Tentatively Tasmanian

Thanks to Bev at Sunday Stealing for these questions.

1. What are the 3 most important things everyone should know about you?

(1) Like Plastic Mancunian I am an introvert who can very expertly be an extrovert when required. I can be funny or friendly, and learned during my solo travels in my early twenties that finding someone alone at a party when you feel alone and asking them lots of questions is the best way to make friends, feel secure and increase confidence. After doing all this though, if I get laughs, I can go overboard and dominate discussions and almost feel as though I’m ‘performing’ and can’t control myself. Robin Williams springs to mind when he used to riff during interviews. After these performances, I crave solitude and need a ‘break’ from socialising or being ‘on.’ I’m hoping to tone my extrovert-due-to-social-anxiety tendencies down a bit, but it’s a work in progress.

(2) I cry all the time, so easily. It’s not due to trying to manipulate others or seek sympathy and I hate the lack of control and immaturity it reveals. I’ve been through an incredibly painful eighteen months or so and have cried every day at memories (Facebook can really punch you when they suggest an old post or photo to look at), or, recently, the bureaucratic bungling, disinterest, powerlessness and frustrations around selling an apartment in France, reestablishing ourselves in Australia and just wanting to get out of this Air BnB and into our own home. I feel bad about this, because Craig* is dealing with exactly the same issues, concerns and heartbreak and also has to tend to my tears, anger, sadness and bewilderment. I don’t know how I will ever repay him.

(3) I love to write, and the past eighteen months meant that I had forgotten this fact. I’m hoping to change that.

2. What is the strangest thing you believed as a child?

Like most Aussie kids living in the early 1970s, we had to attend Sunday School. I was five years old and the teacher said, “Ask god in your prayers, and he will provide.” At that age, everything is literal, and that night I thought, “I won’t ask him for anything major; just something small to prove that khe’s listening.”

My prayer? A tin of Big Sister chocolate pudding all to myself, delivered on the windowsill near my bed.

I was extremely disappointed to discover the following morning that the guy upstairs had not listened!

3. Thinking of school classes, which were your favourite and least favourite?

Unlike Plastic Mancunian, I loathed maths and science. I’m arts-oriented through and through and was always the one who predictably asked, “So just how is algebra going to help me in my adult life?” I scraped through with C grades until matriculation (final year) when I could drop maths and suffer through biology.

I adored History, English, Art and Geography. Doing art in my final year made the boredom of compulsory Biology much more bearable.

4. What is your favourite fast food?

This is not exciting, but I’d have to say a really good freshly-made sandwich or panini, with gourmet ingredients and accompanied with a big glass of iced coffee. Fried stuff tends to make me feel queasy these days.

5. What song comes closest to how you feel about your life right now?

Alice’s door (Audiosonic remix) – https://open.spotify.com/track/4Hjo9d96bwIiUdJqI2yC92?si=2526e747682f46de

The song is upbeat and Zoe Johnson’s voice is so clear. It reminds me to pick myself up, dust myself down and put one foot in front of the other.

Lyrics:
Sometimes I wish
This struggle wasn’t mine
‘Cause God, it feels so lonely
I almost find the northernmost point
I almost find you there
What does this mean, to step on every crack
And never make it home?
I almost find the northernmost point
I almost find me there
If you wanna hear the lion’s roar
You got to crawl through Alice’s door
You may have feet of clay
But you are on your way for sure
If you wanna hear the lion’s roar
You got to crawl through Alice’s door
You may have feet of clay
But you are on your way
The darkness tries to be an honest friend to me
It sings through me, you will see
Your way up to the northernmost point
Your way up through your fear

(I know that you are lost today, but you are on your way)
If you wanna hear the lion’s roar
You got to crawl through Alice’s door
You may have feet of clay
But you are on your way for sure
If you wanna hear the lion’s roar
You got to crawl through Alice’s door
You may have feet of clay
But you are on your way
If you wanna hear the lion’s roar
You got to crawl through Alice’s door
You may have feet of clay
But you are on your way
If you wanna hear the lion’s roar
You got to crawl through Alice’s door
You may have feet of clay
But you are on your way

…..I’m playing it as I’m writing this and dammit those tears are starting up….

