I did it again. I picked up ‘The Australian’ to do the Sudoku, but I started to look at the front pages, and quickly found myself disquieted, annoyed and puzzled by the conservative choice of language and content, especially in the opinion pieces. I’m partly recovered from my previous obsession; this time I only skimmed a few articles before I stopped and tried to concentrate on the Sudoku. But it was enough to set me thinking about conservative and liberal leanings—what the core of them is, whether they stand up under scrutiny, and where I really fit in.

One journalist was declaring baldly ‘It’s too late to save the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) from its left-wing bias’. The examples given were from the recent reporting around the deaths of 60 Palestinians on the borders of Egypt. Commentators and some guests on two ABC programs asked why Australia and the US were the only two countries to vote against an investigation by the UNHRC. The journalist above believes the UN body to be fiercely biased against Israel, and there is good evidence that she might be right. But that leaves the question, why did every country in Europe abstain, rather than back the US opposition to any investigation? And is the journalist therefore convinced that all the abstainers are also irretrievably left wing, anti-American and anti-Israel?

How did being anti-Israel get to be left-wing in any case? Maybe she thinks the Palestinians represent the little guy, the battler that rusted-on lefties will support no matter what, while the powerful well-armed and wealthy Israelis are part of a status quo that fair-minded conservative people should respect; admire even. Of course, with her bias, it suits to conflate Hamas with all Palestinians, and see them as poor advocates for their cause, because of their anti-semitism and frequent violence, to the extent that they are not really worthy of our sympathy. She implies those feelings would be better directed to the terrified Israeli settlers in the border towns.

Maybe this isn’t the best example of conservatism versus liberalism, because it is so complicated that good people find themselves at a loss about where right and wrong, good and evil, lies in this constant quagmire of fear and death that has outlived most of us—beginning in 1948 and intensifying after 1967. So maybe I’ll move on to the Banking Royal Commission that got underway in Australia a few months ago.

Virtually perfect left-right divisions opened up on whether there is a need to investigate and bring to account banks and other financial institutions. The Greens and Labour were all for it, the Liberals and Nationals against. The cross-benchers split, going to positions more or less consistent with their known conservatism or otherwise. The subtexts went something like this:

Left-wing—too many people have been hurt by these huge institutions that have only profit in mind, even if it means misleading and even lying to hard-working Australians. They are so powerful, that only a Royal Commissioner can force them to explain themselves in the public eye. Anything less will result in the usual whitewash, as conservative politicians continue their quiet but unwavering mateship with the big end of town.

Right-wing—Australia has proved time and again to have one of the best-performing banking and financial sectors in the world. Of course there will always be a few rotten apples, but we have good systems in place to catch them before they can do much damage. Raising domestic and international doubts about the robustness and integrity of our financial institutions just hurts everybody. A Royal Commission will cost many millions of dollars, a fat report will result, and nothing much will change, except that we will then struggle to get past the damage inevitably done to Australia’s reputation.

Every conservative news outlet sang the conservative song, supporting the firm opposition of the Prime Minister to a Royal Commission. The Greens tried to outdo Labour with their passion to uncover wrongdoing, and the cross-benchers moved all over the place depending on what enticements they were being offered to side with the Government. But then, left and right-wing stopped being a reliable guide. A handful of Liberal and National Party back-benchers began to say they were not so sure the Prime Minister was right. They were starting to detect an appetite for change in their electorates. They were hearing some awful stories of blighted lives, caused by incompetence and/or deceit by financial institutions, and they began to report them in interviews on television. Was this a moment to doubt the status quo? Even if you were a deeply convinced conservative?

Well, where the issue is public popularity and re-election, the answer, sadly in some ways, is yes. Move fast, make a U-turn, make up a narrative that sounds vaguely convincing, and announce a Royal Commission. WTF? From ‘there is no way’ to ‘this is the only way’ in two or three days? And that’s where it might have ended, with a long hiatus while the Commissioner got organised, then endless inscrutable gentlemen making up stories designed to show that occasional aberrations proved very little, except that messing with the fundamentals was, as usual, an idea that appealed only to the simpletons who don’t know how to run things.

