Tomorrow is March. March, a time to remember my Grandma who was born in March and also died in March. Below is a tribute and celebration of the life and legacy of Elsa Anna Gross (nee Basedow).
spiritual growth
Surprise! New Release–The T-Team with Mr. B
Friday Fiction–Future Friend
[In response to today’s prompt, a friend is someone you can trust as they trust you. They are there for you, as you are there for them. You can share almost anything about yourself with them, and they can share anything with you and feel safe. You can be yourself with them and they can be themselves with you. With some friends, no matter how long it has been between seeing each other, you pick up the conversation with them from where you left off the last time you saw them.
This story is about the future and friendship.]
MESSAGE FROM MY FUTURE ME
“Grandma, can I excuse the table?” I asked.
Grandma chuckled. “You mean, be excused from the table, dear.”
I nodded and then pushed my chair from the old wooden table.
“Yes, you may, but don’t go too far,” Grandma said. “Go only to the end of the road and then you must turn back.”
“I will.”
I escaped out the back door and down the gravel driveway. The street spanned before me, begging adventure. Sunday lawns green, pungent with fresh Saturday clippings piled behind an assortment of fences.
“Go away, will you,” she said in her grimy blue dress. She leaned over the stone wall and pushed me.
I brushed off her greasy prints and walked on, leaving the willow tree and that girl snarling in the shade behind me. As I strolled into the sun, I ran my hand over cracked rendered walls, rattling cyclone fences and peering through the oleander bushes for signs of life in quiet houses.
“Don’t go over the road,” Grandma’s voice warned in my head.
No, I won’t. I rubbed my bottom in memory of the Belair Sunday school picnic adventure when my brother lost me. Promise! Careful not to step on the lines in the pavement. Bad luck. I tiptoed and danced along the pavement in my pink ballerina shoes.
A shadow wriggled over the pavers. Stobie pole to my right, plastered its stunted midday image on the asphalt. I halted. Casting my focus up, I spied this big girl. I squealed and clapped my hands over my mouth. This lady-girl was dressed all in lace and brown velvet as if in Grandma’s clothes.
“Hello, you must be Lee-Lee.”
“Why did you know my name?” I pointed at her; rude, I know. “Ha, ha! Why are you wearing funny clothes?”
She blushed and rubbed her stubby fingers over the velvet. “They’re trendy where I come from.” She smiled and straightened her long dress that swept past her ankles. “Actually, where I come from, I know a lot about you.”
“Why?”
“Because I have the same name as you.”
“So? I know more than you do. You’re dumb. So there, ner!” I planted my hands on my hips and poked out my tongue.
“That’s no way to talk about yourself.”
“Huh?” I pulled at my pigtail and chewed the ends of my hair.
“Elementary girl.” She flicked her long blonde strands and smirked. “I am the future you. In fact, I know more than you do because I know what’s going to happen to you.”
“Future me?” I scratched my cheek and screwed up my nose. “What does future mean?”
“I am your grown-up self.”
“Oh!” I wiggled a loose tooth. “Does that mean your teeth all fell out? Did you get grown-up teeth or did you get them all pulled out and get false teeth like Grandma’s?” I zoomed up to Future Me’s face and ogled at her mouth. “Come on, show me your false teeth.”
She bared her perfect row of pearly whites and nudged me back. “They are real. Orthodontically corrected, but real.”
“Arthur—what?”
“I had braces on my teeth.”
“Why? Were they crippled?”
“No, they were crooked.”
“Ugh! Crooked teeth.” I turned from her and poked stones with the point of my shoe. “I don’t think I like being you. Grandma clothes, crooked teeth that need Arthur’s braces. I’ll never be like you. You’re just pretending. ‘Sides, how could I be you?”
I squinted at this tall slim blonde who transferred her weight from one leg to the other. I noticed the worn back-pack groaning full of books, straps straining to pull the load from her waist. Future Me stroked her chin between her thumb and forefinger. “Well, it’s hard to explain to someone as little as you. You’re in Prep, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m a big schoolgirl, now.” I thrust my chest forward and with hands each side of my tummy, swung my hips.
“Well, big schoolgirl, Lee-Lee, to put it simply, it’s called T.T.T—thought, time, transportation.”
“What then?” I watched my pink dress swish as I swayed.
“You just think and instead of thinking time as moving forward, you make it move backward for you.”
“Just like that?”
“Well, actually, it’s more complicated than that—a kind of scientific experiment that my big brother Warwick invented. He put electrodes on my head and well, something happens that I can’t fully explain.”
“Oh, did you have a brother, Warwick too? Does your Warwick snort when he laughs?” I cupped my hand over my mouth and tittered.
The lady-girl raised her lace sleeve to her mouth and giggled. “Yes, he does.”
“You must be me.” Repressing the urge to gnaw my fingernails before my future-self, I clasped my hands together and looked in her eyes. “So, me, what’s going to happen to me?”
She avoided my gaze. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.
