“Fair enough.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm. I think I can hear a fountain?”
“Yeah, over there.”
“Hmm. I haven’t seen many Christmas decorations?”
“No.”
“A lot of these houses are very on display, though. The fences are so low. I like higher fences.”
“You’re more into privacy, and . . . sacred space?”
“Yeah.”
“You might like my house, then.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s pretty . . . enclosed.”
“Right. High fence?”
“Yep. And a big garden.”
“Cool.”
“Hmm.”
Oops. I didn’t mean for that to sound like an invitation. I was merely stating a fact. Damn! There’s always an expectation that we aren’t actually saying what we mean. Like, ever. It’s assumed that our true intentions are hidden behind all of these curves, and blurs, and lies, and deceptions, and other people are supposed to do all of the workings out. So when we actually say something, it’s presumed that we aren’t actually saying it, and that we must be saying something else.
Now he probably thinks I was insinuating that we go back to my house. I mean, I’m not opposed to that, I just hadn’t planned to waltz into it so soon. He wouldn’t make the same mistake. The way he talks is very considered and clear. He wouldn’t stretch an inch too far from exactly what he wants to express. I’m not surprised that he’s had heaps of social experiences, and school friends, and girlfriends, and run-ins with large families, and trips to the snow.
People would underestimate him and want to have him around. They’d think, “Oh, he’s a loyal friend and we haven’t seen him for a while, what’s he up to?” As distinct from, “Yes, well, that one was trouble” or “Oh. How is he doing? Getting on ok?” People would always think that he was doing “fine” even when he wasn’t. He exudes a very potent sense of responsibility and agency.
He’s quite contained, and he doesn’t share too much about what’s going on for him in the moment. It’s as if he doesn’t want to be exposed or to go too far into areas that he hasn’t already thought about. Like, he won’t go into the unknown in front of me. He wants to absorb what’s happening and then go away and assess things for himself before coming to any kind of conclusion about them.
“There’s the moon.”
“Shit.”
“Hmm.”
“Eerie.”
“What time is it? Has the eclipse happened?”
“We don’t get to see the eclipse.”
“What?”
“Only the Northern Hemisphere gets to see this one.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn.”
44.
You hungry?”
“Yeah.”
“What do we do?”
“Umm. Would you like to come to my house for supper?”
“Supper?”
“Yeah. I was going to make myself a sandwich.”
“Ok.”
“I don’t want to have sex.”
“Ok.”
“I just . . . want a sandwich.”
“Ok. Umm. What kind of sandwich?”
“Well. I’ve got wholemeal sourdough, and almond cheese, and red onion. I thought that I’d rub some garlic on the bread, and butter it before toasting it with the cheese and red onion, and then I’d put in the avocado and the lettuce at the end. Maybe add some sauerkraut or coriander.”
“Yum. Do you have Vegemite?”
“Of course.”
“Ok.”
“Ok?”
“Ok.”
“Yeah.”
“I guess we need to find a cab?”
“There’s a main road up there. Do you want to be carried for a bit?”
“The spandex situation makes that a bit difficult.”
“Everything you’re wearing makes things a bit difficult.”
“Yeah.”
“So?”
“What?”
“Do you want to be carried, or?”
“Ok. Yes. Thank you. I want to be carried.”
“How’s that?”
“Good. Yeah. Fine.”
“It feels like you’re slipping. The silk makes it feel like you’re slipping. I keep having to hoist you up.”
“Do you want to put me down?”
“Do you want to be put down?”
“No.”
“Ok.”
“You sound a bit stressed?”
“I’m not stressed.”
“Ok. You smell good.”
“Do I?”
“Yeah. Like . . . man. Damp hair, and. Man.”
“Not exactly the crisp, aftershave-y vibes I was going for.”
“Sorry.”
“I’ll hail a cab.”
“Ok.”
“There’s more going the other way?”
“Nah.”
“Ah . . . Yah?”
“Hey! Yo! Over here!”
“Hey, man, we’re going to Toorak.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
45.
The skin on the back and sides of his neck was so cool and soft against the grain of his polo T-shirt. He’s a lot stronger than I thought he would be. Yeah, Germaine Greer would laugh hard at that one. Oh, the unexpectedly strong love interest! It’s true, though. He’s not bulky or anything. He just fully inhabits his body, which is unusual. He lives at the edges of himself during a time when a lot of people are very disconnected from their physical bodies.
Most people don’t feel alive when you touch them. Their handshakes and air kisses are either too tentative, or too forceful. Their minds are constantly racing ahead of whatever they’re doing physically. And yet their bodies have safe and unsafe zones, which you need to be mindful of when you’re embracing or touching them in any way.
