Souls.

This is not the telling of a love story in the making, but rather the tale of a long, long, romance in its completion. . .

This being a love story, it would seem appropriate to here address the question of ; “What is Love?”…Is it spirit?..like a vision of religious ecstasy?...Is it emotion, like hate and jealousy?..Is it feeling, scent..taste or sound?...rather, I believe the best analogy for describing the physical existence of love, is like the grafting of a new shoot of a plant onto healthy stem stock.. as described in what follows : “The art of grafting and budding involves joining parts of two plants (a scion and a rootstock) to grow as one, combining desirable traits like strong roots with tasty fruit, enabling clonal propagation for fruit trees and ornamentals, and restoring weakened plants, requiring compatible cambium layers to align and careful care to heal. . . “ yes, a joining of two souls to become as one with a strengthening of both..and it also has to be accepted that one has no control over love as a medium of influence..one can try to avoid it, deny it, refuse it, destroy it as a physical connection…but in doing so one also has to destroy a piece..and sometimes not a small piece..of oneself, for once love takes root, with or without the choice of the host, it has a power all its own and to be rid of it, demands a cutting out of the growth so that it leaves a definite scarring of the body and soul..so it can be best described, like tornados or earth tremors, as a force of nature…It can be dangerous to love too much.

Where does one start in telling of a love story that existed as love, silent requited, but extended in such conscious silence over thirty years?...A love interrupted by circumstances outside the control of both persons intimately involved… A love that yet remained intact, if dormant for so many years then to be suddenly woken to the very place and intensity of where it left off…

I suppose the most reasonable and logical thing is to start where most stories must start..at the beginning.

I can recall a Spring day…a pleasant Spring day..must I describe the cool breezes, the soft rustle of growing leaves on the many deciduous fruit trees and ornamentals that lined the road?...Must I wax lyrical on the sound of birds and the distant lowing of ..possibly..contented cows on the hill-slopes around the town?...let us presume and accept those obvious accoutrements that accompany the life of a small, country village.

I was out for a walk..the domestic life in our house was going through some “rough times”, as the saying goes and a quiet walk seemed to me the best way to avoid “difficulties” at that moment in time..So I would walk down the wide, white limestone road of our street to the main road, cut across to the brook that cut the town in half and cross the little bridge there.

I lived at the time in a small village in the Adelaide Hills..A small town nestled in between a surround of steep hills with a narrow but vibrant stream meandering and swerving between those peaks…There was the usual smattering of modern houses and old cottages, with several shops serving the needs of both the local citizens of the town and the surrounding farmlands.

The little bridge crossed the stream there ..called The Swaine, named after an old settler family of the district. I would stand at the halfway point of this bridge and gaze down onto the babbling waters of the stream that tumbled and flowed onward to the sea..I have always been of a poetic mind and had read many poems and stories from the golden era of the “Romantics” of literature and a poem by Tennyson reverberated in my head whenever I crossed that bridge..;

“The Brook”…

“I come from haunts of coot and hern,

I make a sudden sally,

To sparkle out among the fern,

To bicker down a valley. . . “

I can always remember the start to that poem and several other stanzas…but not the complete poem in sequence…but that didn’t matter as I could capture the mood of the piece and perhaps that is all that matters with good poetry…that trapping and capturing of the intensity of the feeling of a moment in time and place..The other thing that would cross my mind, in a literature sense when I crossed that bridge was the title of a book I browsed many years ago called..: “As I crossed a bridge of dreams”…by a Japanese woman..a courtesan, I came to discover..and I looked her up on the internet to find this : “Recollections of a woman in Eleventh Century Japan..; Lady Sarashina…” at least that is what I presume is her correct name..after all it was written over a thousand years ago..

But it is the title I most like..a title that encompasses both a desire to go to a place in a state of serenity and also to be able to hold that feeling as in a dream we hold similar feelings..and as I wrote above, my domestic tribulations at that time were not of a tranquil kind!..and those two thoughts, the poem and the bridge of dreams gave a peace to my mind to replace the angst and doubt of any chance of redeeming our marriage relationship..

“. . .  For men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever. . . “

Yes, indeed..and it was with a kind of settling fatalistic mood that inevitably I finished crossing that bridge over The Swaine to make my way up a track across a narrow grass way between the spired, stone Catholic church and a cottage that I was to shortly discover was the domicile of the resident Nun that administered both faith and Naturopathy to the diocese of the district.

Her name was Kathleen…or as became my much preferred diminutive affection..; Kate.