6. Have you ever taken martial arts classes?

When my daughter was about eight years old, she and I did karate lessons for a couple of years. We both loved doing it and she was much better than me at understanding instructions for karate countdowns and moves that were in Japanese. I was more expert and letting out involuntary farts each time we were required to do any roundhouse kicks.

7. Does your life tend to get better or worse or does it just stay the same?

At the moment it feels worse, but that’s an emotional response for now and there is a need to rest, be kind and patient. Craig and I are taking every step we can to start a new chapter in our lives without judgement, shame or rehashing hurts and regrets. We are not fully successful in this yet, but we will be.

8. What arts and crafts have you tried and decided you were bad at?

I’m a terrible knitter, but love the physical process of sitting down, watching something absorbing on Netflix and keeping my fidgety hands occupied. Stars like Panda can do all sorts of fancy stitches and make beautiful items that require a pattern and skills, but all I can manage is a long scarf. My lack of skills notwithstanding, these are sewn together by other nice ladies to form blankets which are then donated to homeless or domestic violence shelters. It also stops me from picking at my cuticles so much too.

9. What is the truest thing that you know?

That there is light at the end of the tunnel. It may not emerge as fast as I would like, but it’s there.

10. Are you more of a giver or a taker?

Who’s going to admit that they’re a taker? But I worry that I take too much from Craig and wear him down. He’s a strong, kind, loving man and I tend to crumple and assume that he’ll always pick up my pieces. I need to do the same for him. As for other people, I hope that I’m equal in giving and taking.

11. Do you make your decisions with an open heart/mind?

No, not always. I am emotional and react first with my feelings and gut reactions. Craig is more intelligent and considered and I’m learning at the ripe old age of 54 that I need to go for a long power walk, think things through more clearly and (often) bite my tongue.

12. What is the most physically painful thing that has ever happened to you?

Twenty-nine hours of labour wasn’t a barrel of laughs, but it would have to be getting all four of my wisdom teeth out in the dentist’s chair back in 1994. I was unemployed at the time, but the dentist saw how badly tangled the roots were and quickly referred me to the Melbourne Dental School where it would be done for free.

The process was incredibly painful and at one stage the dental student told me to stop sobbing and hyperventilating as he couldn’t hold his instruments in place. I squeezed my eyes closed as I could see the reflection of my minced meat mouth in his glasses and at one stage I heard him say, ‘Oh no,’ to the dental nurse before she swiftly replied with, ‘Nah don’t worry about it.’ I wasn’t in a physical or mental state to question what his concern was. I sweated through my t-shirt and jumper and had my head lifted off the back of the chair as he kneeled on my shoulders to yank the teeth out.

When the agony ended, I almost fell through the swinging saloon doors of the dental hospital where Craig was waiting for me. I opened my mouth to speak, but the student had not put in any swabs or cotton and blood spurted all down my front, horrifying the other patients who were sitting there waiting for their procedures. We took the tram back to our flat in Flemington and passengers were just as revolted at the sight of me.

The following few hours were accompanied by vomiting up blood. Craig, yet again, patiently wiped my forehead and emptied the sick buckets. Did I mention how much I owe him?

13. What is the most emotionally painful thing that has ever happened to you?

I’m still enduring it. This blog was created to focus on the positive aspects of life and our move to Tasmania and is hopefully going to help me look at the little things that make me smile, appreciate what we have and what we’re looking forward to.

14. What is your favourite line from a movie?

“Someone is staring at you in ‘Personal Growth’.” (When Harry Met Sally). About 41 seconds in this clip – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOVLNMDFbCQ&t=183s

15. Can you eat with chopsticks?

Very awkwardly these days after 12 years in Switzerland and France where chopsticks are extremely rare and fancy exotic stuff such as chili, coriander and spices are virtually unknown. I used to be pretty good thanks to the Aussie’s love of Asian foods and am eager to regain that dexterity by making it a personal mission to visit as many good noodle and Yum Cha places in Hobart that I can.

*Craig – name changed to protect the innocent