Monthly Archives: September 2009

Unhaunted

September 30, 2009

A friend’s Birthday and he’s not here to celebrate. I am thinking of birthdays, and how some ‘die young and stay pretty…’ (thanks Blondie). I can’t imagine Mottsu any older, can’t picture him. Birthdays pass and ageing is held in abeyance.

I, on other hand, am becoming increasingly obsessed with not showing signs of progress by time. Lotions and potions are essential to morning and evening rituals so I can ‘…deteriorate in my own time’ (thanks again Blondie). Today that makes me feel superficial or at best frivolous, on the Birthday of a friend I miss.

Can’t picture him? No, I never have, I’ve struggled to conjure Mottsu and failed. I’ve not seen him since he drove away. A friend who works for the Coroner was able to identify the body, so not even after he was found floating did I see him.

Three or four people reported sightings of Mottsu in the interlude following his death, unexpected glimpses, whereas I didn’t even dream him. Gone. I kept his things for a sense of him, inhaled his clothes for the faintest suggestion of him – gasping for connection. I know that’s a cliche, and I sought his scent with more determination than an airport sniffer-dog. I took big drags of wardrobe air, inhaled pillowcases and socks, attempting to abate the sense of abandonment and all the while haunted by regrets of not being haunted.

truly madly deeply

In the early days of mourning I watched Truly Madly Deeply over and over again, envying Nina. She not only sees her dead Jamie, he moves in and drives her mad with his other world antics.

Someone asks Nina what Jamie would say if he could speak to her. She considers and says he would tell her to lock the back door. I start remembering to lock the back door. Most nights anyway.

Jamie says, “Thank you for missing me”
Nina replies, “I have, I do, I did”

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No reply

September 23, 2009

After someone close to you dies there are things you expect to miss and there are things that catch you completely unawares.

Be forewarned about birthdays, family gatherings, and anniversaries. They all wound, the first year is the worst. Even now, in the fifth year, occasions can wrap me in a shroud of melancholia. Anticipated, and marginally less debilitating year to year.

It was the unexpected things knocked me over when I, eventually and tentatively, returned to a work-as-usual-as-it-could-be-after-the-death-of-Mottsu mode.

To facilitate a smooth re-entry to corporate life, and avoiding anything too familiar that might trigger blubbering despair, I spent a couple of days working interstate. I worked, or more accurately, I sat, inanimate and sphinx-like at a desk, under the guardianship of a trusted colleague. Transported, stupefied, back into an office environ.

It was early winter with short days. I recall standing on a street corner at the end of the day, between the office and my hotel, waiting to cross. It was the gloaming, the mystical transition time between day and evening.

Waiting for the lights to change, I reached into my bag and fished out my phone. Habit. As the phone powered up, I was struck by the realisation that he would not have rung, there would be no message and I had no-one to call with nothing to say.

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Weeks after Mottsu died, I realised he would never ring me again. He was dead, I knew he wasn’t going to call. Honestly, how could I not have known that?

Mottsu was never going to call me nor would he ever answer the phone. The thought had never entered my heart and I was whacked by that realisation. Clopped by a full body blow. I’m unsure what a full body blow is but it sounds debilitating. On the corner of Macquarie and Argyle streets I crumpled (debilitated) and reached a hand out to steady against a pole. Panting not breathing.

When travelling for work, it is in the gloaming that you call home. Everyone does. Everyone except me now. It is a lonely time with no-one to call. The gloaming call is a purposeless call, it is a check-in at the end of the day to hear news of home, to be reassured of what you know: that all is well.

Don’t phone a friend, don’t try a substitute. I tried, and that experience is worse than making a phone call to your waiting answering machine in your empty house…

The frozen loneliness that emerges at the end of a day in the office can’t be thawed by a well meaning friend. The sensible thing to do is plunge into a civilised gin and tonic, garnished with a lime slice. Sigh, breathe and gulp.

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The last time ever I saw your face

September 19, 2009

Along the road between my house and the tram stop is an office with parking underneath. The man who works there, looking after the carpark coming and goings is a relentless greeter.

I tried crossing the road before reaching the carpark. I tried scurrying by with head down. Each time he would spy me, wave and call out a cheery, and mercifully brief, greeting. The only thing to do was respond. I responded. Resigned to the encounter, and gradually starting to look forward to the acknowledgement, I came to stroll boldy, with head up and a smile ready for the carpark guard.

