Overwhelmingly, a Twilight Phase

A beautiful, safe beach is accessible from our beach house via a short track through tea trees. The vista of the beach opens up at the end of the track like a magical discovery. My eldest daughter used to be the first one down the beach, with a net in her hand and the desire to catch a toady – these are small annoying little fish of the Cow Fish variety, but are easy to catch. Once caught, my kids put them in canal systems, connecting pools and holes purposefully built in the sand, where they stay until released or until the tide comes in. I have a motion picture of her in my memory stalking these fish for hours in the shallows and lunging with the net, always with success. She became so good at it that she would often leave the toadies for the other kids and focus on smaller, faster fish that we assume are whiting. 

These days are over. She now wakes on holidays at eleven, but would sleep longer if I didn’t wake her. (I don’t want her becoming completely nocturnal – she has to go back to school next week). After surfacing, she spends a good part of an hour in the bathroom, emerging only when her hair is perfectly styled and her face is made up. If not for me insisting on her eating breakfast she would be content with a can of Pepsi max (which I never buy!! She snuck a six pack of them into the trolly last shopping expedition). 

These changes in my children are often more visible to me on school holidays in our beach house. Its probably because I reflect upon it, and because memories of other times in this familiar place surface to juxtapose themselves against the present. I remember curling up with her on the couch down here when she was eight to read her Harry Potter chapter-by-chapter. Towards the end of book two, I continued to read after I put her to bed. It was one in the morning when I finished it and could finally put it down. When she became an independent reader I read to the younger ones books she had read on her own like Deltora Quest. Now all of my daughters are independent readers. If I didn’t have my youngest daughter, these days of lying down in bed with a child and reading would be completely gone. 

My eldest no longer reads. She has myspace, Gaia Online, a mobile phone and a drawing pad. Daughters numbers two and three are the avid readers now. But Harry Potter has long been superseded. Here and now is the Twilight phase!

Twilight is a series of four books. It has captured the imagination of my two middle daughters. Each of them in turn have not been able to put it down. Both are obsessed with this perfect girly fantasy about a vampire (Edward) and his love (Bella). They await the next series (which tells the same story from Edward’s perspective), and the film. The trailers of the film caused a sensation in our house yesterday when Emma found them on the internet and watched them over and over again, before holing herself up again with the fourth book.

The regime begins

I’m currently down at our beach house. Its school holiday time. I brought my bike with me. Its around this time every year that I start training for ‘Around the Bay In a Day’. This is a non-competitive endurance cycling event. 

This afternoon I went for my first training ride. I put on my new ‘Around the Bay’ bike gear. Its the first time I’ve purchased the official gear. I wasn’t used to the feel of heavily padded bike shorts. Walking around in them, I felt as though I had a nappy on. Once on the bike, the awkward feel went away. I reflected that ducks walking on solid ground or seals flopping around on rocks would have had similar feelings about their especially-designed equipment.

I headed off on my own, leaving the kids back at the house with the eldest in charge (who negotiated payment in babysitting money before I left. She has unfortunately developed enjoyment in shopping for clothes and with that an appreciation for money). 

The quietude of farmland and coastal views sent me into ‘the zone’. I love the feeling of moving under my own steam and picking up speed down hills. I felt wonderful. Until I came to a particularly quiet stretch. I was enjoying the peace until a large van passed me. It reminded me of the movie ‘Jindabyne’. In the movie a man stalks and kills a young girl driving home by running her off the road with a van (that’s just the beginning of the movie, the rest is about the group of men fishing who find her body. Worth seeing if you haven’t already. Its quirky). I wish that I hadn’t had that association though. Because I suddenly felt rather vulnerable riding out there on my own. I got over it when I picked up a more frequented stretch for the rest of the ride. 

I arrived back to our place as the sun was setting. All the warmth had gone out of the day and I cooled down very quickly. A few minutes after hopping off the bike I could hardly walk. I had more pain than the usual pain of sitting on a bike seat for a long time. My kids had no sympathy. Sitting and standing were difficult manoeuvres, requiring large groans which my kids began to mimic. I’m happy to say that after taking off the new ‘Around the Bay’ bike shorts and warming up, the pain is somewhat relieved. However the ride today was only a quarter of the distance I need to be fit for!

Unexpected Detour (Part 2)

My taxi driver had engaged with me in animated conversation on the way from Brisbane airport to my hotel. Our conversation flowed easily and had occasioned laughter, even though on balance he did most of the talking. He was naturally talkative and opinionated, but I sensed that my responses surprised him out of possibly habitual monologue, especially when he was challenged to justify or explain his views. I became aware that he had begun to look at me more often as the conversation progressed.  However, I was quite at ease with him until he turned off the main road into a church car park without warning, other than flicking off his meter and saying, “I won’t charge you for this detour”.