There are certain areas of the body that people would rather not think about and other areas that they don’t want you to see. Like, a gentle touch on the upper arm might not be noticed by some people. Yet for others, it would be totally invasive. I’ve known women who don’t like their upper arms being seen or touched at all. Ever. They carry a particular energy around that part of their body, and when it’s touched it triggers waves of anxiety and tension and self-consciousness.
I wonder where his sensitive zones are or if he has any.
Every guy that I’ve ever dated or been in a relationship with has been at war with his body. One dude had epic digestive issues and they’d always flare up right when it was my turn to speak. During our very short-lived relationship he checked himself into the hospital for a week, and I visited him every day. I remember sitting and laughing, and when he asked me why, I told him how ironic it was that hospital environments were the antithesis to healing environments.
I mean, you can’t get a proper night’s sleep because you’re being interrupted around the clock. The beds are uncomfortable. It smells like disinfectant. The windows don’t open. There’s some old guy coughing and spluttering next to you. The ceilings are low. It’s difficult to access sunshine. It’s impossible to find nutritious food. There are no masseurs or acupuncturists.
He was quite taken aback when I said this, because he had checked himself into the hospital in order to heal and to get steroid injections to calm his stomach or something. All of his joints were puffy, and he was red in the face, and hobbling to the toilet every half hour or so. Like, by choice.
Nevertheless, he tried to impress me with stories about how he was still working hard and doing everything that his workmates expected him to do. He was “keeping up” while lying there in the friggin’ asylum. I cou
ld sense that he wanted a hearty congratulations for this. He seriously thought that conducting meetings with an IV drip in his arm while wearing a hospital gown was admirable and noble. Everyone else was telling him he was an inspiration. They were saying how amazing it was that he was able to work and stay “active.”
I looked down at my shoes sitting on the rubber floor before I gently tried to explain that I didn’t view this as a triumph. The fact that he was ignoring his body and doing everything that he could to medicate it and override its messages was not impressive to me. The idea that he was using this time to fill his mind with distractions and to please others was mortifying.
I said that if he were able to rest and to move with his body’s unique waves of energy—and to come to understand its gentle language—he might feel better. He might actually learn something about himself and his existence. It was even possible that what he once viewed as debilitating could become something that gave him stronger access to who he was, and what he truly wanted, and what he had to offer the world.
He was very angry with me about this, which was fine. We all get angry and frustrated. It’s how we express our anger and frustration that counts. He broke up with me, and I smacked a pillow against a wall, and yelled, and cried, until I got over it.
46.
Where does he need to turn?”
“Umm, go right at the next traffic lights, then left, and then left again. It’s not too far down after that.”
“I feel excited.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah. This is quite an adventure.”
“Hmm. Just here, on the right. Anywhere is good.”
“$13.50.”
“I’ll get it! Sorry, I was . . . ”
“Thanks. Goodnight!”
“Night!”
“What’re you doing?”
“I just have to find the remote for the gate.”
“You leave the remote for the gate in the bushes . . . next to the gate?”
“Yeah.”
“Your fence is more like a wall.”
“I know.”
“A fortress.”
“Yah.”
“How big is this? Like, the whole block?”
“I think so. I mean. Yes.”
“How big is the block?”
“Come in.”
“Oh my . . . ”
“Hmm.”
“Umm. So. Ok. You live here with your parents?”
“No. Not really.”
“Right. So. Where are your parents? At the beach house or the villa in Spain or . . . ?”
“They’re dead. Technically . . . they’re dead.”
“Oh . . . I’m so sorry. I just . . . I’m . . . I’ve always known that places like this existed in Toorak. And I expected something unexpected, I just . . . I don’t know.”
“Ok.”
“What’s that?”
“An altar.”
“I’ve never seen such enormous crystals before! Are they even crystals? Or geodes? Is that what they’re called?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I have a look?”
“Of course.”
“Wow.”
“Hmm.”
“Is that . . . Heath Ledger?”
“Yeah.”
“I love the stone frame.”
“Thank you.”
“Did you build this?”
“I had it put together.”
“Is it ok if I walk around it?”
“Of course. Take your time.”
He’s not touching anything or interfering in any way with the altar, which is very different from my previous boyfriends and dates. They’ve all wanted to touch the altar, and take photos of it, and borrow bits of it, and use it as a backdrop for little vids that they’re making, and content that they’re creating. They’d ask me where I got it, and where the idea of it came from, and how much it cost, and how I had done it, and why I did it, and then they’d try to copy it at home, or would use images of it without crediting its origins.
