Lust and Friendship Through the Written Word (highlights from NYC continued).

2. I could easily have been a groupie.

I can fall in love (lust) with someone based purely upon their mind. A person’s writing is often taken to be a reflection of their mind. As a creature of modern culture I tend to hold this assumption intuitively. There are two people in particular who have had this effect upon me. One is a fiction author, considerably older than me and not always a popular character. But I loved his writing so much that my bookclub friends roll their eyes and look at me every time his name is mentioned. For my part I can imagine myself lining up just to be with him.

The other person is an educational researcher who presented at the conference in New York. I used one of his papers in defence of my research proposal. I love his work, the way he thinks and the way he writes. Of course I went to see his presentations. His current work was equally as impressive as the work that I had already read about. But the thing that impressed me the most was the way he handled the questions from the audience. He uses a theoretical framework that I think is brilliant. It is cutting-edge. This often makes it difficult to respond to questions from people not familiar with this approach. Sometimes a common language is lacking. The theory he (and I) use resists the separation of mind and body. It takes the person holistically. When his responses to the questions stayed true to an holistic approach I could have kissed him. I went up to him afterwards, admitted one of his papers was important in my study, asked him to send me his current paper and whether or not he would read a draft paper of mine. He said he would. He said, keep in touch. I was stary-eyed. 

3. I met a blogging friend for the first time ever!

Lia from Lubeck was in New York City with her family at the same time that I was there. We had been communicating via facebook and set a time to catch up on my last morning for breakfast. 

We had never seen each other face to face. I waited in the lobby of the Sheridan New York carefully studying the faces of all the people. I wondered if I would recognise Lia and whether she would recognise me. I was looking for hints of recognition in people’s eyes, expectant looks, familiar features when suddenly she appeared right in front of me. There was no doubt. I recongised her instantly. It was a happy moment. 

Over breakfast we talked about our adventures in New York, her new job waiting for her to return home, our shared interest in education, our separate research interests, our families, language, life…

She and her family were staying in an apartment. She had been in NYC longer than I had and I could tell she was in holiday mode. She and her two children had been taking in New York. She told a funny story about her desire to witness sun rise over Brooklyn Bridge. The reality of setting off with her children in the dark, cold, deserted New York pre-dawn to do it was not what she’d been imagining. 

Although it was the first time we had met face to face, her company was easy. When we parted she gave me some marzipan from Lubeck coated in dark chocolate. I was touched by her generosity. I have learnt that sharing stories across the ether in the land of Blog can result in friendships rich and warm. And new addictions (where to find that marzipan here…?).

 

Sweet Dreams

Dear Possums, this is not a usual blog post by me. Its a little bit self indulgent.

Whilst riding my pushbike to work this morning the Euythmics song, Sweet Dreams, came into my mind. It is such an apt song for me to be singing today. The lyrics mean more to me now than they did when the song first came out. I tend to enjoy songs for their lyrics. “Sweet dreams are made of this. Who am I to disagree. I travel the world and the seven seas. Every body’s looking for something”.

I like to trust and see the good in people. I have learnt something about myself recently. I am at a loss as to how I am able to live with this fault more wisely. Is it practise? Do you have to throw yourself out there to practise being cautious. Or do you accept the fact that you tend to find good even when it is not there, write yourself off as a danger to yourself and stay indoors and out of circulation for the rest of your life?

Everybody’s looking for something. I thought about that. Its not just other people who are looking for something from me. What am I looking for? I think I know. But what I’m looking for is simple. I think I may already have what I’m looking for. Life beyond my boundaries can seem enticingly exciting, but I think I have learnt that what I’m looking for is probably not out there. And those out there are looking for something different to me.

