Keys

I inherited your set of keys. Metal worn down by your fingertips over the years, the bunch filling with small mysterious keys that have rusted and little trinkets gleaned from a lifetime collection of key rings from people returning from overseas, those given out during promotions of a new athlete's drink and ones you buy yourself.

You opted for the small jade sphere, pierced through with a red string that has survived the cut and grind of the keys as they jangle around in your pockets.

There are two keys made of light metal that would bend in my fingers if I wanted them to. I look at them, read the name embossed on each and know they will not share a reunion with any number of locked and secret places.

I came to eat...

If you've ever seen 'The Fisher King', there's a scene where a neurotic outlines her behaviour at parties:

I don't make an impression on people.
At office parties, I rearrange
the hors d'oeuvres...
...while people are eating them,
so that the platters will remain full.

Whilst I don't paw at the food, I do have a compulsion to tidy up. If there's food left half eaten, lying about, I will scoop it up and throw it into the bin and I would never leave my plate on someone's TV or bookcase.

The thing is, I'm not terribly tidy at home. I could leave a frying pan soaking for a few days before I wash it, I can leave a teaspoon lying on the bench thinking I will reuse it at a later stage, I mean, I just stirred tea with it, it doesn't need a soapy wash. I even go so far as to reuse a juice glass by placing it in the fridge between drinks (so it doesn't attract vermin) and using it all week before it gets a little cloudy and suspect looking.

Nope, it's only at parties. Of course, the main reasons are obvious to me.

1. I never got the concept of a party, of letting loose, having too much to drink and sharing varying stories with strangers. I think I'm too controlling for that and I am the cheapest drunk so I can't drink too much without becoming rather foolish. This means I'm hyper-conscious of dirty plates piling up or a glass of wine balanced precariously on an arm rest.
2. I appreciate the host going to so much work inviting and sharing food and drink with us that I want to return the favour as best I know how. Again, pertaining to my lack of experience in knowing how to act at parties, this should be the last thing on my mind, I mean, that's what the gift is for!
3. I like parties where there's lots of food. To me, a party equates to food, endless food. At parties, I am the quiet one, hovering around the food table, eating all the party pies and snapping up the little quiches and sushi rolls. At the latest party I attended, it was a Curry Laksa Party where guests assembled their own Laksas. There was enough to assemble 2-3 bowls each. To top it off, there were three cakes to choose from afterwards. Ahh, such is bliss.

Non-disclosure

I seem to have come to an age where I have all the different friendship circles I will ever desire. They mainly consist of people I met at school or during the early days of my work life. I don't remember the last time I exchanged various details of my life with a stranger as part of some forced conversation because we happened to be in close proximity to each other, and for all that to actually turn into a friendship. What do you do? Where do you live? Attached or single? How old? Do you have kids?

When online these days, I keep many of the details of my personal life private. If I don't need any more real life friends, why encourage online friendships where you may find yourself emailing someone in another city to discuss all the details of your daily life which may or may not lead to some sort of emotional attachment?

I am sometimes tempted to blurt out various details of my life but am stopped at the last minute by either paranoia or a purist sense that if I have decided not to discuss that part of my life here, then there is no need to even mention any of it, even in passing. For example, if I am discussing my home, I do not let on as to whether I have children or a partner or even if I am still living with my parents.

Sure, all my entries are personal in nature and I have even discussed a sister or two, but the decision not to discuss those somewhat intriguing parts of one's life does not mean readers are missing something. Disclosure of a person's family or work life doesn't mean you know them no matter what commonalities can be drawn between your life and theirs.

And if you still think I am a single 20-something who is independently wealthy, confident and smart, three out of five ain't bad, or is it? :P

That's mine!

I park my car on the street outside the house. Last week, under the cover of nighttime, the car was side swiped. The discovery of a half hanging bumper bar and a substantial dent wrought by an anonymous driver was awful, but all I could do was curse and wring my hands. It was not the first time, the back bumper bar had previously been gently grazed (which seems enough these days to strip paintwork from late model cars) and these two incidents have occurred ever since the local council installed a traffic slowing, road narrowing chicane outside my house.

