Puberty Blues Goes to Camp

So, we are sitting at the dinner table, just starting the main meal. It’s a roast (lamb!) with roasted spuds, real gravy and a green salad. Geek boy has been on camp all weekend – laser skirmish with the scouts – hence the roast. It’s a ‘real meal’ after what’s usually a weekend of little sleep and skipped meals because boys of 12 and laser skirmish take precedence over remembering mum’s instructions to eat, stay dry and change your jocks and socks.

And, just before dinner, the other ritual that follows camp – a long bath followed by ‘mum can you check me for ticks, please‘.  The checking for tick ritual always yields at least one tick – as it did again this time – and always involves a goodly mother look at all intricate bits of anatomy. Those little buggers hide in secret damp bits of 12-year-old boys – hence mum’s instructions of ‘eat, stay dry and change your jocks and socks.’

However.

 This time, when said mothering look was taking place, something else was visible to the mothering eye. Something I wasn’t quite ready for. First fuzzies, to be a little graphic. Not just under the arms, to add detail. My little boy is growing up.

Trying to remain nonchalant about said fuzzies, I make some lame comment about hair and powder and washing growing up and flee to the tending of my sheep. In the oven.

There is my first heart attack of the day. I was not ready for that. I need some time to think. I tell myself, this is expected, your baby is growing up, time marches forward, blah blah and etc. Deep breath, mental note to self about personal hygiene discussions ahead.

Back to the story at hand, we are sitting at the dinner table, just starting the lamb (remember that?) and just as I am about to ask the usual ‘how was camp, tell me all about it?‘ type questions, geek boy drops clanger number 2.

“So, I meant to tell you mum, on Friday, we had that lady from Fawlty Towers come to school and have that talk with us”

“What lady? What talk?” Penny drops. “WHAT talk?”

“You know, the lady who sits in the office all day on the phone and says BAS-il“. Her“

“SHE came? You sure it was her? What talk?

(Prunella Scales visited my son’s school to give the puberty talk? This I must look into. It would have been on the note. Should I have received a note. Was there a note? I do not recall a note.)

“Was there a note about this?”

“Yeah I gave it to you… Didn’t I?”

“Ummmmmno.  No note.  Tell me about the talk“

“Oh yeah. Oh well, it was just, you know, growing up and what happens  to your body and why it changes and stuff. She was funny but good at it. I kept waiting for her to say BAS-il.”

“Oh. Hmm. How long did it go for? The talk I mean. “

“Oh, all day. Except for the afternoon went we did PE. The girls and the boys went together for the first half and the boys had to go and play soccer while she talked to the girls and then the girls had to go and play handball while the boys had their turn and then we had some time all together again”.

“Oh. Right. That’s long time.  And what did you talk about?“

“Oh, just pimples and skin and bodies and stuff. Then the girls had their turn and I don’t know what they talked about. She wouldn’t tell us. Probably babies and stuff. Then we had lunch and it was our turn. And she talked about bodies and hair and changes and stuff.”

 

“Oh, and wet dreams.”

 

I seem to have a piece of lamb stuck in my throat. I chew the lettuce leaf earnestly and clear my esophagus.

“Uh huh. It sounds interesting.” (Here, I launch into parental spiel and questions about bodies and changes and so forth but wondering what else was covered at school).

“We talked about other stuff too. The boys had to say what they thought would be the hardest thing about being a girl was. Some kids said it would be hard having boobs, having to have  babies, giving birth, feeding babies with your boobs, that type of stuff. Oh – and having to buy so many shoes and needing all so much money to buy so many handbags and stuff”.

“Oh, OK.  Anything you would like to talk about, from all that?”

“Yeah”.

Silence.

I have given up on my dead sheep. It can graze in the salad.

“Yes?” I have on my most open face,  radiating encouragement for tricky questions and confident of I-am-an-educated-teacher-and-can-deal-with-your-questions  type responses. From somewhere.

“Can I tell you something, now?”

