Today is a big one....

It's funny how often I post in my head on this blog and yet nothing ever makes it to the screen, the words just swim away, lost forever in the ocean of my mind.

I wonder if anyone reads this anymore? It doesn't really matter, when it all comes down to it, my blog is for me, a little diary of my random thoughts and nowadays an occasional log on the momentous occasions in my life.

Today is a big one....

Today my baby boy graduates from high school! My beautiful, sensitive, intelligent, kind hearted super son is finishing high school and leaving home.

He could barely talk when we sent him to school for year one, we thought he might have some form of dislexia or deafness. He couldn't keep up with the other kids and he barely said a word. We sent him to a speech therapist and we worried about him constantly. When we tore him out of school halfway through grade 2 and dragged him around the world to live in Scotland, due to the different starting times for the school year, he had to go straight into year 3 over there. His teacher turned out to be a saint and set about making sure our struggling son made it through every day and it is thanks to her that his speech improved, his brain woke up and he became interested and engaged in the world around him. She is also responsible for the hint of a scottish accent that even after 10 years back in Australia still has people constantly asking him where he is from.

In just over a month he will be back in Scotland and I should make the effort to find out if that teacher is still working because it'd be nice if he could visit his old school again. Not only is my "little boy" finishing school and getting ready to move to the city for university in February but he is also flying alone to Europe for 5 weeks! I am gobsmacked really. He has friends in Munich who he is staying with for the bulk of the time, but is also flying to Edinburgh to see some old friends there and Ireland as well to see some relatives, all at 17! I am proud of his bravery but given that he has barely been away from home before for more than a week at a time I am rather overwhelmed by the enormity of this trip. For christsakes he was homesick during his week in the snow in September! How will he survive without me?.... Clearly it's me who's going to be the one not surviving!

Last night after the awards ceremony at his school where he got dux of geography(hope that means he won't get lost overseas) we went to the Noodle bar for some eats. One of the school brothers approached us there and made a point of telling us how much he liked and respected our son. I wonder if he knew that he was gay? I have really appreciated the kind and understanding environment that his catholic school has given him, the support they have shown as he has remained determined to be himself. One thing about my boy, NOTHING sways him from staying true to himself. I adore him for that.

So this is a big day. Will I cry at some point? Thinking of my gorgeous little boy as I trussed him up for his first day of school in January 1996. Will I get a little teary tonight as he dons his bow tie and pointy shoes and hits the dance floor at the grad ball? My baby, all grown up...

Next year he wants to study architecture at University in Brisbane. I am not sure if he will get in, it's a really popular course so the standards have to be very high. If he misses out he will probably do a BA - Geography. The thing is I think he is more suited to the geography course, I think he is too young to make such a big decision anyway but he is determined so i will let him be and let him find his own way. That's the best thing I can do for him, I think.

Meanwhile Wonder Daughter called me last night on top of the world. She just had one of her 1st year designs paraded in the Grad year fashion parade and after the show was over was approached by a Melbourne retailer wanting to stock her "range" She doesn't have one yet but she will. She has always had such fantastic responses to her work. She has chopped and changed in so many areas of her life so much over the last 3 years but the one thing that has remained contant for her is her passion for designing. It's times like these I think she will actually make a name for herself.

I shouldn't be sitting here writing anymore. Today the new kitchen is going in, or starting to go in at least. The house has been in shambles for weeks as we paint and hammer and scrub. It's due to go on the market next weekend....We are selling our home....I think?

Will we go ahead and sell? Will Super Son get into the course he wants at Uni? Will he be all right overseas for 5 weeks without me? Will I cope without him? Will Wonder Daughter and her lovely Mick Jagger lookalike boyfriend stay as happy as they have been? Will S's parents finally stop torturing him and will he start smiling again? Will I stop stuffing around renovating everything I can get my hands on and get a real job?

These and other questions in 2009...roll on new year...

Hatred

I feel so depressed today not too depressed that I can't do anything but just down with a fat wad of sadness in my belly. I know it's there because S got mad at me, he said I was horrible to him all day yesterday which I know wasn't true. I know he is gutted by the way his parents are behaving and that always makes him touchy and ultra sensitive. The thing is, it is partly because I know he is touchy and sensitive that I hold back from him a bit amd I am thinking maybe he thinks I am being nasty? The other part of it is that this thing with his parents upsets me too. It cuts and weighs on me like lead on my soul. I feel hatred for them and it makes me feel sick that I can be so filled with vitriol.
They are poison.
S says he wishes he could have nothing more to do with them, that he could just cut them out of his life and be done with it but he cannot. He still loves his father despite everything. I do not. I quite definitely hate the stupid man. I am so tired of his pathetic behaviour, toeing the line to everything that the witch says and in the process emotionally murdering his children.
It is wrong.
I know that the man is old and ill and perhaps he has lost the ability to think for himself but I have heard his tone and read his nasty words and my capacity for forgiveness and understanding has been burnt away by the acid that he spreads.
I feel sick.

