Calling across generations
My eldest son Oscar phoned last night
He's been studying at a university in the city for over a year now.
"I need you to talk with this guy about synthesisers," he began.
Of course I agreed, but it seemed unusual. "Is there a reason why?"
"It'll settle a bet," said my son.
Now I was interested. "What's at stake? Is there money involved?"
"No," he said. "Just my pride. I need you to talk to prove that we don't sound alike."
A memory flashed through my head of being a bit younger than he is now and answering the phone in my father's house.
My father's friend mistook me for him and asked an embarrassing question. "Want to make it three nights in a row?"
I remember smiling broadly, saying "This is Jason" and savouring the deflated tone of the request to get my father.
However, this was a different conversation and I still couldn't help but be amused how some things haven't changed.
"Pretend to be Oscar," whispered his mother to me as she smiled across the room.
A new voice came on the line and said "Okay" as though it were an introduction.
I smiled and pitched my voice up a semitone, then animated it in the way I have heard Oscar talk.
"Hello there! How is your evening, good fellow?"
There were a few laughs over the shoulder of the caller and smiles in the room where I stood.
"Can I interest you in a synthesiser? I have more than enough and would be happy to acquaint you."
By now the laughs were overlapping and giggles had begun to echo around me.
"I think I can hear it," said the voice on the line.
Then I heard Oscar's friend Lily in the background.
She had called a couple of times and mistaken me for him, then sounded embarrassed when I said I'd get my son for her.
"Thanks Jason," she said through a smile big enough to be heard across a room and down a phone line.
I think Oscar lost the bet and I hope his pride isn't hurt.
Timeless
At first I thought it was ironic, but now I'm wondering if it is a message that's perfectly suited for this holiday home where I'm currently residing.
Nutrigrain
This reminds me of a friend who listed a piece on Ebay because it looked like E.T.
It sold and the buyer didn't pay, but TV shows started a bidding war for an interview on their programs!
Just be
It amused me to see this ad
Yet the message suggests there's something inherent in being a surname!
I suppose it's one area in life that's prescribed.
Gentle Sentinel
Yesterday I had an urge to write a song and the following lyrics arrived on the page
As river red gums placed on the plains for many centuries
my life as a eucalypt that knows the river flows across a wide red land
in squiggles of creeks, still of billabongs and in hills of sand
waters have wandered and cast aside the few sentinels that stand
Along these ways Gugabul the mighty cod is known to journey home
over one hundred kilometres to a river bend they know
do the fish know sometimes we seek a truth when the answer will wait
at a place we've known and in absence has grown my love
absence has grown my love
Gentle sentinel
standing through time
roots laid in the dark
holder of the heart
In darkness of the soil our roots are intertwined
through the vastness of the ground I found a reservoir await
with my fingers I create the boundary of my physical state
cupped as a vessel sailing the curves of the hills we overtake
Hot winds blow with the hard light of the sun
the excited chatter of birds that know no one
don't let jealousy tremble your limbs as a leaf would shake
you only need to fear what the axe can take my love
fear what the axe can take my love
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