Next time I will listen

I kid myself that I have psychic powers. No. What I’m really trying to say is that I have an inner voice. This inner voice rings alarm bells when things don’t feel right. It has premonitions. It comes up with ideas that are so clever I sometimes wonder if its actually me. The only problem is I generally ignor it.

I pulled up in Richmond the weekend before last to do a spot of shopping in between dropping Emma at a bowling party and picking Kathleen up from drama. I like to check out the shops in Bridge Rd, not necessarliy to always buy. I had time to kill that day. As I parked the car I had a weird premonition that I would meet someone I knew. Sure enough, as I was pulling out of my parking spot half an hour later a close friend wandered into view strolling up the other side of Bridge Rd with her new boyfriend (likely found on the internet, but that’s beside the point).

I was at slalom training last night with Rosie. Despite the down pour of rain we had during our session, we had a lot of fun. Our coach set up a little course for us and timed each of our runs. Rosie is generally faster than me. (A fact I find difficult to swallow). On one of my runs I went really hard and cleared all of the gates to beat Rosie and others in the group by a good three seconds. I basked in my victory, which was short-lived because I didn’t listen to my inner voice. It said, “quit while you are ahead”. I actually felt really tired and didn’t feel like doing another run, but when our coach announced we had time for one more each, I went for it anyway. On the third gate, my hand slipped on the draw stroke and I knocked myself on the helmet with my paddle. This action not only slowed me down a couple of seconds, it was noticed by everyone in the group who launched into fits of laughter. They were still laughing when I completed my run and paddled back up to join them. “Did you notice what I did?”, I asked sheepishly. “Oh yes, it was hilarious!”, replied my coach. “What did it look like?”. “Donk!”. The coach and Rosie delightedly demonstrated knocking themselves in the head with their paddles. “Do I get points for entertainment value?”, I enquired. I laughed along with everyone else despite my embarrasment (laughter being fairly contageous), but I regretted the run. I should have listened to my inner voice. 

No shortage of things to do

 

There is no time at my place to mope around. Sally and Emma have finished school and the holidays have begun. Kathleen and Rosie have come home from the last carols performance with their choir for the week. The only commitment we have left before leaving for the beach house is a party tonight that the whole family is invited to.  There is no time here to worry about young male teachers who are fickle about women. No, not at all. These diversions are best ditched and filed under “not worth it”. Bindi, file that away as a note to yourself. There are children who need your help to make ginger bread men and to write them lists so they can pack for the holidays. And when you have finished this, phone a friend. Under no circumstance are you allowed to mope about falling out with this particular acquaintance. Good Girl.

on the cocktails again

What a wonderful cup week we have had here in Melbourne, Possums. Last night (its the morning of the 11th here), out at a jazz venue for a friend’s 40th, race goers were spilling into the city to party on after The Stakes. The Emirates Stakes is the last day of the racing carnival and it is often referred to as family day. However, amongst the revellers last night, there were not many families.

The atmosphere in Melbourne is lively and friendly on these days. Wherever you go, you are bound to come across happy, uninhibited race goers. Despite the hubby actually being out with me this time, I still managed to meet and dance with many of them last night. The hub isn’t a dancer, Possums. He spent most of the evening on the balcony overlooking the Yarra River talking to other people’s non-dancing hubs.

I was dancing with a woman from our group when two young men joined us on the floor. One of them wore an elaborate orange hat, which I assumed he had stolen from a female friend. His mate said he had spent most of the day in it. Whilst dancing each of us had a go in the hat. He took photos of us on his digital camera. In a sober mood this morning, I am wondering what will become of the photos – perhaps they will appear on a blog or facebook page? What stories will they tell?

The problem was that we had been drinking cocktails as part of the birthday celebrations, so although we hadn’t been to the races, we seemed to have caught up pretty quickly in the party mood stakes. I spent a long time talking to one man in between music brackets, who we had mistakenly identified as someone’s hub from our group. Our conversation began by ascertaining that he was not part of our party group, moved on to a discussion about the races and betting systems (the failure of mine in particular) and various other topics. It was an enjoyable conversation. He told me I had a very expressive face and teased me about my hand gestures. When the conversation paused for a little while I asked, So are you married?

