If our eyebrows are too bushy, or if our pores are too large, or if our under-eye bags are too noticeable, or if our teeth are too yellow, or too crooked, or if our wrinkles are too deep, or if our body parts are too large, or too soft, or too ripply, or vein-y, we’re essentially supposed to go in for a day procedure before leaving the house. Or, at the very least, we’re expected to become masters at hiding such unfortunate “humanities” behind all manner of makeup, clothing, falsely confident body language, hyaluronic acids, glycolic acids, virtual filters, collagen fillers, witty one-liners, blinding smiles, and carefully selected accessories, because these aren’t seen as positive indicators of the fact of being alive, rather than dead.
Physical attributes such as shiny foreheads, and menstrual blood, and sweat, and sagging skin, and snot, and earwax, and belly button fluff, and cellulite, and dark body hair, and vaginal discharge, and phlegm, and facial lines, and scars are considered to be problematic and unsightly. They are not seen to be miraculous. Quite the contrary. In the eyes of society, the body’s ability to heal and regulate itself is not cause for celebration. There really is no need for the hormones and fluids circulating through all 7.53 billion bodies on this planet to become public knowledge.
Certain physical attributes do carry power, however. For example, visible collarbones are revered, as are large, pert breasts, angular cheekbones, tiny waists, skin that is smooth, thighs with gaps between them, butt muscles that are tough and round, and lips that are full, and stomachs that are flat, and doe-eyes that are large.
Some days my features fit all of these categories, and on other days, they fit none of them at all. The way I relate to my body depends upon whatever else I am in the process of ignoring, or refusing to feel, or take action on, or give attention to. How it looks and feels is usually the by-product of something totally unrelated to it.
And I’ve noticed that people who focus very intently on their bodies are largely unfulfilled and listless. Their physical existence has become a trap, and they radiate a sense of boredom so potent that it has the capacity to make life seem futile for the rest of us.
It’s as if after too much time looking in a mirror, or down a camera lens, they have nothing else to offer or believe in. Their life becomes a dead end, and every breath, step, tilt of hip, and pout whispers: “my body, my body, my body, help, help, help,” and nothing more.
9.
Now my gaze is drawn to the tiny creases that sit between my upper arms and chest, which often distress me when I’m in changing rooms trying on singlets and strappy tops and boob tubes, because they seem so awkward and in the way. I mean, what’s their function? Are they a part of my shoulder or my arm? Why can’t they just move into my breast area?
I’m always inclined to push my breasts up with my hands when I’m naked in front of a mirror so as to reassure myself that if a more busty or buoyant quality were to be desired, it would be at my disposal. That is, if I were ever to wear a bra again. Which I wouldn’t, because why would I.
The veins in my arms and hands and feet are protruding in the heat, and my pubic hair is damp and full. I haven’t shaved my underarms or legs for a while, which is new for me. A guy I once dated found hairy legs and underarms to be dirty, and scuzzy, and whenever I’d toy with the idea of not shaving, he’d quickly swoop in and be all like, “Yeah, ok, well, why don’t you go and buy some harem pants, and walk around the supermarket barefoot, and forage on the weekends, and be on welfare, and not wash your bed sheets, and chuck a crystal on, and take no responsibility, then?”
My belly looks quite flat from the side because I haven’t eaten. I can never eat right before entering a social situation. Having to digest takes up too much energy. Earlier today I ate a bowl of pasta with extra-virgin olive oil and lemon juice, and fresh garlic and chili, and parsley from the garden, and salt and pepper, and nutritional yeast, which is going to see me through until I reach my post-party supper.
I always look forward to my post-party suppers. In a way, I look forward to them more than the parties themselves, and tonight is no exception. I’ve planned a lightly toasted salad sandwich, and my mouth is already watering. I mean, I don’t want to end-game my experiences. Anything could happen tonight. I just like having something edible to look forward to.
One time I got home to a bowl of fresh strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, banana with cinnamon sprinkled on it, and crunchy, salty peanut butter, coconut yogurt, maple syrup, and linseed meal, and the guy I had wanted to spend time with all night finally contacted me and was like, “hey, soz we didn’t get to hang—wink—can I still c u? wanna cum over to mine now? Xox.”
My butt crease is sweaty. There are no patches of dry skin on my elbows or knees, which is good. My nana would be very happy about that. She was always whipping out large, round tubs of body lotion and slathering their contents on my extremities while shaking her head and chanting, “Never trust a woman with dry elbows! Never!”
Above the mirror, I have a large, blown-up portrait of Yazemeenah Rossi. It’s from a shoot she did about makeup for women over the age of fifty. She’s sixty-three, and the background is bright and white, and her hair is bright and white, and her smile is bright and white, and her eyes are deep, and round, and brown, with thick aqua eyeliner lacquered across the top of them. The old and the dead are the most rewarding people to idolize, because they know things that we don’t.
