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Stories
The Story of My Life - Jackie Halliday Imagine my surprise when Lindsey Dawson phoned me out of the blue last Wednesday evening and said I had won the Wisanow competition to attend her writing workshop The Story of My Life. This was something I had always wanted to do but hadn’t got round to it. So this, despite it being Mother’s Day, was a golden opportunity. As an English teacher I had taught many students to write but somehow had actually never done it myself. Academic writing, and a recent travelogue from Vietnam, being the exceptions. Oh, and I also write books for my five grandsons. But this was different. This was writing about me. The beginnings of My Memoirs. First of all came The Food Story, followed by a decade. What was the most interesting decade of our lives? Now that’s a hard one. Think of something good and something bad that happened. The good ones were easy and then it struck me, The Phone Call. This had to be written in the present tense. Lyndsey had written a piece on her childhood during the ‘50s which we had to edit. Not as easy as it sounds. A brainstorm of topics from the same era produced the stimulus for the final piece, Magazines. Here they are. All were written in less than 10 minutes. A Food Story Sorting through the books I came across one that my mother used which put me in mind of Sunday tea when I was a teenager. There was a bit of a ritual involved as my then boyfriend always came to tea on Sunday nights and for some reason Mum liked to impress him with her latest recipe. Dad did most of the cooking during the week. The particular dish I remember, which was repeated for many Sunday nights, was Chipolata Spaghetti. We had never had spaghetti dishes before, unless it came out of a tin, so this in itself was a novelty. Chipolatas we had frequently, but usually as part of a fry up. Green capsicums had just become available in New Zealand so these were the vegetable du jour. A combination of these ingredients was very adventurous in the ‘60s. The spaghetti was placed, sans sauce, in the bottom of the oblong baking dish, cooked chipolatas next, placed neatly in a row side by side, fried onions and capsicums on top and finished off with grated cheese and grilled in the oven. This recipe has had two lasting consequences: one, I don’t like green peppers, and two, I’m an expert at twirling spaghetti on a fork. I still have the baking dish and every time I use it am reminded of those Sunday nights. The Phone Call Ian calls up from the kitchen. Roger’s on the phone. What’s he, my ex, doing ringing me at this hour of the morning? Jennifer’s had an accident. My heart sinks, a feeling in the pit of my stomach. She’s been overseas for two years on her OE and is due home in a couple of weeks. At the Grand Canyon. She fell over the edge. But she’s OK. My heart lifts a little. She’s OK. What happened? Where is she now? So many questions. What do you do when someone rings and says your precious child has fallen over the edge of the Grand Canyon? There is no script for this. I’ve spoken to her and she’s fine.She’s fine. How can she be fine? She was rescued. 30ft. A tree. 20ft. A ledge. Internal organs OK. Some damage to her face. Sprained ankles. Flagstaff. Arizona. Intensive care. But I’ve spoken to her and she’s fine. I was going to go over but I won’t now. What do I do? So far away. Concussion, some brain injury. I know what happens with concussion. You can drop dead even hours after. They told us that at Teachers’ College. I know. I can’t leave her there. I can’t. I left Mum on her own and she died. Dear Ian, bless him. Comes back with tickets. 6.30. Tonight. But we’ve just got back from Italy. Another 12 hour plane journey. Magazines Every Tuesday I would race home from school, collect the money from Mum, hop on my bike and cycle down Lake Rd to Takapuna. It horrifies me now to think of a 10 yr old biking along Lake Rd, but the traffic was much lighter in the early ‘60s. My mission. To get the weekly magazine order from Brown’s Bookshop. Mum got the Daily Mirror, its faded yellow cover with an interesting mix of stories. This was my first introduction to the world outside New Zealand. Today’s equivalent of CNN. I read about scandals in England and the horrors of Nazi Germany. But nothing could beat the excitement of the Princess magazine and the latest instalment of whatever serial was running at the time. Sometimes they even had a free gift. These magazines were always 3 months old having come by sea from England. The absolute disaster was if an issue never arrived. You never knew what happened! Even more devastating was if it was the final episode. Later it was swapped for the Seventeen which held all the mysteries of American preppy teen fashions. I devoured those and even now still compulsively pore through the Fashion Quarterly and Simply You. Funny though, the models don’t look like me any more. Pumpkiness -A light-hearted consideration of middle age - Lesley Why a pumpkin? Well it is what things tend to turn into at around midnight, isn’t it…?… and on the twenty-four hour clock that is my total expected lifespan, I guess I must have cruised past midday several hours back now. I think it may have been back around the period of severe angst and lack of cash for cyber-hungry teenage offspring, and the sudden certainty that aspiring to ever greater working responsibility was probably never going to provide that crowning sense of achievement I had so innocently anticipated when I first put a naïve yet eager young foot on the lower rungs of the career ladder. So while I may not yet be quite entering into the gentle evening twilight of my brief day of glory, I can see from the change in light quality that dusk is definitely falling, and as darkness and the inevitable midnight approach, my predestiny with pumpkinhood is pretty much looming somewhere… probably only just out of sight over the horizon. Please understand that I don’t consider pumpkiness as a target, and it’s certainly not an aspiration, I consider it more like the inevitable vegetable - or is it really a fruit - that I may be lucky enough to turn into before I finally understand that the light in the tunnel probably is the midnight