Except, within days, it became clear the Commissioner and his supporting counsel were super-smart; smarter than the average bank CEO as it turned out, and the shameful, possibly criminal activities that were exposed changed the whole conversation. The litany of egregious and illegal behaviour mounted daily. No occasional aberrations these—we are talking about Board and CEO-planned and approved routine daylight robbery. How would the PM respond to the obvious? By saying sorry? Not likely. It went like this: ‘The political cost of continuing to oppose a Royal Commission lead us to change our position, and we have been vindicated by subsequent events’. That hit the gag reflex pretty hard. But the worst thing was that the conservative journalists started to say ‘Well, we all knew about that stuff going on’. Really? When were you going to tell us?

For those of us who are caught between left and right on these issues—wanting to move beyond capitalism without a social conscience, but living comfortably from our investments with the people who run capitalism—this political theatre is troubling, stultifying even. What is the value of our left-leaning positions now and in the future? Are our conservative concessions to economic realities unconscionable?

I’m a classic baby-boomer, born nine months after WW2, educated for free, enjoying full employment all my life, entering retirement with no debts and better off than most millennials can dream of. But this public airing of the rotten core of capitalism throws so much of that into question. How to make sense of the way I am living? For now, I remain thoughtful and have done nothing. But something is going to have to change. I’m just not sure what that will be.

 

 

Until a few months ago, my partner and I were living in Bali, and one of our pleasures was the Saturday quiz night. Expats from many countries (no locals–they scratched their heads at the whole trivia-games concept) came together in Cafe Bunute for a couple of hours. The language was English, but much conversation went on in Dutch, Spanish and German, as questions were clarified. The numbers were added to by remote teams, people that had been local participants, but were now temporarily or even indefinitely living in another country. As many as five of those teams had completed the quiz in the previous few days, and were in the mix to see who would win on the night. Very much an honour system. Now we sometimes do it from Australia.

About last October, one night as the quiz was commencing, a young woman wandered in, alone, to our part of the restaurant. She was talking, apparently to no-one in particular at first, but then asking loudly what was going on. Several quiz participants called out for her to leave, then some stepped up to her and spoke to her directly. One held her arm as if to lead her away. I noticed the ‘pecalang’ (local volunteer police) moving into the area behind us, and the tension was ramping rapidly. All chatting stopped as people looked on.

It hit me then that she might be psychotic, hearing one or more voices, and not able to work out what was being asked of her. I went to her and asked the others to step back. I asked her if she could hear me. At first I couldn’t get eye contact, but when that happened she looked at me for a long five seconds or so, then said yes I can hear you. I explained that this was a private party, a quiz night, and that she was welcome to be in the rest of the restaurant but not here. She responded ‘So, OK it’s private, but could I please just stay here and listen at least?’ I showed her a chair where she could sit as long as she was just going to listen. She did so.

My attention had been completely on this interaction, and I was reasonably happy with the outcome. But as I turned around, I saw two things immediately. First was a sea of quiz participants’ faces all registering negatives—some concern, fear and confusion, but mostly people being pissed off at this young woman. The quizmaster looked particularly angry. Second, behind the quiz area, there were now four pecalang and the restaurant manager closing in, looking to evict her. I went to them quickly and said things should be OK now, and asked the quizmaster to resume.

For about ten minutes the quiz went along as usual, then the woman stood up, went to the quizmaster, took his glass of wine and returned to her seat. In the ensuing confusion, I took the glass of wine from her, the quizmaster demanded I get her out of there, and I guided her to the other part of the restaurant. But the pecalang pushed me aside, took her by the arms, and frog-marched her off the premises. I went with them as far as the street, trying in my best Indonesian to say this was not necessary, but having no impact. They went away into the darkness, her struggling a little and protesting, and I came back to the quiz, aware of intense scrutiny from my friends. A little hesitantly at first, the quizmaster resumed.

I found it very hard to calm down. I know there is no service available in Ubud for people with mental illness, so I don’t know what the pecalang might have done next. I was angry at myself for not trying harder to stop this spiral of confusion that ended so badly in in forcible restraint. I was thinking this woman was about the same age as my daughter, and how distressed she must be now, and how her parents would coped if they had seen this. I really couldn’t have cared less what the flag of Libya looked like, or who the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka was.

