The Leopard and the Snow Pea Balcony Garden

Riding pillion

2011-01-21T10:14:00.002+11:00

Mia leaned forward and held on tightly. White lines, gravel and a wall filled her vision diagonally. She shifted from side to side as they turned corners, swapped lanes and made headway. They roared through the night, buffeted by a strong cross-wind. At the junction Jason skidded slightly, almost crashing. She clung to his back as they waited for the lights to change. Her fingers gripped cold leather. They cruised along fluorescent, rain painted roads skimming the city’s edge.

On the highway they followed wide curves around the river and past the bridge, accelerating as they climbed higher. Cold stung and the darkness closed in as they picked up speed. Mia stared hard at Jason’s back. Then they descended. Lines ran together and Mia’s vision spun into a blur. She closed her eyes, heart beating fast. She felt her fingers slipping and her knees seemed to have no grip. If she let go and threw herself into the river below it would be over. She wanted it to end. Her body spasmed and shook.

Then Jason braked gently, and the world spun back into place, a single white line, a narrow street. He guided the bike onto a walking track and then down to a fluorescent-lit tunnel. Mia looked up and saw uneven patches of colour, shapes falling in on themselves and writing tilting backwards. A naked woman leered down at her with wide acrylic-black eyes and her arms open wide. Mia felt the blood pumping through her veins again. She started to thaw.

Not funny

2010-12-04T00:19:00.002+11:00

Our Christmas party at the local was looming and instead of karaoke they were having open mike. I longed to be a stand up comedienne. The problem was that I just wasn’t funny. There was something about living in Speckled Trickle that knocked the funny bones right out of your body. Maybe it was the expanse of square grey houses, with black roofs that had replaced the drought worn paddocks that stretched out of sight and beyond, until they turned the beige of the newer estates, a shade that blended into the hills.

I was a dreamer who couldn’t give up but I was stuck. I didn’t dare tell my husband. He thought I had tickets on myself as it was and I was completely useless around the house. Dennis cooked and cleaned with ferocity as I practiced my flute and secretly learned jokes off by heart. We weren’t a good fit.

I knew 84 jokes which had been collected them from all over the place. Some were saved from Christmas crackers, 23 were from a joke book I’d borrowed from the library and I’d gleaned the others from conversations or from videos. The jokes I liked best were the ones like this. My grandfather died peacefully in his sleep unlike the busload of tourists he was driving along the Great Ocean Road. I think it was the shock value I liked most. But I was too shy to say any of them out loud.

It was harder for them to break into the circuit than it was for men the women said. Maybe that was just to put off newcomers. Some women are hoardy like that. The comediennes had to be hard and twice as quick as the men to even get noticed. Perhaps that’s why some of them spoke so loudly about menstruation.

I had to find another way of being funny, something that was all me. Once before I married Dennis I dated a clerk called James. His apartment was decorated with black and white posters of Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers. I didn’t like the posters then as they were lifeless and dwarfed the flat. But later on when I experienced some of their work I saw that comedy could be a very physical thing.

I decided to start with physical comedy and to work my way up to stand up. On the day of the party I was ready and I pulled out the red and white checked table cloth hidden in my bags. The stage was small and welcoming. I held up a small whiteboard that said in red, ‘The four stages of dating’ and then I started. First I huddled on all fours and made myself square the table cloth over me. I was recreating a dinner table on a first date so I had to be very still. People waited, someone snickered. For the second stage I stood tall, shoulders back, the cloth over me like a ghost. I was a cinema screen. A hand came out and balanced on an invisible arm rest. The other hand came out and sat next to it. It made tentative moves to touch and to stroke and by the end of the segment the two hands were clasped. At this point people were talking very loudly. For the third stage I crawled under the table cloth and moved up and down. Everything went quiet. When I peeked out at the end of the session all eyes in the pub were upon me. I stuffed the table cloth up my jumper and bent my back. Everyone could understand that part and for the first time I heard laughter. I pulled the cloth out and bowed. This was my moment. I felt very tall.

Years later when I think back to that moment I realize how kind and nurturing my friends and family were that night and how intolerant I was of them and their choices. They gave me the gift of encouragement which I’ll always treasure and pass it on to others who need it, just as they did for me.

