Lindy Kato (Writer)

January always brings up a ton of things from Facebook, partly because here in Godzone it is summer and you just seem to have more photos. I have had concrete mixing and routing and photos of me in holes chipping away at rock with a chisel. The build seems to progress imperceptibly slowly but it is inching along. The physical work is harder as we age, our balance on ladders and scaffolding not what it once was. Battery tools have such big batteries that even though I am ambidextrous, I wear both arms out with their weight. The average amateur would not contemplate such a complex design, plenty of builders would not take it on either. It seemed simple when we drew it out but we were too naïve to understand the implications. Plus, I still have a day job. My sweetheart is now an old man as well even though he is in great shape.

Last summer I was recovering from the death of Mum and the trip to the UK to hug Dad. Bless him, he is still looking for her. The summer before that I was mourning the loss of dear Kimba, the dog that spoke to me with her eyes and always knew what to do whatever the situation. I think of them both frequently.

My head is also busy with Nudge’s story. Indy and Nudge are eight years old now, the only survivors of a litter of eight. Very expensive mutts! It was never about the dog, but about not seeing a grown man cry. Fortunately Nudge prefers the sofa to a run and hopefully his hips will last as long as he does.

Last year also saw the issuing of my supergold card indicating that I am older but I didn’t realise how old until I was put on potato peeling rather than humping the wedding furniture out of the truck at my Daughter’s wedding. What a glorious venue but OMG, getting married in your back garden is incredibly hard work. My advice would be that unless you are wealthy enough to have ‘people’, just don’t do it because friends and family will also want feeding.

I call my pension a ‘Government Writing Grant’ because it sounds so much more positive. On the writing front one of my flash stories was short listed in a competition and Desperate times is finally finished and edited (Lesley Marshall at Editline). She knows me and the way that I speak and so hasn’t tried to change ‘my voice’. Some kind folk are reading it so I can be sure it isn’t a disaster! I will probably self-publish on Amazon or similar. The sequel Bleak Expectations is underway but this is going to be much more difficult, emotionally, and also on account of having set fire to a diary of the very worst times.

I have had disrupted travel but on the plus side I got to spend $200.00 on one meal and it wasn’t my money, I have never eaten $200.00. I am off again but hopefully coming back partly by train will be a treat.

One thing I am worrying about for the future is the fatalistic way that genetics has forever been taught and news headlines that perpetrate the myth. For instance, this snippet comes from The NZ Herald (16^th January 2025):

The just-published findings reveal what regulates a gene that’s pivotal to our food intake – and also our risk of obesity.

In my mind ‘a gene’ infers (to folk with school level biology), that if they have this gene then they are doomed. I fear that health-care workers may even view things similarly. I am not saying that Mendel is wrong, but a single gene giving rise to a particular condition is a rarity rather than the regular situation. The conditions touted in the classroom are the old standards; cystic fibrosis, colour vision, even tongue rolling which is a myth that has surely been busted. Most human differences are due to a complicated suite of genetic elements confined not only to DNA sequence but controlling elements such as methyl groups, bits of nucleic acid not only made by us in order to control the expression of our genetic material but also bits put out by our microbiome which is being decimated in the Western world by our diet and activity – or lack thereof.

Now is not the time for me to get on my high horse about it, I need to do a decent amount of thinking and research. As if I didn’t have enough stuff taking up my bandwidth I have this! I have always been one for having too many jumbos in the air and the air traffic controller…well I should sack them!