Later in bed, I thought about her with rising sadness and some anger. That night stays with me, despite lots of nice things people said to me afterwards about my actions. It hit me hard that such a cosmopolitan group of Westerners could have so little understanding about what severe mental illness looks like, and that many of them seemed to jump immediately to blaming the victim. I’ve tried to channel those emotions into working for better mental health services in Bali. So far, about a dozen people, all locals, have come forward for treatment as a result of a small project I’m involved with. I’m trying to be positive; to believe there will be a day when someone like that woman will be responded to with compassion and competent care. It’s going to be a long haul.

 

I never knew how much pleasure there could be in singing lessons. A few people have suggested it to me over the years, because I enjoy being in choirs, and finally I made what felt like a brave move and went for it last year. The singing teacher was someone I met in a choir, and I really enjoyed her company, and it was probably that that got me over the line.

It turned out Julie Anne had invited up to four people at a time, so it was like a cross between a choir and individual teaching. We did the usual vocal exercises, loosening up our facial muscles and humming/singing up and down the scales as high and as low as we could each go. We learnt a song together, with Julie-Anne listening closely to each of us. She talked about our respective strengths and weaknesses, and then asked us to take turns singing part of the song. My main discovery was my ‘head voice’; the higher register above the point where my voice breaks into what I have always thought of as falsetto. In fact it is a wide range, that takes great effort to produce (I had a sore throat for two days after the first time), but sounds surprisingly pleasant.

Then she asked us to sing to each other in pairs, face to face, up close. As these were love songs, this was a whole new leap of courage for all of us, which quickly led to laughter, and sometimes to tears. I had not met any of the other students before, and this degree of intimacy with men and women felt giddily risky at first. Julie Anne egged us on with such lines as ‘David, you’re saying you long for her every day and night—I want you to sound and look like you really mean it’. Every lesson included this type of exercise, and after some moments of flushed awkwardness, I found myself enjoying it enormously.

For the next and subsequent lessons, Julie Anne asked us to come ready to sing one of our favourite songs solo to the rest of the class. It was these experiences that live in my heart still. A French-speaker from Mauritius sang a spiritual that really rocked; we were all clapping and moving within seconds of her starting. A middle-aged mother from Latvia gave us—in Latvian—a lullaby that she first explained was the one she used to sing while breast-feeding her baby girl. As she sang, the tears came freely, hers and ours. Her voice was like a soft bell ringing, and I hear it now. My efforts felt a bit superficial until I came to one I have sung many times to my partner, often to put her to sleep. Yes; within moments all of us were teary, all of us feeling so close that we wanted to freeze-frame the joy of being together free of other distractions, of being completely who we wanted to be for a little while.

I left these lessons in a mood of optimistic peacefulness. As I rode off through the streets of Ubud, I marvelled at the good luck I was reaping from taking a risk. A few months later, I was back, and I went looking for Julie Anne. As so often in places like Bali, she had moved on; to Thailand I was told. Most likely she had to do a runner because she was charging for the teaching, without having the necessary visa. I warned her several times not to be open about what she was doing, but to no avail.

I never met the other students outside the lessons, and I guess the same will go for Julie Anne. It feels as if it was all a dream now. Half a dozen hours of bliss that returns to warm me even as I write this.

 

It feels like life in the slow lane here most days. That can be delightful, especially in good company, and I’m not wishing any of it away. Riding in the rice fields, dressing for temple ceremonies, muddling through good-natured conversations in Indonesian, laughing over cocktails at Mingles bar, random conversations with complete strangers; these and many more experiences colour and enliven my time.

But there are long gaps. I can only read so many books, have so many massages, and I’m not often into afternoon naps, so when the morning walk or ride is done, the game of Mah Jong is finished, and the coffee (excellent) at Anomoli has been savoured, I’m often at a loose end. Which feels a bit silly really—here I am in Bali, where half the world dreams of coming, and I dare to be bored! After all it’s only ten days this time, so what’s this about?

Partly it’s because I came alone. Without my boon companion I take quite a while to get used to my own company. She and I savour experiences a little differently together, and there’s a deep comfort in that. A friend of mine said home is where his partner is, which pretty much fits for me. We don’t have to be together all the time, but after a few days alone I do get a bit out of kilter. Life is a project, an endless process of change, and she’s a key member of my project team.