I am the worst match-maker in history

Harry and I hit it off. We met through a mutual friend initially on a group skiing holiday. The ski holiday was an annual event with this particular friendship group. Harry joined us for at least three years in a row. In between ski holidays we caught up regularly at dinner parties and various functions. Once at a friend’s wedding Harry and I spent the whole night dancing with each other. The young man at the bar commented, “you two are the grooviest couple here tonight”. We laughed because we never were a couple, just good friends. We talked about anything and everything: our respective upbringings, our separate aspirations for life, past and present relationships, work, fitness, children, cooking etc etc. Harry was raised in the country with few resources. However, his high intelligence saw him excel at every thing he put his mind to. He was also a perfectionist. He was a triathlete. At the time he worked as a financier for merchant banks. When he asked me if I had any single friends that he might be interested in, I felt that I knew him well enough to give the match-making thing a go. I attempted it twice. Both attempts were dismal failures for completely different reasons. In the past I found that friends of mine from different aspects of my life, usually got along well when introduced. It made sense. If I like both of them, its likely they would have things in common.  The first attempt was his idea. He wanted to host a dinner party for me, the hub and my chosen single friend. Harry cooked his usual dinner party fare: bread to dip in olive oil and balsamic vinegar for starters, lentil soup, risotto with porchini mushrooms and pears poached in red wine syrup with low fat ice cream. The food was excellent. The conversation was mostly easy. My friend Judy and Harry found that they both went to Monash University at the same time (her to study maths education and him to study chemistry), they both were into the outdoors, he talked about trout fishing and she talked about bush walking holidays and skiing. Things were going fine until she found out he drove a Porche and he told her that he subscribed to The Australian Opera. She voiced her opinion against opera strongly. She believed opera was elitist and divided society into Haves and Have-not’s. After this we had dessert and the conversation returned to lighter topics. However, I felt that Judy’s socialist tendencies clashed so fiercely with Harry’s extravagant life style and liberal views that future dating between the two of them was unlikely. I was therefore not surprised the next day on the phone when Harry expressed to me that he would not be pursuing the friendship with Judy further. What I had not expected was the reason for his decision. “Bindi”, he said, “I’m sorry but I’m just not into pear-shaped women”. The second time I tried to match-make Harry. I decided a less confronting situation was in order. I invited a group of friends out to go clubbing: two girlfriends from play group along with Harry and Dana. I introduced Harry to Dana within the group and let them dance together or chat as they saw fit. Dana is a very attractive woman. She is lively and great fun to be with. I have often said that were I a man, I would be in love with Dana. I could not imagine a man who would not be interested in her. Dana was single after a heart breaking divorce. Like Harry, Dana was raised in country Victoria. She had left teaching (where I met mer) and was running her own printing business close to the town where she grew up. Although she was a self sufficient and successful business woman, she was looking for a man to look after her. In her words, she wanted to meet “a man in a suit”.  I thought Harry could be her guy. She arrived wearing a revealing outfit. She seemed subdued and slightly nervous. Dana and Harry found time to talk to each other. They danced for a short while. Neither of them looked relaxed. Dana had invited some of her friends from her home town to join us.  She became more animated and relaxed when they arrived but spent more time dancing with them than she did with us. Later she left us to kick on to another venue with these friends. Our remaining group of four opted for a quieter end to the night. We found a cafe and drank hot chocolate before heading home our separate ways. Harry seemed to get along better with my two married friends than he had with Dana. I held hopes that perhaps he may have been interested to see her again at least. However he was not interested in the slightest. His assessment of Dana: “she’s just too agricultural”.  Later I caught up with Dana. “No, not my type”, she told me, “too neat and tidy. He looks gay”. After that, I gave up! I have never and will never attempt match-making again.