Sleep

2010-07-02T20:14:00.001+10:00

The tiredness is cumulative. The week has been one of constant effort, filling in for the boss, friends for dinner, Meg’s netball and the theatre. At last the weekend is here. My chance to lie in and to sleep undisturbed by the alarm clock. Ah heaven. Just a few more precious moments with my head pressed into my pillow floating on my waterbed and then I will wake up.

When I open my eyes it feels like I have been asleep for a long time. I look around and find that I am in a different place. The tiredness has not gone away. It presses over me like a fog. I am in a room. It’s like a lounge room but there are more sofas. Glenn is talking to me imploring, Meg has tear glazed eyes. The tiredness is too heavy and I can’t talk back. They will have to wait. They need to realize that I’m fine. I’ll get better soon.

Today they are visiting again. It is one of many of their visits stored in my memory. I have been here for a while now. They never seem to make any headway. I feel sorry for them. Today seems different as they seem to be making a decision. Meg looks at me and looks at Glenn and shakes her head. I see in Glenn’s eyes an acceptance, no an endorsement of her defeat. I am wounded by their failure. After a time, I don’t know how long, they stop coming. At least I think they stop coming. Either that or I stop noticing them.

Ida takes me under her wing. This is my life now. She understands me even though I don’t talk. The weight of my exhaustion doesn’t faze her. When she talks she doesn’t need a reply. She takes me away from that place, moves me to her home. She is my life as I am hers. She is poor but “not to worry” she says. “We can decorate this place with toys.” By toys she means second hand items from opportunity shops and flea markets. She decorates her small room with cups and saucers, broken children’s toys, single slippers, ancient pot lids. She fans these objects out from the fire place. The walls of the room and the bay window frames are white.

After a time Ida is not there any more. I have no memory of what happened to her or where she went. It is just me in the room with her things and my thoughts. I am content here. Just give me five more minutes.

Mortgage Stress

2010-04-23T07:07:00.000+10:00

After George leaves for work I reach up to the medicine cupboard and feel around for the familiar box containing my contraceptive pills. I lift it down. Empty. There must be a repeat script left up there somewhere. I feel along the back wall and find nothing. I get a chair from the kitchen table, stand on it and lift every thing down, one by one. I look at the oven clock. It’s 5:00pm on a Saturday. There is no chance of getting a doctor’s appointment until Monday. However on Monday there is a team planning day and it would look rude not to be there.

I wander past the note in the hall, on my way to the study that reminds me that Mama-Grey our cat is due for her flu shot, fortunately just the far side of next pay day. While the computer is warming up I realize that the washing machine has stopped. I walk to the bathroom and press the button with its electronic beeps to set the rinse cycle. The computer it is still ‘thinking’. I look at the pile of ironing which has been accumulating since Monday, sigh and walk to the hall cupboard and take out the ironing board. While I’m setting it up the password screen comes up so the ironing is abandoned momentarily. My e-mail advises me that Jacqui Tang has sent me a message. I log into my social networking site and discover an invitation to a party. I’m excited until I realize that it’s a sexy lingerie party and guests will be expected to buy some. I wander into my bedroom, almost tripping over George’s runners on the way and sort ruefully through the worn contents of my top drawer. It’s a party I can’t afford this week so it’s easier not to reply.

The balance of my main bank account is worse than expected. It contains twenty one dollars and thirty cents. That’s enough to cover my script if I can survive until Thursday on what is in my purse and my other bank account which has about $100 in it, hopefully. My mobile phone beeps twice. There is a text from George.

Not on new roster. Last shift tonight. Going for drinks after work.

Luckily that’s only one of George’s three jobs. At least now we’ll have alternate Saturday nights together.

I’m intent on having a quiet weekend. Staying in and saving money is my new motto. There won’t be any more café brunches with eggs and coffee. Home-made is best. I pull the vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard and push it around making no impact on the lumps of dirt, fluff and cat hair on the floor. The head must be stuck again. I sit in the hallway and attack the mass of dust and hair that is clogged up inside. It finally has a clear airway. I turn it on, nothing. I flick the switch off and on. Nothing. This time it is broken for good. Retrieving the carpet sweeper is a definite possibility.

