The doors sense your presence as you approach, and like a bride, the moment  you step over that threshold, life becomes something different.

The air is cooler than it needs to be, so despite the sticky, liquid heat of the Queensland Summer, you have to remember to wear long pants and covered shoes, or you will be shivering by the end of the long, long day. The lighting is vivid, casting shadows on your face, highlighting the bags of concern that have grown, dark and haggard, under your eyes these last few days as you waited for this moment with fearful anticipation. Equal parts relief and dread.

At the check in they call your kid by name, but they place a band around her foot, tagging her for the duration, and although they still refer to her by the name you chose for her, they really know her as UR 54021. Those five digits storing all that they need to know. Her name is just a concession to convention.

As you walk the long corridor to your glaring, sterile habitation for the day, all sense of who you were out in that other world sloughs off you, and you become part of the machinery of intervention. The more completely you can exfoliate the remnants of your concerns and your individuality, the better you will fare on this day of immersion. Cleansing yourself of your self makes for a smooth transition into a day where all decisions will be made for you.

The people in white are also tagged and numbered, and they will direct your progression. Come here, move there, put your arm here, wait there, eat this, hold still, hold still hold still HOLD HER STILL, whilst they prick and insert this steel along the lines of her veins, filling her up with the liquid of life that you know she needs, and yet the last remnant of you that still recalls the outside you, resists and recoils from.

The day is long and long, and long after you have forgotten your own name, or the feel of the fresh brush of sunlight on your skin, you are released out into the bigness of the twilight sky and you can fill your alveoli with air that is moistened from sugarcane and life.

You breathe that warmed air in gulping mouthfuls, filling your cheeks like the guppy at the bottom of the fluorescent fish tank you have left behind. Fare you well little fish, and all of you big fish, stuck in your tank of surreal activity.

‘Til next time.

And you silently cross your fingers, hoping with futile desire that there won’t be a next time.

But you know better.

…and so does she

My friend had breast cancer.

When you have cancer, and somehow the body that grew those rogue cells is able to overcome them, people say that you are lucky. That always makes me cringe. I know they are talking about the fact that you had the Big C and are still here to tell the tale, but from what I’ve seen, it doesn’t look very lucky.

Have you ever looked at cancer cells under the microscope? Even if you know nothing about histology, when you see them, you know something has gone terribly wrong. Under the microscope, there is an organisation and structure to normal cells, and in fact, the cells of each organ have distinctive features. So you can tell the difference between a thyroid cell and a liver cell, a heart and a lung. Cancer is not something from the outside, it is those self-same cells, but they are in a death rush to end it all. They are multiplying and dividing and multiplying again, in some frenzied tornado of reproduction, so that they become some mutated, ugly cousin of the original cells, hideously echoing the family traits.

Their evolution is like Gremlins, but they have the malevolent fury of something from the other side of the Pet Semetary.

I despise them.

My friend had breast cancer.

It ravaged and contorted and shrank her body, killing her from the inside out, just as mine swelled and glowed and created a new life.

She used to talk to my fecund, streched skin, right up close, whilst I was doing for her the only thing my hands know how to do for people in pain. I would rub away on her tissues from the outside, hoping that I was erasing some of those cells deep within. She would tell my baby all sorts of things, and I now realise I was squirrelling those stories up, like quotes in one of those “Words of Wisdom” books, saving them for the Winter of my empty.

When someone you love dies, that is all you have. Photos, stories and perhaps some things that they used to wear. Nothing new gets added as the years mount up, so you have to save up those fragments and slips of ideas that you shared, and store them deep inside, for it is all you will ever have. Nothing new will be added, not ever. So those fragile wisps must be wrapped lightly in the most delicate of tissue papers, and stored in a box with plenty of air around them, so they can breathe and retain their shape and stay precious and safe.

When my friend used to talk to my ripening abdomen, I was often struck by the thought that we were both growing things within us. She talked to mine, she told it to be good and healthy and strong and creative and funny and to pop out at home in a rush of bursting life. I talked silently to her’s and told it to fuck right off and leave her alone and have our business done and done and over and done.

Mine listened. Her’s did not.