Outside today it is clear and the sun lands like crystal on the shiny green growth of spring. The ocean is so blue it almost makes me catch my breath, it is stunning. This house is so beautiful and yet we talk constantly that we have to get out of here. It has been a long arduous year, the poison of his family has stunted us and choked us, stolen our smiles and crippled our hearts. I understand our need to escape but acknowledge that there are some things that are unavoidable. I doubt it would matter how far we ran, her poison is sure to seek us out and smother us again.

I will get no satisfaction posting these words, they only paint me as the bitter, angry person I am today. There is nothing to be gained from hatred.

Dear Mother-in-law

Thankyou so much for your call this morning and your rude sarcastic tone when I informed you that no, your son was not at home mis-spending his time with me but out working in the cyclonic wind and pouring rain. Your assertion that you would call him on his mobile(to check if I was telling the truth) shows again your complete understanding of his busy schedule and your naturally kind and thoughful nature. Your continued consideration of his health and happiness was again evident when you did not bother to enquire as to how he was or whether he indeed had any time to take your long and self-serving call. Your insistance that you will attend the State of Origin match with my husband's infirm father is interesting when in the very next breath you proceed to damn, detest and deride him. This is especially so when you have repeatedly stated over the years that no-one would drag you to watch such a pointless revolting game, as "My time is rather more valuable to me that that!". This decision to attend is also despite your clear knowledge of the thrill it would give my husband to go, especially given that it is his blood relative(not yours) who is likely to be honoured at this match. My husband's phonecall to me, following yours to him, was again filled with the choking pain you always leave him in. I hope you enjoyed your morning of spreading spite and poison and look forward to your continued complaints against my son for his not doing enough jobs around the house for you, kissing your putrid feet nor being the fictitional totally unrealistic son that you think you wanted him to be. Evidently, the indesputible fact that you are the mother of a truly beautiful person has escaped you yet again and any small showing of a mother's love and kindness is beyond you. I can only thank you now for the vitriol you spat at me when first, in 1988, you backed me into a corner in your hallway, stabbed me in the breast with your pointed finger and told me that I was NOT the daughter-in-law you wanted. Indeed I would likely detest myself if I WERE the type of person that somebody like you did approve of so you will understand my thankfulness in this matter is heartfelt. Coincidentally you nor are you the Mother-in-law that I hoped for! I also appreciate your advice at the time that your son was a horrible person and why anyone would want to marry such a dreadfully disagreeable, drug addled dropout was completely beyond your comprehension. It seems that despite your oft touted law degree and constant air of superior intelligence, many things are. I will also take this opportunity to thank you for your part in creating the sensitive and well adjusted man my husband is now. That you have reached this pinnacle of achievement through cruelty, selfishness and downright evil has only served to ensure that your son is the complete opposite of you. His lifelong battle to break away from everything you are, has been a constant torture and the pain and guilt he feels now in acknowledging his rejection of you, is in contrast to your complete lack of regret at past horrors or consideration for anyone other than yourself. Another aspect for which I am eternally grateful to you is the luxury that I have of blaming every one of his small and insignificant faults and every one of the equally insigificant hiccups within our marriage entirely on you. Any disagreement that we have are obviously again the result of his rebellion against you. His refusal to put the toilet seat down is your fault, as is his occasional excessive alcohol consumption and his sometimes mildly irritating passion for football. I am left in no doubt as to your culpability for any actions he has taken over the years which have been in any way cold or remote or have shown any disrespect to women. You must be so proud. Clearly I have much to be thankful for. It is a shame that you too cannot be thankful he is not like you, for if he were I can only imagine the fireworks as the two of your fought to force your will upon each other. So I will thank you again for your phonecall. I appreciate these calls, seldom and succinct as they may be, as they serve only to remind me of all that I must be truly grateful for. Your one and only... daughter-in-law, Alice. Apologies for the long and poorly structured sentences, anger doesn't like to spell-check.

Romeo & Juliet

The best memories of all were when my siblings and I were all home from boarding school and perhaps my cousin James was out on a university break. We would spend the days sitting in the sunroom reading "Reader's Digest" jokes out loud to each other or trying to fathom a mind bender that my cousin had heard at Uni. I only remember one of these well. The idea was that he would give us a few details of a scenario and ask us to work out how it came about. We would ask him questions but he could only give us yes or no answers.
This time He said;

"Romeo & Juliet were found dead on the floor. How did they die?"

It took us a few days but eventually we worked it out. If you don't know this puzzle please feel free to ask away and 'play' with me.

I adored my cousin. He was a lot like my father I think, just a younger and better looking version. He had made quite a fuss of me when I was small and would swing me around and throw me up into the air then catch me again as I squealed with delight. I distinctly remember the visit when I had become too big for this kind of treatment and my adoration of him had begun to get on his nerves. In the sun room he gently but firmly refused my access to his lap, when I knocked on his bedroom door he ignored me and at dinner my excited chatter went unheeded and as he concentrated instead on whatever my sister was saying. I was gutted.

