that girl and all of her junk

Today I saw a house on fire.

The roof was collapsing and the flames were licking at the sky.

Two fire trucks surrounded the home, whilst a man walked away, head bowed and a child in his arms.

I drove away then, with my own memories and junk and best intentions tucked away safely within me.

As I idled my car into our garage, I looked at all of the boxes of yesterdays and tomorrow  and I was thankful of course, for what hasn’t burned.  And for what has.

I’ve never been victim to a large house fire.  By that, I mean the type that destroys most or all material worth.  Though, of course, my life has had several severe flames of destruction.

Some of it remains as ash, whilst small embers still manage to stir up a flicker.

And today, I promised myself that I would declutter and clean up the messy bits.

The fire hazards of my life.

When I was almost twenty years of age, I lived in a share house and my best friend at the time decided to clean out our fireplace.  She emptied the burnt ash into a cardboard box and poured some water on it as a safety precaution and then set the box down in the back yard, beside the house.

It was probably twenty minutes or so later that I arrived home and noticed the distinct smell of smoke.  I considered that she might have been cooking again.  As pretty as she was, she was never the best cook.  It didn’t matter of course.  We were too young to care about eating well.  Our waistlines actually thanked us for it.  We drank most of our calories in alcohol anyway.

After inspecting the kitchen, I was drawn closer to the smell of smoke in the backyard and was well alerted to the fire.

The outside wall of our rental property was ablaze.

It was a minor fire, though enough to draw attention from neighbours, who proceeded to climb surrounding fences with hoses and buckets.  My friends red face and the hapless saucepan in her hand were cute but of no use.

We contained the fire and cursed at the damage, but being young and carefree, we could only laugh.

In my childhood, I had a friend who had left her electric blanket on whilst she and her family went to church.

They returned after praise and the house had burned to the ground.

That was the first time that I questioned faith in someone I was taught to worship and believe in.

Yesterday, I was searching for an important document in my garage and I ripped boxes open and flung through all of the things that I so obviously had valued enough to pack and move from house to house, too many times.

I’m a hoarder of the heart.

I collect things from yesterday and I keep them in little boxes.

I have the first set of keys from my second car – a vintage little white beast with a wing tail and red leather seats.  The car never really got going well but it was an ambition of mine, better given away as decided by my parents.  I purchased that car from a rich man in Toorak, for $250 and I’d hoped to fix it up enough to take long cruisy drives down the coast and across country like Thelma.  Or Louise.

I also have boxes containing old flyers from clubs, a hair ribbon from the prom dress of my paternal grandmother, love cards from ex boyfriends, my fathers twenty-first birthday silver key, my children’s first booties and one pregnancy test stick – complete with yesterday wee.

I have photos of people I no longer speak to.  Art from my children, tax documents, mothers day cards, a leaf from that romantic day in the park, concert ticket stubs, broken jewellery, my fathers stop watch from 1983, old certificates and a few broken dreams.

But yesterday, I couldn’t find the one thing I needed.

I was searching for a certificate from a 12 month study course I had completed when I was twenty years old.

Every other little yesterday ghost jumped out of me though.  Things I’ve more than once searched unsuccessfully for, in a sentimental moment and could never find.  Yesterday, they fell out of a handful of things and lay on the cold concrete floor and stared at me.

Here I am.

Where are you?

 I destroyed the garage, so much so that I couldn’t fit the car back into it.

The bottom of boxes fell out and books and stuff and paperwork fell to the ground and it was a surmountable thing to pick it all up and fit it all back into collapsed boxes and not a wheel of masking tape to be found.

So I pushed it all to the side and left the car on the street.

When my husband got home, after he rolled his eyes and before he kissed my forehead for the silly thing I am sometimes, he asked me if I’d checked the filing cabinet for my lost certificate.

No, I’m not THAT organised.

 Well, it turns out that I am.

There it was, in its little green coil bound folder, neatly slipped between a plastic insert sheet.  And there were photocopies of it.

Wow, I forgot who I once was.

