Guilty pleasure

‘It’s not very glamorous,' she said. ‘In fact, it’s not glamorous at all. You’ll either love it or you’ll hate it. I’m just hoping you don’t think I’m being rude.’

I’m totally used to my mother understating the likeability factor of any gift she buys for me. I’m not sure if that’s because of her tendency to be overly- circumspect or because of my proclivity for being a picky bitch. Probably a bit of both. Anyway, when she foreshadowed my Christmas parcel, I was intrigued.

Beneath the festive wrapping, enshrined in its all-but-impregnable blister pack, was my new guilty pleasure. I’d seen them advertised by silky-soft-skinned nymphettes in impossibly high-heeled strappy sandals, and I'd secretly hankered for one. 

And here it was, complete with its sparkling diamond crystals and ergonomically-designed soft-touch handle… my very own electronic foot file… the most god-damn glamorous gift I’ve received since those ancient times before I started wearing industrial strength bras and no-nonsense nanna-knickers.

That little gadget is pure bliss with rechargeable batteries.

Miss 15 thinks it’s kind of gross to grind away the gnarly grunge that accumulates around the periphery of my over-worked heavy-load bearing heels. Oh the blessed ignorance of youth. 

She knows not to interrupt, however, when I retire to my bedroom and she hears the purring begin.

Earlier today, as I was effortlessly silky-smoothening my sensuously rounded heels, I had an epiphany. I know how to make the entire female population — plus not an inconsiderable number of those XY chromosome carrying human beings who, let's face it, are only mutated XX carriers — I know how to make the vast percentage of the western world happy.

Right after I finish writing this blog entry, I'm sending off a special request to Santa Claus, which I'll cc. to Dr Scholl. 

This year, I want a total-body-shaping version of this little beauty.How good would that be? Just roll that spinning-sucker over the lumpy bits and watch them effortlessly turn to dust. 

Voila!

Are you with me? 

Santa doesn't eat tapas

 

There are some authors who make me want to read forever.

There are some who inspire and haunt me so that I want to write myself into oblivion. And then there are those who make me feel like I should never ever ever presume to give permanence to any string of words ever…

Not ever…

Recently, a dear word-loving friend and I headed off to spend an evening engaged by just such a writer. We went to listen to the splendiferous David Sedaris reading his own work.

Like a couple of book-moles, or should that be authories? I’m not sure what the appropriate term is… book-skanks? Anyway, like a couple of stalker-chick fangirls we had snagged seats close enough to see the details of the pattern of his voluminous plaid culottes and his perky genuine tie-it-yourself bow tie — close enough even to run the possibility of accidental annointage by flecks of his oh-so urbane spittle.

We got there early.

We took selfies inside the theatre.

Indeed, an indecorous amount of giggling may or may not have been involved. Nervous tension. Excited apprehension.

And perhaps just a glass or two of champagne.

A sweet young thing of an usher politely reminded us that the taking of photos during the show was strictly forbidden. We pondered asking her to take a photo of the two of us that didn’t show up extra chins, or over-sized honkers or lack-of-decent-sleep dark circles, but we didn’t want to scar the poor love for life. Besides, she didn’t have time to take the hundred-or-so shots that our requests would have necessitated.

It was a magic night. David was sublime.

At several points, I thought my companion was going to swallow her own lungs. Stopping the laughter in time not to miss the next peerless observation about life and family can be tricky. Occasional snorts were unavoidable.

David Sedaris is one of those authors who puts words together in such perfect order that he shuts me up entirely. He sees the immensity of minutiae and magnifies it even more notably through his wit and lexicon.

It takes true genius to observe that Santa doesn't eat tapas.

A Teaspoon of Dragon

I fell into a hole.

Which is not to say that I’ve been buried.

Or living under a rock.

More that I’ve sort of been making my way clumsily through summer, stubbing my toes on awkwardly rocky conversations and bruising myself mightily by thudding into me-made walls and barriers as I try to navigate the generally normal social interactions that dominate the holiday period... especially when you live in a big-mother of a house by the beach like I do.

The universe has been trying to throw me a rope to haul myself out. A human rope. So maybe it was more of a life-sized 3D paper doll chain than a rope. I think I saw it there. I did try not to ignore it. But I lacked the courage to grasp it. In truth, I was frightened I might tear it by tugging too desperately, damage its integrity by dangling my substantial frame from its fragile fabric.

Luckily for me, there was magic about : the sort of magic Roald Dahl knew how to find, and make, and spread.

It all started when a little dragon rode a pewter friendship spoon all the way from the other side of the world to land in a sheltered corner of my dining room. He settled happily there amidst other small treasures that remind me of the beauty and wonder outside my hole. And he quietly set about reminding me of something very important.

Never underestimate the power of a dragon.

Soon after his arrival, week by week, message by message, visit by visit began a parade from my past. People I thought lost to me came calling. Friends from earlier times and other places dropped by bringing memories and smiles, champagne and deliciously gooey French cheeses to share.

