the human race needs stories that honestly set out the risks and dangers that are inherent in our pasage through time and space, and not just the physical risks, but the moral and spiritual risks as well. The stories exist - the trick seems to bve connecting those who can tell the stories with those who need to hear them.

For people of  my age, the fables and fairy stories of our childhood contained many of those lessons, and seem to have been designed, in some far distant past, by some wise old bard, for just such a purpose.  A wonderful writer on this topic is Kate Forsyth - as well as writing some great fiction, she has written a number of works addressing the lineage and value of fairy tales, and given some excellent interviews on the ABC - well worth listening to.

In a world awash with so many stories of dubious worth or so little meaning, we need stories and story tellers that can help us, our children, and our neighbours, identify the stories of true worth.

They are often closer than you think.  Have you spoken to that worn or weathered neighbour?  That wear and tear was accumulated during the building of their life story - say hello and you might hear stories you need (and will enjoy)

Stories lost, and found.

In the galaxy of stories that is humanity, each of us orbits among the other stars of our home constellations, spinning our yarns into the thread of our story and weaving it into the vast, complex spiral.  Some weave tightly, close to other stars, warming each other, bending each others trajectories - some soar alone through the gaps and along the rim.

When a story-teller ends, when the flame sputters to its end, the constellation changes shape, and memories begin to fade and fragment.  The once tightly ordered solar system becomes a debris field to be swept up by others - or ignored and forgotten.

Though the once bright fire has been extinguished, there are still sparks and embers to be found that can tell of the glories that were, and keep some chapters, paragraphs, or even just a few phrases of the story, alive in other orbits.

Sifting through such a debris field can be joyful and utterly melancholy in the same minutes.  A dusty hoard of old cards and letters will reveal traces of dreams and nightmares, and hopes fulfilled or dashed, or even a squirrel-cache of notes or coins. A hidden diary or box of letters may reveal a surprising, even shocking, turn of events or emotions that had never been revealed before.

Carefully ordered craft cupboards, work-benches, and garden sheds have changed from places of purposeful resources to mere piles of souvenirs, as the family archaeologists assess, evaluate, allocate, or discard.

Yet, as we sort, each object still carries faint vibrations or echoes of its original task in the long story that has now ended.   A single photograph can bring all work to a stop, as the memories awaken, and a part of the story is called forth and handed around to be savoured and cherished at least one last time.  A special cup or teapot from childhood visits, long ago, or the hand-made apron that allowed the visitor to join in the work at the kitchen table, and the searcher is back in the early days of their own story.

And so the severed threads can be woven into another part of the great tapestry, continuing a weave and weft that may have been handed on over many generations. Souvenirs are often found that tell of lives generations past - artefacts that have been gathered in other long ago expeditions to other darkened stars.  We are fortunate, who can sit with friends and family, amid the tears and the laughter, and dwell again in the golden age of childhood that such fragments evoke.

As well as nostalgia, there is the carefully preserved evidence of a world that no longer exists, and we remember how much has changed even in the course of our own lifetimes, let alone in the lives of those who came not so many decades before us. It often yields clues that allow the investigator to chart and date the beginning of the decline that precedes most ends, and offers all sorts of little lessons in ways that life can be lived, and enjoyed, and managed, and endured.  Those of us who can embark on such expeditions are fortunate, for so many stories end suddenly, catastrophically, or even intentionally, and final chapters are left unwritten, or erased.

Look around your constellation - cherish your stories and theirs; they can so easily be lost forever.

Reality? Really?

Nobody could be that stupid, could they?

How often have you encountered a moment in a book or film that has provoked that response?  You look at the thing the character has just said or done and immediately condemn the author or screenwriter, and your willing suspension of disbelief takes a serious hit.

But why?  I don't know about you, but it is a rare day in my life that contains no such acts of stupidity - some of them are even perpetrated by my own well-intentioned self, and don't ask what my evil self gets up to - for that you will just have to buy the book (if it gets published).

But think about the seemingly unbelievable behaviour you have seen authors inflict on their characters and then think about the last time you walked through a busy town centre or mall, or along a highway, or even along the sort of relatively quiet streets that surround my home.  What about weddings, family get togethers, end of year parties in the workplace, or any gathering of humans large and noisy enough to allow an individual to feel anonymous?

Pay attention to your fellow human beings for even a few minutes - you will quickly fill a page or two in your notebook with misdeeds - foolish, stupid, and sometimes, downright malicious - that were committed out there in full view of the public.  Imagine what those people do when they think nobody is watching?  Perhaps they did think there were no witnesses?

Not enough?  Turn on the news and watch as people get themselves and others killed or maimed, as politicians say or do remarkably idiotic things, as police or security guards forget that they are operating under the unblinking gaze of public security cameras, and in the presence of a population that is armed with more data gathering and storage capacity than was dreamed of even a decade ago.

How often have you seen some wealthy and powerful individual facing the Press scrum on the courthouse steps and wondered "Why - he had everything anyone could want, why would he steal more/do that?"  More than one police officer has said to me "thank heavens so many criminals are stupid - it makes our job so much easier"

So don't condemn the author too quickly - chances are that the unbelievable bit of stupidity that one of their characters has just committed is identical with something the author has seen (or even done) in real life.  You only have to look at the annual Darwin Awards to get a sense of just how far human beings can go with something that "seemed like a good idea at the time"  If that isn't enough, there is the vast, on-line collection of videos by people, of themselves, or their nearest and dearest, pushing that "good idea" just that bit too far.

More often than not, my short stories include snippets of behaviour gleaned from that great jumbled warehouse I call Memory - much of it from an age in which, thankfully, smartphones and their miraculous recording abilities did not exist.  I have at times left out or toned down incidents that I felt might present as beyond credibility, and not just because I feared a libel action. Perhaps it was wisdom on my part, perhaps a lack of courage - but thinking about it makes me respect those writers who have been braver.

I am trying to write further into those crazier, darker aspects of human life, even if I have not yet felt able to reveal any of those pieces to critical eyes.  For what it's worth, though, I can recommend doing it, even if you tear the paper up, shred it, and feed it into a hot incinerator after writing - if it is there in your consciousness, it is asking to be written.  How can you say no?