Here's what I know about mum's father. This is what I've been told about him. He died well before I was born, so I didn't know him. It's funny that just now, in the last few seconds, I realised that he's part of my genetic history. I've got some of this person in me. That kind of shocks me.
Anyway, in order of perceived importance, here's what I know about Reginald Baird
He was handsome.
He was a stock broker.
He was a boozer. He belonged to the "Sunday Morning Drinkers" club. Instead of going to mass with their families, they drank on Sunday mornings. This was told to me as a haha hilarious family story, and that's all I ever thought about it when I was a kid. But when I was a teenager, I was at a school friend's house, and her mother said in passing "but of course your grandfather was a raving alcoholic!" Really? I was kind of offended. I went home and asked mum if that was true. And I don't remember the answer. It wasn't yes, and it wasn't no.
He died in his 40s of sclerosis of the liver. Mum was away with friends for the weekend, and when she got home he had died. She said she laughed when she heard he'd died. I can't remember asking her why, and over the years I've variously thought it must have been a nervous reaction to unexpected bad news, or that she really didn't like him.
Mum was his favourite daughter. When mum was 10, he gave her a giant sausage for a birthday present. I
don't know how giant. But it was spectacular and she was embarrassed
that her friends saw it. She loved sausages, though, so it was one of
those moments.
If he didn't like what was served up for dinner, he pulled the tablecloth off the table, and with it the plates, cutlery and food. Now, I don't know if he did this once or routinely. Mum said that's what he did.
He was a practical joker. He stole the front seat out of one of the first cars to arrive in Invercargill, and hid it for months, so the driver had to drive around town sitting on a beer crate. He shot a horse inside someone's garage and they couldn't get it out without chopping it up. He nailed a fish under someone's kitchen table and it went rotten and stunk up their house. Haha hilarious.
He gave his kids a sixpence or a penny or some coin if they found a four leafed clover. They devised ways to glue extra leaves onto regular clovers to get the money.
When he died, he didn't qualify for a requiem mass in the Catholic church because he didn't go to mass (because he went Sunday morning drinking instead), but the church gave the family a dispensation and let him have one because nana was such a good Catholic, and took all her kids (8 of them) to mass. Reginald wouldn't let his oldest daughter go into the convent to become a nun. But after he died, that's what she did.
There was a really interesting story about what happened when nana and Reg first got married.
Before they got married, Reg lived with his father. His mother had died, and his father had hired a housekeeper called Molly, who lived in the house with them. When Reg and nana married, they had their own house, but because it was a 'bad look' for Reg's father to be alone with Molly in the house, nana and Reg had to go and sleep the night in the old family home, nana in a room with Molly and Reg in a room with his father. I honestly don't know if this last bit was true, but that's what we were told. Eventually the old guy married Molly, and she became nana's mother-in-law, even though they were roughly the same age. Molly and the old man had some children -- a whole new family who got the 'family jewels' and nana got nothing.
When Reg died, nana was 42, and had 8 children aged 2 - 18. (I need to check those ages, but I believe they are correct.) Mum was the third oldest, 15. They had their own house, but they were poor. Mum says she and her sisters were made to stand at the back of the rows at school because they didn't have the proper school uniform. When they got jobs, they helped nana out, but she lived on the widow's benefit and I'm sure on the kindness of the extended family.
Nana was a beautiful, gracious, funny, energetic woman. If you didn't know she'd been widowed at 42 with 8 kids, you'd never suspect it. There wasn't a whiff of the victim about nana Baird. Not a whiff.
I grew up thinking that it was just as well this grandfather wasn't still alive. He was scary, in a cartoon character kind of way. I knew I wouldn't like him. When I got older and read pop psychology and self help books, I started to think that mum's need to control her children, her environment, her everything probably stemmed from fear and instability in her own childhood, and I wondered if a lot of that had to do with her father -- first when he was alive and larger than life, and then when he died and left them all to it.
I could never reconcile mum and nana. They were so different. I honestly don't know what kind of relationship they had. They spend time together. They didn't fight or have any drama. But were they close? Did they communicate properly, or just chat over a sherry or a cup of tea? I don't know. I do remember nana leaving mum's bedside in tears, only days before mum died. Mum had sent her away to get her hearing aid sorted out, so they could talk. "How can I talk to her if her hearing aid has no batteries??" Mum was visibly upset. I always wondered if mum wanted to tell nana something about Reg. I'll never know.
Not long before nana died, I was visiting her at Calvary, and she said "I'm sorry we didn't talk about the important things. But you girls didn't have too bad a time of it did you?"
I just said "No nana, we are all OK." It was an opportunity for me to get inside my egg shell, but I didn't. I just let it pass, and I'll never know what she meant.
NEXT
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Don't be Such an Egg
So I emerged into adulthood, feeling a bit like an egg.
I had some amazing life skills that I've been very grateful for: I was diplomatic, I could navigate through tricky relationships and situations with ease. I was confident and together. I was very very tuned in to other people's personalities and emotions. I was fiercely independent. I liked my own company, and felt like I didn't need other people much. I didn't have that many friends, but I didn't really want or need them. I was quite serious -- having fun wasn't really a priority. I was fairly well read, and I could write and speak articulately. And I was very very interested in finding out the actual, real meaning of life. The truth. I really wanted to know the truth.
That was the egg shell part of me. That was the part of me that left home, went to university, travelled all over the world, lived in different countries, had cool jobs, had my own business. I got away from that family stuff, built my own life, and had it all together.
Inside that egg was a squishy vulnerable centre that I did my best to keep out of the way, because it was kind of pathetic, terrified, mystified, and mortified. It was a real liability, a huge contrast to the egg shell, and it was very very uncomfortable. Mostly I just tried to ignore it, pretend it wasn't there, so I didn't have to deal with it.
I got a lot of approval for being a tough egg, that person who had her life together. I was convinced nobody would want to have a bar of the egg yolk, the emotional wreck me. That "who do you think you are?" girl.
So she more or less disappeared. For a while anyway. Oh yes, and I keep forgetting this, but it's important. She was slowly but surely becoming boozer. Not a haha hilarious boozer. Just a quiet one. But a boozer nonetheless.
I'll get back to her, but I just want to write some more about mum, and tell you what I know about her father.
NEXT
I had some amazing life skills that I've been very grateful for: I was diplomatic, I could navigate through tricky relationships and situations with ease. I was confident and together. I was very very tuned in to other people's personalities and emotions. I was fiercely independent. I liked my own company, and felt like I didn't need other people much. I didn't have that many friends, but I didn't really want or need them. I was quite serious -- having fun wasn't really a priority. I was fairly well read, and I could write and speak articulately. And I was very very interested in finding out the actual, real meaning of life. The truth. I really wanted to know the truth.
That was the egg shell part of me. That was the part of me that left home, went to university, travelled all over the world, lived in different countries, had cool jobs, had my own business. I got away from that family stuff, built my own life, and had it all together.
Inside that egg was a squishy vulnerable centre that I did my best to keep out of the way, because it was kind of pathetic, terrified, mystified, and mortified. It was a real liability, a huge contrast to the egg shell, and it was very very uncomfortable. Mostly I just tried to ignore it, pretend it wasn't there, so I didn't have to deal with it.
I got a lot of approval for being a tough egg, that person who had her life together. I was convinced nobody would want to have a bar of the egg yolk, the emotional wreck me. That "who do you think you are?" girl.
So she more or less disappeared. For a while anyway. Oh yes, and I keep forgetting this, but it's important. She was slowly but surely becoming boozer. Not a haha hilarious boozer. Just a quiet one. But a boozer nonetheless.
I'll get back to her, but I just want to write some more about mum, and tell you what I know about her father.
NEXT
Saturday, July 26, 2014
My first bra, my first period, and my first wedding dress
Me: I've started seizing up again.
She: Yes. What's happening?
Me: It was fun writing all those stories about dad and the boozy relatives, but I've got some bigger stickier stories that just won't leave me alone, and I feel like I should write them now.
She: OK. Are you ready?
Me: I think so. I've written them before, but I was angry then. I'm not so angry now. I'm just really trying to make sense of things. I feel like I just need to get them out one more time, and walk away from them. They happened. They have haunted me. And I'm totally sick of carrying them around. I kind of feel the same as quitting drinking. "I've had enough of this shit already!"
She: So write them down and leave them behind. What are they about?
Me: My first bra, my first period, and my first wedding dress.
She: OK, go!
I didn't know much about puberty when it started happening. I knew it was important, special. But I also knew it was dangerous. One day when I was about 13 I was drying myself after a shower, it must have been early evening because the sun was streaming through the upstairs bathroom window, and it highlighted a very faint a goldy fuzz of pubic hair starting to grow "down there". I was breathless for a moment. Reverent. It really was true. I was Growing Up. I remember being very excited. And very careful. Nobody else can know.
I wanted a bra for the longest time, but a bra was something I couldn't ask for, and couldn't have until mum got me one. At least that's what I thought. I didn't have any money to buy one. I didn't have any older sisters to give me their hand-downs. I had to wait until she was ready to acknowledge that I was growing up. That would be very difficult for her. She loved babies who were totally dependent on her. Kids with their own personalities, ideas, thoughts, not so much. There was no intimacy between us, no trust. I did not talk to her about anything private. She could not help herself mocking and ridiculing, exploiting any crack of vulnerability, any want or need, any individuality, anything intimate or private. Nothing was sacred. Anything she knew about us was very likely to be the butt of jokes, told to great dramatic effect at social gatherings, and laughed about. We were expected to be good sports, to take a joke.
So while I desperatety wanted a bra, I had no control over that, or anything else in my life, so I had to wait till she was ready.
Me: I'm getting all choked up.
She: Why?
Me: Because she bought me a bra, and gave it to me in front of the whole family. I unwrapped my "present" not knowing what it was, in front of her, my four little sisters and my father. It was one of those utterly overwhelming moments when I was delighted to get a bra, but mortified to be exposed like that about something so private, something that could have been special, but wasn't. I felt so confused about that.
I was grateful -- it was a beautiful bra and it was something I desperately wanted. She told me to go and try it on, and come back downstairs. I did. Then she made me lift up my school shirt to show her the fit. In front of everyone.
I hated her for this. But I couldn't do anything. If I didn't do what she said, be a good sport and get in the spirit of things, she'd just as likely take the bra back. I just needed to be a good sport, even about this.
I have read recently that some mothers cannot comprehend that their daughters are actually separate people from them. They treat them as if they were not individuals, but merely extensions of themselves. They get very angry if the daughter asserts any individuality at all, expresses opinions or desires that aren't exactly the mother's. They (the mother) drums into the daughter that she is not special, does not have any value of her own, has no control over what she eats, wears, says... and thinks, but of course that last one is ridiculous. A girl treated like this develops a very rich mental life -- it's the only place she has that's hers.
I think this was going on in our family. I felt powerless and silenced, confused. An totally alone. There was nobody to talk to about any of this.
I must say it was a beautiful bra. Pink with peachy-cream coloured flowers. The nicest bra I'd ever seen. And it fitted perfectly.
__________________
I got my period in my own good time. I was 16 when that finally happened. I don't remember telling mum, but I must have because I was given a pack of sanitary pads to use. I was pretty excited to get my period -- finally. I was a bit of a late developer. I'd heard that said about me, and understood it to be an embarassing thing. But oh well. I got my period, and the first order of business was to work out what to do with the sanitary pads.
They came with a very detailed instruction sheet. This was in the bad old days when they were attached to a sanitary belt -- they hadn't invented anything more convenient. They were like thick wads of newspaper between your legs. It was impossible to walk properly while wearing one. But I digress.Once you've worn a sanitary pad for a while, you need to dispose of it. The instructions said under no circumstances should you ever flush them down the toilet. Sanitary pads should be incinerated. I looked that up in the dictionary, to make sure it meant what I thought it meant. I need to burn the pads. OK. Good to know.
I got up, got dressed for school, put on a new pad, folded up the used one, found some matches, and headed out the the garden burner -- a rusty old 44 gallon drum that dad used for burning rubbish.
Have you ever tried to light a sanitary pad on fire?
How about a used one? Half a box of matches later, I was in tears, the pad would catch fire on the edge, the the flame would just die out and leave pathetic smoking singe marks. They would not incinerate. I was late for school. I was too embarassed to throw the pad in the burner -- what if someone saw it, what if it got flies on it? I'll just have to try again later.
What's even harder to burn than a sanitary pad? Two sanitary pads.
It was a disaster. Every day I had more pads to deal with. I tried again and again to burn them with matches. I ended up with a bag of singed, used pads in my room, and no idea what to do with them. I actually don't know what I did with them in the end. Eventually I realised that there were incinerators for them at school (I think), so I disposed of them there. Eventually I just used face-cloths, which I washed, dried secretly in my room, and reused. Eventually I figured out how to use tampons (but that's another story!)
I was so alone in all of this. Standing out at that burner, failing to do anything but singe the edges of those pads, hot and angry, desperate, late for school. Mum must have known this was going on. Did she? Didn't she see me out there, struggling, ashamed, hopeless? Didn't she know that a girl needs some information and advice and support?
I guess not. I have been angry about this for years. I don't think mum was deliberate about this neglect. This whole situation was the result of her denial about her children being separate humans with separate lives, growing up, and my deep distrust of her with any intimate details of my life. The absolute last thing I would have done was ask my mother "what should I do with my used pads?"
