Day eighty-one of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
Frogs by J. J. Grandville from Fables de La Fontaine, volume one
undine
cliffhanger
Day sixty-three of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
Woman by Émile Bayard from Le général Dourakine
octopus's garden
Day sixty of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
Blanket octopus, eledone moschata, octopus vulgaris and pinnoctopus cordiformis by an unknown artist from Mollusques vivants et fossiles
ennui
Day fifty-eight of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
Girl with orange by Louise Catherine Breslau from L'Estampe Moderne, volume two (May 1898 - April 1899)
abandoned ship
Day fifty of The 100 Day Project.
I’m halfway through the project!
I would love to know which is your favourite so far.
Illustrations:
Spider by Leonard Leslie Brooke from A nursery rhyme picture book (number one)
after the deluge
Day twenty-eight of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
Figures in water by Gustave Doré from La sainte Bible, volume one
lift your spirits
Day twenty-seven of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
burst
I remember that day so vividly.
We'd been told time and time again not to play there. Not to go beyond the chain-link fence at the edge of the village. We had the run of the quiet dirt roads, the open gardens of our home and our neighbours' homes. But we weren't to venture beyond the fence at any time, for any reason. It wasn't safe.
Of course, that meant we had to. It was a challenge, not an order, wasn't it?
We imagined all sorts of horrible goings-on beyond the fence. Even though nothing was really hidden by it. We could see what was there. It wasn't really dangerous, was it?
Dangerous was something you couldn't see.
Dangerous was falling down the rainwater drain in the kerbside. Falling into the sewers below and being swept along in our neighbours' wastewater. The foul water filling our mouths, our noses, our eyes and our ears before anyone could hear us calling out.
Dangerous was strange men in strange cars offering us sweets. Men who shouldn't be approaching girls our age. We'd been told what dangers lay in accepting candy from strangers. Those men were old and odd, and we weren't interested in them. But we knew they were dangerous even then, so we never entertained the thought of breaking the rules for a few morsels of candy.
Dangerous was playing too near the nuclear power plant that overlooked our village. We'd heard the local butcher telling our parents stories of animals that had wandered too close to the plant that had developed strange defects and growths. He'd slaughtered them with his own hand but buried them rather than selling their flesh to the village, even as feed for other animals.
But beyond the fence, all we could see was the sea. The beautiful ocean shimmered in the sunlight. Blue as the blue sky above it. The waves generated a cacophony of sound that reached our bedrooms. That lulled us to sleep each night in summer when the salty air wafted in through open windows to cool us.
We watched the waves draw up over the shingle while the boys played football in the street. Our fingers curved around the metal diamonds in the fence. We pressed our foreheads against the intersections of metal and watched the foam as it inched its way up over the dry pebbles. Drawing away to reveal wet pebbles. We were mesmerised.
It was our birthday.
Maybe that's why we were such good friends and had been for so long. We were born on the same day, in the same hospital. Our mothers hadn't known each other. They met in the maternity ward and her family ended up moving to our village just after. We'd heard the story over and over. We didn't really care about the details, we just wanted to go out and play together, and rolled our eyes each time our mothers retold how they'd met.
We each had a balloon in the shape of a star. The star in each was transparent. We pulled faces at each other through them. We pushed our noses and mouths against the plastic to distort our features. We laughed until we thought we might burst.
We ran along the street to the fence with our balloons flying in the air behind us. The boys were playing football, as usual, but we were more intent on seeing, if we ran fast enough, would the balloons lift us off the road? Would the run-up we had and the lightness of the balloons allow us to take off and carry us up and over the fence?
It was worth a try.
But, of course, it was a fool's errand. It was fun, but not going to get us where we wanted.
Instead, we knew there was a section of the fence that had been cut away. Opened up by older kids to access the shingle beach so they could gather after dusk to drink and skim stones on the ocean and make out.
We checked the boys were still distracted by football. That no one was watching.
We shimmied through the fence. Protective of our summer dresses and balloons as we did so. Not wanting to tear one or burst the other.
We made our way down to the water, kicking our jelly shoes off as we got closer. We slowed, the shingle awkward and uncomfortable under our bare feet. Despite that, we continued forward. Intent on feeling the coolness of the water on our small toes. Knowing we were doing wrong but doing it anyway.
Because it was our birthday. We could do anything on our birthday.
She waded into the water ahead of me. The waves lapped at our hands, we giggled and laughed together, the ribbon of our balloons still clasped tightly in our fists.
Behind us, suddenly, we heard a collection of screams. The screeching of brakes. We turned back toward the fence and the road beyond. We instinctively reached out for each other's hand and held our breath.