“Of course, you can tell us anything. Go on…”

“Can I tell you about laser skirmish camp now? See, there was this kid and….”  and the rest of the conversation about lasers and guns and being dead and shot and targets and mud and leeches and snipers in the trees and so on carried on. I know I punctuated it with various umms, and wows and cools. 

I just don’t remember.

The skipper did take part in this discussion, I just can’t recall a thing he said, for the life of me. And, you know, although we have not had the talk before, and we have always been very open and honest about bodies and sexuality and stuff.  If the question arises, it’s answered.  The level of depth of the question determines the level of depth of the answer.  I was as surprised by my response and reaction to the dinner table discussion as I was to the discussion itself.

Tomorrow, I am off to look up Sybil and see what advice she has to give me.

A Break in the Machinery – Part 3

A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.  ~Edward de Bono

When I did see him, I was stunned. He was emaciated, his body shrunk and hanging off the frame. The whole left side of his face and body was (temporarily) paralysed from a ‘stroke like’ condition in the brain. His arm was curled, his face contorted, he could not speak.  He drooled, he was bereft, his gait limped and only able to take a few steps at a time. His small amount of speech consisted of a cyclic pattern of incomprehensible gibberish punctuated with “I’m Sorry”s,  His feet were bleeding, swollen and tattered. He needed to be washed, to be fed, to be treated as one would an infant. Heavily medicated, numerous side effects. He had no comprehension of time or space. He had hallucinations punctuated with memory ‘pictures’ of holidays taken in a previous life.

 

What he can remember, is walking – but not where , or why.  He walked on freeways, on bridges, through bushland. How he did not get run down or attacked is unbelievable. The distance he covered  was huge. He walked for days. He says he was following the stars – the biggest star was telling him to walk, to find calm, to go the peace. (This is eerie, he talked about this ‘star’ for days afterwards). 

It took weeks for some type of normality to surface. The speech returned – although lapses still occur when he is tired or anxious. He still has the anxiety attacks. His physical ableness has mostly returned, the limp noticeable when he is tired or has walked too much.  His face droops when tired, his body still twitches uncontrollably, especially when he is fatigued.

It took months before he stopped the ‘walkabouts’ (He would just walk out the door and head to somewhere unknown with no warning).  Even in presence he would ‘vanish’ from us – he would be on the Murray river, or the top of Ayers rock, or up the bush camps.  He would describe the place he was at perfectly, right down to the tiniest detail. When he ‘came back’ he is disoriented, confused. 

 

Our life changed. His ability to do specific types of work has been removed.  We have had to – and years later, continue to make – huge changes. His memory and abilities will never be the same. His memory shocking. 

From time to time, we sit on the beach at night and gaze skywards. We talk of the urge to follow the star, the star of peace. Then we rise, hold hands and turn away, to walk once again home.

To this day, the sight of work boots by the door sends cold chills down my spine. 

 

We enjoy warmth because we have been cold.
We appreciate light because we have been in darkness.
By the same token, we can experience joy because we have known sadness.
-David Weatherford

 

 

A Break in the Machinery – Part 2

The black dog waits.  He cares not who owns him, or when. But given the opportunity, he slides through the door and slips inside, unnoticed. He belongs to many. He makes himself at home by finding an inconspicuous place, where he slumbers. He sleeps until he hears his name. Then he stirs, rotates, yawns… the black dog awakens.

The memories of that night and the following days are not clear. The hours of darkness are a blur.  I am lost, who to call, what to do.  I am torn, I remember, between the bubbling reactions of  panic and logic. Panic – only to find he is down the road having a beer?  Remain calm, to find out tomorrow he has been run over by a bus on the highway?  The thoughts stream through, my runaway train on an abandoned track. Where is he?  Why?   I do what I think is normal – clean up, tidy up, walk around in circles. I feel ill, try and read, worry worry worry, refuse to call anyone in case they think I am an idiot should he stagger home in the morning full of Jack Daniels and a story about a hard day. 

Only he doesn’t stagger. And there is no story. There is just morning, dawning, empty bed, empty room, empty house.