As a mum to four children, two pets and one husband, the last eight years or so have included me trying to be as organised as possible, whilst also doing what works best.  And most easiest.

Sometimes, that means throwing stuff into a basket on top of the fridge and then transferring it (when it begins to fall down the sides and back of the fridge) into a plastic bag and setting it aside for sorting.  One day.

Although, let me not sound completely self-deprecating and add that I recently cleaned the top of the fridge after hearing that what we accumulate there multiplies.  So, if we place bills to be paid, on top of the fridge, Feng Shui suggests our debts will escalate.  So I moved ours and since then, they’ve all been sitting in a messy pile on our large Indonesian wooden dining table.

Exasperating I know.

I’m a messy girl, though not unclean.

I think that I might need something (or someone) one day so I never really throw anything away.

I wonder how I would feel if my own house burned to the ground and I was left with nothing?

We have insurance for the things that matter and cost most, but the rest is of sentimental value and that’s always irreplaceable.  Right?

I know the value of a good clean out and don’t get me wrong, I’ve thrown lots of things away over the years of my life.  It’s just that some things really seem better kept in my heart and cardboard storage, tucked away but accessible.

Truth is, the bits of my life, which matter most, would never do well in a cardboard box.

Those things are here – my family and friends, my animals and my self.

All of the photos I have that need sorting into albums and smaller boxes (see, it’s a box addiction perhaps) are also important – they’re the things for tomorrow.  They’re the things I’m keeping for my children.  Though, I’m not sure if I should keep the hippy photos of me, dancing in a forest wearing tie dye and sporting yellow hair under an acid moon.  I can’t see why not.  That was me.  And I always hid the bong well in group photos.

It’s all true testament to who their mother was.  And is.

The worst of the pictures these days involve some lounge room table top dancing with friends (clothed) though the wild remnants of me are always visible.  Most are hiding within the wrinkles on my face.

What about the grandmother ribbon?  Or the ticket stubs from bands and concerts and dance parties?  That’s also who I was and am.

I would’ve loved my mother or father to hand me a big box of who they were from yesterday.

Warts, sins and all.

I’m going to tidy up my garage boxes and try to condense it down to one for my children.  Something for when they’re adults themselves.

There will be a warning strewn across the top of the box.  It will read something about keeping an open mind and DO-NOT-OPEN-UNTIL-YOU’VE-MADE-PLENTY-OF-FASHION-MISTAKES-AND-HEART-ERRORS-OF-YOUR-OWN.

One day, it’ll all make sense.

Someone will burrow through my yesterdays and screw up their nose at the wee stick, the silly clothing, the photos of my old boyfriends and they’ll say, “No wonder she married Dad.  He was a cowboy, just like our grandfather was.  No, he didn’t ride horses but he tamed that girl.  That girl and all of her junk.”

Which nest is best?

At the age of fourteen and less than twelve months after moving from a country town to the suburbs of Melbourne, I became friends with a street kid.

His name was Martin and I first met him on a train bound for Flinders Street in 1985.  He was wearing a hessian bag as a shirt, cinched at the waist with an old and dependable leather belt.  Tied, not buckled. He also wore jeans and sneakers (not the trendy type).

Martin and I became friends for a short while and I’d meet him in the city, usually on the steps and underneath the clocks of Flinders Street Station.

We walked and talked and sometimes I bought him a burger and he let me tell him stories about my recent rough ride.  I listened to his reasons for sleeping in parks and stairwells and also the story of why he was wearing a hessian bag.

It’s warm.

It doesn’t get dirty.

I like the smell.

Someone I like gave it to me.

One day, I gave Martin my home telephone number.  He called too many times within the first week and my mother and stepfather soon became concerned about who my new male calling friend was.

Yes, the one with the strange voice.

I was never sure what was wrong with Martin, aside from the remnants of abuse. He appeared mentally retarded, speaking with a slur and slowness, as if his voice had been tormented as much as he had.  He had a great hearty laugh and what I guessed was a gentle heart, even if it was chipped around the edges.

I told my parents that he lived on the streets in the city and wore a hessian bag and that he was really nice and that I didn’t think they should be so judgemental.

