The basics of shopping

When refugees from the city come to visit us, they talk about the sweetness of the air, the brightness of the stars, the hugeness of the night sky. All the stuff we used to talk about before we moved here and got dragged into the humdrum of discussing the lack of restaurants, the scarcity of independent films and the general hilarity of people asking us if the we find living ‘in town’ a bit noisy.

It’s refreshing, then, to revisit the Big Smoke and then come home and rediscover the sweetness, the brightness and the hugeness for ourselves.

On Friday, I packed my work bag (minus the pair of size three undies and the squashed muesli bar) and headed off to the city for some meetings. There are several thousand reasons why I enjoy doing this, but I’ll start with three: 1) Three hours on a train with a book, 2) A whole day and night where I don’t hear ‘Mum’ every five minutes (though I do miss this by around breakfast the following morning…only to unmiss it as soon as it starts again), 3) The opportunity to remember that I am a grown-up person as well as a mother.

Then, of course, there’s the shopping. Fibrotown has a good selection of shops if you like fishing tackle, sportsgear, chain-store basics, food, banks and beer. Fashion is represented, but it’s not a priority. Usually, this suits me fine, as my wardrobe tends to reflect a similar attitude. But having been here over a year, I now understand why there is so much ‘escape spending’ (as the local Chamber of Commerce calls it). It comes down to a basic desire not to be seen in the same stuff as everyone else.

A cool change in the air necessitated some shopping. I realised that my winter ‘Mum uniform’ – consisting of five long-sleeved t-shirts and some cargo pants – was looking tatty. An update was required.

So I found myself – post-meetings - in Pitt Street Mall. Surrounded by jackhammers, scaffolding, endless pairs of ballet flats and a strong feeling I’d wandered back into the 80s of my youth as I looked at slouchy boots, leggings, tunics, layering, shirts that slid off one shoulder as soon as I tried them on, and a general lack of anything that resembled my Mum Uniform.

I was confused. I bought three long-sleeved t-shirts (grey, black, brown) and two short-sleeved ones (green, blue, none of which were the one pictured above). In brands not available in Fibrotown (to ensure exclusivity). Then I got on the train and escaped to a friend’s house to drink wine. Much more fun.

Over a glass of sauv blanc, I lamented that I’d worked on magazines long enough to know that everyone needed good ‘basics’ in their wardrobe…but that I’d never seemed to have evolved beyond them. Basics are meant to be the foundation of the wardrobe, not its sum total. I then admitted that I’d once seen an article in Madison mag about how to dress in your 40s (lots of basics) and pointed it out with delight to my sister…who’d shot back, voice dripping with sarcasm, “So you’ve been dressing like a 40 year old your whole life? Thank God you finally got there.”

At first, I was taken aback. Then relieved.

I always knew I’d come into fashion one day.

{image: Max Wanger}

Conversations from the Fibro #6

I’m packing for the Big Smoke. Heading off to meetings. Alone. Getting out my Work Handbag – only to discover it contains: one Hot Wheels car, one pair of Wiggles underpants (size 3), one packet of tissues, 35 cents and a squashed muesli bar. May need to do some work on the Work Handbag. I’ll be back on Monday with another scintillating episode of ‘Life In A Pink Fibro’, but in the meantime, here’s what I talked about this week:

Online dating, telephone lines, small houses, country houses, rose gardens, stationery, Lisa Madigan (see pic), Madeleine Peyroux, Tony Abbott, Julie Guillard, No Waste Lunch Day, swimming lessons, compost, vegetables, shopping lists, ceiling fans, green glass, asbestos, old friends, new friends, custard, yoga, dehydration, odd and even numbers, reading, guitar practice, Famous Five, Zac Power, whether there are fire motorbikes and if they might have ladders, hopping, scooter tricks, home security.

{image: Lisa Madigan]

Writing + washing = same/same.

If your house is anything like my house, there’s a towering pile of clean washing sitting in a corner waiting to be folded. If your house is like my house, this pile moves to different corners on different days but never seems to diminish in any way, shape or form. It just sits there, mocking you.

If you write like I write, there’s a towering pile of pages awaiting revision sitting in a corner of your office. Unlike the washing, it never moves, just sits there, mocking you.

On the face of it, there’s not a lot of similarity between doing the washing and writing. But I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. Here’s my step-by-step guide to the process:

Sorting. Whites from coloureds. Darks from lights. $2 coins from pockets. The physical act of deciding what goes where. The starting. I’m good at this stage, both in the laundry and at the computer.