Now I’ll light a French candle and ritualize the act of loving and accepting myself, exactly as I am. Because I love and accept myself exactly as I am. I love and accept myself exactly as I am. I love and accept myself exactly as I am. I love and accept myself exactly as I am. I love and accept myself exactly as I am. I love and accept myself exactly as I am. I love and accept myself exactly as I am. I love and accept myself exactly as I am. I love and accept myself exactly as I am. I love and accept myself exactly as I am. I love and accept myself exactly as I am.
10.
I’m officially one step closer to leaving the sanctity of my sacred space in order to join my fellow human beings in the mortal realm. I’m playing with the idea of what to wear even though I already know, and I’m dancing for Porkchop, and drinking a martini, and putting on some of my nana’s explosively floral perfume, because it enhances the feelings of nostalgia that I have about the fact of existing, and injects any nervousness I’m experiencing with a sense of destiny and inevitability. I have a funny feeling about tonight, and while I don’t want to get my hopes up, I always do, because I’d rather get my hopes up than be down in the dark with doubt.
Earlier this evening I couldn’t figure out how to connect the new speaker system, so I’m listening to a Spice Girls CD, and relishing in the sound of the first album I ever bought, while dressing up like the kid I was when I bought it. I loved wearing Mum’s kimonos and dancing in the mirror when I was a child. It’s like I knew I would be this person eventually and tonight she’s so much fun. Oh my goddess, I can’t think of anything better. It’s the moment before the moment and I can breathe. Anything can happen from here, and I’m in love with myself.
I tried wearing red lipstick with the red kimono and it was overdoing things a bit, so I opted for a plum-like color called Wildwood. I like the name, there’s poetry to it. Wildwood. It quells the nerves I have about being “too much,” which are swiftly followed by the fears I have of “not being enough,” before I reassure myself with things like the names of lipsticks, because I interpret them as signs that I’m on the right track and that everything is going to be ok.
Wildwood.
11.
I’m not sure what time it is. The one clock I have in the house is broken, and I prefer it that way. Fuck time. I feel uneasy around people who go by the time.
I once went out with a guy who never took off his watch. Checking it became this very stifling and very distinctive character trait. The weight of it made him seem more chained to the world, and to his idea of himself. It would just dangle there, heavily and ominously, as he’d sip a short black, and hold my face, and kiss my lips. Tick, tock, tick, tock.
One night he said that he had only stayed over to be “polite” because he actually had somewhere else to be at 10 a.m. the next day, and I felt very confused by this. I mean, was I supposed to say thank you? Why would he stay over when he’d prefer to leave? Or when he had somewhere else to be? “It would have been rude to go,” he said. “It would’ve been rude.”
Months later I ran into him and he said that he had to keep moving because he hadn’t eaten, and it was lunchtime. Then he looked at his watch so as to be doubly sure that it was, in fact, lunchtime, before adding, “Yeah! It’s two o’clock, see? It’s lunchtime,” as if Gregorian time was proof that, not only was it lunchtime, he was running late for it. The guy was running late for his own hunger. And he needed a socially sanctioned reason to leave my presence beyond the fact of simply wanting to.
I find it very hard to trust people whose wants and needs pale against the power of a clock, or the social pressures of being “polite.” Nevertheless, I always, very politely, say good-bye to my paternal grandfather before I leave the house. If politeness has a place, it’s definitely in our communications with the deceased. I have a watercolor self-portrait of him hanging over the front door. He watches over me even though I never met him. He was a property developer, and he spent a lot of time sketching birds, and flowers, and insects, and trees. So while property development existed on this large and imposing scale, what gave him pleasure remained small, intimate, and delicate.
I once found a sketchbook of his filled with tree trunks. His face in this particular self-portrait looks a bit like a tree trunk. It’s different shades of brown and cream. It’s long, and dense, and rough, and full of folds, and creases, and crevices, and pigmentation, and it dutifully watches over everyone who enters or exits the premises.
12.
I just got into a taxicab and requested that the radio be turned on as we roll into the possibilities of the night, and it’s the best. I’m never too particular about which radio station needs to be turned on, although I’m always curious about what the driver will choose. It’s part of the fun. In any case, there just needs to be music. Please give the moment that I’ve offered to myself a soundtrack: frame it with a melody, or I might want to turn around, and go back.
My driver tonight didn’t ask me what music I wanted to listen to. He went straight to the classical music station before saying that he “hates” this country, because the seasons never change. I think hearing a few bars of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons performed by the Budapest Strings Chamber Orchestra tipped him over the edge. “It always the same,” he kept repeating. “Always . . . the same.”
Nothing seems the same to me. Ever. I won’t say anything, though. I’ll just smile, because sometimes it’s best to say nothing and to smile when you’re stuck in a situation with someone who is having a diametrically opposed experience of it. Especially when they’re, like, driving you at 40 mph in a four-thousand-pound piece of machinery.
The first time I learned about the power of not saying things was when I was staying in the Victorian goldfields with a boyfriend. We were in this shack on someone’s farm, and one night, I went outside to look at the stars, and he came out, and he had his eyes cast to the ground, and was kicking a brick, and feeling frustrated, and complaining about his cough, and wishing that we were somewhere else, because he felt isolated and jaded, and he wanted to go back to the city. While he was talking, I looked up and saw a shooting star. I laughed, and he asked why, and I said that it was funny how two people could be having such different experiences, simultaneously, and he went, “I don’t want to go into that right now.”