Once a friend told me a story of a girl getting her period. Her parents gave her a ruby ring to mark the occasion and took her out for a special meal to celebrate. I cried when I heard that story. What a wonderful idea.
She: Well done.
Me: I feel awful writing that.
She: In what way?
Me: I feel like I'm whining and betraying mum. There's a voice saying "Your mother was busy with five kids and a husband, and a household to run. She didn't have time to look after herself, let alone anyone else."
She: Tell it to shut up. Tell us the one about the wedding dress.
Me: Can I wait till tomorrow? If feel shattered.
She: OK.
After-thought: Why didn't I just put them in the rubbish? We didn't have rubbish then. Household waste was dealt with like this: vege and garden scraps went in the compost. Bones, and other things were burnt in the burner at the bottom of the garden. Every home had one. The only rubbish that was picked up was the ash-can. Can that is exactly what it was; a can of ashes from the fireplaces that heated the houses. The ash can sometimes contained hot embers, and if you put other rubbish in there it was likely to burst into flames and burn down your shed, so not advisable. Any waste that couldn't be dealt with those ways was taken to the tip. A trip to the tip was quite an event, and didn't happen that often. Just to give you some perspective, hardly any food came in plastic then (this is the late 1970s). Milk was still delivered in re-usable bottles. There was no such thing as tetra-packs (the juice, milk and liquid containers so common now. Meat, fish, bread, cheese were wrapped in grease-proof paper which could burn. There was not such thing as individual servings of anything. So we didn't have a rubbish bin that I could shove sanitary pads in. They were a category all of their own!
____________
I was having a silk wedding dress, that was for sure. I bought the material myself, from Ballantynes in Christchurch. It was a beautiful colour -- milky tinged with coffee. I was not having a white wedding dress.
Originally, it was going to be a cotton and muslin dress, elegant hippy style, flat sandals, with a huge armful of lupins from the side of the road out to the beach. That of course, wouldn't do, and while I was trying desperately to avoid being bullied into anything about this wedding, I had to agree that a hippy outfit would look ridiculous at the town hall Victoria Chambers, where my parents decided the wedding would take place.
So I dropped the muslin for lush silk. It was gorgeous. Mum was against a silk dress. Silk crushes, wilts, has flaws in it. Totally unsuitable. I, on the other hand, was committed to a natural fabric, cotton and muslin were out, then it would be silk. End of that story. I'm 23 at this point. I paid for the material myself. Oh, and I'm the one getting married.
Balantines shipped the bolt of silk to the dressmaker, and she got busy with the dress. Mum and my future mother-in-law wanted to come to the first dress fitting. I thought this was a bit odd, but then thought it was sweet that they were interested and wanted to be involved. So off we went to Pat Pope's place in Mataura.
When we walked in her sewing room, there was a dress hanging on the wall, disturbingly similar to my pattern. It wasn't my dress though. It was the wrong colour, the wrong fabric--I could see that from across the room. "Who's dress is that?" I asked. "It's yours!" said Pat. "But it's the wrong material. It looks kind of yellow. It's not my silk..." And I started wondering what had gone wrong. Did Ballantynes send the wrong fabric? What had happened? I was so confused.
And then they all started talking at once. The silk material had a flaw in it, we had to return it to the shop, we got something very close, nobody would know the difference. It's polyester (polyester!!) so it won't crush or wilt. It's going to look great. You'll be thankful on the day.
"But why didn't you tell me this happened?" "We didn't want to upset you."
This was a total lie. The whole thing was a farce. Mum didn't want me to have a silk dress, so they changed the material, made the dress in nasty cream polyester, and expected me to wear it. Which of course I did, because... well that's just what I did. I was a good sport.
Was there a flaw in that silk? Who knows. Who cares? That's the beauty of silk. The pattern was full and gathered, a flaw in any material would not have shown. I knew that. I knew this was a lie. I was not the kind of person who would be "upset" by revisiting a flawed fabric. I was very upset about being tricked and bullied out of the wedding dress I really wanted.
But I took it on the chin and moved on. I also allowed myself to be bullied into wearing high heels to that wedding. Did she tell Pat to make the dress a couple of inches too long, so I had to get up on heels? Who knows. I only wore the dress once for the wedding, and on numerous occasions at drunken parties when it was pulled out the dress-up box at mum's place. I always hated the scratchy feel of that fabric.
She: Are you feeling OK?
Me: I'm getting that tight throat feeling, but it's not too bad. Back then my throat constricted so much I couldn't speak. Maybe my silence was seen as consent. But not, I felt powerless. On some level I knew I needed to stand up to mum on some of these things. Say "this is not your call -- you have no right to do this." But she would cry, and say she was only doing her best to be helpful, and I had no idea, and how could I think she was being anything but... " Blah blah blah.
I just remembered the nights when I was in 7th form, 17 years old, planning my career after high school, deciding that I was going to be a journalist. We always sat at the table for dinner, and talked. When I talked about doing anything beyond high school that didn't involve staying home and getting a job in and office in town (which is what mum did), mum would cry. This was not an isolated incident. It happened often. Her family would be broken up. Why on earth would I want to leave home, leave the family? What was wrong with getting a job and staying at home?
I suppose I could have seen this as loving and charming, but it was horrible. I had talents and hope and dreams of being a writer. I needed to get away from home and invercargill. As it happened, I stayed until I was 21. I still dream regularly about being trapped in a house with my parents and sisters. They are still back in the late 1970s. I am myself now. At some point in the dream, I wise up and say to myself, "Hang on, I don't have to live here with these people. I have my own money. I can get a car, get my own place, and get out of here!"
At 21 I was desperate. I decided to enrol at the university in Christchurch, and spend three years doing a degree and getting myself sorted out. I had saved enough money, so I didn't need any help from mum and dad. I didn't tell them I was doing this until I had received my acceptance letter. Then I told them. Then they protested mightily. But I just went. I was so tired of being under their thumbs.
I got to Christchurch and found a great flat with a lovely flatmate, and settled immediately into my classes, loving the reading, learning, freedom, wide openness. One night, mid way into the first term -- perhaps a month or six weeks after I'd left home -- there was a knock at the flat door. It was John Riack, a family friend who was a travelling salesman of some sort at the time. "Your parents asked me to bring something up for you. Will you come out to the car and get it?" Sure, great. And when I got out to the car, there was my mother in the passenger seat, come for a visit, come to stay with me in my new flat. She slept in my bed. There was nowhere else. She came to lectures with me. I was dumb, dumbfounded. She only stayed with me for a couple of days. Her older sister, Judy, lived in Christchurch, and when she heard what had happened she came over and picked mum up and took her back to her own place to stay. I was very grateful. Judy understood.
___________
I do want these stories to go somewhere else now. I don't want them to be "the complaints department". I feel like I can't preface these stories with "I don't want be be judgmental about mum..." because I know I am. I feel like I could never understand the depths of her fear and insecurity. I would never know what made her tick. The weird thing is that people who know our family remember mum completely differently, and I suspect these stories might not be believed -- or seen as gross misinterpretations of an immature adolescent.
People say these things about mum:
She was such fun! Always the life of the party.
Such a good sort. Always having a joke.
Such a good dressmaker.
She always dressed you girls so well.
She was so good with interior decorating.
She was such fun.
And I know those things were all true.
________________-
I keep getting fleeting ideas about how I didn't deal with these experiences in any kind of healthy way, and how they just stayed buried -- even though I'd talk about them, I'd never done anything with the emotions around them except stuff them down and try to be a good sport. These stories show me what a deep, dark, lonely place I was in -- I knew it was bullshit and bollocks. I totally knew. But I was always silent. Always took it on the chin. It was the only safe way. I had learned to protect myself by being silent, compliant. Accepting that what I wanted and thought didn't matter. That I was nobody.
Humans respond to that kind of situation in different ways. Some rebel and react and assert themselves. Some just don't even register it's happening and get on with their own lives. Some withdraw and go numb to deal with it. That's what I did.
We went on our honeymoon on a motorbike.
Mum didn't protest or interfere. I was mystifies. I asked her "How come you haven't said anything about our honeymoon plans." "You're married to Gerard now. You're his responsibility now, not mine." And that was the end of that.
It was interesting that later, after Gerard and I divorced, and I was not re-married, she resumed her oversight of my life, albiet from a distance. There are so many stories. They are interesting to me, but probably just sound like whining first world problems that I should have recovered from years ago. I really should just get over myself. Indeed.
But these stories, and this particular habit of withdrawing, numbing and running away from pain, has been with me for decades, and I'm only just learning about living in a different way. It's revolutionary.
NEXT
She: Yes. What's happening?
Me: It was fun writing all those stories about dad and the boozy relatives, but I've got some bigger stickier stories that just won't leave me alone, and I feel like I should write them now.
She: OK. Are you ready?
Me: I think so. I've written them before, but I was angry then. I'm not so angry now. I'm just really trying to make sense of things. I feel like I just need to get them out one more time, and walk away from them. They happened. They have haunted me. And I'm totally sick of carrying them around. I kind of feel the same as quitting drinking. "I've had enough of this shit already!"
She: So write them down and leave them behind. What are they about?
Me: My first bra, my first period, and my first wedding dress.
She: OK, go!
I didn't know much about puberty when it started happening. I knew it was important, special. But I also knew it was dangerous. One day when I was about 13 I was drying myself after a shower, it must have been early evening because the sun was streaming through the upstairs bathroom window, and it highlighted a very faint a goldy fuzz of pubic hair starting to grow "down there". I was breathless for a moment. Reverent. It really was true. I was Growing Up. I remember being very excited. And very careful. Nobody else can know.
I wanted a bra for the longest time, but a bra was something I couldn't ask for, and couldn't have until mum got me one. At least that's what I thought. I didn't have any money to buy one. I didn't have any older sisters to give me their hand-downs. I had to wait until she was ready to acknowledge that I was growing up. That would be very difficult for her. She loved babies who were totally dependent on her. Kids with their own personalities, ideas, thoughts, not so much. There was no intimacy between us, no trust. I did not talk to her about anything private. She could not help herself mocking and ridiculing, exploiting any crack of vulnerability, any want or need, any individuality, anything intimate or private. Nothing was sacred. Anything she knew about us was very likely to be the butt of jokes, told to great dramatic effect at social gatherings, and laughed about. We were expected to be good sports, to take a joke.
So while I desperatety wanted a bra, I had no control over that, or anything else in my life, so I had to wait till she was ready.
Me: I'm getting all choked up.
She: Why?
Me: Because she bought me a bra, and gave it to me in front of the whole family. I unwrapped my "present" not knowing what it was, in front of her, my four little sisters and my father. It was one of those utterly overwhelming moments when I was delighted to get a bra, but mortified to be exposed like that about something so private, something that could have been special, but wasn't. I felt so confused about that.
I was grateful -- it was a beautiful bra and it was something I desperately wanted. She told me to go and try it on, and come back downstairs. I did. Then she made me lift up my school shirt to show her the fit. In front of everyone.
I hated her for this. But I couldn't do anything. If I didn't do what she said, be a good sport and get in the spirit of things, she'd just as likely take the bra back. I just needed to be a good sport, even about this.
I have read recently that some mothers cannot comprehend that their daughters are actually separate people from them. They treat them as if they were not individuals, but merely extensions of themselves. They get very angry if the daughter asserts any individuality at all, expresses opinions or desires that aren't exactly the mother's. They (the mother) drums into the daughter that she is not special, does not have any value of her own, has no control over what she eats, wears, says... and thinks, but of course that last one is ridiculous. A girl treated like this develops a very rich mental life -- it's the only place she has that's hers.
I think this was going on in our family. I felt powerless and silenced, confused. An totally alone. There was nobody to talk to about any of this.
I must say it was a beautiful bra. Pink with peachy-cream coloured flowers. The nicest bra I'd ever seen. And it fitted perfectly.
__________________
I got my period in my own good time. I was 16 when that finally happened. I don't remember telling mum, but I must have because I was given a pack of sanitary pads to use. I was pretty excited to get my period -- finally. I was a bit of a late developer. I'd heard that said about me, and understood it to be an embarassing thing. But oh well. I got my period, and the first order of business was to work out what to do with the sanitary pads.
They came with a very detailed instruction sheet. This was in the bad old days when they were attached to a sanitary belt -- they hadn't invented anything more convenient. They were like thick wads of newspaper between your legs. It was impossible to walk properly while wearing one. But I digress.Once you've worn a sanitary pad for a while, you need to dispose of it. The instructions said under no circumstances should you ever flush them down the toilet. Sanitary pads should be incinerated. I looked that up in the dictionary, to make sure it meant what I thought it meant. I need to burn the pads. OK. Good to know.
I got up, got dressed for school, put on a new pad, folded up the used one, found some matches, and headed out the the garden burner -- a rusty old 44 gallon drum that dad used for burning rubbish.
Have you ever tried to light a sanitary pad on fire?
How about a used one? Half a box of matches later, I was in tears, the pad would catch fire on the edge, the the flame would just die out and leave pathetic smoking singe marks. They would not incinerate. I was late for school. I was too embarassed to throw the pad in the burner -- what if someone saw it, what if it got flies on it? I'll just have to try again later.
What's even harder to burn than a sanitary pad? Two sanitary pads.
