In a Manner of Speaking…
The talk-back radio host captured my attention when he announced that the Australian National Dictionary had been updated (after 28 years) and more than 6 000 words had been added to it. The key word which grabbed me was “Dictionary” but the notion of an “Australian National” Dictionary, was most intruiging.
As writers we all have a working relationship with dictionaries and we teach our students how to use them, both in print and on-line. We all have our preferences for a particular publication, be it an Oxford, Cambridge, Collins or any of the plethora of on-line versions available. But I thought they were all English Dictionaries designed to demystify English words? What then was this “Australian National Dictionary” he was spruiking?
There, in a word, lies the answer.
spruik
spruːk/
[verb Australian informal]
gerund or present participle: spruiking
1. speak in public, especially to advertise a show.
“men who spruik outside striptease joints”
2. to promote or publicize.
“the company forked out $15 million to spruik its digital revolution” (source: Google Search instant result.)
This wonderful dictionary should be a national treasure. It is a collection of words, phrases and idioms which are uniquely Australian and it is an historical record of the development of Australian English. As chief editor, Bruce Moore, says:
“It is a unique lexical map of Australian history and culture.”
We do have a few pearlers in our version of the Queen’s English and it would be hard to beat the way Aussies award nicknames, cutting immediately to the crux or essence of a person. For example, he was called “Showbag” because he was always full of rubbish; the word “mongrel” is a very derogatory and aggressive expression here (usually applied to the human species), whereas a “bitser” means a ‘mongrel dog which is not a pure breed’ because “it’s bits of this and bits of that”.
One of the newly added terms in the Dictionary was “grey nomads”, which struck a chord as we’d just returned from a two month camping trip, rubbing shoulders with grey nomads along the way. These are retirees (hence the ‘grey’) who make an annual pilgrimage by road from the southern states of Australia in winter, heading north in search of warmer weather. Their style of camping is usually known as “glamping” (glamour+camping) as they usually travel in very expensive caravans with all the mod cons. The grey nomads gather at popular camping spots and form communities for the time they are there, gathering for the obligatory ‘happy hour’ drinks at 5 pm, where they get to know one another and share stories of their travels.
Immediately, a lady rang in to express her delight that ‘grey nomads’ was now an official term and she talked about how happy that made her. It was an acknowledgement of a ‘cultural phenomenon’ in Australia, of which she was a part.
I smiled quietly as a warm, fuzzy feeling stole around my heart. It’s not ‘manners’ but “words which maketh man” and how and what we say simply reflects who and where we are. So, next time I confer with a student and we’re looking at the words he or she is using to create a character, setting or emotion, it might be a thesaurus instead of a dictionary that we’ll turn to, or maybe, just maybe, this new edition of the “Dictionary of Australianisms”.
The Fish That Got Away
What a place to spend a birthday! I awoke to another perfect day at Nanga Station in the North West where winter visits gently with sun-kissed days and clear blue skies. Here the sun usually sets in a warm glow of burnt gold, melting into the sea-horizon as it dresses the skies in rich hues of red and pink.
Gazing out to sea, the wonder of this World Heritage area was apparent. A thin strip of fine white sand sat still and warm, allowing one’s eye to travel freely over it into a set of picture-perfect strips of blue. The first line of blue was the transparent turquoise of the shallows, which gave way to the deep azure of salty sea-grass meadows rippling out to where they met the limitless stretch of baby blue sky on the distant horizon.
Movement caught my eye as a cormorant floated lazily in the shallows, holding its black wings open above the water like an umbrella propped open to dry. Suddenly, with one huge flap he was high in the sky, hunting, as a silver fish caught his eye. Unfortunately, this fish must have been to the Rio Olympics, as it evading him by literally jumping out of the water and dancing along on its tail with the cormorant skipping along behind him, half airborne and half submerged, before finally giving up and diving deep down into the ocean.
What a lesson that was in creatively changing behaviour, using strength and determination to meet the challenge and thereby changing an outcome which seemed preordained. That fish decided to tail-walk instead of swim, keeping one step ahead of the cormorant, dazzling him in super silver bursts.
