Riding on trains with boys

There's nothing like a long train ride to finetune your eavesdropping skills (as a writer, I like to call this 'research'). Catching the Fibrotown Express back from Sydney with the Misters, I was privy to four different conversations involving the males of our species. They went something like this.

Conversation #1
The participants: An elderly man and a younger woman, possibly late forties.
The duration: Two hours.
What began as a desultory conversation about the weather, somewhere around Redfern, ranged across a huge diversity of subject matter. She is at university, caring for an elderly father, and passionate about camellias. She leaves home at the crack of dawn to see a dentist in Sydney because she can't imagine going to anyone else. He is an immigrant, from Europe, after World War II, interested in politics. They have a lively and engaged debate about everything from the Carbon Tax to manners to her university degree. The subject of what happens to us when we get older came up a lot. The importance of having a hobby or interest. I suspect their trip went very quickly.

Conversation #2
The participants: Three older teenagers, around 17 years old
The duration: Twenty minutes
These three got on in a clatter of skateboards and a flicking of fringes about halfway through the journey. There was a lot of discussion about hair. Specifically about how girls wouldn't look at you unless you had 'the full mop'. One young man outlined his attempts to get back into school - life in the 'outside world' wasn't really working out. The conversation turned to girls, specifically to one young lady who was 'tuning' the guy with the biggest hair but whom he was resisting. "Why?" asked his friend. "She's pretty hot." "She has her V-plates on," was the response. "I don't want to be responsible for her losing those." Everybody nodded in a serious, understanding kind of manner. "I've passed her on to [another boy]. I'm hoping he'll sort it out."

Conversation #3
The participants: Two younger teens, around 14 or so
The duration: Ten minutes
As the older teens vacated the seat behind me, these two could be seen to be saying goodbye to some girls in short shorts on the platform. One received a goodbye kiss, the other a tiny wave. Both boys are at that puppy fat-plus-pimples stage that is pictured next to 'awkward' in the dictionary. They slump into their seats just as the train takes off. There is much sighing. "I really like her," says one to the other. "You should totally tell her," says the other to the one. There is much back and forth, and attempts to use a mobile phone that has little prepaid credit on it. "I won't tell her," says the one to the other. "Yeah, right, better to keep her guessing," says the other to the one.

Conversation #4
The participants: Mr4 and Mr7
The duration: About 476 hours
Put two small boys on a long train ride and you have to imagine that at some point the conversation will run out. But it does not. In between building Lego and intermittent wrestling bouts, Mr4 has many questions and Mr7, to his credit, does his best to answer them (because clearly his mother is far too busy listening to other people's conversations to listen to theirs) before handing over the hard ones to me. So I got: "Why do we need to scratch, Mum?" along with "What makes a bruise, Mum?", "What is coal, Mum?", "How come there are no more steam trains, Mum?" "What's the fastest shark in the world, Mum?", "Why are turtles yellow on their tummies, Mum?" and so on and so forth.

Little boys, little questions, big boys, big questions.

Are you a chronic eavesdropper?


[image: via weheartit.com]

Are you brave enough to break free?

Self-reflection sometimes arrives in strange packages. I was flicking through the copy of Australian Geographic (which arrives mysteriously and unsolicited in our mailbox every month or so) when I came across a story about a family who live on a boat off the coast of WA. The parents had set sail with a baby girl around 13 or 14 years ago, to track humpback whales or somesuch, and now lived on board with a younger daughter while that baby was off at boarding school. There was a picture of them, all tall and tanned and lovely (though not, I suspect, from Ipanema).

It got me thinking. Could I do something like that? Not even especially on a boat, but could I pack up my family and dive completely off the mothership and into our own lifestyle? No schools. No 9-5 job of any kind. No routine that I could imagine.

My friend S is off travelling around the top end of Australia with her husband and three kids in a mustard-coloured Kombi. Five of them. They've gone for three months or so, with a sheaf of homework papers for the older two kids to complete and a couple of meet-ups planned with friends. Beyond that, nothing. Every once in a while, we get a Facebook update along these lines: 'We are so in our bikinis, hot, hot, hot... missing my shower.' Not easy reading when it's freezing and blowing a gale in Fibrotown.

The Builder and I have a longheld dream to take our boys to the land of his forefathers to live for a year or so - or at least for a long holiday. Being the planners that we are, we spend a lot of time trying to figure out how it will all work. When would be the best time in the boys' school lives? How will the boys manage? How will we tie up things here at home? How the heck will we finance the whole operation? How will we feel when we come back (I kid you not)? We are very practical people, to the point of overplanning, overscheduling and generally overthinking most things.

When I see that family on their boat off WA, or read about my friends' adventures in their Kombi, I can't help but wonder if we will ever get through the red tape that we create for ourselves. Is it in us to simply get in a Kombi and drive off? Or hop on a plane and go? Probably not without ticking all the boxes, dotting all the Is and crossing all the Ts before we go. Which is counterintuitive.

We both travelled widely when we were young. We know how liberating it can be to cut ties, dump possessions and take off. But somewhere between then and now, we obtained anchors and roots. Not to mention two dependents.

Still, it's good to dream. If we can dream it, we can do it, and other such positive mantras. At least we're aware of the fact that the biggest obstacle to getting there is probably ourselves.

Have you ever pulled up stumps and taken the family off on an extended adventure? Do you dream of doing it? What's the biggest obstacle you face?


[image: VW Camper fabric from Classicreflections1/etsy]

Did your Glory Days involve a backpack?

I have days when I wonder if I should have had my children earlier. These days usually happen when I am tired, depressed by the sight of another grey hair, and coming to terms with the fact that I will never understand the Justin Bieber phenomenon.

Then there are the days when I actually sit down and remember my twenties. The time I spent working on magazines such as Vogue Australia and CLEO. And the several years I spent based in London, working at Homes & Gardens magazine, and squeezing in as much travelling time as possible.

I had a flurry of those days this weekend when The Builder and I welcomed one of his Dutch relatives into the Fibro. K is 20 years old, spending six months in Australia, and deciding which university course he will take up when he gets back home. Remember those days?

It was a joy to have him here. An excuse for The Builder (who, in true Australian fashion, left home one year in his twenties and came back five years later) and I to relive our travels. To talk about London and Amsterdam and Berlin and Prague. To warn K about the dangers of Full Moon Parties in Thailand - and then suggest that if he must go (and, really, what 20-year-old boy thinks he shouldn't?) to be very, very careful - and not tell his Mum until after it's all over.

We talked about our worst experiences in backpacker hostels (The Builder always wins these contests). I remembered, though did not share, the time a man pulled a gun out at a campfire at Anzac Cove (he fired it into the air, looked around wildly, and disappeared... what a shame). We both agreed that we did not appreciate the amazing places we went and the incredible sights we saw until it was all much, much too late.

K's eyes were probably glazed over at this stage, watching us relive our Glory Days (which occurred approximately as he was being born). But he is very polite and pretended to listen. Fortunately, I managed to withhold the story about the time I went to Scotland with a group of girlfriends and we spent much time and energy searching for the Mull Of Kintyre, simply so we could sit on a rock and sing the song. I'm thinking he probably wouldn't have appreciated that one. At all.

But now that it's front of mind, I'm sure it will give me the wings (sorry) to get me through my next Way-Too-Old Mum day. I might even teach the boys the song, just to be sure.

Did you spend your 20s with a backpack? Do the memories keep you sane on bad days?


{image: via weheartit.com}