I now park further down the street and await insurance to do its thing. I initially resented the loss of my car park space. Heavens, I'll now have lug groceries from further away and gosh, what'll I do if I'm caught in the rain? People can become possessive of street parking to the point obsession. I used to grizzle when I found someone had taken my spot, the cheek! Aren't drivers telepathic, 'That's my spot'? My neighbour owns a very large orange witch's hat which he places in the parking spot in front of his house when he needs to drive somewhere so as to deter any would be parking spot stealers (despite him having a driveway he prefers to park on the street, but that's another story).

I wonder about our possessiveness of objects and touched on the subject in a previous entry. Like a parking spot, which you do not automatically own because it happens to be directly outside your house, the things we hoard (or cherish) can sometimes be rather irrational.

In my experience and with the parents I have, my sense of possession comes down to the following:

1. A strange sense of entitlement

Akin to:
- street parking outside one's home¹
- the attitude that if it's free then you should take it (e.g. taking all the free stuff in hotel rooms just because they are there and you paid for the room even though you probably don't really need small bottles of shampoo nor tiny sewing kits)²
- not turning in wallets found on the street because you found it and if anyone is silly enough to drop their wallets, then they deserve to suffer the consequences³
- if they have it, why don't I have it? I want it, I want it now!⁴

2. Being sentimental

If we had happy childhoods, or even reasonably pleasant ones, we tend to look fondly upon possessions which remind us of that time, be it photographs, toys, holiday destinations, the family home or movies. Revisiting them either in person or in our minds seems to make us yearn for 'lost moments' in our past and I always wonder whether it indicates a dissatisfaction with the current state of our lives or is simply one of life's joys. I guess if my current life was paralysed by the past, it would be an unhealthy thing. These days, indulging in some daydreams or looking over old photographs to bring back that feeling of childhood seems like a way for me to accumulate stories of people who are no longer with us and I look forward to passing them onto the next generation of my family.

3. Those immigrants!

This is directly related to my parents who came to Australia for opportunities of a better life. They saw poverty, grew accustomed to wasting nothing during their early lives and of not knowing what life will hold for them in the near future. They cannot break the habit because for them, it's not a habit but something that's built into who they turned out to be in this new country. As a consequence, there is so much stuff in the garage of my childhood home. Timber arm rests salvaged from an old couch that could be used someday, though they resemble arm rests and I cannot imagine them being useful for anything other than arm rests, except maybe fire wood. There is an inability to discard things that may be useful in the future. I guess to my parents the term 'handcrafted' was a meaningful term, things were made to last and large purchases were lifelong investments or at least stood the test of decades.
This mentality also extends to shopping and catching the latest bargain which to my mother is the bargain of the century, to be bought in multiple lots as they'll never be repeated again. In this country there are always bargains and despite the current state of world economics, the majority of us live in ludicrous luxury by world standards.

4. Laziness or being disorganised

I am forever wading through bills and newspapers piled in various locations around the house. The things that become accumulated as part of living one's life - the receipts I decided to keep for that frying pan, just in case the frying pan malfunctions, the magazines and liftouts that continue to pile up on shelves because they contain good reference material, that shirt I bought 5 years ago that I last wore 5 years ago because it's been ages since I cleared out my closet.
Thankfully, the carpet is being pulled up soon for floorboards and all possessions need to be moved offsite for 2 weeks. Hoarding will no longer be an option.

¹ Guilty as charged.
² Only if they are super duper shampoos that actually improve my hairdo, which they rarely do.
³ I have never come across a dropped wallet that has not been ransacked.
⁴ Guilty, especially with food others are consuming.

Country Jaunt

We were on a country jaunt, he and I. Despite our mantra that we were not dictated by work, an early meeting in three days meant that we were now traveling in separate cars. But that was a lifetime away as we set off together, a cavalcade that took us from a stagnating home life that had grown soupy with routines. As we drove away, our blinkers synchronised like beacons guiding us towards the open seas.

Two days by the ocean, Port Fairy, whose bustle of commerce in the past, of bygone industries such as whaling had given way to a sleepiness, a haven for weekenders who ventured further along the Great Ocean Road, passed the beach houses grown out of cliff faces and the surf shops with bikinis dangling outside to entice us with wishful thoughts. Passed the various landscapes that the seas had carved so long ago that reminded us of ourselves and our creations, these Apostles and Bridges.

