Granny Hen

Well. Two days later...

But it was the weekend, and I was very busy! First of all, I had to be up all the earlier in order to get to my orchestra rehearsal (lugging a cello down a windy, corkscrew staircase when you've just woken up in the morning is not something I recommend!) by 9am, and then I rushed back home so I could skype interview my American grandmother about her mother, my great-grandmother, for a TAFE assignment on life/biographical writing. And that took us up to about 4pm...but, my goodness, was my great-grandmother a crazy lady! She was FANTASTIC!

I have about 4 pages of dot-points concerning her life - 'Granny Hen', we used to call her, a name that began when my own mother was small. She and her siblings found it difficult to pronounce her real last name (which will remain unsaid for anonymity's sake) as, yes, it was quite a mouthful!

Granny Hen was unique in the truest sense. Her confidence, shamelessness, and, true, indifference to what anyone else though of her (although she believed that everyone must love her!), made her one of the most inspirational people I have ever known, and it makes me proud to say that she and I are of the same flesh and blood.

It has been said of her, by her own family, that she was "wildly impractical", that "if she ever went senile, you wouldn't know the difference", that she "lived in the now, that anything past was well and truly in the past", that she "loved to have fun, and was always making up new tricks", and that she "drove like hell!", according to her husband, when they finally purchased a car. My Grandma also said that she was always, always optimistic, that she "never had a depressed day in her life". But she also said that Granny Hen was terribly impulsive, being very highly ADD, and Grandma says she spent a good deal of her time "watching the back of her head go away from me at a high speed in the wrong direction!".

Granny Hen, like the majority of my Mum's side, was very artistic. She loved to paint. She painted toes and petunias on her sneakers, a sunflower on the top of her hat, and a naked woman's figure on the front of her bathing suit, to make her 'appear slimmer', in her old age! Grandma also told me that Granny Hen wanted an oriental rug, and since she didn't have one, she did the next best thing, as far as she was concerned - put a piece of cardboard on the veranda and painted it to look like an oriental rug!

She also was fiercely dedicated to her family (HER family, not her husband's, as she argued that his German relatives were too boring while the Scottish were too violent!), and this was expressed through an ongoing mural of her family that she painted in her house - and she never finished it, as she was constantly changing it, repainting people as they grew, never satisfied to leave it as it was.

Her imagination was boundless, and one of pure wonder and brilliance, as she painted her grandchildren hugging unicorns, and holding tamed birds. I would have loved to have seen the mural. Now the house has been sold, and the mural painted over, the new residents clueless as to its great significance to our family. It's a quiet tragedy we must bear alone.

My grandmother also recalls a common scene she saw as a child: Granny Hen, with her little baby on one hip, a paintbrush in the other hand, and a cat getting into her paint pallet! I can picture that quite perfectly, and a marvelous scene it is!

I was also over-joyed to discover some very interesting similarities that I share with Granny Hen. She, like I, absolutely adored dark chocolate! I found this quite fascinating, as no one else is particularly fond of dark chocolate in my family, outside of my Dad, but he's from a completely different side!

Granny Hen also loved to read, as do I, and apparently she would get so involved in the stories that she read, that she could actually experience them! I love that about her.

Favourite colours also...blue, purple and red. All my favourites. Apparently a lot of people on my mother's side have cherished these colours as well, especially red towards the end of their lives. Consequently, my Grandma explained that red happens to be the colour of life.

I also discovered that, back in the day, Granny Hen actually used to work for a newspaper called the 'News Republican' as the society editor, which was the perfect job for her, according to my Grandma, as she loved to gossip! Every day she would make her way into town, despite the fact that she didn't own a car and it was several miles to get there, even if it was only to collect a single head of lettuce - and then spend an enjoyable afternoon with her good friend Martha swapping juicy tidbits of gossip about who did what!

Grandma said that once she herself hit the teen years, Granny Hen thought it would be appropriate to start including her in her gossip, and found great amusement in using Grandma's friends and classmates as targets. "Oh, did you hear what Susie Marshall got up to last night with Samuel Brown in that car? And we all thought she was such a nice girl." My grandmother , not being a judgemental person, would then retort back with some defensive reply, "Mother, how do you even know that? Were you in the back seat?!".

Granny Hen was also a terrible cook, although she preferred to call herself an "imaginative cook". She never had the foresight to check to see whether she actually possessed the right ingredients for a recipe, and being very impulsive and ADD, she very often could not wait until she had gotten them! So, if she wanted to make a cake which called for vanilla essence, she'd use peppermint instead - resulting in some very strange tasting dishes!