Washing. Tumbling things about, spinning them along, rinsing away the muck. This is automatic in the laundry, and semi-automatic when I write.

Hanging out. I can honestly say that I love this bit. There is something about standing in the sunshine, filling a clothesline with freshly washed fabric, that fills me with joy. I love the smell of laundry powder rising like a wave in the heat, the sight of a line filled with dazzling whites, little pegs like soldiers on duty. This is the end of the first draft. You’re in love with the book, it’s all laid out in lines, you can’t do much with it for a while because it needs to rest. And so do you.

Bringing it in. This is where things begin to go pear-shaped. All the joy I feel at pegging out laundry is dissipated by the end of the day when it all has to come in. Dry, stiff, no longer ‘washing’, but clothes. Clothes that need to be folded, sorted, ironed, hung – maybe even mended. In other words, work. This is why it languishes, creating peaks of colour around the house. In writing terms, this is where the revisions begin. You’ve written a dazzling first draft, now comes the reality of beating it into shape.

Folding. I’m here both literally and metaphorically right now. I have two baskets of clothes that get strewn around the house every morning as Mr6 searches for socks. I have a manuscript that I’m trying to rework into a book that someone (anyone!) will want to read. Both states feel like they will never end. Both, of course, are down to me getting down to it and getting it done. Then, and only then, can I reach the final stage of either exercise: putting it away.

Of course, the minute I do, it just starts all over again.

It’s official: I’m going native

Years ago, I was researching a story when I stumbled across a blog where people shared pictures of themselves from their backpacking days. Specifically, pictures they were embarrassed about, because they’d ‘gone native’. You know, corn-row braids in Bali, bright African prints (which look amazing on tall, regal African people) on scrawny, mousey English types, witty little scarves (of the type worn with such flair by French woman) worked back with faded Oktoberfest T-shirts.

I can’t remember the name of the site, and I’ve never again found it so I’m beginning to wonder if I made it up, but I remember thinking of a few pics of my own that I could add. Specifically featuring the Turkish eye and a shirt that could have doubled as a carpet.

I was reminded of this again today when I found myself lusting after gum boots. Not in a Kate-Moss-wellies-and-short-shorts fashionista moment. More like a Practical Pig, it’s raining and muddy, moment.

Something about being here, surrounded by lots of open space, grass and dairy farms, has put me in a gumboot mindset. Not that I have acres to stride across in my Wellington boots (as Paddington Bear would call them). Just the backyard of the Fibro. But, here, I want them.

I also want the jars pictured above. In which to make my rhubarb chutney. I’ve never lusted after jars before. But I want these so badly that I contacted the company that imports that particular brand into Australia to ask them if they were planning to get them. Desperate times. The UK supplier doesn’t ship out here, you see.

The only conclusion I can come to is that I’m ‘going native’. Who knows what my next crush will be? Will the next statement you hear from me be: “We like all kinds of music round here – Country AND Western”?

When I moved down here my brother – inner-city hipster that he is – told me he gave me three years before I lost my edge. I scoffed. But I feel it dulling. Gum boots and jam jars make it hard to deny.

But things could be worse. The week I arrived in Fibrotown, the one shoe shop in the place had given over its ENTIRE front window to a dazzling display of Crocs. Everywhere I went, people were wearing Crocs. One lady I saw – of a certain age – was wearing fluoro pink ankle socks with her fluoro pink Crocs. Crocs with Socks. It would be funny in Dr Seuss. Not so much in real life.

There are no Crocs on my crush list. I can say, in a very Scarlett O’Hara way, that there will never be Crocs on my crush list. The edge may not be as sharp as it was, but it’s still there. Or so I convince myself.

{image: Burgon & Ball}

The letter of the day: O

As a reformed magazine junkie, I don’t subscribe to many these days. I used to buy millions of them. Or it seemed like millions when I had to move them from house to house in my transient 20s (Dad could probably talk you through every one of those moves in excruciating detail, come to think of it).

Now, I mostly get publications that I write for, and their competitors – which makes it all seem like business and takes a lot of the fun out of it (though the latest issue of Madison is a cracker, with lots of great features…none of which were written by me). And then I get O, The Oprah Mag. Which is shipped over from the US for less than it costs me to subscribe to the local glossies. And which never fails to satisfy. It’s a rare magazine that does that these days – well, for me, anyway.