It’s also because progress with my personal project is frustratingly slow. Many expats in Bali get involved in some effort to improve things for people, animals and the environment. Mine is trying to help establish mental health services in the community, which are almost non-existent. This is close to the norm in most countries outside the fully developed world; certainly it is much the same story throughout South East Asia.

While there is a mental hospital in Bali, in Bangli, it has no outreach or in-reach connections to community health centres or private GPs, so apart from some short-term benefit from modern psychiatric drugs, and a bit of respite for families, it plays a minimal role in the ongoing support of people with severe mental illness. That is the family’s burden, with little or no help from local health services. Not surprisingly, some drastic restraints are common, including stocks, (wood and concrete) cages and chaining to trees. This is called ‘pasung’ in Indonesia, and is illegal, but that has little bearing on the reality.

Last year, I and an Australian colleague travelled to Java and Lombok to see projects that have established a community-based response to severe mental illness. They were inspiring, both led by one highly committed and competent person who has taken several years to carry their health systems through a dramatic change to the point where almost no-one in the districts is suffering pasung, and families are receiving long-term support. We have brought this story to Bali, and some connections have begun (after an initial response of ‘I don’t think people from there should be telling us what to do in Bali’).

We are babes in the woods when it comes to Indonesian/Balinese policy and funding processes, but we have been lucky enough to meet two doctors, one a GP in charge of a large private clinic, and the other a psychiatrist, who are making a small start in a district which is part of Ubud. We’ve thrown in a little bit of funding to pay for medication where the person/family is not registered with the national insurance scheme, and so can’t access free drugs. But the real effort is coming from the GP clinic, which has already identified a dozen people who have not received any services before, and is treating them for free. The next step is to recruit volunteers in each village, who will be trained to identify people that may have a severe mental illness.

Actually, now I write that down, I shouldn’t be frustrated. The fact that there’s not a lot for me to do at this stage is remarkably unimportant in the scheme of things. We have unearthed a leader who is well-placed to carry this project to the point where we can show the local health department the real nature of the problem and the solutions. Solutions that are not complicated or costly, and which can deliver human and social benefits very quickly. So I and my colleague need to stay on tap to the two doctors, and come to Bali as often as possible (somebody has to do it) to support them however we can. After the initial stages, expat money might become important, for day care centres for example, and then it will be our turn to get busy. On reflection, it is a very good start.

Such a spectacle. Samuan Tiga is a ‘Mother Temple’, one of five in Bali, and it is in Bedulu, about five kilometres from Ubud. Today is the third day of of an eleven-day annual ceremony that will culminate in a march to the sea by thousands of people, to put the ashes of their recently departed in the final resting place.

Today was the circling of the temple eleven times by some of the local women (I estimate about 100) followed by the men (about 400) , a mock battle among those men, blessing by the head ‘mangku’ (priest) finishing with a march by the women back to each of their villages.

When we arrived it was like a carnival; food-stalls, flags, balloons and trinkets for sale, and a casino in full swing to the side of the temple. A friend emerged from there as we came in, smug that he had recovered his losses from yesterday (the equivalent of $12) and walked away despite the organisers’ pleas to play on. Tomorrow will be another story I suspect.

As we moved to the inner temple, the sweet sound of gamelan increased, swelling and receding with those complex rhythms that bewilder western musicians. Kadek tells me they rarely read the music; just practice what the leader shows them for each instrument until they sound good enough. It helps that most of the men had started playing when they were barely more than toddlers, but that doesn’t account for the new music they had learnt for today, all by ear. The sound was so well coordinated it seems impossible they got it down in less than a week. I’m talking about a new piece more than 10 minutes long.

Kadek asked us to kneel, which proved tricky in my temple dress, and then surprised us by asking us to pray. I’ve tried to avoid this bit in the past, because I’m not religious, but I couldn’t think quickly of a way not to offend, so I went through the motions—even down to the flowers behind my ear and the rice on my forehead and neck. After a silent apology (not sure who to—me?) it was awkwardly up again and moving to the outer area.

