Mum is Dumb and Dad is Mad

I often wonder how mum coped with having five children by the time she was 31. Married to a man who was so utterly different to her. Did they love each other? I have no idea. They survived together. They had a few laughs, but often at each other's expense. They tolerated each other. They didn't have a choice really. They made it work.

Dad used to say "Rosie, it's a good thing the girls got your looks and my brains, because if it was the other way around, it would be a disaster." And that totally sums it up!

Once, I have heard from an aunty who was there, mum was going on and on, entertaining a crowd gathered in our living room, that while dad was known as "Peter bloody Ward" because he swore so much, he had never said, and never ever would say "the F word". Everyone challenged her noisily, but she stuck to her guns and refused to accept anyone else's arguments. The phone rang in another room, and mum went to answer it. As she passed through the doorway and shut the door, dad said to anyone who would listen "She's a silly fucking bitch sometimes." That sums it up!

Mum looked after the kids, the food, the housekeeping, and was the social coordinator (aka party animal). Dad worked to earn the money to pay for things. He was an un-qualified but competent carpenter. He'd worked with builders, bricklayers, and watched and learned. When I was born, and he was only 26, he'd had 27 different jobs. Not long before I was born he left a good office job and took one at the Tisbury Cheese Factory as a delivery person. His good friend, Les Macaskill (career teacher and school principal) questioned his judgement. Dad was quick with his reasoning. "I need a vehicle to get Rosie to the hospital when the baby comes. This job comes with a van." Pragmatic.

Mum made a career out of being ditsy, and it was something I really didn't like about her. She thought it was funny to be irrational and twist reality. If she bought a pair of shoes for $10, on sale from $20, she would proclaim proudly, "I earned $10 today!" And she would argue the point, for the fun of it. She did this constantly. Shopping for a bargain wasn't just a hobby, but it was a way to show off, flaunt this silly side.
She would often say outrageous things, drop her false teeth out of her mouth to scare the kids, make her eyes so crossed she looked horrific. Just do stupid things.

This reminds me of the day she got all her teeth taken out. They were doing that in the 60s. Cosmetic purposes I think. I was very small. Three or four at the most. Mum left me with Nana Baird, and went to the dentist and got her teeth pulled out. All in one go. She came back to nana's place looking horrific. Totally. She went to lie down in nana's bed. It must have been quite physically traumatic, but lots of people did it. I was in the little bed -- Joanne's bed -- beside her. I didn't want to look at her. She was scary. I said "Is your mouth looking?" And she said "No." And I peeped out from under the covers, and there was her caved in, collapsed, ugly mouth grinning at me. I screamed and dived back under the covers. It was a game. Like a lot of the games in our household, I didn't like it. Fortunately I was too young to know about being a good sport, so I just stayed under the blankets and cried.

Mum used to drop her teeth as a party trick. I always found that excruciating.

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When I turned 18, my friend Greg McIlhinney threw a party for me. I think he knew that any birthday party held at my home would be my parent's affair, not mine, and he was determined to do something for me. So we had the party at his home -- he lived alone with his mother, who we called Maude -- and invited a load of people. We had loud music, dancing, and alcohol. I remember at one point toward the end of the evening saying to Greg that I thought someone had spiked my drinks because I felt really woosy. I'm sure now it was just that I didn't expect the alcohol to affect me the way it did... get me drunk!

Anyway, around 10pm, there was a rucus in the front room, with a lot of hooting and hollering, so I went to investigate. My parents had shown up. Dressed in long dressing gowns, wearing ape masks, dancing around like lunatics. At first, I was the only one who knew they were my parents. I recognised the ape masks and the dressing gowns. I was supposed to think this was funny. Everyone else thought it was hilarious. I withered. I'm totally sure mum harranged dad into doing this, or waited until he'd had several beers and was up for it. Whatever. It was mortifying.

People thought my parents were great, especially mum. When friends came around, there was always hilarity and pranks. Someone always got thrown, fully clothed, into the swimming pool. Someone always ended up wearing a stupid wig or mask or a wedding dress or knickers on their head. There would be chickens in the house, or someone trying to walk up the stairs on their hands, or on stilts, hiding, chasing and shrieking, mum playing moonlight sonata in the wrong key three times too fast, dropping her teeth... boozing and laughing, and mortification.

We lived in a party house. Well it was a party when there were visitors. Which was too often, in my not so humble opinion.

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Dad always made mum a cup of tea in the morning and delivered it to her in bed. I insist on this treatment myself, even now! As we all got a bit older, he would bring us all drinks in bed in the morning. Coffee or tea, however we liked it. He'd come upstairs with the tray, make all the drink deliveries, and so started the day in the household. That was very civilised. Things usually degenerated into chaos fairly quickly, with scraps over clothing, school lunches never made until the last minute, flat tires on bikes, running late and the car not starting if mum was driving us to school.

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The title for this post is a quote from my sister Julie, who recited that wonderfully funny poem at the dinner table one night, and got in trouble for it. That was grossly unfair -- her poem was true.
NEXT: Filing the Underwear

A Cold Hard Fact

She: Are you still there?

Me: Yes. It's been such a busy holiday. I've had no time or space to write. Until now.

She: Keep telling your story.

Me: I will. I want to. The more I write, the more I remember. I thought I'd only have one page of memories about mum. Thought I didn't really have much to say about her. But there's a lot. I keep remembering more and more.

She: How is it feeling?

Me: I am feeling more compassionate, less hateful. Less resentful. I feel like I'm seeing things for what they were. What they are.

She: And what is that?

