Spring Magic

Spring in Melbourne is a wonderful time. Melbournians at this time though, will always begin a conversation with a comment about the weather. Our weather is variable at the best of times, but Spring is something else! Why only on Wednesday, we were blessed with perfect mid-twenties, no wind, absolutely glorious weather that put everyone in a good mood. Carmel (my favorite person at work) and I made the most of it by walking up to a French deli  (a recently discovered secret of ours) and pretending we were in Paris. I changed out of my bike riding gear and into suitable French deli attire and although I developed blisters from the pointy white shoes I chose my enjoyment could not be dampened. We feasted on duck pie (me) and goats cheese tart (Carmel), followed by tiny, delicate custard tarts and coffee. Back in my riding gear and riding home afterwards, the spell was still in the air. Motorists were singing out of their car windows and chatting to me at traffic lights. 

Then on Thursday we had black skies and thunderstorms, followed by sunshine and humidity!!

You can understand why the weather is a concern if you remember that next week is the Spring Racing Carnival and ladies from far and wide (including yours truly) have already organised their racing attire. It is not uncommon to see women in strappy, flowing dresses being lashed by freezing winds or to see the same women on another year burning to a crisp under the Australian sun. If its windy this year, I’m done for! My hatinator will be like a toy aerofoil! I’ll be blown across the starting gate and over the chimney tops. (Pics below, what do you think?).

Hatinator by Kim Fletcher, milliner. 

The teenager finds out that on the other side of the boundary there is no cataclysmic event.

Somewhere between the anticipation of the Melbourne Cup Carnival, involving the attending of fashion shows and purchasing the biggest hatinator anyone has ever seen because it looked fab on the night amongst other outrageous hats, fascinators and hatinators but then bringing it home and being told “it looks like a mammoth satelite dish”, and “mmm, you should be able to pick up the race call from anywhere with that on your head” and riding in Around the Bay, including training and getting my bike serviced at the last minute by the same guy who teased me about the photo on my license last year but this year getting a lecture from him about bike maintenance, as in “you should oil your chain, and clean the grime off your frame and this is how you do it… ” and when enquiring why?, being told “because if you look after your gear it will look after you” which is something my dad would have said six thousand times to me before, I have been losing sleep over how to deal with a teenager who suddenly has a new boyfriend, insomnia, lack of interest in school, a blossoming social life and an irrepressible desire to spend hours in the bathroom putting makeup on and doing her hair. She has been sleeping with her mobile phone under her pillow and receiving texts from her boyfriend when she should be sleeping, and if not, likely to be staying awake in anticipation. She argued with me about being allowed to attend the after party for her boyfriend’s school play and told me she didn’t care that it would end late and tire her out for school because she didn’t care about school anyway.

However, over the weekend, she broke up with her boyfriend on Saturday, was visibly upset, talked about it with me the same day and said that it was what she wanted and that it felt like a load off her mind. On Sunday she spent ages mucking around in the bathroom putting a second hole in one ear, and a second and third hole in the other despite advice I’d given her to wait until she was at least eighteen before doing the multiples. All I said on the day was, you shouldn’t be faffing around in the bathroom for hours over your appearance when you have so many assignments overdue!

“I can’t believe you didn’t get angry at me when I pierced my ears”, she said to me after school on Monday. 

“What’s the point of being angry? It was already done. Getting angry wouldn’t have changed anything”.

“I suppose so. I just thought you’d be upset”.

“Well, I was disappointed. You didn’t follow my advice”.

“Okay then. Well I can live with that”. She seemed to reflect for a moment before continuing, “And by the way, I finished my science prac off over lunchtime today and handed it in. Yeah, I’m getting up to date with my work. I’m getting on top of it, and it feels much better. I’m sorry for saying I don’t care about my school work. I do care and I’ve decided to put a big effort in for the rest of the term. Because its only six weeks and I’ll be able to chill over the holidays. Yeah, and I’m gonna work hard in year eleven next year because I don’t want to develop bad study habits going into year twelve”.

This monologue was like pennies from heaven to me.

Later I wondered, why had the light suddenly come on? Could it be that in overstepping a boundary I’d set and piercing her own ears she realised on the other side of the boundary there was no cataclysmic event… just the same old turf… and for as far as she could see… and that it was up to her to decide where her boundaries needed to be?

PS. Do you want to see a photo of my hatinator?

We need her

One of my friends, with whom I was closest to after the birth of my first two daughters, use to joke about our crazy lives. Plunging head first into motherhood for the first and the second times is probably the biggest challenge anyone could face. (Having more children is a pinch after that adjustment). Her favorite thing to say (and I remember the setting: it would often be when we were dressing children after having taken them for a swim at the local pool. The little children would be hungry, tired. You’d try to strap one into the pram with food before dressing the second one. You’d feel like you were in a worm canning factory) was,

“My life is a mess! My children are maniacs!”. She’d then laugh as she did an impersonation of a person nolonger able to speak. 

This morning when I read about Jane Goodall’s visit to Melbourne: “Heed wake-up call for world: Jane Goodall has a simple label for the state of the Earth, a mess” my train of thought touched down upon my friend’s rant, “my life is a mess”.

Jane Goodall says the world is a mess! My life is a mess! (It is). 

That’s why I need Jane Goodall.

She has come to Melbourne, with a purpose. She visited our wonderful gorilla enclosure at the Melbourne Zoo to raise awareness that recycling mobile phones could save gorilla habitat in the Congo. A metal used in their construction is mined there. 

And that’s why we need Jane Goodall.

It seems simple. But it takes someone like Jane Goodall, who can think across economic, cultural and political divides, and the mess of daily life to make these connections. And suggest solutions. Little by little we might be able to unravel the mess.