bilateral kellerberrin

The doctor is inspecting the balls of my left foot. There is a lump – actually more like a ridge just raised above the surface, which he’s worried about. I ask him what the problem is. It’s not the bone, he says. The problem is in the muscle. I don’t understand. The foot isn’t causing me pain, and I’m not even aware of walking funny.

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It’s Sunday morning, and Pip has just turned on his cherry picker. It has a gas-powered engine, I think, and sounds a bit like a generator. He’s putting the final touches on the huge housepainting job he and Dawn have been tackling for the last few weeks. The cherry picker is right on the other side of the wall from my computer.

I know I’ve been carrying on about John Cage – the ability to listen, and thereby turn any local “noise” into interesting music. But this cherry picker is a challenging one. It’s not harsh, and it’s not even excessively loud…actually it’s quite a gentle hum, which mainly hovers around one note, occasionally surging upwards or downwards momentarily before returning to its normal pitch.

When Anne was visiting a few weeks ago, we were more annoyed by the sound than I am now. Possibly that’s because we were trying to have a conversation over the top of it. And maybe I’ve gotten used to it a bit. I would not complain to Pip and Dawn. I think they are doing a terrific job, and have been very considerate – not starting up the cherry picker til about ten each day.

The only thing is – I’m having trouble listening to this sound as “music”. True, when I focus on it, and give it my full attention (for example, when I stop typing these lines and just gaze blankly at the wall and listen to it) I can “appreciate” it more. But I just can’t seem to get past the idea that I wish it would stop.

Perhaps I should not be so ambitious – it could be that years of training are required for this kind of listening skill. Yesterday, Pip told me that the sound of the generator (the “genny”) was soothing to him – it was a sound from the farm, when there was no piped-in electricity. He said all motors have a soothing effect on him. Which makes sense – Pip’s now a truck driver, and has motorbikes and trucks and utes and you name it. He doesn’t seem to wear ear plugs when operating that cherry picker, either…

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Yesterday, I introduced Annetta, who minds the gallery on Saturday mornings, to my blog. Before I get into that, I should point out something fairly pointless: the gallery is open every week, Thursday to Sunday, even when there is no exhibition on. Whichever lady is on the roster opens the door, sweeps the footpath, puts out the “gallery open” sign, and sits at the desk with her large-print book for the advertised opening hours. But the gallery itself is completely empty.

I’ve heard explanations: IASKA got in trouble because people came to see the exhibition and the gallery was closed. Something to do with satisfying the council, which gives the gallery several thousand a year towards its operating costs. But it’s the most bizarre thing. I would go out on a limb, and say that this is the only art gallery in Australia which regularly stays open in order to exhibit nothing. That is quite a claim.

Unfortunately (for Annetta at least) this means she is vulnerable to the platonic advances of Peter McCabe. Peter, who’s been “supervising” Pip and Dawn’s painting job, likes to pop in and yarn with Annetta in the gallery. As soon as a visitor arrives, or if Annetta is busy, he takes off. But it’s hard for her to pretend to be busy when she’s obviously babysitting a completely empty gallery. She doesn’t mind too much – he’s pretty harmless – but she complains that he brings in the flies with him…

I set up the i-Mac and plunked it on the gallery ladies’ desk. Annetta was very keen to try it out. She exhibited none of the fear I had expected. She didn’t seem overly anxious about “wrecking it” – which seems to be a common concern: the idea that by pressing the wrong button, you can muck up the computer. And I showed her the basics: the scroll bar so you could scoot up and down the page, the way the arrow turns into a hand when there’s something you can click on, how to return to the “menu” page by clicking on the “bilateral kellerberrin” title at the top of the site. She was happy as Larry. I’ll have to check back in with her next week, to see how much she’s retained…

Anne clicks away merrily. Note the empty gallery in the background…

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Pat came in for the afternoon shift. I had spent a few hours catching up on writing, and could do no more, so I decided to sit and knit with her. Last week, she showed me a few basics – “in, over, under, off” which (if I got it right) is the basic knitting process. But I had forgotten, so I needed her to show me again.

It’s interesting, this exchange – my clumsy knitting (my big claws struggling to hold the needles comfortably, my body tensing up in the concentration) for her (somewhat less) clumsy computer skills. Pat has been knitting for so long, she said, that she finds it hard to describe how to do it to someone else. She kept saying “no, you’re doing it wrong!” but in order to set me straight, she would have to take the needles herself and show me. It’s the same with using a mouse – it’s so easy to forget that our use of these devices is almost at the level of instinct by now.