My sister was smug about it, a look of victory on her face, the same look she used to get when we were smaller and our great uncle favoured her over me. I didn't understand why Uncle preferred her but I can't remember it bothering me overly much. I had so much love from Grandma which Cassie clearly resented, our big sister Julie would always take my side and big brother Robert chose to bully me over her(It was easier I suppose) I can understand so clearly now how she felt so overlooked in our family and how my arrival, when she was aged four, unseated her so badly. This is why it was so easy for him, our great uncle, a man in his fifties who never married, to prey so evilly on that little girl. What strikes me now is the fact that although we all grew up in the same household with the same environment, our places in the family resulted in us having such monumentally different childhoods.

James has four lovely, well adjusted daughters of his own now, our uncle was killed in a car accident in 1976 at about the time of that holiday I guess.... and then there was Romeo & Juliet....

Evil , insanity and why we should move to the other side of the world.

Dear Mother and Father-in-Law, I can truly say from the deepest part of my soul that I think the two of you are the most revolting despicable people on earth. The manner in which you have treated all five of the poor souls who have had the misfortune to call themselves your children makes me want to vomit in your faces. From your decision to abandon two of your disabled children one as a baby and the other as a toddler, to care facilities while you lied to your remaining children and for all intents and purposes pretended the other two did not exist sickens me beyond belief. Although in the past I have had great sympathy for you and have tried my best to be understanding as to the reason for your decisions, I now find, given the clear picture you are now giving of the true state of your hearts, that you do not deserve my sympathy nor my understanding. Your two sons are both wonderful people but you seem unable to see this and instead are determined to cause them as much pain and agony as you can as you constantly deride them and express your dissapointment in them for not fullfilling some completely unrealistic ideal of what your warped minds think your sons should have become. That you somehow believe, after all of this, that your sons, in any way, owe YOU respect is beyond me when you have never shown either of them one iota of respect in their entire lives. Then there's your poor adopted daughter. The poor girl must ask herself what on earth she did to have been cursed with such unbelievably evil and incapable parents. Surely the world could have found her a normal family as not only does she have to now endure the knowledge that her real mother was unable to care for her for whatever reason but also that she was supposed to be some perfect substitiute for the imperfect children that you did not want and that anything less than perfection from her would never be tolerated. You both make me sick and I truly hope I never again for all eternity have the misfortune to be in your company. The words in the letter that my husband received from you today were beyond belief. You most definitely do not deserve him as a son and your greatest fear that we might "keep the children from you" is now about to become a most definite reality. Unlike your children, my children absolutely adore their father and unlike you he respects them and he deserves their adoration. Your EVIL* daughter-in-law Alice *I feel poisoned right now, my heart feels black and hollow and it sickens me. That the actions of these people make me feel emotions that are as evil and sick as them sickens me, I have to write all this anger down because I feel that if I don't put it somewhere it will overtake me and I will do or say something that I will regret.

5 years

I just figured out that it is about 5 years since I first posted 'a' blog. I suppose anyone still reading this might be thinking.. "Yea, and it's nearly that long since you posted on this blog too!" Oh well.....It isn't that I don't think posts or that I no longer have anything to say either, it is simply that I haven't been prioritising blogging/writing in my life above so many other things as I used to. I am unsure as yet if this is a good or a bad thing. We will see I suppose. Last week we buried my uncle. I didn't know him very well. He was my father's little brother and suffered all his life from a form of autism. I went to the funeral along with 10 other of my 12 cousins from all over Australia. It was great to see them all. I am the youngest among us and it's was nice to feel like an adult amongst them but still feel younger :) As I have posted before, I never got to go to my own father's funeral, so this was for me quite like another goodbye to my father. He has actally been gone 21 years this month. That is almost half of my lifetime as I will be 43 in a few weeks. It really, REALLY doesn't seem that long. I miss him awfully. I wish most of all that he could be here to know my children. I feel as if both he and my kids got ripped off really badly in not having had the chance to know each other. Speaking of my kids, I will update you a little. WD quit her full-time manager's job and went back to uni last month. So far I think she is really loving it, though I think what she is enjoying the most is being able to come home for three nights every week as she only has lectures monday & friday. She still works every sunday so gets to spend the weekends in the city with her friends. It's working well thus far. SS is in his last year of highschool this year and is absolutely determined to do well. The whole house is constantly littered with his & WD's books and both S & I are helping them out with general support and research assistance. I am pretty sure highschool was nothing like this difficult when we went and I suspect that neither was uni. SS is thinking of studying geography or meteorology as these are his main interests but he wants to do a gap year first. He has a fair bit of money saved and wants to go to Iceland. WD wanted to go with him until she found out that the legal drinking age in Iceland is 20 so SS wouldn't be able to go out to any pubs/gigs with her. She is most interested in the music/arts scene there while SS wnts to look at the geographical features and the history & architecture. They are like chalk and cheese, the kids, but they love each other dearly so there isn't much more I could ask for. As for me, well, currently I am working on restoring our '73 Kombi. It is a slow job but will be awesome when it is done. We have basically had rain here almost every day since Christmas so without a carport or shed to work in, it has been really frustrating. No pain, no gain though I guess. S & I have also decided that as soon as SS finishes school in november we are getting the hell out of here. We are hoping to rent this place out and buy a unit down on the NSW north coast. We don't want to be any further from Brisbane than we are now as we want the kids to be able to easily come home from uni/the city whenever they want to, just like they can with us here. Rhis all means tt I am also busy tidying up this house, painting and repairing and getting rid of all our collected unecessary possessions from the past 10 years. It is now 10 years since we last rented this place out when we went to live in Scotland for 18 months. I seriously think the only way to get me to have a decent spring clean is to make me move house. I might be a little bit lazy but it is more tha I am a hoarder and find it really difficult to part with silly possessions. I hope you enjoyed the update. I have to rush off now but am determined to hit post before I do so that this post doesn't disappear into my forgotten drafts with all the others from the past few months :)

Hope

Last night I dreamt a lot. I dreamt I was lying in a field staring at the sky and telling a companion how ridiculously wonderful my life is.

