Creative Writers Group - Nelma

MUSIC BOX DANCER

2008-02-17T08:08:00.000+10:00

I pretend I’m not here. I don’t look into the eyes of the men who watch me. Leering, lustful eyes – almost the raincoat brigade. Sometimes they touch the girls, making the excuse of poking money into their bra or g-string. I stay back far enough from the edge of the stage so they can’t put their paws on me.

I’ve learnt to gyrate in a way to rouse passion. I take off enough of my costume for their jaws to fall open. I touch my own body. I hate every move I make and every face watching me.

The place is seedy – you should see it in the day light hours – ugly and dirty, but at night with the lights and the mirrors it looks glamorous enough. Most of the other girls earn themselves a bit of extra money on the side – easy to do – just let them slip their fingers into your bra or g-string and accept their invitation. There’s a room at the back, with a constant flow of traffic all night long.

I won’t do it. The raw sex that is on display and on sale here has put me off for ever I think. Its all empty – the sliding up and down the poles, the flaunting of the body. The sex I think would be soul destroying.

Because I appear to be a bit stand off-ish the ‘musical director’ decided I could have a special spot. Sort of sex cloaked in innocence. I wear pink tulle, a skirt like a ballerina would wear. They slide the mirrors in a bit closer and angle them around me and my pole. The music is tinny and repetitive. I’m supposed to look like a little girl.

I rise and go on my toes – all that ballet training finally coming in useful – I hold my arms up and pirouette around and around. I can see myself reflected in the glass. I go away into the image as I shed my costume and my innocence – I’m a music box dancer, so pretty, so young. Tinkling, tinkling music. I see my music box, my white music box with pink flowers painted on the lid, and I remember lifting the lid and the dancer – so young, so innocent – rising up and turning round and round. Her face was blank when you looked closely and she turned and turned on demand.

I am the music box dancer.

Nelma Ward
December 2007 ©

MY FAVOURITE PLACE by Nelma Ward

2008-02-17T08:05:00.000+10:00

You’d like to know my favourite place – I can’t tell you one. For me, its places. And times. They are linked somehow, to make a place a favourite. Some of them are geographically impossible to locate. I could not take you to them and say ‘This is it’ – all I could do is say ‘Somewhere around here, on a special day, at a particular moment, when I was feeling this certain way, this was a favourite place of mine’. The ones I could take you too are fragile things too – who said they can’t be burned down or collapse? But all are very real, very precious to me. I’ll tell you about them.

Kings College Chapel, Cambridge, England. I stood in that soaring, beautiful, ethereal place, overcome by the history, by the light, by the fact that I was there. Pale stonework, impossibly light and floating.

Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France. I stood in front of the rose window, a page from my high school art book come to life. Stillness, hush, candles burning in a row. Tears running down my face. And I have not got one religious bone in my body.

Red Fox Inn, countryside, Ireland. Mist, light drizzling rain. Wet landscape, peat smoke, cocoa coloured whippets laying by a fireplace, a cup of rich coffee, well laced with whiskey in my cold hands, all of Ireland before me to explore.

The Globe Theatre, London, England. Standing for two and half hours, feet numb in the cold, the actors almost within hands reach, Shakespeare’s words, the sense of history overwhelming. The best, the most unforgettable, theatrical experience of my life.

Cable Beach Resort, Broome, West Australia. A real Kimberly moon reflected in to the black sea. Sitting on cushions on a wide expanse of lawn, a glass of red wine in my hand, the air warm and soft. The beautiful Latin music of Jane Rutter’s flute and Slava Giorgorian’s guitar enveloping me.

A hillside, Tamborine Mountain, Queensland. A freezing cold night, just having had a beautiful meal in a cosy restaurant, sharing a bottle of champagne whilst standing in the dark beside our friend’s luxurious Mercedes Benz, the car sound system playing an operatic tape. The whole of the Gold Coast stretched out before us, golden twinkling lights weaving a glorious lacy tracery, and the moon, full and pale, making the true postcard perfect path across the sea. Good, good friends to share this with.

French ‘palace’, hillside, Chau Doc, Vietnam. Late afternoon, standing with my son, who I had not seen for a year before this trip, and our lovely young Vietnamese guide, on the terrace of a ‘palace’, on a hillside outside the Mekong Delta township of Chau Doc. A red disk of sun, vivid wild red, through the grey clouds, and haze from the burning rice fields. As the sun fell like a stone to the horizon the sky was infused with a mystical golden light, turning to a luminous pink, which reflected onto the canals crisscrossing the lush green landscape. There are tigers in the hills here.

Outside Boulia, Queensland. Late afternoon, rushing to make Boulia which is almost on the Northern Territory border, before dark. Stopping at the top of a hill, standing in the soft gold light, the sun sending its last rays horizontally across the miles of miles of red and gold landscape stretched in front of us. Silvery grey low vegetation, absolute quietness, grey-mauve dry fluffy wildflowers at our feet. Unlimitless space.

The sky, Massey, Darling Downs, Queensland. Gliding in a thermal, round and round in the blue intoxicating air, surrounded by circling ibises – flying with the birds.

A certain spot on the road between Greenmount and Nobby, Darling Downs, Queensland. Every different time of the day, every different season, the colours of this magnificent valley are transformed. Every time it takes my breath away.

I could go on and on. I won’t. These are just a few of the places that I hold in my heart.

© Nelma Ward

SATURDAY MEETINGS

2008-02-17T08:01:00.001+10:00

The lot of us met on Saturday afternoon as arranged. I’d been waiting for this for a long time. Now at last I was old enough to join the rest of the devotees, for that’s how I think of us – devoted to a cause.

Of course every young man in this community thinks that one day they’ll be invited to join the others. They check you out first of course. Find out whether your like-minded. I am. Always have been.

I know there’s a lot of bad press about us. Scathing pieces in the newspapers and so on. I don’t think they realise that we have lots of influential people in our group. Pillars of the community – doctors, lawyers and so on, as well as the ordinary folk, the truck drivers, the labourers. Doesn’t matter what you do, if you feel strongly about this matter you’ll be accepted into the group.

So I went along. A few of the older guys came up and shook my hand. They looked me straight in the eye and asked if I was up for it. Up for it! I was trembling with anticipation, wondering what it would feel like, how it would be to finally do something about this problem. To make my mark.

I hoped our efforts today would have a result. We had our target picked – that much I knew. It was a short walk, all of us together, feet and hearts beating as one. I liked the idea of a uniform too. All white, pristine – clean looking, somehow. I’m not too worried about the anonymity aspect really – but the older, wiser heads say that it’s a good thing. I don’t know … some part of me wanted to be recognised. It would have been great to have people who aren’t in these hallowed ranks come up and say ‘good on ya – I’ve wanted to do that for a long time’.