Granny Hen could also not stand to be alone while she drove (when they finally bought a car, after many long trips to town on foot), so she stuffed a scarecrow and put him in the passenger seat to keep her company, naming him 'Burt Reynolds' after her favourite movie star! Her creativity never ceases to astound me!

The second and last time I ever saw Granny Hen was when I was about 5 years old. I can still feel the night, remember the atmosphere...

It was dark, and we were all sitting on the porch, listening to Dad softly picking at the guitar the way he does. My sister and I were lying on the couch, tucked up to our chins under a leopard-skin blanket, Granny Hen's favourite pattern, our toes sticking out the bottom. You could almost taste the warm, Summer air. Everyone else - cousins, aunts, uncles, mum and dad - were congregated on the porch, nabbing a chair, or a bit of the balcony railing. The sense of family was sublime.

Granny Hen swung silently in the white, wicker chair that dangled from the ceiling, her hands folded neatly on her lap.

I don't remember what was said or if anything was said. All I remember is just lying there, listening to the music, and the quiet creak as Granny Hen swung gently back and forth.

We have a photo of this night, but I don't need it to remember the scene. Granny Hen's face is fixed firmly in my mind.

And I'll only see her in my mind from now on. She passed away several years back, at the triumphant age of 91. And even though I only met her a few meagre times, I feel an inexplicable connection to her. I can see her up there now, painting to her heart's content, using a paint pallet splashed with far more colours than she could ever have dreamed of down here.

Ah, there is so much more that I could write about her, so many stories to tell! But I am afraid that no number of stories that I recall will be enough to capture the personality of my beloved Granny Hen. She was an incredibly inspirational woman, in all her insanity, and I only wish I could have met her a few more times before she departed this earth. She was a woman who was not one lick ashamed to be exactly who she was, and, three generations down, we still have moments of fond reminiscence, seasoned with many good laughs, of my beloved Granny Hen.

Violet Quercus

xoxo

The Change and Herbal Tea

Well, my stomach's grumbling, the kitchen's to my left, but I'm determined to write this post before I do anything else!

Ah, the things that winter days bring...a roaring fire, a hot cup of herbal tea, and good dig through my past papers and notebooks - resulting in the discovery of quite a few forgotten, yet cherished pieces of writing. How exciting!

It's amazing to note how much you can change in such a short amount of time. This can be made all the more evident when you read back through something you've written, perhaps not even 6 months ago. I can see now how different my world-view was back then, as opposed to now, as a lot of my pieces tended to be fairly melancholy in tone, although they all seemed to end in a more positive, hopeful voice.

(Here's an example...Heaven knows what I was going through when I wrote this one!)

"Staring into the abyss before me, a draught, cold as ice, whistled through my hair. I was back where I vowed I’d never return. The memories of past failures crept back into my mind through back doors I thought I had closed. With each new, painful thought, the gaping crack before me grew, shifting the unsteady ground under my weary feet. Soon I’d be back down there, among the cold bones of past victims; held down by the crushing weight of my pain; trapped. My burden grew, pressing me down towards the consuming darkness. My knees failed me and my fragile frame collapsed – but, somehow, I did not fall. No, instead my shoulders grew lighter as my burden was gently removed. Opening my eyes, a glorious light engulfed me, consuming all the darkness. The dismal blacks and greys of my attire faded, becoming blinding white, shining with the radiance of a million stars."

It's also good to note that this change in my thinking has been noted itself, as it means that I have developed away from this frame of mind, and am recognising the positive changes that have occurred. I can see that I have developed emotionally, and have emerged from this slightly anxious and dark state of mind as a happier, more optimistic person, although I do still have the same philosophical tendencies of questioning nearly every aspect of life to the nth degree...'Why? Why? Why?' It seems to be my favourite passtime! Which can be a good or a bad thing, I suppose. I just need to be sure that I am using this element of my character to better who I am as a person; pulling apart a question regarding some obscure aspect of humanity that most people would not have even considered before, until it becomes some raving obsession in my mind to know the answer, is not a healthy way to be living! And yes, I have been there. I think I need to submit to the understanding that if I can't answer a question, well, then I can just accept that with a shrug and move on with life. No one has all the answers in life, do they? So why should I?

As well as developing emotionally, I can also see the great deal I have developed as far as my technical writing skills are concerned...oh gosh! Some of the stuff I wrote, I just want to bury under 6 feet of earth and forget it ever existed! But again, I think that upon reflection, it can be encouraging (if you can get past the embarrassment of it all!) to recognise how far you have come. So I have spent the last few hours in front of the warm fire, ignoring that cup of herbal tea, while I typed up all my handwritten notes of woe...and some of happiness, yes - I was not all that far gone! But just to see what I thought back then, compared to what I think now can be quite incredible...and indeed encouraging.

