The first week of annual leave is done and I have come through it blessed by so much love! I wonder at the opportunities I've been given, and am clear my life seems miraculous, but my default way of responding is to brush off all this feeling-stuff. This time there is so much of it I have no alternative but to keep being open to it, letting it in.

It started with the unveiling of the Map. (But "It started with" is quite erroneous, because where did that revival of the poetic spirit, that connection of my many communities as one community, start?) Then there was the grant awarded, and people saying they'd noticed. How many people read the Council's columns in the local paper? Lots, apparently.

The Mother's Day lunch was close-knit and peaceful. Mikaela was beautiful in a floral dress, proudly body-hugging, that we'd never seen before. Adam struggled with his food, suffering from a surfeit of some unnamed substance - one presumes alcohol - at a buck's turn the night before. And slept away the afternoon on The Couch, once my favourite nap-site. As a younger single Mum visiting the parents, I used to be so exhausted,  I'd turn up with the kids, exchange latest news, and crash. I guess Adam studied my style! Anyway, Eleni, Mikaela and I played Scrabble and they both won a game, which was very pleasing. Mum had her usual sleep, and Heth left first to rest her suddenly virus-ridden body. At the Golf Club, Mum and I - being the two actual mothers - received a complimentary glass of champagne and a bar of chocolate.

Not only that, but Mikaela brought me flowers and Adam and Eleni brought some for Mum. Mikaela spoiled me, actually: a Fleetwood Mac CD as well! And the cutest card.

That, I think, is where the expected love and joy appeared. Where did the rest come from, the unexpected doses? I have immersed myself in the world of writerliness - into the City for a session on Arts Vic funding (coming out with a new possibility), back the next night at Writers Vic Salon, sharing the accomplishment of the Map project and the excitement about the grant. People wanting to talk to me then about my next project, and a woman coming up to remind me we were in the Melbourne Poets Union together years ago.

Off to Council and making a speech, as part of the team that spoke about the moratorium on coal mining and unconventional gas extraction, a speech that made a difference, adding my voice to the already powerful and passionate presentations. Putting in a piece that needed to be put in: exhorting the Council to show leadership, act from a vision, not just manage their reputation (as if they even have a worthwhile one in the eyes of the State Government). Missing out on choir on behalf of an urgent community issue.

Walking with Eddie and Maria, noting the healing of flood-devastated areas along the Lerderderg River on Friday morning. Sharing my breast cancer story with a hundred people at the Relay For Life launch at the Plough in Myrniong on Friday night. The bus trip there and back lively with riposte and innuendo. Sitting with Tonia and Kathy, playing "groupies" to Tash and Jimmy singing. Experiencing being an integral part of a community, one that's capable of bringing together a hundred people to start a campaign to raise even more money for research than ever imagined before. Knowing I know people - from volunteering at the Information Centre, from forays into Darley Neighbourhood House, from being a stand for stamping out measles and being photographed by Tash for the paper, from participating with people in so many different ways. Triessia recognising me from my poetry-writing project at her cafe, and seeing me unable to put name to face, coming to say who she was. What generosity. A real sense of belonging, of being known.

All this time, all those days, writing the memoir, becoming obsessed with the narrative. Discovering what was so that I hadn't seen before, creating ways to share these new discoveries. And then, rediscovering my place in the world of real lived poetry, going to Woodend for the Chamber Poets, re-connecting with Myron and Lyndon, and making new connections - Jade, Gaylene, Ellie ... music and the spoken word making a very happy space, and a place where all were celebrated. 

Today's excursion by train to Ballan to my other community - the artists of Moorabool, based in Ballan - was stunning. The view from the train spectacular, the performance of tonal music inside a world  of sculpture just gorgeous, stunning.

I look forward to medical trips, and writing trips to the City this week, and the Community Grants Award Presentations on Monday night. Today when I told Mikaela I thought I might go to the Afghanistan Exhibition, she turned it into a reality by arranging to meet me in the City after my checkup at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. How great is that! And more of the memoir. Chapter 14 is ready to be written. My goal is to complete the story of the first year there, in Zambia, in  1976.

It's not just love coming to me from others; it's the experience of loving my life, and loving the people in it with me. Aha.

I read the article by Monica Dux in the Life Style section of Saturday's Age, Mother Load, last Saturday and was struck with the possibility that I have this other story in me, regarding becoming a single parent by choice.

The same day, as I drank a coffee on my way to the National Gallery, I was enchanted to find myself engaged in a conversation with a little boy whose mother was waiting for her coffee, and holding the handles of a pusher with a baby in it. We discussed the butterfly stickers on the front window of the tram parked so inconsequentially on the Arts Centre's apron, and where the tram's wheels had gone. His mother, coffee in hand, beamed at me, the Woman Who Would Be A Grandmother, and explained that her son "was so friendly with everyone". Nevertheless, I felt privileged, to have been so easily included in his world of exploration.

And those early days with my own son were so vividly present for me.

I probably do have more than one story to tell before I die. Which, at the time of writing this, does not appear nigh, My own doctor diagnosed a muscle/tendon/cartilage stressed by lifting luggage, and the pain has disappeared faster than is predictable.

Carpe diem!!!

At last! The map is unveiled, the people delighted, everything came together beautifully. My brother is a genius at creating maps of worlds that didn't exist before - my poetically sprinkled parts of Australia.

What's come out of the project: new opportunities!
Newport Fiddle & Folk Festival in July
Daylesford Folk Blues Festival in October
U3A workshops in Gisborne in July
A Moorabool Shire Community Arts Grant to create opportunities for writers to get together and learn together.