So, now here I was – amongst my heroes, in a long white robe. I’m the one fifth back from the burning cross in the photo which was in the local paper. When the trial started – murder was the charge – that photo went all over the world.
Odd, isn’t it – my first Saturday afternoon meeting, and unlucky enough to be caught in what they say was ‘the most brutal attack this Southern state has seen in many years’. I can still hear the older men, my heroes, my role models, cheering me on, and I can still feel that excitement as I went at the enemy. But that’s the trouble, isn’t it – most people don’t seem to understand about the enemy. I’ve known about it ever since my daddy told me. He’s in the photo too.

You can see that I’m not used to the tall pointed white hood as I’ve put my hand up to steady it. And my hand is slightly covering the three initials emblazoned on it. The three important initials – in my mind the three most important initials in the world. The next hood I’ll wear, so they tell me, wont be a white one, and no initials this time – just something to hide my face as I’m sent to my Maker.

© Nelma Ward

CORPORATE CORPSE

2007-06-03T15:56:00.001+10:00

Ewan had always enjoyed overtime until now. Overtime was something he chose to do – the 26th floor was silent, with the floor to ceiling windows behind his chair glassy, black and silent at night. He could get work done, with no interruptions.
Not that he didn’t get work done during normal hours. The office block itself was most conducive to getting things done thoroughly and efficiently in the corporate world. It was an ultra modern building, glossy marble walls, shining stainless steel fittings, all sharp angles and streamlined. It said ‘no nonsense’.
The staff responded – desks were clean and shining, papers neat symmetrical piles, computer screens without the usual lurid saver screens, and no cutesy-pie fluffy neon coloured monkeys or bears perched around the work stations.
It was a pristine slick environment and Ewan responded fully. Not that he was behind in his work, he just liked to stay on and get himself absolutely up to date, and totally on top of things.
He was a conscientious young man, proud of his career, and with just the right amount of ambition to make his way up in this company. In a few years he expected to be climbing those ladder rungs quickly! Competition was fierce, and he liked to be seen working hard and in control.
He finished the spread sheet, considered for a moment if he needed to do any more, decided not, saved his work, turned off the main lights and stooped to collect his brief case from behind the desk.
He paused – was that the lift doors to the floor opening and then closing? Couldn’t be. He was always alone at night and who else would be coming to this floor at this hour of the night? Still, very strange.
He stood to leave, and with a heart lurching start found himself confronted by a woman standing silently in his doorway. Backlit by the corridor lights, but also illuminated by his computer screen, he could see her clearly. Small, finely boned, business suit, hands clasped demurely in front. The thing that stopped him, froze him in his tracks, and prevented the words ‘God, you startled me. Can I help you?’ from forming, were her eyes.
Her eyes were huge, dark, looking past him. What was the word that described that look? Some old fashioned word? Melancholic, that was what it was. Dark, imploring, staring, melancholic eyes.
He stood, frozen to the spot, a feeling of dread, or horror, settling on him. She walked silently past him, not acknowledging him at all, with light purposeful steps – she knew where she was going in his office. When she reached the dark reflecting windows behind his desk, she seemed to lift up, smashed through – although silently – glass raining in sparking shards, and was gone.
His breath came in pants. He put out his hand – far too late. He followed her path, drawn but terrified. The window appeared to be perfectly intact. He knew, just knew, it wasn’t. Ewan stepped closer, stopped a good safe distance back, and reached out his hand, putting the ball of his thumb to touch the cold shining surface of the black window. His hand went through – out, out into the warm ether. Not the ‘outside’, as he knew it, but a deepening, drawing darkness. With a yelp of horror he pulled his hand back, gathered up his brief case, rushed from the office and into the waiting lift. In the few seconds it took to reach the ground floor he leant against the lift wall, cold with shock.
In the foyer he almost ran to the security guard at the marble reception desk. ‘Did anyone go up to 26 a little while ago?’ he managed to ask.
‘No, shouldn’t have thought so’, the guard replied, and looked down at his monitors, pressed something and reviewed a good hour in a flash. ‘No, no-one’, he said, looking up. ‘Why, did you…’
‘No, no’, Ewan responded quickly. ‘No, just, just….no, no worries’ and hurried out.
On the street on his way to the rail station he looked up at his side of the building. He had never been able to isolate his window, and shaken as he was now, and with a new intent for locating it, he still couldn’t.
At home, he did something totally uncharacteristic. Two quick glasses of Scotch, before a fitful sleep. He kept waking with huge starts of fright. Coldness enveloped him.
The next morning, on approaching his building, he felt so hung over from the lack of sleep and the hours he had spent wondering if he had seen anything, if he had imagined it all, and if he had seen something, what it could possibly have been, that he didn’t notice the milling group of colleagues or the yellow and black diagonally striped safety ribbon cordoning off part of the footpath, until he was almost upon them.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘A window pane fell out of one of the floors’, someone replied. The group was mainly male, smoking, drinking coffee from take away corrugated cardboard cups, one fellow perched on the edge of a planter box using his lap top.
‘Twenty sixth floor’, someone added.
‘No the first time either’, another guy said, stubbing out his cigarette butt with his toe cap. ‘Didn’t that happen a few years ago? Glass fell from the 26th floor?’
‘No way’, an older man said. ‘That was the previous building, the block that was here before this tower. Remember? But that was caused by a suicide, don’t you remember? That woman….’
‘Yes, yes, sure,’ said the first guy. ‘That woman CEO. The company went down the tube. The building was torn down a bit later, and this one built. Sure, I remember. She copped the whole lot, remember? The Board didn’t stand by her. She came up here one night and went out through the window. Splat!’ He looked to where the shards of glass shone, sprinkled over the footpath behind the yellow and black blockade ribbons.
‘That’s right’, another voice chimed in, ‘It was the top floor of that building, wasn’t it? Her penthouse office. Of course, this block’s miles taller.’
‘Hey, look, I’ve just Googled it’, the guy with the lap top said. ‘Yeah. You’re right. She jumped. Christ! Hey, and ten years ago yesterday, would you believe? Here’s a photo of her’. He spun the screen towards a part of the group, who leaned in and looked.
Ewan leant forward. The screen tilted towards him.
‘God,’ the lap top guy said. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost! Did you know her?’
‘No, no’, said Ewan. The computer photo looked back at him. A small, finely boned woman, hands primly clasped on the desk in front of her. Big, dark eyes. Eyes that now seemed to look straight at him.
‘No, no,’ he said again. Waves of icy cold horror rising until they prickled his very scalp. ‘No, I don’t know her. I saw her once though, only for a moment’.
Ewan stood in the sunlight, cold and gripped with a sickening fear. He looked around. Laptop, coffee in take away cups, motor vehicles in the street behind. All modern twenty first century things. The stuff this nightmare belonged to was hundreds of years ago, in a dark mansion on a cold wet windswept moor. It could not be happening, and not to him. He could not let anyone see that he was terrified. No one could see any weakness in him. He was after all on his way up.
‘You don’t look good, mate’, one of the men said, looking at him intently.
Ewan tried to laugh it off. ‘Yeah’, he said. ‘I know. I look as if I’ve seen a ghost’.

