MEMORY JOLT 1 : WRITING SUCKS

Oh My God! What in the fuck am I going to write about for a full five minutes? Life sucks. Writing sucks. Thinking sucks. The fear of it all sucks. This was the very thing I did not want to do today, so it sucks. My memory sucks. It’s all to do with my memory or the fear of my memory-blanking out. Forgetting, remembering, focus, drying up, pulling out, and making sense. Making no sense at all. Nonsense sucks. Sense sucks. Free fall ridiculousness.

It all sucks. The need to spell, hell that sucks. What, what, what? Slow down for fucks sake! The pen, the pen, the pen has taken over and I’m just watching the pen move rapidly across the page. I am imaging the ink flowing out through the ballpoint. The ink slowly, inkingly (is that a word) sliding down the inky plastic insert of the pen shaft, (is that a metaphor) onto the papery page. I think my writing sucks. I think I am in a panic, that sucks. It’s not a black blank panic though. Like when I had to play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata at the end of year recital. Back in Lawson, back in 1967 (perhaps). Was it 67 or 66, not important Gary, not important? The black, the pitch-black panic. That sucked. So did the recital, There was no moonlight, just black, black, black! God it sucked. Why did I bring such a small journal to write in today? The lines are too close, that sucks. I have to write really small, tiny, don’t scrawl, that sucks.

Tiny little baby letters linked with tiny little bay letters linked with tiny little baby letters. A tiny little attempt at writing, that sucks.

Limited though that the space is and the fact that it sucks I must continue cause that’s the drill, fucking write something in five minutes. God that sucks! It really sucks! I did not expect to be writing at a fucking writing master class. (Well what did you expect, carol singing, book singing techniques, someone to write for me?) I call it panic writing, writing out of blackness, afraid of the fucking dark writing. It sucks. Gobbledygook, misty, mushy, mashie, murky, swishing gobbledygook. Words free falling from the backspaces of an erratic unreliable memory, Mush. Mush, mush. It sucks! Remember to write legibly, slow down, and clear up the slurring. It’s like slurring when the words end up illegible. Too much wine, (bubbles darling, don’t mind if I do!) What was it I was trying to say, indiiiscribbable… that sucks! It’s like when I jot down a thought at three in the morning, wake up in a flash and jot it down on the bedside jotter, in the dark. What the fuck? Gobbledygook, indiiiscribbable, indesyyypherable, gobbledygook.

Now that sucks. Or I wake up cant get back to sleep and switch the transistor radio on making sure I have the earphone in my good ear, Radio national of course repeat program of course. That sucks!

Sunday Extra with Jonathan Green. No longer, that sucks!

So you think you can write? Yeah I am now wide-awake listening, no way going back to sleep, that sucks. But clarity hits at odd times! Great discussion, engaged totally, then doze off and wake to radio buzz off station hiss. Recall recall, recall jot jot jot!

Great, loved it, it was fabulous I don’t recall the names but scribble SEXTRA Jomathlen Geen, goooogle. I look back at the jotter, not the next morning but when the erratic brain jerks a post midnight scribbled memory and I read the scrawl. Attempt to read the scrawl. That sucks!

Listen again to the program, you know download audio, yeah listen again. Great stuff. Love it.

Later when sober I buy Sian Prior’s memoir, Shy (great read) and later when drunk (tipsy) book into Catherine Deveny’s Gunnas Writing Masterclass. Forgot that I have done this (that sucks) until Catherine confirms.

Doesn’t suck!

MEMORY JOLT 2 : A POEM OF SORTS

Large white wrapped table

Butcher’s paper galore

Arty in its arrangement

Just like the painting on the wall

(She has her work everywhere!)

I am such a jealous bitch

I think it’s a take on Leda and the Swan

Leda looks in charge, no victim here

Stories abound

Around

Not about Leda, the painting is inconsequential

But I gaze at it all day long

On and off

So many stories

So many stories

They unfold

They sway and ricochet

Across the room

Subliminal, liminal

On a threshold

Memories flow

They freak out

And argue with themselves

They battle to be in the here and now

My gaze drifts

Thoughts go back in time and then move forward

I look into the street

The trees, lush and the sky dry blue

Everyone is writing

There is so much silence

The sound of a myriad of pens is a hush

Traffic below hums a low slow Saturday rush

And the bus whines with a high engine pitch to the stop

Air makes a light whoosh from the high ceiling vent

And the soundlessness of the stories

The soundlessness of the stories

The pens in the room.

MEMORY JOLT 3 : LONG DISTANT CALL

The first time I was turned on and understood what that meant was… turned on… hmmmm to music, drugs, sex, literature? Lets say it was in the 60’s. It was all wound up in physicality.

