My Anzac Day tribute

As a child, teenager and young adult I wrote quite a bit of poetry.

A lot of it (especially in my teenage years) was angst-ridden and of dubious literary worth. Some of it wasn't bad. One poem got published; another two were borrowed by a musically talented friend and turned into (if I do say so myself) pretty damned good songs.

But as I was writing, I had no idea there was another poet in my family. I can't remember when I became aware of Donald McDonald, my great-uncle, a casualty of the Second World War. But after I did, I read his poetry — and realised he was a far, far more talented wordsmith than me.

Donald McDonald, a farmer in peacetime, was taken prisoner at El Alamein. He died on August 17, 1942 when the Italian prisoner of war ship he was being transported in was torpedoed. Family history goes that at that exact time my great-grandmother was gardening, stopped, looked up and said, "Something's happened to Donny."

This is the last poem Donald McDonald wrote, at Sidi Reszegh, Libya, where he had previously been wounded.  I share it with you as glimpse into the thoughts and insights of an Anzac soldier.

Sidi Reszegh

Children are born in the land of the green grass springing
Knowing the voice of the streams and the rain's caresses,
Knowing the scent of the flowers, and the larks' sweet singing,
Feeling the West wind cool in their bright young tresses.

But this is the Desert—Earth's bones to the old sun lying,
A fit place this for the ancient passions' burning;
And men who were children in sweet green lands are dying
Bone of their bodies to bone of the Earth returning.

Bare belief their bodies through steel hail urges;
If need be, here I'll die, my spirit braving
The darkness; but Ah, how the child in my heart upsurges,
Yearning for streams, for the larks, and the green grass waving.

Walking alone without fear

Just 15 minutes from the centre of New Zealand's largest city, I am surrounded by nature, and spoilt for choice when it comes to my favourite form of exercise —  walking through the bush.

Several routes take me down to the harbour, often via a headland where I look over the sparkling waters to Auckland's sensational skyline, while stretching at the same time. Listening to tui and rirorioro, soaking in the sunshine. Bliss.

Another favourite route, of more than 8km, takes me from the top of the Glenfield ridge down to the Kaipatiki inlet.

Along the way, I always meet other walkers, runners, sometimes mountain bikers. Some are exercising their dogs. Some are walking with their families. Some, like me, are just enjoying the peace, quiet and exercise on their own.

On Saturday, I met another lone walker, coming the other way. She was, at the very least, in her late 70s. I wouldn't be surprised if she was in her 90s. She was immaculately dressed in light trousers and a light shirt, and comfortable walking shoes. And she was doing just the same as me —  enjoying the sights, sounds and scents of the bush while keeping fit and healthy.

What a contrast she is to the intelligent, fit, independent and resourceful women I know who have one other thing in common: they are afraid to walk in the bush alone.

They are afraid of stepping off the footpath in a relatively central city suburb on to a well-maintained path that will take them, in a matter of just minutes, past manuka and ponga down to a beach. They're afraid to walk five minutes into a gully in which ancient kauri are growing — just metres from suburban fence lines.

They all say they'd do it with a dog. They'd do it with a friend. But they won't do it alone.

One, I understand. As a young woman, she was attacked. Her fear is natural. But the others? Why have they been taught to fear? Why do they allow themselves to fear?

Why does anyone accept this as natural? It's not.

And it makes me sad.

Walking through bush, I have learned about the gorgeous scents of our native plants in flower. I have, by watching where that magnificent sound comes from, finally got to see a riroriro (that magnificent sound comes from a tiny, non-descript grey bird that lives up to its English name, grey warbler).

I've been able to emotionally and mentally escape from the busyness of life, relax, let go and just enjoy nature.

Twice, in the 14-plus years I've been walking (sometimes several times a week), I've felt uncomfortable. Twice. In both cases, by confronting the person I felt uncomfortable about, and quickly making my way out of the bush into either an open field or on to a footpath, I made that discomfort go away.

I've had more close calls on our roads than I have while walking in the bush. But I haven't stopped driving. I suspect my friends who are afraid to venture into the bush, have all had a close call or two on the roads — and yet none of them have stopped driving either.

So, isn't it about time we stopped teaching our girls to be afraid of being by themselves? Isn't it about time we gave them the correct information about where danger is likely to come from, and how to take care of themselves? Women who have the skills to confidently take control of their own safety —  not relying on the presence of another person, or a dog, to keep them safe — don't fear a malevolent stranger behind ever manuka trunk.

If you are the mother or father of a daughter, raise her to be confident and unafraid. Make sure she knows how to physically defend herself if she has to. Don't fill her mind with imaginary rapists around every bend.

Give her a future in which she can choose to enjoy the tranquillity and peace of solitary bush walking. She might still be thanking you for it in her 90s.

New Year's Eve blog

This year, for some reason I'm not entirely sure of, I have chosen to spend New Year's Eve on my own.