©Nelma Ward

2007-05-01T20:44:00.000+10:00

CONNECTIONS

This exercise by the Clifton Creative Writers Group involved writing a short piece, using the last word of each line as the first word of the following line. The theme was ‘Connections’. I chose to write four little (non-connected) poems, which somehow ended up being about lack of connection.

You are never here when needed
Needed by me, to fill an empty space,
Space that is caused by our lack of connection.
Connection should be vital to me and you
You who are never here.
Here is where you should be.
Be connected.

---

I don’t think we get on at all
All those fights
Fights which end in tears
Tears that are now no longer genuine
Genuine feelings being gone from our relationship
Relationship which has come to an end
End of our connection.

---

What is a connection?
Connection can be defined in many ways.
Ways which are foreign to you
You who do not understand.
Understand me now
Now that I am strong enough to say goodbye
Goodbye my one time friend.

---

Is this a bad connection?
Connection by telephone across the continents
Continents which are currently being explored by you
You have no idea of what you’ve left at home
Home not being where your heart is.
Is this a bad connection?

© Nelma Ward

BIBITORY

2007-04-27T10:45:00.001+10:00

Old English word, not in current useage, - muscle that draws the eye down when you drink.

This was an exercise we carried out at Clifton Creative Writers Club, using the above word in a short piece.

I probably have an over active bibitory, or certainly one which has had lots of exercise.
Not an awfully useful muscle I must admit, but when it does work it sure has some variety to look at!
The cups that I have used, bibitory working away, hold many things, but to get that excited muscle twitching it works best when the cup holds red wine, white wine, champagne, Baileys, port, sherry, gin, vodka or even beer.
In the case where the cup holds some ordinary liquid – tea, coffee, or juice – the bibitory doesn’t get very excited at all, and if its plain water, well, forget it.
Theres something very seductive about the colour and texture of red, wine, white wine and so on, and as I’m a great believer in exercise, I diligently give my bibitory a daily work out.

© Nelma Ward

THE MYSTERY OF MICROWAVE MAILBOXES

2007-03-21T17:09:00.000+10:00

This little piece evolved from a subject raised by one of the Clifton Writers Group members - she wondered why this strange phenonomen occurred.

The mystery of microwave letterboxes? No, there is no mystery. We are Australians – we do things like that. Why, I’ve seen letterboxes made from cream cans, petrol cans, ice cream containers, and in the shape of goats, sheep, crocodiles, frogs, birds and various motor vehicles. Not to mention the one made of an old bicycle, where the poor put upon postie had to insert the letter in the little tool pouch that hung under the saddle.
We love doing things like that, and if you’ve got a perfectly good – although apparently non-working – microwave, your mind may just cast about for a good use – it closes, its waterproof, its, well, its not good taste, but then who’s worrying about that. The damn thing cost you several hundred dollars, lasted for the requisite amount of time microwave makers allow these days – say, six months, nine at max – and you want to feel you’ve had some use out of it.
We can’t live without microwaves, and where do all the blown up ones go? Well, not all to become mailboxes, but for those inclined to recycling, what a jolly good idea.
You probably have to be a certain sort of Australian to use your defunct microwave as your receptacle for your mail – a resourceful type, a bit of a larrikin, someone who wants passers by to look and remark on it, and therefore on you. You’re probably lurking out behind the bottlebrush waiting to hear the comments. People travelling past probably come to a screeching halt and leap out and take a photograph before zooming off again. They probably show their friends – look what this funny old bugger had as his mail box.
No, when you think about it, there’s a certain amount of panache to be had, having a microwave mailbox. I’d draw the line at a fridge mailbox in suburbia, but I have seen them beside the road in the outback. Another clever and sensible idea. Lots of room inside, things protected from the weather, and quite durable in the heat and dust.
My own mail box is a very tasteful brass slot in a very tasteful cream brick wall, but now that I think of it, my microwave (one of the very early ones, hence its longevity) must be about due to blow up. I wonder whether I should have waited for the inevitable day when smoke issued from the microwave and my husband said, ‘Now, what the hell are we going to do with this thing?’

© Nelma Ward

ANIMALS

2007-03-07T12:11:00.000+10:00

ANIMAL

Animals are animals. They’re not cute, or cuddly or safe.

Have you seen the photograph in the press of the man with his head in the crocodile’s jaws – his ‘friend’, the one hes raised, the one who loves him? Oh yeah, lets all wait till the piece appears entitled ‘Man Decapitated By Pet’.

Animals are different to us. They’re not human. They don’t possess human qualities. Sure, monkeys use tools, and murder each other – very human characteristics – but they’re not human. They turn on you in a flash.

Haven’t you even been raked by sharp, malicious claws by the quiet, wouldn’t hurt a fly, family pet, the cat? You only tried to take his bowl off him and he attacked. Has you beloved pet dog, little lap dog – wouldn’t hurt a fly pet – turned on you with snarling teeth, ready to fly at your throat because you took a stuffed toy – his, yes – but he was ripping it to shreds – off him?

They are animals – ‘farmer gored by house cow’ – no matter how much we domesticate them, and give them human attributes. ‘He knows everything I say’ – well, yes, until you say ‘stop!’ and make a grab.

I like animals – because they are animals. My favourite animal is the tiger – he’s majestic, he prowls, he looks at you with a blank, but all seeing, stare. He has a lovely pattern. I like giraffes, they have long blue tongues, and I’ve been licked by one. Lovely! But both would kill you in an instance. Yes, even the giraffe. He would kick you to death, or swing that amazing big head, on that amazing big neck, and kill you with a blow.

Lets be real. You child is not Steve Irwin, with years of experience about how to keep his eye on the dangerous bit – bill, teeth, horn, fangs – your child is a risk with any animal.

You are the little old lady in her unit with her four Pomeranians, her companions, indulged with chicken while she eats baked beans.
She dies, alone, and guess what – when they find her she’s been eaten by the little fluffy dogs. Oh dear. Well, guess why? They’re animals. They’re different to us.

Thank God for the difference. Animals are essential, are wonderful, are photogenic, are suppliers of many good things, including meat and glue.

