Too preoccupied to be bothered with pondering about significance of age. You see there are at least ten plates losing momentum rapidly and my motivation was at least partially depleted in that glorious moment when friends were drunk and shouting from The Peach Deck and I was dancing in the hallway with a bucket on my head. There's that letter to Mr Goldblum I'm still working on, a forty centimetre stack of submissions to PAN, the manuscript to be dealt with and nobody has realigned the coloured dots in the hall for at least a week. Bob was right about times. Changing so much it has become clear that joy is a very real possibility.
Showing posts with label Birthday letters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Birthday letters. Show all posts
Spencer turned thirty and thought nothing of it
Spencer turned thirty on Saturday. It was about fucking time. He's been in his twenties the whole time I've known him, first he was twenty-one and then a whole year at every age until thirty. It's been a long ride.
Thirty is one of those reflective birthdays where you sit down and have a little think. The first things I thought about were how much he has annoyed me, which is a lot but probably not quite as much as I have annoyed him. Friendship is sometimes a two-way annoyer-annoyee contract. I was thinking about making some notes about the annoying times but that would be easy and a little glib. Then I thought about the moments of support through sorrow, betrayal or ridiculous romantic muddles with hideously inappropriate men. Spencer was there for all of them but that too would be easy.
What is more difficult are moments of friendship and understanding that drop like a mantle pinning you still for just a second while the world glides on your own gentle axis.
Last Saturday I had to read a short story in front of an audience. I did not want to. I was petrified. I was coerced into going through with the deed by a horde of people, Spencer being one of them. I had friends in the crowd, all of them lovely, but Spencer was the one I knew I would go to if I fucked it up royally, made an irredeemable fool of myself and needed someone to make a fast exit with. I shouldn't have been so afraid, writers do this kind of thing all the time, but I was because before that night I've always said no, let my fear guide my answer and just said no.
The reading went with no major hitches, no one was more surprised than me. My next move should have been the bar, but the crowd seemed impenetrable. They were planted wall-to-wall like cross-legged rocks, jagged and unable to be stepped upon. I gave up on the idea of a drink but Spencer went over the back of the armchair he was holed up on and picked his way to the bar.
He strode back towards me, triumphant over the cross-legged crowd, holding two open bottles of beer. I saw he was heading for some difficulty, climbing simultaneously between the red hanging wall partitions and over the back of a sofa. I stood up to help and fell into a five second ballet. He came up suddenly over the back of the sofa rising gracefully as an eagle, passing a bottle into my open hand then placing his empty hand on the top of my head for balance. While he was up there, tall as a rafter, I looked up at the travelling arc of him and realised we were mirroring the same grin, shining and elongated with one long unlit cigarette out of the corner of each of our mouths. I kept looking and grinning as the flat palm of his hand centred his descent and he came to rest feet first on the ground.
It seemed to me that everything was communicated in that five second arc over the back of an old sofa with full beer bottles and unlit cigarettes and stupid grins. It seemed to me like we'd sat for hours talking, me saying how much I had needed him there, him saying of course he was going to be there and that I did alright. Me saying that for years it was him turning his back and taking three tall steps up and onto a stage and that it seemed important somehow that just this once it was me doing the climbing. Him saying that I did it, and he knew all along that I could.
I don't suppose it sounds like much, five seconds of grinning and balancing in the quest for beer but just in that moment it was everything. To be wordlessly understood as the somersaulting mix of fear and relief left me giddy. To know absolutely that his open palm on the top of my head was guiding him safely back down no less than his presence was safely guiding me.
Spencer is one hell of a friend. So happy birthday to him.
note:
I actually received an overwhelming amount of encouraging advice and support about mastering my stage fright and reading my story. From a whole bunch of people like Gemnastics, Geoff Lemon, Anushka, Spencer, Vanessa Berry, Thomas G Watts, my mum and especially Tim Sinclair who came to my house and got all Geoffrey Rush on my Colin Firth arse but right now this is about Spencer.
I am grateful to the people who came up to me afterwards and said they liked my story, especially the people who quoted lines of it back to me, that was odd but nice that you remembered some of my words. And to the woman in the red coat at The Duke thank you for coming up to me and saying you liked my story, days and days and days after the fact. That was kind of great.
Oh and erm, thanks Pip Smith and Penguin Plays Rough for making me do it, giving me free drinks and then paying me money. I hid the money in my sock drawer.
Thirty is one of those reflective birthdays where you sit down and have a little think. The first things I thought about were how much he has annoyed me, which is a lot but probably not quite as much as I have annoyed him. Friendship is sometimes a two-way annoyer-annoyee contract. I was thinking about making some notes about the annoying times but that would be easy and a little glib. Then I thought about the moments of support through sorrow, betrayal or ridiculous romantic muddles with hideously inappropriate men. Spencer was there for all of them but that too would be easy.