It's true.

I have been through many cycles in my life. Cycles from happiness to sadness, from stupidity and desperation through to determination and downright pot luck. I guess life is just like that. If I go back and read what I have written over the years, to me it is like a diary of my moods. A diary of sadness, because it seems the only time I can actually write properly is when I am sad.

Tomorrow I am going to Stradbroke Island for a whole glorious week. I am not taking my laptop. I am taking my journal, pens, pencils, pastels and a stack of books. I hope I can break my invisible, self diagnosed writer's block of happiness and bring something worthwhile back to post for you. Hope is a lovely word.

Happy New Years Resolution!

That's it! My new year's resolution is to be happy! I wish this for anyone who still reads this blog too. Please, be happy and have a fantastic 2008! I have figured out a few things that I need to do to achieve this so I guess these are my new years resolutions: 1. Sit at the computer less. (You may have noticed that I have been doing this already. I now have a handwritten journal that S got me for Christmas. In there I am writing things occasionally and if I ever write anything even marginally reasonable I shall attempt to post it online. I also can draw in my journal which is rather difficult to do on a blog so I am really enjoying that. Actually, so far it is mainly just drawings and very little writing, but I love to draw and it makes me happy, so there you go. One resolution is already working) 2. Get a job. (I have finally come to accept that I am not motivated enough to make a good living running my own business and working by myself all the time. This failure has infact been one of the main reasons I have been feeling so discontent in recent times. Working alone is also dreadfully lonely and although I have my doubts as to whether I am even capable of getting a real job, I really have to give it a go. Please wish me luck and courage. I really need some courage.) 3. Stop giving in to everyone else's demands. (I have started learning to stand up for myself. In the past I have always been such a pacifist that I tend to just do whatever people ask of me even when I don't agree with it, simply to avoid any form of confrontation. I have come to realise that I cannot do that anymore. It simply isn't healthy and it costs too much as well, sometimes in both time and money.) 4. Walk on the beach more, eat smaller meals at night and drink less. (i.e: get fit) 5. Be a better friend. (I am not so good at being a friend. I don't have many, only a few who are extremely important. I don't really think people want to hear from me anyway so I tend to keep to myself. I'd like to have more confidence.) 6. Extend my vege garden. (Ok, that's enough sitting at the keyboard. I am off to dig in the garden....) PS. It would have been M's 48th birthday today, instead, it is about 1 month short of the 5th anniverary of his suicide. I don't dwell on thoughts of him as much anymore but he still lives on in my head and in this blog, for which after all, he was the inspiration.

Why it's great to see him go....

I grew up in rural Australia, in conservative country. A few months before I met the waiter, aged 18, I voted for Malcolm Fraser and I still, looking at the mettle of the man now, do not particularly regret that. It was John Howard's first rise to prominence, when I shared a house with students of politics in Melbourne in 1987 that forever opened my eyes to the shortsightedness that became the calling card of the recent Liberal party in Australia. Perhaps I am just a socialist to the core, I make no apologies, I believe that one is simply born that way, but I am not interested in what John Howard's government did for the individual (or claimed to have done), I am interested in what it means to be an Australian in a country run under his regime. While living in the UK in 1998-1999 and discussing the direction in which Australia headed I found myself deeply ashamed. That was the time of Pauline Hanson and it was clear that Howard was taking advantage of and encouraging her racism to advance his own political mandate.

I'm back!

It might sound a little corny to say that I just had the best holiday of my life but there you have it.

Tonight my skin is browner than it as been for over 19 years (since Mexico 1987/88) I haven't yet washed the southern salt from my hair as keeping it there might just somehow make the holiday last that moment longer. I won't lie that I am not tempted to bore you with a blow by blow account of every perfect moment in the last week but instead I will just give you these disjointed sentences.

Friends are wonderful. Cute old ramsackle hotels are the right place to stay between friends houses. The beaches in Northern NSW are the absolute best in the world. I want to move down there. I like fishing and I adore headlands. While I was baking in the sun and swimming in the ocean SS was winning the most improved skier award at his school snowy mountains trip and finally finding a sport he loves. I can never spend enough time with S.

Thats's about it...for the moment.