When we describe the rapist as an animal, we’re being real for once. Animals don’t think too much about what they’re doing or the repercussions – they act. They are brutal. They have to be. They have to survive. Why eat your young if its not for survival of the fittest?

Animals attack – that’s what they do. Even a pet bunny would turn on you and scratch you, kick you or butt you. Have you ever heard a koala growl? It’s frightening!

Don’t misconstrue what I’m saying. Animal are wonderful, magnificent, brilliant – but they’re dangerous. Lets treat them as something different to us. Lets not have penguins dancing – sure, that helps our children identify with them, and to want to save them, and to want to protect them – but, Goddamnit, they’re animals. Each and every one of them.

© Nelma Ward
02-2007

CHARLIE BROWN

2007-03-07T12:09:00.000+10:00

ANIMAL STORY
CHARLIE BROWN

Not the cartoon character, no – this Charlie Brown was a guinea pig.
We always had pets when the kids were small, always a dog and a cat, and sometimes a budgie. Then there were the ones Grandad arrived with – a turtle he’d seen on the road, an echidna, rescued from a pile of burning logs at the golf course, a frilled lizard, and a huge spider in a jar with holes punched in the lid. Each of the animals, except the spider, escaped the very night they arrived to live at our house. Hours had been spent constructing runs or cages, and in each case in the morning the animal was gone. The spider met his demise in the probably almost airless jar, and nothing, nothing, can smell like a large dead spider that’s been enclosed in an airtight jar. He didn’t escape, he was chucked into the bin.
So when Grandad’s neighbours moved, after frantic searching by their four kids for their lost guinea pig, and Grandad was watering his vegetables, he found the guinea pig, and caught it. He arrived at our house, with a cardboard box containing a small golden brown guinea pig, about the size of two cupped hands.
He became Charlie Brown, being brown, and Charlie Brown being the flavour of the month as far as comics were concerned. A makeshift hutch, bottomless, was quickly made for him, and he was put out on the lawn to graze. The kids ran around and got lettuce leaves, and thistles, and sliced up carrots, and quartered apples – he would eat anything.
That night we decided he should be brought in from any predators – but where would be the best spot? Finally it was decided that we’d tip the hutch up so the opening was at the top, cover it, in case he could leap out. He didn’t look as if he was made for leaping, but after our track record with escapee animals, we thought it best to be prudent about the chances. We put it out of cats and dogs way – where? Why on top of the washing machine of course.
Great, fine. He survived the night. I raised the washing machine’s lid to put a load in – to be confronted by two inches of guinea pig wee! Charming!
Charlie Brown lived with us for quite a while. He survived the loving ministrations of the kids, until one day he was given all the white rind from a watermelon. Charlie Brown, who up to then could eat anything, ate it all, and promptly died!
You can’t chuck a dead guinea pig in the bin, so he had a typical pet funeral, but the story of our pet funerals will have to wait till another time.
© Nelma Ward

"ESSENCES' BY NELMA WARD

2007-02-08T23:12:00.000+10:00

I have self published a book of short stories. It contains fifteen stories about 'ordinary people', but then, no one is ordinary, are they?
Readers have said 'raw, brave, compassionate, emotional twists and turns, and soulful and insightful'.
The book is available for purchases at $20.00 plus postage. Email cliftonwriters@ausi.com for details.

MY CAMBODIAN EXPERIENCE

2007-01-05T13:12:00.000+10:00

Two weeks after leaving Cambodia my head still floats somewhere there, my mind’s eye still sees the people, the dust, the squalor, the beauty, the temples. I dream of the people, the countryside villages, the noise, and the swirl of ceaseless movement every night. In the past when I heard people - very rarely – say they had been to Cambodia, I thought of a terrifying country, danger at every corner. I saw a television program about Cambodia about a month before my visit, and this impression had been reinforced – corrupt police, corrupt officials, corrupt armed forces – somewhere to be on your best behaviour. How wrong I was.

Of course we were lucky – we did the tourist things, but did venture off the beaten track occasionally, reading up carefully in the Lonely Planet about do’s and don’ts, and being careful. By the time our plane landed in Siem Reap I was only aware that I needed to be careful of two things – not wandering off tracks at the temples or in the country in case of landmines, and watching for slim green deadly snakes in the jungle temples. I’m pleased to say I encountered neither.

Cambodia’s greatest richness is not it’s wonderful temples, but it’s people. The people in the main are physically beautiful, small, slim, skin of every shade between deep golden tan to light milk coffee, with white teeth, and dead black hair that shines and is, by the women, looped into beautiful clever casual shapes, and the children – well, the children are quite simply the most beautiful on earth, I am sure. The Cambodian smile is something to behold.

People are friendly, shy, happy, caring towards each other, sweet natured, helpful, and oh, so polite. I dithered on the side on a street full of chaotic traffic, all coming from the opposite direction to traffic at home, my ‘look right, look left, look right again’ absolutely useless here. Traffic rules are few, and its pretty evident that traffic, motor bikes, tuk tuks, and bicycles have the right of way – you as a mere pedestrian dice with death bravely every time you cross a road. And yet I saw small children step out confidently and weave through the traffic to the other side. I stepped out, leapt back, looked all ways, and could see nothing but rivers of weaving, darting, speeding traffic coming at me.

Motor bikes don’t just hold one rider, they hold whole families. Pigs are trussed up and transported on the back seat – usually upside down with their trotters waving feebly in the air – the skill of the rider to firstly place the pig there, balanced somehow, and then to ride with the pig load on the back amazed me.

And now here I was, my hotel on the opposite side of the street, and no way to get there. A man, probably about 30-40 years old, slim and brown, stepped up beside me – my reaction was that he was going to offer me a tuk tuk, a shop to look at, or try and engage himself as my guide for tomorrow – no – he gestured at me to walk beside him, shielded me from the traffic, and we darted and danced our way across. I gratefully turned to him to express my appreciation of his genuine kindness, but he was already melting away. It was a pure act of kindness – he had seen my dilemma, I was obviously an inexperienced in Cambodian traffic matters, I was a visitor in his country – what could he do but assist me.

The Cambodian greeting and thanks gesture is simple and beautiful – the hands are held in the prayer position, palm to palm, and upright in the middle of the chest and the head slightly bowed. Our tuk tuk stopped one day on the side of a rural road so we could take photographs of people gathering their crop of rice with scythes. Some little children from one of the scattered poor thatched huts ran along the other side of the ride, smiling their huge smiles, and calling out to us – ‘hello’, hello’. We forgot the picturesque rice gatherers. I found a small fluffy Australian koala in my bag, carried there to give to the children, and we called the eldest child over. The three brothers and their sister, the eldest, stood shyly in a little group, not sure what to do now they had reached us. My daughter held the koala out and walked towards them. The boys pushed their sister, golden brown skin, shining black hair, her slim body in a long straight checked sarong, towards us. She came slowly and uncertainly and my daughter held out the little toy, and she came quickly for the last few steps and accepted it, with a smile of wonderment, and made the beautiful, modest thank you gesture. She thought us exotic, there was no doubt of that, but we thought she was absolutely beautiful, with a shining rustic purity of spirit, and a universal understanding of the politeness of acknowledging a gift.