She let go of her balloon. It wafted gently on the wind back toward the fence.
We watched in horror, everything feeling like it was in slow motion, as our parents and our friend's parents ran out into the street.
We watched as her father scooped up her brother's lifeless body from the road. We watched, horrified, and wondered if this was why our parents had warned us about going beyond the fence. If this was why it was dangerous.
Even now, we wonder if it was our fault.
garden of unearthly delights
Day nine of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
Casts of renal pelvis and calyces by Max Brödel from Diseases of the kidneys, ureters and bladder
Common octopus by an unknown artist from Nouveau dictionnaire encyclopédique universel illustré
encrypted
I don't remember when death was first explained to me. Strangely, because I have a lot of vivid memories from childhood and adolescence. I feel like it's something I should remember.
When did I first become aware of the fact that everyone dies? That my grandparents would die? That my parents would die? That I would die?
I, strangely, don't know. I don't remember that ever being explained to me.
I remember hearing that my grandpa had died. The first of my close family members to pass away in my lifetime. But what I remember most about that was that my parents decided that we children wouldn't go to the funeral. That my father would go, but my mother and the three of us kids wouldn't. I don't remember the whys or the wherefores, but I guess I was okay with that.
My parents had tried to keep us away from seeing him the way he was towards the end. A non-smoker dying of emphysema. A horrible way to die.
My younger brother insisted on visiting him in the hospital to the point that my parents finally relented, but I recall being told that all my grandpa could do was wink at him, as he would always do when he caught our eye across the dining table as we carried on playing in their lounge room while the adults talked around the table and drank tea.
I don't remember the explanation for death I was no doubt given as a child, at some point.
I remember the talk about making love, having sex, fucking. The explanations of puberty and menstruation. The books my mother borrowed from the library to help me understand what would happen to my body as I moved through that awkward stage between being a child and being a woman.
Those discussions, her openness and the books she gave me to read meant I didn't face those things with fear the way her mother had. It meant I could ask any question of her about those things that I wanted an answer to. But I don't remember asking her about death, ever.
I remember my mother telling my brother and me that one of my father's former co-workers in the Northern Territory had passed away from AIDS when we were both still in primary school after we'd moved to Melbourne. Her explaining homosexuality in a non-judgmental way and probably a vague explanation of AIDS; as much as we needed or wanted to know at the time. I guess I didn't ask many questions. I listened. I took it all in. I learned homosexuality wasn't bad from a young age, but I never really thought about his death as deeply.
Then, in 1992, at 14 years of age, I found myself in a cemetery in New Orleans. A cemetery many know from the film 'Easy Rider'. A cemetery full of vaults built above ground to avoid human remains draining off into the river.
I was fascinated. This was the closest I'd ever come to death and I found it intriguing. The way life and death was celebrated through these places. The way their graves were created in as elaborate a fashion as their homes.
They were beautiful, despite the death they encased. They were time capsules. Memorials to those inside. A fashion statement. A record. Bragging rights after death.
Even at that young age, I knew I didn't personally want to be buried, but I had fallen in love with cemeteries. With graveyards. With the art of the stonemason. With the ceremony. The ritual.
Over the years I found myself consuming books about death; documentaries about death and the places people are buried. About how our bodies are handled after we die. About burials. About graveyards. About cemeteries.
I've spent countless hours, camera in hand, wandering through churchyards, graveyards, cemeteries, crypts, and whatever other names you want to call those places where people are laid to rest.
Generally, I find them places of peace, of relaxation. Like parks, but with the remains of those who came before still present in them.
But I know they often have reputations of being places of unrest. Of disrespect to those interred there. Not all of these places are peaceful or have been peaceful in the past.
In the decades since my grandpa died, I've managed to avoid the realities of death. At 42 years of age, somehow, I've managed never to attend a funeral. Never to have seen a dead body. Never to have spent time in the company of someone in their final hours or watching them pass from this world.
I consider myself lucky, but I'm also aware that I live a closeted life by not having been exposed to those things. Death is, after all, a part of life. From the time we're born we're dying. This is a simple fact not even I can escape. And for someone who actively seeks out the final resting places of the dead, it's not lost on me that I’ve managed to evade being exposed to these things.
However, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had an overwhelming awareness of my own mortality. I’m conscious this impacts me in terms of my fear of falling, for example, but also my reluctance to get a driver’s licence. My fear of others around me dying. My fear of dying. And more specifically, my fear of dying alone and no one knowing or being nearby to prevent that.