The Scalpel

It's been a hectic week around here. On Thursday WD had surgery on her nose. That involved a general anaesthetic and more than 2.5 hours in the theatre. Sitting outside in the waiting area I kept going over in my mind what I might have been able to do to stop her going ahead with this operation. It wasn't essential surgery although it will probably help with her snoring problem, the real reason she wanted this done was for cosmetic reasons. I have never really agreed with the concept of plastic surgery. The idea of having oneself cut open in the name of beauty, basically it completely terrifies me and as I sat there in the knowledge that some doctor was cutting into my beautiful daughter I felt nausea, fear, horror and most of all, powerlessness. I started thinking about her as a baby and the distinctive shape of her nostrils in a photo I have of her when she was eight days old. I felt like shedding a tear at the thought of her changing something almost so intrinsic about herself. How dare she try to tell me my beautiful baby isn't good enough? If you have seen my daughter I am sure that you would say that she did not need any surgery, that she looked just fine the way she was. I think the truth is that her obsession with her nose is purely 100% my fault. I have always been obsessed with my nose. My father had an absolute 'honker' and as from a very young age I was always told how much like him I was I was completely convinced that every time anyone looked at me the first thing that they would notice was my enormous proboscis. Now that I am post 40 I rarely ever think about my nose at all. I don't think it is particularly small but I don't think that anyone else notices it either. Still occasionally you will catch me looking at my profile in the mirror and wondering what I would look like without it. My daughter would have seen me doing this from a young age and when she announced that she was going to have this surgery done part of me understood. I was, after all, a teenager once too. I tried to talk her out of it though. Her father was mortified and furious at me for planting such a seed in the mind of our daughter. Still she is 18 now and the fact is that I was powerless to stop her. She booked the doctor, she booked the surgery...she went ahead and did it. I did, and am doing, what I always do. I am supporting and assisting her in her decision. I am driving her where she needs to go, buying every medicine and vitamin I can can't afford to aid healing and nursing her back to health to the best of my ability. I think she is shocked by how major the surgery really has been. I don't think she expected to feel as dreadful as she does and she really has been quite contrite. I suspect she won't be lining up for any more surgery any time soon anyway, at least I hope not! Today we are going back to see the doctor and having the stitches removed. I don't think the cast comes off today but along with WD I am impatient to see the results. Her nose definitely looks smaller even with the cast on so I am just crossing my fingers that it is straight and even underneath the bandage. If she needs any follow-up surgery I will be so disappointed, not only for her and the further pain and discomfort she would need to go through but also for me and for the extra stress and the extra time and money that would need to be spent on her. As it is WD promised us that she would fund this operation herself. Alas, she has had to 'borrow' the money from us at the 11th hour. I suspect I will never see this money again. Luckily she got the operation under medicare at a hugely reduced rate due to her breathing problem, but still... Next week WD starts a new job at a high end boutique in the city selling designer clothes. She will be working full-time for the first time in her life so I am looking forward to seeing how she copes with it. She also wants to keep her weekend niteclub bar job but I am doubtful that she can handle both. We will see. Assuming that WD heals quickly and perfectly this week I am due to drive out to my Mothers on friday and spend a week nursing her back to health after she has eye surgery on Wednesday. I never imagined myself as the nurse type before but I actually think I am quite good at it. Perhaps I should consider a career change? If people didn't actually die in hospitals, I would seriously consider it.

Autumn Afternoon

There is something about the afternoon light in autumn. I love the feel of winter on the edge of the breeze, like a promise of warm roast dinners and mugs of steaming hot milo. But there is something else too, the dark creeping up on you early and a new quietness as people withdraw inside their homes that bit sooner each day leaving behind a still, sad loneliness that reaches deep inside. It makes me want to cook and bustle in the kitchen, make noise and light that will reach it's fingers out of my windows and fill that cold sky, streaked with lonely afternoon bird calls, with warmth and music and human energy.

Moment.

The 4WD was big and new and shiny, you know the kind, one that has never left the bitumen and probably never will. I was sitting at the table in the park while S slept. I was still sipping my second beer while he had downed his in the usual minimal number of gulps. The view in front of me was laid out in a patchwork of greens and blues; trees, fields, towns and forests all laid out like a checkered tablecloth leading out to sea. I was allowing myself to relax and soak it all in when the vehicle turned off the road and rumbled urgently past me. Doors slammed and the sound of childen laughing rang across the bright green grass. The childen ran past me, laughing, wrestling. A boy of about twelve, a girl of ten or so, their mother herding them, camera in hand.
"Get over by that tree." She ordered, and they laughed, obliging, caught up in their own happiness and in the game they played. "No, not there! By the side, off to one side." The children tussled again, the boy pushed his sister, laughing, she pushed him back, then he hugged her and the camera clicked. Two laughing faces framed by pink frangipani flowers on one side and the distant carpet of the greens hills fading into the ocean on the other. Perfect.
The children ran back past me and I glanced up to catch the mother's eye. She shook her head, flustered, tired out by their energy and volume. I smiled. I wanted to say, "Stop! Enjoy this moment. In two years those children won't run and laugh like that. They will scowl at you when you ask for their photo if they even deign to sit in a car with you on a Sunday afternoon in the first place." But I just smiled. And she herded them back into the car and in a spin of rubber on the gravel they were gone. Children's laughter fading into the exhaust fumes of an oversized 4WD leaving a hurry on a Sunday afternoon.

I am glad they have the photo.