And here were the women beginning their journeys around the temple; mostly over 50 is my guess, some very old. But all obviously picked as fit to complete the ceremony in graceful style, despite crushing heat, and surrounded by several thousand spectators. By about the fifth rotation they were sweating visibly, but still moving as smoothly as air, with perfect poise. Dressed all in white, I saw that they picked up flowers for the back of their hair on about lap seven, then more behind their ears a few minutes later. The last two times, they were moving quickly, almost running, while making sure they put their foot on each corner of the temple as they passed-a tricky manoeuvre when you’re being pulled along quickly in a sort of daisy chain. Last, by now after more than half an hour of constant effort, quite a few looking exhausted, they kneeled in front of the mangku and prayed soundlessly.

Time to get out of the way of the men, who also did a few laps, but running madly and shouting while trying to hold hands, which lead to many near accidents involving the pressing crowd. The average age seemed younger, which might reflect the greater stamina required. Then they grabbed a sort of switch broom, short and not too stiff, and stated beating each other. The testosterone was getting a bit out of control now, with some of the men laying into each other with screams and apparent force. We stood well back, but many tried to get closer only to be pushed back by the yelling temple wardens. Suddenly, the chief mangku appeared on some steps, and all knelt and began cheering him. Everyone jostled to make sure they were sprinkled by the holy water delivered by three assistant mangkus, becoming steadily calmer in the process. I’m no reader of ancient Sanskrit, so I (and I understand almost all of the worshippers) have no idea what he said for a minute or so, but the effect was electric, and peace reigned again for a time.

Now friends and family started mingling, admiring new babies, praising the enormous offerings that had taken weeks to prepare, and pausing to pray in front of the ‘barong’ that is brought out of the sacred heart of the temple on occasions like this. The star offerings are the two huge statues, one made entirely of pork (yes, pork) and the other of coloured icing. I noticed this year that the pork one was not crawling with maggots—Kadek explained that it was sprayed with insecticide. Another small modernisation that makes sense I guess, but which slightly disappoints this romantic tourist.

As we were leaving, the lines of women began to form for the walk back to their banjar (village), all wearing their best temple clothes. The impact of the combined colour of these outfits inside the temple is hard to convey; quite overwhelming to the senses. Walking beside the road, the beauty is heightened by the bearing of the women, all moving smoothly with straight backs that no amount of pilates could achieve.

I asked Kadek how much work was going on in the community while thousands of people were at the temple for eleven days. ‘Not much Pak, this is a very important ceremony.’ As a non-believer, I guess I’ll never get my head around that word ‘important’, but the level of commitment required in Bali is extraordinary. I’ve heard it said that the average is a day or two a week over the whole year. Of course, the result is the experiences people like me have when we come here, which are gob-smackingly lovely, and it certainly is a key attraction for tourists, but it’s a wonder this is holding on so firmly with most young Balinese in modern times.

I just lost a finished piece of writing. I’ve done a great job of deleting it beyond my reach. I nurtured it, polished it, and didn’t even get to kiss it goodbye, as I managed to find a way to press three wrong keys in succession. They say that Big Brother (eg, Google, Facebook, Microsoft et al) is collecting all we do on a keyboard, but I think this one is gone.

The way I’m writing—around 750 words a couple of times a week—it’s all about last-minute inspiration, never planned. And equally it’s gone from my head ten minutes later. So re-creating work is very difficult, and unsatisfying. I can recall some of the content, but it just doesn’t flow. When I have tried it comes out like one of those identikit pictures of criminals, more or less right, but completely unlike any real person. So I don’t do it, but tend I tend to wallow in a small sense of loss for a day or two. If I tell anyone the gist of the piece they glaze over—the verbal version is just not good writing.

This is so unlike when I was working and emails were my main form of communication. I loved writing important requests or arguments for or against a policy. Persuasion was my job in many ways, and writing my favourite way of doing it. Meetings, giving speeches or talking to the media were all good on their day, but for me nothing compared to the opportunity to marshal information and opinion, to wrangle them into a coherent narrative, while all the time thinking from the position of the intended reader and how to shift it just a little my way. Sometimes I took a few hours to write four or five hundred words, but I usually found the effort was worth it.