No White Flag

“I’ve still got sand in my shoes, and I can’t shake the thought of you. I should get on and forget you. But why would I want to? I know we said goodbye, anything else would have been confused. But I want to see you again”. [Sand In My Shoes, Dido]. The job of moving on is a hard thing to do.  The hardest break-up I experienced was with a tall, blonde, athletic Ukranian. We dated for two years. It was during a difficult period of my life. My mother died. He was the last of my lovers to have known my mother. Its possible that my need for security at that time in my life made the split harder to take. However difficult a split is for me I have reflected recently that in general my psychological tactic has been to latch onto the failings of the other. In the case of my tall Ukranian, after we split faults were easy to find. For example, he used to set ridiculous ultimatums. I was playful and could not take them seriously. I tended to push boundaries and flout his ultimatums. To punish me for my behaviour he would withdraw. Once when we were swimming down here at the very beach I still spend all of my summer holidays at, he gingerly entered the water. “Don’t splash me or I will never trust you again”, he warned. Of course, in my book, the only thing to do in this situation is to splash and if possible, trip. He lacked humour. As far as he was concerned I had breached his trust entirely. “I think you are too immature for a sexual relationship”, he pronounced gravely afterwards. Yes! That’s right Possums, he threatened to withdraw from sex because of this. After we split I vowed to never again have an intimate relationship with a person who wagered sex in arguments. Its hard to believe upon writing this story that I ever regretted splitting up with him, but I did for a long time. Focussing on this and his many other failings helped me to recover. There were quite a few actually. He was a creature of habit, cooked the same four meals on a rotational basis and if I joined him in the kitchen had to put up with strict instructions and routine, routine.  We clashed here. My cooking is organic and experimental. He had pannic attacks occasionally to the point where he would purposely lose tournaments in his sport of choice (fencing) to not have to appear in front of the assembly for the trophy. His insecurity manifested iself in our relationship in many ways, right down to long listening sessions on my part. And he was obsessed with his mother. (But he was beautiful. I adored the entire length of  his body during our relationship). I saw him again out of the blue four years ago at the Melbourne Cup. I had since had four children. He was still single, and incredibly nervous at meeting me. I have no desire to keep in touch with him or to ever see him again, but I have been thinking about the process of splitting lately and I wondered why I had been holding on to those bad times. I have decided to let them go because I don’t need them anymore. There were plenty of good times. He taught me how to cook traditional Ukranian food, and decorate eggs for Easter. We went on fishing and beach holidays together up the east coast. We were physically and emotionally intimate for two years. I met the hub less than a year after our split. I destroyed all of our photos after I was married, but my memory is clear. Now, twenty years later I am able to look back upon those memories through a different lens. It has therefore occured to me to ask the question, is it possible to break up with someone without going through a stage of remembering only the bad? Remembering the bad can justify the split and give you a sense of control. Remembering the good brings back the pain of grief for what might have been. Remembering the good happens within a state of melancholy as the process of grief works its way through your psyche. But why is melancholy such an unbearable, intollerable thing? Melancholy is associated with every phase of becoming who we aspire to be. And we are forever and always constantly becoming. This I have been reading about in the philosophy of Judith Butler. Why did it take me so long to see the light? I can walk with sand in my shoes.

I know a place

I  know a place where you can feed Australian animals by hand. It is the local Wildlife Park down here in the seaside town where we spend our summer holidays. I have photos of my children feeding the animals every year since Kathleen (who is now fifteen) was three, and the others were just babies in the baby backpack. This year I took only Sally, Emma and one of Emma’s friends from school. Rosie and Kathleen, for the first time, did not come with us. Instead, they opted to walk along the beach to town with a group of friends (four boys of their age) from our sailing club. Upon entry to the Wildlife Park, the young kids and I paid for admission where we were given little bags of feed. This is the routine at this place (admission costs include feed bags). It is possible to purchase extra feed bags for fifty cents each. This I always do – one extra bag per kid. Every time I take kids to the Wildlife park here (or to the Melbourne Zoo for that matter where we are Friends of the Zoo) there is always one or two highlights. Animals are unpredictable. Its impossible to know beforehand which ones will surprise you on each visit.  After picking up our bag of feed, we wandered in the same direction we always wander. A flock of wild Cape Barren Geese blocked our path to the koalas. These geese stand tall and smokey grey with a hint of pink. The girls opened their feed bags and fed the geese.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the koalas had a baby, but as usual they were sleeping. The wallabies, however, who are allowed to roam free around the park seemed hungrier than usual. The kids spent a long time feeding and patting these little creatures. Over the years we have been coming to the park, the wallabies have become more and more friendly. Even the babies this year were taking feed from the childrens’ hands.