This unprecedented move was alarming. It had been in the context of him explaining the history and significance of the church to Brisbane and to himself personally. However, the car park was not lit well and there were no other people around. Although my outer attitude would not have changed perceivably, I panicked inwardly. My mind began to work at a hundred miles a minute. My senses heightened and my body readied to respond in a reflex of fight or flight. I reasoned to myself that there could be no escape while the vehicle was moving. I thought of my suitcase in the boot of his cab and consciously decided to give it up as lost should the need arise to make a run for it. At the same time, I decided to consciously stay put and take the risk that his intentions were as harmless as his monologue about the church.

He pulled into one of the vacant parking lots but left the motor of the vehicle running. I waited for signs of danger like a coiled spring, acutely aware of the position of the door handle and lock. I sat stiffly like a traitor with my seatbelt already quietly unlocked but held in position. At the first sound of the door lock being activated I was ready to pounce, open it manually and spring out of the car. 

It turned out that the car park he had chosen enabled a view of the church which clearly showed the new wing. He pointed out the difference in the stone colours to me. “Can you see the old stone? It has weathered. And here is where the new stonework begins”. 

“Oh yes”, I replied, but I was too agitated to really take it in. He continued describing aspects of the construction and I continued to reply as of before. But I only relaxed completely when he reversed out of the parking spot and turned back onto the city street. For him there could hardly have been a blip in his consciousness. For my part, I felt as though I had endured a trial and the seeds of this post were sewn. I reflected that I felt as though I had taken a risk. The risk was retrospectively traceable to the moment where I began to engage with him in conversation deeper than chit-chat. Would I take the risk again? Yes, I would, I thought. 

We passed through the city traffic, towards my hotel in Southgate. Along the way he pointed out the random-looking architecture of the council buildings. The windows were all on oblique angles, at artistic odds with the shapes of the tiles on its facade. I tilted my head as he described the view from the inside of the building and remarked how weird it would be to work in that space. “It would be difficult to get a painting straight on the wall!” I joked. We crossed over the Brisbane River again leaving the CBD behind. As we approached the Southgate precinct, he pointed out places of interest like the museum and concert hall, mentioning that these were all walking distance from where I was staying. Finally he said, “And here is your hotel”. I felt relieved but instead of stopping the taxi, he drove straight past it and turned the meter off again!

He took me on a tour of Southgate along the Brisbane River, pointing out good restaurants, places to walk and the site where the craft market would be set up the following day. 

After a slow loop of the Southgate precinct, he pulled up into the circular driveway of Ridges. To onlookers, there would have been nothing unusual. How many times would Ridge’s double glass doors have seen a taxi driver pull up and dispatch a client? He fetched my case. I paid him. He wished me well for my conference. I thanked him for the tour and he departed. The difference was imperceptible. I felt caught between a sense of relief that the journey was over and a reluctant farewell.

Unexpected Detour

I arrived at Brisbane airport late in the afternoon. I knew I would be heading straight into peak hour traffic, but it didn’t matter. All I had to do was check in. The conference didn’t begin until the following morning.

I collected my bag and wheeled on out of the airport following signs to the taxi pick-up area. There was a row of taxis and I was swiftly directed into the second waiting car. A tall man in his mid fifties driving an upmarket cab loaded my bag into his boot (that’s ‘trunk’ for anyone not from Australia).

My driver pulled away from the taxi rank and joined a queue of taxis exiting the airport. As the boom gate opened for each of the preceding cars, we inched forwards in the queue. 

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Rydges on Southbank”, I replied, “Do you know it?”.

“We’ll find it somehow”, was all he said. I couldn’t see his expression and didn’t know quite how to respond. It was likely he was joking. The laconic attitude is common in people of his generation, particularly in the North. My favorite cousin from Brisbane would have said something similar. I decided to let it go and sat uneasily as he pulled up to the boom gate.

I wouldn’t have noticed the gate had we passed through within the expected rhythm of pausing and slow driving. But for us the gate didn’t open. My driver buzzed the control desk.

“Your bloody gate isn’t working”.

“Its not our gate. You don’t have a tag. Please put two dollars into the chute to exit”.

“Yes I do have a tag. Your gate doesn’t work”.

“Our gate works perfectly. Put in your two dollars. You are holding up the queue”

“My tag has been scanned and now you want me to pay again! I’m not paying double. Open your bloody gate if you want the queue to move.”

In this way my driver and the young man at the control desk argued to and fro. I looked up at the meter and noticed it was continuing to click over. He noticed where my attention had been drawn. “Don’t worry, I’ll turn it off”.

Finally the young man’s voice blasted through the intercom with, ”If you’d been less selfish and just put your money in, the other drivers wouldn’t be held up”, before finally opening the gate.