When, as everybody has sometimes, I managed to irretrievably delete a finished gem, the sense of despair and frustration was right up there with getting a speeding fine; a disaster with no-one to blame but me. But I had to start again, because it what I was being paid to do. The person who shared my office was infinitely more savvy with Microsoft Word than I, so she trained me to take my hands off the keyboard and ask for help as soon as I lost work. Sometimes it was simple, sometimes she had to bring in the tech-nerds from the back office, and sometimes I really had managed to replace a polished work with a blank page

So then I had to start again, because it what I was being paid to do. At this point, my off-sider usually left for as long as possible, knowing I would be taciturn, un-generous company until the new version was complete. In some ways it was easier than my current predicament, because there were more facts involved, more notes I had made about key issues, quotes from policies that I knew had to be included and so on. But the all-important flow, tailored for a particular audience, had to be re-imagined, and it often took longer the second time. Once, the tech nerds brought me the original back after I had created and sent off a new version. The difference was substantial. Some of my best lines had been completely forgotten. Some new ones were better than the original. Makes me wonder what might have happened if Martin Luther King had lost the first version of his speech: whether ‘I had a dream’ would ever have been said. Maybe he meant to say ‘We can dream together’ or “I have dreamt of a time when—‘, but lost those notes, so history changed for ever.

Anyway, my piece from yesterday (I have only the title—‘A penny for your thoughts’) is gone. In retirement I don’t have Susan sitting in the next chair, saying firmly ‘Stop, don’t touch it, (loudly) go and get us a cup of tea and I’ll see what I can do.’ The perks of office. Ah well, I just have to reach the skill level of the average eight-year-old and my embryonic writing career may yet flourish…

 

Recently Jerry Brown, Governor of California announced he was looking forward to withdrawing quietly from public life when his current and last term ends this year. He is 79, and was first elected Governor more than forty years ago. He and his wife intend to spend lots more time on their small ranch north of San Francisco. I read a story about how the rancher next door had been asked by a reporter about having them as neighbours. He said ‘I don’t what they’re doing up there. Every time I see them they’re just sitting together on the front porch, talking or reading’.

What a deep, contented sigh that makes in me. Best company for favourite activities is hard to beat. Of course the Browns will be doing more than that. I imagine that brief breaks from the constant cacophony and polarities of American politics would be ideally spent in quiet contemplation, a time to do what the neighbour surely sees as wasting time. It might be different when the time between appointments stretches from minutes to weeks.

If it was me, I’d also be pottering around the house and yard on odd jobs within my own very limited scope of practice as a maker and fixer– projects with self-imposed schedules. Projects that caused occasional trips into a hardware store or a nursery. I’d be exploring the nearby countryside on my bicycle, discovering special places I can’t wait to share with Charmaine. Soon I’d start to plan longer trips with panniers for overnight stays. I might be wondering whether to treat myself to a mountain bike for the rougher roads. And of course, all these questions means visiting bike shops, which might require a longish trip in the car, and lunch somewhere with my partner.

I’d probably have settled on a few favourite morning walks, a few kilometres before breakfast where I never tire of familiar sights in different lights and seasons. I might even bump into my neighbour and seek his advice on my projects, easing his concerns about my productivity. Walking is so close to the immediate environment, even more so than cycling, where much of your attention is on keeping safe. A walker sees the detailed texture of the ground, the plants, the insects even; hears the smallest sounds, smells the leaves and blooms, touches the rocks and trees as they pass. I love to watch animals doing their thing, eating, flying, playing, sleeping. Last year in Bali Charmaine and I walked past a large spider in the centre of his/her web several days a week. We often stopped to watch the web being extended or repaired. It was a small sadness when the web and spider disappeared, never to return over the next few months. You’d miss all that cycling.

And would Governor Brown and his wife really be able to resist the urge to contribute to their community for long? I know my partner and I would get restless within weeks. We need something more than just blissful relaxing; in fact for us relaxing is blissful partly because it is not like other busier, more engaged activities—activities associated with responsibilities. Of course, it usually ends up being an academic point in any case—life is sure to serve up responsibilities we can’t turn our backs on. Misfortunes for family, friends, our personal health, money and more will all get in the way of smooth sailing.

But you can’t sit there waiting for the call. The balance we are looking for in our little ranch in Goodwood (all 464 square metres of it) certainly includes the porch with the newspapers, the radio on pleasing music, and a cup of tea to hand. I hope we can enjoy that every day, a special interlude for just the two of us, but as part of a rich variety of experiences that keep coming because we go out looking for them.