 I have sketchy memories of this time and the days that follow  a jumble of people and conversations and fears and feelings.  I write what I remember and hope it is cohesive. I realise there are chunks of time – lost hours, lost days – I don’t recall. I think a little part of me lost my mind for a while.

It’s 7.30 AM. I can prolong this no more. I raise, shower, dress. The hammering of the heart is so loud. Can everyone else hear me? I may explode, the yammer is so loud. I  manage some type of normal face and make lunch, schlep the child to school, take myself home and stare at the phone.  It refuses to ring. It’s stubborn, like me. I know it works – I have tested the dial tone a million times in the last few hours.  I raise the plastic again and resist the urge to fling it against the wall.  It’s not yet 24 hours, the kindly  woman at the Police Station informs me gently. Nothing we can do yet.  Call us tomorrow …

  

It’s 2.15 AM. I am exhausted. I feel like I have run a marathon, cried an ocean, screamed myself horse. The mirror lies to me – I look dishevelled, surely but I still look like me. I feel, on the other hand, like a banshee. I am wild of eye, a twitch has set in and my hands shake so I can barely hold  the handset to check the dial tone once again.  When the telephone finally screams at me from my hands, I am so startled I drop it on the floor.  I stand and stare at the deceiving, lying, wicked plastic object until the tinny voice from inside it jolts me:  “Hello? Hello? Mrs Rhubarb?” With shaking hands, I pick up the receiver, and try to find my voice. “Hello?” I manage…..

At around 2.00 AM - some 36 hours after he had vanished, my husband was found.   

He was incoherent.  He was unable to tell anyone who he was – he could not recall his name, his age, his address, his date of birth. (Although he could remember mine,and gave it as his).  He was unable to tell anyone that he had a wife, a child, a life. 

 

He was recorded as a vagrant.

He had, at some stage, crawled into a phone box for shelter. It happened there was a  1800-R E V E R S E  poster aimed at runaway children on the wall.  I was later told he used that telephone number to call his father in Melbourne.  All he could say to his father was “It’s all over, I can’t do it anymore.”  His father called the authorities (but not me – and that’s a whole other story). From there, he was collected and taken to PCMH*.  His father also called a mutual friend. The mutual friend called me – finally.  And from there, I located my husband.

I have no memory of getting to or from the hospital. Someone has my child. Someone must be feeding and watering those who rely on me. Someone must be. Someone.   I can not see him; he will not tolerate anyone or see anyone or see me. I am told he becomes agitated when someone says my name , so they mention me not.  He cries when someone says our son’s name. I am told it’s best if I don’t push, to wait. I have become invisible to him, to others. The focus is on the the patient. I am merely a casualty in the war of his mind.  I wait.

  

I am going mad, waiting. Someone tells me I must  wash, I must eat. Someone tells me I mus go home.

Finally someone fetches me a doctor, who feeds me a pill – and I remember falling on the shower floor, consciousness slipping away as the sedative takes hold and  I sink into an artificial sleep where the world continues to revolve whilst I sleep the sleep of haunted dreams.  Perhaps that all it is. My own nightmare.

It has been 72 hours, I find, looking at the digital calendar. A mere 72 hours of calmatives, sedatives and hospital care.  72 hours before he speaks, finally.  I am allowed to see him.  But now I am on medication to keep me calm so life is all neon yellow and green and blue and no one will leave me by myself  even in the toilet.

  

My story, so far, has been  my  perspective, however disjoint and fractured the memory may be. These are the parts he will never know – he nor my child. They will never know, never see, me almost hysterical with worry, asking, repeating, crying and questioning. They will never know the terror of being the one waiting, the one watching the second hand on the clock tick by, the one no one is concerned for because the real worry, the real concern, goes to him.

And so it should.

For a while, the black dog sleeps….

Getting Abreast of Things.

Excuse me, could you say that again?

Oh – you think so?

I am the one buying the clothes, therefore I am the one that gets to decide if this looks acceptable or not.

