Reflections on turning 51

having been joined by a beautiful pink robin

“He had one child left. There’d been four, but three of them were up and running, more or less their own men. They were all boys, still teenagers. But they weren’t his any more. Except for the youngest. That was Peter. Peter still held Donal’s hand. Except when there were people coming towards them, boys or girls his own age or older. Then he’d let go, until they were around the corner.”
-Bullfighting, Roddy Doyle

==

“Be ready at 10 am, Dad. Bring an appetite.”

That was a text message from K (18 years old) on Friday. Arranging a Saturday morning birthday catch-up. Me and my young-adult daughters, who live this fortnight with their close-by mum.

==

==

Saturday. It’s early. Earlier than I’d like. Dark. I lie in the darkness with eyes closed and I tell myself that if I can’t sleep, the next best thing I can do is rest.

Sarah is away. I’m home in my apartment. In the same bedroom that has been just a bit too warm overnight for the past 4 or 5 months. The ceiling fan above turns slowly.

Why have I woken early? Is anything on my mind?

Well, it’s my birthday.

I wonder. Think.
Global unrest is on my mind. Of course it is.
Unfairness is on my mind, and more than that - cruelty is on my mind. The cruelty of the disproportionately wealthy is on my mind. Isn’t it time we viewed the hoarding of extreme amounts of money as psychological illness? How much is enough?
The looming and ongoing and preventable species-level hardship caused by climate change is on my mind. Of course it is.
Cleaning the bathroom is on my mind. Finding an electrician too, or someone to help me design and fit out some lighting options for my apartment. And the dishwasher has been on the blink. Domestic maintenance is on my mind.
Promoting hope is on my mind. Being hopeful.

==

Today I turn 51.

I open my eyes.

What do I have?
I have a wonderful loving relationship of kindness, fun and support.
I have a safe, clean place to live.
I have a loving family.
I have loving friends.
I have interesting and safe and challenging part-time work that I undertake with lovely, supportive colleagues.
In many ways, I know that I have won the lottery.

==

A glow of artificial light illuminates the edge of the curtain.

==

What else is on my mind in the early hours?

Writing is on my mind. Particularly, getting time to write an entry that I’m happy with for an upcoming short story competition. And this seems strange. Writing – something that I do because I enjoy it – somehow becoming a source of stress.
Separate the mind.
Separate.
Separate.

==

A magpie starts up outside.

==

I reflect on the words I wrote on a scrap of notepaper and tucked into my phone case during a time of significant upheaval in 2021. Words I have read since, during moments of despair, moments of triumph, and at all sorts of moments in between.

May I live this day
Compassionate of heart
Clear in mind
Gracious in awareness
Courageous in thought
Generous in love
-John O’Donohue

Whenever mind’s noise comes
Remember
It’s all nothing, nothing, nothing.
Watch your self.
Not your mind.
-Mooji

==

What else is on my mind in the early hours?

Death is on my mind. I thought I was OK with death, living as I do in a kind of bonus life. But maybe there are things about death that I need to address. It’s possible. Maybe there are relationships I need to tend. I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I feel as though I’ve given pretty much every-thing I can to every-one. Perhaps death is on my mind because there has been quite a bit of it about, lately.

==

Sunday. Along a quiet one way street, a young boy rides past on a bike that is way too big for him. His dad lopes behind, down the middle of the road, bouncing a footy. Repeatedly, he handballs the footy high in the air and he takes mark after imaginary mark.

==

A few weeks ago. I navigate to an online shop to buy a piece of Jon Kudelka’s art. Navigating to and around the site is something I have done intermittently for more than a year. Maybe two. But then just last month, aged 53, Jon died.

It is with both a heavy and hopeful heart that I click through many beautiful images on his artwork website and decide to buy and then order a lino cut print of a barred bandicoot.

A couple of days later, Jon’s wife Maggie writes to tell me that unfortunately the barred bandicoot is not available. But that she’s found a pink robin that I might like.

“It’s a lot brighter and cheerful! What do you think?”
She includes a photo.

What do I think?
I love the pink robin.
I love the idea of the pink robin.
I love the way the pink robin, through this hopeful exchange, seems to have found me. And so, very happily I buy the pink robin as a birthday present to myself.

During the past week the pink robin arrives from Hobart. I frame the image at a local framing store and on the way home, take some photos in a local park to share with Maggie back in Hobart.

Hi Maggie,
I wanted to let you know that the Pink Robin arrived safe and sound after its northward flight.
Yesterday I walked over to Lygon Street to frame it and on the way home again, I walked through the park.
Here are two pictures of Pink Robin trying out a mature eucalypt.
Thank you very much.

How beautiful.
Thanks for sending through the pictures, it looks lovely and right at home.
Best wishes

==

And now – boom (later/now) – as I sit down to write this (on Monday night) – when I get up to THIS VERY SENTENCE RIGHT NOW – I am taken and lifted by the quote from Mooji (above). The one that has been tucked inside my phone case since the second half of 2021. It dances and moves from its form as written word and it floats right off the page and it transfigures morphs becomes awareness itself pure awareness and it overruns my bodymind as all-enveloping presence.

“Oh,” I say out loud. “You asked ‘what else is on my MIND?’”

And RIGHT NOW (as I type) I am overjoyed to spot that in asking that, I fell for the old sucker-punch. I tried to interrogate issues of my fallible MIND using – you guessed it – my fallible MIND.

Rarely is anything of lasting value achieved by that method. Sure, you can make lists of issues, prioritise them, interrogate them. And that can be useful in the short term. But still, all of those are mere delusions of answers, delusions of certainty and delusions of what it is to be.

I sit.

I breathe.

==

Early Saturday morning and I’m out for a walk. Through cordless over-the-ear headphones I listen to a recent episode of the Blindboy podcast; Blindboy in conversation with fellow autistic Irishman and bird sound expert Seán Ronayne. I could not be happier. I’m without time pressure. Sunlight shines on eucalypts and glints from the rippled surface of the Merri Creek.

At 10 am, as instructed, I’m ready.

K arrives at our apartment with her sister S (20 years old), who picks up my car keys. “I’m on my P plates now Dad, and I’ll be driving. You sit back and relax.”

We’re in the car and I’m being driven to a mystery location. This is magnificent. S parks the car and we walk along the public street in unfamiliar Essendon. We walk and talk, joke and laugh, and we arrive at a café where everything is gluten free - and for which K has made us a booking for brunch. There are people inside, people outside, people S and K’s age. But regardless, S and K place their arms around my shoulders and hold open the door.

“Come on in Dad. Happy birthday.”

And I’m on top of the world.

==

What else is on my mind?
Nothing.
Nothing to worry about.
I watch my Self.

==

That was Sproutings #130. Thanks for your feedback on last week’s issue “A chance conversation waiting for coffee and a 500 word short story in which somehow the actor Sam Neill appears as a character.”
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Sproutings has been going (pretty much) weekly since late January 2024. You might enjoy this short story called “Trailblazing” available for kindle, that was published in The Big Issue (Australia) Fiction Edition 2014.

Next week, Sproutings #131. Go well.