I am prompted to write on friendship because this week above all others, I have seen the most perfect examples of it first hand. I have seen love and loyalty conspire to form a foundation of friendship so strong that even approaching death cannot break it down.
On learning…
It’s an age since a Pillowbook has appeared on the blog. A Pillowbook, if it is in the style of Sei Shonagon, is a sharp-eyed look at life, maybe even acerbic. The last few months have been too… soulful for me to be acerbic. I re-learned how grief can pull you apart. How kind attention and love can put you back together. How loyal friends stick by you, how loyal readers keep you focused and stay loyal no matter that the book you have promised them seems like a mirage.
Inspired by The Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon.
Things that I hate:
Living in the city. Traffic lights and lines of traffic. Tarmac paths. Crowds. Being away from the city in a quiet village and finding that some selfish little 20-something has decided to have a party with boom-boom music which he feels obliged to have at full volume. No doubt he is from the city and is returning to the city on Sunday. I wanted so much to have the peace of wind, waves and nightbirds this evening. (Perhaps it will rain, driving the Spoilers and Soilers inside.) Realising its getting a little chilly to wear red shorts. 
The smell of garlic the next day. Autumn leaves. Missing my husband. Having no daylight saving. Having to go back to the city tomorrow and leaving House. Black clothing.
On etiquette. I was prompted to think on etiquette when my social media profile page was interfered with. On the nature of those people who think it amusing to create software that intrudes on someone’s life. Which led me to think about lack of etiquette in other areas. 
Most notably mobile phones.
As new subscribers may not know, I just want to explain what the pillowbook is. Last year I read an ancient Japanese journal entitled The Pillowbook of Sei Shonagon. It was filled with observations, witticisms, self-denigration and acerbic comment. Thus I decided to create my own journal for the blog and you’ll see it pop up every now and then. Really it’s just a bedtime diary …
Things that relax you… are the most perfect things in one’s life. Eclectic things: waves shushing in and out,
a light breeze blowing through the leaves of a tree, the sounds of snowy silence, a dog asleep under one’s hand. There are sinful things as well: chocolate, a good wine, even medication when one has a serious ache or pain. But then there is massage: preferably a Bowen massage, the pressure of kind fingers, ambient music playing just within earshot, warm towels being laid over one’s body.
Occasionally, Sei Shonagon would veer into a more detailed journal entry instead of her sharp little vignettes. They could be four or five pages long and invited the reader deep into her life – details of speech, mannerisms and settings all wrapped up in her sometimes gentle, often acerbic point of view. This latest Pillow Book of Prudence will depart from the norm and journey into a longer journal entry in deference to Sei Shonagon.
Things that bear closer observation:
Whilst having a midmorning cup of tea, we sat on the back verandah in the sun and watched the resident swallows. Have they flown all the way from Russia, we wondered? They have renovated their nest above the security light and twisted my horse’s tail hair all around. They take it in turns to nest, one in, one out. Whilst one is in, the other sits on the powerlines and they sing and chat with each other. Occasionally they fly off together, not far, but with aeronautic tricks and tumbles. They are old friends and we welcome them every Spring. We also noticed that the ewes and lambs had pushed a gate open and let themselves into the paddock that they had begun lambing in seven weeks ago.
Things that are amusing:
Joining Twitter. Fun in 140 characters, that is assuming one is prepared to leave one’s real persona behind. @Lucas_North’s,
@Lucas_North
@MalcolmWJ’s, @Dimitri_MI5’s and @SirHJPierce’s behaviour on Twitter. Making macaroons without learning how to use a piping bag first. Looking at self in mirror after cane blind has fallen and hit the bridge of the nose. Having funny shared thoughts with MG. The younger dog showing off by having a giant swim at the beach. Watching the parking-meter man trying to book me when I had beaten him to the meter by a sucked in half-breath. The lambs . . . cheeky and very cocky because they have made it!
Lambing is finished . . .
Things that aren’t:
The loss of privacy at university. The sick humour of the internet and You-Tube. The loss of a life.
Looking at self in the mirror after the blind fell on my nose and seeing the blood. The loss of a ewe birthing triplets . . . mother and babies died. The northwest wind: who was it on Twitter who said ‘the wuthering wind is snapping at the corners of the house.’ Rudeness . . . of parking-meter men. Saint Kilda losing the Grand Final. SSAE in the mail. The chance that I will have to pull out of the Dogs’ Home until hand and ankle fully repair. I have only been back two weeks.
On this first week of October, we can be hopeful. Winter is over in this far-flung little outpost of the Southern hemisphere called Tasmania. The lambing has finished. My garden rewards me.
My garden rewards me . . .
The boatshed is being framed up. The manuscript has attention from a major editorial agency O/S . . . free of charge. I shopped for clothes today and bought capri jeans, shorts and two polo-shirts in less than 10 minutes. Such things rarely happen. It’s time to think about the myriad family birthdays. To enjoy a major book launch on Thursday night. To wish my son and his partner safe-travelling as they leave for three weeks holiday in Samoa.
It’s heartwarming that sixty dogs were adopted from the Dog’s Home in the month of September. It has been a week of enjoying the generosity of overseas friends and of realising that even though an SSAE arrived in the mail, better things await. And that the world has joined together to condemn those students at Rutgers University.
When I first read Sei Shonagon, one of the things I noticed and deplored, was her misplaced arrogance. The arrogance of the nobility of a thousand years ago. But one can never ignore her acuity, her powers of observation. It is this particular aspect of her work that I love and which I try to emulate in my own Pillow Book.