Me: Just people, trying to make sense of themselves, trying to make the best of their lives. Dealing with their pain and insecurities. Trying to be happy. Not having a bloody clue about anything. Screwing up. Kind of like my life!

She: Good observation.

Me: Through all of this, I am confronted with a tough fact. I didn't love my mother, or even like her. Still don't. I was afraid of her and alienated from her. I couldn't speak honestly to her, couldn't let her see who I really was. The relationship was based on survival tactics and pretense. That makes me really sad. It's like a huge hole. I've known it forever. I've just always tried to ignore it, think it doesn't matter. Maybe it doesn't matter. Who knows? What good can come of not liking or loving your mother? What possible reason could there be for that? What fix, cure? Does there need to be one? I don't know what to do with this cold hard fact. I can't make myself feel something I don't feel. This might explain why I've been so hard on myself, so tough.

She: It's harder to love yourself when you don't know parent love. Much harder. But not impossible. You just need to work at it a bit harder at it.

Me: 110%?

She: You're good at that.
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I feel quite shitty writing this. Not angry, just mean and low. Like I failed at something utterly fundamental. And now, suddenly, I remember:

One day a year or two ago, I was walking on Oreti Beach (the beach near Invercargill where I was born and grew up), and knew that I had chosen this birth. I had chosen to be born into this environment, this time, and to these parents. It wasn't some flash of light epiphany. It was just a knowing. I chose this. All of it. For a reason. And that reason was to crack my fucking egg open!
NEXT Mum is Dumb and Dad is Mad

Good and Bad Surprises

Some happy memories associated with mum's obsessions.

When I went to school, I had a home made school uniform, in red and white gingham. When I cam home from school after my first day, my doll, Squinty (because of her squinty eyes), was waiting for me on the kitchen table, wearing a full school uniform identical to mine, with a red school case to finish off the look. Mum must have spend all day making that doll's outfit. 

When mum and dad bought the big old house in Princes Street, before we moved in mum decorated our bedrooms with bright, cheerful wall paper, matching curtains, and bedding. We didn't know what our rooms would be like until the day we moved in. My room (I got my own room!) was orange and yellow, and it really was a happy place for an 11 year girl. Julie's room (she got her own room too) was pink and sweet, perfect for an 8 year old girl.

That same year, 1971, on my 11th birthday, mum organised a surprise birthday party, and invited all the girls from my old class at Sacred Heart, and all the girls from my new school, St Patricks. She also made me a beautiful dress -- one of a kind, no matching copies for my sisters. It was a large blue and white check, full long skirt cut on the bias, with a bib in the front, straps over the shoulders that crossed over the back, and a ruffle over the shoulders, and down the front of the bib. It was hanging in the window of the downstairs living room when I came downstairs that morning. I loved it, more because it was one of a kind than anything else.

These were the nice side of mum's surprises. 

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Mum was pretty emotional, and there was a lot of up and down in the atmosphere of the house. She was always "on" for guests. She was often "off" on Saturday mornings, which always had an air of anger and frenetic energy about it. 

The time she was most upset with me -- to the point that she cried for an entire day, and wouldn't look at me or speak to me, was when I was 19 and she found contraceptive pills in my toilet bag. What was she doing in my toilet bag? Snooping. Looking for evidence that I was having sex. Which I was, finally. And no thanks to anyone else, I was having safe sex, and taking care of the potential not to get pregnant. But I had committed a mortal (unforgiveable) sin by going on the pill. This was horrendous. This Must Stop NOW. How could I betray my parents like this? (I just got more pills after mum had thrown the pack she found out. I hid them better. There was no way I was going to get pregnant before I figured out what to do with my life.)

Here's how I got ready for my first sexual experience. I read a couple of books. From the library and from mum's bedside table (this one was about Catholic marriage, which did involve sex, and details about a woman's fertility and the menstual cycle, so she could avoid getting pregnant by timing things right, rather than the sinful pill. I became an expert in this, and later kept myself un-pregnant for years using that science.) 

After I read the books, I made an appointment at the Family Planning Clinic. Not the family doctor. He would have said something to mum, or that's what I believed. I told the Family Planning doctor that I had a boyfriend and was ready to have sex, but didn't want to get pregnant. She listened and took me 100% seriously, and told me what my options were. I was dumbfounded. I'd expected to have to plead my case, beg, and be denied contraception. But no. I think she might have even praised me for being sensible and getting prepared ahead of time. Wow. 

Somehow mum thought that by banning the pill, she was stopping us from having sex. She never asked me if I was sleeping with anyone. She demanded, hurt and crying, "Why do you need to be on the Pill?"

"To control my PMS." 

"You haven't got PMS!!" (Once I told her I was feeling depressed and she shouted, "What on earth have you got to be depressed about?" and stormed out of the room before I had a chance to answer.)

But anyway. I lied about why I was on the pill. I felt I had to. I suppose I could have said, "Mum, I'm 19 and I'm sleeping with my boyfriend, and I'm on the pill because I don't want to get pregnant." I'm pretty sure she would have had a breakdown and kicked me out of the house. Which wouldn't have been a bad thing, in retrospect.

NEXT: A cold hard fact

Fads and Fashion: It's better to look good than feel good.

Mum had fads. Lots of them. Wall papering -- she even put wallpaper on our old Simca (car) to cover up the rust at the bottom of the doors. Rug-hooking. Amethests. Antiques. Bantams. Sun bathing. Cafe curtains. Fondues. She wasn't a fussy seamstress, but during the 1960s and 70s, when you couldn't get anything but the most basic clothing in shops in New Zealand, she made all her and our clothes, and we were known for being "well turned out".