It was a disaster. Every day I had more pads to deal with. I tried again and again to burn them with matches. I ended up with a bag of singed, used pads in my room, and no idea what to do with them. I actually don't know what I did with them in the end. Eventually I realised that there were incinerators for them at school (I think), so I disposed of them there. Eventually I just used face-cloths, which I washed, dried secretly in my room, and reused. Eventually I figured out how to use tampons (but that's another story!)
I was so alone in all of this. Standing out at that burner, failing to do anything but singe the edges of those pads, hot and angry, desperate, late for school. Mum must have known this was going on. Did she? Didn't she see me out there, struggling, ashamed, hopeless? Didn't she know that a girl needs some information and advice and support?
I guess not. I have been angry about this for years. I don't think mum was deliberate about this neglect. This whole situation was the result of her denial about her children being separate humans with separate lives, growing up, and my deep distrust of her with any intimate details of my life. The absolute last thing I would have done was ask my mother "what should I do with my used pads?"
Once a friend told me a story of a girl getting her period. Her parents gave her a ruby ring to mark the occasion and took her out for a special meal to celebrate. I cried when I heard that story. What a wonderful idea.
She: Well done.
Me: I feel awful writing that.
She: In what way?
Me: I feel like I'm whining and betraying mum. There's a voice saying "Your mother was busy with five kids and a husband, and a household to run. She didn't have time to look after herself, let alone anyone else."
She: Tell it to shut up. Tell us the one about the wedding dress.
Me: Can I wait till tomorrow? If feel shattered.
She: OK.
After-thought: Why didn't I just put them in the rubbish? We didn't have rubbish then. Household waste was dealt with like this: vege and garden scraps went in the compost. Bones, and other things were burnt in the burner at the bottom of the garden. Every home had one. The only rubbish that was picked up was the ash-can. Can that is exactly what it was; a can of ashes from the fireplaces that heated the houses. The ash can sometimes contained hot embers, and if you put other rubbish in there it was likely to burst into flames and burn down your shed, so not advisable. Any waste that couldn't be dealt with those ways was taken to the tip. A trip to the tip was quite an event, and didn't happen that often. Just to give you some perspective, hardly any food came in plastic then (this is the late 1970s). Milk was still delivered in re-usable bottles. There was no such thing as tetra-packs (the juice, milk and liquid containers so common now. Meat, fish, bread, cheese were wrapped in grease-proof paper which could burn. There was not such thing as individual servings of anything. So we didn't have a rubbish bin that I could shove sanitary pads in. They were a category all of their own!
____________
I was having a silk wedding dress, that was for sure. I bought the material myself, from Ballantynes in Christchurch. It was a beautiful colour -- milky tinged with coffee. I was not having a white wedding dress.
Originally, it was going to be a cotton and muslin dress, elegant hippy style, flat sandals, with a huge armful of lupins from the side of the road out to the beach. That of course, wouldn't do, and while I was trying desperately to avoid being bullied into anything about this wedding, I had to agree that a hippy outfit would look ridiculous at the town hall Victoria Chambers, where my parents decided the wedding would take place.
So I dropped the muslin for lush silk. It was gorgeous. Mum was against a silk dress. Silk crushes, wilts, has flaws in it. Totally unsuitable. I, on the other hand, was committed to a natural fabric, cotton and muslin were out, then it would be silk. End of that story. I'm 23 at this point. I paid for the material myself. Oh, and I'm the one getting married.
Balantines shipped the bolt of silk to the dressmaker, and she got busy with the dress. Mum and my future mother-in-law wanted to come to the first dress fitting. I thought this was a bit odd, but then thought it was sweet that they were interested and wanted to be involved. So off we went to Pat Pope's place in Mataura.
When we walked in her sewing room, there was a dress hanging on the wall, disturbingly similar to my pattern. It wasn't my dress though. It was the wrong colour, the wrong fabric--I could see that from across the room. "Who's dress is that?" I asked. "It's yours!" said Pat. "But it's the wrong material. It looks kind of yellow. It's not my silk..." And I started wondering what had gone wrong. Did Ballantynes send the wrong fabric? What had happened? I was so confused.
And then they all started talking at once. The silk material had a flaw in it, we had to return it to the shop, we got something very close, nobody would know the difference. It's polyester (polyester!!) so it won't crush or wilt. It's going to look great. You'll be thankful on the day.
"But why didn't you tell me this happened?" "We didn't want to upset you."
This was a total lie. The whole thing was a farce. Mum didn't want me to have a silk dress, so they changed the material, made the dress in nasty cream polyester, and expected me to wear it. Which of course I did, because... well that's just what I did. I was a good sport.
Was there a flaw in that silk? Who knows. Who cares? That's the beauty of silk. The pattern was full and gathered, a flaw in any material would not have shown. I knew that. I knew this was a lie. I was not the kind of person who would be "upset" by revisiting a flawed fabric. I was very upset about being tricked and bullied out of the wedding dress I really wanted.
But I took it on the chin and moved on. I also allowed myself to be bullied into wearing high heels to that wedding. Did she tell Pat to make the dress a couple of inches too long, so I had to get up on heels? Who knows. I only wore the dress once for the wedding, and on numerous occasions at drunken parties when it was pulled out the dress-up box at mum's place. I always hated the scratchy feel of that fabric.
She: Are you feeling OK?
Me: I'm getting that tight throat feeling, but it's not too bad. Back then my throat constricted so much I couldn't speak. Maybe my silence was seen as consent. But not, I felt powerless. On some level I knew I needed to stand up to mum on some of these things. Say "this is not your call -- you have no right to do this." But she would cry, and say she was only doing her best to be helpful, and I had no idea, and how could I think she was being anything but... " Blah blah blah.
I just remembered the nights when I was in 7th form, 17 years old, planning my career after high school, deciding that I was going to be a journalist. We always sat at the table for dinner, and talked. When I talked about doing anything beyond high school that didn't involve staying home and getting a job in and office in town (which is what mum did), mum would cry. This was not an isolated incident. It happened often. Her family would be broken up. Why on earth would I want to leave home, leave the family? What was wrong with getting a job and staying at home?
I suppose I could have seen this as loving and charming, but it was horrible. I had talents and hope and dreams of being a writer. I needed to get away from home and invercargill. As it happened, I stayed until I was 21. I still dream regularly about being trapped in a house with my parents and sisters. They are still back in the late 1970s. I am myself now. At some point in the dream, I wise up and say to myself, "Hang on, I don't have to live here with these people. I have my own money. I can get a car, get my own place, and get out of here!"
At 21 I was desperate. I decided to enrol at the university in Christchurch, and spend three years doing a degree and getting myself sorted out. I had saved enough money, so I didn't need any help from mum and dad. I didn't tell them I was doing this until I had received my acceptance letter. Then I told them. Then they protested mightily. But I just went. I was so tired of being under their thumbs.
I got to Christchurch and found a great flat with a lovely flatmate, and settled immediately into my classes, loving the reading, learning, freedom, wide openness. One night, mid way into the first term -- perhaps a month or six weeks after I'd left home -- there was a knock at the flat door. It was John Riack, a family friend who was a travelling salesman of some sort at the time. "Your parents asked me to bring something up for you. Will you come out to the car and get it?" Sure, great. And when I got out to the car, there was my mother in the passenger seat, come for a visit, come to stay with me in my new flat. She slept in my bed. There was nowhere else. She came to lectures with me. I was dumb, dumbfounded. She only stayed with me for a couple of days. Her older sister, Judy, lived in Christchurch, and when she heard what had happened she came over and picked mum up and took her back to her own place to stay. I was very grateful. Judy understood.
___________
I do want these stories to go somewhere else now. I don't want them to be "the complaints department". I feel like I can't preface these stories with "I don't want be be judgmental about mum..." because I know I am. I feel like I could never understand the depths of her fear and insecurity. I would never know what made her tick. The weird thing is that people who know our family remember mum completely differently, and I suspect these stories might not be believed -- or seen as gross misinterpretations of an immature adolescent.
People say these things about mum:
She was such fun! Always the life of the party.
Such a good sort. Always having a joke.
Such a good dressmaker.
She always dressed you girls so well.
She was so good with interior decorating.
She was such fun.
And I know those things were all true.
________________-
I keep getting fleeting ideas about how I didn't deal with these experiences in any kind of healthy way, and how they just stayed buried -- even though I'd talk about them, I'd never done anything with the emotions around them except stuff them down and try to be a good sport. These stories show me what a deep, dark, lonely place I was in -- I knew it was bullshit and bollocks. I totally knew. But I was always silent. Always took it on the chin. It was the only safe way. I had learned to protect myself by being silent, compliant. Accepting that what I wanted and thought didn't matter. That I was nobody.
Humans respond to that kind of situation in different ways. Some rebel and react and assert themselves. Some just don't even register it's happening and get on with their own lives. Some withdraw and go numb to deal with it. That's what I did.
We went on our honeymoon on a motorbike.
Mum didn't protest or interfere. I was mystifies. I asked her "How come you haven't said anything about our honeymoon plans." "You're married to Gerard now. You're his responsibility now, not mine." And that was the end of that.
It was interesting that later, after Gerard and I divorced, and I was not re-married, she resumed her oversight of my life, albiet from a distance. There are so many stories. They are interesting to me, but probably just sound like whining first world problems that I should have recovered from years ago. I really should just get over myself. Indeed.
But these stories, and this particular habit of withdrawing, numbing and running away from pain, has been with me for decades, and I'm only just learning about living in a different way. It's revolutionary.
NEXT
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Other People's Memories
These are the things I knew about dad's childhood:
His father was very strict and harsh on him. If dad didn't clean and polish all the family shoes before he went to bed, his father would wake him up and make him get up in the cold and dark and polish them. Once dad and his brother Jim went to work with their father in Bluff, and were told to meet him at 4pm, no later, to go home with him in the car. They were late and their father just left them in Bluff to find their own way home. Once dad got 98% in a maths test at school and his father was only interested in "why didn't you get 100%?". He was harsh, and spent Sundays at his mother's house without nana and the kids. He used to be a Baptist, but became a Catholic so he could marry nana. That seemed to explain everything -- although I hate to write that, it's what I thought when I was a kid -- if he had been a real Catholic, he wouldn't have been like that.
It's interesting that I didn't hear these stories from dad. Mum told them to me. Maybe dad told them to her. I do remember feeling that these stories were told to make us feel a bit sorry for dad -- to explain why he was quite strict with us. But it was also to tell us how lucky were -- how charmed our childhood was. There was definitely a theme going on there. Poor dad has to work so hard to pay for all the stuff you kids need, and poor dad had a harsh upbringing, and you've got nothing to complain about.
So recently when Jim wrote down some of his memories about his father, I was surprised to read about what an interesting, well-rounded, and genuinely caring man Sid (their father) seemed to be. I asked Jim about the stories I'd heard growing up, and he had a totally different slant on them.
Dad and Jim did lose track of time that day in Bluff, and did indeed miss the ride in the car with their father, who had to be back in Invercargill for some business. Sid gave his business partner money to buy them bus tickets back home -- they were not abandoned cruelly, in Bluff, to find their own way home.
The best one though was the 98% maths result. Apparently Sid got obsessed with this test because he thought dad actually got all the answers right, and that the teacher made a mistake giving him 98%. He should have had 100%! He went through and through the test, convinced his son was wronged with the result, and was going to take it to the school and set things right. Apparently nana also went through the test, saw exactly what mistake dad had made, and stopped her husband from making a spectacle of himself. Wow. What a different story. A father ignoring his son's achievement and focussing on the failing -- OR, a father convinced his son had been short-changed and determined to put things right.
So, it's with that in mind that I resume my story telling. At times I may have got the totally wrong end of the stick. That's the charm of memories and experiences I suppose. I still feel nervous about people reading this and thinking "WTF? That's not what happened!" We all want to know the truth. But we all carry around a different version of it.
_________________
So was dad really strict? I don't think so. It's not in the top 5 things I'd say about him. He expected us to behave ourselves, but he was very clear about what that meant -- he was fair in that way. I don't ever remember getting a smack or any physical punishment from him. I do remember him sitting me on his knee, telling me what I had done was wrong, and why, and why it was a disappointment to him. (I have no idea what I did. I was obsessively law abiding as a child.) And I remember feeling utterly mortified and ashamed, and saying "Can't you stop growling, and just give me a smack and let me go?" And I think dad laughed. He laughed when he told that story in later years, the time Susie asked for a smack!
Dad was predictable and reasonable. At least to me. He felt like a stable force in a chaotic household, where mum was often a disturbing emotional whirlwind, difficult to navigate around. I would never say I felt close to dad, but I was desperate to be close, and I tried different tactics to achieve it. As an adult, I really did feel like dad was my only sane connection to the family -- he was rational and trustworthy, and I could relate to him, I could hide behind him a bit, and he gave the whole thing a sense of normalcy that was decidedly lacking without him. I was devastated when he died. My whole family connection disintegrated, and I felt exposed and terrified. My whole connection with the family had, until that time, been conducted through mum and dad. I didn't know my sisters as adults. My relationship with mum was shallow -- we were complete mysteries to each other. But more on that later.