What is more difficult are moments of friendship and understanding that drop like a mantle pinning you still for just a second while the world glides on your own gentle axis.
Last Saturday I had to read a short story in front of an audience. I did not want to. I was petrified. I was coerced into going through with the deed by a horde of people, Spencer being one of them. I had friends in the crowd, all of them lovely, but Spencer was the one I knew I would go to if I fucked it up royally, made an irredeemable fool of myself and needed someone to make a fast exit with. I shouldn't have been so afraid, writers do this kind of thing all the time, but I was because before that night I've always said no, let my fear guide my answer and just said no.
The reading went with no major hitches, no one was more surprised than me. My next move should have been the bar, but the crowd seemed impenetrable. They were planted wall-to-wall like cross-legged rocks, jagged and unable to be stepped upon. I gave up on the idea of a drink but Spencer went over the back of the armchair he was holed up on and picked his way to the bar.
He strode back towards me, triumphant over the cross-legged crowd, holding two open bottles of beer. I saw he was heading for some difficulty, climbing simultaneously between the red hanging wall partitions and over the back of a sofa. I stood up to help and fell into a five second ballet. He came up suddenly over the back of the sofa rising gracefully as an eagle, passing a bottle into my open hand then placing his empty hand on the top of my head for balance. While he was up there, tall as a rafter, I looked up at the travelling arc of him and realised we were mirroring the same grin, shining and elongated with one long unlit cigarette out of the corner of each of our mouths. I kept looking and grinning as the flat palm of his hand centred his descent and he came to rest feet first on the ground.
It seemed to me that everything was communicated in that five second arc over the back of an old sofa with full beer bottles and unlit cigarettes and stupid grins. It seemed to me like we'd sat for hours talking, me saying how much I had needed him there, him saying of course he was going to be there and that I did alright. Me saying that for years it was him turning his back and taking three tall steps up and onto a stage and that it seemed important somehow that just this once it was me doing the climbing. Him saying that I did it, and he knew all along that I could.
I don't suppose it sounds like much, five seconds of grinning and balancing in the quest for beer but just in that moment it was everything. To be wordlessly understood as the somersaulting mix of fear and relief left me giddy. To know absolutely that his open palm on the top of my head was guiding him safely back down no less than his presence was safely guiding me.
Spencer is one hell of a friend. So happy birthday to him.
note:
I actually received an overwhelming amount of encouraging advice and support about mastering my stage fright and reading my story. From a whole bunch of people like Gemnastics, Geoff Lemon, Anushka, Spencer, Vanessa Berry, Thomas G Watts, my mum and especially Tim Sinclair who came to my house and got all Geoffrey Rush on my Colin Firth arse but right now this is about Spencer.
I am grateful to the people who came up to me afterwards and said they liked my story, especially the people who quoted lines of it back to me, that was odd but nice that you remembered some of my words. And to the woman in the red coat at The Duke thank you for coming up to me and saying you liked my story, days and days and days after the fact. That was kind of great.
Oh and erm, thanks Pip Smith and Penguin Plays Rough for making me do it, giving me free drinks and then paying me money. I hid the money in my sock drawer.
Two minutes and counting
I have a real problem with Virginia Woolf, right now, two minutes before my 32nd birthday. This will be my first ever 32nd birthday. By way of preparing to celebrate The Peachettes rolled joints and tuned in to the late night financial news. We rode those eyebrows like roller coasters, it took my mind off Virginia for at least a little while.
This is thirty one
There is a rash or reaction crawling across my chest and neck. I suspect it is the scented lotion carefully massaged into my skin last night by Zissou but what is this ticking of the clock. I had thought that at last I was inhabiting myself. I had thought I had kicked some great heavy clunking shoe hindering my steps but now here I sit in need of a showering wondering at the ticking of all clocks. Last night I said to Zissou "I like you" in sync with the painting of those same words across my mind. Today I do not wish to like that man. It is a small undesperate liking. It is not a raging irrational beast. It was a warm current.
I do not wish to like him because it is revealing new fears. It is one thing to think that he seems a good man and to enjoy his company but it is another to think I like this person. What a cold hard trap it could lead into. I wish to float. I wish to be as independent as possible. There is no immediate danger, I am not fighting kite strings of wild emotion.