She was up with the fashion, and every season we'd have the latest styles and colours. We had the long tartan skirts cut on the bias. We had smock tops. We had halter dresses (modest ones), and we had the shoes to match, the head bands. When pastels were in we had pastels. When florals, or primary colours, or whatever was in, we had it. We didn't have a lot of clothes. Each season, summer and winter, we'd get a new good dress and an outfit for wearing around home, new pyjamas (also home made), and maybe a new cardie.

Mum took our appearance very seriously. She spent hours, days sewing our outfits. She was constantly bringing home yards of material, cutting, pinning. I can still see mum's mouth full of pins -- she used to hold them between her lips while she was sewing, which gave her a weird smiling grimace. Whenever we went out anywhere, we'd have to get dressed up, in identical outfits (well until I was 11 -- more coming on that), be washed, get our hair done in identical styles, and stay clean until we arrived at our destination. This last point was critical. We had to arrive in good shape. No slops or smudges on anything. It was probably dad's idea to make sure that our top layer of clothing, usually a cardigan or jersey, was put on us in-side-out, and only taken off and turned the right way in the car, once we'd arrived at our destination. All the signs that we were ordinary kids with ordinary sloppy habits were well hidden on the insides of our cardies or coats.

One year we had mustard coloured skirts with suspender-type straps that sat over the top of cream blouses. The blouses had a flash mustard stitch trim that mum's new sewing machine could magically spit out with the turn of a dial. I think they might have had hand-covered buttons too. And we had brown lace-up knee-length boots, fake crocodile-skin if I remember correctly. What I remember most about those outfits was that we could only get boots to fit Julie and me in Invercargill. They didn't have Polly's size. And we were going on a trip, to the North Island, to visit nana Ward and the Ward relatives.

I remember nothing about that trip except that mum got dad to stop at every shoe shop along the way to try and get those boots. It was so important to her that we arrived all perfectly matching. None of the shops had the size we needed, until Levin, which was so close to our destination it was almost a Total Disaster. But the boots were there, just as mum had always believed they would be. Actually, now that I think about it, she would have bought them too big if that was the final option. But we arrived matching. That was all that needed to happen.

None of us liked this, by the way. Well I don't think we did. I certainly hated being dressed the same as my little sisters. Especially when mum got her final triumph and made matching outfits for all five of us. The fabric was nice and colourful, but honestly, at 11, the last thing I wanted was to be part of a matching freak show with my sisters aged 8, 5, 3 and 1. But too bad for me. I had no say in what I wore. That was entirely true. We never got to choose what we wore. Mum told us what to wear. She did it well into my teenage years. And after it became obviously ridiculous for her to do this, she swapped it for saying "You're not going to wear that are you?" I was already wearing that, but it wasn't unheard of for her to make such a fuss that I got changed just to make it stop.

I had a terrible sense of personal style for years, and found it really hard to make choices about clothing. I remember going shopping for a skirt and jacket for a wedding, not long after I was first married. I was with my Aunty Angela, and showed her what I was thinking of getting. She said something I've never forgotten. "If I had a lovely figure like yours, I'd get something much more slim fitting to show it off." "But that might tempt boys!" squeaked a tiny little voice deep within my mind. But I was always thankful to Angela for saying that. I had no idea I had a lovely figure, but I did. All I knew how to do was hide it.

I feel now I have a good sense of what suits me and what I like, but I still tend to dress down, pick the lowest common denominator so I don't draw attention to myself. I do still second guess myself about clothes. But there is that moment when I try something on, and see immediately "Yes, that's the right colour and style for you!"

Mum taught me to sew when I was 10. So at that young age I was able to put together a simple outfit. Mum told me what to make, and picked the material, but I was allowed to make it. My first outfit was in the gypsy theme that was the rage in one year of the 1970s. It was a long gathered skirt in bright reds, oranges and yellows, with a white searsucker gypsy blouse, with red rick-rack trim. It was simple, but effective, and I did enjoy being able to say "I made it myself." I still love saying that about things I sew or crochet.

A recent clothes story: Aunty Pat, mum's older sister, recently gave me a bag of old but lovely woolen clothing, to use for my upcycling sewing projects. One of the wool coats was mum's. We gave it to Pat when mum died 15 years ago. It was good quality, but so long it dragged on the floor, and was far too big for me. But I felt I couldn't felt it and cut it up like the other garments. This was mum's coat, and I really should keep it. It hung around in my sewing stash for a few months, annoying me. One day I was having a bit of a mum-memory meltdown, part of my personal therapy that's been ongoing these past few years, and I slammed my journal shut, dried my eyes, and thought "Fuck it. Fucking mum is not getting way with this one minute longer. I'm felting her fucking coat!" And I did. I put it in the hottest wash, and the hottest dry. Later I pulled it out of the dryer, expecting to hack it up with my super sharp dressmaking scissors, and make it into a cushion or a doormat, but it hadn't felted that successfully. It had shrunk though, to a perfect size for me. I put it on, and it was super warm and cosy. It was as if mum was giving me a warm hug, for the first time. So I kept that coat -- it's more like a house coat, but I sometimes wear it out of the house. It's warm and comforting. The hug I always wanted from her. I had a funny feeling she arranged it all.

Some of mum's fads were traumatic. Like the ringlet fad. I don't know where that came from, but mum decided we'd all have ringlets in our hair (not her, just Julie, Paula and me). This involved wrapping our hair up at night in strips of damp cotton rags, the theory being that the damp hair would dry overnight and retain its curl from being wrapped around the rags. It was like having thick wads of bandaged sausages sticking out of your head. Horrible, painful for sleeping. But there was no arguing about it. We were not in charge of our hair or our clothing. We were a bit like dolls, to be dressed up and paraded around. In the morning, she'd unwrap all the sausage bandages, and tie the hair in pig-tail wringlets. I seem to remember Julie and I had stubbornly straight hair, but Paula's had good curl potential. That fad might have only lasted a week or two, but it's stuck in my memory all these years.