Some of the pieces I quite liked, however, and they seemed to be sound enough in construction, so I quite happily left them how they were. Some others I found had potential, although they lacked good composition, and, after drafting and redrafting, I had created some lovely little bits of writing, all to do with different aspects of life.

They had all been done at around the same time, I realised, during a writing workshop I had undertaken, but before I had begun on my TAFE course in Professional Writing. So not many were of the standard of which I possess now, although they were probably significantly better than that which I would have written before doing the workshop.

Here's a short piece I wrote on the very first session of the workshop. It speaks for itself...

"An empty coffee mug signalled the closing of the session. There were quiet scratches of pen across paper as minds expanded with the atmosphere of acceptance. It was nearly time to end, and they’d only just begun. Perhaps next week they would experience it again. Perhaps it was the start of something new and wonderful…"

I believe it was something new and wonderful. For here I am now, nearly halfway through my first year in TAFE. And at 17, I am the youngest person to ever be accepted into the course. It was definitely a daunting prospect. But here I am, working my way towards the dream that up until now had been just that - a far-fetched, imagined, glimmer of a dream. And looking back upon those early years of my childhood, I can't believe now I am actually doing it! For as far back as I can remember, I have always responded to that over-asked question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" with, "I want to be an author!"

And certainly, I tried. So many stories have been started, and never finished. Just sitting in the hardly-opened computer folder, collecting metaphorical dust. It's a sad thought. But now, perhaps, I have the opportunity to finish what I started. To finally be able to put a triumphant 'THE END' on a completed story. Ah, what a feeling that would be!

Well, I am well and truly famished now, as I was yesterday (after struggling my way through darned technology for so long!) and so I shall sign off now, and hope that this post wasn't completely in vain, that someone might enjoy reading my ramblings! Farewell, readers!

Violet Quercus

xoxo

The Beginning

So here it all starts. Not sure where it'll go or how far I'll get. But a start is all you need. In fact, it's all we're capable of in the beginning.

I suppose it's exciting. Although a little of the magic of creating and keeping a blog has slightly depleted over the last few hours I have spent painstakingly trying to attempt what you now see.

I think, to start off with, I should admit that technology and I are not on the best of terms! In fact, my whole family, minus my sister, are not really what you would call 'techno-savvy' people. But that's alright, because I now have my blog, and, although it's probably not the most professional-looking blog, it's enough to get me going.

But why did I want to start this blog? Well, the answer could be simple, or it could be complex. Choose what you will, but here are my reasons...

First of all, I like to write. Love to write, in fact. I have a longing to share my ideas and thoughts with the world, to affect humanity in some positive way. That can seem quite an overwhelming, far-fetched, even impossible wish at times, especially for a young person. But the yearning remains there, nonetheless. So I suppose that creating a blog was the most logical and productive thing I could do towards achieving something of this longing, for the time being anyway.

Secondly, I tend to be a bit of a procrastinator; I suppose by nature (I will very begrudgingly admit), but I think that also perhaps by some other issue that is deeply-rooted inside of me, which I shall not delve into at this point. But I find it very hard to keep on top of things, and to be accountable to do the things that I love to do. And I do love writing. Which is why I believe creating a blog will summon up some deep determination in me to continue writing, if not for myself, for my readers, as having this expectation placed upon me will propell me to muster some more self-discipline, more than I would have simply sitting in my safe, cosy, comfortable bedroom, cradling my diary...which tends to exist in either a lonely, clean, white-page state for many months at a time, or be completely scrawled over with illegible handwriting after I decide that I finally must record something of my life, and go on an insane writing binge.

No. I need something consistent and orderly, where I can continue to write at a steady pace. Something that will allow me to release some of the thoughts that are constantly bombarding my mind and bouncing around, contained inside, begging to be shown to the world. Something that will serve as a place where I can share those things that greatly inspire and affect me, in positive ways. I want to show who I am and what I love to more than just my small, personal circle. I want to bring something of who I am to the world. And this is my first step.

So, after a great deal of thinking, researching and fiddling around with formats, text size, and font colour, here it is, at last!

My blog.  The Planting.

And I may choose to elaborate on why I chose this title in further blogs, but for now, I must leave it there, and hope that this brief introduction to me and my reasons to creating this blog, will suffice and keep people interested in things to come. For I am just as interested to see what becomes of this blog, as I don't have a particular intention, besides an outlet for my thoughts and little bursts of inspiration. And these, I am sure we both know, can be very sporadic in their appearances, although not in the least necessarily lacking in importance or philosophical value. I am excited to see what my mind continues to make of the world around me. Until then, farewell readers!

Violet Quercus
xoxo