The evil bitch at the bottom of the hole, the one who holds fast to my ankles and laughs at my attempts to free myself, filled my head with her malicious whispers:   

these people knew you when you were someone worth knowing… you used to be successful… what are you now?

she remembers you as a strong competent woman… you used to be worthy of her respect… what happened?

he hasn’t aged a bit: can’t say the same for you… look at yourself…be ashamed... be embarrassed

But the small dragon was there. Tangible. Textured with truths. Weighted with veracity.

These people had sought me out.  All of them had thought of me, for whatever reason, and followed that thought with action. They had come to spend time with me. Not the person I used to be. Not the person I think I should be. Not even the person the whispering bitch wants me to be. Just me.

Y Ddraig Goch is his name: the Red Dragon of Wales. To me, he will forever be Y Ddraig Goch: Slayer of the Whispers. 

It wasn't a rope I needed, or a chain of hands to drag me out of my hole, it was the wings of a small dragon. 

A bucketful of sunflowers and sorrow

Yesterday I was moved by a bucketful of sunflowers. They were leaning on each other; their bespeckled faces pointed cheerfully in various directions. Tall. Joyful. Those thick-stemmed blooms sparked a golden chain of connected thoughts that led me to sadness. They led me to lovely lost-to-us Liam.

For years, Liam Davison and I were colleagues. A smiling, gentle man with an expansive manner, he had faith in me and in my skills. I admired his immense talent with words. And people.

So, I decided to share an extract of his work with you. And I hope it inspires you to seek out what he wrote for us all to keep.

In one of his haunting short novels, Liam captures time and landscape and character in his imagining of the story of the mysterious White Woman, who, legend says, was held captive by the Kurnai People of nearby Gippsland in the 1840s, the time of early settlers.

The narrator took part in an expedition to find the woman. Forty years later, he tells his tale to the un-named son of a fellow traveller, who has come in search of the truth about his father’s role in the event.

It’s odd how memory serves you.  Or how it fails.  Before you arrived here tonight, knocking surreptitiously at my door for answers to your half-formed questions, I could barely recall your father’s face.   Oh yes, I could conjure up the vague outline of a man if I put my mind to it (large, heavy-jowled, a solid jaw) but of course there was never any need.  He belonged to his own past, you see, as much as mine.  Nowadays, no doubt, you’d make a photographic print to hold it fast, the image of him as he was then, as if you had to fight against the past to keep him from slipping into where he belongs.  Yes, I’m right aren’t I? Memory’s not enough.  Tell me you haven’t sat in front of the magic box yourself and winced at the phosphorescent flash.

    Yet now, with you sitting here before me, the outline sharpens; it takes on your features, your voice, your manner of holding the hot tea to your lips. Your father is back before me. All the years before have gone and I find, yes, I do remember.  I remember what he was like.  I talk with confidence about the things we did.  The events fall easily into place, day follows day, night follows harrowing night.  I open my mouth and it all comes tumbling out as if it happened yesterday: the search for her, the first signs of your father’s presence, the journey up the river… Almost without thinking, it finds its undeniable shape.

    But I worry.  If it was somebody else who knocked, somebody else who walked impertinently into my shabby little room to claim association with my past, would I have just as readily recalled a different face?  Would things have moulded themselves just as comfortably to accommodate a different set of features, different questions, different expectations?  Would I have found myself recounting a different story about a different past? And if no one had knocked…? 

The White Woman, p. 73

How did smiling sunflowers lead me to sorrow?

Photo from abc.net.au

Liam and his beloved life-partner Frankie were on MH-17.

Only his words remain. 

Pedantic Idol

I am not a grammar Nazi.
Nor am I one of those language Luddites who think the 'rules' they parroted at school ... the ones their parents had their knuckles rapped over ... the same rules the nuns used to pull their grandfather's ear for forgetting...  I don't believe those rules should never change. 
I believe language is organic.
And while I'll confess to being a complete and hopeless David Crystal groupie, I'll shout from the rooftops that I have zero-tolerance for Lynn Truss and her stick-up-her-arse zero-tolerance approach to English grammar and punctuation. Nobody else would get a look in if she entered Pedantic Idol.

I'm also willing to testify that I'm just a bit fond of Constance Hale, who...shriek ugh omagod... is American.  Worse yet... She's Californian... 
Surely this zee-saying interloper can have nothing valuable to offer on the sanctity of the grammar of the Queen's English..
I mean...
American English?
Is that even a thing?

Well... cop this. I totally love the smell of this quotation from Ms Hale's Sin and Syntax in the morning:

The flesh of prose gets its shape and strength from the bones of grammar.

Amen to that!

 

To quote my hero...

If you are a regular visitor to The Rock, you will know that in November 2014, I had a stab at my first blogging challenge, during the course of which, I met my best blogging buddies Mary-Anne up there in Canada 'Breathing Life' and Judy over in England at 'Edwina's Episodes'. 