It gets murky. I was disturbed as a child, deeply disturbed. With that opening prompt I was immediately taken back, back, back.

First significant childhood memory:

When I was three my mother was bathing me in an enamel bowl on the kitchen bench, I looked out the widow. Being on the bench gave me a good view out the window all the way to the distant ridge where the train line is. A goods train was on fire. It’s a vivid memory I’ve never forgotten and I know when it was cause mum confirmed it for me. The 1956 fires in the Blue Mountains when I was three.

I work in a memory support unit supporting those living with dementia. Molly lives there.

Molly often says, “Everything changes”. She says it with a smile and a sort of sad wisdom.

Long distance:

It’s a spooky thought, what first turned me on, I find it loaded with darkness.

I had a long, long, long-distance phone conversation, the night before.

With a close long standing friend, Sandy.

We drank wine and talked and talked and drank wine and talked.

We talked about the recent coverage of the current public hearings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

I was gutted, we were both gutted.

Conversations can be so complex, complicated, confronting, and so deep with sadness. Some of us slip through the cracks. We know, we are unsure, we don’t know for sure all that has occurred.

From whose hands did we suffer?

Molly often says, “Everything changes”. She sort of says it with a smile and a sad wisdom.

Second significant childhood memory:

The door opened. It opened very wide to a raw place. To distant memories of uncertainty.

I was six, I was naked, I was standing in my parent’s bedroom in front of the dressing table mirror, I was alone and doing my very best Marilyn pose. Hand on hip, head to the side, elegant, poised enthralled at the image I saw.

Molly often says “Everything changes”, sometimes with a wry smile and sometimes with a sad glint.

My father came into the room unexpectedly, my very private world invaded and every thing changed, forever. “Jesus Fucking Christ” he exclaimed as he turned and left the room to get my mother.

All I could think of was disgust.

All I could think of was disgust.

All I could think of was disgust.

Bitch slap! Great drag name.

Molly often says in the evenings after supper “Everything changes”. Sometimes she says this with sadness and sometimes with wry wisdom.

Moving on:

I changed the subject and we talked about teeth. We had both been having teeth problems of late and this seemed to be a really great diversion from disgust.

My best buddy went to the dentist this week. He had a toothache.

It’s the wrong one he told the dentist as he sat there with his mouth open wide and full of a gloved hand. Too late, it had already been extracted. Seems that x-rays can lie and toothaches can persist.

How could this happen. I thought the story was hilarious, my friend did not, so I poured another glass of bubbles and we moved on.

“What about America”? Donald Trump was also a depressive subject so we got onto music. Phew!

Italian music, recent music, beautiful music.

Everything lifted.

The conversation moved onto pets.

This is not my dog.

That’s what I said the other night when I got home.

He (the dog that is) suffers from separation anxiety.

Anyway he had managed to climb over the side gate next to the outside toilet. He landed in the shade cloth above the fishpond ripping it down and ending up in the fishpond! The pot in the pond smashed in the process the fish remained intact. He then attempted to dig under the house and uprooted the newly laid water pipes bursting them! Currently he is at the dog minders for a couple of days. They sent a text stating how placid he was, asking what had happened to the usual quivering whippet that was now so chilled out!

Molly often says, “Everything changes”, and she says it with a mixture of sadness and wry wisdom.

Next minute  the clock in the lounge room chimed. Yes Sandy, I said we have a clock that chimes!

It’s three am; three am can you believe it.

We have been five hours on the phone.

Goodnight.

At its peak the party had about 60 or so people, most of whom were up on the decking. But as the night progressed the people on the deck dispersed and the stayers, about 10-15 of us, all ended up downstairs on the back lawn, sitting or standing. It was about 2am and the temperature was just perfect – I hadn’t needed to put on a cardigan over my new op-shop dress to keep my shoulders warm. My son and two of his mates were in his bedroom watching tv or playing xbox.

I was standing in the backyard leaning against the posts of the decking and something made me turn around. It was two police officers walking towards me. The male officer asked who the owner of the house was. I said that I was, as I turned around and stumbled on a couple of empty bottles near my feet, and asked if they were here because of the noise. The same officer said – quite apologetically as he looked at the remaining, well behaved 10 or so guests – ‘yes, there’s been a complaint’.

I said, ‘As you can see it’s winding up. We’ll keep the noise down.’

I didn’t think we’d been that loud. I’d intentionally setup the music inside so it could be heard outside, being aware that noise travels a lot on a still, hot night. I’d also done a letter box drop to close neighbours with pre-warning that there would be a 50^th at my address that night so I was surprised that some had their knickers in a twist over what I thought wasn’t that much noise.

