Gwenda Hague 2007

I discovered Russell Hoban during my hippie years in the 70's and Turtle Diary, dog-eared, the pages turning yellow, my favourite passages underlined in orange felt tipped pen (how gross) travelled the world with me for years as a kind of easy little bible. Taken out in times of traveller's loneliness, when I wanted to initiate a conversation, as a dreamstarter, to look engrossed when feeling uncomfortable and to kickstart my heart if it ever was in threat of stopping. I loved it like a baby loves its comfort blanket. (Still do.) I thank Russell for this. In later years I have found and read many of his other titles, he never lets me down.

On a day full of cicadas airbrushing the day with their joy I send my happiest birthday wishes to Russell Hoban. I am a silent Kraken member better to let the cicadas do the talking. This year I have joined in the SA4QE homage! My quote - is the Fremder rain quote......a little sad since we in Australia are fast in the jaws of one of the worst droughts on record. Does the rain remember how to rain???? Ahhhh!! The cicadas still believe!

My quote:

"Do you think the rain remembers, Fremder?"

"I think everything remembers, Pythia."

"…especially the rain. It remembers when the world was new, remembers how the seas filled up. Think of all the midnights and the dawns the rain remembers, how many there were before a single word was spoken. Neither pleasant palaces nor wild dogs to howl in them, only the steam rising as the seas filled up, only the white mist on the water in the ancient mornings."

from Fremder

I have taken photos of my yellow paper - it was left at the local library at Springwood in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Libraries are good houses, "Safe Houses", and there is a chance that someone will take their curiosity on a great journey.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUSSELL HOBAN.....4TH FEBRUARY 2007
SPRINGWOOD, NSW AUSTRALIA

Postscript: The day I SA4QEED the Springwood Library with the Fremder quote, the sky began to throw a few clouds around. By Monday the heavens opened up and a deluge ensued, water ran down streets and eddied and swirled. As it was cascading down some outdoor stairs I heard a little girl call out in absolute wonder - "look a waterfall". The rain had remembered how to rain, the cicadas were right to believe. Did the quote somehow precipitate the precipitation? It did not break the drought but it bucketed in the catchment area and the sky is still frowny. It is a beginning and an end and that little girl's waterfall is now mine.