Heavenly Beverley : Something In The Air...

I have been listening to rather a lot of the "Alan Parsons Project" in the Gallery over the last tumultuous couple of months. I didn't discover Alan Parsons until about ten years ago and remember being blown away by his music from the very beginning. His lyrics touch my soul. His words also challenge me to think about the many paths of my own life.

"Prime Time" has been gently playing in my head this morning. I say "gently" because the song is not unwelcome and has provided me with another opportunity for contemplation. Michael is still asleep with His feline Majesty Chop, Lexi has finished her usual morning havoc with only one broken piece of porcelain, the heater is warming up our home and the fog is lifting. I believe this is going to be a beautiful day.

"Something in the air

Maybe for the only time in my life

Something in the air

Turning me around and guiding me right"...

Somehow Lexi might be, unwittingly to both of us, that "Something in the air" that is allowing me to reevaluate the relevance of memories and what really deserves to be of importance in my current stage of life.

I'll try to explain. I thought this post would come flooding out of me, but the process has been a tad more problematic than I realised as I try and rationalise these thoughts.

Having a puppy back in our lives has been hilarious, frustrating, exhausting and unpredictable. Lexi turned one on 30 May. She is a big and lanky goofball with a brain the size of a planet that she is still learning how to use. I think she gets bored in the early morning just after sunrise and that is when the trouble begins.

What is interesting is what she does destroy and what she either carries as a trophy or leaves altogether. Yesterday, she unearthed photograph albums from the bookshelf, including one that featured rather a lot of fish and coral (Underwater World?) and a few images of me from between twenty and thirty years ago. I looked back at myself standing in my newly renovated kitchen in the Karrinyup house. I was thirty-three years of age...

Then, this morning, Lexi was prancing around with a small mixed media artpiece I had obtained in Cossack a few years ago. The piece itself was undamaged and she gave it up to me with just a bit of quiet persuasion. Happy memories of the North-West filled me with warmth and my present life with my beloved Michael.

She also has a penchant for somewhat more delicate items. I found the remains of a little piece of decorative porcelain that came from an antique Gallery on the very top of Mount Tamborine in Queensland. My mother had bought this and another piece many years ago whilst I had been visiting them during one of the less fractured times of our relationship.

As I looked at the broken pieces in my hand, I wondered about my emotions. Was I feeling regret or sadness or anger at Lexi? Was I remembering Mum with affection? Was this breakage important at all?

I eventually worked out I was feeling both relief and release. My mother had not been a benevolent being. She caused so much trauma for our family and she had wielded power by giving and taking. With never any rhyme or reason.

Lexi's joyful breakage of a tiny piece of china removed another invisible chain of hurt and sorrow from my past.

After I had vacuumed up the last shards, I went back and looked at the photographs that had been uncovered yesterday. I tore up some, but I have kept others, including the thirty-three-year-old me, so happy in the heart of that house.

Life is a constant and continual journey...