As usual, to make good time, we sped inland along a road not as picturesque nor as Great as its coastal counterpart. It suited our plans well, we were on a tight schedule that did not need the added risk of momentary distraction by the deep blue and plunges into the ocean. Our goal was the destination, of checking in and catching an afternoon stroll by the inlet before meal time. We could savour the journey another time.

As we drove further away from the start-stop of give way signs, traffic lights and roundabouts, we were sometimes caught between transitions, from red to green, the area between his zealous driving and my cautious manoeuvres. The interruption of our convoy would have us waiting on either side of an intersection like a force field that we, as city dwellers had gotten used to, but still tried to circumvent at any opportunity. We feigned road rage for having been left behind by the other, silent shaking of angry looking fists, held out to be seen through back windows, while our profiles silhouetted our laughter. During the first hour of our drive across dried and crunchy fields dotted with cows or sheep, we were connected by the little waves of our steering hands and our rear view smiles. Sometimes I would see him ahead, tapping the steering wheel in time to an unknown song that I would try to find on my own radio.

Later on, when we turned off the highway for a break, he said he wasn't listening to music but to an animated talk back caller who thought it was romantic to give his wife what she wanted for her birthday, namely a Miele dishwasher. Did he echo agreement with his tapping? Why not, he had given me a portable printer for my laptop last year. I was delighted by it, a new toy that stretched the boundaries of our life together. On business trips I used to print out his long emails to me and read them in bed each night, silent dialogues of intimacies, duly foot noted with news of plumbing problems and pets.

At the rest stops, we walked with our hands scrunched full of Minties wrappers to the nearby rubbish bin. He grabbed another handful of the sweets from his car and I tilted my hip out as if willing a tummy scratch and he would empty the lollies into my coat pocket, reaching in to tickle my side. When we were new friends in university, he was afraid for any sort of contact between us, cautious in case a yet undiscovered boyfriend should suddenly appear. Later, after consecutive invitations and just as many acceptances, I backhanded his arm, laughing at some atrocious joke he had told and he pulled back, startled by the invisible membrane that had suddenly been pierced and left open, the start of connections built over the past fifteen years.

Now as we stood by the deserted stop, lonely with a dingy old toilet block we dare not use and a gloomy glimpse of the highway, we eagerly got back into our cars and glanced at our laptops, the sole passenger sitting obediently beside us that reminded us suddenly of the things we had tied ourselves to, despite this country jaunt.

As we stretched in our seats and pulled back into the highway, we saw a cow giving birth close to the boundary fence of her master’s property. She sat on her side, her eyes glancing between her impending new arrival and a bunch of tourists who had stopped their rental van by the side of the road to watch. One man was watching through the flat screen of his video camera, moving in for different close ups of the cow’s hind quarters as if he was directing the progression of nature. Buoyed by such as scene as proof that we were closer to There than any place else, the car in front sped passed the side show while I slowed just enough to see a raised tail and the first appearance her calf, mimicked on the screen of the video.I sped up to catch the diminishing car when my phone rang. You OK? Why’d you slow down? he asked as if we were in the middle of chatting. A cow was giving birth, I answered. Oh, he replied and cleared his throat, his infuriating way of saying he wanted no more of the conversation and so I got off the phone quickly.

We said early on that we did not want children, said so steadfastly as to convince us that such a decision could be made so many years in advance. We had grappled with selfishness on both sides of the argument, were we too self centred or would we just be having children to temper some push, slowly nurtured by the steady appearance of nieces and nephews in recent years? Could we give up the freedom of our twenties for a lifetime growing someone that we had brewed together? Nonsense, so superficial, we don’t deserve to be parents, brewing children as if it was beer. In the end, our own self involvement moved ahead naturally as the runaway contender to how our lives would be.

But now things were catching up with us, even as we sped down the highway, the occasional country jaunts born from desire and intimacy, coming so close to fulfilling my change of heart in terms of having children, but stopped at the last minute by a daily pill.