Revision and rememberance cast different shadows than the moment itself. When the shadows shift I wonder that it was initially invisible. What a strong pulsing light aimed at my chest. There was a pause with my dress pulled up over my face, arms raised in unusual obedience. This is when the jack rabbit ragged edged scar over my heart held centre stage. I imagine, because it is invisible to me, a palm wide egg white jagged thing radiating thick raised arms out to red edges. It is clear that it came from within, that depth charge. A raging exploded blown out chest. Since the dying months of 29 I have been stitching and restitching starfish, ammunition, alphabets, wine, heat, flowers and glass into the red cavity. Shredded flaps of flesh closed neatly over it each time.
The dying days of 30 concealed the whole contraption and any person could step up pushing with their hands and stethoscopes. There was nothing there but smooth flesh, sunburn and heartbeats. Zissou in his clam foreign way brought laser beams and ultra sounds with flood lights and the newest constant unwinking strobe. It cast cold light and there, there the contraption revealed itself. What a fraud I am with my wine, heat, glass, starfish, ammunition, alphabet imitation of a heart. It spits out ticker tape lost fortunes. Do not proceed with this unraveling and fold now back into yourself. Dress in sheets of metal and hold up your bulletproof parts.
And what of my merged fractal self so much better than at the dawn of 30. I am upright and holding out my left palm I see the miniatures of the good in my life carefully painted and standing on their own but in my right palm a small figure of self holding out ridiculous empty arms.
I do not wish to like him because it is revealing new fears. It is one thing to think that he seems a good man and to enjoy his company but it is another to think I like this person. What a cold hard trap it could lead into. I wish to float. I wish to be as independent as possible. There is no immediate danger, I am not fighting kite strings of wild emotion.
Revision and rememberance cast different shadows than the moment itself. When the shadows shift I wonder that it was initially invisible. What a strong pulsing light aimed at my chest. There was a pause with my dress pulled up over my face, arms raised in unusual obedience. This is when the jack rabbit ragged edged scar over my heart held centre stage. I imagine, because it is invisible to me, a palm wide egg white jagged thing radiating thick raised arms out to red edges. It is clear that it came from within, that depth charge. A raging exploded blown out chest. Since the dying months of 29 I have been stitching and restitching starfish, ammunition, alphabets, wine, heat, flowers and glass into the red cavity. Shredded flaps of flesh closed neatly over it each time.
The dying days of 30 concealed the whole contraption and any person could step up pushing with their hands and stethoscopes. There was nothing there but smooth flesh, sunburn and heartbeats. Zissou in his clam foreign way brought laser beams and ultra sounds with flood lights and the newest constant unwinking strobe. It cast cold light and there, there the contraption revealed itself. What a fraud I am with my wine, heat, glass, starfish, ammunition, alphabet imitation of a heart. It spits out ticker tape lost fortunes. Do not proceed with this unraveling and fold now back into yourself. Dress in sheets of metal and hold up your bulletproof parts.
And what of my merged fractal self so much better than at the dawn of 30. I am upright and holding out my left palm I see the miniatures of the good in my life carefully painted and standing on their own but in my right palm a small figure of self holding out ridiculous empty arms.
On her first birthday I slipped back in time
For the smallest person I know, on your first birthday I slipped back in time, back to a year ago when I walked differently, back to when I was the most important person in someone's life, back to a place where love was tangible and I wandered through the aquarium arm in arm.
In thinking of all the things I could possibly write to you they all meant essentially the same thing. Welcome to this world, we are all so very pleased that you arrived safely, nothing new, nothing new. Fond as I have always been of your parents something unexpected happened to push this into perspective. I'll explain in a slow way the small thing that happened.
Yesterday was a long warm day and by the time I caught the train at Redfern station I was exhausted. At first a sense of friendship and duty propelled me towards Penrith instead of Windsor and home. Artboy met me at Blacktown station where I had been waiting for twenty minutes stamping my feet, spilling my coffee and silently cursing as all the commuters streamed down the stairs and past me into waiting cars and buses.
By the time I was in the car and headed up the M4 I'd smoked way too many cigarettes, spilled half a soy latte down my jacket and generally smelled so bad that I felt worried. This was the first indication that something different was at hand. You see I regularly rock up to anywhere stinking like an ashtray with hair on end and half a muesli bar in my pocket. At the hospital I paid five dollars to park the car.
I walked into the room and positioned like sentries were Ron, my brother and Rhett. Artboy walked over to meet them and there you were in a plastic crate like nuts or taps at a hardware shop, you could have been wheeled in from anywhere.
Rita sat calmly and talked me through the birth. Spinal blocks, septic shock, a violent slashing through of muscles right into the core. How brave, how radiant and strong your beautiful mother. Ron held you easy as a tennis ball like heartache never existed. He said it was frightening when he came upstairs with just you, Rita pinned down by doctors and septic shock. He said frightening in a small flat voice with wide eyes, a half second where even the echo of his fear was unbearable to witness.