____________________
Dad was very against tertiary education, and he made no secret of the fact that he thought going to university was a complete waste of time. He used to complain loudly about the students he was forced to hire in the university holidays, who "think they know everything and know nothing". Total waste of time! When I eventually got up the courage to leave home and make my own way in the world, opting to start with a university degree to propel me into my bright new future, he argued against it. "Why would you leave a perfectly good job to do this? You'll spend three years and a load of money, and you'll get a degree, and then if you do find a job, you'll earn less than you're earning now!!" All true. But I wasn't going to university to get a degree. I was going to university to get the fuck out of the house that was suffocating me. University was a safe choice because the nearest one was several hundred miles from home! I went. Mum and dad never really knew what I was studying. They always asked me, every holidays, "what are you doing there anyway?" I paid for my own education, but when the holidays were over, and it was time to go back, dad would say "how are you getting back to Christchurch?" And I'd say, "I thought I'd hitch-hike." And dad would mysteriously have a win on the horses that day, enough to buy me a train or plane ticket. It was a bit of an in joke. I never intended to hitch-hike.
Mum and dad did come up to Christchurch for my graduation though. I was really surprised. Dad took time off work, they left the other kids behind, and came to the ceremony and the dinner with my friends and their parents. I really was surprised about that.
__________________
I don't remember these incidents, but they are things I've been told many times. When I was a baby I liked to sleep in the bed with mum and dad. One night I had very wet nappies, and sat down heavily on dad's face while he was sleeping, and gave him a good soaking. I also projectile vomited on his face. (I think most babies do that to their parents, but in my own mind, I was a champion at it.)
Eventually I was banned from sleeping in their bed, but I got up in the night and crawled down the hall way, towards their room. I didn't make it the whole way, being content to put my head on dad's shoes and sleep on them instead. Just for the record, dad's shoes were in the hall way because they smelled bad, and they didn't want them stinking up the bedroom.
The whole smell thing is very potent. I still smell dad occasionally. If I'm close enough to someone who's drinking beer, the smell takes me right back to sitting on dad's knee as a little kid. And there were times when I was drinking regularly, when I'd smell my own sweat and totally smell dad. I think it must be the smell of alcohol being processed by the body. I don't have that smell any more. Another trace of dad gone.
______________
Apparently dad's feet smelled bad because when he was a kid he ran barefoot through some ashes and burned the bottom of his feet. Ever since then they sweated a lot and smelled funny. Hmmm. Don't know about that one. I think nylon socks and vinyl shoes might have been the reason.
_________________
Me: This writing is feeling kind of lame today.
She: Don't judge it. Your job is just to write it.
NEXT
His father was very strict and harsh on him. If dad didn't clean and polish all the family shoes before he went to bed, his father would wake him up and make him get up in the cold and dark and polish them. Once dad and his brother Jim went to work with their father in Bluff, and were told to meet him at 4pm, no later, to go home with him in the car. They were late and their father just left them in Bluff to find their own way home. Once dad got 98% in a maths test at school and his father was only interested in "why didn't you get 100%?". He was harsh, and spent Sundays at his mother's house without nana and the kids. He used to be a Baptist, but became a Catholic so he could marry nana. That seemed to explain everything -- although I hate to write that, it's what I thought when I was a kid -- if he had been a real Catholic, he wouldn't have been like that.
It's interesting that I didn't hear these stories from dad. Mum told them to me. Maybe dad told them to her. I do remember feeling that these stories were told to make us feel a bit sorry for dad -- to explain why he was quite strict with us. But it was also to tell us how lucky were -- how charmed our childhood was. There was definitely a theme going on there. Poor dad has to work so hard to pay for all the stuff you kids need, and poor dad had a harsh upbringing, and you've got nothing to complain about.
So recently when Jim wrote down some of his memories about his father, I was surprised to read about what an interesting, well-rounded, and genuinely caring man Sid (their father) seemed to be. I asked Jim about the stories I'd heard growing up, and he had a totally different slant on them.
Dad and Jim did lose track of time that day in Bluff, and did indeed miss the ride in the car with their father, who had to be back in Invercargill for some business. Sid gave his business partner money to buy them bus tickets back home -- they were not abandoned cruelly, in Bluff, to find their own way home.
The best one though was the 98% maths result. Apparently Sid got obsessed with this test because he thought dad actually got all the answers right, and that the teacher made a mistake giving him 98%. He should have had 100%! He went through and through the test, convinced his son was wronged with the result, and was going to take it to the school and set things right. Apparently nana also went through the test, saw exactly what mistake dad had made, and stopped her husband from making a spectacle of himself. Wow. What a different story. A father ignoring his son's achievement and focussing on the failing -- OR, a father convinced his son had been short-changed and determined to put things right.
So, it's with that in mind that I resume my story telling. At times I may have got the totally wrong end of the stick. That's the charm of memories and experiences I suppose. I still feel nervous about people reading this and thinking "WTF? That's not what happened!" We all want to know the truth. But we all carry around a different version of it.
_________________
So was dad really strict? I don't think so. It's not in the top 5 things I'd say about him. He expected us to behave ourselves, but he was very clear about what that meant -- he was fair in that way. I don't ever remember getting a smack or any physical punishment from him. I do remember him sitting me on his knee, telling me what I had done was wrong, and why, and why it was a disappointment to him. (I have no idea what I did. I was obsessively law abiding as a child.) And I remember feeling utterly mortified and ashamed, and saying "Can't you stop growling, and just give me a smack and let me go?" And I think dad laughed. He laughed when he told that story in later years, the time Susie asked for a smack!
Dad was predictable and reasonable. At least to me. He felt like a stable force in a chaotic household, where mum was often a disturbing emotional whirlwind, difficult to navigate around. I would never say I felt close to dad, but I was desperate to be close, and I tried different tactics to achieve it. As an adult, I really did feel like dad was my only sane connection to the family -- he was rational and trustworthy, and I could relate to him, I could hide behind him a bit, and he gave the whole thing a sense of normalcy that was decidedly lacking without him. I was devastated when he died. My whole family connection disintegrated, and I felt exposed and terrified. My whole connection with the family had, until that time, been conducted through mum and dad. I didn't know my sisters as adults. My relationship with mum was shallow -- we were complete mysteries to each other. But more on that later.
____________________
Dad was very against tertiary education, and he made no secret of the fact that he thought going to university was a complete waste of time. He used to complain loudly about the students he was forced to hire in the university holidays, who "think they know everything and know nothing". Total waste of time! When I eventually got up the courage to leave home and make my own way in the world, opting to start with a university degree to propel me into my bright new future, he argued against it. "Why would you leave a perfectly good job to do this? You'll spend three years and a load of money, and you'll get a degree, and then if you do find a job, you'll earn less than you're earning now!!" All true. But I wasn't going to university to get a degree. I was going to university to get the fuck out of the house that was suffocating me. University was a safe choice because the nearest one was several hundred miles from home! I went. Mum and dad never really knew what I was studying. They always asked me, every holidays, "what are you doing there anyway?" I paid for my own education, but when the holidays were over, and it was time to go back, dad would say "how are you getting back to Christchurch?" And I'd say, "I thought I'd hitch-hike." And dad would mysteriously have a win on the horses that day, enough to buy me a train or plane ticket. It was a bit of an in joke. I never intended to hitch-hike.
Mum and dad did come up to Christchurch for my graduation though. I was really surprised. Dad took time off work, they left the other kids behind, and came to the ceremony and the dinner with my friends and their parents. I really was surprised about that.
__________________
I don't remember these incidents, but they are things I've been told many times. When I was a baby I liked to sleep in the bed with mum and dad. One night I had very wet nappies, and sat down heavily on dad's face while he was sleeping, and gave him a good soaking. I also projectile vomited on his face. (I think most babies do that to their parents, but in my own mind, I was a champion at it.)
Eventually I was banned from sleeping in their bed, but I got up in the night and crawled down the hall way, towards their room. I didn't make it the whole way, being content to put my head on dad's shoes and sleep on them instead. Just for the record, dad's shoes were in the hall way because they smelled bad, and they didn't want them stinking up the bedroom.
The whole smell thing is very potent. I still smell dad occasionally. If I'm close enough to someone who's drinking beer, the smell takes me right back to sitting on dad's knee as a little kid. And there were times when I was drinking regularly, when I'd smell my own sweat and totally smell dad. I think it must be the smell of alcohol being processed by the body. I don't have that smell any more. Another trace of dad gone.
______________
Apparently dad's feet smelled bad because when he was a kid he ran barefoot through some ashes and burned the bottom of his feet. Ever since then they sweated a lot and smelled funny. Hmmm. Don't know about that one. I think nylon socks and vinyl shoes might have been the reason.
_________________
Me: This writing is feeling kind of lame today.
She: Don't judge it. Your job is just to write it.
NEXT
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Dad Stories
Me: This is going better than I ever expected. The writing is just flowing out of me. Having you here is huge, by the way. I don't feel anywhere near as overwhelmed or scared now you're here.
She: I have always been here.
Me: I was wondering about that. You're that wise deep me from way back, aren't you? The one who knew when things weren't quite right.
She: Yes.
Me: I'm sorry I forgot about you for so long. You're so much nicer than that other voice I've been listening to all these years.
She:It's good to have your attention!
Me: Finally eh? I woke up with a head full of ideas about this story. About calling the stories about dad's side of the family Paternal, and mum's side Maternal, and another part, just about how that all affected me and my life Internal, and then about the rest of the world External... And I'm remembering all sorts of stories now, quite vividly. Don't know if they're true, but it's what I remember, and that's what I want to write about...
She: Let's just keep writing about dad for now.
Me: OK.
I don't want to come across as judgmental. When I say dad was a boozer, I'm just saying it as a fact. It's just what he did a lot, and a lot of my memories about him involve drinking. I'm not saying "this was a terrible thing." It's just what was.
A couple of days before dad died, I was sitting with him in the bedroom -- he was home from hospital now, home to die. We were alone. He wasn't talking much, but he suddenly said "Susie, there's an envelope in the bottom drawer of my bedside cabinet. Can you get it?" Was he going to change his will on his deathbed and leave his modest fortune to his eldest daughter?! Was there a family secret he needed to share so he could die in peace? The envelope had a wad of money in it. $20s, $10s, $5s. A few hundred dollars. "Go to Wilson Neils and make sure there's plenty of booze for my funeral. I don't want it running out. And make sure you get a case of sparkling wine for mum." "Where did this money come from?" "These are my TAB winnings!" He seemed genuinely delighted.
Later that same day he roused from a slumber and said "There's only one thing I wish I'd done in my life that I didn't do!" Wow, cool, now we're getting down to the deep and meaningful. "What was that dad?" "Finish gibbing the garage. I suppose it doesn't really matter." I suppose I could have got him to tell me how to do it and manage the proceedings from his bed, so he could die a totally satisfied man. But I was a bit teary and overwhelmed. As far as I know that garage still isn't gibbed, and it still doesn't matter.
Anyway, it's a fine achievement to get to the end of your life feeling satisfied that your only unfinished business was a bit of simple carpentry.
________________
I don't like saying this, but if dad had lived as long as Bill Cook did, he's be just like him. Minus the budgies.
_____________
First memory of reading -- Dad taught me to read when I was two or three.
I am clever! I can read. I’m delighted, dancing and clapping. Dad is delighted too. He shows the visitors how clever I am. “Hold up a record, and she will read you the title!”
Someone holds up the record with the yellow label. I point at the title. “Little. Black. Sambo?”
YES!
The red label: “Little Red Hen?”
YES!
Green: “Henny Penny!”
Blue: “Peter and the WOLF!”
Everyone is amazed and clapping, and I am happy.
How long did Dad and I get away with this party trick? Not sure, but ever since I was three, I thought I could read, and I never thought otherwise. Thanks dad, that was brilliant.
_________________
I never thought about dad as a big gardener -- he just wasn't the type. But he did grow a vege garden, both at the Patterson St house and at Princes St. From this distance, I can understand what he was up to -- he did things other people didn't want to do, so he could get some time alone. Like grow veges and do accounts and taxes. My memories of dad in the vege garden involve a transistor radio tuned to the races, a bottle of beer, an old bedframe with the bedsprings attached that he used to sieve large amounts of soil very quickly, and a round yellow plastic seed dispenser, which adjusted to let out different sizes of seeds, and made for very efficient seed planting. As I write this, I realise I'm just remembering one day. It was the same day I was pottering around near the black currant bushes and looked down to see a huge black spider running across the front of my pretty smocked dress printed with sprigs of lavendar flowers. Did I scream? I know I cried. I know mum and dad came. But after the shock of the spider it's a bit of a blank. After that day I had nightmares for a while--the wall in our bedroom, right opposite the bed, was crawling with black spiders.
When dad died I tried to find that seed dispenser, something special to remember him by. (I see just now that Freud would be loving this disclosure!) I looked high and low for it, in the garage and sheds, in the attic boxes. I never found it.
________________
I started drinking when I was 18. That's when it was legal, and I was not a rule breaker! So on my 18th birthday I had drinks after work with my work mates. I felt like crap after a couple of glasses of wine. I went home, lay on my bed, and thought "Drinking's stupid. I'm not going to drink again." Later dad came in the back door from work, holding up a bottle in a brown paper bag. "I got some wine for Susie's birthday!" He looked so happy. Wine was special then -- it wasn't common like it is now. And so dad poured himself a beer and mum and me a glass of wine, and I pretended to be grateful and excited. This was a big event for them. And for me I guess. I was 18, and I was admitted into the adult ritual of "a drink before dinner."
30+ years later, it was this that I struggled with most when I tried to stop drinking. It's that identity thing. Drinking marked my transition from child to adult. Drinking meant I was grown up.