April 1973 - AM

Like in any home almost anywhere in the world the kitchen was the life of the house. In the centre of the narrow room, under the windows, was the ‘Everhot’ slow combustion stove. I can still hear the creak of the firebox door, and my memory can feel the emanating heat, in summer, in winter, early in the morning and late at night, the constant unwavering soul of our home.

Until I was about thirteen I was awoken every morning to the sound of my father chopping kindling to stoke up the fire. I didn’t have a bedroom; instead I slept in the ‘sleepout’, which was basically an enclosed verandah. It had a door that opened onto stairs leading into the side garden. Out there the lemon tree, the orange tree, the peach trees and the plum crowded against the louvered southern wall. The door was weathered though and rather than strain it against the torn green linoleum to force it to a shuddering close each night, it was just left open. As I woke each morning to the sharp splintering sounds of my father’s axe work the open door afforded me a view of the woodheap and the child’s timber and chain swing alongside it. Of the wattle trees and the ironbark silhouetted against the white early dawn of the western sky. I would lie there as my eyes gained focus gazing at those dancing leaves. I saw them filled with creatures and faces. Laughing dancing girls and stern pipe smoking grandfathers. Yapping excited fox terriers and proud contented cats. In centre, facing me, cross-legged I saw an aboriginal man, holding his didgeridoo and staring hard into my face as he made his silent tribute to the beginning of the day.

All this as I listened to the firebox-ready wood crash and tumble into the woodbox by the back door, then the squeak of the firebox door and the scrape of the stoking tool as my father searched for still-warm embers amongst the ash and then laid out a few torn sheets of newspaper with the splintery tinder over it. In moments I would hear the roar and crackle of flames followed by the decisive slam of the firebox door as my father deemed his task as complete, a job well done.

It was wise to wait for a moment until the kettle was boiled before throwing on the warmest clothes I could find. Scrabbling through my ‘lowboy’ for any ill-fitting hand-me-downs from my three siblings and five cousins, the legacy of being the youngest in the generation. It is well that I was not concerned with fashion then, as I must have looked quite lost and unkempt. I rarely wore shoes, so I would run to the warmth of the kitchen before my hardened little feet had time to feel the cold.

Up above the high cupboard was where the ‘Milo’ was kept and I was allowed two teaspoons of the malt chocolate mix in hot water, one sugar and milk if we had any. If not, I would top it with tablespoons of lumpy powdered milk that became a treat in itself, sweet chewy globs of milky goodness. I would have to hide to eat that though, sneak out to the cold front verandah where my mother could not snap at me for being wasteful and greedy. “When I was a child.” Her voice would drone on endlessly.

We lived in the same house that my mother had grown up in. She reminded us every single day how lucky we were to live in such comfort, in a house with running water and painted walls. With fresh bread delivered twice weekly instead of damper made on weevil infested flour, with an actual kerosene refrigerator instead of the air-cooled ‘meatsafe’. According to my mother, everything was better when she was a child. Living on corned beef and unsweetened cocoa, believing that cheese was a treat as wonderful as chocolate and teeth could only be cleaned properly with charcoal was some form of utopia that she seemed to be forever guilty of depriving her children of. Meanwhile I spent my every waking moment straining to hear the sound of a vehicle or an aeroplane, dreaming of what it would be like to have a neighbour that lived closer than 10 miles away or a shop that was closer than sixty miles away. Civilisation called to me like some shining beacon in the far distance, on those cold mornings around the stove in that tiny kitchen my utopia was a land of homogenised milk in a bottle instead of manure laced in a bucket; of electric lights and doors that closed; and most of all of other people. It seemed that even then, my mother’s idea and my idea of the way life should be was somewhat different.

After I had swallowed down the last sweet chocolaty drops of my morning Milo and my mother and father were leaning, smoking cigarettes over the stove and sipping their hot tea I would carefully pour a cup for my Grandmother. She had a favourite cup and saucer and she drank her tea white with none. My feet would feel their way across the wide worn cypress pine floorboards through the dining room across the gold linoleum in the sunroom and to her door.

“Good morning Sunshine” she would say as she unhooked her sliding door and let me in. I loved the mornings in my Grandmother’s room. The “His Master’s Voice” radio and her dressing table top drawer filled with exotic earrings and untouchable pills. My cousin took one once. I always imagine it was one of the little red ones. They bundled her into the car and rushed her to the hospital. An hour and a half of stressful dirt road driving all the way to town. I assume they pumped her stomach when they got her there because she lived to climb the rafters in the shed another day and swallow some strychnine so that the whole panicky process could be repeated. Another survival to add to the family story archive, told and retold until nobody can remember exactly how the original story transpired.

As she drank her tea my Grandmother would tell me stories. Answer my questions about her childhood in Scotland and traveling to Australia by ship to grow up in Brisbane. She would allow me to gaze at my reflection in her magnifying mirror so I could imagine what I might look like when I was all grown up. So there I would be, perched on my grandmother’s bed, with my mismatched hand-me-down clothes, my chocolate ringed mouth, excruciatingly painful screw on drop earrings reflected in that mirror into the future while I thought about Scotland, castle, cities and ships. A world away from the morning bellow of the cattle in the yards, waiting to be fed and milked and drafted in a ritual that comforted and infuriated me all at once.

