quiet paws.

The experience of being haunted is not just about waking in the cold, dim light of early morning to find a menacing white apparition watching over you from the end of your bed. Being haunted can merely consist of a sensation, a passing thought, a remembered painful memory, or taking note of some kind of sign that has your mind conjuring up all sorts of fanciful connections.

Being haunted in such a way can be the most terrifying experience of all. It can strike too close to the bone, cut too close to the heart and turn our hidden insides outwards. It can make you feel like you will never again work yourself back through the haze of emotional blindness that a haunting carelessly throws into the air. You can be left unsettled, not knowing where you are in relation to who you think you are as a person. Rusty locks can be broken open, doors can be wrenched askew, leaving us scrabbling about in the dark as we try to find some way of securely closing everything back in again.

While traditional ghostly hauntings can often be shared with other people, the message contained within a personal haunting has only one target in mind. This is something experienced alone. Hauntings are often mysterious, teasing us with only the slightest glimpse of what lies beneath, the significance of which can only be understood after you work at unravelling its deeply seated meaning. These solitary hauntings can shake you to the very core of your soul, slide under your skin to dance with your soul and construct the most bewildering mazes in your mind. Your eyes cannot be closed against such an experience, it will continue to bombard you until you stop ignoring and start trying to understand.

The most disturbing impact of these hauntings is what is left behind after the initial instigator has moved on. While the haunting itself may last for only a micro-second, it produces a complex reaction that can linger for a long time after. Often many questions hang heavy in the air, the subject of which will depend entirely on the message being sent. Why did you leave? Where have you gone? Why did you break your promise? What have you forgotten? When such questions build in your mind, there is no escape, you are forced to try and make sense of it all.

Personal hauntings can come in many forms. Some are all about the visual, other times a certain sound will speak to you in a very particular way, but then there are days where you are transported away by a passing fragrance. This week I was assailed by the scents of a time since past. One moment you’re walking down the street, very much a part of the everyday, but then suddenly you become an unexpected time traveller, witnessing things that you never knew you needed to be shown. Such scents of past memories came wafting across the boundaries of time and space to leave me wondering at what the universe was wanting to tell me.

A fragrance haunting is the most frustrating to experience as there is nothing to react against. A visual clue can be studied and analysed, a sound can be repeated or recorded, but a scent? Well that is a hard thing to capture. A fragrance taps you on the shoulder but when you turn to see who is there, of course there is no one. The fragrance has dissipated before you’ve had a chance to understand its true nature and uncover its secrets. It is an invisible spirit which travels through the air, not concerning itself with who it troubles as it makes its way around the world.

My first fragrant ghost was a combination of scents which conjured up the feel of a place that I lived some six years ago. It brought with it the silence of a cold morning, the peace of a clear blue sky, the sound of frost encrusted grass crunching under hard shoes, the almost imperceptible scent of Eucalyptus on the breeze, and a cheeky grin associated with rabbits feeding on the lawns surrounding Parliament house…those naughty little beggars…so disrespectful of authority! All in all a relatively positive remembrance, but even so this could serve as both a reminder of happier and of sadder times. Perhaps this comes to me now as a harbinger of further change on my horizon?

My second fragrant ghost was a connective fragrance that had my mind linking one thing to another until I arrived at a certain location. The scent I caught on the air was one of sunscreen soaked into warm skin. From there I was at the beach, all blue water and blinding white sand. That invigorating feeling of having your skin salted by the sea and having it dry as you sit on your gaudily coloured towel. The dry salt leaving your skin slightly itchy, but feeling altogether refreshed. It was feet burning on hot sand as you make your way towards the ocean, then towering waves that pull you under and drag you across the sandy floor, coming up grazed and bruised but never feeling more alive than at that moment. An invigorating memory to be sure, but beyond that I’m not sure of the message. Have I let myself forget the simple pleasures of immersing myself in the environment? Do I need to reconnect to that sense of freedom? Probably true on both accounts, and in my most vivid of dreams I often travel to that intermingled place where land meets the sea.