I stood on the stones of the temples, I put my hand on the warm carvings to absorb them. You could stand and wonder about many things – the clarity of purpose in building these huge edifices, the man power involved in cutting the stones so precisely, in erecting them without machinery, in digging huge and straight canals and moats, in carving the intricate figures into the hard stone, the time it must have all taken. Yes, we did wonder about those things. But the thing that you wonder most over is the purpose, the belief, the faith, that made men build these things, and make them so beautiful, and revere them so much.

The absolute madness of the Khmer Rouge regime is so at odds with this culture, with these beautiful people, with this intrinsic understanding of aesthetics. Such pure evil can occur in any race, in any part of the world, but to have occurred here is an anomaly.

The people, many of them, have so few possessions. For some their little tiny box of a day time sho – perhaps a business selling a few cold drinks and some phone cards – becomes at night their home. An iron grille is pulled across the doorway , the family sits and watches the ubiquitous television, the evening meal is cooked on the floor on a little burner. The people who live in the river fishing villages, have an even more simple life – their little huts float on tiny bamboo rafts, sometimes with a valued pig in a tiny bamboo cage that is just big enough to contain it, floating at the side, and the river becomes everything – the family bathes in it, the children swim in it, the family – all members from old grandmothers to tiny tots – cleverly steer their little wooden dugouts on its surface to do whatever chores, or fishing, or selling their produce, that they need to do.

Food in the form of fish comes from it, food scraps are returned to it. The family toilet empties into it. The children dip their little bowls immediately into the river from their little floating verandah and drink deeply of the water, polluted, dirty, odorous. They smile, they laugh, they joyously wave. They have what they need to exist – water, food, shelter, a few necessary possessions, their shrines, and themselves, their families.

You arrive home, you look at your house, at your possessions, you think about your cares and worries, and you wonder again. Why, why, why – why do we need all this ‘stuff’, why don’t we value family and community more, why don’t we hold out a helping hand with a smile more often, why do we eat so much, why do we compete so much? Within a certain amount of time, these feelings dissipate. Of course we love our things, we value our family and our friends, and food is good. We go back to our own way of life. But every now and then we think of the little boy, naked, brown and shining with river water streaming off him, as he joyously leapt up through the water, white smile gleaming and called out ‘hello, hello’. Is he happy, is he well, is he still alive? The bond that is forged by smiles and genuine interest works both ways. I would return to Cambodia in an instant if I could. What would I do? Would I survive the traffic, the bad water, the different food, the sporadic medical attention? Could I do without my ‘things’? Maybe not, but I have learnt a lesson in thinking about it.

© NW
January 2007

ANGKOR WAT by Nelma Ward

2006-12-05T09:52:00.000+10:00

(This monthly assignment was to choose from a number of unfamiliar topics and perhaps research them and produce poetry or prose. Topics included: Aurora Australis, Hannibal, Angkhor Wat, Big Toe, Big Ben (i.e. the mechanicism in the Tower of Westminister), cold fusion, Boerwurst sausage.)

Angkor Wat, Machu Pichu and the Egyptian Pyramids. Now there are names to conjure with. I have always wanted to visit these places, and now, this Christmas, I will have the opportunity to see one of them, the magical, mystical Angkor Wat, in Cambodia.

Angkor Wat, the great ancient capital of the Khmer Empire, lay buried under jungle vegetation for many centuries, never quite forgotten, and is now a mecca for over one million foreign visitors a year.

Angkor Wat lays near the modern city of Sian Reap and is of course a World Heritage Site. It is considered to be one of humankind’s most astonishing and enduring architectural achievements, and once the temple and palace complex ruled over an empire stretching from the Bay of Bengal to Vietnam and China.

It was originally a place of Hindu worship, the main god being Vishnu, and was built around the ninth century AD. After the fall of the empire it became a Buddhist place of worship, and this use continues to this day.

In 1586 a Portuguese monk saw the ruins and reported on them, with the next European discovery to be by a French explorer, Henri Mouhot in 1860. The significance of the ruins was immediately understood and the site has been undergoing restoration continuously since that time.

The area covers just over 200 acres, and contains towers, temples (over 100 of them), palaces and moat, and the world’s longest bas relief stretches around the walls, depicting stories from Hindu mythology. Some archaeologists believe that the site is placed with a significant astronomical alignment.

My simple description of Angkor Wat’s history does not even begin to illustrate the wonderful experience I believe I will encounter – the mystery of walking on an ancient site, one that has been walked on for centuries by countless generations of people, the enigmatic carvings, the stone temples which have been reclaimed from the jungle vines, and the sheer joy of seeing, touching, being in a place that portrays the incredible lengths man will go to just to say ‘I am here – I believe in something’.

Angkor Wat, I just can’t wait.

© Nelma Ward

CLEOPATRA by Nelma Ward

2006-10-13T11:19:00.000+10:00

CLEOPATRA – QUEEN OF THE WORLD
(A writing assignment where a change of words would have changed history)

I am Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and grieving most mightily for my lover, Mark Antony. Our conqueror, Octavian, has had him slain, and knows in his black heart that I too now wish to die. My sons, heirs to Julius Caesar and to Mark Antony, are the only things that prevent me from stabbing myself in the heart. I know that they are resourceful and strong like their fathers, and the gods willing, they will survive.
Octavian has me watched, night and day, and my servants are his employ I know. I held a knife to my breast but it was wrestled away from me, and now I wait in my chamber, bereft and heart broken. I am thirty nine years old, too old to bear more children, and having had the love of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, I want no more advances. I want to die.
I have planned a great death, one which should mystify my captors, for a bite by a deadly snake can be difficult to detect. One of my man servants is dedicated to me, and will do anything for me, and I have requested that he go to the rocky cliffs nearby the town, and catch a deadly asp and bring it to me. He asked me, ‘Oh, my Queen, how will this be done – I cannot bring you a sack containing a viper, as the guards will see it writhe in the cloth. How can I conceal it?’
I responded that he should bring me a basket of figs with the viper hidden amongst the fruit, and he agreed that he would do so. I told Octavian when he made his daily inspection of my quarters that I craved the fruit of the fig which was grown in the orchards near our town, and he smiled and said that I should arrange for someone to bring me a basket full.
When my servant arrives he will not be apprehended, but allowed to bring me the basket immediately. I will wait until he leaves, and then I shall catch the snake and hold it to my breast and allow it to bite me, injecting me with its poisonous venom. I will lay on my golden bed and allow the poison to work its way through my veins, and I will die. I will join Mark Antony and Ra, the sun god, in my eternal life.

