Baggage We Pack, Baggage We Carry

I bring up Dad’s small case from the garage, a piece of carry-on luggage, still with its Qantas tag attached.

In their day my parents crisscrossed the globe for business and pleasure. They made friends all over the world. In the 80s Dad was a director of Qantas. One year he and Mum flew on behalf of Qantas to the Boeing factory in Seattle to pick up a new 747-400 plane, ‘The City of Perth’.

Now the case is dusty with disuse. I bang it until the dust rises in a cloud. I pack into it a few pairs of trousers, some shirts and singlets, socks and toiletries. His needs are few these days. My heart aches looking at this case. This is no glamorous trip I’m preparing him for. Next Monday my dad will be checking into a nursing home for a few weeks’ respite. If it’s a success he might stay on.

In one of my dad’s notebooks there is a list of the clothes he used to pack for his overseas trips, all written in his distinctive handwriting with columns alongside for ticks as each item was added to the case. Now he has no idea how to pack or what to take.

The day I made the call to book Dad into the nursing home, I woke in the middle of the night, thinking about my Auntie Helen. When Helen was 20 and her younger brother Harry 18, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and their parents, my grandparents, made her take him to Royal Park Psychiatric Hospital to be committed.

Although Harry’s behaviour was unpredictable and frightening and he needed treatment, and it was her parents’ decision not hers, Helen bore the guilt of her brother’s long incarceration for the rest of her life.

My uncle was given the treatment of the day – insulin coma therapy, where large doses of insulin were administered to induce a coma. My chest tightens when I read in the notes that he was very apprehensive about his treatment but his symptoms did abate. He was released but then the symptoms returned and he lived in institutions for the rest of his life. I remember him as a shambling wreck of a man, disheveled, incoherent and toothless.

Whenever I read of abuse and mistreatment in institutions I think of my uncle and wonder what he put up with. It doesn’t take a genius to work out why I am inundated with thoughts of Harry right now.

I decided to try a temporary placement for my dad in a nursing home because I felt he was becoming a prisoner in his own home. Because of his frailty, incontinence and confusion it’s become difficult to take him out of the house. In fact his only outings now are when I take him to the doctor. He does have the occasional visitor, but mostly he sits alone with his carers. Well-fed and well-cared for, but socially isolated. My hope is that a nursing home will provide activities and company.

I’ll be watching carefully. This is a light airy place, not the closed institution my uncle endured, but still I’m worried about this transition. I hope I’m making the right decision, and that it doesn’t worsen his condition. Time will tell, I guess. Meanwhile, I pack his suitcase with an aching heart.

Farewell 2011

On the last day of the year, while we were still in bed, I read aloud to Farmdoc from an article in The New Yorker by Calvin Trillin. The article is about Trillin’s repertoire of recipes. There is some discussion in the piece about how complex a dish needs to be (for example how many ingredients it must have, and whether it needs a stove) to be included in the repertoire. It’s a charming, funny, and even moving piece of writing.

Farmdoc’s own repertoire has changed recently. He no longer bakes his delicious chocolate cake, among other sweet treats, and the ice cream maker now sits unused in a dark corner of the pantry. His diet these days is as low in sugar, salt and fat, and as rich in fibre, fruit and vegetables as he can make it.

When we finally got up, we ate Farmdoc’s famous stoneground muesli hot cakes for breakfast. I had mine with stewed sour cherry compote. Those cherries are delish but in the morning light I discovered that I had splashed the wall with their juice while pitting them. Oops! I have to admit that the table was a little sticky too.

In the vegetable garden we picked raspberries, transplanted seedlings and dug up potatoes that had volunteered from the previous year’s leftovers and were threatening to take over every bed.

For morning tea we ate Farmdoc’s tahini cookies (recipe courtesy Daughter Number Two).

 

In the afternoon, while Farmdoc went for his walk (10,000 steps a day), I worked in the sycamore forest, showcasing the ferns as I like to do.

Late in the afternoon we lit the stove and Farmdoc baked a loaf of rye bread for dinner, and I made raspberry jam. Recipe here. I made more jars than I’d intended, but it’s easy jam to make and it’s lovely to have on hand for gifts during the long Tasmanian winter.

We had intended to slash some bracken in Home Paddock in the cool of the evening, but it grew dark before we had a chance to get out.

For dinner we ate our share-farmer Sharon’s eggs with the potatoes we’d dug in the morning and Farmdoc’s fresh bread. I was tired and didn’t quite make it to midnight.

So the year ended.

2011 was a big year for us at Onemilebridge. Farmdoc is glad it’s over. I don’t know if I am. It was such a rewarding year, how can I be glad it’s gone? Those days that Farmdoc was in hospital were terrifying, that’s true; the first weeks afterwards were worrying too, and I know he’s still anxious about his future.

But I’m grateful for the year’s bounty and I’m grateful beyond words, beyond measure, for the love and support of my family and friends – both in person and in the blogosphere. I am so much richer for it. 

I wonder what 2012 has in store for us. I for one am ready for whatever it brings - its joys and its challenges. Happy new year to us all.

Time Off

I haven’t written for weeks now because I was busy with family stuff. My brain was full of guest lists and acceptances and MFA programmes and American geography.

I’ve begun to write again now but it’s slow and, as usual, I’m afraid it won’t come back.

But what I know, what I’ve learned from experience, is that when you do go away from the writing it always comes back, and usually stronger than ever. It’s like there’s this whole factory of whirring machines that manufacture the writing, and while you’re away the machines keep going. They slow down but they don’t stop. When you return you need to remind yourself again which buttons to push and which levers to pull, but once the machinery is back up to speed the writing’s even better than it was before.

So, though I wish I didn’t leave the factory, and I hate that rusty feeling and it scares me, in the end I’m usually glad for it because the writing feels stronger and more assured. Plus whatever I’ve been doing feeds me and my work in some way and that’s probably the most important thing of all.