At times of these visitations I am reminded of poor old Ebenezer Scrooge. In response to his strange visitors of the night, Scrooge was somewhat resistant to the experience, ‘Bah!’ said Scrooge, ‘Humbug!’ Certainly an understandable reaction. And I too have found myself trying to ignore or at least avoid the wisdom to be found in my hauntings. However from experience I have found that my continued ignorance simply means that the universe keeps resending the same message over and over again, sometimes in different form but there is no mistaking the unchanging message at its core. The universe has all the time in the world and does not leave me in peace until I properly accept and act upon its message.

Just like Ebenezer’s Christmas ghosts, a personal haunting reveals several different possibilities – a disturbing vision of the past, a reminder of a current promise, or a potential future that is still yet to pass. A haunting is a curious beast indeed, but despite the negatives that can arise, the experience should ultimately be embraced. After all we have little choice in the matter. The universe will do whatever is necessary to ensure we properly acknowledge these otherworldly communications. Unfortunately we can exert no control over the messages that we receive, instead the messages that we are destined for have an uncanny way of catching up with us eventually. All we can do is be ready.

In ‘People of the Book’ Geraldine Brooks speaks to the reader through the experiences of Dr Hanna Heath, an Australian expert in the conservation of medieval manuscripts. Receiving a phone call in the early hours of the morning, Hanna finds out that not only has the ancient Hebrew prayer book, the Sarajevo Haggadah reappeared, but also that she has been recommended for the restoration job.

Created in medieval Spain, the Haggadah was prized as much for its beauty as for its unusual inclusion of lavish illustrations at a time when Jewish belief was strongly against the making of images. Its unexpected survival across the centuries and the fact that no conservator had handled the manuscript for a century, raises so many fascinating questions that Hanna cannot resist the call to answer them. In this way a literary mystery is born, stretching throughout the world and across time.

After introducing Hanna to us in Sydney in 1996 at the time of the Haggadah’s recovery, Brooks whisks the reader away to Sarajevo. Here we uncover more about the techniques of book conservation, the dramatic and violent history of the Jewish culture, current European conflicts, and gain insight into Hanna’s often strained relationship with her mother. This is an ambitious amount of ground to cover in the introductory chapters, and at times the push to bring the reader up to speed on all these things threatens to overtake the overall pace of the plot. While we learn about Hanna through her internal dialogue, her interactions with others, and the obvious dedication she applies to her work, it takes some time to really get comfortable with her character. She does become more believable as the story moves forward, and perhaps just like the methods used to authenticate and restore a book, the process of unlocking hidden secrets cannot be rushed.

From here the plot unfolds in interesting fashion, with Brooks travelling us backwards in time to the birth of the Haggadah, with regular visits back to Hanna’s analysis in 1996. From Sarajevo in 1940, to Vienna in1894 and 1609, to Tarragona in 1492, until we arrive at the start of all things, Seville in 1480, the reader is immersed in the dramatic and often tragic lives of those who are touched by the book. The only difficulty with this movement backwards and forwards through geographical locations and different periods throughout history is that it can be difficult to keep track of where you are in relation to the prior period and to remember the interactions and linkages between characters which often stretch across the ages.

Brooks immerses us so completely in the lives of those who have a role in protecting and in making the Haggadah that it is frustrating to be cut off from them at the end of each chapter. Perhaps this is just reader greed, but it is always a bittersweet position to be left wanting more, especially given the intervening gaps that Brooks deliberately leaves in the life of the book. Just like those who came before, even Hanna’s personal story is impacted by her work with the book. As she works to solve the mystery of the Haggadah by unlocking the clues left by its previous handlers, she finds her own life is served with equal measures of drama and joy.