I am NOT the one who sews, stocks or surmises that dresses for women should only have enough fabric in the bustline to look attractive on the hanger or in the display window, rather than actually cover the breast tissue area. The area where my gazoongas are so publicly displayed in this dress, out there for the world to see.  

Never, ever go all Susannah and Trinny and tell a big breasted woman the new dress she is buying would look better ‘with decent underwear on, especially a decent bra’.

Because, honey, looking at you, let me tell you. YOU HAVE NO IDEA. 

I want you to go down to the toy section and find a balloon.

Off you go.

Now, I want you to take the balloon into the staff room and inflate it with water. Not air – you hav enough hot air of your own, you are venturing into my world now. G’head, inflate with water, to roughly the size of  a small soccer ball.

Soccer ball?

Now – for any of you that think this exaggerated - try this. (If you have gazoongas, use your own. If not, phone a friend and use hers. Once she knows why you are doing this she’ll happily comply.)  Right – gazoongas at the ready? Good-oh. Now, place one hand at the base of one gazoonga, where the underwire sits. Now place the other hand at the top of the gazoonga. The real top, where the breast tissue finally eases away into your shoulder or upper chest.  Now, keeping your hands steady – steady… move them away from your body and take careful note of the huge airspace between. See? soccer ball. Do the same excercise in width – gazoonga equals pye squared.  And look – much bigger than the fabric decorating the bust line of the summer dress I am trying on.

However… back to the balloon we go for. Take careful note of the balloon. Feel the weight. Note how it is not steady, it rolls around under your hands, slips to one side or the other. It moves, doesn’t it?  Like a living object?  Place it on the table. See how it goes flat on the bottom?  And the top? And sort of squished out at the sides?

It is NOT perky. It is NOT jaunty.  IT’s not even properly round for gawd’s sake, is it?

Now let’s pretend for a minute – bear with me here – the tied up-end is a nipple.

I want you to put that balloon on the table and try and make the nipple align to the ‘correct’ place for one of these pretty little dresses - front and centre, pointing directly ahead. Whaddyamean it won’t stay there by itself? No shit.  It wants to point downwards, doesn’t it?

Now, let’s nip over to lingerie and find a bra. A real one, not one of those one-g-string-joined-to-another and disguised as an object smaller than an ear canal – one with at least 4 hooks at the back, underwire,  shoulder straps the width of a garden hose and constructed of fine mesh, concrete reinforcing, girdle material and bungee cord. Oh yeah, sex on a hanger for sure. What do you mean it looks like a torture device?  Try wearing it!  Now take your balloon, and carefully manipulate it into the cup of the brassiere. (I don’t know why they call it a cup either, it’s more reminiscent of  a salad bowl). Now put it on.

Now most big breasted  women cheat. They turn the bra upside down and inside out and do the hooks up first, then spin it around their torso,  pull it up over the ganzoogas and slide one then the other arm through the straps, then manipulate and arrange the front  as required. The only time they don’t do this is when they are trying on new bras and want to appear knowledgable and sophisticated in front of the salesgirl and struggle to do it the ‘right’ way, which is front first and then do the hooks up in the back. Which would be a piece of cheese if you were an octopus and had eyes in the back of your head and 15 fingers on each hand and could manage to manipulate four hooks in the back and support the weight of those  puppies in the salad bowls at the same time without breaking into a sweat and testing the limits of the Mitchum 24 hour anti-perspirant that you KNOW you should not use because of the aluminium content and the link to breast cancer and all but you’ve done a full workout by the time you manage to get into your underwear and Jesu….

Sorry, I became sidetracked there.

Now remember – the nipple has to point politically correctly outwards. You need to keep the balloon tissue IN the salad bowl, not let it spread under the arms or under the underwire. Yes, I know it moves around, you have to manipulate it yourself. You have to hold your breast and lift your breast and arrange your breast and align your breast and then start again with the next one. Using your hand, yes. Inside your clothes, yes.

Now the nipple has to align perfectly on the convenient seam there – the one they sew right across the nipple line in oh so natural breathe-able triple strength  itchyasshit  nylon thread. Just so you can have  inflamed milk ducts for the rest of your life. Even though you stopped breast feeding 12 years ago.