-- --

When my servant, the good and loyal young man, bought the basket of figs, I asked him, ‘Is your work complete? Did you find a snake to assist me to the after life?’
‘Oh my Queen’, he sobbed, kneeling at my feet, head bowed, ‘No, I did not. I caught a snake, but on my return it slithered from the basket of figs, which I had picked for you from the town orchard, and slid quickly, like lightning, along the boards of the wagon, and bit the wagon driver, who writhed and died by the road side, and the asp escaped. Forgive me, my queen, I have failed you’.
From this I took courage and heart. The gods did not want me to die at this time. My sons, Julius’ sons, will go to Rome and follow me in ruling there after my death in old age. I am the last pharaoh of Egypt but I will be the first queen of Rome. Long may I reign.

-- --

Now, from my place beside Ra, the Sun God, I look down on this world, which has grown and changed so much since my time upon the bountiful earth. Rockets go to the skies, men converse from country to country by a magical device, instantly communicating with each other. Disease has been eradicated, and my Egypt, which was once the extent of the world, is now a minor power in the whole of this amazing world, but my symbol, the bust which was made of me when I was but nineteen years old, is emblazoned on every coin, postage stamp, diplomatic correspondence and every device, yes, even the machine which allows people to converse instantaneously across the seas. My earthy beauty is still much lauded, but it is my influence, my culture and my wishes that now control the lands. I, Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, still rule.

TIBETAN TRAIN DERAILMENT by Nelma Ward

2006-09-14T16:31:00.000+10:00

The following exercise emanates from a random news item selected at a recent Clifton Creative Writers Group meeting.

The news item was as follows:
China-Tibet Train Derailed
One of China's new trains to Tibet, the world's highest railway, has been derailed disrupting the line for five hours and delaying thousands of passengers.

I stood stunned and shaken beside the stationary train, on a piece of earth I would never have otherwise touched.

The train had literally come off its tracks. Chooks, ducks, pigs, straw baskets and passengers had hurtled around. We – the pigs and the passengers – had screamed as one.

As it became quiet and all motion ceased, we realised that we were mainly unhurt and we clambered out, over people and animals, and stood looking at the train in disbelief. It hung out over a precipice, one of the deepest in Tibet, precariously balanced. Help, we knew, was a long way and a long time away.
Within a remarkedly short time the mainly peasant people travelling on the new rail journey from China to Tibet had set up little fires beside the track, heating metal pots of tea, laid colourful rugs on the stoney ground on which babies were placed to sleep and started cooking. Blue smoke from the fires arose for as far as I could see around the bend.

No official came along the line to tell us anything. I felt – apart from the shiny train and the recently laid tracks – that I had stepped back in time. These self sufficient people were cooking, eating and drinking, sharing their few small comforts with each other, as if they were safely in their own village square.
Chooks wandered and pecked, occasionally a child chased a squealing pig. People smiled and bowed and invited those without food or drink to share.
I stood and looked out over the boundless mountains, stretching away, range after range. I felt the cold chill of the air and noted the lengthening shadows. What would we do when night fell? The train was obviously uninhabitable – one slight move and it appeared that it would tip over the edge and disappear into the deep blue chasm below.

I found to my surprise that I still had my camera slung over my shoulder. I trusted these people pretty well, but I liked to keep my precious camera close so as not to tempt anyone. A quick check – it appeared to be fine and I stood in this remote, gorgeous and barren place and took my photographs – the little groups of people, the valleys and mountains and the long curve of the derailed train.
As I sipped a little bowl of tea handed gently to me by a smiling old lady – about my own age I would guess – I took a deep breath and felt so keenly the thrill of being alive, of being in this unexpected place and of the miracle of life and what it brings.

© Nelma Ward

LUCKY DAY by Nelma Ward

2006-09-11T10:13:00.000+10:00

I’m small and furry, quite elegant really, but that’s not going to allow me to inherit the earth. Those big galumphing reptiles have the upper hand there. Awful things they are, taking over, eating us out of house and home, and eating us too if they have the chance. You need to be very careful when you go out or you’ll find yourself stood upon with one of those great big squashing feet, or picked up by a head on a long neck and thrown around enough to make you dizzy before they chomp you down.

Of course there are some smaller reptiles as well, and they’re a bit easier to live with. Crocodiles and so on, I don’t mind them, and then there’s the insects. Cockroaches I don’t particularly like, but they’re so small that the dinosaurs will probably be able to vacuum them up somehow and get rid of them for once and for all one day.

Its quite a nice earth too. I wouldn’t mind inheriting it really. Green forests, and bright sunlight. We little creatures don’t have a chance really. We generally don’t eat each other – well, the sabre toothed tigers do, but with teeth like that, you might as well bite into something a bit solid. I like my little shoots and the tiny berries. But then, as I said, I am very small, and very elegant.

I’ve been noticing, though, a funny glow in the sky. To me it appears to be getting bigger every day. Like a second sun. Funny thing, but I guess we’ll find out soon enough what it is. Not that the dinosaurs seem worried. They just keep stomping around, making awful noises and eating everything in their path. I think they have a brain about the size of a pea if the truth be told. We couldn’t get rid of them if we tried, although occasionally I do see one – stupid thing – that’s fallen over a cliff, lying there at the bottom, legs stuck up in the air, and I think, thank goodness for that.

……

Well, we’ve finally emerged again. That second sun thing certainly made one hell of a thump when it hit. We little things had time to run and hide of course. I had to live in a hole for quite some time, and my fur got a bit singed, but its growing out nicely now. Anyway, when we came out all the dinosaurs were gone. Just us little things – mammals, we’re called – left. I think perhaps we are going to inherit the earth! Oh, happy day when that thing hit – what a stroke of luck.

© Nelma Ward

TEENAGE ARGUMENT by Nelma Ward

2006-08-24T10:42:00.000+10:00

(This was a writing exercise from our August meeting. We were to write a piece which was mainly dialogue. This was to be between a teenager and an adult and the piece could be set in any period of time.)

“Isaac, how could you! Leon speak to him, tell him,” his mother said, tears standing in her big brown eyes.

Isaac put his head down and listened. ‘Yes, Papa,” he said. Secretly he had no intention of listening.

“Isaac, Isaac, Isaac,” his father said. Quiet desperation was in his voice and his very stance.
“Isaac, you must have friends, yet, but this boy – oy vay, this boy! You know what’s been happening lately, these people, people like him, hate us. Now, now, my boy, don’t interrupt”.