No, he said, are you?

Yes.

Show me your ring. Very nice. That makes it a bit awkward.

Awkward to have a discussion after the races? I queried.

Yes.

Hmm. I thought afterwards that it is probably naive to think that talking to a man at a bar could be simply taken at face value as a friendly, uncomplicated gesture.

Still Smiling

Hello Possums. I had a brilliant day at The Oaks yesterday. I left home at 9.30 in the morning and didn’t get home until midnight! I have uploaded some photos as promised and you can access these via the Flickr link to the right. I’ll leave it there for a couple of days. Now, let me just quickly share some funny incidents and two lovely compliments I received during the day.

The train was filled with people on their way to the races dressed up in splendid fashion. A group of young men stood in the doorway ahead of me. I admired the way one of the young men had groomed himself, and in particular the way he had shaped his beard. I was admiring its neatness and how perfectly it suited his face, when I noticed he had quite lovely lips. He caught my eye for a moment and smiled shyly. When he smiled I noticed that on his teeth he had braces…

Later I was talking to an older woman on the station platform at Flemington. We were both waiting with tickets for our friends. A different group of young men were also waiting quite close to us. They seemed younger and louder than the sophisticated group on the train. We both agreed that although Oaks Day was traditionally Ladies Day, there seemed to be very large number of men arriving. I don’t mind the eye candy, said she. I laughed. Just at that moment one of the louder ones received a text. Reading it he said, Hey I just got a text from my grandmother…

I spent most of the day in our reserved area with three girlfriends. A group of three men in their mid forties joined us at our table after race four. They were very chatty. We shared tips for the races, rounds of drinks and some great conversation. After a couple of hours of this, one of them said to me, You are the youngest person I have met in ages! I found that slightly incredulous.

What? You haven’t met anyone younger than forty-three for awhile? I queried.

No, I don’t mean in age, I mean in outlook to life…

At a bar in Southbank afterwards we danced with a group of young men from Brisbane and their mate from England. The one from England bounded up to me, introduced himself and inquired as to whether I’d been to The Oaks (as you do). I motioned to my hat (a dead give-away) and replied that we had. But told him it was more difficult to tell whether he’d been because he wasn’t wearing one. He said, may I borrow yours? He put it on and we laughed. After a little while he put it back on my head and said, I wish I could look half as good in a hat as you do…

Later in the night I was dancing to ‘You’re the One That I Want’ with one of the Brissie boys. He dipped me so low that not only my hat fell off, but the beads fell off from around my neck. As if that wasn’t funny enough, he picked the items up with a flourish and dramatically replaced them onto me as though it was part of our dance. Neither of us skipped a beat. But I was laughing. There were few onlookers laughing as well…

The dance partner

I was out with Libby. We went to listen to a friend of hers, Max, playing in a blues/soul band. He was on the sax. The music was so good that everyone was up dancing and the floor was crowded. It didn’t matter whether or not you had someone to dance with. The floor was so packed that no one stood out as being on their own. Even groups of guys were up dancing. It was like a big party and the mood was friendly and loud.

Libby and I were near the stage where we could easily see Max when a young man dancing a short distance away pointed and indicated come and dance here (next to him). I turned away expecting him to be pointing to someone behind me, but he was pointing to me and he repeated the gesture with emphasis. I was reluctant to leave Libby so I replied with a defiant gesture of no you come here. So he did.

He wasn’t very tall; maybe a little taller than me. He had blonde curly hair and was well dressed except for some very pointy brown shoes. They stood out because his pants were a light colour. His name was Mark. He wasn’t very old; in his twenties or thirty at the most. He was very sensual.

Respect was being played and we danced. He moved well. When he started moving closer to me, I started to laugh. His expression was intent. I couldn’t keep a straight face. It didn’t make sense to me for a young man to be coming on to me so strongly. I couldn’t take it seriously but I played up to his attention and danced in sync with him. He came closer. With his face next to mine he bent and smelt my neck. The sensation of his nose brushing lightly against my neck sent a shiver down my spine. I think he noticed me shudder. A slower song came on. He didn’t touch me, but moved his hands over the shape of my body as he danced. He moved away and I laughed again. The next time he moved close I could feel his hot breath on my neck. My breathing quickened. He licked my neck and then moved away again. My legs felt weak. For a moment I stopped dancing and my hand went up to that place on my neck. Recovering, I shot a glance in Libby’s direction and feigned fanning my face.