_________________
Dad was on the outside of a lot of our life. He went to work. He provided the money. But mum was in charge of us, and dad kept himself out of things until he was summonsed. Dad had other things to think about and worry about -- we shouldn't bother him. So I didn't expect much from him in terms of intimacy or closeness. He was very safe, and could be called on and relied on, but he wasn't that emotionally involved. But I do have an important memory of dad completely shocking me emotionally -- in a good way, and he probably had no idea of the significance of what he did.
I used to work in his office after school. I'd walk up from St Catherine's, and do filing, mail, and then get a ride home with dad at 5pm. He was driving a car by then. He was the office manager after all. He used to tell me, "Never learn to type, Susie. You'll end up being Someone's Secretary!" Ending up being Someone's Secretary was definitely the worst case scenario in my young mind. I would never end up being one of those! I was going to be a writer. (It never occurred to me that it might be handy for a writer to know how to type.)
Next to dad's office on Esk Street was a stationery shop. Photographic posters were getting popular, and they had one hanging in their window -- a winter scene, trees thick with snow, shot with a hot pink filter, with the sun all fractured into a star shape. I was utterly enthralled with it. I guess I stopped and pointed it out to dad. He said "Would you like it?" I couldn't speak. But my face said something meaningful. He walked right into the shop and bought it for me. I was completely gob-smacked. Writing this is bringing tears to my eyes.
She: what's going on?
Me: It was a rare moment growing up that I felt like someone. Like I was a person, with likes and dislikes, and someone else listened to what I liked, and responded. It wasn't about getting a poster. It was about being taken seriously. About being acknowledged.
This didn't happen normally. Liking and wanting something was waving a red flag, asking to be teased, ridiculed, mocked and manipulated, and eventually getting it and being harassed about gratitude and the sacrifices of others. Not by dad -- he didn't do that. But I just didn't have that many opportunities like this with him. The point is that I felt seen. I was someone. It was immense.
She: do you want to write any more about that?
Me: yes, but not now. That's going to be part of the Maternal story.
She: OK.
NEXT
She: I have always been here.
Me: I was wondering about that. You're that wise deep me from way back, aren't you? The one who knew when things weren't quite right.
She: Yes.
Me: I'm sorry I forgot about you for so long. You're so much nicer than that other voice I've been listening to all these years.
She:It's good to have your attention!
Me: Finally eh? I woke up with a head full of ideas about this story. About calling the stories about dad's side of the family Paternal, and mum's side Maternal, and another part, just about how that all affected me and my life Internal, and then about the rest of the world External... And I'm remembering all sorts of stories now, quite vividly. Don't know if they're true, but it's what I remember, and that's what I want to write about...
She: Let's just keep writing about dad for now.
Me: OK.
I don't want to come across as judgmental. When I say dad was a boozer, I'm just saying it as a fact. It's just what he did a lot, and a lot of my memories about him involve drinking. I'm not saying "this was a terrible thing." It's just what was.
A couple of days before dad died, I was sitting with him in the bedroom -- he was home from hospital now, home to die. We were alone. He wasn't talking much, but he suddenly said "Susie, there's an envelope in the bottom drawer of my bedside cabinet. Can you get it?" Was he going to change his will on his deathbed and leave his modest fortune to his eldest daughter?! Was there a family secret he needed to share so he could die in peace? The envelope had a wad of money in it. $20s, $10s, $5s. A few hundred dollars. "Go to Wilson Neils and make sure there's plenty of booze for my funeral. I don't want it running out. And make sure you get a case of sparkling wine for mum." "Where did this money come from?" "These are my TAB winnings!" He seemed genuinely delighted.
Later that same day he roused from a slumber and said "There's only one thing I wish I'd done in my life that I didn't do!" Wow, cool, now we're getting down to the deep and meaningful. "What was that dad?" "Finish gibbing the garage. I suppose it doesn't really matter." I suppose I could have got him to tell me how to do it and manage the proceedings from his bed, so he could die a totally satisfied man. But I was a bit teary and overwhelmed. As far as I know that garage still isn't gibbed, and it still doesn't matter.
Anyway, it's a fine achievement to get to the end of your life feeling satisfied that your only unfinished business was a bit of simple carpentry.
________________
I don't like saying this, but if dad had lived as long as Bill Cook did, he's be just like him. Minus the budgies.
_____________
First memory of reading -- Dad taught me to read when I was two or three.
I am clever! I can read. I’m delighted, dancing and clapping. Dad is delighted too. He shows the visitors how clever I am. “Hold up a record, and she will read you the title!”
Someone holds up the record with the yellow label. I point at the title. “Little. Black. Sambo?”
YES!
The red label: “Little Red Hen?”
YES!
Green: “Henny Penny!”
Blue: “Peter and the WOLF!”
Everyone is amazed and clapping, and I am happy.
How long did Dad and I get away with this party trick? Not sure, but ever since I was three, I thought I could read, and I never thought otherwise. Thanks dad, that was brilliant.
_________________
I never thought about dad as a big gardener -- he just wasn't the type. But he did grow a vege garden, both at the Patterson St house and at Princes St. From this distance, I can understand what he was up to -- he did things other people didn't want to do, so he could get some time alone. Like grow veges and do accounts and taxes. My memories of dad in the vege garden involve a transistor radio tuned to the races, a bottle of beer, an old bedframe with the bedsprings attached that he used to sieve large amounts of soil very quickly, and a round yellow plastic seed dispenser, which adjusted to let out different sizes of seeds, and made for very efficient seed planting. As I write this, I realise I'm just remembering one day. It was the same day I was pottering around near the black currant bushes and looked down to see a huge black spider running across the front of my pretty smocked dress printed with sprigs of lavendar flowers. Did I scream? I know I cried. I know mum and dad came. But after the shock of the spider it's a bit of a blank. After that day I had nightmares for a while--the wall in our bedroom, right opposite the bed, was crawling with black spiders.
When dad died I tried to find that seed dispenser, something special to remember him by. (I see just now that Freud would be loving this disclosure!) I looked high and low for it, in the garage and sheds, in the attic boxes. I never found it.
________________
I started drinking when I was 18. That's when it was legal, and I was not a rule breaker! So on my 18th birthday I had drinks after work with my work mates. I felt like crap after a couple of glasses of wine. I went home, lay on my bed, and thought "Drinking's stupid. I'm not going to drink again." Later dad came in the back door from work, holding up a bottle in a brown paper bag. "I got some wine for Susie's birthday!" He looked so happy. Wine was special then -- it wasn't common like it is now. And so dad poured himself a beer and mum and me a glass of wine, and I pretended to be grateful and excited. This was a big event for them. And for me I guess. I was 18, and I was admitted into the adult ritual of "a drink before dinner."
30+ years later, it was this that I struggled with most when I tried to stop drinking. It's that identity thing. Drinking marked my transition from child to adult. Drinking meant I was grown up.
_________________
Dad was on the outside of a lot of our life. He went to work. He provided the money. But mum was in charge of us, and dad kept himself out of things until he was summonsed. Dad had other things to think about and worry about -- we shouldn't bother him. So I didn't expect much from him in terms of intimacy or closeness. He was very safe, and could be called on and relied on, but he wasn't that emotionally involved. But I do have an important memory of dad completely shocking me emotionally -- in a good way, and he probably had no idea of the significance of what he did.
I used to work in his office after school. I'd walk up from St Catherine's, and do filing, mail, and then get a ride home with dad at 5pm. He was driving a car by then. He was the office manager after all. He used to tell me, "Never learn to type, Susie. You'll end up being Someone's Secretary!" Ending up being Someone's Secretary was definitely the worst case scenario in my young mind. I would never end up being one of those! I was going to be a writer. (It never occurred to me that it might be handy for a writer to know how to type.)
Next to dad's office on Esk Street was a stationery shop. Photographic posters were getting popular, and they had one hanging in their window -- a winter scene, trees thick with snow, shot with a hot pink filter, with the sun all fractured into a star shape. I was utterly enthralled with it. I guess I stopped and pointed it out to dad. He said "Would you like it?" I couldn't speak. But my face said something meaningful. He walked right into the shop and bought it for me. I was completely gob-smacked. Writing this is bringing tears to my eyes.
She: what's going on?
Me: It was a rare moment growing up that I felt like someone. Like I was a person, with likes and dislikes, and someone else listened to what I liked, and responded. It wasn't about getting a poster. It was about being taken seriously. About being acknowledged.
This didn't happen normally. Liking and wanting something was waving a red flag, asking to be teased, ridiculed, mocked and manipulated, and eventually getting it and being harassed about gratitude and the sacrifices of others. Not by dad -- he didn't do that. But I just didn't have that many opportunities like this with him. The point is that I felt seen. I was someone. It was immense.
She: do you want to write any more about that?
Me: yes, but not now. That's going to be part of the Maternal story.
She: OK.
NEXT
Friday, July 18, 2014
Better Than Those Other Boozers
We were Catholics. We only had girls in our family. We were drinkers, but not like those other boozers. This was most definitely the best case scenario! I wasn't boastful or proud about it, but I knew for sure that Catholics were better than non-catholics. It was better to have girls than boys. And drinkers were definitely better than non drinkers. For sure.
Drinkers were fun, good sorts, 'up for it' -- whatever that meant. Drinkers could take a joke! I can only think of one person in the family's regular social circles who was a non-drinker and a good sort. Mum's cousin Pauline. She was a happy, bubbly party animal, and she didn't drink. The interesting thing about this snippet is that I thought something was wrong with her -- because she didn't drink. I am now full of admiration that she functioned so well in such a boozy environment without drinking! I know now how hard that is.
And we were definitely not Kate and Bill kinds of drinkers, starting in the morning and conking out at 6pm. Definitely not. We were normal drinkers...
She: why have you stopped?
Me: Why am I saying "we" were drinkers? I'm only 7 or 8 years old. I wasn't drinking then. But I was acutely aware of belonging to a drinking family, a drinking community. It was an identity. People were catholic or non-catholic. Drinkers or non-drinkers. Identity. Later, when I try to quit drinking, I feel it as an attack on my identity -- my right, my choice, my identity under attack. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Anyway, we sure weren't as bad as Kate and Bill. Or were we? I can't talk about this any longer without moving to my dad's generation, and dad specifically. Dad was a drinker. He was a regular, happy, non-drunk, high-achieveing, high-functioning drinker. He worked really hard and diligently to provide for us. He was at home a lot. He took holidays with use. He was reliable and solid. And he was a boozer.
You know how some people obsess about having a spare tire and an emergency beacon in the boot of the car at all times? We had to have a crate of beer.
You know how some people go to the liquor store and come home with some bags or a box of booze? We took a trailer to Wilson Neils to buy our booze supplies. (My sister Maria remembers thinking we were very special Wilson Neil customers because they sent us a huge box of El Dorado chocolates every Christmas!)
You know how some people have a bottle recycling bin? We had a bottle recycling shed!
You know how some people only drink at Christmas or on special occasions? I didn't know that was an option. In our house people drank every day. At 5 when dad got home, at dinner time, after dinner. Earlier on the weekends. Christmas and special occasions were when you let it rip!
Dad was not a drunk. He was fun, hospitable, funny (if you like his caustic humour) and sharp witted. He was a fun drinker. I was never afraid of him because of drinking. He was a laughing relaxed drinker. A joker. He'd sometimes do radical things when he was drinking. He'd give us a dollar (a whole dollar) and tell us to go and buy wine gums at the dairy -- you got 10 wine gums for a cent those day, and he laughed about the shop keeper having to count out so many lollies. Once he cut one of Polly's pigtails off at a party -- only because Polly was desperate to have short hair and mum wouldn't let her... Dad got some scissors, cut off one lovely wavy pigtail, and said "Go and ask your mother what side she likes the best!" Roaring with laughter. Haha Hilarious.
I guess that wasn't all fun and games. That ended up being a terrible weekend, with mum sleeping downstairs and refusing to go to mass with the family. We were mortified, terrified, thrilled. Dad did something so bad that mum wouldn't speak to him.
I only remember dad being obviously drunk once. I was 21, and I was drunk too. And I think that's why I remember this so vividly. A New Year's Eve in Arrowtown, well after midnight, leaving the party at the house down by the river "I'm going home!" said Dad. "Me too!" and off we headed, up through the camping ground shortcut, in the dark, running into a wire fence. Shit! Laughing. "We'll have to climb over it." We both fell, swearing and laughing, over the wire into the long grass. "I'm drunk!" I said. " Me too." This was one of a handful of memories when it was just me and dad, together, happy. It still makes me chuckle.
A few days before dad died (of liver and other cancers, at the age of 54) he was in hospital for a few days. I was sitting alone with him about 6pm, and the duty nurse -- popped her head into the cubicle, picked up the dinner tray, and said "Would you like a beer Peter? We've got Steinlarger in the fridge."
"Don't you know I'm dying of liver cancer?" Dad laughed.
"Yes, of course! A beer's not going to do any more harm now!"
And then dad said, rather sadly, "You know, this is the first time in my life I really don't feel like drinking beer."
Later I stood outside the hospital, waiting to be picked up, big hot tears splashing onto my new suede boots and staining them with dark splotches. I was sad because dad was going to die any day now. I wasn't crying about the beer. Did the beer kill him? No. Not on its own.
She: You OK?
Me: My shoulders keep crunching up! I'm feeling worried about where this might go. To be really honest, I'm worried about what other people might say if they read this. Relatives particularly.