Now..none of the following events and situations may have happened if I had not, in walking between that church and the cottage glanced to my left on being distracted by a woman’s joyous laughter…there is something completely mesmerising about the laughter of women..it has a mysterious, enticing pitch of volume and tempo that is so attractive to a man’s ear and psyche…it has the ability to swirl and flutter one’s heart,  like a flag in the wind, like the distant roll of thunder, like raindrops gently pattering on a tin roof or like the wash of wind-swept storm against the window on a wild winter’s day!...and there you have it..I looked over to see a small group of people..say four or five..milling around the back door of the cottage cooking a barbeque…the smell of grilled onions rich and pungent on the air…if there is one aroma of food that is most enticing to my senses, it is the scent of barbeque onions…and toss in the sizzling sound of chops and sausages and I unashamedly blurted out…

“My!...what a wonderful smell..” to which several answered in unison : “Come on over and tuck in!”…of course I deferred and refused to interrupt their gathering, but the invitations became even more effusive so that I ventured over and a slice of bread topped with fried onion and a generous snag toppled with rich sauce was pressed into my hand,,,and without so much as a “would you like  . . . “ a glass of rich red wine was pressed into my other hand..I can still remember the label and type to this day..it was a MacWilliam’s, Merlot…and a more gentler, soothing wine I had never before tasted…couple that with the happy company and the wafting aromatic smoke of the barbeque and I quickly fell into the mood of the congenial company.

In this atmosphere of congeniality, I soon was informed of the who and what of the gathering..

There was a priest ; Father Tom..several lay people, two men and one woman, who were acolytes to the church across the way and of course..there was Kate..it was she whose laughter first attracted my attention enough to turn my head toward that delightful sound…Kate, I was to be informed was a nun residential to the cottage there and it was she who was the eyes and ear to the needs and wants of the small Catholic community there in that village.

Now, myself, being what is called a “cradle Catholic”, that is born into the faith through parents that were practicing believers, and coupled with the fact that I served in my junior years as an Altar Boy to the diocese where I was schooled and lived, while now, in my adult years a sworn atheist, I had much in common with these joyous people and could both converse and plead jocular familiarity tales from those years spent “in the service” of God. And it only took a couple of glasses of that excellent vintage merlot to loosen my tongue to regale the company with my confected tales of altar boy days..

“I trust this excellent wine isn’t tomorrow’s altar-wine, Tom?” I joked..

“No way..” he replied straight-faced “ This is way better!”…and we all laughed and laughed..

“ I recall back in my altar boy days”..I began “ when I was serving under old Father Collins..it was either Lent or Advent and there was a series of masses through the day…”

“That’d have to be Lent!” Father Tom interjected..”Ohhh, my aching back!” he groaned in fun.

“…lots of masses..and toward the afternoon, I went from our altar boys dressing room to peek into the vestry to see if Father Collins was ready and there he was..(of course all through the telling of these tales, I was pantomiming the mood and disposition of the characters)…standing, leaning against the bench, looking weary..there was in a glass, a measure of golden wine in front of him, he had his stole in one hand and he was staring in deep concentration at that glass..then he started to address the glass…”For we who are about to serve, bless us St. Benedict!” and he then gulped down the whole glass of wine..gave a gasp of breath, kissed the stole to place around his neck, turned and saw me and called..”Once more into the breach, my boys..once more into the breach!”, and we all marched out to the altar”… and we all joined in with laughter at the tale..

“God bless Dear Father Collins!” someone suggested and we toasted our glasses.

So all in all it turned out to be a very enjoyable afternoon..that is what I like about Catholicism, as against so many other religions, I see Catholicism as the religion of both deep faith and light humour..they have had a couple of thousand years to become on familiar terms with their God..comfortable in their own faith..so much so that there is room in there for a little light, self-deprecating humour…after all, as Joyce once said, the entire faith was built on a pun..: “Thou art ‘Peter, The Rock’..and upon this rock I will build my church”…”Peter”, of course, being the Greek name for rock…clever…and even Judaism has to give ground to Christianity..for their semitic faith was still fragmented when Vespasian brought the Rabbi, Josephus back as prisoner from the so-called “Jewish Wars” to be tutor to his son, Titus..the future ruler of the Roman Empire…And Josephus, seeing Christianity already gaining a secure hold on the ruling class of Rome, called the fragmented Rabbis together in Rome in the early days of the second century to unite, consolidate and unify the teachings of the many doctrines and tribal groups of Judaism…after all, it was this division within the Judean tribes that lost them their Heraldic Kingdom..fighting among themselves till Titus only had to send in his troops to mop up the remains..Anyhow..that is what I still admire about the original faith…and I would add that these other “Johnny-come-latelys” in the religion game ought to be careful what they profess..the Vatican still holds original copyright on The Faith..and they’ll be in big trouble if ever the Pope decided to foreclose on their franchises!