 

These days I seem to tire more quickly. Up till recent years, a day’s manual work would knock me out for a few hours, and give me sore muscles the next day. Typical of someone with a desk job during the week. Now it is only a couple of hours before I’m knackered, with the same recovery period required. At 71 it feels premature to blame this on ageing, especially since it doesn’t happen consistently. A few weeks ago I helped out on a several-day project including lots of heavy lifting, and I did fine—but since then my stamina has left town. This morning I looked at the paving I laid in front of our house and wondered how on earth I finished it.

 

And my muscle strength is fading fast. My days of easy lifting, digging, chopping and sawing seem to be just about over. Taking my time, and with careful attention to safe technique (both run counter to the habits of a lifetime) I can still get reasonable results, albeit with a steadily increasing toll of cuts and bruises and strained muscles. Avoiding ladders above the third or fourth step is a new resolution that makes good sense, but I still managed to get stuck up a tree a few weeks ago. Going up was not so difficult, but reversing this creaky, poorly coordinated body was right up there with reversing a trailer down the boat ramp. At least I didn’t have several people yelling conflicting instructions.

There are delightful exceptions to these deteriorations. The most important to me is bike-riding, which I can do for several hours. Fifty or sixty kilometres of undulating country is usually completely enjoyable, and with a bit of training effort I can build that up to a hundred. The surge of strength I often feel on a hill is a youth-like thrill to look forward to. I’m sure I’m not unusual in this regard. The roads are full of older people cycling these days, revelling in the ability to get out and about without jarring joints or straining muscles. There’s always the possibility of an accident, in which the bike rider inevitably comes off worse, but with defensive riding (again far too recently learnt in my case) the odds are good. So many people say ‘You’re amazing, that is so admirable’ or words to that effect, but I don’t feel that way at all. I know I’m supremely lucky that something I get so much pleasure from is still possible, and if it is good for my cardiovascular health that doesn’t make me virtuous.

Still, there are times when I get very annoyed at my body for letting me down—a ridiculous concept I know. We’re not machines with moving parts that go for ever with the right care, fuel and maintenance. We’re infinitely more complicated; both more remarkable and more fallible. As a young person I more or less believed that in fifty or sixty years’ time (it seemed like infinity then) all complaints of disease and ageing would have been more or less remedied, ensuring I would enjoy robust health for a hundred years or so, then die peacefully. Well here I am, here we all are, and as long as we’re wealthy and genetically blessed we are living longer and healthier. Of course the data is all about averages, and it’s still true that many people become disabled or face death long before my current age.

Actually that helps in a schadenfreude sort of way—I am one of the lucky ones, even if opening the jam jar hurts my wrist, and I need a good lie down after a bit of gardening. Luck not to be squandered complaining. Better to concentrate on the mental and physical strategies that delay emergence of this embryonic grumpy old man, and give my body the best possible chance of performing well for a decade or two more. Time to get back on my bike.

Health and fitness

The second life domain for the well-rounded retiree is attempting the healthiest outcomes from an ageing body and mind. Can I write about mental health in the same way as physical? And is my leaning to self-inquiry in these musings part of my mental health? I will put that aside for now and concentrate on the physical, although potential hypocrisy lurks there in not recognising body and mind as one, when I have been talking up total health for a couple of decades.

I’ve been focused on how my body looks since I was an awkward, skinny teenager. I swam, I ran, I lifted weights. I’ve done floor exercises, and dieted; although none of these as arduously or consistently as really fit people. Just about the whole baby-boomer catastrophe really, but the idea of being fit for health’s sake didn’t really take hold in me until a few years ago, when I started cycling in earnest. All those previous years (say 14 to about 55) the real motivation was vanity; wanting to look good. Avoiding a pot belly and spindly legs got me up in the morning to go to the pool to swim lengths and/or aqua-aerobics; to do press-ups and sit-ups, to walk to work as fast as was compatible without having a shower available.

So, less of the vanity and more of the longevity? Actually, there’s not much dissonance here—being fit and flexible tends to make you look better in any case. And if vanity helps me find the way to get vertical in the morning, particularly when the weather is too hot or too cold, I welcome it. These days, it feels almost unthinkable to get out of condition—I think I am addicted to feeling physically stronger and lighter on the feet—but I still steal those quick glances in the mirror, just checking that the overall result is about as good as can be expected. Vanity, I hope, that is well under control and serving a useful purpose.

