Injections and angst

One of the plethora of forms I had to sign and return this week, absolving the school of any and all responsibility for the safety and welfare of my children was a permission slip for Miss 14 to have an update of her anti-whooping cough shot. There's been at least one case at the college recently, so they've decide to bring the mass-vaccination forward by a year. Miss 14 is to be a victim. 

She's pretty stoic about such things, but eye-rollingly predicted sooking and fussing of monumental proportions, perhaps even some Emmy-worthy instances of bring-the-smelling-salts-I'm going-to-pass-out behaviour amongst the more practised of the teen drama-queens in her year level at the mere sight of a syringe with needle.

Flashback: Wendy stumbles along a pot-holed neural pathway and falls through the darkness of post-menopausal short-term memory loss to plop soundly into the squishy greyness of long-term memoryland...


'Injections. Daily injections. They're not especially large. You stick them directly into your stomach. It's easy. You can do it yourself. Just a quick jab. Perhaps your husband could do it for you.'

That was not going to happen.

Back when we'd first jumped on the IVF merry-go-wrong, he'd had to have a blood test. Just one. One small phial of blood. I was sitting for the mandatory ten minutes after the vampire pathology nurse had extracted about a litre from me and then replaced it with enough hormones to make a mad woman sane... or super-ovulate, which was, of course, the desired outcome. As I sat distractedly, a voice broke through the fog of my what-if and maybe-this-times:
'...um... There's a man face down on the footpath.'

'That'd be mine. He's not good with needles.'
Understatement.

From the point of his hitting the footpath outside the hospital, during the I've-forgotten-how-many interminable cycles I endured, if ever he was required to make a contribution of bodily fluids other than those he deposited into a little paper cup after enjoying the privacy of his own room and whatever videos or magazines tickled his fancy, the nurses would fuss about him, insisting he lie on one of the reclining chairs while they fetched him a sweet cup of tea. 
Never mind me. Dignity checked-in at reception. Arms like a junkie. Enough laparoscopy scars to play naughts and crosses around my navel. I'll be fine. 

There was no way he was going to be able to inject me. 
I did it myself.

His reaction stretches back to when he was eight years old and fainted immediately after a trip to the doctor for a series of tests. And he says that every time he comes to, he is that little boy on the concrete beside the doctor's low cream-brick fence. Shocked and frightened. His mother embarrassed that her younger son is making a public display, dragging on his home-knitted woollen school jumper to pull him back up as she clutches the prescription for the phenobarbital she fed him for the next decade. 

The first time I witnessed his reaction to needles, we were preparing for our honeymoon and had just had our cholera shots. I was dutifully concerned and sympathetic. Over the 28 years since then, I think it would be fair to say my level of compassion has waned somewhat, but the power of deep memory never ceases to amaze me. So my external speaker told Miss 14 the story of her dad, counselling her to be  charitable. We all have our quirks and thresholds. Be generous to others. You never know anyone's back-story.

But the bitch inside my head was agreeing with her. 
She's right.
There will be squeaky wheels whining for attention.
There always are.
And I'm glad she's not one of them.



  

Boxers, breakfast and bitching

Just two days in to the school year and already the morning was a disaster. It ended in tears. This can be, in part, attributed to any or all of the following factors:

• Miss 14 left her phone on the school bus on Friday and is visibly suffering  from lack of social networking.
• The fridge broke down and until the mechanic can get the relevant exorbitantly priced part delivered from somewhere in Outer-Mongolia, all of the perishable foodstuff is located in the old-but-not-quite-old-enough-to-be-retro-chic refrigerator in the shed, which, of course, is situated at quite some distance from the upstairs kitchen and dining room.
• As a direct consequence of the above point, no matter how often Mr Turning-17-on-Thursday stands with the fridge doors wide open, for the first time in his life, there actually isn’t anything to eat in there.
• Bad Mother hadn’t filled in the multiplicity of permission forms the school emailed to me her last week, which all had to be completed and returned by this morning.
• It’s Monday.