Yup, that's right. I've chosen it. I have several invitations of places to be. A friend and I had decided to touch base a couple of days ago and check out what we wanted to do. But I haven't gone anywhere or done anything.

Maybe it's because of the way the year's gone. It started with my parents losing the family home, the home they had been in for 48 years, to the Christchurch earthquake of February 22.

It continued with me realising that what I had hoped would be a dream job had turned to custard — and walking away from it.

And then, just a couple of months ago I lost my lovely, gentle 16½-year-old Cassipuss to the inevitability of old age.

In some ways, you could say it's not been a great year.

But, to be honest, I've had worse. I'm not broken-hearted. I'm not depressed. I'm just not in the mood for company tonight.

It's a strange thing, chosing to be alone at times when everyone expects to be with others. But sometimes, to be honest, it's necessary. Too many people too much of the time, and I start getting a little freaked by it all.

So this afternoon I took great pleasure in entertaining my dear cousin and his lovely wife and children, who I count among my close friends. And tonight, I watched Muppets from Space, laughing at the silliness over a couple of beers, and blogging.

Seems just right to me.

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope you are enjoying it in the way that you want and need to.

It should have been a warning, really

There are moments we look back on and realise were prophetic. What happened then, how we behaved, pretty much summed up how we would approach the rest of our lives.

One of those moments occurred when I was 14 or 15 (depending on which half of the year it was in, I can't recall).

That year my class, in a small Catholic girls' secondary school, had a mass personality clash with our science teacher, Mr Aldridge. The relationship just wasn't a happening thing and became increasingly dysfunctional as the year progressed. We were, I suspect, the sort of class every teacher has nightmares about.

During one particularly chaotic science lesson, when Mr Aldridge found it impossible to keep order, let alone teach anything, the headmistress, Sr Patricia walked in. I don't know who was more mortified — us because we knew we were in deep shit, Mr Aldridge because he was caught in the act of simply not coping, or Sr Patricia because this sort of thing simply wasn't meant to happen at her school.

Painful order was restored, and we may possibly even have learned something in what remained of the lesson. But, even more painfully for us, our next class was Christian living (yes, they taught such things at Catholic girls' schools in the 70s) with none other than Sr Patricia.

She stood there, looking furious in a way that only head nuns can, and proclaimed in a voice that was not to be disobeyed, "I am not even going to try to teach Christian living after that disgraceful display. Instead, I want you all to sit here and write an essay on how good Catholic girls should behave, and why you were not behaving that way."

So I did.

I can't remember what I wrote about how good Catholic girls should behave, but it probably involved being respectful and polite, doing to others as you would have them do unto you, etc. I knew the theory well. I've always been good at theory.

But then I took the second half of the assignment just as seriously as the first. The class wasn't behaving like a bunch of good Catholic girls, I wrote, because most of its members weren't good Catholic girls. Hell, some of them weren't even Christians.

The one thing the girls all had in common, I wrote, was that they had parents who wanted them to go to McKillop College. For some, that's because their parents were good Catholics and wanted their girls to be the same. But many parents weren't even practising Catholics themselves — they simply  didn't want their daughters to go to the local state schools, which had less than perfect reputations.

Even though they'd stopped practising years ago, the parents used their nominal Catholicism as a ticket to what they perceived to be more desirable schooling for their girls. Their daughters knew it. We all knew it. Sr Patricia probably knew it but maintained a livable denial.

I handed my essay in, knowing it was entirely true and, if we all were meant to seek truth and justice as we'd been taught ad nauseam in Christian living, Sr Patricia would have to agree and deal with it.

It was the end of term. We didn't have another Christian living class before the last day, when, as was the tradition, we were all let out early mid afternoon.

As we were standing there, many of us with our bikes, others just ready to catch the bus outside the school grounds, waiting for Sr Patricia to say we could go, she looked us all over and said there was something she wanted to say. I knew what this was going to be about.

This was a Catholic school, Sr Patricia pronounced. It didn't matter what we or our families believed, or how we behaved, when we were at home. But while we were at school or in school uniform, we were to behave like good Catholic girls.

And with that, she sent us home for the holidays.

It should have been a warning, really.

Uh-oh — now I've gone and done it

Yes, I've created a blog. Finally.

Heaven only knows how it will turn out. But I see three distinct possibilities:

• I'll end up eking out a meagre existence by proofreading direct marketing brochures at $25 an hour and growing my own vegetables because, knowing the true extent of my rebellious nature, no business will ever risk hiring me again.
• The world will finally recognise my genius, and the strength of my aura and insight will draw in fame and fortune in an unstoppable torrent. At which point, I'll go charter a yacht (with crew, of course) and sail around the Mediterranean for nine months before considering my next move. Which may well be to the sun lounger with a cocktail and a good book.
• Absolutely nothing will change, I'll get sick of it in a year and move on to the next thing.

If I was a betting woman, my money would be on the third option. But, hey, I know about positive psychology and that we create our own futures. Honest. So let's aim for option two, and just see what happens.