 

Usually I don’t bother feeding the animals, content to sit in the sun, watch the kids and take the occasional photo. But one big wallaby came up to me and put his paws on my hands. I opened my bag of feed (reluctantly – I generally just save my bag for the first kid who runs out) and gave him some. I enjoyed it. Emma took a photo of me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two of the wombats were out walking around. These little guys are really cute. They are nuggety, I love the way their back toes point forwards and turn inwards and they remind me of all the times I have come across them in the wild (fond memories of skiing and bush walking). The kids really wanted to see the Tassie Devil for some reason. I think they are foul looking little viscious things, but they all said “oh isn’t he cute”. This year we didn’t stop to watch the sea eagles or the wedged-tail eagles, who are kept in a big enough enclusure for them to take flight. Last year they did just that. These powerful birds have wing spans of two meters and are magnificent to watch. The fruit bats this year were all pretty much asleep, hanging upside down near the heaters on the roof. Last year I caught them doing it. The kids didn’t see it (they were over at the dingoes) but I was fascinated watching these little furry creatures awkwardly positioning themselves to do it upside down. My favorite area in the park is the section where emus and grey kangaroos live, but not because of the emus. They can be creepy. They can come up quietly behind you and before you know it you turn around to find yourself suddenly face to face with a pecky beak and big poppy-out eyes. Emma is particularly scared of the emus because of a time when she was two, strapped into a pusher at Tower Hill and a couple of emus stole biscuits out of her hands. No, its not the emus eventhough this time there were babies, its because of the grey kangaroos. These creatures are timid, but their fur is silky soft and they have gentle eyes. They are the most beautiful of the kangaroos in my opinion. To my surprise the greys were not timid at all this time. They actually approached the children, allowed them to feed them by hand and stroke their fir. We spent a long time walking around the large open space and bushland where they live. I watched the children. Sally in particular, being the youngest and because she seems to have an affinity with a lot of different animals, enjoyed it the most. She patted and fed them and talked to them as though they understood her. “Are you itchy?” she would ask them if they happened to scratch. Interpreting a pause in their scratching as, “Yes I am and if you wouldn’t mind the spot is right there on my back, oh yes that’s it”, she scratched their backs and entered into conversation with them. I watched as these large kangaroos mellowed under her touch and realised yet again how special this place is.  

Puncture wounds

Keeping a house has never been one of my strengths. But even I could not ignore the layer of dust that had built up on the roof of the dolls house in the lounge. I noticed someone had taken advantage of the build-up to etch the words “I hate e.a.” into one side of the apex. Armed with my magic dust cloth (dust clings to it like magic without water!) I edged my way behind the semi-circular couch to where the dolls house lived and dusted it clean. I peered around to the other side of the apex and could see that a stick figure had been drawn in the dust on the other side. To reach it with my magic cloth I took a step further behind the couch. I did not see the carpet at my feet because I was at the pinch point behind the couch and was virtually squeezed between it and the dolls house. I therefore did not realise that the cat was asleep on the floor right at that point. I also did not feel her when I stepped on her because I had my thick-soled rogaining runners on. The pain of her claws and teeth in my leg and a horrendous squealing yowl were my first indications of her presence. For a slow motion second or two she was attached to my lower leg in vicious counter attack. The pain was incredible. I fell over the back of the couch as she released me and scampered off to safety. I was left clutching my leg and calling out in pain. My children and husband rushed to my aid (it is very rare that I cry out in pain and they were genuinely alarmed). However when I told them what had happened: “the bloody cat bloody bit my leg”, all they did was laugh. The puncture wounds were deep. The pain was intense. Later when I was dabbing antiseptic onto the wounds, I shared my thoughts with my family: “I can’t believe how much this hurts. I now realise how painful it must be to be attacked by a wild animal”. They laughed even more, but I was serious.  It would be a bloody painful way to go! Now three weeks later, I have red marks where the claws and the back and front teeth sunk in and the deepest puncture wound has still not healed. I have been sharing my stressful experience with everyone who has come to our house since the attack. Like my family they laugh and side with the cat. Today our friend Tony joked that I must have been exaggerating, “this story sounds like its been getting taller and taller”, he laughed. “No it hasn’t”, I insisted, “look at these puncture wounds: back teeth – front teeth, see how deep they are! I have been running the risk of serious infection”.  I received no sympathy, instead my friends and family all chipped in to invent a story to account for the puncture wounds: “attacked by a shark, wrestled free, swam bleeding back to shore, limped through the mist, etc, etc”. They all thought it was a great joke.