13.
We’re driving through the city and I’m looking out the backseat window and thinking of the opening sequence of an American film that’s seen through a backseat window. Most of Melbourne’s streets are deserted, because everyone is making the most of the department stores being open after hours. Tomorrow night, on Christmas Eve, they’re going to be open around the clock. ’Tis the season of overspending and overextending, and if people aren’t busy shopping, they’re attending office Christmas parties, and napping after seafood lunches, and smiling too much, and wearing too little, and getting sunburned on rooftops, and balconies, and giving gifts that nobody needs, and watching children tire of playing with new toys within the confines of overly manicured backyards.
Or they’ve started their drives to the beach, or they’re flying overseas to visit Aunt Ida in England, or Holland, or wherever, and the rest of the city has fallen quiet in the heat. It’s just whoever’s left, and the steaming streets. All of the buildings, and the native and imported plants, finally have room to breathe and to rest.
Getting lost in Melbourne at this time of year is such a blessing. The common jasmine vines are singing sweet, sensual songs over every fence, and down every laneway, and the boronias are bursting. Mum once told me that even the roses turn up their scent after sunset in the summer, and it’s true. They do. I recently watched a documentary that said relishing in the scent of a flower—any flower—is essentially relishing in the scent of a sex organ. How hot is that.
Exotic trees and flowers and bushes line Melbourne’s streets. The lavender and the daisies and the jacarandas and the camellias take on an almost supernatural quality, because they’re slightly larger, slightly brighter, and slightly stronger than the ones you’ll see in other parts of the world. The climate and the soil here have forced them to become the hardiest version of themselves. They’ve been pressed against the harshness of the red dirt, and orange dust, and dull greens, and small leaves, and silvery grays of native saltbushes, and wattles, and eucalyptus trees, which can be so ruthless and muscly.
The soil is often complex, dry, and heavy. Working it out and working with it is not for the impatient or faint of heart. Colonized Australia is a very young country, and creating a melodious, fertile, multicultural environment, which can endure its unforgiving conditions, requires time and effort.
I’ve managed to coordinate the garden in such a way so as to make the most of what Melbourne’s summertime has to offer, and it accommodates for all kinds of flora and fauna. I’ve carefully arranged the gardenias, hibiscus, and jasmine so that they line the walkways, and native wisteria weeps from each archway. I like coming home and strolling around—especially at dusk—because it’s such a symphony of smells.
Except the mosquitoes have a party around the same time each night, too. They flit about among the hare’s-foot ferns and ponds and fountains. Yeah. Don’t let those Nymphaea “Helvola” waterlilies bearing extraordinary blooms seduce you into believing that protection isn’t necessary. Dousing in lavender oil at dusk is a must. Although, I read somewhere that being bitten by bugs represents guilt in our systems that needs purging. So, technically, the bugs are doing us a favor when they bite us.
Around the garden there’s heaps of light and shade and a few gentle wind tunnels. I’ve introduced soil that’s rich with nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, although not too much. The natives aren’t as keen on phosphorus as the exotics are. Everyone has dietary requirements, which are important to be mindful of if we want to be able to live harmoniously together.
I’ve had a very efficient and very intricate bore-watering system installed, and I fertilize when you’re supposed to, and I pull weeds, because isn’t it fabulous and satisfying to do that. I have a super-juicy compost bin filled with leftovers, and the gardener once told me that dried
leaves make for great mulch, so I often gather them up and sprinkle them on different flower beds. Even the dead are useful.
I talk to most of the plants every day, and I don’t discriminate between the natives and the exotics. All of the interactions that I have are stimulating. I always learn something, and there’s always something to be learned. The crowded perennial beds are very chatty, and they absolutely thrive alongside the golden wattles—which smell like semen for some reason?—and the incense plants—which smell like bananas at a certain time of the morning? When differences are appreciated, and cared for, any conversation can be had.
Droughts always put the exotics in their place, though. They’re a reminder of the stubbornness and wherewithal of the natives, which evolved within the Australian landscape. The exotics didn’t, and they struggle to survive unless they work some shit out, and grow deeper roots and thicker thorns.
14.
The moonlight is piercing its way through a dense layer of cloud and it looks close, low, and yellow. I usually ask the cabdriver to stop a block or so away from the location I’m going to, because I like to give it an opportunity to call out to me. I like to sense it writhing from a distance. It doesn’t take a dog to sniff out a good party. Usually, you can just follow the sound of laughter, and of people not listening to each other, and of a reverberating, hypnotic bass. And if you can’t sense these things from the street, then you’re probably not going to the party that you thought you were.
I once had a conversation with my dad about electronic music, and hypnotic basses, and why I love them so much, and he didn’t get it at all. I mean, who can blame a guy who was raised by Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, and The Four Seasons? We learned completely different musical languages as children.