So now I count off the years gone, in the milestones of my daughter. Every December as Christmas draws near, I wait for the punch in the guts and I struggle and claw myself past that day on the calendar fearful that if I go down, it will kick and kick me, as I cower on the floor. I hold myself rigid as I think of the people who have more right than me to grieve, the people who share those very same cell lines that took her down. And I think of the love of her life, and the hole that he has somehow filled with wonderful things, old and new.

I don’t even know what to say to them any more.

My friend had breast cancer, and she didn’t let it stop her one bit. Until it stopped her for good.

She was not one of the lucky ones.

None of them are.

RIP Rick. Miss you. Still.

…From The Ashers

My beach has many faces. From the crisp moment of stillness as the sun first nudges over the horizon, to the very last seconds of cosy light, when the sun from sets behind, picking out the last of the whitecaps of the day, and turning them golden.

My favourite visage is the late afternoon.

Our shadows lengthen, stretching out from our feet and making us like Daddy Long Legs, all gangly and strange. The bite has gone out of the sun, as if she too is slowing down, getting ready to be tucked up into bed. Yet my back still glows with warmth as I watch the children play in the washing-machine swirling of the whitewater, bashing themselves in the rips and ebbs of the rushing tide.

The surfers all run to the beach in the afternoon, desperate to wash off their workday and grab themselves a piece of a wave, something all for themselves, riding along with grins like watermelon slices, punching the air and whooping like children as they cover their skin with salty renewal, rinsing clean the salt of toil. There is a fervent energy to the afternoon surf, as all of nature tries to cram just one more thing into the day, before feeding time

This time of day places me back in all of the summers of my childhood. The crackly feeling of the salty sand on my arms, and the delicious afterglow of sunburn on my back that will last all night, warm and scratchy on my sheets, refusing to be washed off. Back to a time when a smear of white zinc cream on the nose to prevent freckles was the height of sun safety. Those days were longer than our shadows, and we spent entire days on the beach, digging ourselves into coolwet holes and making castles for urchins to live in.

The skin on our noses resisted the meagre protection from the zinc and the hard peeling skin sloughed off in scabs, leaving brown dots below, but the rest of our bodes were tan with all of the rays they absorbed, as we grew strong and resistant to the baking heat.

As our muscles grew stronger and we learned to read the changeable churning of the waves, our parents allowed us the freedom to swim out beyond the break, away from the screeches of the little kids and the noises of civilisation. We paddled through the waves, to where the water was calm and we could sit on our boards, looking out to sea for the biggest waves (always the second of the set, we said) and casually scanning the horizon for dorsal fins. Every now and then some wag would hum the eerie “Da Dum” of the dreaded theme song, and we would laugh with bravado to hide the shifting shiver of slick grey fear.

When the shadows started to grow, our parents would hold up their towels like flags, the semaphore of: time to come in, we’ve had enough, we want a beer and a charred sausage to cheer the day off.

We would all catch the same waves in, no jostling for position this time, just riding the surge all the way into shore until our skegs caught the sand, mooring us back on the land. Back to our lives.

May your Summer afternoons be golden and your shadows be long.

…From The Ashers

I saw something in my Facebook feed today about the conscious and the subconscious: about how our conscious mind makes a decision and then our subconscious works on the details of how to arrive. I like hearing about all these discussions of the mind(s) and it got me to thinking: how many minds do we actually have? I read something else last week that was talking about the importance of the gut in our health, and it was suggesting that there are cells that exhibit memory in that region. I think they were calling the gut the ‘little brain’.

I find it interesting, this segmental way of thinking, suggesting that we have all of these tiny sub-compartments within us, competing to get their points across, in addition to working along in the harmony of homeostasis with all of the other fragments.

Quite a long while ago Renee Decartes said, “I think, therefore I am” and from then on we decided that the mind was primary and that there was at least one separation- that of the brain and the body.

But what unifies it all?

Of course my professional bias begs me to say that the brain and the nerve system controls it all, organising and orchestrating the intricate dance of our cells.

And although my intellectual mind (see- another mind) agrees, and as I write, is searching around my corpuscles for more truths to back up this statement, what if this is not the case?