Another one was the '100 strokes a day' hair fad. This involved having our hair brushed 100 strokes, every night before bed. That didn't last too long either.

I remember mum declaring often, and often in frustration, "Right, from now on ___________ fill in the blanks." It could be from now on you'll polish the brass every Saturday. From now on you're all having Lanes Emulsion every day. From now on, you're biking to school and doubling your little sister. From now on, you're getting your hair brushed 100 strokes a day. From now on, you're doing your own laundry. From now on there will be no more colouring-in on the lounge table. From now on, we're going to 9 0'clock mass every Sunday. Whatever it was we were going to do from now on only ever lasted a while.

I understand now, that when mum got married and had kids, she was determined to get her life right, perhaps to exercise control over her life that she felt she didn't have growing up. We probably all do that. If we take the measure of her need to control as an indication of her own insecurity, she was off the charts. She was utterly obsessed with appearances. The white picket fence, the white lace curtains, the five little girls all in a row. So well dressed. So well behaved. Looking stylish. It was definitely better to look good than to feel good!

NEXT Good and bad surprises

Girls are Better than Boys

Like most women of her day, the minute mum got married she stopped working to become a housewife. She said all she ever wanted to do was get married and have babies. Only girls. It was a Known Fact in our house that girls were better than boys. Both mum and dad swore by that, and mum even suggested that she wasn't able to have any boy babies-- as in not physically able to carry one, and it was clear she didn't see this as a failing. It was a triumph and a talent to produce only girls.

When I was a bit older and understood about miscarriages, I heard mum saying that she thought the miscarriages she had were all boys -- her body rejected them. I am not kidding. What did I think about that? It was a bit creepy to be honest. It sounded a bit extreme. A bit "not quite right". But I couldn't ask or say anything. I just tucked it away as a strange thing, and never forgot it.

Mum obviously felt afraid and powerless about males. For all her bravado and outrageous flirting, she was terrified. "Don't tempt boys!" That was the central theme of my sex education. Don't dress in a way that could tempt boys. Don't talk or look or do anything that might tempt boys. If you do tempt boys, you'll get in trouble and it will be your fault. Needless to say, I thought boys were incredibly dangerous -- anything you did might tempt them, they might do anything if they were tempted (although I had no concept of what that could be, not having a grasp on the deeper realities of gender differences), and they weren't responsible for their actions! Girls were definitely better.

Being the oldest of five girls, I had the additional message that if I 'got in trouble' with boys, then my sisters would too. If I didn't, they'd be OK. Basically, I would set the moral tone for the whole gang of girls. I didn't question that, and took it seriously and literally. While I was having a chaste and worried adolescence, my sisters were living it up with boys! Oh well.

NEXT

Mum Stories. Growing up and getting married

Me: I think it's time to write about mum.
She: OK.
Me: I'm writing in San Francisco today. Woot!
She: How does that feel?
Me: Amazing. Last time I was here I wasn't feeling anywhere near as good as I feel now. I feel like myself, you know? Something essential has come with me this time and it's good. I chose to spend a chunk of time alone today. Came to a lovely tea shop instead of a coffee place, ordered a pot of chai, and now I'm tapping away on my new laptop, which is fabulous.
She: What do you want to write about your mother?
Me: Just what I knew about her life, kind of what I wrote about dad a while ago.
She: OK, go!

Mum was the third of eight children. She was born on February 10, 1939, the same year as World War 2 broke out, but several months sooner. She had two older sisters, and would be followed up by four brothers in a row, then a baby sister.

She told me that sometimes nana would put the three girls to bed, and in the morning when they got up there would be three dresses hanging up in the kitchen -- nana had made them overnight.

Mum's father, Reginald, died when mum was only 15. Joanne, the baby, was just 2. So nana brought up eight children on her own. Mum did talk a lot about growing up feeling poor. She said she and her sisters didn't have the proper school uniform, so the nuns made them stand at the back of the line on the way to mass. Mum also said something about taking a pack of sanitary pads to school on the carrier of her bike, thinking that was pretty special, but being laughed at by other girls. She probably had her own nightmare first period to deal with.

They went to dances, made their own clothes, and by the looks of the old black and white photos in the photo box they had a good time. They wore lipstick and earrings and pearls, and looked quite stylish. Apparently nobody was allowed to leave the house to go out to a dance before the family rosary was said. And any boys who arrived to take the girls out had to kneel down and say the rosary with the family. For those of you who don't know, the rosary consists of saying, in a row, 50 Hail Marys, in groups of ten with an Our Father in between, and some miscellaneous other Hail Holy Queen type prayers at the end. You kneel for the whole thing, and it seems to take forever. Everyone had rosary beads in those days, for keeping count of the Hail Marys and the whole procedure. I got a set of rosary beads that belonged to Sid, dad's father. I have been trying to get rid of them to an appropriate family member (thinking that since I don't have kids of my own to leave them to, I might as well see them off into another branch of the family), but nobody wanted them. Meanwhile I've been wanting a set of Mala beads -- 108 beads on a string for counting meditation mantras. I got the inspiration to check out the rosary beads one day recently, and discovered that one round has 54 beads on it, so if I go around twice, I get 108 mantra counts. Not sure what the grandparents would think of using rosary beads for mediation, but really, what's the rosary if not a meditation -- repeats of the same thing, to help focus the mind. Perfect.
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Mum married dad when she was 20. The match was a bit of a worry for her older sisters, one in the convent and one not. There is a letter between them, discussing the engagement and questioning dad's character and suitability. He was a bit of a party animal, and five years older than her too. But they married. Mum had a very stylish dress, the bridesmaids (mum's sisters who were not in the convent) wore red velvet. It looked like a really lovely wedding -- it was on July 25 1959.