I'm honestly not trying to diss dad or my family. I just want to get out what I remember, what I thought. And there's that voice saying "Don't say that about family. You'll hurt people. You don't know the real truth. Don't go there."
She: And "who do you think you are?"
Me: Yes! Who do I think I am, writing all this about other people when I don't know anything!Who do I think I am writing anything at all? Exactly.
___________________
I've loved reading and writing from the time I could hold a pencil and form words.
This was a mystery to mum, who felt compelled to stop me indulging in this reclusive and unnatural interest. One of my angriest memories of early adolescence, still plagues me to this day when I write.
I'm about 14, in my bedroom, alone, writing in my journal. It is evening. Everyone else is downstairs. I'm happy. Absorbed. A knock on the door. A little sister peeks in. "Mum says you have to come downstairs and be part of the family." "No, I'm busy writing." She went back down to the family. Foot tread on the stairs, the squeak on the third step from the top. Mum throws open my bedroom door. "What are you doing up here? Come downstairs and be part of the family!" "I'm writing." "Come downstairs right now. Writing alone in your room is unnatural at your age!"
I had no choice. I went down stairs. No point being unnatural at my age.
I feel burning in my hands!! But it's good to tell that story. I can see, from this distance, mum was terrified of loosing us. She was terrified we might think and do and know and discover things she didn't know about. She didn't understand that her children were separate people, full of potential and creativity and life and promise. She was terribly threatened by us growing up. She hung on as hard as she could.
_____________________
First memory of writing
I am either five or six. Definitely not seven. The long summer holidays are over and we’re back at school, writing the inevitable “what I did in the school holidays” essay. Except this time the teacher says to write about “my favourite thing about the holidays”. And so I set out to write about the smell of freshly cut grass, which was, without a doubt, my favourite thing about the holidays. And summer in general. And my favourite thing about Dad too, who mowed the grass, and collected it in a massive cardboard box so we could jump from high up in the gum tree, and land safely... in that smell. At five or six, I probably didn’t have the vocabulary or the skill to describe that smell. It’s a challenge even now. But then, leaning over my new exercise book, which was probably covered in hideous pink floral wallpaper, I was remembering hard, just waiting for the right words to come out of the end of my sharp new pencil...
Teacher was doing her rounds. She stopped at my desk and asked me what my essay was about. “The smell of the grass when Dad cuts it.”
“You can’t write about THAT! Write about something you DID!”
I don’t know what happened next. I probably just made up a story about going to stay on a farm and helping feed the lambs or getting a new trampoline for Christmas (which we certainly did not get – a box of grass was as close to a trampoline as we could afford!) Whatever I wrote that day, it was probably my first case of revenge writing. Even at that tender age I was appalled at the teacher’s limited view of what could be expressed in writing, and I feel sure I wrote a 100% grammar- and spelling-perfect boring little story just to get her back!
I am yet to describe the smell of the grass when Dad cut it. He hasn’t cut grass for 20-odd years now, but every time I smell that smell, I smell him.
NEXT
Drinkers were fun, good sorts, 'up for it' -- whatever that meant. Drinkers could take a joke! I can only think of one person in the family's regular social circles who was a non-drinker and a good sort. Mum's cousin Pauline. She was a happy, bubbly party animal, and she didn't drink. The interesting thing about this snippet is that I thought something was wrong with her -- because she didn't drink. I am now full of admiration that she functioned so well in such a boozy environment without drinking! I know now how hard that is.
And we were definitely not Kate and Bill kinds of drinkers, starting in the morning and conking out at 6pm. Definitely not. We were normal drinkers...
She: why have you stopped?
Me: Why am I saying "we" were drinkers? I'm only 7 or 8 years old. I wasn't drinking then. But I was acutely aware of belonging to a drinking family, a drinking community. It was an identity. People were catholic or non-catholic. Drinkers or non-drinkers. Identity. Later, when I try to quit drinking, I feel it as an attack on my identity -- my right, my choice, my identity under attack. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Anyway, we sure weren't as bad as Kate and Bill. Or were we? I can't talk about this any longer without moving to my dad's generation, and dad specifically. Dad was a drinker. He was a regular, happy, non-drunk, high-achieveing, high-functioning drinker. He worked really hard and diligently to provide for us. He was at home a lot. He took holidays with use. He was reliable and solid. And he was a boozer.
You know how some people obsess about having a spare tire and an emergency beacon in the boot of the car at all times? We had to have a crate of beer.
You know how some people go to the liquor store and come home with some bags or a box of booze? We took a trailer to Wilson Neils to buy our booze supplies. (My sister Maria remembers thinking we were very special Wilson Neil customers because they sent us a huge box of El Dorado chocolates every Christmas!)
You know how some people have a bottle recycling bin? We had a bottle recycling shed!
You know how some people only drink at Christmas or on special occasions? I didn't know that was an option. In our house people drank every day. At 5 when dad got home, at dinner time, after dinner. Earlier on the weekends. Christmas and special occasions were when you let it rip!
Dad was not a drunk. He was fun, hospitable, funny (if you like his caustic humour) and sharp witted. He was a fun drinker. I was never afraid of him because of drinking. He was a laughing relaxed drinker. A joker. He'd sometimes do radical things when he was drinking. He'd give us a dollar (a whole dollar) and tell us to go and buy wine gums at the dairy -- you got 10 wine gums for a cent those day, and he laughed about the shop keeper having to count out so many lollies. Once he cut one of Polly's pigtails off at a party -- only because Polly was desperate to have short hair and mum wouldn't let her... Dad got some scissors, cut off one lovely wavy pigtail, and said "Go and ask your mother what side she likes the best!" Roaring with laughter. Haha Hilarious.
I guess that wasn't all fun and games. That ended up being a terrible weekend, with mum sleeping downstairs and refusing to go to mass with the family. We were mortified, terrified, thrilled. Dad did something so bad that mum wouldn't speak to him.
I only remember dad being obviously drunk once. I was 21, and I was drunk too. And I think that's why I remember this so vividly. A New Year's Eve in Arrowtown, well after midnight, leaving the party at the house down by the river "I'm going home!" said Dad. "Me too!" and off we headed, up through the camping ground shortcut, in the dark, running into a wire fence. Shit! Laughing. "We'll have to climb over it." We both fell, swearing and laughing, over the wire into the long grass. "I'm drunk!" I said. " Me too." This was one of a handful of memories when it was just me and dad, together, happy. It still makes me chuckle.
A few days before dad died (of liver and other cancers, at the age of 54) he was in hospital for a few days. I was sitting alone with him about 6pm, and the duty nurse -- popped her head into the cubicle, picked up the dinner tray, and said "Would you like a beer Peter? We've got Steinlarger in the fridge."
"Don't you know I'm dying of liver cancer?" Dad laughed.
"Yes, of course! A beer's not going to do any more harm now!"
And then dad said, rather sadly, "You know, this is the first time in my life I really don't feel like drinking beer."
Later I stood outside the hospital, waiting to be picked up, big hot tears splashing onto my new suede boots and staining them with dark splotches. I was sad because dad was going to die any day now. I wasn't crying about the beer. Did the beer kill him? No. Not on its own.
She: You OK?
Me: My shoulders keep crunching up! I'm feeling worried about where this might go. To be really honest, I'm worried about what other people might say if they read this. Relatives particularly.
I'm honestly not trying to diss dad or my family. I just want to get out what I remember, what I thought. And there's that voice saying "Don't say that about family. You'll hurt people. You don't know the real truth. Don't go there."
She: And "who do you think you are?"
Me: Yes! Who do I think I am, writing all this about other people when I don't know anything!Who do I think I am writing anything at all? Exactly.
___________________
I've loved reading and writing from the time I could hold a pencil and form words.
This was a mystery to mum, who felt compelled to stop me indulging in this reclusive and unnatural interest. One of my angriest memories of early adolescence, still plagues me to this day when I write.
I'm about 14, in my bedroom, alone, writing in my journal. It is evening. Everyone else is downstairs. I'm happy. Absorbed. A knock on the door. A little sister peeks in. "Mum says you have to come downstairs and be part of the family." "No, I'm busy writing." She went back down to the family. Foot tread on the stairs, the squeak on the third step from the top. Mum throws open my bedroom door. "What are you doing up here? Come downstairs and be part of the family!" "I'm writing." "Come downstairs right now. Writing alone in your room is unnatural at your age!"
I had no choice. I went down stairs. No point being unnatural at my age.
I feel burning in my hands!! But it's good to tell that story. I can see, from this distance, mum was terrified of loosing us. She was terrified we might think and do and know and discover things she didn't know about. She didn't understand that her children were separate people, full of potential and creativity and life and promise. She was terribly threatened by us growing up. She hung on as hard as she could.
_____________________
First memory of writing
I am either five or six. Definitely not seven. The long summer holidays are over and we’re back at school, writing the inevitable “what I did in the school holidays” essay. Except this time the teacher says to write about “my favourite thing about the holidays”. And so I set out to write about the smell of freshly cut grass, which was, without a doubt, my favourite thing about the holidays. And summer in general. And my favourite thing about Dad too, who mowed the grass, and collected it in a massive cardboard box so we could jump from high up in the gum tree, and land safely... in that smell. At five or six, I probably didn’t have the vocabulary or the skill to describe that smell. It’s a challenge even now. But then, leaning over my new exercise book, which was probably covered in hideous pink floral wallpaper, I was remembering hard, just waiting for the right words to come out of the end of my sharp new pencil...
Teacher was doing her rounds. She stopped at my desk and asked me what my essay was about. “The smell of the grass when Dad cuts it.”
“You can’t write about THAT! Write about something you DID!”
I don’t know what happened next. I probably just made up a story about going to stay on a farm and helping feed the lambs or getting a new trampoline for Christmas (which we certainly did not get – a box of grass was as close to a trampoline as we could afford!) Whatever I wrote that day, it was probably my first case of revenge writing. Even at that tender age I was appalled at the teacher’s limited view of what could be expressed in writing, and I feel sure I wrote a 100% grammar- and spelling-perfect boring little story just to get her back!
I am yet to describe the smell of the grass when Dad cut it. He hasn’t cut grass for 20-odd years now, but every time I smell that smell, I smell him.
NEXT
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Straight-laced Party Animals
Me: I've been looking forward writing today.
She: I know.
Me: It doesn't seem so overwhelming when I take it like this -- one bit at a time, and not alone.
She: Tell me about those relatives.
My great great grandmother on my dad's mother's side had a wooden leg, and the story of how she got it went that one night she got so drunk on gin that she fell in the fireplace, and her leg got burned off. I have no idea if this story was true. Truth isn't really the point. This was a funny family story. We heard it like an old family joke, old grannie's nana was a boozer who fell in the fire, and her leg burned off. Haha hilarious.
There were quite a few boozers in that family's story book. The Houlihan girls (or was it the Hourihans before them?) had a reputation as party girls, drinkers, dancers, walking 25km from Invercargill to Riverton to get to a dance, because they didn't have a ride. That was one hell of a commitment to partying!
Aunty Kate and Uncle Bill would be drinking gin when we arrived for a visit after mass on Sunday. That would be 11am. We loved Kate and Bill. Everyone did. Aunty Kate sat by the fire in the lounge, smoking, drinking, laughing her throaty smokey laugh. She had white hair when she was quite young -- just like I do, and people have said I look like Kate. She held her cigarettes in her mouth and the smoke curled up her face, into her lovely white hair, giving it a yellow streak, just like their cocatiel bird, who squaked swear words, and made everyone laugh.
I saw Aunty Kate not long before she died. It was the first time I'd seen her not sitting in her chair beside the fire. It hadn't registered to me that she actually had a bedroom and a bed! She was so bloated and croaky from years of drinking and smoking, and she was so lovely and kind and pleased to see us. She was always happy when the little girls came to see her. She still had that yellow streak in her beautiful white hair.
Kate and Bill were the family party animals for years -- over generations. Kate was dad's aunty, but not that much older than him. She was nana Ward's youngest sister. Quite a tear-away. She and Bill bought booze for dad and his friends when they were under age. They had parties at their house, and welcomed all the young people who showed up. They were generous and hospitable, 100% welcoming.
I was fascinated by their time-table. Kate and Bills "hours" were widely known in our family. This was when they were getting a bit older -- late 50s? 60s?
They ate their dinner at 4pm, went to bed at 6pm, got up at 4am, and started drinking about 10am. This was very likely why we only visited after Sunday mass... so they weren't too wasted when we got there.
Once mum told me that they drank so much because of a sad thing that happened to them -- they were so sad they drank to cheer up. They couldn't have children of their own, so they adopted a beautiful girl called ____________ (Madeline? Marguerite?). She had beautiful long red hair, and they loved her so much. Even though they adopted her, they didn't get the right paperwork signed, and one day her real mother came and took her away, and they never saw her again. Kate and Bill were devastated. That's why they drink so much.
My little sisters, Angie and Maria, used to visit Kate and Bill on the way home from St Patrick's primary school. I need to ask them if they had a gin with them for afternoon tea!
Kate and Bill couldn't drive. Well, maybe they could, but they couldn't. They used to take a taxi down to the Wilson Neil liquor store. One day they bought their supplies, left the shop, jumped in the cab and said, "21 Centre Street please!" When they got to their gate, Bill said "How much do we owe you?" The guy in the driver's seat said "Nothing, I'm not a taxi!"
