Too True

It has been difficult for me to fully admire or appreciate my more rebellious aspects. I had a longing to be quiet and to sit within untruths, for the sake of politeness and propriety measures.

Existence as an only child was difficult for me. I am oldest and youngest and in-between. An isolation within me has allowed much of my present self to find meaning. For that, I am grateful. The rest is still undecided or in the category of ‘meh’.

My professional life began as a waitress at fourteen. Before then, it was the babysitting route. I had no interest in bringing people their food and drinks. It felt too much like home and I was trying to leave there.

Dreams of being a sound engineer at fifteen bore fruit. Three weeks’ work experience in a recording studio on Hindley Street. I learned how to wear a stiletto there and a woman named Diane showed me how to use it as a weapon. Gruesome, yet appreciated at the time. The true reason some women wear heels.

I loved the equipment and the insulated walls. The sound the air makes in a vacuum-sealed room. Red light for silence and hand signals. It began a love affair with radio that lasted for fifteen years.

I spent my time buying cartons of John Player Special cigarettes and beer, more beer and beer. Southwark, Coopers and West End. I met bands and musicians of fame and ill repute. The air smells different in a room filled with passionate pursuits of music and intense focus. Maybe it was the drugs, I was a young teenage woman in the corner, trying very hard to remain unseen.

My first day at university I was told to carry a full bottle of vodka and a spare pair of knickers in my bottom drawer. You don’t know who you’ll meet on a story. Nothing prepared me for that. It was like someone removed all of the air from inside me. The casual nature of the remark did more damage than any words ever could.

I realised that someone like me would forever be with the small stuff because I had an ability to say no. I left to work in a factory. I stopped writing for twenty years.

I have lived the equivalent of three full lives and I am now planning my fourth while in stasis. What a remarkable world this is. Corporate banking, finance and insurance. Natural therapies and allied health. Education and teaching. Cleaning, factory work and retail. Self employment and losing everything twice.

It came in handy for the more boring work. This dreary that allowed for a mortgage and the ability to find such depths of depression that I walked away from everything, instead of losing another day to grey.

“No. The other grey. The grey with slightly more yellow-grey in it. Yes, that’s more of a blue-grey tone and I’m worried that it will bring out too much crimson.”

The hard days of working in soft furnishings. I did it for the steady income and to get a credit rating. Blinded by blinds, it was curtains for my career. Press my tush into a cushion and venetian is how I like my glass, thank-you-very-much.

I worked alongside a wonderful woman who was obsessed with unicorns. We would sing along to songs on the radio and make ourselves laugh. She taught me how to swear politely in an office environment.

“Mop and bucket!”

“Vack-yoooooom Cleeenah!!!”

It helped us remedy the frustrations of customer service if we shook our fists in the air and moved our bodies out back. It benefitted those people who can be a tad oblivious and rude.

Be kind to your installation technician.

I once showed a man a range of samples with his family. They wandered around the showroom, opening up this and that. Shutters and awnings and things that go bang. He perused six sample books looking for the correct beige.

After an hour, he came up to me with a piece of blockout fabric in his hand. He wanted to know more. He raised it up to his face and then tested the level of opacity, like a magician.

He took the fabric down and away from his face. He placed his arms by his sides. He looked at me and the fabric and then proceeded to ask, “Can I see through this?”

There was silence. I don’t lie. I looked for signs of realisation. Did he really ask me if he could see?

“No. No, you can’t see through that. It’s why it’s called blockout fabric. It’s not transparent, it blocks out vision as I’m hoping you just saw.”

I’d been speaking beige for an hour and the fatigue was really setting in.

“Oh.”

“Can I help you with anything else?” He turned and walked away to other samples. Going bolder and looking at the off-whites.

I too have had my moments.

Upon describing a tree in a garden centre once, I looked the man in the eye and said without missing a beat, “well it’s got leaves and it’s green” and I felt the exhalation of someone slowly dying inside.

A police officer stood in front of me after a long and laboriously hot day.

“Did you see what kind of car it was?”

“Yes Officer. It was a white one.” And so it goes.

My first day of university went well. I knew no-one and I was in a strange city; nineteen years old and shy. I was also helpful. People kept asking me if they were in the correct lecture theatre. I presumed my history class was going ahead, so I told them to go down the hall.

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of air change as I discovered that I was the one in the wrong place. The power though. I had more than seventy people believe me. I suppose sincerity has its benefits. I farted in a yoga class too. Gawd! The teacher was my friend. I was dying inside. Obviously, or was that my guts? It was in a dark room when she said,

“Oh you’ve got a squeaky mat there” when she was trying to be helpful.

Everyone turned to look at me instead. I waved and said “sorry” and felt the judgements as though they were now thick walls around me.

The aerobics instructor called Garry yelled my name in his portable microphone in the 90s. It was the greatest moment leaving that class. I can’t abide a lie. He told me there were twenty reps and then added ten more. I did my twenty and then said my farewell.

He screamed out from his stage while still jogging, “Katherine, you can do it!”

I yelled back “No, I can’t” as I hobbled to my car.

There’s a chance that I said I was older in order to make more sales at the skin care counter. A decade or two is nothing; or it is to me now, at least.

“Oh yes, use this cream, it’s amazing!”, said my thirty-year-old skin to strangers.

I’ve met power. Real power and it’s a taste that is distinct on my tongue. I prefer sweeter fruits. Humility. Peace. Tolerance. Softness. Beauty. Respect. I consider getting older a privilege.

Why would I cause myself pain for another person’s approval? I care what I look like. I just don't want caring what I look like to become being frightened of looking my age. Two men have given me four wrinkles and that is the only part that remains of those relationships.

Now, as I become older and more invisible, I feel a comfort that I never knew before. An ability to breathe has overcome me. An acceptance of myself. I watch that young woman, who still nestles inside me, strive for happiness.

I feel like caramel sauce floating in clouds of marshmallow. I love being inside myself. I love the feeling of me. The indulgence of myself so that I exude a softer self externally. Like flowers do.

Trees and gardens taught me everything I needed to know. Out of all the laws over time that I have come to see, the natural world brings me unity, a sense of peace and an acceptance I yearned for all along. I’ve been shown food sources in city parks, I’ve grown award-winning corn on the cob in pavement cracks. I am surrounded now by my enduring red gums.

If I could be anyone at all, I would be a red gum tree. I sought memory, colour and wisdom. They change colour with mist and rain and sunshine; reaching out with the thickest trunks and branches. They litter blossom and gift their bark to everyone. They brought me the oxygen I was desperate for. It’s nature’s life for me.