“Hello”
“Hello”

The exchange was usually that brief. Sometimes it was:
“Hello love”
“Hello”

The casual use of ‘love’ warmed me, and occasionally we would comment on the cold or warm. That was the extent of our intimacy.

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On some days, my lonely low days, he was the only person I spoke to and I was warmed by an exchange about the weather. I looked forward to his steady predictable hello-calling presence.

Our relationship was steady and uncomplicated.

There is time when you see somebody for the last time. Most often you don’t know when that time is. One time is the last time. We lose people, they move away. People lose us, we move away.

The carpark guard, I don’t know which day was his last day. I hope he’s well.

15 March 2004 was a last day too. The last day I saw Mottsu was especially cruel. His distress that day was intense. Even so I didn’t consider that he might not struggle through. We both appointments to attend, me for a leg waxing and he to step into the abyss he had assured me he walking away from.

The last time I saw him was backing the car out of the driveway. I stood waving, holding Wally and waving his paw. Wally and I, not knowing what else to do in the face of Mottsu’s gathering deterioration, waved.

He didn’t acknowledge the waving tableau, resolute and condemned. He looked past us, not at us and even so there was no sudden or menacing recognition that I would not see Mottsu again.

He never returned, didn’t come home.

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Going solo at the cinema

September 17, 2009

When Mottsu and I went to the cinema we would hold hands. From the opening titles to the closing credits, we’d hold hands in the dark throughout the movie. Fingers would be squeezed in tense scenes and gently held through the emotional ones.

Holding the hand of someone close to me connects and grounds me. I am reassured by the gentle grip of another. My flustered head stilled and my erratic heartbeat steadied. Holding hands at the movies, it is a great memory. We sat so well together. We were a great couple, I loved us at the movies with hands clasped.

Holding hands is one of my favourite things, it is right up there with preserved lemons and Scotty dogs.

Today I went to the movies alone. It is no big deal. I often go the movies alone. Today when took my seat and looked around I noticed was really alone, there was no one else in the cinema. It was empty but for me. An audience of one. Spooky. The film was a family comedy, which worked in my favour. I could have been really unglued watching suspense or horror. The experience was a little unnerving nonetheless, and the movie a little blah…

To ensure a comfortably populated cinema, check the reviews here:

http://www.filmdude.com.au/

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Miss Manners

September 16, 2009

I have long been an advocate of the Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruitatingly Correct Behaviour.

It was Mottsu who annointed me with the moniker of Miss Manners. He with his elbows on the dinner table. I loved that about him, how he could gently mock and have me laughing at myself. Miss Manners! I am that priggish at times.

Manners: They are like laws in that they codify or set a standard for human behavior, but they are unlike laws in that there is no formal system for punishing transgressions, other than social disapproval. They are a kind of norm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manners

When Mottsu left he committed a social transgression. Not the suicide, not drowning, not the shock of it all, but he didn’t leave a note. I was asked again and again, by yet another someone trying to comprehend the horror of his actions: “…did he leave a note?”

A note? It sort of surprises me (even years later) that it might be presumed that the depressed and suicidal personality might have the composure and good manners to leave a note explaining the inexplicable.

He left, no note. So rude. Society disapproved.

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Patrick Swayze in the supermarket

September 15, 2009

R.I.P. Patrick Swayze

There is a supermarket near home. Mottsu and I used to shop there almost daily. We’d call in on the way home from gym red, puffy and sweaty. We’d run laps of the aisles to grab a few provisions before hurrying home to enjoy the rest of the evening.

If I noticed the music in the supermarket, it was to hum along. Maybe I said the words of chorus out loud or stepped out to the beat. Innocuous supermarket music.

After Mottsu left, and after hiding from the world as long as possible, there came a time when I needed to visit a supermarket. I thought I could do it, part of slowly re-entering the world and I needed essentials like tissues and toilet paper.

I steeled myself to visit the supermarket, our familiar memory laden supermarket. I used a trolley, leaned on it like a walking frame and shuffled up and down, adding the occasional item from the shelves.

I heard something, turned my head tuning my ears. Disbelieving. Somewhere between the tissues and the toothpaste, which supermarket aficionados will know as a step or two, a familiar song started to play.