This is a wonderfully ambitious and completely captivating novel. Geraldine Brooks is most obviously a highly skilled author, capable of enticing the reader with a swirling, heady fragrance of words that envelopes and enfolds as we enter the rich world she creates. ‘People of the Book’ reminds us that beauty and art have the ability to transcend cultural differences, survive the violent passage of human history, and connect us all across the wide divide of time.

Simple pleasures are something easily spoken of, but all too often overlooked. With this in mind I’ve been reflecting on the simply joys in life in recent times. This shift in focus is largely due to the goodness I’ve found in the pages of Tom Hodkingson’s most excellent books, ‘How to Be Idle’ and ‘How to Be Free’.

In these books Hodgkinson presents some very intriguing alternatives to life…we can choose not to be defined by money, career and material wealth. Sure some basics are always going to be essential, but beyond that there is so much more to savour in life if only we sit back, draw breath and absorb something new. Like discovering Thoreau’s Walden many years ago, I feel that I have found a lifestyle and cultural soulmate in Tom.

With all this talk of changing perspectives, I wanted to share three simple joys I’ve enjoyed this week as I made my way around this often mad and crazy world.

1. Hot water pouring on a herbal tea bag. I’ve taken to enjoying a cup of herbal tea in the afternoon. After wanting something different from my usual cup of Green or Chai, this week I opted for a blend of St. John’s Wort and Mixed Berry tea. As the hot water pours over the tea bag, the colour of the tea gradually changes from being completely clear to a rich, vibrant purple. It’s impossible to resist such a happy-looking liquid.

2. A rat coming out for a peek in a city street. Walking down to the bookstore on a rainy day is pleasant enough in itself, but when accompanied by a chance sighting of a furry city dweller, it’s even better. With a brief rain shower easing, my little ratty friend ran out from a row of bins and joined those waiting in the taxi queue. He sat and enjoyed the fragrance of the air for a minute or two, until suddenly taking fright and scampering back to his hiding spot. Encountering another sign of life in the city is always a happy thing.

3. Crossing paths with a pigeon. Walking back to my building after lunch, I found myself about to cut across the path of one of the many pigeons that thrive in the city environment. He obviously had important business to conduct in that part of town, with his legs moving as quickly as they could. In all his rush though he still had time to throw me a quick glance as he moved past. Sometimes we forget to look down, but if we always do that we neglect to acknowledge all those others who make the world their home.

Hopefully you experienced some moments of simple joy yourself this week.

Humans have some pretty basic needs that must be met to ensure their continued survival. We have a base requirement for food, shelter, water, clothing, and oxygen. Quite simply we need to breathe. While not something that can be readily identified in the air around us, oxygen is present in the air that we breathe and has the important job of keeping our blood oxygenated. Though we may not always appreciate it, oxygen is critical for our life on earth.

When confined in enclosed or sheltered locations such as on a bus or within a building, we can find ourselves cut off from a fresh supply of oxygen. Often this only has to be a momentary problem as we find that if air conditioning is not available to cool and keep the air fresh and circulating, self opening windows will be provided. The kind designers of these facilities make it easy for us to ensure air and oxygen are readily available and can be regulated for the comfort of all.

Unfortunately though sometimes the people who find themselves in control of these windows, prefer to keep their surroundings in an oxygen deprived environment. For some reason, no matter how hot or how cold, through rain or shine, when it’s windy or still, these people stubbornly refuse to open the windows. Those unfortunate people situated further away from the windows, can suffer dreadfully because of this refusal to ’share the air’. This problem is especially evident when people are crowded together, with limited space and limited circulating air.

Perhaps it is in an effort to protect their hairstyles, avoid the fresh fragrance of the landscape as it passes by, or maybe they are aliens who do not require oxygen. Whatever the reason, it can make time spent in their company extremely hard to bear. If you do not like fresh air or open windows, perhaps you should move to an alternate area and let someone else appreciate the location.

If you are fortunate enough to get a window seat, spare a thought for your fellow earth dwellers, open the window and let the air freely circulate.