My driver clicked the meter back on and drove through quickly, continuing his argument with me as surrogate other, “Yes, well, I’m not going to pay twice!”. 

As we entered the throngs of peak hour traffic, his mood shifted from argumentative to conversational. He went on to explain the tag system to me.

“I’ve never noticed it before. They may not have it at Melbourne”, I replied, happy to participate in any conversation to pass the journey. He assured me that every air port creamed money from the taxi industry, it was the method only that was different. Some airports charged drivers on entering, and some upon exiting. Taking in that I was from Melbourne he asked why I was in Brisbane and whether it was my first time. I had only been twice. Once as a kid and once over ten years prior. I didn’t know Brisbane well and had come this time to attend a conference. He questioned me about my work and when he established that education was my field mentioned that he had been a teacher before retiring early.

It was as though learning my field of interest gave him a feeling of connection, because he began to speak frankly and openly about his life and work. He believed teaching was an important profession, but his simplistic views on education were vastly different from mine. His retirement was stress-related. He would have been an authoritarian teacher, I thought to myself. I listened and asked the occasional question. But I did not feel like sharing my views.

It was his opinion that taxi drivers should be made to sit an exam before getting their taxi license.

“What? A pen and paper exam?”, I enquired.

A pen and paper exam was exactly what he meant. He believed that the majority of Brisbane’s taxi drivers not only did not know the streets of Brisbane well enough, but that their English was too poor. “They put themselves in danger when they don’t know the language and customs”, he asserted.

I quizzed him to establish his meaning. His main argument centered around situations where the customer could be either drunk or abusive or both. He drew on his personal experience with such customers to illustrate that someone with less local nouse than he, would have ended up in a violent situation. His point was that drunk or aggressive people did not have the patience to cope with drivers with limited language or knowledge of the streets. 

“Couldn’t the driver choose which customers to pick up? You could minimize your personal risk by refusing to stop for people obviously drunk?”, I enquired.

“No. A driver has to have a reason that would stand up in court for refusing to stop. And often its just their word against ours”. 

I hadn’t realised taxi drivers were obligated in such a way. It made more sense to me that they should be able to regulate their own business and make decisions that affected their own safety without having to justify them. But my driver stressed the possibility that persons could be left in unsafe situations by a driver’s refusal to stop. He believed strongly in his obligation to stop.

We drove alongside the Brisbane River and over the Story Bridge. I remarked on the beautiful aspect of the river in the sunset. He spoke at length with pride about the history of their river, and suggested that I take a ride on one of the restaurant boats.

Leaving the river views and turning into a city street, he continued talking as my tour guide, commenting on prominent architecture, points of interest and historical facts. As we neared the city centre and the traffic slowed, he pointed out an Anglican church further along the street. We slowed to a stop behind other cars banked up at a set of lights. Once the traffic was moving again he changed lanes to get a closer view of the church. Its steeples loomed as we approached it slowly, stopping and starting. He explained that the church had remained unfinished for over one hundred years. Appropriately skilled stone masons could not be found in Australia anymore. To finish the church, stone masons had been brought out from Italy. The last wing had been finally completed only recently. He had been christened and married in that church. 

Suddenly, without explanation, he turned out of the traffic into the driveway of the church. It was dark by this stage and the driveway was not well lit. I wondered what he was doing. I was sure this was not the way to my hotel. I shifted in my seat and he must have sensed my uneasiness. As he drove into the deserted church car park, he reached across to the meter and turned it off.

“I won’t charge you for this detour”, he said.

… to be continued.

Death of a Camera

Having been a tourist in other cities, I occasionally find myself looking at my own city through different eyes. Its more than a comparison thing. Its about appreciating architecture, artwork, town planning, gardens or nature that I pass everyday and would normally have taken for granted. 

Today as I drove past the Potter Gallery I felt the urge to take a photo of the massive haphazard sculpture protruding from its front wall, and looking dazzling in the morning sun. Similarly, there is a new building going up close to Melbourne Uni which has striking angles and a bizarre use of colour (large spots to be precise). As I walked to my office, I found the perspective of looking upwards at the building towards the crane on its roof and clouds beyond really interesting. At moments like these I would reach for my camera.

I usually keep my camera in my bag permanently. It was a lovely little Canon with a wide screen at the back for play-back. There is a little pocket into which it fits perfectly in my Catherine Manuell shoulder bag. This I carry every day, and have done so for years. My Catherine Manuell shoulder bag incidentally has become sun bleached through constant use, especially during our summer holiday in Italy last year where we experienced a heat wave, Italian style. And my camera was always there…

… except for today. And yesterday. And last week.