The Cosmic Rocket

I spent christmas eve with my sister. We used to be close. I had children and she didn’t get around to it. We grew apart. She seemed to change. She became moody and occasionally hurt my feelings. Our relationship became tarnished with baggage that piled up over a number of years like a wall between us preventing understanding and friendship. However, over five years ago she was diagnosed with MS. Suddenly the baggage became just that. And it was discarded quicker than ballast. She was my sister and I loved her. Bad moods and uncharacteristic harshness were explainable as part of the disease. Even so, none of that mattered after I found out she was sick.  Our relationship has repaired slowly over time and is now as strong as it was when we were girls sharing a room together (until the ages of 19 and 17). For the first Christmas Eve in I-can’t-remember, I saw her last week and it made me feel happy.  Together we are home again.  ”Remember some of the boring Christmases we spent during our childhood?”, she laughed. “Yeah, how about the one where we were so bored that we spent the afternoon swatting flies with our cousins? It became a competition”. “Yeah, we swatted them with our hands”. “But we didn’t care, all we wanted to do was beat our cousin Doug”. “Yeah, he was really good at it “. “I thought I was pretty good at it too”. “It was really hot that Christmas, lots of flies”. “Remember the year it rained so much we had a river going down our street?”. “Yeah, and we made little boats out of walnut shells with matchstick masts and paper sails!”.  ”We floated them down the street and watched as they got sucked into the whirlpools above the drains”. “Yeah, I can’t remember how we stuck the masts on. We wouldn’t have had blu tack then…” Now Possums, given this dubious past record, you might well be asking what we got up to this christmas? It was slightly more exciting than squashing flies! But essentially the same deal – everyone in it together: The Launch of the Cosmic Rocket. Here are two of the many attempts made during the afternoon:  

Once in a lifetime

I had a brief conversation while out to dinner last night in which I recommended one of my favorite books, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. My conversation although brief has caused me to reflect on one of the ways the book affected me. It is written in three threads which eventually come together with a twist. One of the threads is a piece of fiction written by a character in the book. This piece of fiction shares its title with the title of the novel. The Blind Assassin thread is a story of two lovers. It accurately captures the state of being of a young woman experiencing her first meaningful sexual relationship. The Blind Assassin is the story her lover tells her as a serial from one encounter to the next. That someone could capture this state of obsessive love using language completely blew me away. Prior to reading this, it had remained an unspoken yet all encompassing state of being that I had experienced in a similar way at the age of eighteen. It made me realise that my experience was shared. Thinking that my experience was unique I had previously never shared it with a soul. Yet reading this novel, I realised another person had known it well enough to write it. My experience was with a boy I met at university who enchanted me entirely. I had come to university looking for excitement and I found it in him. He was beautiful to look at, half Chinese and half Scottish, an accomplished musician and he was studying medicine. He first made love to me in his bedroom at his family home. We could hear other family members moving around the house (he was the oldest of four children) and eventhough I was scared someone would walk in I was so overcome by the sensation of it that I let it continue. I was amazed what my body could feel. On the bus to university the next day I remember allowing myself to recall the experience, mind and body. I thought I had discovered something no one else knew. He possessed me in a way no one else ever would again. To me it was as though he was “the only person in the world with a penis” (a line from Blind Assassin). We skipped classes to be together. We made love in unusual places: garden beds, ovals at night, in the Law toilets at uni, in swimming pools… He failed his first year in med. His family sent him against his will to live in Tasmania for the year to study first year at another university, billeting with a family friend to keep an eye on him. We wrote everyday. His letters were poetic. I lived the year as a shell of myself. I carried his photo, read and reread his letters. He refused to study and returned to Melbourne a year later having failed that year too. We moved into a flat together against all of our parents’ wishes at the age of nineteen. I was studying third year by this time and working as a waitress to pay the rent. He played music and read books everyday. When I returned home, I cooked and cleaned. In our three quarter size single bed at night we searched until we knew each other’s bodies intimately. He was like a puppeteer or a sorcerer. He played me like an instrument, owned me like a pet. Some evenings he read to me. The first book he read was The Three Musketeers. He used a French accent and different voice for each character in the novel. I remember his laughter over this. These moments were joyful. Our bubble burst eventually. The pain of the previous year lingered, especially in him. Being together was not enough to lift his spirits after failing his course and letting his family down.  I felt the stress of study and his monetary dependence upon me.  We started to fight and I met someone new. I wonder how we would have fared if we didn’t have to struggle under such pressure. Was such an obsessive relationship doomed to failure?  He completely owned me for almost three years. When I read The Blind Assassin five years ago or more I cried. It was an eye opener to realise other people had experienced this too. (But, strangely, this is the first time I have articulated it for myself).