Well, Judy is something of a crazy blog-aholic; she'll chug-a-lug down any writing challenge as if it was a tepid cup of tea.

The last challenge she passed on to Mary-Anne and me was to write at least a paragraph without using the letter e. This time it's to post three quotations that mean something to us over the next three days.

So I'm going to start with an extract from the novel I go to whenever I want to be inspired. Or moved. Or to remind myself that I'm not a writer's bootlace: Tim Winton's Cloudstreet. 
 

Will you look at us by the river! The whole restless mob of us on spread blankets in the dreamy briny sunshine skylarking and chiacking about for one day, one clear, clean, sweet day in a good world in the midst of our living. Yachts run before an unfelt gust with bagnecked pelicans riding above them, the city their twitching backdrop, all blocks and points of mirror light down to the water's edge.

  
Genius.
His shameless Australian diction. 
His unique ability to use the wrong adjective to create an exact image, or to invent the perfect word where none existed before. 
How he breaks the rules of punctuation so carefully that all meaning is possible and positions a word as an unfamiliar part of speech to build a sentence that sings. Or cries. 
Art with words.
Poetry in prose.
Tim Winton is my hero.
What would Cortazar say that reveals about me?

Letting Go

The countdown to Manchild finishing school has begun: 40-something days till final exams. And frankly, we're both poo-ing our pants. Neither of us is ready for this. How the hell did it happen so quickly? 

Preparations for the final day and Valedictory Dinner are well underway. I know this because the school recently sent me a terrifying and inordinately long e-mail. Terrifying not just because I had to cut through all the dross and dodgy syntax to work out what the hell they were trying to tell me — leaving me trembling at what they might be teaching my kids about good writing — but bowel-looseningly terrifying because of this section of the communication:

 ...I am inviting you, as a parent of a 2015 Year 12 student, to join us in this recognition of students by writing a letter to your son or daughter. It may be a chance to let them know how much they are loved; express some of your fears for them, as well as your joys or tell them how proud you are of their achievements – it is entirely up to you.
This letter is confidential- please do not let your son or daughter see it or know that you are writing it so that it will be a surprise when it is given to them at the House meeting. The Year 12 students will have a chance to reflect and take some time before their final Assembly. In this time the letter from you would be read. It will be a meaningful time for each student to be able to reflect on their relationship with their family... 

Last day of school... Ever...

A meaningful time to reflect on his relationship with his family?

Seriously?

So his final day of school isn’t going to be about throwing eggs from the bus and getting his uniform signed by his peers then?

Really?

Are you sure?

Have you met my son?

And after the week that we’ve had — a phone call and two emails to let me know about his 'behaviour' and failure to apply himself, plus a detention for arriving late to a class carrying a cheese toastie and cuppa-soup  — right now my letter to the Manchild would begin something like this:

Dearest Light-of-my-life,

It somehow never occurred to me that my amazing intelligent son would spend his last few weeks of school being a total dick. Why don't you just pull your finger out... and your head in?

I'm pretty sure that's not what  they're looking for from me.

 

My whirling panic about WTF to write stirred a memory of a piece about his  first day of school I wrote for a parenting magazine all those years ago. I found a copy filed on the first external hard-drive I ever bought. Here’s how I started that article:

Suddenly, my big tall boy, who’s always looked so much older than his few years, had shrunk. I watched him through the blurred filter of tears I knew he mustn’t see. Attention focused on the task of tying his shoelaces, he wore the face of one who understands the burden of responsibility. Heavy black shoes and long baggy shorts emphasised his thin brown legs.

I resisted stepping in to help him. With the task completed to his satisfaction, he looked up and beamed. Such a familiar smile. The one he’d worn the first time we saw him. The one that enchanted everyone when we carried him proudly through those big customs doors at the airport more than four years ago. The smile that makes my heart sing and his eyes disappear in his face.

My baby boy was ready to start school. And he was so proud.

For so long – understandably – we parents, mothers especially, focus on the desire for a baby and the delights that becoming a family can bring.

But those babies are with us for a blink.

Too soon they are independent people – off to make their own way in the world, facing experiences that do not involve us, trying to make sense of a life that so often has no reason at all. That’s what we want them to do. That’s what we raise them to do. But when they actually set off to do it, we feel a deep sense of sorrow, even loss. We cannot protect them from any hurt they may face...

 

And here’s how I finished it:

 It makes my throat constrict and my heart pound whenever I have to wave good-bye and head back home on those days when he has trouble disengaging from me. But this is only the beginning. We have a long way to go. I’ll get over it. But that big smile at pick-up time —  the one that makes my heart sing and takes me back to a hot afternoon in Seoul when I first met my son, I’ll never get over that. 

He used to have trouble disengaging from me.

Now, for his last day at school, the situation is reversed.

I think I know where to start my letter.