On Sunday morning George is very excited about my plans to stay in. He has one thing on his mind as he brings me coffee and croissants in bed. I don’t have the heart to tell him about the script. He is feeling miserable about losing his job at the café, and needs cheering up.

It’s a busy week. Deadlines are looming and my calendar is full. I don’t get to the doctor until Wednesday night after work. I sit patiently as dozens of people troop in get their flu injections and leave. After forty minutes my doctor has not made an appearance. I ask at the desk.

“She’s just with a patient. You’re next.’” The receptionist says kindly.

It doesn’t hurt to ask. The nurse calls another family. An hour and a blood pressure test later I’m out. Script in hand at last I race into the chemist.

“The system’s down” the assistant tells me when I offer my card. “You will have to get cash.”

My pills are sitting in a little basket just out of my reach. I cross the road and go to the automated teller machine and attempt a withdrawal. The machine tells me that it is not currently dispensing $20 notes and asks me to please request another amount. There is only $20 in the account. I walk down the street, see a bottle shop and go in knowing that in addition to the $20 there is enough left in the other account to buy a clean skin bottle of red wine and some organic orange, dark chocolate. I buy them both and asked for twenty dollars cash out as well. Cash in hand I head back to the chemist and complete my purchase.

At home George and I celebrate having more time together by drinking all the wine and eating the chocolate. We have a great night. At lunch time on Thursday when my head has cleared I realize that my packet of pills is sitting still wrapped in paper on the kitchen bench. It wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t agreed to go with Ruth to her poetry reading on the other side of town after work. Later at home the kitchen light bulb has blown, and George agrees to get new light bulbs in the morning. Mama-Grey wakes me at 5:00am. In the dark we forgot to feed her. Turning to cut her packet of food open on the bench I see the taped, white package. By then it’s too late. I don’t know it yet but I’m already eating for three.

from blog post to hard copy

2010-04-12T23:23:00.000+10:00

Generally I'm a quiet writer. This blog was set up to share my writing with others, to learn about how it is received and to consider ways of developing it further. Sometimes blog comments can be too nice but at other times they are uncompromisingly honest. It can be a risk to put your work out there. The worst times are when you've written something from the heart but no-one reads your post. But then you realize it doesn't mean that it's bad. It's just the ebb and flow of social media.

There are all types of blogs and all types of bloggers. Social media sites have great potential for writers and it's a really exciting time to be writing as your words can at times have fairly immediate reach and influence, and its so much easier to connect with others who have similar interests.

This Wednesday evening will be a very special evening, the launch of Miscellaneous Voices: Australian Blog Writing #1. I'll be attending and reading my Now poem along with seven other contributors. That will be my first public reading. Meeting Karen Andrews and the other writers will be a highlight. I read Miscellaneous Voices on the tram, on the train and at my dining room table. The challenge won't be to put the name to the face but to put the post to the face. I'll also be thinking about those other contributors like my friend Lorraine who won't be able to make it but whose writing has touched me.

Special circumstances

2010-01-22T19:34:00.007+11:00

Julian knocked at Professor Weiss’s door and waited. After several minutes the balding lecturer emerged.

“Good Afternoon Julian. I seem to be encountering more students than usual today. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

"Well sir, yes there is. You see I need an extension for my poetry assignment”

“You do?”

“Yes, sir I do.”

“You realize that five per cent is deducted from your mark for each day that your assignment is late?”

“ Well yes. But I’ve heard that the penalty might be waived if there are 'special circumstances', and I was thinking that there be ‘special circumstances’ in this case?”

“Oh, have you had a death in the family?”

“Not exactly”

“Perhaps you could tell me what these ‘special circumstances’ are and I’ll consider them.”

“Very well sir and thank you for listening. You see I was heading out for drinks with Vaughan when we were abducted by aliens.”

“Aliens” Professor Weiss nodded.

“Yes aliens. They kind of sucked us up into their, um . . ."

“Space-ship?” offered Professor Weiss.

“Well it was more like a space caravan actually. I think it must have been a really old model. There was a lot of cane and brass about really. Nothing high tech or industrial or minimalist, not even anything vaguely circular. Unless you count the slight curve on the heads of the flying ducks painted on the mirror.”

“Flying ducks, they had flying ducks! Imagine that” said the professor. I wonder if they have e-books?”