My last guests left about 3.30am and I went to bed. About mid-morning the next day I was having a couch break inbetween cleaning up and picking up empty bottles when the doorbell rang.

I answered the door and the woman at the door looked somewhat familiar. I knew that I knew her but couldn’t quite remember where from. However, I said hello as if I did know her because I realised I would remember very soon – or I hoped I would. Maybe turning 50 meant that part of my brain left me as I left my 40s and I wouldn’t. She held up a bag of watermelon and rockmelon rinds and told me that about 1.30am the boys were throwing them at the back of their house from my deck and they were hitting the glass and made quite a bit of noise. She said that she didn’t mind that I had a party, but didn’t like things being thrown at their house.

I said that obviously I was really unaware of what was going on because obviously I don’t condone that sort of behaviour but a few things fell into place at that moment. One: I remembered who she was – my neighbour from over the back fence. Two: that big bang on my back fence was a stray piece of fruit rind not making it to the neighbour’s window. I remember at the time yelling out ‘oy’ because I could sense it was one of the boys scrambling around on the decking. Now I knew what they’d been doing. Three: this was why the police were called and responded to a complaint.

I called to my son who came out of his bedroom, told him why our neighbour was there and asked him if he knew anything about this. He started to say that he knew nothing, and very very quickly realised that the truth was better and admitted to doing it. He listened to her say her piece, he apologised, and the neighbour went on her way.

We had a bit of a chat about it afterwards then continued on doing our own thing, but during the day, any time that I asked for help he was very willing – for a change. I needed a lot of help that day!

He sat down next to me later on that afternoon and we started talking about it and he admitted that he hadn’t thought that it might not be the right thing to do. It was just a bit of fun and any thought of potential consequences weren’t at all present.

I’d told this story to a few friends and everyone has had a similar story to tell from when they were about the same age so I guess he’s done that rite of passage and hopefully he gets through the next one just as unscathed.

Oh my goodness, what have I done to be here today? Well, let’s just say everything I wanted to do! I’m not going to feel guilty about prioritising this day over all the crappy jobs that need to be done at home; negative me on my right shoulder be gone! Sheesh, the bloody washing never stops as does the continuum of the cycle of work – weekend repeat. Today is part of my efforts to not waste any of the time that remains of my life. Why? For the reason that many of us are compelled to act; I’ve watched others leave with regrets, of opportunities missed either spoken or unspoken. There is a good chance that this is now my half way point and there is a big flashing sign in my head that says – get a move on and make the most of it!

I haven’t always been like this, but if this is half way, then one explanation is that I am possibly going through a midlife crisis. Gosh, I’m really hoping it is midlife at the very least. One of my life heroes isn’t someone famous, it is my Great Aunt, a proudly second generation Irish Australian who was strong and fearless and at 103 years had a brain sharper than all the pencils in my house.

This Grand dame spoke sense, the type of straight talking no bullshit words that I soaked up. Her life as a young girl was horrendous, along with her 6 siblings she faced more adversity than any child should. Her fondest memories were of drinking warm lemonade upstairs in the General Havelock hotel with her extended family. This little girl lived upstairs in the pub with her youngest sister whilst her mother and father languished in gaol and her brothers and sister were scattered to work on farms across Adelaide and the plains.

The boys were less fortunate than their sisters, one can only imagine how the eldest child, with too much responsibility on his shoulders, coped at the age of 6 being doused with freezing cold water in the middle of the night for wetting his bed. It was a state care system that saw the child as a resource, child labour when old enough and this child was an inconvenience. A child, who eventually went to war as a proud young man with his gentle ginger haired brother only to experience even more horror. They survived physically.

The baby, months of age, her youngest sibling was sent to an Orphanage. He was fostered eventually, living with a new family and a new name. He also went to war, the Second World War and came back with malaria and few years to live. But these siblings were extraordinary, they lived life large and strong strings of emotion tied them together. To be sure there was never any visible example of what it meant to be a family and yet they managed to bring together something that made sense to them. They made their own version of family, without parents just them against the world, young adults forging a new path. They shared the parenting of each other amongst each other, parents before they were adults.

So seriously, what the hell am I complaining about. The world I inhabit today is thanks to the foundations they laid. I’m grateful for the turntable of life that sustains me and allows me the freedom to explore. At half way, I am chasing my dreams with my ancestors riding along with me in spirit.