The new issue arrived in the postbox yesterday and I devoured it – along with a couple of rows of Green & Black Maya chocolate, also very satisfying. This month is all about decluttering – life, mind, wardrobe. I know, it sounds very yada, yada, yada, faux spiritual. But somehow, in O, it’s not. The writing is so good, the angles often so unexpected, the presence of Dr Phil so irritatingly reassuring, that it all just works.

I had the pleasure of perusing Ethan Hawke’s Five Books that Changed My Life list and realising that, as I suspected, we have nothing in common. I found lustworthy stuff I didn’t know I needed and, fortunately for the bank balance, aren’t shipped to Australia. I read the truth about hair loss and was worried – until I remembered that everyone I’ve ever lived with for the last 20 years has complained about my long hairs crawling up their legs all over the house. Situation normal.

So why satisfying? Well, for one, the story about the woman who held onto 12 boxes of stuff after her husband’s premature death and then realised they’d become a burden. Made me think of a conversation my mum had with my dad over a dilapidated copy of his school (1950s) French textbook. “Hold onto it,” she said, when he baulked over ‘decluttering’ it (to be fair, he baulks over decluttering pretty much everything), “they’ll just throw it out when you’re gone.” Harsh, but, at the end of the day, and we are talking about the end of the day, possibly fair. What would you keep of someone you loved to keep their spirit with you? I'd choose his weather diary over an old textbook. (As an aside, that was the textbook I used to make notebooks in last year’s one artistic moment.)

I’ve got hoarding tendencies (clearly inherited). The acres of space on my new desk have already been inundated with squatters – books to be read, books read and awaiting a new fate, a camera, a manuscript (half revised), a TAFE Statement of Attainment, which I earned by singing in a choir for two hours (The Builder has said he’ll frame it, just to get it off my desk. I’m not sure it merits such treatment. But do I throw it out?). Is any of this important, is any of it the essence of me? Does everything you own have to be?

The thing with O is that each issue contains at least one truly memorable story. Not on a demographic level, or an ‘all women buy shoes’ level, but on a level that makes me think. Which is why I still get that rare magazine-junkie thrill when it lands at the door.

Dad dancers are born, not made

On Friday night, I found myself at the School Disco. Last year, Mr6 (then a nervous nellie kindy type) didn’t want a bar of it. This year, he was planning his outfit three days in advance. Of course, there’s no show without Mr3, who insisted on not only coming along, but bringing his blue ukelele with him. He's a man with an eye for an accessory.

So we get there and it’s loud. You know you’re, um, mature, when the primary school disco is deafening. Mr6 did his usual sidle into the room, looking left and right, laying out the land before deciding whether he’d stay. Mr3 marched into the centre of the dancefloor, strumming the uke, and serenading everyone in sight.

The hall was full of people who would not make the height requirement in most amusement parks. They were jumping, screaming, waving their hands, shaking their glow sticks. I began to understand how Gulliver felt.

Outfits ranged from cool Indy rocker girl (1) to Bratz Doll (lots). One little girl, about 5, even had a full hair extension piece. The boys were dressed in 1000 variations of jeans and sneakers. Pretty much what you’d expect at any Nite Spot.

Mr6 was taken in hand by his friend Miss E, dragged into a game of dance tip, which seemed to involve him chasing her all over the floor in a dancey sort of way. She was all Video Hits moves, in leggings and sparkly headband. He is a Dad dancer. At 6. But at least he was dancing. One of about seven boys who were. If I can just get the old man moves out of his repertoire, he’ll be unstoppable with the girls at 13. But then, he won’t be dancing by then, will he?

The most popular songs of the night were what I can only assume were tracks from High School Musical. I say assume because, not having an eight-year-old girl, I’m unfamiliar with the soundtrack. But every girl on the floor was word- and move-perfect. It was like being in the film, only not as slick and with no boys. The boys who were still having a go simply jumped up and down or performed home-taught breakdance moves that often ended in spectacular, bumpy failure.

The other song that ‘went off’ (as we young, disco-types like to say) was Beyonce’s Single Ladies. Interesting choice for a catholic primary school disco, but not out of the realm when you consider the ‘if you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it’ chorus.

By 7pm we’d been there an hour and both the boys were over it. Me, I was just getting started. But mums don’t dance at primary school discos, some unwritten rule or something. Except just once when Mr6 boogied on over in his Dad fashion and asked me for a dance. I took him up on it. It might be the last time he ever wants to shake his booty anywhere in my vicinity.