 But for me, the problem was that both of the human beings under the age of 20 who occupy the same house as me spoke lovingly and gave attention to the younger of our dogs and completely ignored the other. The old girl. Even when I asked them to include her, pointing out that she wouldn’t be with us for much longer and she loves them too, they didn’t.  At first that really rankled. Then it made my eyes leak.

My most beloved canine companion is unlikely to make it through another winter. Casablanca has already lived beyond the average lifespan for her breed, and in the past few weeks has suffered a couple of minor strokes. Her dear droopy old face has forever been described with those clichés that must make Boxers want to accidentally drop a juicy lump of gob on the speaker’s foot, or better still, right on the head of the recently coiffed fluffy slipper such humans mistakenly believe is a dog. Such ignoramuses repeatedly and predictably say Cass has a face so ugly that either (A) it’s beautiful or (B) only a mother could love it. Well, I adore that face. To me it is the face of trust and love. But now, my companion's already polarising face droops even more. And she lists to the right when she walks.

Still, she loyally pads behind me wherever I go.  I try to instruct her to stay and wait when I’m just heading for the bathroom or the laundry, telling her I will be back in a flash, but she pretends she cannot hear me. So the trip takes me a little longer than if I was alone.

The wooden staircase is bothering her. Going up is fine, but she has to work up the courage to come down. Her hind legs have betrayed her a few times and she has tumbled the last metre or so. And yesterday, she almost… almost… didn’t bother to jump up onto the bed to lean against me snoring contentedly while I was reading.

I hate that with the brashness of youth, my kids have made redundant a companion they cannot remember living without. Made her less valuable than her younger counterpart.  Less deserving of love. Invisible. Because she’s old.

I know exactly how that feels. 

So when Miss 14 directed a particularly snarky and hurtful comment at me as I was dutifully preparing school lunches of crispy fresh bread rolls filled with left-over roast lamb and arugula, complete with Monica Geller's secret moist maker, I didn't pretend I hadn't heard it. I didn't smile wanly and tilt my head in that way that says 'I know you didn't really mean that to sound as shitful as it was, Darling'. I didn't politely suggest that she mind her manners. 

I barked.

Loudly.

Ferociously.

On behalf of both of us, me and the other invisible old bitch in the family. 

And yes, then it all ended in tears.

Awards and a Blogheard

In November 2014, I decided to take the plunge and get involved in NaBloPoMo ( National Blog Posting Month at blogher.com ) I wasn't sure what I was in for. To be honest, I really had no idea what I was even doing. Still don't, but I'm having fun making it up as I go along. But it set in motion a great many wonderful things.

Early in the process — very early, I think it was probably while I was still working out the how the hell to post to the site — I was browsing through comments other writers had left when they signed up for the challenge and I happened upon another blogging newbie: Edwina's Episodes I left a comment to say I was in the same boat and more than a little bit worried about falling out. She responded. And so began my first experience of having a blogging buddy on the other side of the globe.

To be honest, I'm not even sure how/when I happened upon Breathing Life I cannot remember whether I found Mary-Anne while browsing through the long list of daily submissions, or whether she found me. Either way, I'm glad it happened. It was Mary-Anne who introduced me to the concept of having a blogheard — we both love to play with words and create new ones to better represent what we mean. Mary-Anne has become central to my heard. She too lives in the other hemisphere, in somewhere almost the antithesis of The Rock.

We three bloggers who promised to post every day of November 2014 have become connected as the threads of our words stretch around the world to knit our lives and thoughts together. Brightly spun stories. Knobbly grey confessions. Cashmere soft dreams. All of them unique.


Edwina of Edwina's Episodes is not Edwina. That is to say, Edwina is her middle name. I know at one point I read her regular moniker, but typically, it fell into the post-menopausal blackhole in my brain where it clanks up against all the other things I've forgotten just enough for them to irritate the be-hooey out of me. So Edwina will have to suffice. Edwina is prolific. And in the same time that I have accrued a band of followers that a camel could count on one foot, she has amassed a small nation. That and about a squillion blogging awards from her loyal folk.

