Last night I was in a bathroom, there was some renovation going on. N and my stepdad were around. There was a small rectangular hole in the bathroom wall by the door, and a kitten in the hole. The kitten fit in there perfectly and was sleeping sweetly. Later a toddler (my daughter?) was picking the cat up by the tail - I was horrified that she had the instinct to do that, didn't know automatically, then I realised I had to teach her.

I'm calling the book Cannonball Tree. I like this title 80%.

Last night I was in a small Eastern European city with my father and stepsister. We were going around places to eat, but I was having trouble paying. We had drinks of some kind at one outdoor stall, and I was looking through these unfamiliar currencies in my wallet. I thought I had large notes but it turned out they were in another currency, from a neighbouring country, and I had only a few dram, which is what I needed (we were in Armenia?). The stall-keeper explained it to me and the light dawned and we moved on to a place that served us a lovely meal - just hard bread rolls with cheese and ham and pickles, all delicious - but I was faintly conscious that I hadn't actually paid the last woman yet, and that I may not have enough for this meal.

All the while my father was with us but sitting away at a different table, not eating, maybe because he didn't have enough money, and complaining about - everyone?

version

clear days giant sacra

a walking, a donkey alongside

 the gravel releases dust and the dust takes up the sun

it is 22° it is 6pm, the decline

with sharp wildflowers

 an excellent headache, the sun’s plates

tightening the hills

our dog and our donkey chase, counter-continuous

turning out to infinity, together

we go to balance our trebuchets

slung in their arms

"For instance, if I am walking through the city and look into one of those quiet courtyards where nothing has changed for decades, I feel, almost physically, the current of time slowing down in the gravitational field of oblivion. It seems to me then as if all the moments of our life occupy the same space, as if future events already existed and were only waiting for us to find our way to them at last, just as when we have accepted an invitation we duly arrive in a certain house at a given time. And might it not be, continued Austerlitz, that we also have appointments to keep in the past, in what has gone before and is for the most part extinguished, and must go there in search of places and people who have some connection with us on the far side of time, so to speak?" W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz.

Last night I dreamed I returned, came through the fence to the animal enclosure where N was, where L & W and their kids were staying with the apes, humans living in one chalet and the other one full of monkeys. They had made two huge fake gorillas out of shed monkey hair, and these were placed out on the grass, like topiaries or scarecrows. I knew this would scare off the two dominant real gorillas so that it was safe for me to return for the moment. I made it into one chalet while everyone else was in the other - I would have to figure out how to get across to them safely - but then we were all together anyway in the monkey chalet, tending to the animals - helping with food, waste, everything.

I was working with these two young female monkeys - like eight or nine year old girls in their development. I had to explain to them that their babies had died.

Slept until after one today, body aches and pains, flu exhaustion, then talked to my Nan, for almost two hours.... told her about the dream, about her card in my dream. She was so happy to hear about it. at the end of the call we talked about blessings, about always knowing we are connected. she asked me to tell her what my greatest worry right now is, so she could 'work on it' for me. she's never asked that before! I said it was finding the 'time' or 'space' to write as I want to... not really a time or space issue, but I don't think framing or terminology problems matter, for the purposes of my nanna's interventions.

as I write, a sudden flash of the balcony at c-ville, the old beds out there, musty, you could sleep there open to the humid night, sound of the harbour below, clinking boats, rustling possums in the gum trees and the bilby in the leaf litter. I remember that guy D coming up to sleep out there, soft face and damp curly hair.

Nan told me that when pop had his strokes and they did a brain scan, the doctor thought he'd once been in a major carcrash. she said it was a frontal lobe injury, the result of a whack with a cricket ball or bat when he was at school, an overzealous master would play with them, and it laid him out for six months with concussion. she said she always knew there was something there, she could feel that it wasn't him, when he had his rages around the farm and even the dog would cringe.

I was thinking of ringing nan tomorrow and saying I told her the wrong thing, that's not really my biggest worry, it's the baby thing, whether to try to have one or not. I wonder if it would feel okay to tell her that, and if she could just take it away with her like the other one.