A faster song came on after that. As we danced he moved into free spaces, edging closer to the back of the dance floor where he stopped dancing. Lets go, he said. I shook my head and told him I was staying with my friend. I thanked him for the dance and went back to Libby. What was that all about? she asked. I don’t know, I said, but he’s a very good dancer.

At the end of the bracket, Libby and I went to the bar for a drink. He was there with a couple of his friends. We sat down away from their group and he didn’t come over. The band started up again with You Can Leave Your Hat On. Libby and I were enjoying dancing to it when he came up onto the floor and gestured me to follow him. He didn’t turn around to see that I was staying put dancing with Libby and soon he was out of sight. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving Libby on her own again. I was a little disappointed that he didn’t just come back and dance with us.

When we left, I saw him sitting by himself on a bar stool. I went up to him and put my arms around his neck. I’m going now, I told him.

I’ll come with you. His eagerness surprised me. He reached for his coat.

No.

Give me your number then. He pulled out a pen.

Um, No. His shoulders slumped and he shook his head. He was disappointed but took a deep breath, sighed in resignation, and sweetly held my gaze.

I just wanted to thank you for the dance before I left, I said, you are very sexy.

~ I dragged this little story out of my archives, Possums. You see, next door is having a 21st birthday party and their speakers are set up outside. Its loud! I just couldn’t get to sleep so I decided to grab a peppermint tea and do some writing. The title of this story and its bare bones were amongst my drafts. I’ve brushed it off and edited it into a coherent piece. My apologies to those of you who heard me tell it and retell it last December, or who received my excited text detailing the lick. You have heard it before and we have already shared a laugh over it.

Dee explained why she laughed: That story is really funny because you just don’t look the type!

What do you mean? I asked.

Well you don’t dress provocatively and you obviously don’t go looking for it.

She was quite right. But she has never seen me dancing with abandon.

O thanks

Hello Possums. Its raining cats and dogs here. I’m at our beach house and my kids and friends have just been for a swim in wild windy and cold conditions, with their wetsuits on of course. My girlfriend Ita went in with our kids while I donned the raincoat and elected to watch. I know you eventually warm up in a wet suit but that first cold rush takes a bit of grit to get over. It was nice on the beach in the wind. I took photos of the crazy swimmers and didn’t care that the rain was gradually soaking into my cords. They only lasted for twenty minutes in the freezing water. Ita and her kids ran back to their place for showers. My kids are now warming up by the fire. Kathleen is making toasted cheese sandwiches for herself and her sisters using an old jaffle iron.

Its lovely down here. We all relax and unwind. In this unencumbered time I tend to think and reflect; find the inspiration to write, put pieces of life’s puzzle together or find a new way to look at my research data. Lately among other things I have been trying to come to terms with the craziness that is my mid life crisis. I think I’m finally beginning to find my bearings.

My latest thoughts rest on a thankyou note to a person who I will never thank face to face (or in any format for that matter, probably). You can’t thank people for lessons you have learnt from them when it really doesn’t have anything to do with their intentional actions. I will probably never see him again face to face. But what he has given me is a new perspective on myself.

For a little while we were just two people. I was not a mother. I was not a wife. I was not an older women. I was just a person, me. Its refreshing to be treated this way. Its heart breaking too – but worth it. I’m changing and learning about what I want. I’m happier for it; feeling more solid. So thanks.

What were you doing at 29?

Hello Possums. Let me tell you about a young man I met at a high school reunion earlier this year. He flattered me and guessed my age ten years younger than I am, and we chatted for ages on the balcony while the reunion raged on inside. He was 29 and yet he still lived with his parents.

Why should I move out, I have it so good there, he said.

He wasn’t interested in meeting anyone special or settling down.

Why should I tie myself down, he said, its too much fun dating lots of different girls.