My brother sat ensconced in the corner, he is almost incapable of uttering an appropriate emotional response, it was his presence, his very presence, he came straight from work and stayed til visiting hours were over.
Ray came in, sandy-haired boy of a man. All of these men have sat in my house and let off firecrackers and drunk and smoked until dawn. Girlfriends come and hearts break even their friendships have hung by a thread but here they all are. We gather tonight like a pride. You have opened in us all the tribal urge to circle and protect. We stand in the spaces between ritual, searching each other, longing for the collective memory of arms and legs and hearts singing in age old celebration but we have none so we sit and stand and talk about anything but the beating of your heart.
I sit in the corner nearest the door slowing down my breathing, sitting in silent wonder at the fierceness welling in me. Ron passed you gently to Rita and a ripple went round the room, every muscle in every body flexed, all eyes on you, no thought but to ensure your safety in this one small movement. This is when we were more human, passionate, articulate, united than we have ever been. One moment, one movement, one gap between breaths. That was the small thing that happened.
In thinking of all the things I could possibly write to you they all meant essentially the same thing. Welcome to this world, we are all so very pleased that you arrived safely, nothing new, nothing new. Fond as I have always been of your parents something unexpected happened to push this into perspective. I'll explain in a slow way the small thing that happened.
Yesterday was a long warm day and by the time I caught the train at Redfern station I was exhausted. At first a sense of friendship and duty propelled me towards Penrith instead of Windsor and home. Artboy met me at Blacktown station where I had been waiting for twenty minutes stamping my feet, spilling my coffee and silently cursing as all the commuters streamed down the stairs and past me into waiting cars and buses.
By the time I was in the car and headed up the M4 I'd smoked way too many cigarettes, spilled half a soy latte down my jacket and generally smelled so bad that I felt worried. This was the first indication that something different was at hand. You see I regularly rock up to anywhere stinking like an ashtray with hair on end and half a muesli bar in my pocket. At the hospital I paid five dollars to park the car.
I walked into the room and positioned like sentries were Ron, my brother and Rhett. Artboy walked over to meet them and there you were in a plastic crate like nuts or taps at a hardware shop, you could have been wheeled in from anywhere.
Rita sat calmly and talked me through the birth. Spinal blocks, septic shock, a violent slashing through of muscles right into the core. How brave, how radiant and strong your beautiful mother. Ron held you easy as a tennis ball like heartache never existed. He said it was frightening when he came upstairs with just you, Rita pinned down by doctors and septic shock. He said frightening in a small flat voice with wide eyes, a half second where even the echo of his fear was unbearable to witness.
My brother sat ensconced in the corner, he is almost incapable of uttering an appropriate emotional response, it was his presence, his very presence, he came straight from work and stayed til visiting hours were over.
Ray came in, sandy-haired boy of a man. All of these men have sat in my house and let off firecrackers and drunk and smoked until dawn. Girlfriends come and hearts break even their friendships have hung by a thread but here they all are. We gather tonight like a pride. You have opened in us all the tribal urge to circle and protect. We stand in the spaces between ritual, searching each other, longing for the collective memory of arms and legs and hearts singing in age old celebration but we have none so we sit and stand and talk about anything but the beating of your heart.
I sit in the corner nearest the door slowing down my breathing, sitting in silent wonder at the fierceness welling in me. Ron passed you gently to Rita and a ripple went round the room, every muscle in every body flexed, all eyes on you, no thought but to ensure your safety in this one small movement. This is when we were more human, passionate, articulate, united than we have ever been. One moment, one movement, one gap between breaths. That was the small thing that happened.
This is thirty
I have frightened apart my fractals and the light you see is the sun shining through my hollow vacant places. At first it warmed me but then the secret dark inside life of me died burnt and exposed. I have come assunder. Think of the hardest dirtiest cracked heel and the crunch of old skin ripping. Think of blood thick, dark and dirty. Think of lumped sour milk. Think of green edged bacon and floating eggs. Think of every old shed in every paddock. Think of the Cumberland plains ripped and folded underneath concrete squares. Think of the full commuter train splitting the heat shimmer from concrete hell to outer isolation. Think of your teeth smashing into the metal rail on top of a bus seat. Think of everything that ever penetrated your skin. Think of me here alone in this room. My feet are dirty are hard, my navel stinks, my armpits stink, my vagina stinks. My head itches and my hair is dank. I have tried on the pink lipgloss and the blue eyeshadow and they are yet to save me from myself.
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