This is exactly how we want out students to think and act, responding creatively to challenges they may face in the future, and as educators we need to equip them with the skills and resilience they will need to tail-dance in this ever-changing world.
Tuesday 6 September 2016
The Black Shadow
It must be a boy thing! This defending of territory must be a boy thing. Having just moved in, we didn’t know the neighbourhood rules or who the local bully was, but we were soon to find out.
Walking outside our caravan to sit in the shade of a casuarina tree instantly brought a dark shadow flying in on the attack. He then stood guard from above in the tree, “caawing” every now and then to assert his presence. Making a sudden run for the shop or pool sent some secret signal to the crow to “fly in low and harass” us, big black wings sweeping past just inches above our heads as he swooped down in a series of lurched raids which mimicked our rush for safety – from tree to tree.
The intensity of his attacks varied and eventually we worked out his territory and where his nest was. We struck a truce and made long detours ‘around’, ‘away from’ and ‘nowhere near’ it, on our way to anywhere. He still watched us balefully, wide yellow eyes tracking us from his perch on the shed roof or “caawing” loudly as he beat his wings powerfully through the air or landed lumpily atop a green bush in close proximity – in what looked a lot like chest-beating and bicep-flexing.
As I said, it must be a boy thing after all!
Growling Pelicans
Have you ever heard a pelican growl? It’s a surprising sound to hear coming from the beak of a bird, I can assure you. I learnt a lot about these gentle giants on a recent holiday to the Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort on the arid northwest coast of Western Australia. It’s a stunning oasis far, far away from the city landscape in the middle of an arid desert environment. The bay stretches in a classic curve facing west, brick-red sand ridges intersect limestone-white sandy beaches which trim the edges of the unbelievably turquoise waters of the bay.
It’s these shallow waters which are the perfect habitat for hundreds of bottlenose dolphins which live here, and of course, the pelicans. At first glance, these pelicans are all that we usually picture them to be: statuesque giants, stately and dignified as they strike a pose in full black and white plumage, necks curved politely and salmon-pink beaks neatly tucked in as they survey the world blandly through flat waterproof eyes. This image is further enhanced as they waddle ponderously on webbed grey feet before launching themselves effortlessly onto the water. But bring on the dolphins and the pelicans morph into opportunistic hanger-ons, shadowing the hardworking dolphins like magnets which they cannot shake off, as they hunt in the shallows. Follow the trail of gliding pelicans, feet paddling elegantly below the surface, and you’re sure to find a dolphin dorsal fin gliding beside them as it herds and chases fish into the shallows. A sure sign of dolphin success is a streak of grey sending a fish shimmering above the water for an instant before being captured by a snapping dolphin beak or the gulping beak of a pelly. The pelicans seem quite unapologetic about their lazy eating habits and even steal from the cormorants, before winging their way towards fishermen for a feed.
Even so, they still inspire a sense of awe and wonder as they lift their huge bodies effortlessly into the air or float gracefully downwards in a smooth trajectory to land like a barefoot skier, skimming onto the glassy surface of the ocean. It was on a silent sunset sea that a group of disgruntled pelicans growled gruffly at the fisherman’s dog that was preventing them from waddling ashore. They paddled a little closer then growled again, a deep throaty growl which came from the depths of those feathery chests and boomed out across the water. Hearing the pelicans growl was a further reminder of the surprises nature has in store when you take the time to step into a natural environment with an open mind.
Unexpected Visitor
Visit of the Kudar
(Racehorse Goanna)
Curved against the metal
A prehistoric reptile froze
Leathery neck arced up
and through…
His fat lizard body poised
like an arrow
above his long rudder tail
stretched back into the grass…
This giant from time long past
permitted only his eyeballs to swivel,
oblivious to my human shock and alarm…
the measured panic of my escape.
Drawing on the heat of the iron
Scraping scales and rugged claws
Etched in to drag this mini-dinosaur
Up, over and into the dirt of the garden.
Recognising that defining moment
of mutual visibility,
Choices made; paths not followed;
actions not taken –
Universal themes in nature,
Life, war and death.