The afternoon finished off with cheerful parting and I could not but help notice that Kate held my hand warmly and only let it slowly slip from her fingers upon our cheerio..and we parted with such a beautiful smile and wave that I could not help but feel tenderness toward this untouchable delight of womanhood…and I felt sure that other days, other moments would follow this very special one.. also, I could not help but notice the touching familiarity between Father Tom and Sister Kate…not that I had any inclination of anything other than a deep friendship for their familiar situations..but with all the cultural rumours surrounding the world of priests and nuns, I went home to write a little ditty..called..”Dusting the Lillies”..the phrase being what the priests call the time when they go to hear the confessions of the nuns..: “The Lillies of the Fields”..

Dusting the lillies.

Wither goest thou, Father John,

On such a splendid day?

Do you follow whimsy’s course,

A carefree wanderer…say?

A laugh, a smile, pause a while..

Then, cautious answer, yea..

“I go toward yonder gate,

Under stately blue-gum tree.

There, (with blessings of God)..

I go to ‘dust the lillies’.

To dust the lillies gently,

Lest such petals fade and die.

I’ll embrace their hips,

Kiss their lips,

And whisper a little white lie!”

*

In reading back over what I have just recorded above, it may read as a tad dismissive of the objective of that little gathering…but far from the truth…I envied them..I envied their honest friendship and camaraderie to each other…for the lay people of the church there worked honestly and faithfully for their diocese, likewise did Father Tom listen with concentrated interest in what they had to tell him…as also did Sister Kate in the communications of any health considerations told in open dialogue with her..for it became aware to me that Kate, if I now may use the familiar, was in the finishing stages of an intense study of natural medicines..and from it all, their close camaraderie to both their faith, church and diocese, I was jealous of their “community”…yes..it was a community of friends and in truth..trust in each other…something my failing marriage had lost a long time ago.

In reality, the marriage ended back when I had completed the building of our first family home in Yankalilla, a small coastal town on the Fleurier Peninsula. It was there that the first cracks began to appear in our relationship, and the suspicion of betrayal arose in my consciousness. Then we sold up..a regretful sale on my part for the loss of such an individual and delightful constructed (by my own hand) stone cottage on the side of a gentle but high sloping hill overlooking a sweeping view of valleys and peaks to the distant sea.

We then bought another block of land in this village where I am writing about and I again hand-build another more spectacular two-story, split-level mud brick house of generous proportions for our growing family..But this house was not the exploratory pleasure of the first stone cottage on the peninsula…this house was fraught with delays and sabotage on the part of a now delinquent partner in the marriage..and I have to confess, it almost killed me, the building of that house..for in the construction period, over five years, my wife had embraced without reserve or restraint, what was then called The New Age Movement..and our family was dragged to all and every crackpot ideology “workshop”, circle dance silliness, guru travesty, quack “doctor” and incompetent relationship advisor possible..and all at a cost that drained the family purse which gave reason for my wife to curse me for not earning enough in my trade as carpenter to keep her library of Jesus knows what idiocy publications and audio presentations available in that age of ludicrousness!

The breaking point came when I finally drew a line under my willingness to attend any one more jerkoff “workshop” by another of her favoured, local jerkoff “Gurus”…that was it, I had thrown down the gauntlet..it was myself and our children/family/ home or her delusions and fantasies…she chose the latter.

So it was in this frame of mind of as yet unsettled finality in a relationship that I first wandered into that camp of congenial company…and yes..I envied them..I envied them most unhappily.

Although I never deliberately made it a point to meet Kate and Tom after that first greet, my habits and walks inevitably led me past the manse where Kate conducted the parish dispensary of natural medicines..and it was on one of these meets that she inquired if I was willing to be hired to do renovations to a spare room in the cottage to convert it to a consulting room and adjacent dispensary now that she had completed her diploma and could legally practice her dispensary..And so we entered into both a business agreement and because of the personal nature of the construction site, became quite friendly in our working relationship, with no more intent than a business arrangement. 

It was this casual arrangement that helped keep my sanity while my familiar world was slowly disintegrating at home. I could escape “the sulky, silent treatment”..or “the sarcastic nasty treatment”…or “the worthless male” treatment and escape to another world of serendipitous calmness and throw myself into the job at hand at Kate’s consulting rooms.