You watched me pop the packet of pills, a familiar daily sound amidst the breakfast noises of newspapers and radio.
What if I stop taking this pill, I asked.
Do you know what you are saying, you said, putting down your newspaper and toast, your hands somehow looking too free and menacing.
Would it be so bad to have children?
You’re only saying that because your sister is pregnant. It’s a phase.
Of course it’s a phase. If we let it pass it’ll be too late. Don’t you want to have kids?
No, I don’t. You cleared your throat and we stared at each other. The noise from the radio came back and I sat down with your discarded parts of the newspaper. Slowly and with purpose I swallowed the pill.
You passed me a piece of your toast, buttered and spread with jam and got up to get us more coffee. You squeezed my arm and I began to glow in our routine, layers of intimacies that were still too intoxicating to give up.

The novelty of waving at each other every few minutes waned. I slid in a CD, one that he did not like, telling me once that the vocals were too whispery, never kicking in to any felt rhythm. Of the differences that sometimes appeared to strain our relationship, this was never one of them but now I used it to fuel my anger. Small disagreements about the concerts we had attended over the years now blew up as selfishness on his part. Even this trip had been meticulously planned to his notions of a relaxing weekend.

I shifted in my seat, switching on the cruise control for a long stretch of Straight-Ahead and yawned, suddenly wishing there was someone else to drive so that I could gaze at the passing landscape that looked like a rolling backdrop from an old Western movie, replicated every few minutes, fence posts, wire fencing, large gums, dead tree. This song was a favourite of a boy I once knew and always reminded me of a time when summer reigned high in the sky and he and I dashed into the sea together, and under the cover of the rolling surf, search out the parts of our body that triggered the gasp reflex, melting towards something that we wanted but were not ready for.

It was not serious, what we did on the beach or declared to one another, one unknown teenager amongst so many others that summer. So far from home, we boasted about our dreams and inflated our lives, so far from truths that would have been revealed as lies at every familiar street corner, with every passing neighbour or relative had we lived in the same city. I was relieved when summer ended and I waved you east, across the border to your home as I moved west, stretching our promises to write so far that they snapped by the time the leaves turned amber and dropped. Why do I think of you now? Was it because the good times did not last long enough to wane?

A dead tree jutted out like a sun bleached bone of some prehistoric animal. Driftwood of the ancients, smooth to the touch and as I peered at the hollows and broken limbs, imaging the final crack of falling branches, the familiar car in front slowed. My car blinker found his and here we were, clicking and flashing by the side of the road. Along a sliver of horizon I glimpsed the ocean, peaked with choppy foam that told us we were close to our weekend away and I wondered at this sudden stop as I gazed at the sea grasses that lay flat from the wind. I gripped the steering wheel and turned everything off and waited as he lurched out of the car and ran for the dead tree, barely making it behind the large trunk before vomiting in a violent, heaving torrent. I sat still, waiting for him to emerge but I heard another wave of keeling over. My first thought, rapid and fleeting but vivid in its inappropriateness was to dash away my need to rush over immediately, that he was fine, that judging by the sounds, whatever disagreeable meal he ate was well and truly out of his system. All the excuses that made no sense, inaction that left no room for explanations or apologies later.

When he suddenly looked up towards me, I quickly grabbed some tissues and the water bottle and raced towards him. It was windy and my hair whipped up and tugged me inland, ready to tear the tissues from my fists. He was oozy and sweaty when I arrived at the tree. Have a good look? he asked as I handed him the tissues and offered the water. The acidic odour wafted, mingling with the country side smell of dry grass, highway exhaust and ocean. He looked pale and clammy, like someone looking for his sea legs and when I asked whether he was ok, he took a swig of the water and leaned against the dead tree. He inhaled, heaving in the air as if telling his body that things were alright again. His body obeyed, silent adjustments after a good vomit and plenty of fresh air as he turned his head towards the sea air, clearing his senses of recent events and returning his colour from an alarming green to a sensible shade of pink. You didn’t think I needed help? he asked. Well? his silence asked.

I wondered at this unexpected adjunct to our usual trips, watching him by the dead tree. This need to race away to a distant hotel room as a means to tell each other that we still mattered, meanwhile carrying with us pieces of our lives that we liked the least to hide the differences between us. Grumbling at the cords and adapters and papers surrounding our respective laptops as if we had no choice.