Generously, she has in turn nominated me for two of said blogging awards. The Real Neat Blog Award is, like me, a newbie to the blogosphere. The Premio Dardos, which means 'prize darts' in Spanish, seems to have been doing the rounds since about 2008. This award is given by one blogger to another as recognition of 'cultural, ethical, literary and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing'. Wordy... but kind of cool.

The 'rules' of these awards require me to answer a few questions about myself, then nominate a number of other blogs for the award. I'm still building up my list of blogs that keep me coming back for more. Maybe I'm a tough audience. Anyway, I'm going to thank Edwina-who-is-not-Edwina, answer the questions, but bail out of the nominations. I promise I'll post a list of blogs I've been wandering around somewhere down the track. Promise.

So, thank you Edwina-who-is-not-Edwina, and here are my responses to what you asked of me:

What inspires you to write/create your blog?

It had been too long since I’d written for the sheer creative pleasure of it. And the Black Dog had been more than circling. I was suffering from repeated ravaging. So I began to blog with the intention of using it as a part of training myself in the skills of positive psychology.  I like me the writer.I like Wendy of the Rock, and I'm having fun hanging out with her.

What would be written on your epitaph?

 Well at least she tried.

Do you have a favourite season and why?

I love spring. There are more animals and birds about. I love birds. Birds are amongst the best things about where I live. I have conversations with them all the time.

Are you a realist or a dreamer?

A realist with a few dreams.

Would people describe you as shy or outgoing?

That depends on context. Most people would say I’m outgoing, but that’s a lie that I sustain.

What song best describes you?

Who would you love to be for a day?

Nicole Kidman: To look like that AND come home to Keith…. Sigh… 
But I would never call my daughter Sunday Roast.

Lucky Dip

  One of the writing prompts at the masterclass yesterday was 'Lucky Dip'. It sort of summed up the day. I didn't exactly waste my money; I definitely plucked a few shiny treasures to bring home from the grab-bag but mostly I ended up with a pocketful of semi-useless but pleasantly diverting plastic trinkets. 

Anyway, my consciousness stream wasn't flowing especially creatively yesterday, and this topic somehow became glued in my imagination to Forrest Gump's mother's metaphor about Life as a box of chocolates. Which, in turn, prompted me to ponder what advice I would give myself about how to act when I find I have selected a mandarin cream. I don't love mandarin creams...See what I mean. My stream was more like a dribble of consciousness yesterday...  

So here's what I told myself:

Dear Wendy

When faced with the mandarin cream dilemma, as I see it, you have three possible choices. 

1: Just eat the damn thing. Without fuss. Without drama. Be a big girl. Suck it up.

2: Give it away. Offer it to someone else whose taste is different from yours. They might enjoy it.

3: Chuck it. No big deal. 

I do hope this approach will be helpful to you as you navigate the lucky dip of Life. And always remember there are only a few of those Turkish delights you so adore in every box of chocolates. 

Yours sincerely, 

Wendy

This morning, reading back over my scribblings, I decided that I'm going to take my own advice. 

My mantra for 2015 is going to be:

Choose it. Share it. Or piss it off. 

Now although I'm perfectly content with that mantra, there's always room for improvement. And I have no doubt there are plenty of Mrs Gumps out there and I'm equally sure there are more than three choices to be made. Help me out here. What's your approach to the lucky dip? 

Breaking the Ice

The last time I went to one of these workshops I spent the day battling myself.

It began with one of those introduce-yourself- to-the-person-beside -you-then-introduce-that person-to-the-group exercises. I know it was meant to be an ice-breaker but all those get-to-know-each-other activities ever do for me is make me freeze. Honestly, who ever enjoys those things? ... except maybe the facilitator who gets to finish her coffee or find the right file or get the damn projector working while everyone chats uncomfortably.... She and that annoying extrovert sitting to her left who is going to make me want to  poke sharpened pencils in my ears by the end of the day.  They both love it. The rest of us feel our tongues start to swell as they suck every drop of life-giving moisture from our mouths. 