“But Papa, hes a friend, he doesn’t do those things. He doesn’t throw stones through windows and spit on us. He likes me and I like him. Please, Papa?”

“No, no, no”, Papa said. “I have spoken. That’s it – you are not to see him again!”

“Never again,” his mother added. “Isaac, you know hes not one of us, not of our faith, our culture..”

Isaac pulled away from her reaching hand, “But Mama, hes not like that, I said. He wants to come and visit us and see how we live.”

“No, no, no – other friends, yes. But this boy! This German boy! Why his family – his father, and probably brothers, are most likely the ones who stoned your father’s shop window. Do you prefer this over your father, who has given you everything?”

“These are dangerous times, my son,” his father added. “You don’t know, you’re young and carefree, but bad times are coming, and as your mother says, this is an unsuitable boy to be a friend, this…this… whats his name – Adolf someone?”

“Adolf Hitler, Papa, and hes not dangerous, hes not. I really like him and I trust him. Adolf is my friend.”

©Nelma Ward

NORMAN ROCKWELL PAINTING by Nelma Ward

2006-08-24T10:32:00.000+10:00
(This writing assignment at the August meeting was to study a Norman Rockwell painting called "Big Date" painted in 1949 which features two young people dressing, a young woman and a young man. They were presented in separate scenes and we were to imagine that they were going on a 'date' and we had to write about their thoughts on the upcoming date e.g. a piece where he's thinking .... and then a piece about what she's thinking.)

BOY INTO MIRROR

Sit down, hair. Blow, drat, damn – why is it always like this – couldn’t find my blue shirt – hope she likes this red one. She had a red dress on the other day. Boy, oh boy! Did she look nice! Gosh, my shoes are hurting. And I have to dance. God, I hope I don’t stand on her toes.
Hope I can remember how to – what is it? One, two, together, back, side, something, something. God, that Barry can dance, and she’s been out with him. I’ll be a real dud! Why, oh why, did I ask her? Gee, better hurry, I said 7.00 and its ten to now – should give me time to there in the old jalopy.

GIRL INTO MIRROR

Gosh, curl up, hair, why can’t you? Golly gosh, I hope Mum ironed my dress. At least she likes him. Better than Barry. My God, he stood all over my feet at that last dance. I hope these stockings don’t get stood on and ruined – gee, I must check my seams. I just can’t wait for Tommy to call. Hes so gorgeous, so dreamy, and his car, his lovely red car – what a beauty.
How long till he come? Hes coming at 7.00 he said – what is it now? 4.30! Only two and a half hours to finish getting ready. I’ll never make it. Hair, curl, curl, please.

Nelma Ward ©

VAN GOGH by Nelma Ward

2006-08-06T12:17:00.000+10:00

(Note: The following story was the result of a 10 minute writing exercise during our last meeting. The writer was asked to incorporate the following words: Van Gogh, a studio, bread and water, knife.)

The studio, filled with half squeezed tubes of paint, canvases, piles of paper, looks chaotic.

It is my refuge. Here the voices in my head subside when I pick up my palette knife and spread the paint. Bright vivid colours, huge splashes and streaks, and when I step back a little I see that I am making something beautiful.

I may live on bread, dry and a day old from the village bakery, but I feel rich. I finally have silence and solitude to do my work, for this is work, this putting down of colours and shapes.

I take a long drink of water and walk around a bit. Tomorrow I will take my board and charcoal and go out into the countryside of Brittany and I’ll start on drawings for the yellow cornfield, with the blue hills, and blobs of dark green trees, which will be my next painting. Good colours together, those. Yellow, blue and green. And if there aren’t any, I’ll put some red poppies and little blue wild flowers in the foreground.

That should be a beautiful painting. But I imagine when its done I’ll just store it against the wall with all the others. I have paintings of pine trees, and billiard tables, and stars, and chairs, lots of chairs. No one will ever buy them I know, but unless I paint them, put them down on canvas, I am haunted by them. Its not good to be haunted.

My brother Theo wants me to rest, not to think, to sit, but I can’t do that. I need to make these things. I show them to people sometimes and they’re shocked. Too bright, too wild, they say. A painting should be a nice well mannered thing, pale and contained. Perhaps if my brain was pale and contained that’s what I’d paint. No, no market for them. They’ll just stay here forever I guess, stacked against the wall.

© Nelma Ward

HAI KU by Nelma Ward

2006-08-06T12:14:00.000+10:00

Synopsis of a movie in two sentences:

CINEMA PARADISO

A small boy growing up in Italy in the ‘50’s becomes entranced by films, particularly by the old projectionist at the village cinema, who befriends him and nurtures the interest.

He grows up to become a famous producer in the USA, returning to Italy on the death of his mother, and relives his childhood and youthful romance, whilst visiting the now burnt out cinema where the old projectionist died, and in the process revitalising his love of the medium.

HAI KU

Childhood obsession

Burning death of love and spool

Now will live anew

CAT by Nelma Ward

2006-07-29T16:32:00.000+10:00

Paws precisely placed

Arrogant slitted stare.

I've seen him done in alabaster

Tucked into the foot of an

Egyptian throne.

Regally dismissing me with a downward flick

and sinuous coiling of the tail.

Nelma Ward ©

ALLORA CHILDHOOD by Nelma Ward

2006-07-29T16:05:00.000+10:00

In the old wash house there was
begrimed glass with red crossbarsand spiderwebs
Where we could trace our initials and drawlittle hanged men
Pieces of creamy soap shaped like boneslay on the edges
Under the floor boards was a dark powdery space
and we lay with our eyes to the cracks
expecting snakes
(I lost a red pencil down there once)
On the back of the door we marked our slow
growth with little cotton bags of blue
(we dabbed it on for Indians and ants)
The tall brass tap had to be turned three times
before the water ran into the cool deep
cement tub
We hung over the edge hurting our ribs and
watching it flow down the dark hole
It gushed out a battered spout near
geraniums with purple and green ringed leaves
and dried umbrella frames that were seeds
or something.

That was a long time ago
We were different people then
But that was how it was

Nelma Ward ©

TIME by Nelma Ward

2006-07-29T15:59:00.000+10:00

You ask me to write about time and my mind goes off at dozens of tangents. What a subject, I think. What a large, indescribable thing. I won’t even let my mind head off into the direction of black holes – time warps, time standing still, parallel universes and other such phenomena.

I’ll keep it simple. I think of the time when I’m sitting here at my computer trying to put this piece together, and then I think of the time when you will read it – a totally unknown thing to me at this very minute. Who says that time will ever come?