“The mirror light switch transported us through to another dimension. Something bad happened to Vaughan on the way through and he got stuck on the other side of the mirror, fixating on a pimple. I made it through. They gave me some time warming myself by their campfire. Little faces and animals formed and reformed in the coals. The fire seemed to have a soul and the shapes seemed to be watching me back. Then two cheaquas, the local females took me walking in that dimension. It was air but much thicker and it distorted things, although I had no trouble breathing. In fact I was really aware of my breathing and that I was alive and what a blessing it was. The whole time I was filled with joy. But there were dangers. I had no depth perception in this dimension of space and I couldn’t tell if vehicles were coming towards me or moving away. Luckily the cheaquas were kind and they guided me through. They had a kind of clover there instead of grass. A cheaqua showed it to me and as I bent down I noticed a pure drop of dew that seemed to swell rounder and grow clearer. I looked up and saw an old church like building that was growing rapidly. Giant pillars shot sky ward and turned the building into an enormous temple, a place where no female could go. I sensed this and worried about the cheakquas. To calm me they showed me the rot behind the facades, of the building and all the cracks that were forming. They were right to laugh, it was all for show. They took me to their pumpkin patch, a holy place for them, and with great delight we cross-pollinated the male and female flowers. Afterwards, I felt a great sadness for Vaughan so I went to him. The cheaquas and I coaxed him to the front door. We opened it and stepped outside. Then a taxi pulled in beside us and we jumped in. We were home.”

“So how long do you think you will need?”

“Next Thursday will be fine sir”

“We’ll make it Friday then shall we, just in case?” said Professor Weiss raising an eyebrow.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Will that be all?”

Vaughan nodded, walked out and closed the door. Then he skipped up the passage way.

“Yes!” he said happily raising his fist “Yes!”

A female tutor walking the other way looked at him sternly and shook her head.

The way home

2009-10-16T20:01:00.003+11:00

They weren’t sitting together on the bus on the way back from the bread factory. Tim was sitting next to Alice, the girl who lived at the end of the street. Laura didn’t care. She sat content with her bag of rolls wondering whether her mum would be there waiting to take her home. Sometimes she swapped with Tim’s mum who would send one of Tim’s big brothers. Paul was kind but Neil scared her.

The last time she had been on a bus was with her mum on the way to visit nan. A lady on the bus was wearing plastic curlers in her black hair. They were pinned closely to her head with metal clips and a purple scarf was wrapped around them.

“Why do people wear rollers on the bus mum?” she’d asked

“Sh!” said her mum, “Don’t point”

She still wondered about the rollers. There was no-one on the bus with rollers today, just other children and Mrs Wright. The seats were the same green colour and there was a metal bit to hold onto in front.

The bus pulled to a halt outside the white picket fence. She stood up and walked down the bus behind the others. Tim and Alice were ahead. She felt a bit nervous going down the steps and held on tightly to the rail.

“Come on Laura,” said Mrs Wright, “Don’t dawdle.”

She couldn’t see her mother anywhere. She followed the others into the locker room and dropped her bag of rolls next to her sleeping mat. Then she was shooed outside. She climbed the ladder up to the playhouse but Alice was there and she didn’t know how to talk to Alice so she hurried through and took the long slide down to the sandpit below. She picked up a shovel and started digging. She looked up and saw Tim run over to the fence. Neil was leaning over it chatting to him.

It had happened. He had come to take them home. There was something about him that made her tighten up on the inside and gave her butterflies. He had dark hair and spoke too quickly and softly. She couldn’t be with him all the way up the big hill. There was only one choice. She knew what to do. She dropped the spade and climbed out of the sand pit. She walked over towards the fence. Tim was facing away from her and couldn’t see her. Neil didn’t notice her at all. She wandered down towards the gate. It was very slightly open; the catch hadn’t quite clicked when they filed back in from the bus. She pushed it and it squeaked loudly and swung open. No-one noticed. She walked through it onto the grassy path that led up the hill. Then she started running. She passed Tim and the back of his brother without being seen. The school house looked down the hill and she was running up it. She had escaped from Neil and she felt an exhilarating sense of freedom as she ran higher and higher. She ran past daisies and bull ants, driveways and parked cars tall pines and neatly mown front yards with pig face, hedges, garden gnomes and white swans. She passed a blue house, a white house, a khaki house and a yellow brick house. Then she got the stitch and slowed to a walk. She turned for a moment and looked back down the hill. The river was glistening blue grey below. The swans that swam on it were black. The school house looked very small all the way down there now. No-one was standing at the fence anymore and Neil wasn’t anywhere in sight. Maybe he had gone in to get the bags. She had better hurry in case he caught up. The most important thing was working out how to get across the road at the top of the hill. She was fairly sure she could do it. She started walking along the roadside but there was no footpath and it wasn’t the way that her mum went. When she got to a spot she strongly thought was the right spot Laura ran. The black bitumen expanded before her. Halfway across she remembered that you shouldn’t run across the road, so she slowed to a hurry. She reached the other side and was on familiar ground.