The Work Do

Hello Possums. Its that time of year again. The city goes slightly crazy as people organise last minute catch-ups at every restaurant and club around Melbourne. The roads are crazy, shopping centres go crazy, parking is mental, people are nuts. Me? Last week was Layback Club’s break up at a local bar, which I have already mentioned. (Incidentally, I have since found out that the desperate people we watched flirting that night are part of a swingers group!). Last Thursday was my research group’s break up dinner at a lovely restaurant near uni, and on Sunday was a christmas party with our group of friends affectionately called ‘The Gang’. This week I have a christmas break-up or catch up everyday except for Thursday. Last night it was bookclub. We sat in comfy couches in the lounge of a grand hotel, laughed and talked children, renovation, life from a woman’s perspective and chose our next book: ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Not many of us had finished our previous book, which was ‘Black Swan Green’ by David Mitchell, so we’re saving our chat about that one for next time too (which isn’t until Feb). I’m looking forward to having time for reading over summer. Sitting down on the beach with fiction is when I really know I’m on holidays!  Tonight its parents from Sally’s grade. We will celebrate a successful year with Sally’s teacher at a local Thai restaurant. Tomorrow night, its our ‘Talkative Women At The School’ end of year dinner at a local brazzerie. I’m looking forward to this one! The conversation is usually a scream. On Friday night we have a christmas party at a friend’s home. My work do is on Wednesday for lunch. This is usually not a piss-up, but a civilized affair with a nutty twist. The nuts part is the giving of christmas gifts. Every person brings a gift along of a certain value, wrapped and placed under the christmas tree. Names are called out of a hat. The first person to have their name called selects a gift from under the tree, unwraps it for all to see. From then on, each person has a choice: select a gift from under the tree, or ’steal’ someone else’s unwrapped gift. If someone’s unwrapped gift is stolen they may select another from under the tree or steal.  After a few presents have been opened and displayed there is the possibility of long chains of gifts stolen before someone decides to take one from under the tree. Once a year this is a fun activity. Last year an incident that I remember as surprising and funny was a gift of a book called ‘Sex for Over Fifties’ which was ’stolen’ from our Jesuit colleague by a usually mild mannered, straight-laced older woman (with a wicked sense of humour).

It feels weird. It shouldn’t but it does.

Hello Possums. Tonight I have been invited out by my dancing buddy V to partake in tapas with a group of mutual friends before kicking on to a nightclub for some African music. I invited the hub. And he said Yes. Normally he wouldn’t come. He would use the excuse of looking after the kids - especially on a Friday night. Usually he prefers to sit in front of the telly with a bottomless glass of red. After a busy week, he needs to unwind. This is his normal line. And during footy season, television on  Friday night is a sacred ritual. This is why Friday nights are often girls nights for me. If I need to catch a movie or a play or go dancing with girlfriends, this is the night. It should not feel weird that my husband is coming to watch African drummers with me. But it does. It really does. I am not unhappy about it, just weirded out. I think its great that he’s making an effort. How he fits in could be quite an interesting social experiment.  Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend and colleague about mid life crises. I told her mine was over and she laughed and laughed. Yes, it is, I confirmed. Now the marriage difficulties on the other hand, these are not solved. Its just that the crisis aspect is over. I met an older man who I thought was wonderful and this has made me less panicky. I now feel that I am able to put time into the marriage, and even after five years if it still fails then there will be no resentment. There will always be hope and someone out there for me. There is no hurry. Before I thought I had to make a decision quickly, otherwise it would be too late. She thought about what I had said. Hmm, she deliberated, why is this the case that so many marriages are going through difficulties? Mine too! Why is it that our husbands no longer interest us? Take my husband, he is beautiful, a lovely person. He would be a great partner, but for someone else! But I’m not interested any more.  He bores me. Maybe it is a stage, I said. And she agreed. A stage in a long term relationship. Like stages our children go through, that are obvious to us in hindsight. Maybe this is a stage for women in their forties?