Dawn Veary
November 2013
MATERNAL INSTINCT
She stood hesitantly on the edge of the highway, framed by long reeds of bleached grass at her back, waiting to cross. She lifted her head to gaze across at the cool green of the forest beyond the bitumen strip and breathed in the air gently. The trees beckoned quietly and with a backwards glance, she hopped tentatively into the road.
This was the sight I took in as I rounded the corner of the highway and saw with horror this beautiful kangaroo at risk of being run over. She glanced back over her shoulder then stopped, turned around and hopped back to the grass. My eyes carried past her and saw what had taken her back – her young joey! He was hopping frantically up and down on the paddock-side of the fence.
His mother bent down to show him how to get through, then turned and hopped back to the road. As she crossed the road in languid bounces, my heart stood still. Her joey just couldn’t do it. He hopped jerkily away into the middle of the paddock, uttering harsh guttural cries, then returned to wear down the fenceline.
Instantly, I was won over. I determined there and then to do all that I could to protect them as she tried to train her joey. I pulled up with flashing lights and became a self-appointed traffic controller, slowing down cars and tourists in caravans.
For quarter of an hour I forced cars to crawl past while she made trips across the road and back, trying to coax her joey out of the safety of the paddock. He just wasn’t a risk taker. She just wouldn’t give up. I just couldn’t bear to watch.
One last time she disappeared down into the long grass at the fence and one last time she hopped back up to the edge of the highway, this time with a little grey shape behind her. He’d overcome his fear of the fence.
I breathed again. Then they both stopped and I held my breath as they waited on the edge of the highway.
Then I forgot to breathe as I heard the roar of the school bus approaching from behind and they still stood there. I swung into action, pulling into the centre of the lane and watching keenly in my rear view mirror to slow the bus down.
As if in slow motion her joey followed some unspoken command and stuck his head into her pouch, then quickly scrambled into that safe kangaroo capsule, tail and all. Back in charge, she pushed down hard on her powerful tail and took them both in three long parabolas of maternal instinct into the safety of the trees.
MOTH INVASION
The restaurant looked picturesque from the outside. It was made of 1870’s hewn sandstone, a stonemason’s triumph, and had originally been the town’s railway station. The famous Ghan railway linking the continent from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north (via Alice Springs) had once steamed its way along this route, picking up passengers and goods from the very place where we would be eating dinner that evening.
We checked in to our accommodation and freshened up before driving back to the Ghan Restaurant for a memorable night. As we reached the door, we were accosted by hundreds of light-bedazzled moths. We dodged our way past them and quickly slipped in through the door. Inside was light and airy. The passageway led past a gallery to the main dining area in what was once the railway platform. The bare stone walls were adorned with photos of the railway station as it used to be.
“Good evening. This way to your table.”
The vivacious young girl led us out to the dining area, separated from the black night by a wall of glass. Clinging desperately along the outside of the glass wall were hundreds of pale creamy moths, like voyeurs watching us inside the well-lit room. We were seated away from the glass, close to the rough stone wall, tucked away enough to feel cosy and pampered. The owner welcomed us and took our order. Father and daughter worked in a loose relationship tempered by short loud outbursts and voluble communication from one end of the restaurant to another.
“Have you taken their order?” he yelled
“No, they were waiting a little!” she yelled back
“Okay, I’ll take it”, he replied, with attitude.
Not sure what to think, we smiled and acquiesced. I was really glad I didn’t have to sit next to the ogling moths while I ate my meal.
As the diners in front of us left, one man stood talking to the elderly couple near the door … with the front door to the moth army OPEN! It was like opening a bottle cap and the contents pouring out, only in reverse! Moths streamed in and hundreds clustered in agitated flutterings around the lamp directly above the elderly woman near the door. She was looking nervous.
“Who left the door open?” yelled the girl as she swooped down. “I told them to open and shut it quickly! Now look at them!” She grabbed a teatowel and waved it wildly at the moths to try and scatter them to the other lights, just missing the woman seated below.
Her father interjected and decided to switch off all the lights to get the moths to move off to other rooms. They had a little disagreement and … bang, we were all left sitting in the dark. We decided it was safer not to move, but watch out the show.