(An aside here. Dad looked really good too in his suit, but apparently the pants were many sizes too big for him, and they ended up pinning the pants to the armpits of his shirt to get them to look half decent. He had to keep his jacket on all day. He used to say "The guy who measured me for those pants must have stuck his ruler right up my ass to get the legs that long!!" Roar with laughter.)

Another story, and I don't know if it was true, or made up to prove how chaste mum was. On their honey moon, they had to go to a doctor so he could confirm to mum that sex was normal and what was happening was the right thing to be doing. It sounds ridiculous. It was always followed up with another story about  mum's sex education. She and her little sister were in bed one morning, laughing at the sparrows "piggy-backing" on the power lines outside their window. Nana asked "Do you know what they are doing?" Mum answered "Yes!" And that was that. Mum thought they were piggy-backing.

Mum also said that she didn't want to go to Mass on Sunday morning if she and dad had had sex on Saturday night, because she thought everyone in the congregation and the priest would know what they'd been up to.

All this seemed and still seems a tad unconvincing, but it could be true I suppose. Mum was the first of her siblings to marry, so she wouldn't have had any advice from her sisters. But I doubt nana would have sent her out into the world with that little preparation. These stories were told in the context of us being warned about how important it was to be "moral" (not have sex before marriage). Our mother had been so utterly chaste when she got married, and we should be the same. But it's just as likely to be the result of trauma. (How would this kind of thing even come up in conversation? After a few drinks, when we were a bit older. It's strange... the family stories were definitely themed around dad having a cruel upbringing (poor dad) and mum being 125% pure and innocent (good mum). Interesting.)

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One night when mum and dad were engaged, they had a fight. Dad was dropping mum off in a car, and things blew up to the point that mum gave dad back her engagement ring, got out of the car and slammed the door. Dad wound down the car window and threw the ring into Queen's Park (just across the road from the Baird house) and drove off. I always imagine the wheels smoking as he took off. Mum was horrified that he'd thrown away the ring, and spent a couple of hours trying to find it in the dark, in amoung the long grass and weeds under the huge macracarpa hedge. She couldn't find it, and got in a panic, and ran through town, crying, all the way to the Ward house (it probably wasn't raining and thundering, but let's just say it was).

That was a long run in a party dress and shoes, right across town from 174 Kelvin Street to XXX Tweed Street. She ran into dad's room, and found him sound asleep, with the engagement ring safely hanging on a nail in the wall beside the bed. They made up. It kind of sums up their relationship. Mum was always the dramatic, emotional one. Dad had things under control, but was a bit of a trickster.

I don't know how they got engaged, and I wish I did. Maybe aunty Pat would know.

Before she got married, mum worked in an office. I don't know what she did there. It was just a stop-gap before marriage. It must have included typing, because she could touch type, and liked to impress us by showing us how she could type without looking what she was doing. She also used to do that while playing the piano, but starting the tune (she only knew one, Moonlight Sonata) on the wrong key, but playing it anyway... we really thought that was hilarious.
NEXT

I Knew Nothing

The fact is I knew nothing about alcohol -- except that it was a good time fun thing that people who were good sorts drank.

It stuns me now that with the family history--the champion boozers and alcholics in my gene pool--nobody ever warned me about the down side of alcohol. Considering all the other life dangers I was barraged about -- boys, cars, dances, drugs, sex, non-catholics, to name just a few, this is still shocking.

It might have been because I didn't drink very young, or roll home drunk and vomiting, crash cars, or get arrested. Maybe if that had happened, someone might have warned me. But as it turned out, I had no concept of alcohol being equally addictive as any of those other "dangerous" addictive drugs. I had no concept of what alcohol does to the human body, besides relax it and make it laugh, move a bit more fluidly, make it stumble occasionally. I didn't think of it as toxic, or consider that our bodies had to labour to process and clean it out every time we consumed it. I didn't realise a hangover was quite literally a poisoning.

Obviously, this was my own responsiblity, and it was only my own selective blindness that kept me conveniently ignorant. I was very aware of the dangers of consuming processed foods, smoking, pesticides and plastics. I simply ignored the dangers of consuming alcohol. 

Not long before I quit drinking, I saw the doctor for a routine check up and I decided to be a bit more honest about my alcohol consumption than I usually was. I admitted to drinking wine every day... but lied the edge off it by saying, just a glass or two with dinner. At the end of the session he said, the only health danger I see for you is drinking and breast cancer. Daily drinking raises the risk of breast cancer considerably. I was probably 51. This was news to me. 

But let's look at this a bit more closely. I was actually a health freak of sorts. For years I loaded up with vitamins, raw juices, organic food. I walked a lot and kept the weight off. So why did I not do the same due diligence on booze? I would have seen immediately it was badass, and didnt' belong in a healthy body. Why did I think that it was fine to drink several glasses of wine as long as my chicken had been corn-fed, and the veges came from the organic farmers' market? Why did i think it was OK to knock back bloody marys at noon on Sunday as long as the tomato juice and cucumber were organic, and fresh-squeezed in my own juicer -- my cocktails were practically health food!

My attitude to drinking alcohol was that it was inevitable. It did not occur to me that it was feasible, or even possible to live an alcohol-free life. 