All this nastyniss on my wife’s part was not really solely her fault…I can say that because she was not really bright enough to develop those themes of hate and derision on her own..I do not say this out of scorn or spite, but I believe it is a fact that those who seek and find assurance through cunning eloquence of verbose jargon and sloganeering are not really considering such “philosophy” via careful thinking and reasoning..but rather because it offers comfort to a personality insecure and wanting..and those, I am now certain were the principle driving forces behind the vitriol directed toward myself and my achievements..she had help in this end from that legion of half-baked middle-class feminists that roamed like Genghis Khan’s feral army among the vast media of the times. Barren or childless by choice harridans with high academic qualifications they obtained from a free education and then gained high-status appointments in various universities and dispersed their crumbs of fuckwittery to the sad masses of working-class women from their untouchable ivory towers of elite positions. You could so very often see and hear them conversing with their perfected grammar ; “of course, we women ALL know the real reason men want the quiet little woman at home…” line of accusation..till those working women who took this spew as gospel truth and dissolved in many cases, a quite satisfactory marriage and home life to seek out this El Dorado of “self empowerment” and career highs that were never possible to be achieved without a private schooled “in-house” middle-class network of which they were, by their born class and education totally spurned and rejected from, until they sadly realised they had been sold a pup when they end up sans job, sans partner, sans house and sans secure future and have to tolerate living and sleeping in the back of their car or couch-surfing in those friends’ homes still able to tolerate them..it wasn’t the “glass ceiling” that excluded those working-class women, it was the all too obvious “class ceiling”!..coupled with that all pervasive “nudge-nudge” consciousness of kind unwritten acknowledgement of class recognition.

My variation of Nemesis came one evening after a long, tiring day at work over the far side of the major city of our State, where our carpentry gang was employed to construct a block of school classrooms and administration buildings in the short span of the school holidays..This involved 10 or 12 hour working days with long travel times, so that I was completely shagged when I came home at night..It was always at this time, or just as I was going out the front door in the morning when she would drop some drama on my shoulders so that I was left unsettled or worrying the rest of the day at work..or in this case before trying to get much needed sleep. There was going around at this time in the soft media, a report by some shit-for-brains researcher that it was a proven fact that men did less work inside the home than women and this must be addressed in the interests of gender equality..Well, “She who must be obeyed” latched onto this sparkling piece of focus group wankery and even though she didn’t go to work, and had the leisure to organise her own domestic days, which by the way, was mostly spent telephoning friends or going to some circle of fellowship for mutual readings and appreciation  of this or that guru..she took it upon herself to forcefully announce to me on one of these most tiring days that ;

“I think it only fair that YOU do half the housework from now on.”

“Hang on.” I said after giving this proposition some thought..”If I do one hundred percent of my carpentry job during the day, then come home and do fifty percent of the housework, that adds up to one hundred and fifty percent out of a combined effort from the two of us of two hundred percent!...Do you consider that fair?”…there was silence while she thought this conundrum over…I could almost hear the cogs grinding away in her head…then she pulled that coup de gras feminist last stand on me and proclaimed with a whine..;

“Oh..you just want to keep us in our place!”

“Us?” I queried, and gazed around in mock surprise that there were more of “US” in the same house..and then I did something that amazed even myself..and I don’t know where or what inspired me, but I then slammed my hand palm up onto the table so she could see the cuts, splinters and callouses marked in plain sight and I shouted;

“Here..put your hand next to my hands and then tell me WHO KNOWS THEIR PLACE!”…

And that was about the end of that.

WE ended up selling that second home too and moved to a regional city, but not before I said one last goodbye to Kate..

The house had been sold and the moving date was near. I had some time ago finished the work on the consulting rooms, but we would still meet up every now and then for a cuppa and a chat..I so enjoyed those talks and her delightful demeanour was a complete contrast to the hard-arsed demands of my soon to be ex-wife…

By this time I was sleeping in a separate bedroom and enjoying the isolation, but that did not excuse me from my fatherly duties, of which by now there was a deliberate loading on my shoulders anything that could disturb my peace of mind…It was late one night and I was very unsettled and could not sleep…This room had its own outside door that I used to slip away that night and go walking to ease my mind..my walk carried me habitually to that little bridge that crossed The Swaine..I rested there in the moonlight to gaze down at the babbling stream..its gentle speak and cool breath cleansed my heart and soul..I looked up toward Kate’s house and I could see a light on. I decided to knock on her door to see if she was awake and then I could say a goodbye one on one with her…I made my way to her back door and knocked gently, for if she was in bed, I didn’t want to disturb her…she wasn’t yet in bed, but was about to go, for she asked who I was through the door..upon answering her, she gave a soft “Oh”..and I could hear the door being unlocked and then opened..She stood there in what looked like a silken shift as one would wear to bed, her hair was soft and shining in the wash of moonlight, her breath was soft and tender in the night, her person was full and inviting in the moonlight…we said not a word to each other, yet we both knew what we wanted to say, what we wanted to express, what we hungered to sense..so we fell into each other’s arms and I drew her to me and she responded likewise and we held eachother dearly for more that just a moment in time..we hugged each other with a passion unrequited, yet quite fulfilling, we held each other in a clasp of mutual longing that could not be consummated, yet was quite satisfying..we embraced that night with a devotion to each other that will last to eternity.

And that was the last time I saw Kate for more than thirty years.