A few minutes later the girl emerged from the kitchens and switched on the lights. The moths continued their pole dance around the electric lamp and amazingly, the elderly couple continued their meal below it.
A loud voice rang out, “Who switched the lights back on?” It was obviously rhetorical as there only were two people who could have done it – he and his daughter! He strode down to where she was working behind the bar and a loud argument ensued. She stalked off to the kitchen and … the lights stayed on.
Suddenly, as if in a Faulty Towers movie, he rushed toward the mob of moths with a can of spray in his upraised hand and squirted a cloud of poison over the moths. Spray drift sparkled in the lighting and the woman below squirmed and remonstrated as she nearly choked on her coffee. We all watched as the moths seemed unaffected as they flapped their wings and tried to will themselves into the light.
“It’s food grade spray”, he said as an afterthought, as he noticed shocked eyes turned on him, and slowly walked away.
In the silence which followed moth bodies could be heard thumping and bumping into one another and the lamp until all eyes were drawn through the wall of glass to the group of people dodging moths outside and walking toward the entrance to the restaurant….!
JOYFULNESS
Some days you just can’t be anything else but thankful!
I had one of those days on Friday. As I walked back to our house from the bottom paddocks in the sunset light, I thought: “I am so thankful –
• for living and working in a rural environment where my husband’s time is his own
• for the creative energy I feel on this farm of ours
• for the amazing privilege of working with young children
• for the living and breathing cattle who accept me in their midst
• for the break in the season which has brought rain
• for the constantly changing beauty of the farm where I live
• for the lifegiving rain which has turned the paddocks green overnight
• for the evergreen bush and trees with that amazing eucalyptus smell
• for the wild fairy wrens who whistle away until I come and feed them on the patio
• for the chooks and guineafowl who forgive me for getting home late
• for the drive to and from school past farms, vineyards, dairies and turquoise blue dams
• for the warm sunshine on my shoulders and the blue sky overhead
• for the weekend ahead where I plan to rest and recharge
• and for the difficult child in my class who just wrote the beginning to his very first story!”
As I said, “I can’t help but feel thankful!”
PS: I wrote this then thought about my one word for the year (JOY) and gave it the title above. Looks like I’ve got the joy back for a while.
A Teacher’s Dark Night
I came home late again last Friday, frazzled and burdened with the issues of my ‘difficult behavioural problem’ child in my otherwise gorgeous Year 3 class. All week I’d been planning for him, collecting resources, networking and attempting to harness every available mentor and in-school support possible. But, after a trying day which ended with him finally sitting beside me on the mat banging his head against the cupboard door, despair seized hold of me. I felt choked with frustration at his rejection of my efforts, his manipulations and willfulness and at the insecure, lost and lonely soul I saw hiding within, cringing away from my outstretched hand of help! I felt numb and sucked dry. This was my ‘year of living joyously’ and this child had sucked the joy out of my working life as effectively as the ‘death eaters’ in Harry Potter. He had consumed me. I saw no light.
I drove home to my amazing husband, trying to focus on the joys he brought to my life. The farm was bathed in sunlight when I arrived home. He’d been expecting me and had a cool glass of wine and nibblies ready – what a treasure he is!
My soul was soothed still further as we walked to move the cattle to a fresh paddock. The sunset was gentle and warm. The trees were richly fragrant with fuzzy white gum-nut blossom and squawking black cockatoos burst from their branches into the paling blue skies. Fluffy black ears zeroed in on me like satellite dishes as the cows gathered round me on the grass to catch my scent. Calmly inquisitive black eyes searched me until silently they reflected recognition. I was now more drained than numb.
Much later I retreated to my study to read my “Two Writers” blog. I was shocked to see a personal message answering my need. “Restore the Joy” it read. Stacey acknowledged the stresses of teaching and how it can destroy your joy. She then suggested ways to “restore the joy”. What a gift that was!! Thank you.