What if, there are no separate minds/parts/segments? What if, somehow, every cell is interconnected to all of the other cells, communicating freely, sharing information, memories and desires with all of the other cells, as if as one? A complete whole. Which would make us beings without boundaries within.

When Coco gets her transfusions, she undergoes an almost immediate change. Well before even a quarter of the new blood is distilled into her veins, she becomes a little of something (someone?) else. I understand that some of the shift will be the haemoglobin, and the relief and the increase in energy, but there is something more. And the result is different with each bag of blood.

Now blood cells do not contain DNA, the part of the cells that science tells us is what makes us “us”. So how does she do this? How does a two year old child, with a child’s vocabulary and understanding of jokes, start reeling of a routine of ‘knock-knock’ jokes? How does her personality morph, just for a while? I know what science will say, and I agree with some of it.

But some of it is still a mystery.

And a thrilling mystery at that.

I think I might like it that way.

See what happens when I wake up at 5am to write? Hmmm…

…From The Ashers

A long time ago, one of my friends told me a story about how she only had five friends. We laughed at the time, but as the years passed I began to think that perhaps that was about right. We know more people than that of course, and we often have friends for various activities in our lives: the exercise friend, the straight-talking friend, the partying friend, but really, when you think of the people in this world who really have your back, the ones who know all about you, and somehow still like you anyway, there’s only a handful, isn’t there? Five, six, maybe eight tops.

Last year one of my top five died. You RRs know her by now of course, but if you’re new here, her name was Hayley and she bloody lit up the room whenever she entered. I wish you could’ve met her. She called my on my nonsense and she somehow knew just what to say to lift me up, no matter what the cause. A friend like that is rare and valuable. If you have one, cherish the fuck out of them. Because you are lucky.

So, in many of our long languid Queensland days, where we would chat and laugh for what felt like forever (we thought it would last forever, why couldn’t it last forever, dammit?), we named our top five, and, just for fun (and because we were sometimes assholes) we ranked them in order.

I was Hayley’s third best friend, and there was always much banter around that. I would joke of how I would knock Number One and Two off their perches one day.

But my friend Hayley died, and I never got the chance.

So now the rankings are set in stone, forevermore.

A little while ago BabyMac ran a competition for a gorgeous Uberkate silver banner necklace, stamped with the words of your choice. On a particularly grievish day I entered, boring poor Beth with the story of my sadness, yet one more time. I wanted to win so badly I even pulled out the Jamie Oliver card- sending her a pic of all three of us girls; Numbers One, Two and Three, and Jamie, relegated to a zero these days, with no Hayley around to shuffle the rankings.

And because Beth has a heart that is as kind and as sweet and full of substance as an Anne Cake, she let me win.

So the rankings shall stay as they are: Carlsy (and James, yes I know, you are 1b Jamesey), Jo and I. And now we have necklaces to prove it.

They don’t fix anything.

In fact, they might make things a little worse for a time. Because in wearing them, we recall our missing friend even more. The heft of it pressing on the sternum makes it a little hard to breathe at times. Perhaps it is heavier than it’s actual weight. It feels like it. But after a while, I hope it will get lighter, or perhaps I will adapt to the feeling.

I’m not sure if I want to.

And people will probably be attracted to it’s lustre. They will read the words, and they may ask what it means. And I will be able to tell them about my friend, talk her back into the world a little, make a space for her in the days that go on, even though she does not.

Lest we forget.

They are beautiful and shiny and bright, these necklaces. I am grateful to Beth and to Kate for them.

They reflect the light in a way that reminds me of my friend.

…From The Ashers

It has come to my attention that I might be a bit competitive.

I have two children, and I never let them win at games, because: character building. In fact the eldest just got his first pair of contact lenses, and we may be having competitions to see who can pop them in first. I have the very slight advantage of wearing contacts every day for the last twenty nine years. (But if you want to know, I am whipping that kid.)

Tonight I went to Coles, and I was doing that thing with a nubile young thing in tiny exercise shorts and taut brown skin. You know, when you pass each other in the middle of each aisle as you approach from opposite directions, because you are shopping at the same pace.