express coming down the line, and I have the common good sense to shake off this mortal coil and step over the pearly threshold, into the land of ambrosia on draft. Hmmm, actually M’Lud, I think a small Madeira would do just as nicely… In eons past the life of woman was considered in three simple phases: Maiden, Mother and finally Crone. Wise-woman was available as an option if you actually passed the Mother phase and still wanted the meagre sum of your functioning brain cells to be known. Though this phase could on occasion be dangerous if you were fond of cats, or had a family tendency to facial moles. Well the mothering bit is done, though for some strange reason after spending many of those anxiety ridden teenage years (my anxiety during the offspring’s teens that is) looking for speedy routes for escape from the appalling strictures of the parental fold, there now seems to be a marked reluctance from the said offspring to finally cut the cord to that ties with incredible elasticity to the parental wallet, and seek that final step into financial independence or oblivion (delete as appropriate). I find I am still the same sucker I always was for that longing tone which was used to get the last choccie biccy from the assortment, leaving me with the ones made from sawdust and mouse poo, or the bigger ice-cream with sprinkles and sauce, or the ten speed metallic finish mountain bike with front and rear suspension, or the walking on air trainers, and finally the wedding that Barclaycard just loved me so much for. Though I would be the first to admit that all those sawdust biccies have kept me pretty regular over the years, so simple blessings must be counted I suppose. Maiden and Mother I staggered through without either the handbook or the pre-course notes, and in a constant fog of confusion and unanswered questions, never really knowing what daft issues, compromises, embarrassments and costs the next day might just toss my way, and living with the hope that the available cash or desperate debt would see me through. So why should I expect that either compassion, empathy, an ever-thickening skin and ultimately hard cash would make any difference to the threshold from Mother to Crone, or even to Wise woman? Why? Because over half a lifetime of experience, a veritable wealth of knowledge, useless though most of it may be, and a career-developed ability to plan or should that be ‘scheme’, must have prepared me in some manner for the time the offspring would finally shake off the last threads of the apron stings and leave me at liberty to step gaily forwards along the path towards a big, round, grubby orange and definitely pumpkinny future. Anyway what is middle age? If I may anticipate living to the round old age of eighty, then middle age could have been deemed to reach its peak at around forty, and I was too busy as I passed that particular milestone to give it a second glance. There does seem to be something quite sad in having already overlooked one of the few such significant milestones of my life. Or should I just be satisfied that such an ugly landmark has been passed without notice, especially now I am sitting here scoffing at middle age? Rather strangely men seem to have life so much better organised in that respect, the ‘ages’ of man seem to be boy, youff, stud, middle-aged, and finally old fool. I’m sure you can substitute many other words which are better suited to your own old fool if you wish. Many of them strive to progress no further than the halcyon days somewhere between youff and stud throughout adulthood on the basis of their eternal comic humour, self-professed sporting prowess, the multipoint injection, four-wheel drive turbo land-gobbler they insist is essential transport. Though for some of course this also includes the continued conquest of many a mysterious, and often mythical, maiden. Though as the paunch develops and the hairline recedes, only the four-wheel drive might remain as a sad reminder of the firm muscles and flowing locks the years have stolen away. Middle age seems to occur to a bloke as an afterthought, and only when he finally gets around to accepting that he simply can’t get away with ignoring it any longer. But the less fortunate ‘fairer’ sex is simply totty or not, and somehow I don’t think I ever quite managed to achieve totty in the first place if truth be known. So as I stagger towards my pumpkin shaped nemesis, confused and assisted in equal parts by the seemingly ever-increasing pace of life around me, and not sure if I should feel deprived by my failure to recognise the passing milestones of my middle age, him-indoors sits quietly in the executive recliner, clutching a multi-purpose remote control and mulling the problem of which of the big-boys toys he can talk me into next. What ever happened to the three ages of my inner woman? The poor maiden lass is still there inside me somewhere, just as confused by life as she ever was, and popping out occasionally to ensure that I am still capable of surprising or embarrassing myself in equal measure from time to time. Mother? There is a sort of sad inevitability to the thought that the amazing mix of pleasure and pain that has accompanied my every waking moment of parenthood, and some of the nightmares of my sleeping moments too, though these might begin to fade now the nest is empty. But sadly, so few of the threads of life’s rich tapestry seem to retain their full colour in the daily wash, and perhaps that is sometimes for the best since the howling pain that is the loss of a loved one would be an incredibly dark hole to live in for ever. Wise woman? I dunno about that one, I think I might be beginning to have problems remembering the questions, never mind the answers. So I guess that just leaves crone? Not blooming yet mate! The dread midnight pumpkin may be waiting quietly just out of sight, but unlike Patrick McGoohan, inevitably chased by a big, wobbly pink balloon called Rover, my big round destiny remains just a shadow on the horizon, as certain as a looming exam result, but not yet half so scary. After all with a bit of imagination and a half full spice rack I know I can make just about anything palatable. Explore: |
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