THE CLEARING SALE
THE CLEARING SALE
“What am I bid? Who’ll give me $20?..$10?…$5? Thank you and SOLD to number….sorry madam, you need to be quicker,” rattled the auctioneer. I was the ‘madam’ who needed to be quicker. I didn’t fare much better on the next few items I bid on, so decided instead to play spectator and enjoy the day.
We saw the ad in the local paper and were drawn to a few lots of “dry jarrah beams” of various sizes. My husband is building an extension and had been horrified at the price for the timber beams we wanted for the ceiling, This seemed to be an answer. We set off early, our trusty trailer in tow and our fingers crossed.
The auction was held at a rural smallholding. All activity centred in and around a huge green shed, standing solidly in the middle of an ochre gravel setting, beside the stone house. People milled and dribbled down the driveway like colourful ants discovering a picnic, moving from one lot to another, sizing it up and deciding what treasures they’d take home. The jarrah timber sat in piles outside the shed. It was recycled and bore its nails bravely like a seasoned boxer, lying strong and heavy on the ground. We sized up the lot we wanted, measuring and calculating while keeping a watchful eye out for ‘competition’. Then we wandered off to check out the wares on offer.
What an eclectic mix of goods for sale. Looking at them one couldn’t help but wonder about their owners and their life journeys, then why every area of their lives was being discarded so completely. Their love of surfing was present everywhere, from old surfing memorabilia, books and magazines, life-sized Billabong direction signs, wax-worn surfboards and a very ‘collectable’ burnt-umber Malibu board with cut-out skeg. The recurring ocean theme included boating accessories, sails and a humdinger of an anchor, fishing rods of all sizes and lengths, sinkers and tackle boxes. There was lifestyle camping equipment to sleep an army – tents of different shapes and sizes, comfy canvas chairs, metal and enamel cookware, barbeques, gas bottles big and small. There were lazy garden recliners and a murky cream market umbrella ready to shade a dusty glass-topped patio table and chairs. Men and their sheds was a recurring theme. The huge aircraft hangar shed floor was filled with piles of ‘boys toys’. These ranged from ladders (not just one but four ladders- different colours, metal and wooden, large and small) to chainsaw, welder, sledgehammers, spanners and screwdrivers with associated nuts, bolts, nails and screws. There were computers propped in boxes, digital cameras (which must have seen it all), television, washing machine and vacuum cleaner. Every item lay there, cold and bare, for inspection.
The rusty old tractor under the trees lent a forgotten air to the farming items while the newer interests were also up for grabs. Two shiny motorbikes attracted lively interest as prospective buyers straddled them as they roared their intentions throatily into the hot air.
HE was certainly giving up everything, and I mean everything! Even his income-stream would walk out the door as mountainous piles of plastic conduit and hundreds of reels of electrical cable, thick and thin, sat waiting for new owners. But what of HER? Where were this woman’s personal and professional effects? I looked everywhere for a shadow of her personality. I found only general household appliances and one forlorn box of old linen and frilly cushions. Was this how they had lived their lives? Was it really such an uneven partnership or was she still clinging to her ‘old identity’, unwilling to move on?
The auctioneer’s voice rang out again and again and I wondered whether he would have any left when he got home that night, having used a strong shout all day. He worked them hard and seemed on their side all the way, coaxing and cajoling the dollars from deep pockets to turn the circus into business. We laughed with him as he poked fun at himself and the goods, then willingly someone would agree to part with a ‘tenner for two’ or a ‘fifty’ here and there. The oppressive heat picked up and sweat coursed its way down my back, or was that just how it felt bidding that day? Bang! went the gavel again and again on the paper auction catalogue in his hands as he led the bidders like the Pied Piper around the bidding course.
“He’s going sailing…getting rid of everything…That’s what he wants…” Snippets of gossip only fuelled my speculation. What was it? Was it retirement, a sea change or relationship issues which had led to this complete obliteration of the past?
A thought then struck me. Maybe this was not an ending but a ‘returning’; choosing to turn back to that simplicity and freedom of the surfing years – just him, her and the sea. Maybe this was a rebirth in the full circle of life – a true ‘clearing out’, a turning of the tide. Maybe they were still seeking that perfect wave.