Bill lived a lot longer than Kate, and for a long time I didn't hear much about him. I remember he did come to dad's funeral, and instead of sitting with the oldies down in the lounge, he sat in the garage with the young people, drinking and partying like the old days.
Bill had to have some kind of operation on his leg -- not too long before he died. Someone asked him if he was worried about it, and he replied famously "I don't need my leg to drink!" Haha hilarious.
She: Are you doing OK?
Me: I'm getting a bit tight in the chest, sore in the throat. Telling these stories is making me feel a bit uncomfortable.
It just seems sad that in my memory Kate and Bill are defined by their drinking. That's pretty much all I know about them. Well I know they worked in a sawmill out Tewaewae Bay, and Bill worked at the saw mill in Queens Park and cut us huge pine branches for our Christmas trees. We had the biggest Christmas tress in town. But it's all doused in booze. I know nothing else about them. They were defined by their drinking.
It feels like such a narrow view. As a child it felt mostly normal, a bit dangerous, a bit confusing. It was confusing.
There were other people in that family of course, but in my memory they are sort of stuck in one pose, one story. Kate and Bill are alive and moving, colourful, noisy. The others are like old browned photos. Kate had two brothers, Roy and Martin, who had been to the war, and lived with their mother, Old Granny. (the daughter of the legless granny). We called Roy Uncle Canvasback, because he lay on a couch, and in my experience he never got up. When we walked down the path to the door, we would see the lace curtain pull back, Uncle Canvasback checking who was coming to visit. He stayed on the couch the whole time. He could move. Many years later I saw him walking out of his pensioner flat, and I was shocked at how tall he was.
Uncle Martin moved around, but only in the kitchen. He worked at the pub with dad. (Dad had a day job, but he also worked behind the bar at various pubs. I don't really know why. More on that later.) The inside of that house on Eye Street was murky and dark. It was smokey I suppose. A radio was giving the racing results, somewhere in the background. A newspaper with a half-finished crossword and a stumpy pencil sat on the kitchen table. There were calendars, the cheap kinds that we hung inside the cupboard doors, out on the walls, in public. It was a whole other world in there.
Old Granny sat in the rocking chair in the front lounge, by the fireplace. It was dark in that lounge -- they must have had the blinds down. I never saw her stand up. She would call us over, and hunt around in a pocket under her skirts, pull out a coin for us. A penny or tuppence? That's the only time I saw her move. But no, there's a photo of her standing outside the Bacillica, with Nana Ward (her daughter), Dad (her grandson) and me (her great granddaughter). We're at a family wedding. Four generations on the church steps, squinting into the sun.
Me: I need a break. I had no idea all that Kate and Bill stuff was there. I can still see the colours in their house, teal and pale yellow. Kate by the fire, laughing. Bill in the kitchen, having a beer with dad, a soft mumble of talk about the races. A budgie swearing in the corner. I'm staring at Kate's hair, fascinated and horrified, as if I knew one day, I might look like her.
She: Great work.
Me: Thanks. I feel a bit choked up, but OK.
She: Take a break now.
_________________
It seems strange to realise that the out-of-control drinking I was amoungst as a child (and these are only the tip of the excessive drinking iceberg), was laughed about, a joke, a haha hilarious legend. Now I know drinking is no joke. But I suppose joking about difficult things is one way to deal with them -- to cope with them -- to stop them from crushing you under their weight.
There are lots of photos of me as a child with a serious but bemused look on my face, like even then, I know this wasn't funny. I knew things just weren't quite right.
I also knew, without a doubt, that we were better somehow, than the family boozers that were joked about. There was drinking in our house, but it wasn't as bad as all that.
NEXT Better Than Those Other Boozers
She: I know.
Me: It doesn't seem so overwhelming when I take it like this -- one bit at a time, and not alone.
She: Tell me about those relatives.
My great great grandmother on my dad's mother's side had a wooden leg, and the story of how she got it went that one night she got so drunk on gin that she fell in the fireplace, and her leg got burned off. I have no idea if this story was true. Truth isn't really the point. This was a funny family story. We heard it like an old family joke, old grannie's nana was a boozer who fell in the fire, and her leg burned off. Haha hilarious.
There were quite a few boozers in that family's story book. The Houlihan girls (or was it the Hourihans before them?) had a reputation as party girls, drinkers, dancers, walking 25km from Invercargill to Riverton to get to a dance, because they didn't have a ride. That was one hell of a commitment to partying!
Aunty Kate and Uncle Bill would be drinking gin when we arrived for a visit after mass on Sunday. That would be 11am. We loved Kate and Bill. Everyone did. Aunty Kate sat by the fire in the lounge, smoking, drinking, laughing her throaty smokey laugh. She had white hair when she was quite young -- just like I do, and people have said I look like Kate. She held her cigarettes in her mouth and the smoke curled up her face, into her lovely white hair, giving it a yellow streak, just like their cocatiel bird, who squaked swear words, and made everyone laugh.
I saw Aunty Kate not long before she died. It was the first time I'd seen her not sitting in her chair beside the fire. It hadn't registered to me that she actually had a bedroom and a bed! She was so bloated and croaky from years of drinking and smoking, and she was so lovely and kind and pleased to see us. She was always happy when the little girls came to see her. She still had that yellow streak in her beautiful white hair.
Kate and Bill were the family party animals for years -- over generations. Kate was dad's aunty, but not that much older than him. She was nana Ward's youngest sister. Quite a tear-away. She and Bill bought booze for dad and his friends when they were under age. They had parties at their house, and welcomed all the young people who showed up. They were generous and hospitable, 100% welcoming.
I was fascinated by their time-table. Kate and Bills "hours" were widely known in our family. This was when they were getting a bit older -- late 50s? 60s?
They ate their dinner at 4pm, went to bed at 6pm, got up at 4am, and started drinking about 10am. This was very likely why we only visited after Sunday mass... so they weren't too wasted when we got there.
Once mum told me that they drank so much because of a sad thing that happened to them -- they were so sad they drank to cheer up. They couldn't have children of their own, so they adopted a beautiful girl called ____________ (Madeline? Marguerite?). She had beautiful long red hair, and they loved her so much. Even though they adopted her, they didn't get the right paperwork signed, and one day her real mother came and took her away, and they never saw her again. Kate and Bill were devastated. That's why they drink so much.
My little sisters, Angie and Maria, used to visit Kate and Bill on the way home from St Patrick's primary school. I need to ask them if they had a gin with them for afternoon tea!
Kate and Bill couldn't drive. Well, maybe they could, but they couldn't. They used to take a taxi down to the Wilson Neil liquor store. One day they bought their supplies, left the shop, jumped in the cab and said, "21 Centre Street please!" When they got to their gate, Bill said "How much do we owe you?" The guy in the driver's seat said "Nothing, I'm not a taxi!"
Bill lived a lot longer than Kate, and for a long time I didn't hear much about him. I remember he did come to dad's funeral, and instead of sitting with the oldies down in the lounge, he sat in the garage with the young people, drinking and partying like the old days.
Bill had to have some kind of operation on his leg -- not too long before he died. Someone asked him if he was worried about it, and he replied famously "I don't need my leg to drink!" Haha hilarious.
She: Are you doing OK?
Me: I'm getting a bit tight in the chest, sore in the throat. Telling these stories is making me feel a bit uncomfortable.
It just seems sad that in my memory Kate and Bill are defined by their drinking. That's pretty much all I know about them. Well I know they worked in a sawmill out Tewaewae Bay, and Bill worked at the saw mill in Queens Park and cut us huge pine branches for our Christmas trees. We had the biggest Christmas tress in town. But it's all doused in booze. I know nothing else about them. They were defined by their drinking.
It feels like such a narrow view. As a child it felt mostly normal, a bit dangerous, a bit confusing. It was confusing.
There were other people in that family of course, but in my memory they are sort of stuck in one pose, one story. Kate and Bill are alive and moving, colourful, noisy. The others are like old browned photos. Kate had two brothers, Roy and Martin, who had been to the war, and lived with their mother, Old Granny. (the daughter of the legless granny). We called Roy Uncle Canvasback, because he lay on a couch, and in my experience he never got up. When we walked down the path to the door, we would see the lace curtain pull back, Uncle Canvasback checking who was coming to visit. He stayed on the couch the whole time. He could move. Many years later I saw him walking out of his pensioner flat, and I was shocked at how tall he was.
Uncle Martin moved around, but only in the kitchen. He worked at the pub with dad. (Dad had a day job, but he also worked behind the bar at various pubs. I don't really know why. More on that later.) The inside of that house on Eye Street was murky and dark. It was smokey I suppose. A radio was giving the racing results, somewhere in the background. A newspaper with a half-finished crossword and a stumpy pencil sat on the kitchen table. There were calendars, the cheap kinds that we hung inside the cupboard doors, out on the walls, in public. It was a whole other world in there.
Old Granny sat in the rocking chair in the front lounge, by the fireplace. It was dark in that lounge -- they must have had the blinds down. I never saw her stand up. She would call us over, and hunt around in a pocket under her skirts, pull out a coin for us. A penny or tuppence? That's the only time I saw her move. But no, there's a photo of her standing outside the Bacillica, with Nana Ward (her daughter), Dad (her grandson) and me (her great granddaughter). We're at a family wedding. Four generations on the church steps, squinting into the sun.
Me: I need a break. I had no idea all that Kate and Bill stuff was there. I can still see the colours in their house, teal and pale yellow. Kate by the fire, laughing. Bill in the kitchen, having a beer with dad, a soft mumble of talk about the races. A budgie swearing in the corner. I'm staring at Kate's hair, fascinated and horrified, as if I knew one day, I might look like her.
She: Great work.
Me: Thanks. I feel a bit choked up, but OK.
She: Take a break now.
_________________
It seems strange to realise that the out-of-control drinking I was amoungst as a child (and these are only the tip of the excessive drinking iceberg), was laughed about, a joke, a haha hilarious legend. Now I know drinking is no joke. But I suppose joking about difficult things is one way to deal with them -- to cope with them -- to stop them from crushing you under their weight.
There are lots of photos of me as a child with a serious but bemused look on my face, like even then, I know this wasn't funny. I knew things just weren't quite right.
I also knew, without a doubt, that we were better somehow, than the family boozers that were joked about. There was drinking in our house, but it wasn't as bad as all that.
NEXT Better Than Those Other Boozers
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Drinking memories aftermath
Me: What just happened?
She: You tell me.
Me: I wrote those two stories -- my first drink and pouring a beer. I felt OK. But then I felt that hard cold hot pressure in behind my solar plexus, and I started feeling really sad. I felt alone and scared and small. I got a hottie and a blanket, and lay on the couch. I noticed how the small vulnerable part of me always wants to be warm and cosy -- which might explain why I lug a hottie around all day, even in summer. I decided to just lie there an be present with this feeling, accept it, without trying to stop it or numb it out. It was uncomfortable. I was trying to remember the process Tara Brach recommends for uncomfortable emotions, but I couldn't remember. I looked in my old journals, knowing I'd written about it before. I found the page, and read that entry. It was exactly what I was experiencing now. The pressure, the distress of lonliness, the fear, the smallness. That sense of a chilling whisper "You don't even exist." The date on the journal entry was 15 July, 2013. Exactly a year ago today.
I feel like I'm not making any progress at all. I keep on ending up in this sad, scared, lonely crumpled heap.
She: Good description.
Me: But I want to write something inspiring!
She: Stick with writing something honest.
Me: Like me, going round in emotional circles, lying on the couch with my hottie and blankie in the middle of the day? I need something to eat!
_________
When I look deeply into the emotions that derail me (or trigger me as they say in the self-help books these days), I always end up at a feeling of imminent annihilation -- like I'm about to be eliminated. This is a tangible animal fear feeling that I'm about to get snuffed out. My body's reaction is usually to freeze -- no time for flights, no practice at fighting -- freeze is my first response.
The things that trigger this rather dramatic and yes, embarrassing descent into emotional wreckness can be very small things: a sharp word from someone (and an even not-so-sharp but potentially just not that warm and fuzzy). Someone not responding when I speak (being ignored). Being misunderstood when I speak.
So many of us grew up hearing that we were not welcome, appreciated, loved or cherished -- we were naughty by default and had to learn to be good, we were expensive, we were usually a nuciance, too big for our boots, "what did we do to deserve you?" "Bloody kids, always wanting something". A dissappointment, constantly on the verge of doing something grieveiously wrong, ungrateful. I grew up ashamed of myself. Just for being alive.
In my deep, wise core, I did know that this was total bullshit. One just didn't verbalise things like that in our family. And deep down I think I knew the adults hadn't thought this kind of communication through -- they probably did it in the name of character building. They were children themselves. They were scared and lonely and small too.
This scaredness, loneliness, vulerability is universal. I know that. I know that by not numbing it or glossing it over, running like stink from it, it can heal. Not just in the freezing hot knot behind my own solar plexus, but down the chain of history, way way back.
Did you know my paternal great great grandmother got so drunk on gin she fell in a fire and her leg got so burnt it had to be amputated? And my maternal grandfather was a member of the "Sunday Morning Drinkers" club -- that's what they did instead of going to mass.
She: Save those stories up for tomorrow. You've had a big day.
Me: Good idea.
NEXT Straight-Laced Party Animals
She: You tell me.