It’s interesting how someone so sensitive to physical spaces and their design might be more inclined to treat the world and its structures with more tenderness and respect. I don’t think that that’s very common.
I went to Hanging Rock a couple of years ago under the false assumption that I could have a quiet picnic there, just the rock and me. I didn’t want to have a soy cappuccino at a café, or navigate hordes of people, or go fishing, or see a concert, or buy memorabilia, or take pictures, or even look at a map.
However, as I approached that gnarled fist of a former volcano—known as Ngannelong to its traditional custodians—I became aware that I had to pay for a parking spot next to it. And in order to have a picnic near it, and to walk around it, I had to pay for a ticket. The rock had opening hours and it was closing soon.
It was an amusement park. The only way to develop a relationship with it was to pay for the privilege of enjoying it, because a group of people had decided that it was theirs, and they wanted to make money out of it. So not only did I have to pay them, I had to abide by their rules of engagement with it.
They’d even stuck signs up about what they claimed to be the rock’s history and a few paragraphs about the tribes that guarded and occupied it. They said that they wanted to “pay their respects,” and I wondered how exactly “respect” was being paid in the way that “business” was being run on the rock. True respect requires more than lip service and an entry fee. True respect requires communication, and creativity, and the integration of values that at first seem foreign, which then gain meaning as we come to understand and appreciate them.
It’s never been fashionable to include or consult with Aboriginal Australians, which has been a great loss for everybody. I’ve always been curious about how they’d go about preventing bushfires. Not that every single Aboriginal person living in Australia right now would have ideas about that. It’s just that their ancestors must have known a thing or two about how to interact with the bush, and with the sun, and with the wind, and with the plants, and with the weather patterns.
Yet for some reason their knowledge isn’t taken seriously. There isn’t even a representative for Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people in Parliament. There are more of them dying in custody than there are holding office and positions of power and responsibility. Although there have been a zillion commissions, and reviews, and inquiries into the importance of including and consulting with them—and governments around the world have condemned Australia for not doing so—it is still seen as an act of charity or pity, as distinct from something that would be beneficial for everyone.
And as a result of this oversight, their lives are shorter, and their suicide rates are higher, and they have lower socio-economic outcomes, which creates fewer opportunities. Plus, we don’t get to develop a relationship with them, and with the land that we live, work, breathe, eat, die, and make love upon.
I read the other day that Australian law only recognizes native land if a continuous cultural connection to it can be proven. So, not only have Aboriginal people been dispossessed of what was theirs to guard and care for, we’ve then told them that they have to prove they were dispossessed of it before we’ll give them restricted access to it, because we’re scared of them doing to us what we did to them.
And fair enough. I don’t know what I would do if someone arrived at my gate tomorrow and claimed that this land was theirs now. What unspeakable horror. This is my home. What would become of my altar, and my bathtub, and my books, and Porkchop, and all of my plants, and all of the pictures of my family? Where would I go to feel safe and at peace? What would happen to my children and my children’s children? Where would they live? Would they ever have a sense of who they were, or where they came from?
Probably not. That knowledge would be r
eplaced with the horror of what happened on that fateful day when the land beneath their mother’s, or grandmother’s, or great-grandmother’s, or great-great-grandmother’s feet was taken from her. That moment of disrespect and betrayal would live on in their genes, and in their DNA, and it would come to define them more than their roots and their history. It would live on in their bones, and in their memories, and it would haunt them, and those who stole from them, until reparations were made.
“I can smell those roses from here.”
“Yeah.”
“May I sit in the hammock?”
“Of course.”
“Wow.”
“Hmm.”
“What a place.”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“To . . . my parents?”
“Yeah.”
“They died in a plane crash.”
“Oh.”
“Hmm.”
“I’m so sorry. How old were you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Shit.”
“They traveled a lot.”
“Right.”
“They died doing something they loved, so. I don’t know. They were at their best when they were traveling together.”
“Did you ever go with them?”
“Not really.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s really beautiful here.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you leave the front door open?”
“Yep. No one’s getting over that fence, mate.”
“No.”
“And Porkchop likes to come in and out. So if you hear a little Christmas bell, you know who it is.”
“Ok.”
“Is it spitting?”
“I think so.”
“You know, if you sit under that tree over there when it’s raining, like, full pelt, you won’t feel a drop. The leaves are so thick.”
“I like that you put a seat around the trunk of it. Is it a Moreton Bay fig?”
“Yeah. My grandfather put that seat there. He used to sit outside and paint watercolors. He loved it here.”