Grandma would shoo me away while she got dressed for her day and I would race across to the yards with the others. Most mornings I rummaged through the old shoe box by the back stairs, hoping against hope that my feet may have grown enough during the night that one of the pairs of dusty old riding boots might fit me. My mother would snap at me in her panicked voice to check for red-back spiders before I put my feet into danger. So I would use my hand to check as she insisted. That logic still baffles me? I never found a red-back and those boots never did fit, so I would stay barefoot, running across the sharp spiky dry grass as fast as I could so it wouldn’t have the chance to hurt my feet.

The yards were warm with animal respiration and busy as we worked, mixing grains, filling troughs with water and feed drums with hay. Mucking out the bull stalls, milking, letting calves in and out and. It was all hands on deck and conversation was king as we performed our tasks by habit. An hour or so of teamwork every morning and evening without fail. Back at the house Grandma would have a cooked breakfast ready on the table when we returned. We always came into the house through the kitchen, leaving boots outside or scraping the manure from our feet. The kitchen would be warm and filled with the smells of cooking as we crowded through to the bathroom to wash our hands and feet then quickly dress in slightly better clothes for school.

I never remember having to rush yet even after that leisurely two-course breakfast every morning where we delved into the cornflakes for the hidden toy and argued over how many omelettes we each had eaten, we seemed to have time to burn. We helped Grandma clear the table and wash up. Four kids fighting over who was wiping and who was putting away and my brother gleefully flicking me on the bottom with the wet teatowel. The drive to school was eleven miles. We always drove seven but my parents took it in turns with another family to drive the last five. So we met at the “Black Gate”, a gate thus named after it began its life soaked in Linseed oil but had long since grayed in the weather and the sun. We played hopscotch in the sand there as we waited for the other family and then for our parents to stop talking about the weather and the government and the price of fuel.


Then it was time for another day of school.... I hope you have enjoyed waking up with me on some unremarkable day in 1973?

Dad

It is twenty years today since my father died. Well since I found out anyway, he died sometime during the early hours of the morning.

The last time I spoke to him I called him from a phone box somewhere on the Southern NSW or Northern Victorian coast. I don't remember where we were or how long before he died it was. Perhaps 3 weeks or a month. That might sound odd now, that I would speak to him so seldom but with communication not so readily available then, as it is now, that was just normal for our family.

I remember he told me he was giving up smoking and that he had had a cancerous spot cut out from near his eye. "Give up smoking Love" he implored. It took me another ten years but I did it in the end. So there is some symmetry for me in today isn't there? It's hard to believe I can measure these huge milestones in my life in decades now and in a strange way realising that it is 10 years since I stopped smoking makes it seem less time since I lost my father. Those first 10 years went mind numbingly slower than the second, such is the age induced speeding up of time I suppose?

My husband went fishing on a friend's boat last night. Boat fishing always makes me miss my father most keenly. He would have loved coming to visit us here on the coast and going out fishing with us. He always dreamt that in his retirement he would be able to do these things. In the end his retirement was only 1 year long. He died aged 61. I feel ripped off, my kids feel ripped off, I think he was ripped off....Dying sucks.

I haven't spoken to my mother or my siblings about my father yet today. I suppose I should and yet my relationship with him was different from theirs. So sometimes talking to them about him takes him away from me and I resent that. I am my father's daughter. As a way of abusing me my mother thinks she is putting me down when she reiterates about how much like him I am. She couldn't be any more wrong. My father was friendly and accepting, loving and generous. I couldn't be more proud than to be told I am like he was.

I miss you Dad.

It is Hot.

Finally summer is here.

There are storms tonight and it feels like November. It feels as if we have been cheated out of summer but, in all honesty, I haven't minded at all. Christmas wasn't the sweat fest that I have come to expect. On New Years Eve the heat hadn't wiped me out before the alcohol did and I actually have a tan this year as it hasn't been too hot to venture outside.

This summer has been very different.

I have walked on the beach every other day. My dog has frollicked with joy down there. If there was ever need to be reminded of how great living near the beach is I only need to look at his eyes. He is my introduction and the other walkers on the beach know me because of him. He takes his stick to everybody(anybody) and they throw it for him because he asks with such sweet innocence.

He gathers smiles for me. I have a fine collection :)

Home on the land....my mother would be proud.

This trip has been exactly what I needed. Out here I am so completely at home, all the bits of me seem to fall into place and I feel truly happy. There are of course so many memories, happy and sad. I can feel my father in the un-renovated rooms, down by the shed where he fiddled with machinery or by the empty creek where we used to sit together and fish. My grandmother is in the air, in the crisp sheets that we carried in from the line together or in the garden where she traced the teddy bear rhyme around my palm. Four generations of my family have now called this home, have let their feet become caked with mud while catching huge lobster sized yabbies from the dams or let the harsh dry scrub scratch their arms as they trekked up the the aboriginal cave in the hills. I had been told the hand paintings were gone, but it wasn't true. They are still there and I felt like singing with joy when I found them. It was enormous fun to show them to my Japanese guest, sharing something often makes it better I think. Super Son has enjoyed it too, I can tell, as slowly the tension of keeping his 'cool' face on eased and he has relaxed. He ran over the rainbow coloured rocks, the sheets of dry gum bark cracking crisply under his converse. He's going to need a new pair after this trip. I feel like I haven't seen him so animated in months.