How the heck was I going to relax?
How was I going to socialise? Get over my shyness?
How on earth would I celebrate? Or commiserate? 
What about weddings, funerals, Christmas, New Year?
What about weekends?
What about every day, after work?

Everyone who quits drinking, gets sober, seems to go though this. We simply can't imagine life without alcohol. What the fuck are we going to DO if we don't drink? How are we going to function normally? It just seems utterly impossible.

These were not always conscious thoughts. They were deep, still, silent attitudes. They were unspoken fears. Beliefs even. They were incredibly powerful. They kept me trapped.

So how come I now happily live booze-free? I now look at that list and think WTF? That's haha hilarious. How could I have been so blind?

One day I found out that those deep, still, silent attitudes, unspoken fears, beliefs...  were not true. They were a baldface lie, and I didn't need to believe them. Of course, it wasn't really as simple as that.

My eggshell was cracking. And I was getting another chance to examine what was inside -- the precious sweetness of a happy, kind, loving girl... and all the weird shit she'd stashed away over the years.

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Me: God, I feel like I'm so close to pin-pointing something really important here, but I can't quite get it. It's frustrating. I'm concentrating hard. Then daydreaming. Then concentrating. Then it starts to get clear, then dissappears. It's like the truth is hovering, but not landing.
She: Good description.
Me: It's making me crazy.
She: Are you crying?
Me: No! Yes. I'm crying. But not sad hot angry crying. Soft crying. Release, relief crying. I guess this is why I'm writing this. To get some relief from something. Not even sure what. But that's what's happening.
She: That's a good reason to write.
Me: It's a really different experience. I feel like I'm writing with a stick, poking, prodding, seeing what's going to happen if I apply some pressure here, break the skin there, take a whack over there. That's what's going on -- I'm experimenting with it. With myself even.
She: You're doing a good job. 

__________________
Looking back, I can see so many times when I knew drinking alcohol was the stumbling block to something I really wanted -- a healthy body, an open, free mind, deep inner peace, the enthusiasm to write freely, to create. And I let it stay there, trap me, hold me back. I didn't stand up to it, see it for what it was. I continued to drink, to blot myself out, numb and dumb myself, because that felt normal -- that was what I was used to. Withdrawing, suppressing, feeling trapped.

I spent so many years trying to work the system, trading off drinking with working really hard, saving really hard, exercising really hard, eating well, doing yoga... Doing everything right, 110%. Because being a non-drinker just didn't seem like it was an option -- but I did have some reconciling to do. I was going to keep drinking, but I had to pay for it somehow.

Now I know my alcohol habit was keeping me afraid, small, withdrawn -- just like I'd been as a child. I was doing exactly the same shitty stuff to myself as I'd blamed my parents for doing to me.

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Escalating Backwards

The main point for writing this story was to write about drinking -- my own in particular. But I can't seem to find a natural segue into it, so I'm just going to have to launch in.

I've been reading recovery memoirs, and sober blogs, and it seems like my drinking story goes in the opposite direction to a lot of them.

I didn't binge drink when I was a teenager. I didn't drink at all until I was 18, and didn't enjoy it much when I did. I drank a bit in university, but didn't get drunk. I drank during my 20s but moderately. The point is that I remember it all -- so I wasn't overdoing it. Some highlights:

The laboratory I worked at had a home-brew department out the back, where Bill got his elderberry and blackberry wine on. The first time I got drunk was on that wine. My co-worker kindly drove me home to her place and put me to bed. She phoned my mother and said I wouldn't be home for dinner, and she took me home later when I'd recovered. I don't know if mum knew what really happened, but nothing was said.

That same job. Christmas party time. One of the managers arranged for me to go with one of his friends -- a sort of blind date. This guy got totally rotten drunk, and had to be carried out of the event.

In my early 20s, during the university holidays, the Ward side of the family had a big family reunion. We were all together for about 10 days, and I drank with the adults every day at "five o'clock drinks" or happy hour or whatever it was. Then I stayed on and worked in the rest home. We continued to have after work drinks, and I remember this was the first time I felt the "urge" to drink at a particular time of the day -- a habit was forming. But it wasn't lasting. It went away when I went back to university and a different routine.

A beach hut somewhere in the Carribean, eating white tuna just out of a boat, with breadfruit chips, and cold Heinekin. I remember this because it was Gerard's first beer since he was 17, and had an epiphany that he should stop drinking. We were 26 at the time. Same trip, getting to Chile, mid 1980s before Chilean wine was world-famous and widely available. We'd picnic in parks with wine, bread, chocolate. We'd order massive steaks and chips, and drink red wine. I remember a christmas celebration in Puerto Montt, with some other travellers. There was drunkenness and hangovers, but I don't think I was afflicted.

London. Drinking was huge in London. The Brits in the publishing house I worked at went to the pub for lunch and drank. The Australians and Kiwis were pub mad. There was a wine bar on every corner. We drank regularly, but not a huge quantity. I do remember that we picked a laundromat with a pub across the road, so we could sit and have a pint while the clothes were washing, whip over and stick them in the drier, and have another pint as they dried. We went out for pub lunches on Sunday, and had cider with a pie and spuds and peas.

I was in London the day they abolished pubs closing between 3pm and 6pm. That day we all went to the pub for lunch and didn't go back to work. I was pretty drunk and a little hung over.

Spain, out drinking one night in a pub in Gibralta, meeting Irish Louie, agreeing to go to Morocco with him the next day, waking up in the morning hung over and regretting that promise... but we did remember it at least. No booze in Morocco, and it didn't matter one bit.

Vancouver. Wine Festival. We had Kiwis staying with us. Everyone got totally rotten, passed out, vomitting out the flat windows. It was brutal.