Instead, he still went out regularly with his mates. Most of his mates were there at the reunion too. They’d all been to high school together. There would have been about eight of them. I met him because one of his mates asked if I could take their group photo, and then he returned the favor for our group.

He used to be a carpenter. He still had a passion for working with wood and made furniture as a hobby, but had gone into business with his brother running a fish and chip shop. I imagined cooking fish and chips over a greasy hot plate and noticed that his skin looked good.

It’d be hot, greasy work cooking over that plate, how do you keep your skin looking so good? I asked him.

Oh, I take good care of my skin, he said, yeah I use cleansers and moisturizers and toner, the works. You must too, because yours looks great.

Oh, no I just wash it with a soap-free face wash in the shower, I confessed. But I didn’t have to tend with fish and chip shop grease. I looked closely at him and noticed that he was very well groomed. He obviously did spend a lot of time on himself.

He asked about me and how long I’d been married.

Oh, eighteen years! Wow, that takes a bit of effort, he said in a fairly suggestive way.

I did confess then that in fact I was probably slap bang in the middle of a mid-life crisis, meeting way too many young men and having a lot of trouble staying focussed.

So if I made a pass at you now you probably wouldn’t cope, would you? he said playfully.

He asked me what I did for a living and when he discovered I was a teacher told me stories about his school days. He had arrived from Greece in year 8. On his first day a girl came up to him and said, my friend wants to get with you after school behind the shelter sheds. He laughingly confessed that at the time he didn’t know what get with meant or where the shelter sheds were, and so instead of having his first experience with girls, he just went home that day. Being straight from Greece, man, I had no idea!

Once he copied an essay off a girl in his class and handed it in as his own. Same essay, mate, but we both got different marks! Can you believe it! I got a D and she got a B. The teacher had no idea.

We walked back into the reunion together. He went back to his mates. As a parting gesture we kissed each other on the cheek. See you later, I said, come and find me if you want to dance.

Yeah, I’ll have a dance with you later, he replied.

I’ll dance with you if he doesn’t want to, one of his mates called out as I was turning to leave.

I returned to my group of friends. Where have you been – you’re blushing, said my friend Mindy.

Chatting to my new best friend, said I.

You are going to have to give up your thing for young men, she chided. (Mindy always thinks she knows what’s best for me, and she is usually right).

One of the guys in our group, Mitch, heard this exchange. Do you have a thing for young men? he asked. I shrugged and smiled in a lost sort of way, which he took as an affirmation. Well, I would just like to mention, he continued with a cheeky grin on his face, that I am the youngest here in our group!

Bless him.

Mitch at 29 was single and working in London. He is now engaged for the first time at 43 to a woman in her mid-thirties. At 29 Mindi was pregnant with her first child, and step-mother of three. When I turned 29 I had been married for four years, my first baby was two months old and we owned a house in inner Melbourne which we were in the process of renovating.

What’s it all about?

Mid life crises, what are they all about? I had an enlightening conversation with a young acquaintance of mine on Thursday who is rapidly becoming a treasured coffee-date friend. He and I met at the start of the year at a postgraduate student orientation over pizza lunch. The lunch was a haphazard deal, you just wandered up to trestle tables set up outside in the heat, and helped yourself. It was then a bit of a challenge to find a place in the shade to eat them. After choosing a slice of pizza with hot salami, I turned around and he was just there eating his pizza in the shade of a large tree and looking rather cute, so I just had to go over and say hello. After quite an enjoyable conversation we swapped contact details and since then have been catching up for coffee periodically throughout the year.

Recently in conversation with Mirabella we discussed the phenomenon of the coffee date. She distinguished between a non-coffee-date friendship with men, for example the contact would be mainly through email or convenience, such as working at the same place, and a coffee-date friendship, where the practice of having coffee together and a chat is an established or natural part of the friendship. She has a theory that one cannot invite a non-coffee-date friend out to a coffee. She feels that the breach in protocol is too great to be born. If this is true, then I am glad that G and I have established coffee-dating as part of our friendship early in the piece. Note that I use the word dating here for want of a better word, because I’m talking about friendship at this point.