Me: I wrote those two stories -- my first drink and pouring a beer. I felt OK. But then I felt that hard cold hot pressure in behind my solar plexus, and I started feeling really sad. I felt alone and scared and small. I got a hottie and a blanket, and lay on the couch. I noticed how the small vulnerable part of me always wants to be warm and cosy -- which might explain why I lug a hottie around all day, even in summer. I decided to just lie there an be present with this feeling, accept it, without trying to stop it or numb it out. It was uncomfortable. I was trying to remember the process Tara Brach recommends for uncomfortable emotions, but I couldn't remember. I looked in my old journals, knowing I'd written about it before. I found the page, and read that entry. It was exactly what I was experiencing now. The pressure, the distress of lonliness, the fear, the smallness. That sense of a chilling whisper "You don't even exist." The date on the journal entry was 15 July, 2013. Exactly a year ago today.
I feel like I'm not making any progress at all. I keep on ending up in this sad, scared, lonely crumpled heap.
She: Good description.
Me: But I want to write something inspiring!
She: Stick with writing something honest.
Me: Like me, going round in emotional circles, lying on the couch with my hottie and blankie in the middle of the day? I need something to eat!
_________
When I look deeply into the emotions that derail me (or trigger me as they say in the self-help books these days), I always end up at a feeling of imminent annihilation -- like I'm about to be eliminated. This is a tangible animal fear feeling that I'm about to get snuffed out. My body's reaction is usually to freeze -- no time for flights, no practice at fighting -- freeze is my first response.
The things that trigger this rather dramatic and yes, embarrassing descent into emotional wreckness can be very small things: a sharp word from someone (and an even not-so-sharp but potentially just not that warm and fuzzy). Someone not responding when I speak (being ignored). Being misunderstood when I speak.
So many of us grew up hearing that we were not welcome, appreciated, loved or cherished -- we were naughty by default and had to learn to be good, we were expensive, we were usually a nuciance, too big for our boots, "what did we do to deserve you?" "Bloody kids, always wanting something". A dissappointment, constantly on the verge of doing something grieveiously wrong, ungrateful. I grew up ashamed of myself. Just for being alive.
In my deep, wise core, I did know that this was total bullshit. One just didn't verbalise things like that in our family. And deep down I think I knew the adults hadn't thought this kind of communication through -- they probably did it in the name of character building. They were children themselves. They were scared and lonely and small too.
This scaredness, loneliness, vulerability is universal. I know that. I know that by not numbing it or glossing it over, running like stink from it, it can heal. Not just in the freezing hot knot behind my own solar plexus, but down the chain of history, way way back.
Did you know my paternal great great grandmother got so drunk on gin she fell in a fire and her leg got so burnt it had to be amputated? And my maternal grandfather was a member of the "Sunday Morning Drinkers" club -- that's what they did instead of going to mass.
She: Save those stories up for tomorrow. You've had a big day.
Me: Good idea.
NEXT Straight-Laced Party Animals
Drinking 1 My first drinking memory
Me: OK, I'm here.
She: Great. What's your first drinking memory?
Me: Sipping the foam off the top of dad's beer.
She: OK, Go!
It's at home. I'm sitting on dad's knee. Julie is probably sitting on his other knee. We're taking turns. Only the foam. We don't sip the beer. We get foam moustaches and laugh. It's a nice time. Sitting on dad, happy. Dad's laughing and happy. We are happy.
At 5 o'clock the focus of the household turns to dad coming home from work. He comes in the bus that Mr O'Lusky drives. Dad and the other office dads who work in town get dropped off at the corner of Patterson St and Hardy Street. We run to the corner to meet him, compete to hold his hand. When we get home, one takes his coat. One gets his slippers. One brings him a beer. I know getting the beer is a real memory. It would have been my job because I was the oldest, and I had the steadiest hands and feet. Did he have a beer every night? Did we race to the corner every night to to meet the bus? I don't know.
I do know though, without a doubt, that dad has to go to work to pay for everything for us girls. Our clothes, the house, food, toys, school fees, music lessons, holidays. That's why we have to make such a fuss of him when he gets home, because he makes this huge sacrifice for us. I feel uneasy about this because I don't really think it's the truth. But I heard it enough times I've never forgotten it. Is it really true? Nobody ever says he goes to work to pay for mum's clothes, or his beer, or the sacks of oysters for the garage party on Friday night, where men in singlets shuck oysters into slimy jars, drinking beer poured from flagon, laughing loud. They take the jars to the pub and sell them, or raffle them, to make money. Dad liked to do that -- make money and have fun at the same time.
But he has to go to work to pay for us girls who are expensive. Like we have any say in the matter. I have a deep sense of justice and injustice. This is the first time I was aware of it. We didn't ask to be born. We didn't ask to go to Catholic school. We didn't want music lessons...
She: are you OK?
Me: Yes. I'm just remembering so many things. It's starting to feel sad.
She: that's good. It's why you're writing.
Me: OK. Maybe I'll stop now.
She: How about one more drinking memory?
Me: OK. How to pour a beer.
_____
I learned how to pour beer properly when I was really young... it was well before I was ten. Dad taught me to do ith properly, slowly, with the glass on a tilt to start, gently pouring the beer down the inside of the glass, bringing the glass upright, gradually, so when it was filled you had a glass full of clear amber liquid with the perfect amount of foam on top. This might have been my first lesson in home economics. Dad had a way of teaching us things so we never forgot. He made sure we knew what we were doing, and why. He was logical, and constant in his pursuit of more efficient and clever ways to do things. Nothing escaped his scrutiny -- how to squeeze the toothpaste tube, light a fire, grill a steak, grate apples, warm the tea cups, dig toeroas, hammer a nail, balance the cheque book, refold a map, knot a tie properly, shuffle cards, play scrabble... lessons delivered with such attention and detail, and indisputable sense. These are the things I never forget. I have always poured a perfect beer!
Me: Is this OK?
She: Yes. How are you feeling?
Me: OK. A bit sad, but not overwhelmed.
She: See you tomorrow?
Me: Yes.
NEXT Drinking Memories Aftermath
She: Great. What's your first drinking memory?
Me: Sipping the foam off the top of dad's beer.
She: OK, Go!
It's at home. I'm sitting on dad's knee. Julie is probably sitting on his other knee. We're taking turns. Only the foam. We don't sip the beer. We get foam moustaches and laugh. It's a nice time. Sitting on dad, happy. Dad's laughing and happy. We are happy.
At 5 o'clock the focus of the household turns to dad coming home from work. He comes in the bus that Mr O'Lusky drives. Dad and the other office dads who work in town get dropped off at the corner of Patterson St and Hardy Street. We run to the corner to meet him, compete to hold his hand. When we get home, one takes his coat. One gets his slippers. One brings him a beer. I know getting the beer is a real memory. It would have been my job because I was the oldest, and I had the steadiest hands and feet. Did he have a beer every night? Did we race to the corner every night to to meet the bus? I don't know.
I do know though, without a doubt, that dad has to go to work to pay for everything for us girls. Our clothes, the house, food, toys, school fees, music lessons, holidays. That's why we have to make such a fuss of him when he gets home, because he makes this huge sacrifice for us. I feel uneasy about this because I don't really think it's the truth. But I heard it enough times I've never forgotten it. Is it really true? Nobody ever says he goes to work to pay for mum's clothes, or his beer, or the sacks of oysters for the garage party on Friday night, where men in singlets shuck oysters into slimy jars, drinking beer poured from flagon, laughing loud. They take the jars to the pub and sell them, or raffle them, to make money. Dad liked to do that -- make money and have fun at the same time.
But he has to go to work to pay for us girls who are expensive. Like we have any say in the matter. I have a deep sense of justice and injustice. This is the first time I was aware of it. We didn't ask to be born. We didn't ask to go to Catholic school. We didn't want music lessons...
She: are you OK?
Me: Yes. I'm just remembering so many things. It's starting to feel sad.
She: that's good. It's why you're writing.
Me: OK. Maybe I'll stop now.
She: How about one more drinking memory?
Me: OK. How to pour a beer.
_____
I learned how to pour beer properly when I was really young... it was well before I was ten. Dad taught me to do ith properly, slowly, with the glass on a tilt to start, gently pouring the beer down the inside of the glass, bringing the glass upright, gradually, so when it was filled you had a glass full of clear amber liquid with the perfect amount of foam on top. This might have been my first lesson in home economics. Dad had a way of teaching us things so we never forgot. He made sure we knew what we were doing, and why. He was logical, and constant in his pursuit of more efficient and clever ways to do things. Nothing escaped his scrutiny -- how to squeeze the toothpaste tube, light a fire, grill a steak, grate apples, warm the tea cups, dig toeroas, hammer a nail, balance the cheque book, refold a map, knot a tie properly, shuffle cards, play scrabble... lessons delivered with such attention and detail, and indisputable sense. These are the things I never forget. I have always poured a perfect beer!
Me: Is this OK?
She: Yes. How are you feeling?
Me: OK. A bit sad, but not overwhelmed.
She: See you tomorrow?
Me: Yes.
NEXT Drinking Memories Aftermath
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Tell Your Story
She, gently: Tell your story.
3 months later...
She, gently: Tell your story.
2 months later...
She, gently: Tell your story.
1 month later...
She: Tell your story.
Me: I hear you.
She: Good. Tell your story.
Me: But I'm so scared. Even the thought of it... see you've made me cry, dammit. Why do you always make me cry?
I month later...
She: Tell your story.
Me: I can't. It's too much. Even the thought of it breaks me open and makes me feel like shit. See? Crying again. I'm NOT doing this.
2 weeks later...
She: Tell your story, Susanna.
Me: Seriously? Do you want to know why not? Because whenever I even think about doing that, there's all this garbage choking me up, all this dark, sticky, smelly crud that gets stuck in my throat and nose, and presses down on my chest.
She: Good description!
Me: Really? I fucking hate that feeling and you know it. It burns and chokes, and twists me into a hot knot of hate. I'm not doing this. I've done every other hard thing I've needed to do, but I'm Not Doing This. Sorry. I just can't.
2 weeks later...
She: Tell your story, Susanna.
Me: No. I'm sorry to be such a looser about this, but I'm fragile and anxious at the moment, and I just need to get some peace in my life. I need QUIET. I need to read, and teach yoga, and be sober. And keep my freelance business going, save for retirement, and move to Canada. And crochet things. Sorry. I'm busy.
1 week later...
She: Susanna, Tell Your Story.
Me: Really? You're serious, aren't you?
She: Yes.
Me: OK, I'll do it. Happy? Now please leave me alone. I've got a book to write.
3 months later...
She: You said you'd tell your story.
Me: Shit! Busted. Can I tell you what happens when I try to make a start?
She: Sure.
Me: First I get a surge of heat, from my belly spewing right up into my throat. My eyes water. My chest goes tight. My shoulders crunch up. And I feel like running a million miles away, but I can't move. I'm frozen. Hot and frozen all at once.
She: Good description.
Me: It's horrible.
She: It's a good description.
Me: And then I hear "Who on earth would be interested in your story?" "What could you possibly have to say?" "Who do you think you are?"
She: And who do you think you are Susanna?
Me: That's a good question. I'm still working on that one.
She: That's why it's time to tell your story.
(And that's when I knew the story was for me, not for anyone else. The story is for me.)
NEXT
3 months later...
She, gently: Tell your story.
2 months later...
She, gently: Tell your story.
1 month later...
She: Tell your story.
Me: I hear you.
She: Good. Tell your story.
Me: But I'm so scared. Even the thought of it... see you've made me cry, dammit. Why do you always make me cry?
I month later...
She: Tell your story.
Me: I can't. It's too much. Even the thought of it breaks me open and makes me feel like shit. See? Crying again. I'm NOT doing this.
2 weeks later...
She: Tell your story, Susanna.
Me: Seriously? Do you want to know why not? Because whenever I even think about doing that, there's all this garbage choking me up, all this dark, sticky, smelly crud that gets stuck in my throat and nose, and presses down on my chest.
She: Good description!
Me: Really? I fucking hate that feeling and you know it. It burns and chokes, and twists me into a hot knot of hate. I'm not doing this. I've done every other hard thing I've needed to do, but I'm Not Doing This. Sorry. I just can't.
2 weeks later...
She: Tell your story, Susanna.
Me: No. I'm sorry to be such a looser about this, but I'm fragile and anxious at the moment, and I just need to get some peace in my life. I need QUIET. I need to read, and teach yoga, and be sober. And keep my freelance business going, save for retirement, and move to Canada. And crochet things. Sorry. I'm busy.
1 week later...
She: Susanna, Tell Your Story.
Me: Really? You're serious, aren't you?
She: Yes.
Me: OK, I'll do it. Happy? Now please leave me alone. I've got a book to write.
3 months later...
She: You said you'd tell your story.
Me: Shit! Busted. Can I tell you what happens when I try to make a start?
She: Sure.
Me: First I get a surge of heat, from my belly spewing right up into my throat. My eyes water. My chest goes tight. My shoulders crunch up. And I feel like running a million miles away, but I can't move. I'm frozen. Hot and frozen all at once.
She: Good description.
Me: It's horrible.
She: It's a good description.
Me: And then I hear "Who on earth would be interested in your story?" "What could you possibly have to say?" "Who do you think you are?"
She: And who do you think you are Susanna?
Me: That's a good question. I'm still working on that one.
She: That's why it's time to tell your story.
(And that's when I knew the story was for me, not for anyone else. The story is for me.)
NEXT
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