So much talk
about 2020
Such a shocker
Crap year
Extraordinary
Unprecedented
Next year must be better
Over and over
Talk talk talk
Yet 2020 was
just another year
On it went
and now it’s gone
Another year arrives
2021
How long will it take
to remember
to write it down
Instead of continuing
to write 2020
with the symmetry
of the repeating numbers
To my family, friends and readers of my blog,
A year ending. Over and over again people made comments that this year 2020 was “unprecedented”… Yet there are always precedents… previous bush fires, previous pandemics, previous elections…. This year they all came together in a powerful punch.
I finished a book in January 2020, but because of the COVID19 pandemic there was no possibility of traveling from my current home in Canberra, Australia to the USA to launch the book. I ordered a few copies for myself and put the books in a closet, postponing my plan to launch the book in Kansas City, Missouri, Vinita and Tulsa, Oklahoma.
I had spent a few years thinking, researching, writing, rewriting… a book about my father W. Lon Hutchison… about a person I didn’t really know. To say I should have known my own father is not correct. At the time of my upbringing, (born 1945), at the place of my upbringing, (Kansas City, Missouri, USA), parents were unknown quantities to their children. Parents were power, control, but not people. Children had no “rights” to know anything about their parents. Children were just there to do what they were told to do, go where they were told to go, like objects on a chess board… moved around according to their all powerful, all knowing parents.
Many years after being disowned by my father, many years after his death (1971), I made a decision to reconcile with him – with his memory – to construct a portrait of a human being that I could respect.
I wrote a novel based on data I collected about my father’s contacts with the justice system in the USA. He was in and out of jails, prisons and mental health institutions (known as asylums) for many years.
With the current reality of COVID19, travel from Australia to the USA to launch the book is very unlikely for many months. Meanwhile, the book Tracking the Human: nobody’s a long time is available on line at www.lulu.com.
If you do purchase and read the book, I would very much appreciate your feedback, on my blog or by email at pamela@tucacas.info.
Thanks!
The hallway
The photos
The art work
The collections
of dolls
sculptures
artifacts
paintings
photos
from
Kenya
West Papua
Indonesia
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Nigeria
Venezuela,
Mexico
China
USA
Australia
The wealth
the creativity
of your life
your family
your ancestors
your neighbours
your friends
people everywhere
So many people
contributed
to you
Who you are
What you do
How you think
How you act
How you live
Embrace them
Celebrate them
Remember them
NOW
and
all ways
Be thankful
from this day
onward
Hooray!
During COVID restrictions, three of us completed book projects we had been working on. This weekend we’re having a three way book launch in Canberra, Australia, Saturday 7 November 2020, between 3 – 5 pm.
If you can’t join us, the books are available on http://www.lulu.com. Thanks!
On the rocky coast
Sharing love of place
Of sea of whales of trees
Holding it close
Remembrance
On the rocky coast
Whale excitement
Shared with strangers
Spreading love
Expanded possibility
Camping plus a slight cold = 4 great books!
While camping, and relaxing in a hammock (a habit acquired in Venezuela) at Mimosa Rocks National Park, I finished two outstanding books by Australian authors:
The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton 
and Stone Sky Gold Mountain by Mirandi Riwoe 
When I first began reading The Shepherd’s Hut, I thought, no, too fast, too much slang… I can’t stay with this. But I kept going and going and going until it was over. Some references to plants, land and Aussie slang that I didn’t know, but no matter… a terrific read.
Easier entry to Stone Sky, Gold Mountain, a novel about the incredible suffering of Chinese migrants in the gold fields of North Queensland, Australia in 1877.
Returned from Mimosa Rocks (on the south east coast of Australia) to Canberra, I had several days of not feeling too great – runny nose and congestion. So more reading! 
I finished Ta-Nehisi Coates novel, The Water Dancer. Densely written, submerging the diligent reader into the underground war on slavery in the United States. (Look up the Underground Railroad on Wikipedia for information about the underground).
Fourth b
ook: Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman, a novel based on the life of her grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, who successfully fought to stop the termination of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribe by the United States Senate in the 1950s. Gloriously written, with poetic language, memorable characters embedded throughout.
I tend to immerse myself in books, read them very quickly and then regret when they’re finished, as if I’ve lost a good friend.
All of the above HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Joyous reading!
Looking out the window
through the glass sliding door
Clouds moving across the sky
Grey underbellies
White above
Illuminated by the sun
Blue patches in between
Always moving
Changing shapes
Cloud diversity
Tree diversity
Branches straight
Branches convoluted
Branches intertwined
Branches bare
Branches with leaves
Moving with the wind
Trunks stationery
Roots underneath
Out of sight
Pushing earth
Enveloping rocks
Clinging to the side
of eroded stream beds
Invisible movement
of trees
Visible movement
of clouds
Look up again
Sky more blue
Clouds
motionless
Suspended
Swallowed up
One wisp drifts away
Dissolving in the blue
Shapes slowly shifting
Grey and white masses
Silhouette flying across
small black bird
How long will I stay
in this expanded space
Walking through life
with increased senses
Aware of nuance
Listening to a talk
about the intelligence of birds
Thinking of a book
Thinking of a friend
Thinking of family
Thinking of life
Advising a friend
to write a fictionalized
story of her family history
To put her father in the world
To respect his life
Not to honour or elevate
That’s what I’ve done
with my father
Immersed in Finland
although I’ve never been
and probably never will go
Finnish films have taken me
into humanity
Skiing though snowy forests
Cutting through ice
A cold cold land
bathed in the warmth of humanity
Why did it take so long
to feel connected
Sleep walking through life
Awake and not aware
Tears of being human
Wanting everyone everywhere
to feel the depth
of their own lives