You will probably know it:
Supermarket music: Oh, my love my darling…
Me: Oh my lord my… WHAT?
Supermarket music: …I’ve hungered for your touch a long lonely time..”
Me: What? You are kidding
Supermarket music: …and time goes by so slowly
Me: Thank you world – as if this isn’t hard enough
Supermarket music: …and time can do so much are you still mine?
Me: (Survival mode kicks in for me and I abandon the trolley). Give me a break, it is too much, I don’t need this
Supermarket music: …I need your love I need your love Godspeed your love to…
Me: Gulp, breathe, breathe. Exit supermarket (and without the damn tissues that I really need now).

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My focus was making good my escape back to sanity, and my head was filled with thoughts of ghosts, pottery wheels and touching, holding – impossible images to deal with while grocery shopping.

Ohh, the longing and sorrow in the words of that supermarket tune. Ohh, the tissues and the toilet paper left in that trolley. I haven’t been back, unchained and not returning, not to that particular melody ridden supermarket.

Patrick Swayze died today. I don’t go to musical supermarkets anymore and below is the haunting song from Ghost.

R.I.P. Mottsu, my love, R.I.P. Patrick Swayze my darling. Wait for me, wait for me…

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Dance? Did you say dance?

September 13, 2009

At the opening of the Melbourne Greek Film Festival there was a band playing Greek music. There were a couple of hundred Greek people, so of course there was dancing. Arms on the shoulders of the person next to you kick left, kick right and step behind, step front, step behind – wiggle kick kick step wiggle…

Friendy and I danced, we usually watch and that night we danced. Maybe inspired by the mini-pizzas. We thought we’d be eating spanakopita. Come on caterers, try harder, at least a glop of taramasalata. Mini-pizzas. Not splendiferous.

Then we danced – well we sort of danced. Our new and generous Greek friends grabbed us by the shoulders and let us join their dance. As soon as you think your feet can do it and you look up to smile at your dancing girlfriend – you stumble and lose the rhythm, 98 and 3/4 % guaranteed…

That night I wrote to my dear friend in Athens and she applauded. She said that I must be ready for a Greek wedding -the traditional kind. Nobody loves a wedding more than the Greeks, just watch a couple of offerings from the Melbourne Greek Film Festival if you don’t believe me – on opening night the feature was Bang Bang Wedding.

It is a long time since I’ve danced and now I am ready for a Greek wedding? I’ll settle for spanakopita with dancing. With my friends. Splendiferous.

Yassou

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“No words can ease the ache of your hearts” President Obama

September 12, 2009

The eighth anniversary of 9/11

September 12 2001, on this side of the world, I was on the Geelong freeway early, driving to work in Geelong. The radio news was telling a horrific story. Remember how stunned you were by those first bulletins?

I pulled off the freeway and drove into a MacDonald’s carpark rolling down the window to breathe, big gulps of air.

Alone in an empty fast food carpark somewhere on the road to Geelong, and nothing making sense.

Connection: rang Mottsu,  woke him, still at home not needing to be on the road early. He hadn’t heard, couldn’t comprehend.  The journalist in him wasn’t ignited. I remember the conversation…  me looking for something to ground me  again and him foggy and unmoved.

In my mind that day, that event, that conversation marks the start of the loss of Mottsu. It was two and a half more years before he left the world, this was my first glimpse he was leaving. He was on his way out.

Before he left he wrote “But for me, I don’t get involved in the flow, I stand back and watch every act of my day, minute by minute, evaluating what it is doing and seeing nothing of significance. I don’t seem to ‘connect’ into the world going on around me and am unable to ‘lose’ myself in it.”

Back on September 11 2001, it was possible to sense that sentiment already in him. Just for a moment. A troubling moment. I glimpsed something. It was nothing. I still remember it.

You’re right President Obama, there is an ache in my heart that hasn’t eased.  May never ease, doesn’t need to ease.

I look up at the sky, and almost oddly there’s nothing odd to note 10,00 miles from NY. Step back into the car, wind the window up.

Breathe, keep breathing…

Drive, keep driving…

Ache

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Boundaries

September 7, 2009

Embarking on a blogging adventure has me thinking of boundaries. It’s not possible to know what will be written or how it will be read. I will write and it might be read.

Boundary fence falling

Gale force winds today and my fence is not holding up. Blog boundaries?

Caution and discretion:

  • real thoughts, situations and  observations
  • no real names except mine and my dog Shortbread, also my used to be dog Wally (dear Wally died )

Shortie and Wally and me are ourselves, no-one else will go by their real world name. It is not as if I am writing about the real world, this is my world, such as it is.

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