I also found an aboriginal axe on the first morning here. I have been looking for one all of my life, I had just shown Ink the grooves in the sandstone down by the water hole and tried to explain to him that these grooves were made as the stone axes they used were sharpened, as we walked back towards the house over the ridge where I played so much as a child and felt such peace as a teenager an axe just lay on the ground in my path. Perhaps a cow had kicked it out of the soil, anyway it almost feels as if I was meant to find it, as if the land finally accepts me as it's offspring. Ha, that sounds stupid but thats just how it is.

Today is our last full day out here. I hope to catch some more yabbies, maybe climb the highest mountain so we can see one hundred miles around us (almost), perhaps we will go and collect nuts from the huge Queensland nut tree in the 'park', right now I am taking the binoculars and checking the water tanks for my brother. He is happily on the coast with his family so perhaps for the first time in over twenty years, this place really does feel like my home. I feel lucky.

On the phone my daughter tells me that she is moving to Sydney very soon. She is going down in a few weeks to try and find a job, I feel a little sad but resigned that maybe this is something she feels she has to do. Maybe I will come to Sydney for a visit soon? I can't think of any greater contrast than this place and Sydney.

My arm is Aching

It is winter in Paris in early 2000. We take this day to walk the cold, cold air and visit the true tourist spots in this famous city. We line up with hundreds of others as the breeze rips through our insufficient clothing. There is a mist of moist cold enveloping us; our faces burn with it as we stamp our feet like horses, to be warm.

A mime has come by to entertain this unhappy queue, as we are waiting for access to the tower. My son is enthralled by him and walks nearer for a better look. The mime begins blowing up an invisible balloon; it stretches out in the air before him, my sons eyes widen as if he fears that it may burst. The mime checks the size of the balloon, it isn't quite long enough yet, it is a sausage balloon. He fills it some more, and then checks it again. Satisfied, he ties the end and then starts the intricate process of making the balloon into a dog. He makes the ties and checks it then continues, finishing by adding a piece of invisible string. Then proudly he hands his masterpiece to my patient boy. My son returns to us his eyes glistening with pride. He holds his prize aloft and smiles warmly at the admiring crowd.

We move slowly up the queue and finally after what has seemed like hours we take the stairs and then the lift to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Like cattle we are herded up and on and up. Finally we are there, the light mist blankets the city pink and white and pretty in this bright winter light. We gaze out across the miles, triumphant in having reached this height.

"Mummy, can you please hold this? My arm is aching." My son hands me his invisible balloon.

I dare not let it go.

Sugar Flower

In the kitchen opposite the wood stove was a leadlight kitchen dresser painted white. It had panes of glass, green, burgundy and clear. On the centre door which curved outwards the glass was cracked and the design slumped inwards. I used the wonder if the heat from the stove opposite had melted the lead and imagine that one day the whole panel would drip to the floor.

I stood next to the dresser that day and the ledge where the key was kept was very high. If I stood on my tiptoes I could feel it there with the very tips of my fingers but unless I dragged the stool across, there was little chance I would ever reach it.

I considered the moving of the stool and the noise that it would make. My parents took their midday nap just behind the dresser in the other room. If they heard me I might get the "flapper", a piece of bamboo about 20 inches long, with a folded strap of leather bound with "catgut" to it's end. Mum and Dad would threaten me with it what seemed like every day, but perhaps it was only when I was naughty? It was kept on the front veranda high on the coat hooks above the rifles. All those terrifying items dwelt there at our front door. I wonder now what people thought when they called in, to be greeted by that armoury?

The stool was too heavy for me to lift quietly but I remembered there was another outside. I slowly opened the rattling back door knob, it was dented brass kept shiny from many hands and the sound of that doorknob is more keen in my memory than any other sound I have ever known.

The back stairs creaked slightly and the small yellow stool, made from an apple crate is there.

On the way back my hands are full, the door slams in the breeze and I freeze....
All stays quiet. I carefully place the stool and reach the key. My footsteps through the dining room are swift and sure. I sit down cross-legged in front of the china cabinet and the key moves easily in the lock.

I am not allowed in here. In the very back is a small tin, slightly rusted. Carefully I move the breakables aside, fine china teacups and antique figurines. I grasp my prize. The lid squeaks a little as I pry it loose.

The hard sugar melts slowly in my mouth. I close my eyes in bliss. They won't notice just one more wedding cake decoration disappearing, surely?

dusk

the slamming of the screen door
the koel calling in the dusk
a child's name, a few times in ascending volume
dinner is almost ready

a dog barks and the noisy hum of traffic in the distance continues

this might be the only time of day that I cannot separate the sound of the surf from that of the traffic

it is almost dark

an owl? i could swear i just heard an owl

echoing across the gully I can hear the clatter of dishes in the neighbour's kitchen

i stand and add my kitchen’s own clatter to the evening chorus