“That’s not fair! Why can’t I?” I grabbed at her, but she slipped through my fingers and drifted from me. “Plee-ease!”
“I can’t!”
I watched her move further away and shimmer in the sunlight.
“But why not? Please! Just a little bit.” I chased her and swiped at her. “Just a tincy-wincy-little bit. I won’t tell! Promise!”
“Alright, if you insist.” She floated above the greying plaster fence. “But I must be leaving soon.”
She faded, blending in with the oleander and honeysuckle bushes. I strained to see her. I attempted to touch her, but my hand passed through her.
The wind whistled through the bushes. “Have a good time with Jilly.”
“You didn’t tell me! You lied, me!” I cried.
I hunched over and plodded back towards Grandma’s house. Shouts and squeals from a yard on my left, caught the corner of my eye. A girl my age bounced on an old double-spring bed.
“Hello, my name’s Lee, what’s yours?”
“Hello, my name’s Jilly. Do you want to play on the trampoline with me?”
© Lee-Anne Kling 2009; updated 2023
Feature Painting: Somerton Beach Dreaming © Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2011
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11
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Dreaming of being transported to another world?
Time for some holiday reading?
Take a break and journey to another world, another time to
The Lost World of the Wends…
Monday Musing–Be Still
BE STILL
I go to the shops as I do every second day. At the checkout, the girl asks, ‘And how has your day been?’
‘Busy,’ I say.
‘That’s good,’ the girl says with a sage nod as if involved in some conspiracy to keep me on the hamster wheel of busyness.
In the Twenty-first century world “busyness” is good. Not being busy, then, is undesirable. Our Western Protestant work ethic touts, ‘Idleness is the devil’s workshop’. The state of “idleness” is to be avoided at all costs. These days, we equate idleness with boredom.
‘I’m bored,’ say your children (so did mine, when they were children many years ago, back in the good ol’ 1990’s), and terror strikes at the heart of each mother when they hear these words. Bored? We can’t have our children bored—idle—just imagine what devils will come to play if we allow boredom to fester. First, the grizzling, then, the niggling at each other, and before long, World War Three amongst the siblings and the house ends up looking like the Apocalypse.
No, we can’t have boredom.
So, in my quieter times now, I reminisce the days as a young mother, structuring each day, every hour—especially during the holidays, to avoid boredom—any strategy to avoid my tribe from becoming restless.
‘What’s wrong with a bit of boredom,’ my mother would say. ‘They need to learn to entertain themselves, you know, use their imagination. Nothing wrong with being still for a while, I say.’
Mum should know, she grew up in the Centre of Australia on a mission in the 1940’s and ‘50’s. Those were the really good ol’ days with no shopping centres, no electronic games, nor television. They did have radio, but her minister father only allowed the news to be heard from it. Heaven forbid they listen to modern music. During the War, even the radio was confiscated by the allies. So all my mum as a girl had to entertain herself were books. Even so, the Protestant work ethic was a major value in mum’s family as her mother, when she found her daughter reading would say, ‘Isn’t there some housework you should be doing?’
As expected, then, I grow up in a world that values industry, productivity and filling each day to the full. The schools I attend are hot on producing good grades, projects and students who go on to university and become wealth-producing citizens.
Then, at sixteen, I have a revelation. We sing a chorus at church, “Be Still and know I am God”.
Being still…forget the homework…forget the housework…put aside my racing head of worries…centre my thoughts on God and his greatness. Pause for a moment and remember, God is God and He’s in control.
So at sixteen, I do just as the chorus bids. I hop on my deadly treadly (bike), and pedal down to the beach. I figure that’s the best place to be still; the waves lapping the sand, the sun on my back as I comb the shore for shells. Or on a sunny afternoon, I lie in the backyard and sunbake, think and ponder.
The result? Wow! Those mountains? School and pedantic teachers going on about uniform—my socks, my hair? Boyfriends or lack of them? Life and my future? …All my concerns become molehills.
December 1979, I write a poem “Be Still”. Perhaps not the greatest work of literature, but the values stick with me…until I embark on university, work, and then a family. The poem hides in a book of my teenage missives. Ten years ago, I pull it out for a devotion. I preach being still, but I fail to apply the principles. I must keep busy. If I stop, even for a few minutes, what will others think? There’s just too much to do. Everyone’s depending on me as wife, mother, bible study leader, committee member …to produce the goods. I can’t let them down.
The culture to keep moving is ingrained. Go to meet people for the first time and they ask, ‘What do you do?’ The doing has to have a dollar sign attached to it. Not enough to do all the above as a mother. Must produce money to have status in the group. Without status, I am not heard. Ironic how the under-valued creative arts of writing and painting, though, afford status. I am creating. I am producing.
Even so, in this creative phase of my life, if I stand still, I feel guilty. Now, there are novels to write and art to produce. My “work”. I’m on the hamster wheel, but I can’t get off.