The first time I was turned on to percussion was seeing Strike Percussion from New Zealand perform at a Creative Arts NZ showcase in Wellington. I thought they were fabulous and I was entranced. Through my efforts they got to perform the following year at 2000 Melbourne Festival where I was Program Manager. I met up with the group again in 2004 at the Australian Performing Arts Market in Adelaide. By then I had left Melbourne Festival and was running my own business, based in Melbourne, as an event producer and an artist agent (Australian and international artists and companies). Strike asked me if I would consider being their international manager/producer/agent. After some to-ing and fro-ing by email I submitted a proposal. We subsequently signed an agreement and the door opened in my business to promoting this pretty amazing percussion group – and a lovely bunch of guys and a gal to boot! Over the next few years I secured some exciting engagements for them in Australia and overseas. One of the overseas gigs was with the Hong Kong Leisure Centre. This was a government organization and they weren’t very flexible but having read the ‘Art of War’ – and spending my early childhood in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur – I have a reasonable Asian mindset and found a way to stand firm on several of Strike requirements. The HKLC folk weren’t keen on paying per diems. It was suggested Hong Kong $10 was enough per day but I insisted it wasn’t and eventually got them to agree to the equivalent of the Aussie union rate of $56 dollars per day. And then we finalised the contract, flights were booked and paid for, freight packed and shipped and the day of departure drew nearer. Funny isn’t that when you plan these things you try to dot every ‘i‘ and cross every ‘t’. But occasionally gremlins – or is that goblins? – get into it the mix and things go awry.

When Strike arrived in Hong Kong their luggage was taken to the hotel but the group went straight to the venue as they wanted to check out the instruments that were being provided locally. When they got there and saw the drum kit Muz, the leader, said, “it’s the wrong one! It hasn’t got a snare drum or timps with it”. So the Hong Kong minders scurried around to arrange an exchange before Strike came back for the rehearsal and sound checks. All during the show the audience sat there very quietly and didn’t appear to respond to the music/percussion at all. Strike played the last note of the finale and came forward to take a bow. Next minute the place erupted with applause and cheers and whistles. They were a hit!

Back at the hotel later the musos were having a drink and telling stories and jokes. Muz told the one about the woman who was standing at a bus stop looking at a dog and asked a man standing nearby, “Does your dog bite?” The man replied, “No.” So she reached down to pat the dog which immediately lunged and snapped at her. She leapt back and shouted at the man, “You said your dog doesn’t bite”. Unperturbed the man replied, “He doesn’t. This is not my dog.”

The writers class was similar to attending an antenatal class.

It doesn’t really matter if you attend or not, because you’re still going to have a baby. In the same way, if you’re going to write a book, you’ll do it whether you go to class or not.

But by coming to class, you get to know that everyone’s in the same sort of sea vessel. There’s no particular right way to have a baby (with the exception perhaps of giving birth in a fire pit or off the edge of a cliff); and it’s a bit the same with writing. Everyone comes to the party pregnant, and there’s just particular things you can try not to do if you want to avoid fucking the whole show up. It’s normally good to wear a life jacket of some description if you board a sea vessel, and it’s probably smart to ask someone who’s been on the boat before where you might locate your floaties.

Listening to Feedback and allowing a big feedback crap on your work to determine your birth plan is like letting an arrow drawn the wrong way in wet cement point you in the direction of imminent doom until the council decides it’s time for a new foothpath. It’s throwing your life jacket to the fish; which is both stupid and environmentally unfriendly. And who the fuck wants to leave anything up to local government? They wont fix the pavement till at least three senior citizens have stacked it.

So board the boat, have your baby, and don’t let those council bastards anywhere near it. Unless they have publishing grants (but that’s for the post-natal class).

He wants to whistle. He practices on the train and in the car. He practices in bed and in the bath and even on the toilet. He practices while we ride our bikes. Sometimes he is so intent on pursuing his goal that he falls off of his bike and gets up still trying to whistle. Questions and conversations about whistling dominate our days.

“Why do you want to whistle”, I ask. “What is so special about whistling? How do you think it will make you feel? What does it mean to you? What will you do when you can whistle? And once you can whistle what will you do next?”

He gives my questions a lot of thought.

“Well Grandma” he says, “I will be able to take music wherever I go. I will be able to entertain people and make music in my head and I could be the first whistler in an orchestra.”

“And then what will you do if you achieve that and become the first ever official orchestral whistler?” I ask.

“After that Grandma” he says, “I will make the first music for whistlers and I will choose all the people to whistle the sounds of all the different instruments in the orchestra. And there will be new sounds of instruments no one has ever heard before.”

“And when you have done all of that” I ask, “what then?”

His little face lights up. “Then we will have a concert for all the world and we will whistle my music and everyone will learn that if they can whistle they will always have their own music.”

“And after you have done all of these things and shown all of the people that they can carry their music with them all the time” I ask, “what then?””

“Well then Grandma” he says “it will make people feel happy and I will think about what I need to learn next.”