So I picked up my pace a little. “In your face, young thing”, I thought, as I prepared to intersect, not in the middle, but more up her end, near the salsa.

But she had mysteriously sped up too.

As soon as I got out of her eye-shot I hot-footed it around the bend only to find she was also moving quite swiftly. “I’ll show you, youthful one,” I sneered to myself, “I’ve been shopping a lot longer than you, and I already know which brands contain the dodgy numbers and which ones are the best value, I’ll sort you out once you have to stop and check where Greenseas catch their tuna. Or something.”

The thing was, as I picked up more and more speed, so did she. My old legs were beginning to tire. Hers were showing no signs of letting up. In fact, I think she was just coming into her stride. Faster and faster I went, grabbing any old stuff on the fly, filling the trolley with honey (I think we need some), toilet paper (we’re sure to need it someday) and eggs (we always need those little chicken menstruations to feed the ferals).

Finally, we had a little sprint at the end and arrived at the registers at the same time. I looked at her, she looked at me. I made the controversial decision: Self Scanning.

And you better believe I scanned those goodies like an Aldi checkout chick on cola. My biceps were bulging with the effort, my brachioradialis was burning with the speed. People were turning their heads, and staring in awe and disbelief. Or they were just looking around to see what all the grunting was about.

Finally, I escaped out of the refrigerated muzak box that is our local Coles, and into the freedom of the humid evening, basking, basking at my success. Shopping Superstar, 2014: Beating fit young chicks at the shops since 1991

I waltzed along in the afterglow of elation, secure in the knowledge that I may be ancient, but I can still pip the next generation at the post.

When suddenly, from behind me, there was a clash and a clatter of a trolley. And not any kind of trolley. I could tell by the cadence of the casters it was one of those svelte new mid-week shop specials, you know the ones with the wheels that actually turn and the smaller baskets? I turned my head as if in slow motion: my nemesis. She had a swift trolley, muscular legs and the eye of the tiger. I stepped up the pace as she caught up and passed me, racing to her car, which happened to be parked next to mine.

I pushed and pulled my dinosaur trolley as fast as my creaking articulations would allow, sweating now with the effort and keening internally at the anguish of being stripped of my prize.

We opened our car boots, me with an automatic push button thing, her with an old school key. We unpacked our trolleys bag for bag, hearts racing towards the goal. (Well mine was racing like I was about to have a coronary- her’s was probably beating at an even 68.)

Finally we were done, at almost the precise same moment. The moment of truth was upon us. To return the trolleys, or not?

I eyed off the distance. I questioned my ethics. And as I always do in these moments, I asked myself: What would my Dad* do? There really was nothing else for it. Trolley Return. I ran with the spirit of my deceased father spurring me on, I ran for all old ladies everywhere, I ran to prove that we are NOT old and irrelevant. I ran even though my shrivelled menopausal uterus was threatening to prolapse onto the asphalt. I ran for freedom. (Well, maybe not freedom. I may have been getting carried away. But I AM pretty sure Chariots of Fire was playing softly somewhere.)

I chanced a glance over my shoulder, only to see my competitor safely ensconced in her vehicle, trolley pushed haphazardly over near the planter boxes. SHE CHOSE NOT TO RETURN IT. As she slowly reversed her 1992 Fiesta into the traffic, she wound down her window (manually of course), and our eyes locked. Hers: bright and twinkling with victory, mine: rheumy and faded with defeat. She turned up her radio and the sound of some doof-doof-doof tune of success filled the night air.

I hung my head, with the shame of defeat and the heaviness of ethics bearing down on me. I shuffled back to my car, glancing at her abandoned trolley as I passed. In it, was a bag. I went over to inspect it, and, lo, she had neglected to unpack her final bag. It contained a few boring things, and then, the bounty:

Dairy Milk Bubbly, on special today for $2.

So I have some final words for you P-Plate-Princess, some pearls of wisdom from the older generation, something perhaps to enhance your life and make you a better person:

Suck Shit.    (To the victor goes the spoils.)

*AKA the most ethical man in the Universe.

Do you return your trolley?

…From The Ashers

*AKA the most ethical man in the Universe.