Weeding, Surprise Creek Colony by Julie Melton

For the past 2 or 3 months, on my way to work, I have passed a slow-moving construction site, making it’s way at no pace at all up a road, reconfiguring something deep underground.

From what I can tell, there are 3 workers on this site, but rarely altogether. Mostly there are 2. The fat, younger one who mans the digger, and the old-timer – and I mean old-timer – who does the shovelling.

It’s the old-timer that interests me most. He must be in his 80′s. He could be late 70′s if he’s been working construction his whole life. His nose is long, and beginning to look cumbersome in the way it does when you get very old, so I am happy to pronounce him 80 plus.

I’m somewhat surprised at the company’s retirement policy. I’m surprised enough that I think that perhaps something else is going on here. In Shawshank redemption Brooks begs not to be freed from prison and the security of what he knows and perhaps this old-timer has done the same. Perhaps he’s on half pay, just to be working.

And he’s working. He’s doing all the work. But very slowly. It’s a joke. I would take a photo, but I’m not that kind of person. He digs so slowly – he turfs up a yoghurt-sized sprinkling of dirt each time. The younger one mans the digger and smokes. Today he read a magazine.

The old-timer won’t take a sick day. If he doesn’t come to work one day it will be because he is dead. I imagine his heart beating in his chest, and then I imagine it just stopping.

The third man on the site is another young one, but even younger. He’s big too, but in a youthful, strong way and he helps with the manual work. He doesn’t man the digger and smoke. If the old-timer didn’t show, I try to imagine the conversation between the two younger guys. I don’t think it would last long.

It’s interesting because they are knotted around this site. This slow-moving site that must have the street’s residents at their wits end. The whole site is being inched painfully up the hill by the old-timer, and sometime in the future it will be a road again. When the old-timer doesn’t show for work, the other guys will find a way to remember him. One will man the digger and smoke, the other will commence shovelling.

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Julie Melton’s photograph is on a wall in our home. Her website is here.

Shot in Crete, August 8th 2011

Photos of our holiday to Crete over at Flickr.

Last week, I was on holiday in Crete. At the tail end of a holiday, when home and work start poking at me through the membrane of relaxation, I begin to plan for my trip back to earth. I feel fresh, rejuvenated. Opportunities for change offer themselves up, like a handful of tiny new years, waiting for my better self to grab hold and pull.

I came back to work Wednesday and immediately hit a wall. No new projects, no movement on current project. I’ve spent a good part of the past couple of days fiddling around with this site. I have other things to do, but they’re being put off and put off.

* * *

I haven’t made work for myself for about two years. I am sore about this, and scared too to try and make inroads. Scared I won’t feel anything for the arts that i used to love.

* * *

Having children is tiring. You give yourself, with pleasure, and you get back big time. But you lose too…that old, selfish self that could do anything, anytime, is now seriously impeded. That’s some reality, and a danger too. My daughter can’t have all of me, or there will be nothing left to surprise her with later on.

* * *

I read my first book for a long time while in Crete. It was Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell. I took proper books in my luggage – Steinbeck, Hemingway and Fitzgerald – but opted instead to choose from a stack of tat in our villa. It was great, I ploughed through it. I laughed at first – the writing’s ridiculous. Then I settled in, and enjoyed myself, not feeling guilty at all. I’m reading some Hemingway now, and writing this. Thanks Patricia.

Wow. This dropped in my inbox this morning. Gorgeous.

Our new baby girl is the beautiful Aurelie Eve Abbott ! I can’t put into words how special this feeling is, or how much love I have for this little parcel! We’re so glad to have you Aurelie!