I often choose a solitary life which means I’m more likely to be alone if something unfortunate happens. Best case scenario: my flatmate will find me hours after the fact, too late to change the outcome. Worst case scenario: he or someone else will find me weeks later, again, too late to change the outcome.
Even in my worst stages of depression, I knew I wasn’t a suicide risk because what was making me most unhappy was not living my life the way I wanted to live it. I’ve always loved life and been aware of how much more I want to do, so my depression has always been related to not being able to live the life I’d like. Not due to wanting to end my life. I count myself lucky again for that.
But it doesn’t lessen my fascination with death. With how we handle the dead.
Despite my fascination with graveyards, I don’t want to be buried. I’m an outspoken advocate for organ donation (and, in fact, donation of anything that can be donated) and, as an atheist, I don’t believe in the hereafter or reincarnation or anything that requires my body to remain whole after my death.
So, while I love the stonemasons’ artistry, and the pomp and circumstance of heraldic funerals and elaborate mausoleums, vaults and headstones, I’ll settle for returning to ashes and the earth when it’s my time.
Though I hope my time doesn’t come anytime soon.
a room of one's own
She circled the brown wooden structure, running her fingers along the wooden slats on the side and the back of the building at waist level. Feeling the texture of the wood and the few remaining thin daubs of white paint worn away by wind, rain and the salty sea air over the last few decades.
To the left of the door, she ran her fingers down the canvas nailed to the wood. Revelling in the contrast of its texture to the wooden slats.
The door's peeling surface revealed layers of varicoloured paint applied over the years. A variety of browns with an underlying coat of dull yellow peeking through.
Despite the erosion of the paintwork, she marvelled at the fact this structure was so intact when so many similar buildings dotted over the shingle beach were in such decrepit states. Fishing nets haemorrhaging from broken walls. Doors sagging on hinges. Burnt struts exposed to the elements like skeletons.
She approached the door, running her fingers over the exposed door handle. Wondering at its seemingly bonelike colour and appearance. She curled her fingers around the doorknob and turned it, expecting resistance. Surely this small building was still in use and therefore locked, with its four walls, corrugated iron roof and door still intact, despite all the wear and tear from the elements buffeting it, placed so close to the sea.
To her surprise, the door creaked open with no resistance.
She almost stepped back in surprise.
The door opened outward. She pulled it toward her, hesitantly peering around the door jamb at what might be inside. She realised she had held her breath, unconsciously, and on becoming conscious of the fact, exhaled heavily then inhaled deeply; the smell of the ocean mingling with the musty smell of the interior of the building.
A strange mixture of nostalgia washed over her: one of childhood summer holidays by the beach mixed with memories of the storage space under the stairs of her grandparents' house. For a moment she felt lost in time, and the darkness of the interior she looked in on made her feel a little off-balance.
The day was overcast and a little hazy, so much of the interior remained darkened until she opened the door fully; and even then, her eyes took a while to pick out the details in the shadows not illuminated by the daylight.
She wandered in, letting the door close gently behind her. She had established that the door had no lock, so she didn't worry about being trapped inside, though she felt slightly apprehensive about what she may find in the darkness.
She turned on the torch on her mobile phone and shone it about her. The building contained a lot of the same contents as so many similar structures along the beachfront: nets, motors, rusted machinery, and implements she knew not the purpose of. Strange artefacts she wondered at and thought may make interesting decorations for her apartment.
Her phone, previously indicating plenty of battery, suddenly turned off. The interior of the building was quickly thrown into darkness, and for a moment she felt like she was blind. She stood stock-still, feeling a little off-balance again, but waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.
In a few moments, a small amount of light seeped through between the wooden slats. A tight polka dot pattern of light came through the canvas, albeit pale. She let her breath out, realising she'd been holding it again.
Despite her initial discomfort with the darkness, as her eyes adjusted to the low light she found the space quite calming. The sound of the sea reached her through the walls but was less overwhelming when filtered through the canvas and wood.
She moved toward where she thought one of the walls was, navigating the space slowly and carefully. She hesitantly reached out her hands at a forty-five-degree angle, expecting her fingertips to connect with the rough wooden surface quickly, but it took far longer than expected.
When they did connect with the wood, she ran her hand gently down and moved from standing to squatting, using her other hand to check for anything at a lower point. She skimmed the wooden floor of the building with the palm of her hands before seating herself between what felt like a reel of net and some paint tins.
She sat there in the dark, letting the distant sound of the sea wash over her. She slowed her breathing to match the speed of the waves as the water swept onto and away from the shore outside. She felt a strange calm. A peace she didn't often experience. In the darkness she closed her eyes and just focussed on the sound, letting it wash her away.