But all those years, drinking was something of an occasion, not a daily activity.

Then I was in my 30s, separated, living alone, and working in a big office where after-work drinks happened during the week. I drank more often. I would have beer in the house, and that was the first time I'd have a drink on my own -- not as part of a social gathering. I didn't do it a lot, but it was a change worth noting. I say I had my adolescence in my early 30s. It involved quite a lot of drinking, partying, socialising.

It's really weird to be writing this, but it seemed that as I got older, and got my shit together more, got into a stable relationship and married again, grew a successful business and got some financial stability... they more sorted out my life got, the more I drank.

Some time during my 40s, daily drinking became the norm. We ate out a lot, and our local bar tender had a very generous pour. Wine was cheap, and we had a stash in the basement storage cupboard... which we didn't need, because there was a big liquor store at the corner.

I did not feel like there was anything amiss. Life was good. I was really happy and enjoying myself.

The last year we were in Vancouver 2003 - 4 was particularly intense. I was trying to keep the business running, and sell it before we left, I was training for a triathalon, and getting ready to return to NZ after being away for 18 years. I was constantly hungry because of the training schedule. I started going to the Greek restaurant down the block for a cooked meal at lunch time, two or three days a week. And once I ordered a wine. They had a generous pour too. It really took the edge off my work stress, so I kept doing it. All that year I was training hard, stressed at work, eating like a horse, and drinking cheap white wine with my lunch. I had had wine with lunch before, but not by myself, and not regularly. This was a change I noticed, and wasn't that proud of. Put it this way, I didn't tell anyone.

When we got to NZ, nothing turned out the way I expected. I had been gone for 18 years, and built NZ up to be a paradise that it wasn't. We landed in our dream spot, didn't really settle, moved to a new town, moved houses a few times, got jobs, changed jobs... and generally the whole thing was a huge stress to me. Being in New Zealand was stressful -- I felt that my dreams were dashed. I didn't know myself. I felt like I'd been slung back into that horrible place I'd been as a child... it was cruel and depressing. But I was being brave, and probably nobody had a clue about how shitty I was feeling. And I was drinking more. And more. And more. Every day now, as soon as I got in the door from work, I'd have a wine to bring me down from the day -- take the edge off. Except the edge was still there, and it kept taking more wine to smooth it. I don't know how it ended up being a whole bottle of wine most days, but that's what it was.

Not long before we left Arrowtown, I decided I was turning into a lush, and needed to quit drinking for a while -- to prove to myself I didn't have a problem. So I stopped drinking wine, and started drinking a bottle of sparkling grape juice every day. Very soon my whole body started to stiffen up -- rheumatoid arthritis symptoms. My arms wouldn't lift up, my hands were stiff, my feet wouldn't move properly... I woke up in the morning in agony, and could hardly move. One night, about three months into this very frightening time, David was about to go to Wellington for a new job, and I drank a glass of red wine with him while we had dinner. I woke up the next morning with no pain. I started drinking again, and I was soon good as gold... well not that soon, but I did fully recover. There are various theories about that episode, including sugar poisoning, massive stress about leaving Arrowtown, dreams dashed. Who knows? It doesn't matter.

Working in Wellington, I was thrown in to a crowd of wonderful people who liked to party after work, and I joined them quite often. We drank at home, drank with neighbours, drank alone. It was just woven into the daily routine. I didn't really think it wasn't normal. It was what my parents had done, and what people seemed to do -- take the edge of whatever stresses you with a few drinks.

I wasn't falling down drunk. I did have a few bender-type nights, when I went out with my work mates and got a bit stumbly, but it was pretty benign compared to what other people managed to achieve! I didn't break the law, get wild and crazy, hurt myself or others overtly, miss work... I was just drinking myself into a nice stupor every night, blotting myself out, sleeping badly, waking up annoyed and angry at myself for being such a looser, promising myself I'd cut back, and doing it all over again, day after day after day.

Writing this out brings up a heck of a lot of questions I could ask and answer... but the real point is that I felt out of control. I was constantly drinking more than I intended to drink. That was a problem. It might not have looked like one, and my life looked together. But I was worried. Scared, defeated. I had achieved so so much in life -- overcome so many obstacles, escaped my crazy family and made a life for myself, but this was the one thing that I couldn't get a handle on, couldn't keep under control.

It went on like this for several years.

Then in 2010, in August, I got a virus that knocked me totally flat for three weeks. I hadn't been sick for years, and this was the Big One. I couldn't eat, was in a fever-chill cycle around the clock, had a severe headache, and I think I was delirious a lot of the time. It occurred to me that as well as having the viral infection I was probably going though an alcohol detox. I didn't get a repeat of the arthritis symptoms. When the virus cleared up, and I got my appetite back, I pragmatically thought "Well, I've just had three weeks off drinking, the hard work is done, I might as well stick with this for a while." And I did. I didn't drink again for 9 months. I didn't drink on my 50th birthday -- that was strange but true. I hadn't even thought about giving up drining forver, I just was having a break.

I remember very little about this time. I didn't talk to anyone much about not drinking, I just grit my teeth and didn't drink. I didn't keep a journal,and I'm gutted about that, because I'm really curious about what was going on in my head for those 9 months -- and I can't remember much at all.

What I do remember very clearly is ordering a beer in a bar in Melbourne in April 2011. It tasted great. I felt good about it. David did ask me "are you sure you want to do that?" and I was. I thought I'd broken the back of my alcohol issues, and would really enjoy a beer every now and then. And so it was for a few weeks. I mixed a splash of red wine with soda water for a drink with dinner. In the back of my mind was the idea that I'd be fine as long as I didn't start drinking full-strength white wine again. I didn't know it at the time, but I was right on track to be drinking full-on again in no time flat, and I kept it up for another 18 months, stunned at how that happened, but re-trapped in the daily drinking cycle, like nothing had happened. I wasn't cured afterall.