He’s nice!

Being a vulnerable young teen myself, due to age and recent tragedy and emotional trauma, I related to Martin.

When I was twelve years old, I had planned to run away with a close friend who lived on a dairy farm on the outskirts of the country town where we both went to school.

It took us months of planning and scheming and collecting odd cans of food and toiletries from the family pantries of our homes.

We had lists upon lists of items we’d need for survival and we were well organised.

The day arrived when we purchased our one way bus tickets destined for the city.

SO exciting!

I was a naïve country girl, though tormented by the recent separation of my family and subsequent issues resulting from this.  I guessed that anywhere was better than the home where my father had lost his mind, his wife and most recently his dignity.

On the night before we were due to board the large greyhound bus, we had a school social (disco) and I’d asked my father whether I could sleep at my friend’s house whilst she had told her parents she was sleeping at mine.  Sorted.  We stashed our bags containing food and clothes and a first aid kit and an abundance of not much clue underneath the bushes near the school oval.

And we danced.

We winked and smiled and waved our hands in the air like we really didn’t care and we dreamed about freedom and happiness.

In the months leading up to our bus ride, she’d told me about the place in the city that we could soon call home.

Oh, it’s a MASSIVE old mansion and it’s in St Kilda and it’s near the beach and all of the street kids live there but it’s safe and we’ll love it.  It’s a bit dirty, you know, but we’ll make it nice and we will be living together how cool is that?

I imagined all sorts of visuals including some terribly deluded ones and of course most unrealistic.  I’d seen movies and read books and on the first or second and only occasions I’d been to the city in the late 1970’s, my father had driven the family car through St Kilda and had pointed out the street kids and prostitutes to us.  I remember being probably around eight years of age and winding my car window down to see better.  I almost fell out of the window.  I was in complete awe of the wild streets and that big city place full of mystery, bright lights and tragedy.

Yes, we’ll be there.

So, meeting Martin wasn’t strange to me.  He was the first of many oddities who introduced themselves to me; on the train, in the suburbs, at the bus stop or sitting on steps watching the world go by.

On the night that my girlfriend and I were dancing, in a country hall at a country catholic school, a friend tapped me on the shoulder.

Your dad is here.

I saw him sitting with his back to the wall, arms crossed and eyes glaring at me.

I turned away.

I pretended I didn’t see him.

Too many minutes later, extending the whole situation to awkward and beyond sensible, I looked again at my father.

He spoke to me, across the room and above the music.  His lips moved and I heard every word, despite the loud music.

Have you had enough? 

I’d had enough yes.  Though I knew he wasn’t referring to my ability to cope with life and it’s struggles recently.

He was angry.

I was scared.

My father was a man who angered quickly.  He was capable of violence and not listening well.

He spoke again.

Have you had enough?  Right, let’s go.

From behind me I heard my friend, partner in crime and supposed travelling and house companion for tomorrow.

You’d better go, he knows.  We’re in so much trouble.

Trouble and I had become acquainted lately.  In my quest to purchase a bus ticket, I really believed I was running away from it, not towards further strife.

In the last six months I’d seen things I knew I shouldn’t have.

My father couldn’t (in my opinion) care for me anymore.  I doubted how much he loved me and my mother was gone.  I didn’t blame her, but I wished she’d taken me with her.

I didn’t understand why both my parents seemed to have given up on me.

It took me almost two decades to understand that they never gave up.  They were only being what they could.  Weak or strong.  Right or wrong.  They were only human.

So, on the night that my father took me by the arm and marched me out of the school hall with a detour passed the trees beside the football oval to collect my overstuffed and misunderstood large sports bag, I was silent.

He drove me home and took me straight to my bedroom and I thought I was going to get the biggest whacking of my life but he sat me down and drew his face not too far away from mine and he began.

What were you thinking?  Where were you going?  How do you think you were going to survive?  Were you going to be a street kid?  A prostitute?  Is THAT what you wanted to be?  Is that what you want to grow up to be?  How do you think you would live like that?  Do you understand what you are playing with here?