I was the second last to speak. The last person introduced. The facilitator looked distractedly at her watch, undoubtedly tossing up what to leave out now this session had run overtime, as Jacqui from Alphington introduced me like this:

"Gosh... Um... Well everyone's been so interesting that I've actually forgotten what Wendy said about herself." 

Yep. Just dress me in beige and bring me a cup of dishwater. Wendy the Dull. Wendy the Forgettable. Wendy of the Clan White Bread with the Crusts Removed. 

It was the perfect moment for a retort that would have made Dorothy Parker proud, a scathingly witty one-liner  that would sum up exactly who I am. But of course that didn't happen. The cliff crumbled beneath me. 

I began to make word-like sounds in my own defence. Pathetic pallid word-like sounds floated limply around me as the internal speaker, woofas and tweeters pumped to 11, screeched: "See! You don't fit in. You are not worthy.  Leave. Get out. Disappear. "

But I didn't run. I stuck it out. I didn't enjoy it because I wasn't able to engage. I couldn't quell that critical bitch in my head. But I did persevere... in spite of her. 

And tomorrow I'm going back to the cliff top for part two of the workshop.  I won't be with the same group of people, but if Jacqui from Alphington happens to be there, I swear this time I'm going to push her off. 

Touch that shell and I'll have to shoot you...

The beach near our home.

Perhaps it’s the joy of a surprise find. Or the serendipity of happening upon something bizarre, something glittery, something smooth, something fascinating… Perhaps it's the profound beauty of found objects. But for whatever reason, I have always always loved beachcombing. Not with a metal-detector kind of thing, determinedly mine-sweeping the sand in the hope that some poor bastard has lost a valuable ring or watch or the contents of a coin purse. No, I mean just leisurely shoreline wandering, stooping to gather up treasures rolled like dice by the tide or to study the living art that lies beneath the skin of the water.

Back in the 60s, my brother and I used to play Housie Lotto and Pontoon with our grandparents, using shells they kept in a clip-top jar as the counters and chips. We called them trapdoor shells. Every time we went to the beach, we looked for some to add to the jar. The very best ones were worn bone-white and smooth. I still collect them. You never know, maybe one day I’ll have grandchildren to play old-time welcome-to-the-magical-world-of-betting games with too.

 

Sign at above beach.

But these days, collecting shells, sea urchins and tumbled glass from the beach we overlook here on The Rock is more like subterfuge than serendipity. You see it’s against the law. Not just frowned upon. Not just advised against. Illegal. A crime.

I understand that minimal environmental impact is important. Very important. I don’t understand why I’m not allowed to walk my dogs along the same cliff-top track where people ride bikes. Apparently my on-leash dogs on the designated pathway cause damage to the nests of ground-dwelling birds but rampaging mountain-bikers are harmless.

  And I don’t understand why I am forbidden to walk my dogs on the same

Another sign at above beach.

beach where hoards of day-trippers pitch their sun tents, teach their kids to pee in the sand dunes or water and then piss-off back to the city leaving the detritus of their daily festivities for locals like me to clean up. Maybe the problem is that when I pick up after my pooches, I might also scoop up some of that precious sand created by the crumbling of those protected-by-law shells. Ptui...

Times have changed, Wendy. We all need to be more respectful of planet earth. 

Photo by F Holmes, Museum Victoria

Yes. I get that.When I was young, back in the days before electricity was invented, we regularly rummaged around the local cliffs and beaches for little fossilized sea urchins. We had a shoebox full of compact sandstone domes, each imprinted with a spiky star. There were bits of bone and teeth in there too.When I was educated enough to comprehend that they belonged where I found them, I returned them all. (OK, so I just dumped them at low-tide and it’s altogether possible that I completely stuffed up some very long-term research about the distribution of fossilized sea urchins along that particular piece of coastline. But hey, at least I was trying to make amends.)  