I'm aware that is just a big dump of information and I will re-visit is, and edit. But it feels good to get this out on paper. To Admit It, commit it to print.

NEXT
 

Are We There Yet?

Me: I'd like to know where this is going.
She: Where what's going?
Me: This story. This writing. It's all over the place. There's no structure. There's no end in sight either. Where is it all going to end up? I really didn't want to write a re-hash of everything about my life that's pissed me off. I wanted to progress it, make something of it. You know, make it better.
She: What do you want to write about now?
Me: I don't know. I can't decide what's going to make sense. And what I can cope with.
She: What's been on your mind when you wake up in the night, or in the morning. What's smoldering?
Me: Stuff I actually don't want to write about.
She: What?
Me: What I did to my parents. My part in the alienation.
She: Can you start on that now?
Me: I suppose so. It does feel sticky and sad, choking and hot. Tight in the gut too -- that's a new feeling. But I'm ready to give it a go.
She: OK, go.

I did two things that ensured a gulf remained between me and my mother. I left the Catholic church, and I moved to the other side of the world. Let's deal with the Catholic thing first.

The day before mum died, she told me that the worst thing that had happened in her life was that I'd left the Catholic church -- but that she now realised it didn't matter. I was shocked.  I'd had no idea. I knew when I refused to get married in the Catholic church, it was a Big Deal. They got the parish priest over to talk me into it. He failed. I remember the day clearly. I had just been bullied into having a polyester wedding dress, but I sat on the other side of the fireplace from Father Ives, and answered all his questions calmly, rationally -- I wasn't going to stand in front of a priest in a church and declare things I didn't believe just because my parents wanted me to. It was a matter of conscience. I wasn't going to be unreasonable though.  I invited Father Ives to take part in the wedding service, which would be held on neutral ground, not in a church at all. I was open to him joining in. He refused. He got up from the arm chair, walked into the kitchen, declared me a lost soul to my mother, who was crying when I next saw her, and wouldn't look at me or speak. Shame, frustration? Their oldest child getting married outside the church. Well at least I wasn't wearing a silk dress!

Giving up on Catholicism wasn't something I did lightly or friviously, or quickly, or with the intention of gaining some precious sense of control over my own life. But from here I can see that it created a huge rift that would never be healed. And I kind of liked things that way. It was a way of saying -- you don't own me. You might dictate what I wear, and eat, and say, where I live, what I do in my spare time... but you don't dictate what I think or believe.

Me: that was a lot harder to write than I thought.
She: are you feeling OK?
Me: Yes, but a bit confused. It makes me question my motives. I've never thought I tossed away my religion to spite my parents, but maybe that was part of the motivation. I also feel a bit weird that all those years mum thought this was the worst thing that had happened in her life. I had no idea.

And I also want to say that whatever shame and frustration mum had over the wedding seemed to quickly evaporate, and the plans and preparations proceeded with a hiss and a roar, and it all came together nicely. We had the wedding in the Victoria Chambers -- newly renovated, and very lovely. We got married by a lovely Baptist minister (Nana Ward thought that was cool, her Sid having been a Baptist), all the relatives came (after receiving permission or dispensation from their parish priest to attend a non-Catholic wedding in a non-church), it was a happy day, and everyone agreed the whole thing was lovely. The dress didn't even look too hideous!

I remember Dad was dumbfounded that there was so much booze left over after that wedding. He did the wine and beer catering, and based his calculations on the usual family party consumption. Most of our friends and the other side of the family were not big drinkers. Some of them, including my new husband, didn't drink at all. So Dad got to take more than half the booze home afterwards, which I thought more than made up for for any trouble we'd caused.

____________________
I went travelling, with my first husband, as a lot of people did in their twenties. We were going for 6 months, to Canada, the US and South America. We stayed away the first time for three years. Then we moved to Canada, and I didn't come home for a six year stretch. Dad had died, and I was pretty much disconnected from my sisters, not connected with mum either.

I remember during all those years, starting from when I went to university, really loving being away from the family, having the freedom to just be myself, get a sense of who I was, without all that expectation, controllling and interference. I wasn't going mad and doing stupid things, I was just reading, and writing, and learning not to be freaked out and anxious about everything. I was studying and thinking, and learning to cook, and even starting to get a sense of personal style -- just a tiny bit... that's still a work in progress!

And every time I was going home or seeing the family, I'd be thinking "This time, it's going to be different. This time they'll see who I am, and we'll get on, and like each other and have a real relationship." And every time, it was like walking into a time warp, where I felt like a defected freak, a different species, a disappointment. It was so frustrating. There was no way to connect.

Mum started coming to Canada with her second husband, and I hoped things would improve. During these trips, and some trips I made back to NZ, mum and I would be polite, but alien strangers, as usual. But I learned that by applying alcohol, at least we could have a bit of a conversation that didn't end in tears or frustrated anger. Drinking took the edge off my anxiety, which was sky-high when mum was around. Drinking made me lose my fear of offending her -- seemed to cement my sense of self. Drinking made her not be so easily offended -- she was a bit looser, more open. So we drank wine, or cocktails to take the edge off things between us, and we coped.

We didn't connect. But we didn't have a completely miserable time.

________________
And I would say that was the first time in my life I was really aware of alcohol being a very useful social lubricant. I drank when I wasn't around the family, but I drank far more when I was.

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