No.  I didn’t understand.

I wasn’t sure.

I remembered the prostitutes with their short skirts and messy hair and bony knees and I knew I didn’t want to look like them.

I told him I had food and some money and a house to live in and then he screamed at me until he was red in the face and exhausted and before my tears attempted to drown me and then he reminded me about what is less.  And what is more.

And then he held me.

At school the next morning, my friend and I made it obvious that we hated the girl who had followed us to the bus stop whilst we bought our tickets.  We despised her because she had further ruined our lives.  She had spoken with the ticket lady soon after we’d left and she’d told her that we were running away to the city and that she should call our parents to stop us.

And so it was.

I don’t remember whom that little rat was, the one who gave our secret away but I am thankful to her and it didn’t take me until mid morning to realise that she’d done me a favour.

I really didn’t want to be a street kid.

Life wasn’t THAT bad.

Perhaps I was destined to meet Martin regardless?

I’m proud to say that on the day I met him, I’d left a home with a full belly and nice clothes and although there were issues within those walls, they would never surmount to the ones on the street and the ones tucked up within the fibres of Martin’s hessian shirt.

I’m also thankful that I wasn’t swayed to walk with him too far.

I related to him in ways and I also felt sorry for him.  I wondered what could ever make a person think that wearing a hessian bag as a shirt was preferable.

I offered to give him a t-shirt one day but he declined and said he liked his hessian bag.  We laughed when I shared with him that I grew up with horses and sometimes their food arrived in a similar bag.  I joked that if I had met him at an earlier age, I could’ve stocked a wardrobe full for him.

Martin laughed.

Martin smiled.

Martin didn’t seem too unhappy.

My new life in Melbourne, although not perfect and still yet to become settled emotionally, was rich compared to his torment and challenges.

I have my own children now and I shudder with the thought of them ever feeling so despondent that they would want to run away and live in filth.

I have learned lessons from my own parents and I am thankful of the privilege of a new generation and awareness.

I talk openly with my children and try not to ever allow them to feel neglected.

This home is their nest too.

One day, they will fly away but I will never glide too far from them.

I haven’t been a perfect mother but does she exist?   Of course not.

I think there’s a large majority of society all better equipped emotionally than our own parents.  It’s the circle of life.  Hakuna Matata.  It means no worries. Generation after generation has improved and here we stand.  Stronger.

Imagine the difference of when our parents and grandparents were young.

We’re breaking chains.

I’m sure that when the day arrives and my own children become parents themselves, they’ll do things better than I have in ways and make their own mistakes too.

We’re all human.

Our parents, the street kids, the meister’s and the miserable.

Learning to appreciate our security, the fuck ups within it and the greatest gift of simplicity is something to nurture.

Our children are precious and vulnerable.  They are like small sponges, collecting both beauty and pain and they are also stronger them we give them credit for.

Sometimes they’re weaker.

Just like us.

I’ve not seen Martin for over 20 years but the last time I saw him, he was sitting on a tram talking to strangers and he was laughing and slurring and charming people with his eccentricity and vagrancy.

And yes, he was still wearing a hessian bag.

I always wondered where the people were who loved Martin, until I realised they were on the street.  And in his own heart and imagination.

Some days my own children look like nobody owns them.  Their faces might be dirty, their hair not yet brushed and their clothes only half worn.  But on those days, I smile because life is simple and they’re happy.

Their home is safe and full of love.

And I’ll never forget that they teach me things nobody else ever has or could.

My own mother is one of my best friends now and I love her so dearly it sometimes hurts to think I might one day live without her again.

I hold her pretty face in my hands and thank her for being mine.

My father died in a road accident less than a year after I attempted to run away and I’m the fortunate one to have such an beautiful angel looking after me no matter where he glides.

There are plenty of bumpy ride stories in life.  Lots of Martin’s, a heap of people just like my own parents and yours.  There are those who have had lives nothing like ours and there are millions who suffer worse than the lucky ones could ever imagine.

We really are blessed.

Hessian bag or otherwise.