So I get that nature parks are vital. And I totally get that it was my choice to come and live at a nature park and of course I could just get in my car and drive to some other less protected beach for my walks...but seriously. Is the world so short of sand that beachgoers removing shells should be treated like shoplifters? Let’s face it, the trek back up the cliff is pretty steep. It’d take the Hulk to make-off with more than a handful.

Or should I look at this another way? If all the people who have ever been guilty of removing what they combed from our beach were to put everything back, is there a good chance that the accumulated returned sea-debris would reclaim Bass Strait and Tasmania would once more be connected to the mainland?

The whole scenario reminds me of how whenever my brother and I punctuated our explanation of why we were bickering, or squabbling, or punching-on with the familiar refrain : S/He started it, Dad would respond with the equally familiar refrain: Two wrongs don’t make a right. I never fully understood what the hell that meant either.

I respect our beach. Immensely. I never dislodge anything living, or trample where the dear little (but unbelievably hapless) Hooded Plovers make their nests (only about 5 percent reach adulthood). I clear away rubbish and remove sharp objects. 

And I still love beachcombing. 

I always will.

The Soundtrack of Our Lives

You know those pointless-speculating-until-it-happens-or-coz-it-has-no-real-answer sort of questions you ask each other like: Cats or dogs? Bourbon or whisky? How would you spend the last day of earth? What will your dying words be? Well, when it comes to the one about what sense you’d give up first, I think mine’s sight.

It couldn’t be touch, because with the way I sear and slice myself in the kitchen, you’d be calling me Stumpy and mopping the blood from the floor in no time. And I reckon the Michael Hutchence Factor is absolute proof of the integral connection of smell/taste, and what happens when that bond is lost.  No, I reckon the last sense I’d give up would be my hearing. A world without music? Unthinkable. Impossible. Inconceivable. 

If I’m upright, there’s music playing somewhere… even when I’m horizontal there’s a good chance there’s a soundtrack.  I don’t actually know much about music. In fact, I’m an ignoramus about classical stuff —last year when we went to see L'incoronazione di Poppea at Palais Garnier, I kept getting the giggles. So you see, I don’t know much about music, but I do know that it’s my lifeline.   

I wish that I had the wisdom to fully understand the unspeakably complex and glittering concept of Songlines connecting all life and space. But mostly I’m just a pleb with a penchant for any tune that makes me feel alive.

The first concert No.1 Son attended was Midnight Oil. It was 1991. He was eight. The first live gig Girlchild and Boychild experienced was a memorable outdoor event at a winery — Josh Pyke, Paul Kelly, The Church, The Pretenders — we attended with some very dear friends and their kids. It was 2007. The kids were 7 and 9.

Aside from being essential to their education, these occasions were also perfect opportunities for me to practise one of the most sacred of all mothering duties: embarrassing the children in public. No.1 Son was gobsmacked to learn that grown-up music-lovers stood on chairs and shouted really loud. Girl and Boychild will forever have this imprinted in their impressionable brains:

Time has passed, and while the kids have matured, I have not. Just a few nights ago, we had a family excursion to 2Cellos at The Palais. Row C. Awesome. As they hit the stage and I began to whoop immodestly, Miss 14 — fashionista and cellist in training who was seated at my left— attempted to give me the deathstare. Pffft… As if…  

In my best maternal hissing whisper I reminded her to get her head out of her butt. And before long, I was sneaking such impressive recordings as this (imagine you are listening to You Shook Me All Night Long):

 8 seconds in: My shirt

11 seconds : No.1 Son on my right

19 seconds: My hair

23 seconds: Possibly me

24 seconds: Random guy in Row B.

It was bliss.

Nope, I’d rather see darkness than not hear such exquisitely coloured music as this:

And I’d rather poke my eyes out than miss giving myself whiplash to sounds like these:

But the pointless-speculating-until-it-happens-or-coz-it-has-no-real-answer sort of question that stumps me every time is: What’s your theme song?

No idea.

What’s yours?