Now I have retired, I’ve thought about stepping up the exercise—how about an extra 50 kilometres a week on the bike, and a couple of longer swims? Some friends have gone this route, with masters’ games levels of ability beckoning. For now, I’m content with regular moderate exercise. I have no desire to beat anyone else, just to keep up this level of fitness for as long as I can. Sure, time does weigh heavily sometimes with no day-job to go to, no early planes to catch, no papers to read the night before. But ever-increasing amounts of exercise doesn’t attract me as a way to work on that particular sense of missing out.

What of mental health? The easy bit is the endorphin rush and the feelings of achievement that physical activity usually delivers. Feeling down and a bit out-of-sorts when I wake up? I know that I will almost always get into a good head space if I get vigorous for an hour or more—even 15 minutes of floor exercises will improve things. Bigger, ongoing issues need more thought, even, heaven forbid, listening to some advice. This writing is part of my strategy to find new ways to keep my balance; to find new relevance, to be useful, to have lots to look forward to. Mental health is more than those of course, but they are a good start. Throw in not drinking delicious wine past the almost-certain hangover-to-come stage, getting enough sleep, spending enough time with people I love, and managing stress as effectively as I know how. That’s my mental health plan for now.

It’s true, I have thought for years, and sometimes said aloud, that when I retired I’d get more involved with the extended family, particularly my children and grandchildren. We are a blended family, (do people still say that?) me with two adult children, Charmaine with two, so I slip in and out of ‘my’ and ‘our’, depending on the context. For example, when I’m in Bali, it’s just too complicated to explain that Charmaine and I are not married, let alone whose grandchildren I’m talking about. It’s just one big family with four children and four grandchildren. Then there’s our unofficial ‘foster child’, Dana, who has married Kim and they have two little boys. So I often say six grandchildren when I’m in Bali.

Anyway, back to the family ties. Yes there is more time now, and change for the better is coming slowly. I’ve seen all six adults and six kids most weeks, and a modest increase on that seems likely. The grand-kids range in age from one to eleven years old, and it is an absolute joy to be among these very young people again. In general I find I get on easily with all of them, with the huge advantages that grandparents have—we are a novelty for the kids, a break from parents, easy to put up with for a few hours, so pleasantness abounds. Zapha, four years old, just said ‘David, you’re a really funny guy’—what more can you want?

Of course there are protocols to observe. Parenting methods are not to be commented on, unless genuine praise is on offer. Favouritism is to be scrupulously avoided, especially where money or gifts are involved. But the rewards of loving diplomacy are many, and in general our offers of socialising, baby-sitting and other practical assistance are much appreciated. I look forward to many years of mutual pleasure in the company of both generations.

My original family is more difficult to talk about. I have no parents now; haven’t had for twenty five years or more. But my two brothers and I are still here, and their five children, and we have hardly any contact. I’ve been thinking about them lately. Is it too late to make an effort to get to know each other better? We three are all over 70 now, after heading in entirely different directions for the last fifty years. I visited my older brother the week after I got home from our year in Bali. It was pleasant enough for an hour or so, but we have so little in common to build on, no shared activities or plans for the future, and only a friendly warmth, not an affection born of shared experience. I hug many friends, male and female, yet I shook hands with my brother. And I haven’t even spoken with my younger brother for a couple of years. I’m not sure what I want to do about all this.

It’s not that we dislike each other, or have any unresolved family feuds—or at least none that I’m aware of. We just aren’t close friends, even though we are brothers. It feels as though this should be deeply unsatisfactory—is not brotherly love supposed to be one of the strongest bonds? One of my nieces contacted me while I was in Bali, suggesting a get-together sometime soon. Maybe that’s the way to see if a page can be turned. She will invite her father (my brother) and I’ll get to meet her two children for the first time, except for a brief glimpse of a baby some years back. I think it’s my move.

Postscript four days later: It’s all going to happen. In about six weeks’ time there will be a multi-generational get-together, including my brothers and their children and grand-children and all of mine. I think the last event like this I can remember was in about 1992, when my father was still alive. So writing is not an isolated act—but of course why would a form of talking not be linked to subsequent action? There’s a thought: writing about it can change it.