A woman in the process of giving birth – say for four hours – would have a very different perception of her experience of her passage of time to that of a woman laying beside a pool on a sunlounge at a luxurious resort for four hours. Its such a strange thing. Standing beside a microwave waiting for thirty seconds to pass can take ages; becoming caught up in a book, and hours can fly by before we swim up out of the pages.

We invest in time, don’t we? We spend time learning, making friends, dreaming, in years of marriage, in the nine months of pregnancy. We lose time too –we idle away a day, we worry, we are depressed. The millisecond gone can never be recovered.

But what is wasted time? Perhaps the time that passes when we idle a day away, sitting, doing nothing, fiddling around is absolutely essential to our calmness and wellbeing. If we tried to use every minute of time we’d go mad.

‘Don’t waste a minute – make every minute count’. What rot! We need time to ruminate, to come to terms with things, to plan ahead, and to remember the past. A constant New Years resolution is to utilise our time better. How many of us ever do that? We just keep plodding along, and suddenly we find a day has passed, years have passed, whole decades have slipped by. Our allotted time is disappearing right before our eyes.

‘Live us each day as if it was your last’, they exhort us. God grief, if I lived each day as if it were my last I’d have spent all our money, and flung around a few home truths that probably wouldn’t have been received very well by those around me. Best I live each day as if I have another coming up!

We count the passage of time by milestones – minutes – ‘oh look, its sixteen minutes past six’; weeks - ‘I went to town last Wednesday’; years - ‘I’m eighty today – how about that!’ Seasons mark time passing. We can keep tabs on the passage of time in history books. We keep a strict eye on time – most of us know what day it is, month and year, morning or night, the hour and sometimes the minute – how out of control would we feel if we didn’t!

Its absolutely inexorable – time just slips away and slips away. The one thing that we cannot do is turn time back.

It would be easy to say time is wasted having, say, acrylic fingernails fitted, and time is well spent researching, say, a cure for cancer. Its all relative, isn’t it? The person with the acrylic fingernails probably loves them, and the person researching cancer probably hasn’t made any headway.

Time spent in anticipation is delicious I think. We count down the days until some event. I remember counting down days to a trip we were to take many years ago, and inadvertently counting down the last few months of days of a very good friend’s life. My friend died of cancer. So young. Did she fill every minute of her short life? She didn’t know she was going to die, so I’m sure she went along like the rest of us – frantically busy one minute, appreciating something the next, and later wasting hours and hours just doing nothing.

That’s the thing, isn’t it, we are each isolated in time. What we each do at each second is what we do. How much time has passed since I sat down to write this – fifteen minutes, perhaps. The sunset outside has been changing all through that time. I should go out and look at sunsets more often. I always think, ‘Oh, I’ll go another night – it’s a bit chilly, I want to make a phone call, I should start to prepare dinner’. How many more sunsets will I see? Time….an absolutely undefinable quantity.

The time past is what we can remember, and we can only aspire to the time ahead. Now is the only real time – the second I typed the last ‘e’ in that word time, just before the dash, is now gone – I didn’t really experience it – just yet another keystroke, my feet are a little cold, I’m aware the news is on tv. I really believe that we strongly experience time which has passed and become a memory, and the time that we use anticipating future events is more real than the minute we are living in now.

Now I’ve used up some of your valuable time while you’ve read this – and time is valuable, don’t you agree? Our most elusive and unappreciated asset.

© Nelma Ward

MY FAVOURITE PLACE by Nelma Ward

2006-07-29T15:14:00.000+10:00

You’d like to know my favourite place – I can’t tell you one. For me, its places. And times. They are linked somehow, to make a place a favourite. Some of them are geographically impossible to locate. I could not take you to them and say ‘This is it’ – all I could do is say ‘Somewhere around here, on a special day, at a particular moment, when I was feeling this certain way, this was a favourite place of mine’. The ones I could take you too are fragile things too – who said they can’t be burned down or collapse? But all are very real, very precious to me. I’ll tell you about them.

Kings College Chapel, Cambridge, England. I stood in that soaring, beautiful, ethereal place, overcome by the history, by the light, by the fact that I was there. Pale stonework, impossibly light and floating.

Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France. I stood in front of the rose window, a page from my high school art book come to life. Stillness, hush, candles burning in a row. Tears running down my face. And I have not got one religious bone in my body.

Red Fox Inn, countryside, Ireland. Mist, light drizzling rain. Wet landscape, peat smoke, cocoa coloured whippets laying by a fireplace, a cup of rich coffee, well laced with whiskey in my cold hands, all of Ireland before me to explore.

The Globe Theatre, London, England. Standing for two and half hours, feet numb in the cold, the actors almost within hands reach, Shakespeare’s words, the sense of history overwhelming. The best, the most unforgettable, theatrical experience of my life.

Cable Beach Resort, Broome, West Australia. A real Kimberly moon reflected in to the black sea. Sitting on cushions on a wide expanse of lawn, a glass of red wine in my hand, the air warm and soft. The beautiful Latin music of Jane Rutter’s flute and Slava Giorgorian’s guitar enveloping me.

A hillside, Tamborine Mountain, Queensland. A freezing cold night, just having had a beautiful meal in a cosy restaurant, sharing a bottle of champagne whilst standing in the dark beside our friend’s luxurious Mercedes Benz, the car sound system playing an operatic tape. The whole of the Gold Coast stretched out before us, golden twinkling lights weaving a glorious lacy tracery, and the moon, full and pale, making the true postcard perfect path across the sea. Good, good friends to share this with.

French ‘palace’, hillside, Chau Doc, Vietnam. Late afternoon, standing with my son, who I had not seen for a year before this trip, and our lovely young Vietnamese guide, on the terrace of a ‘palace’, on a hillside outside the Mekong Delta township of Chau Doc. A red disk of sun, vivid wild red, through the grey clouds, and haze from the burning rice fields. As the sun fell like a stone to the horizon the sky was infused with a mystical golden light, turning to a luminous pink, which reflected onto the canals crisscrossing the lush green landscape. There are tigers in the hills here.

Outside Boulia, Queensland. Late afternoon, rushing to make Boulia which is almost on the Northern Territory border, before dark. Stopping at the top of a hill, standing in the soft gold light, the sun sending its last rays horizontally across the miles of miles of red and gold landscape stretched in front of us. Silvery grey low vegetation, absolute quietness, grey-mauve dry fluffy wildflowers at our feet. Unlimitless space.

The sky, Massey, Darling Downs, Queensland. Gliding in a thermal, round and round in the blue intoxicating air, surrounded by circling ibises – flying with the birds.
A certain spot on the road between Greenmount and Nobby, Darling Downs, Queensland. Every different time of the day, every different season, the colours of this magnificent valley are transformed. Every time it takes my breath away.

I could go on and on. I won’t. These are just a few of the places that I hold in my heart.

© Nelma Ward