My mind buzzes once again with new ideas. And all this in the midst of probably the busiest period of my working life!

A Case For Trading Places in Lerderderg Library all April

Nichole took this. She likes the quirky angle.

A lifetime of display: maps, t-shirts, framed poems, lamination, little books ...

Verses hanging on every shelf of printed word!

Lou Callow and I - not a significant occasion!

Although John from the Council may be taking things a little more seriously.

Well, the audience didn't run out screaming!!

OK, John, ready, set ...

GO! and there they are: two halves of a Poetic Shire.

When you have had breast cancer, and it has been treated, a new persistent pain in your upper body is problematic. A bruise, a torn muscle, or the unmentionable M (for metastase)? So I woke up last Thursday planning my life before the pending oblivion. I would get that damned memoir done, and write the two sequels, and a new one on a different perspective. I would bundle up all my poetry and save it to a USB stick, and I would throw away a lot of old paper. Even though my father's papers have proved invaluable for me, I think I can't burden my own kids with mine. And then I would have a massive garage sale, fly to Zambia one more time, give the money to Edith for her campaign, and say goodbye.

That was the early morning plan, before I got a doctor's opinion. A friend who is a doctor told me to see my own GP as soon as possible. 

I am not afraid of death, but I am nervous about dying.

And it certainly gives me a different way of looking at the clutter around me: photo albums galore, with journalling; collections of stones, shells, bakelite, dolls, African artefacts (some useful, like baskets); shelves full of books (so full, there are new books lying on top of the older vertical ones).

There is so much stuff in the world already, why do I make more of it? There's all my drawings, the supplies for creative album-making, materials for ideas and projects as yet unborn ... Will I be (is anybody, really) remembered for my stuff, for my output, my work, my playful way with words? Or will people talk about my qualities, my contribution, the difference I did or didn't make?

The work is done. The last gig last night. Back story: 16th March, at Darley Market, write a poem for Bob and Liz. Next day, at Harvest Festival, meet them again. Bob says, "Why don't you come to our Retirement Village?" Next day I get a call from the manager to arrange my appearance at their cocktail party  to celebrate the opening of their community centre. That was last night. I write about migration, lost sons, community, bootscooting, gardens and AFL football. The first couple of customers were cautious but the idea of a poetic memento won them over. Then the word spread, and I was busy for the full two hours. I came home sated, happy.

Two days earlier, the school holiday program was at the other end of the scale. Seven young people discovering how much fun and how easy it is to write six first drafts on topics you never thought you'd see in poetry, within an hour. 

The Case For Trading Places exhibition is in Lerderderg Library as well, this month, so I felt well-represented. Last Saturday, too, our Bacch Chat group presented a fantastic talk on sustainable housing from Natasha Mills, owner-builder, and Rob from Yarra Housing. 

And on Tuesday, off to the Salon, a new kind of event at Writers Victoria in the Wheeler Centre. On the way, I sought out colourful and interesting leggings and stockings at Myers, and interesting collections of short stories at Academic Books.

Now I want to leave some links and tags here, so will publish and come back.

I am now recognised in the streets!!! Today I met up with several young people, out shopping with their mothers. They smiled. I smiled. I knew I'd met them somewhere. At a school, perhaps? Yes! And were they still writing poetry, even if it is school holidays? A Yes, a Sometimes, and two shrugs. 
I wasn't even wearing my poet t-shirt. In the first instance, I was with my frail elderly mother, entering the medical centre, carefully. I wished I had my clipboard and could write for them while Mum was being attended to. Then I thought how good it would be to write one for the reception staff. Then I sat and read the editorial in The Victorian Writer magazine.

We are learning three new songs with A-Choired Taste of Gospel: Shackles, Wade in the Water, and Oh, Happy Day/Joyful. There are so many versions of Wade in the Water: which one should we do? We listened to three, and decided we will need to create our very own version - jazz, blues, funk or country, who cares about categories???

Well, it's just been hectic around here, that's all I can say. More schools - Bacchus Marsh, Bungaree, and Lal Lal. Sundays at the Harvest Festival (Bacchus Marsh) and the Autumn Festival (Ballan) A Saturday morning at Darley Market. A couple I met and wrote a poem for at Darley then showed up at the Bookbarn on Harvest Festival Day. A day later I was offered a gig at their Retirement Resort Cocktail Party! Really looking forward to that. Along with the School Holiday Program session, that completes my poetry-gathering.

Although I might just take clipboard and pen to two events on Sunday 14th April anyway. In the morning I'll join the Friends of Werribee River in cleaning up around an iconic part of the river, Harry's Hole. Apparently this pool was once used for swimming sports. Despite erosive floods and invasive weed, you can still see where parents sat to watch their champions.

Then in the afternoon I'm off to Melton with A-Choired Taste of Gospel to sing for our friend Jill who is dealing with the after-effects of a damaging stroke. She has particularly asked us to visit her rehabilitation centre as she so misses singing with us. We miss her too; her voice was the highest soprano and clear as a bell.

A-Choired Taste of Gospel also played a role in the Harvest Festival, being part of the program of the Festival of Hymns & Sacred Music. The new Moorabool Light Orchestra was just brilliant, and I got goosebumps during their performance of Amazing Grace.

Easter has been a gift for my writer-self; I've spent two days starting my memoir about my time in Zambia all over again. This time I'm making it a straight narrative, and the chapters fall inside a structure created by school terms. I finished Term 1 1976 with 5 chapters, and then a chapter on Term 1 Holiday. Our term breaks were all at least a month long - plenty of time to get up to mischief!!