Finally, stand up straight – yes, those puppies are heavy – and look at yourself in the mirror.  Do your balloon breasts point skywards?   Do they impede over the side of your body? Jump up and down – go on. Never mind the sloshing. Do those balloons jiggle prettily? They what? Throw you off balance?  Now you know why gazzoonga endowned woman do not jog, they lurch. Or lunch.  And drink wine.

Now, lie on your back and look in the mirror.  Can you see what’s happening to your balloons? Take note of where the water has gone. And where the nipple is. Or was. Or isn’t. And that’s with a bra ON. Let me tell you, if they were real breasts you would  never lie on your back during sex again – at least not unless there was a power outtage or you were married to Stevie Wonder.

Now, stand up and try on one of these slinky black numbers. No? You are exhausted? You can’t breathe and your boobs hurt? Your nipple is itchy and your back aches?  You are hot?

No freaking shit.

So, sunshine, don’t tell me this dress would look fabulous if I had ‘decent underwear on’. It looks fucking fabulous because  I am fucking fabulous, my gazoongas are fucking fabulous and because your shoulder blades are on the wrong side of your body, you will never get a cleavage like this in your whole goddamn life no matter how many chicken fillets you buy.

Don’t bother wrapping it – I’ll wear it home.

A Break in the Machinery – Part 1

Hindsight.

 It’s a wonderful thing.

I think, given my life, I should be honoured a doctorate in hindsight. 

In recall, the first half is neon like in my memory. It’s slow, that memory. Like millions and millions of still shots, a slow motion replay. Every second took an age, the day I remember clearly, second by second.

It is afternoon, he comes home from work early. As always of late, he looks tired, harassed. Absently, he starts folding the washing as I clean up the spilled sugar on the floor, from master 8.

 

I can see his face; it’s frozen in time, he stares at a fitted sheet like it has sprung from an alien.  I see the puzzlement on his face, as he attempts to put the elasticised ends together… the frown, the crease, then…

 I am upside down in the pantry. I am cursing the sweet granules as they continue to escape my efforts. It’s 3.15 PM, and I hear the gate give it’s soft, bell like clink that it does as it closes, or when the cat jumps over it.  A flittered thought of the cat, off for an adventure. Crunch crunch – more granules. I look up. He has gone from my sight, I think perhaps to the shed, to the yard, to the garden?

The elasticated sheet lies abandoned on the island bench.

I don’t bother looking for him. Men wander off whilst doing ‘stuff’ all the time, yes? 

I had no idea at that stage that my life was about to change – for always.

 

At 6.30 PM it occurs to me that I have not seen him in a while. Unaccustomed to having him home, it just didn’t occur to me that he was anywhere. I am used to the space shared with a child, not an adult.  But yes – it has been a few hours…  I call his name, no answer. I feed master 8, thinking, as oft I do, how he has wandered off to a neighbours, the man over the back, or to Mr Fisherman across the street.

I sigh, feed the child, put a meal in the refrigerator.  The nightly ritual of bathing, reading a story, feeding animals and  cleaning the kitchen occupies mind space for a while.

7.30 PM.   Child is settled, I am showered… and from somewhere deep in mind I acknowledge there is just a niggle of worry.  If only I had started working in that PhD about then.

 

It’s 8.30 PM. I am starting to get cross. 

For some reason, my eyes move to the front door.

There, neatly together side by side, are his work boots and socks.

I ring his mobile – and as I hear his mobile ringing back at me from the office down the hall, I start to feel scared. I walk to the office – and this is where the freeze frames really slow down – I can almost see myself walking there, slowly, receiver in my hand listening to the ringing tone, and the sound of his own phone ringing at me from the office. There, in the office, in a pile, I find his phone, his watch, his keys, and neatly bundled together, all his ID.

 

Sitting underneath it, is a pile of his paperwork, his diary, his notes. My husband has vanished, and anything that links him to me, to master 8 or to our life is sitting here looking at me.