Did we ever savour the journey, opt for a leisurely drive closer to home as we always vowed for next time? This was a wish, a hope joining the two of us so that we could say we still had a future. The wind suddenly shifted, swirling momentarily towards the sea as if taking with it the two parts of our lives that had separated during our drive, setting them adrift amongst the waves to finally carry them in different directions.

© All rights reserved.

A draft of a short story that has been kicking around on various computers since 2005. Not actually based on any real life experience, the idea of the disintegration of a relationship during a road trip seemed interesting at the time.

How we come together

Have you ever noticed those garish calendars hanging in Asian grocery stores or restaurants? Each month is accompanied by inked gold fish paintings or airbrushed photographs of Hong Kong actresses. There are Chinese characters against each date which indicate dates of the Lunisolar calendar. This year, Chinese New Year falls on Australia Day and even now, red festoons are displayed in many Chinese restaurants in readiness for weekend celebrations both in the city and in various suburbs.

Australia Day marks the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788. This was the start of British colonisation of Australia and the holiday has been called 'Invasion Day' by indigenous people. Admittedly, and especially since I no longer have the luxury of the holiday occurring as another sleep-in during a long summer break, the Australia Day public holiday is a welcomed day off work. The tennis is on, everyone is usually sweltering in the heat, sometimes there is a bbq and on the news we hear who is Australian of the Year and who was awarded an OAM. That is the impression Australia Day has on me.

Last year, my nephew was born on Australia Day. I visited my sister and her husband at an inner city hospital, watched in wonderment that my little sister is now a mother (and not that little anymore) to this little human with an Italian name, swaddled and sleeping in her arms. Afterward, I wandered to the city to watch the Australia Day fireworks knowing the extra layer my nephew's birth has added to this day.

I don't think these simultaneous occurrences are incredible, at least not in the 'No way! Shut up! Get outta here!' sort of way, but I do ponder the richness of our country that has led to all three events being celebrated, freely and concurrently.

Despite past laws and controversies calling for the stop to migration, Australia has always been built by immigrants. These waves brought with them traditions which added to the experience of living in Australia and being Australian. What is it to be Australian? I dislike cricket like poison, can't stand to eat lamb and have never said "G'day" to anyone and yet I was born here. How was this configuration possible? My parents were immigrants and despite their influences I am no less Australian than a fifth generation Australian.

I would say that it doesn't matter your tastes in food, your accent nor the leisure activities you pursue, I would say that to be Australian is to love this country, to acknowledge its uniqueness in the world and to embrace whatever it has to offer whether it be Australia Day celebrations, birthdays for our Italian poet nephew or New Year's traditions from far away.

Time to purge

Regret is a powerful feeling, so much so I did something ridiculous tonight. In red texta I wrote a list of regrettable things which occurred over the past year, carried the list outside and took a lit match to it. Some things on the list were small, yet just as energy sapping, such as stressing and cursing whilst in traffic. Sometimes I lost compassion for people who deserved it the most or I became rather competitive. The usual one of living an unhealthy lifestyle was written below a truly regrettable experience which I won't detail here as it's still mortifying to me that it occurred.

I watched the list burn quickly in my green waste bin, causing a small amount of dry plant matter in the bin to alight and quite a lot of smoke to rise up. At that exact moment, my elderly neighbour who is prone to fits of shouting, also came out into her yard but I ran inside to get some water, doused the inferno and shut the lid on the bin before she could find out what I had done.

Akin to say, astrology or pixies, I don't usually believe in things like that, though the symbolism of burning a list of abominable occurrences is not lost on me. I guess in the past I have tried numerous times to tell myself to 'get over it' without much success and long lasting regret is something which I can't remember not experiencing. It seems ingrained, a lifetime habit that can't just be kicked, but requires concerted and deliberate action over a period of time.

This act is now a memory, made that much more vivid by my panic at the smoke and my neighbour's presence about 2 metres away. As I type this, my clothes and hair still smell faintly of smoke. I guess this was an attempt to check myself the next time I start feeling mournful for past mistakes or behaviour. Committed to memory, it will tell me that when I burned my list tonight, I was filled with such strong intentions to fulfill those wishes. Remembrance can be just as powerful a motivator.

Of course the effect of removing such things from my life can only be good and not at all outrageous or illogical. Nothing like burning a list in a green waste bin on a Friday evening.