A PLACE TO CELEBRATE

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Every day recently the white street dog that works the bottom third of Lorong 5, Jalan Eastern Park has been outside the gates of I50. He hasn’t made any moves on me waiting for Arthur but has checked me out a bit vigorously, when I went to the supermarket on the weekend. And Christine took to carrying a stick when she went running at sunset while she was here. While not a dog person this mutt was obviously getting my attention. And I have to admit to being interested in him. While perhaps not wild,  like most of the street dogs I’ve seen around he is definitely not domesticated.

Another thing noted is that while previously white and unblemished White Dog is decidedly grubby, been limping and has a number of tears in his hide. He is in fact pretty done in. Not old but hobbling a bit although never cowed. Anyhow this morning  what was obvious to any observer became  clear to me in retrospect. White Dog had mated with the bitch on the corner. She  lives behind a high fence and has recently  dropped a litter. Not that recently perhaps. The pups are getting big and mum is getting back into business.

White Dog is doing the father thing. On a diet of garbage scraps, rats probably, he stands guard on his little section of Lorong. Never more alert than in the morning around 9.00 when the bitch on the corner is let out the gate for a few minutes with the pups – visitation rights for the soldier dog that’s been pacing and running at the boundaries of his little territory all night.

I really don’t want to like dogs – but I do like humans. White Dog is a human. A hormonally driven male fool doomed to live out the Love Story. Every inch of his being is committed to protecting the pups and incidentally their mother, the bitch, from bigger tougher, neighbourhood dogs. He stands them down daily and takes his knocks. They always back off because he is the one to see. He is the father. I expect to find him dead one morning – from exhaustion, malnutrition; by attrition as the little nips and tears go septic.

As the bitch on the corner becomes even more attractive to bigger and tougher males on the make his days are numbered. Maybe the pups will get big enough to take over the turf but I really don’t think they’re made of enough of the same stuff as their beat up loser dad. He knows he’s done it and probably doesn’t expect to see Chinese New Year.  Give the poor bugger a cigar.

There’s about 15 different dog stories in my fifty meters
of the Lorong, Dog Lady. This is just one of them.

Tony

I live in a construct of my own premonition
This letter just provides some more ammunition

I believe in my world with its many dawn mornings
And in a single end to come without any warnings

When a heart’s life will cease to beat on any longer
But in love’s dreams alone, will grow ever stronger

—————————–
I’m sorry I’m Sad Annie but there’s not
sufficient of you in my life to make for Happy.
Satisfied is half way but it’s not Happy

I’m Angry because of the implication that if I cant make my life
Happy I should settle for Sad. That just isn’t an option .
I’m not going back to that. I’m going to expire Happy.
Maybe poor. Maybe alone. But Happy.
I feel an overwhelming
need today to make my life Happy Gentle Annie.
By direct action. 

A physical happiness of my own making. 

Something I can get my hands on.

My arms around. My heart into.

I want some of what White Dog has got.

Patience and optimism… with a purpose.

A good reason for living ~ is a good reason for dying.

Go Dog!

 Tony

Smiley (AFW) Ward / Lecturer / Graphic/ Design / School of Business and Design / Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak / Jalan Simpang Tiga 93350 Kuching / Office : G506 / Tel : +60 82 260945 (Internal : 8945 ) Fax : +60 82 423 594 / Ambassador INDIGO http://www.indigodesignnetwork.org/Blog : https://anthonyfward.wordpress.com/
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From: davidwilliamwire [davidwilliamwire@xxx.com]
Sent: Friday, 7 September 2012 9:07 PM
To: Tony Ward

Subject: 

Look forward to that promised longer letter. At around 6am on the 31st Aug when your communication and pics of furnishings for new abode arrived, yet another ‘atrial fibrillation’ episode commenced (AF as it’s known in the trade). Must have told you I’d had the last one nine months ago, and another three months before that whilst on holiday Norfolk? After around twelve hours both of those eventually ‘came to rest’, so to speak, without any drastic ‘intervention’, but this last one was finally only stopped in its tracks with a defibrillator (took a couple of 20,000 volt goes apparently – done under anaesthetic!). Seems (which hadn’t been made aware of before) that the older one becomes the frequency of such episodes increases and at a certain point nothing can be done to rectify things except with medication to reduce one’s heart rate down to something near normal but the a rrhythmia permanently continues but apparently is nevertheless livable with. Anyway, am still here, and as I type I can see through the window a lovely late summer day with a clear blue,blue sky above – and take one day at a time, eh!

Love, DWW

While I think of it, did I ever send you photos I took a few years ago of a mini golf course/putting green in Bexhill? Unfortunately it was removed when the surrounding area around the De La Warr Pavilion was recently re-landscaped. In my opinion it should have been saved for the nation.

In a message dated 08/31/12 00:34:24 GMT Daylight Time, tward@swin.edu.au writes:
Tony (AFW) Ward / Lecturer / Graphic/ Design / School of Business and Design / Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak / Jalan Simpang Tiga 93350 Kuching / Office : G506 / Tel : +60 82 260945 (Internal : 8945 ) Fax : +60 82 423 594 / Ambassador INDIGO http://www.indigodesignnetwork.org/Blog : https://anthonyfward.wordpress.com/
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From: Tony Ward
Sent: Thursday, 30 August 2012 11:44 PM
To: Davidwilliamwire@xxx.com
Subject:

Yes I’m buying stuff.
A table even.
A new place to live
is being furnished.
A home stay/pension
Me the artist in residence.

MorningGlory Kuching

Maybe for a year more.
The logic of finishing it all
here is inescapable.
Therefore I’ll probably escape
– one day – as is my bent.
But not soon.
So many more reasons to stay
than to go back .
2014 maybe?
Classes start Monday.
A longer letter
soon.

AFW

Tony (AFW) Ward / Lecturer / Graphic/ Design / School of Business and Design / Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak / Jalan Simpang Tiga 93350 Kuching / Office : G506 / Tel : +60 82 260945 (Internal : 8945 ) Fax : +60 82 423 594 / Ambassador INDIGO http://www.indigodesignnetwork.org/Blog : https://anthonyfward.wordpress.com/

Photographs of AFW by DWW Gibraltar Cottage, Pembury, Kent June 2012

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From: Davidwilliamwire@xxx.com [Davidwilliamwire@xxx.com]
Sent: Thursday, 30 August 2012 2:36 AM
To: Tony Ward
Subject: 4 pictures for you

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