He emailed me the night we met and our pattern of meeting for coffee was set up. The first time we talked a kaleidoscope of topics for ages and ages. We both had fun. Its like this every time. Last Thursday he told me that he doesn’t have that style of conversation with any of his other friends. This did surprise me. Anyway for the first time we dug a little more deeply into each others lives and discovered that we are both going through life crises of different varieties. Mine, a mid life crisis and his a crisis of consciousness and direction.

He asked me a difficult question: What is a mid life crisis for you?

After trying to avoid a direct answer, I finally articulated how I felt as best I could and came up with the following: I have had four children. As you can imagine I have been very much absorbed by raising them for many years. For example, I was either pregnant or breast feeding for eight years straight. This was a wonderful part of my life. My children were my focus, but slowly I faded into the background. This is OK because you do look at your children as though they are shining, and you want them to shine.

But now they are older and I am moving on to doing other things. For the first time last year I left my family to go to an interstate conference and all of a sudden I was being noticed and treated as an individual. I was not used to this and found it overwhelming. I am used to it now, but I am changing as a result.

He is a very thoughtful person. His reply to me was this: So you are experiencing a certain amount of freedom for the first time in a long time. Sometimes freedom of choice is the hardest thing to deal with. It reminds me of a Sartre novel that illustrates what people will endure to avoid having to choose. In his novel, a woman is torn between her husband and her lover. But rather than make a choice she just preferred to go with the one who could pull her the hardest. You know, the metaphor is that each had hold of one of her arms and were pulling.

Well I could have kissed him then and there! This is it exactly! My role as mother nolonger locks me in, and freedom is scary. The other interesting thing we uncovered on Thursday is that I am eleven years older than him. How can such a young man be so wise?

Not a crisis, an awakening!

Oh Possums, the mid life crisis perpetuates. I’m all in a muddle and a fuddle. Since the middle of last year, my life has been getting steadily more and more crazy. One of my friends has described this as a normal coming out phase. Let me tell you, it does not feel normal to me.

What am I in a spin about this time? Well, as if meeting up with my first true love at the reunion on Saturday night wasn’t enough, I met a cute young maths teacher yesterday who struck up an intense conversation with me about politics and books. I enjoyed the conversation and left my card in his pigeon hole at the school asking him to email me the book titles he recommended. However, when I got home I found an email from him asking the same question of me. The exciting thing is that he emailed my home address, and I gave him my work email. This means he actually did some homework of his own to find my contact details. That is keen, isn’t it?

I received a second email from him this morning (its Tuesday in Aus) offering to lend me one of his books and inviting me out for coffee and a chat. My dilemma is how to reply to his invitation. Do I accept, without further explanation, or do I accept and also warn him that I am a married woman having a mid life crisis and considerably older than him – you know, just throw it all out in the open from the beginning?

This post was going to be longer. I was going to also tell you about the young Greek man I met at the reunion who guessed my school year as 1991 (instead of 1981) and so I adopted him as my new best friend (because flattery gets you everywhere) and he flirted with me for ages, and about the advice one of my old dear friends at the reunion gave me about thinking positively about my mid life crisis, hence the phrase ‘an awakening’ in the title, but I’m too excited to sit still.

Oh Yeah!

Hello Possums, I thought I would update you on my progress with slalom kayaking. A sport I took up at the start of the year with my daughters.

Seb took over as coach of my group last night. This young man engaged easily with us and I found him very encouraging and enthusiastic. We chatted between each of my runs. He complimented me on my lean, but I explained that this came quite naturally to me because I had been a white water paddler for years, it was just the slalom gates that freaked me out. At the start of the year, as I approached a gate, I would start to stress. The self talk went something like this:

Oh shit, the gate, ahhh….

But by the end of last term, I was starting to get the hang of them. This term, I’m even getting to the stage of being quite relaxed and timing my sweep and draw through the gates fairly well.

The river was up slightly because of the rain we’ve been having and there were a few nice eddies forming throughout our usual course, that really weren’t much to speak of last term. Seb put us through our paces and our last little exercise of the night was a short course that included two very tight ups and a spin on a gate close to the eddy line.

I was chuffed, Possums; completely delighted, when I completed the run and Seb said to me,

Awesome. Your spin was awesome!