However, in all the busyness expected of me, the cogs of my life are unravelling. I drive to a cafe to meet a friend. She’s not there. I’d forgotten my mobile phone. I drive the thirty-minute return home and check my phone and then ring her. I’d gone to the wrong place. A misunderstanding. If I had taken the time to listen and ask the right questions…
The voice of my sixteen-year-old self still convicts me. ‘Be Still’.
For over forty years, I’d not been following my own advice. After the misunderstanding of the other day, I give myself permission to have time each day to rest…Time to be still…time to know God.
So in the voice of my sixteen-year-old self, the poem:
Be Still
Exhausted, yet restless to advance
Ever onward in a trance,
A weary traveller
Refused to look around
So lost the intimate beauties which could be found.
Be still,
And know God the eternal creator.
Furtive, frustrated, fraught we flee,
When confusion bears down on thee,
A weary traveller.
Failure looms, chaos glooms,
In life, this lonely room.
Be still,
And wing your eyes
To soar above the clutter.
Marvel at the vastness of creation
Where God lies.
If what we infinitely fear
Will produce a lonely tear,
Of a weary traveller,
We blind ourselves with sorrows
Clinging to illusions of good morrows.
Be still,
Capture destiny in your heart,
For God said, “Let it be”.
See the beauty of it’s part.
Learn from what it has to offer
Ignore the scoffer.
A weary traveller did relent,
When Jesus was sent.
Be still,
While He,
Our hungry souls will fill.
© Lee-Anne Marie Kling (nee Trudinger) 1979
© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2016; updated 2022
*Feature Photo: Cradle Mountain, Tasmania © L.M. Kling 2009
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Or…
Catch up on the exploits of Boris the over-grown alien cockroach, and Minna and her team’s attempt to subdue him.
For good holiday reading click on the links below…
The Lost World of the Wends
Or…
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Trekking with the T-Team: Central Australian Safari
Tuesday Thoughts–Identity Theft
After a busy week of birthday celebrations and Mother’s Day, I found this little pond of thoughts from a post way back in my past when my blogging life first began…
Identity Theft
We’ve all heard of the unfortunate person who’s gone for a loan, only to discover their application has been rejected—not because they have a poor credit rating—no, previously, their rating has been perfect—but because some creep has stolen their identity, spent all their credit, and accrued a bad credit-rating.
Identity theft—not nice, and it can take years for the victim to clear their name and regain a good credit-rating.
However, I’ve come across a more subtle, more disturbing, more widespread form identity theft. In fact, with this sort of theft, the victim is a passive participant in the whole deal, and willingly hands over their identity to the perpetrator.
How do you convince another person of who you really are? This is a question I have heard people ask. I have asked this question and struggled with the insidious theft of my identity since…I became self-aware.
As if a character in a novel or a play, from birth, we are cast in our roles. These roles are set by another’s attitudes and world view. In reality a great many people go through life playing a role as someone else’s character in that someone else’s book of life, without ever discovering who they really are, their true identity.
And it’s fair to say, all of us, at one time or another, have scripted others into our drama without ever seeing that person for who they really are.
I must admit, as a victim of this form of identity theft, which for the most part, I cannot control as I cannot control another’s attitudes and way they see the world, I enjoy the freedom of writing. When writing fiction, I get in touch with my real self through my characters. Also in non-fiction, such as my memoirs, I redeem my true identity from those who have stolen it for their own particular narratives. Most of the time. I have to admit, though I struggle with attitudes and judging others that get in the way of seeing another person for who they really are.
So, in answer to the question, how do you reveal who you really are to another and thus change their view of you—even when you are yourself?
The key is listening to another with empathy and non-judgementally. As in most lessons of life, we need to lead by example. We also need to be aware of our own narratives and attitudes that get in the way of being open to seeing another for who they really are. We need listen and be open to entering another’s world that will be different from ours. As we do this and listen to another and engage in their world, they will feel safe and trust you enough to open themselves up to listen and see who you really are.
Being seen for who you really are, jumping off the stage and ripping up the script, even with the tool of listening is not a quick fix. Changing our culture, attitudes and habits takes time. Maybe like the recovery from a stolen credit identity, it takes time, maybe years to restore. But isn’t it preferable to be proactive in being the person we truly are, rather than passively being someone else’s perception of us? And isn’t it a good thing to listen and see another for who they really are?
© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2016; updated 2021
Feature Photo: Actor on Stage © L.M. Kling 2007
References
Books I have found helpful in relation to the above article:
Born to Win by Murial James & Dorothy Jongeward ©1971
The 3rd Alternative by Stephen R. Covey ©2011
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Virtual Travel Opportunity
For the price of a cup of coffee (takeaway, these days),
Click on the link and download your kindle copy of my travel memoir,
Trekking with the T-Team: Central Australian Safari. (Australia)
Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari (United States)
Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari (UK)
Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari (Germany]
Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari [France]
Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari (India)
Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari [Canada]
Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari [Mexico]
Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari [Italy]
Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari [Brazil]
Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari [Spain]
Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari [Japan]
Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari [Netherlands]
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