This was where they walked when Tim had told her that the male snails were poisonous. You could tell the males because of the dark rings on their shells he had said. She was very scared of snails now as she didn’t want to be poisoned. She walked past the two Dutch houses, the pink house and the small green house with the fly wire door which was next door to her home. She walked down the rockery path, past the camellias and up the front steps where the white rhododendron bloomed and knocked on the pale blue front door.

“Laura, what are you doing here?” asked her mum in surprise, “Did someone bring you home?” She looked around for a car or a teacher but there wasn’t one.

“Neil came and I thought he was bringing us home, so I had to run away” Laura said.

“You know you’re not allowed to cross the road by yourself? Promise me you’ll never do that again.”

Laura nodded gravely, a tear formed in her eye.

“Now darling” said her mum, sweeping her up into a big hug. “It’s not the end of preschool yet. It’s not even lunch time. I was coming today. Come inside and have a milkshake.”
Laura dried her eyes. She was home with her mum. There was nothing else like it.

4 Lost Men

2009-10-02T22:22:00.005+10:00

Adam hurried along the tea tree lined path that followed the river. Branches closed in above him. If he took the road, he would reach the house sooner. It was sheer pig-headedness that had made him choose the path. The trace of maybe that had once meant something else. He stumbled over a tree root and winced. His hands felt in his short pockets for the mobile, and pulled it out. The battery was very low. There was still no response. He broke into a sprint as the path curved around to the right and the river appeared.

A stranger stood at the end of Chris’s bed. He liked her coat, “a trench coat” Jacqui smiled and raised her eyebrows. The filtered sun light bounced off her uniform as she bent to prop up the pillow. It was hot in here. Maybe she would take it off. She was standing in some kind of hole, or was it a tunnel. She might need a coat there. She spoke to him through space. He floated towards the tunnel dragging the top sheet with him. He would be safe there, away from all this noise. The tea trolley stopped, and Maggie walked in with two metal lidded dishes on a tray.

The fish had been biting well at the second stop. Three calamari and five big flathead, not a bad haul. It had been rough as usual coming out of the river but once they had made it through to the deeper ocean the sea was calm. The odd dragonfly hovered around, the bait box and a breeze lifting from the water cooled them. The boat bobbed gently.

“Pull the lines up?” asked Jim

“Yeah, we should head in.” replied Todd

“I don’t fancy navigating the river in the dark”

“I’ll get the anchor” said Todd, moving up to the front of the boat and started hauling arm over arm.

“It seems to be stuck”

Jim put the two rods away and grabbed the wheel. He turned the key in the ignition, nothing. He tried again, silence. Jim turned around, a puzzled look on his face.

Now poem

2009-09-12T23:15:00.000+10:00

Cast your
Eyes on words
Written far away
Yet read close

Are you filled with wonder?
Does that question have a sound?
Are you perhaps my neighbor after all?

Graffiti has such a strange shape
When you see it from the train
Pop-up ads
Block paths to ideas

Before he could read
Sam marveled at the power of words,
the imagination hovered busy
building stories

Yet once defined, he was a little
Disappointed by the fixedness of words

Anna at the gym
prefers to watch the TV screen on the
treadmill, without the sound

And Peter painted on top
of women’s magazines
and dined
on oysters and water

Tabula rasa

2009-09-12T09:16:00.000+10:00

So I start. The first words appear as I type. No photo, no story as yet. Just words forming on the page.