Never Come Lightly To The Blank Page.
Without Prejudice
I am gazing out at The Passage. The Passage runs from Brisbane up to the Sunshine Coast, where I am. A vast body of water that can be sailed up before you turn right towards the Ocean, proper. The mighty, Pacific. I can't imagine sailing off into blackness the way the fishing trawlers do. But early every morning, sail off they do and I stand watching the bobbing lights in awe at their tenacity and stupidity.
I imagine what it is like for them, the intrepid fishermen, with the pungent smell of sea water mixed with fish, ropes, engine oil and sweat in unequal measure, coursing its way, down to their memory banks, calming them, soothing them. A Mantra of " I fish " echoing in their subconscious. I imagine their hands, calloused and brown, scarred from ropes hoisted too heartily and ripping flesh as it escapes their hands.
A slip on a wet deck, roiling with water and fish guts, wrenching a knee or a shoulder, that aches when the weather darkens and clouds over. The life of a fisherman never easy.
Sun ( that strange golden orb, we call it in Melbourne ) blazes in to my dark filled eyes and nourishes me with its warmth and candour. Open faced it laughs at my reluctance to go outside as the metal on the outdoor chairs will be chilly. I will wait until the bold sun has crept its way around the side of the building and peeped in at me, this cold, dullard, Melbournite, who knows not much of sun and light in " down south " winters.
I have been here in Sunny Queensland, almost a week. A refugee from a cold, dank, Melbourne where everyone has two favourite subjects, property and the weather. A seemingly inexhaustible excuse for conversation, a safe subject for small talk to strangers beside you on planes and in waiting rooms. People you will never see again. And if that should happen ( not likely ) you won't remember where you knew them from, nor why they set off that " little tinkly bell " in your sub conscious.
My Sister, ( older, wiser, wealthier,) calls intuition her " little tinkly bell ", just as our Mother did. Our Mother knew before Doctors did when she was expecting again by listening to her little " tinkly bell " she had seven pregnancies and she always said,
" Kids, I should have had a dozen. "
Lucky for us, she didn't. As it was we vied for attention from her and Dad. And meal times were what Mum called
" Stretch or starve "
Looking back I would call it feeding time at the zoo. All of us hungry and forever famished, sure we would never be satiated, wolfing down food like starving animals and keeping elbows out in case an interloper tried to steal a luscious morsel from us. In our family it was either a feast or a famine and mainly it was famine. Feast coming rarely as we were constantly poor and lived off " tick" more often than not. " Tick " being an account somewhere in the future that had to be settled or fled from. Fled from, mostly.
Groceries came in wooden boxes from the Grocers, delivered on the back of a truck, boxes that we kids loved to help unpack. Apples and potatoes, and biscuits in bags with a twist at the top. Milk delivered, everyday, and bread, unsliced. Flour and salt and dry stuff was boring, mainly oats and sugar and currants and sultanas. Tins of powdered milk and condensed milk, if we were lucky, that left sticky marks down our sleeves as we snuck it from the tin with spoons. It was supposed to be saved for " Scottish Tablet " a delicacy that only a Scot would be brave enough to eat, as it set the fillings in your teeth, zinging and your thirst raging.
Something like two pounds of sugar and condensed milk and butter and full cream milk and a smidge of salt, just a pinch really to bring out the flavours. Stirred for what seemed like hours and poured onto a tray to be cut and broken with excited fingers even before it had cooled. It had to be a dry consistency so that it could be snapped, a creamy tablet,not as good as a dry crumbly tablet. And we ate it with relish until we were almost sick with it. Tablet and scones, shortbread and oats with sugar. Just dry oats and sugar, eaten from a cup as our afternoon snack.
I am gazing out at The Passage. The Passage runs from Brisbane up to the Sunshine Coast, where I am. A vast body of water that can be sailed up before you turn right towards the Ocean, proper. The mighty, Pacific. I can't imagine sailing off into blackness the way the fishing trawlers do. But early every morning, sail off they do and I stand watching the bobbing lights in awe at their tenacity and stupidity.
I imagine what it is like for them, the intrepid fishermen, with the pungent smell of sea water mixed with fish, ropes, engine oil and sweat in unequal measure, coursing its way, down to their memory banks, calming them, soothing them. A Mantra of " I fish " echoing in their subconscious. I imagine their hands, calloused and brown, scarred from ropes hoisted too heartily and ripping flesh as it escapes their hands.
A slip on a wet deck, roiling with water and fish guts, wrenching a knee or a shoulder, that aches when the weather darkens and clouds over. The life of a fisherman never easy.
Sun ( that strange golden orb, we call it in Melbourne ) blazes in to my dark filled eyes and nourishes me with its warmth and candour. Open faced it laughs at my reluctance to go outside as the metal on the outdoor chairs will be chilly. I will wait until the bold sun has crept its way around the side of the building and peeped in at me, this cold, dullard, Melbournite, who knows not much of sun and light in " down south " winters.
I have been here in Sunny Queensland, almost a week. A refugee from a cold, dank, Melbourne where everyone has two favourite subjects, property and the weather. A seemingly inexhaustible excuse for conversation, a safe subject for small talk to strangers beside you on planes and in waiting rooms. People you will never see again. And if that should happen ( not likely ) you won't remember where you knew them from, nor why they set off that " little tinkly bell " in your sub conscious.
My Sister, ( older, wiser, wealthier,) calls intuition her " little tinkly bell ", just as our Mother did. Our Mother knew before Doctors did when she was expecting again by listening to her little " tinkly bell " she had seven pregnancies and she always said,
" Kids, I should have had a dozen. "
Lucky for us, she didn't. As it was we vied for attention from her and Dad. And meal times were what Mum called
" Stretch or starve "
Looking back I would call it feeding time at the zoo. All of us hungry and forever famished, sure we would never be satiated, wolfing down food like starving animals and keeping elbows out in case an interloper tried to steal a luscious morsel from us. In our family it was either a feast or a famine and mainly it was famine. Feast coming rarely as we were constantly poor and lived off " tick" more often than not. " Tick " being an account somewhere in the future that had to be settled or fled from. Fled from, mostly.
Groceries came in wooden boxes from the Grocers, delivered on the back of a truck, boxes that we kids loved to help unpack. Apples and potatoes, and biscuits in bags with a twist at the top. Milk delivered, everyday, and bread, unsliced. Flour and salt and dry stuff was boring, mainly oats and sugar and currants and sultanas. Tins of powdered milk and condensed milk, if we were lucky, that left sticky marks down our sleeves as we snuck it from the tin with spoons. It was supposed to be saved for " Scottish Tablet " a delicacy that only a Scot would be brave enough to eat, as it set the fillings in your teeth, zinging and your thirst raging.
Something like two pounds of sugar and condensed milk and butter and full cream milk and a smidge of salt, just a pinch really to bring out the flavours. Stirred for what seemed like hours and poured onto a tray to be cut and broken with excited fingers even before it had cooled. It had to be a dry consistency so that it could be snapped, a creamy tablet,not as good as a dry crumbly tablet. And we ate it with relish until we were almost sick with it. Tablet and scones, shortbread and oats with sugar. Just dry oats and sugar, eaten from a cup as our afternoon snack.