I took it ski touring and put it in the front pocket of my jacket. I rarely fall when skiing. However, the weather had closed in on the second day of our tour. We navigated across the Fainters in white-out conditions and constant heavy rain. It took us almost two hours to navigate the two hundred meters across the Fainter’s ridge. This was a hairy situation to say the least. And it was not a good time to find out that my waterproof gear, which I realised was twenty years old, was no longer waterproof! leaving me wet to the bone in high winds!! I expended a lot of energy in the careful skiing we had to do in these white-out conditions. When we hit the relative safety of the fire track my fatigued legs could hardly hold a snow plow. For the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long I relearnt how it felt to fall over in the snow carrying a heavy pack. For those of you who haven’t experienced it, its like a double head plant. First you hit the deck and then your pack slams you in to make sure of it.

The front pocket of my jacket ended up with a little reservoir of water in it! This was the environment my poor camera endured.

I dropped my camera in the Dordogne River last year. A little bit of hair drying was all it needed to recover from being wet. However, this time, it wasn’t a case of a quick dip. The camera had been sitting in the pocket reservoir for the length of a working day, and had also suffered under the impact of my falls.

It has not recovered. I miss it.

A Current Affair affair

Hi there. Guess what? I was on A Current Affair last Thursday! Yep. How weird is that!

Kat and I had been shopping for fresh fruit and a juicer. We couldn’t find juicers sold anywhere and were making our way back to the market to buy the fruit, when we noticed a crew of three standing near a pedestrian cross road. The camera and the big fluffy mike gave them away as a film crew, but my initial assumption was that they were perhaps students. I expected to pass by them without much fuss, but was interested in trying to gauge their purpose.

The three of them were in a huddle and were obviously not filming as we approached. Because of this Kat and I felt no need to deviate from our straight path. However, before we were upon them, they approached us. It was sudden and we were taken aback. “Hi, you’re exactly what we’re looking for. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”. The fluffy mike was hovering, and the camera was rolling. The young female reporter was smiling expectantly. We were what they were looking for (supposedly). How could we say no?  

They ascertained that Kat was my daughter and explained the issue they were interested in discussing. A school nurse had prescribed the pill for a fourteen year-old girl in Geelong without consulting or informing her parents. The mother had subsequently found out and expressed outrage. It was this point of view that appeared as an article in the Geelong Advertiser. Kat and I were asked to express our opinions on this, starting with me.

I spoke for what felt like a long time. I expressed my belief that it is important for young people to have adults other than their parents whom they can trust and go to for support. I also expressed my openness that should my daughters feel they could not discuss something with me, I hoped they would be supported by other adults like this girl had been. The reporter challenged me many times, continually trying to position me as the “irate, controlling parent” and I continued to restate and elaborate my position. I can’t remember all that she asked me, but her questions were along the line of “So if you were doing the washing and found the pill in your daughter’s pocket, you wouldn’t be upset?”. 

I was acutely aware that my daughter was present. Her presence did not affect my responses. However, in the back of my mind I thought that it was possibly a good thing for her to hear that I was calm and supportive of the young girl. (And secretly, I was incredibly relieved that only two weeks prior, I had opened up discussion with Kat about the topic of safe sex and contraception).

When they interviewed Kat, I felt extremely proud. She spoke clearly with confidence and expressed her views succinctly. I had felt quite nervous and slightly emotional, but I did not detect any nerves in her. If they were a TV crew, I suspected that they would use the footage of Kat. Towards the end of her interview they asked her to paraphrase her views using their words, which were, “I think its good that she was looking after herself”. After our interview, they thanked us and we walked away.  We didn’t ask who they were, and they didn’t tell us. It remained a lingering curiosity as we drove home and discussed the experience.

That evening around 7pm the phone rang and I picked it up. It was one of Kat’s girlfriends in an excited state. “Jenne, mum and I just saw you on A Current Affair!”. “Oh my god!”. “Its still on. Quick turn on your TV”. I handed the phone to Kat and ran into the TV room. There are so many blinking remotes in that room now that I couldn’t find which one turned on the regular telly. I gave up in frustration when our caller friend announced via Kat that the story was over. 

At work yesterday, I was filming in a science classroom for a research project. We had set up and were waiting for the class to arrive. In this little space of waiting time, I mentioned the experience to my colleagues. Their reactions were great. They were in awe. (What is it about being on telly that is such a big deal? Funny eh?). Anyway, when I told them I didn’t see it, but was curious which parts of my interview were selected for the report, they believed the TV station would supply me with the footage. “Did you sign a release form?” one of our technical guys, Ron, asked.

“No, we didn’t sign anything. They didn’t even tell us who they were!”.

“Gee, how did they get away with that? You own your digital likeness you know! They need your permission to use it”, he informed me. Ron works with us during the day, but he is also heavily involved in the music industry. “Robby Williams just sold his digital likeness to EMI in the first deal of this kind. They paid him 19 million for it!”.

“Wow!”, I joked, “how much do you think I should have got for mine?”.