IN A FASHION.

The Author in Her Modelling Days in the Eighties

When you look inside your wardrobe does your heart sink?

Mine does.  I have some nice things: dresses, tops, shirts, pants, jackets for every type of weather, skirts and leggings.  There is, at one and the same time, too much and too little choice.  Men do not understand why members of the opposite sex bleat, "I have nothing to wear", when their wardrobes are filled to capacity.

But we don't have enough to wear.  There is no such thing as the perfect outfit.  My problem is that I am a comfort junky who also insists on being well groomed and colour coordinated.  These are diametrically opposite considerations.   When my mother lived in a nursing home, she wouldn't let her carers dress her in clothes that didn't coordinate.

Mum and I never agreed on each other's tastes, but her standards were ingrained in me at such an early age, it is as if the moment I enter my walk-in robe she is talking in my head.  Just so she feels really at home she holds court in my wardrobe for I have placed her ashes on a shelf therein temporarily until she tells me where she'd like to be scattered.

So far I think she's happy in the wardrobe tut-tutting the condition of my shoes.  Her shoes were always in perfect condition and she never understood why mine actually wore down.  Mind you she had at least fifty pairs in boxes neatly stacked on the floor of her wardrobe.  She also didn't have bunions.

My preference is for clothes that have some give in them.  The new fabrics with Elastane in the weave have been a boon to all women who are not the square, leaner hipped shape of men, but have curves that swerve out wherever their genetic make-up dictates.

Pants are my particular nemesis because I hate anything that cuts into my waist.  My ribs are too close to my hips so that no matter how thin I am, there is never enough space for a wide belt and, also, any bought clothes that have waists are too tight around mine.  A short waist adds at least 3cm to the width that is the norm for your fashion size.

I recently bought a pair of jeans for the first time in three decades because some now come with Elastane in them.  Occasionally I wear them but I find jeans too hot in summer and too cold in winter.  Obviously I'm a rarity as the whole world, male and female, adores jeans.

Two years ago I lost some weight so that my carefully chosen, fitted pants hang on me.  That leaves leggings which I love but I can hear Mum tut-tutting that they are not suitable for work no matter how much men like my butt in them.  Also you can't tuck anything into them.  You have to wear a top that fits over them.  For work I must tuck my shirt in so I found a great pair of pants with Elastane that are pull on but look tailored.

I wore them to death and do you think I can find another pair when I want to?  Of course not.  Well to be truthful, I have been able to find some on occasion, but I sew.  This means I can get the same fabric and make a pattern from the old pants and make them for a quarter of the cost.  They look just as good as the bought pair.  I make them in various colours to match different tops.

The trouble is that unless pants or skirts have a belt or a waist, nothing really looks good tucked into them.  This is where I'm a stickler for detail.  Unfortunately the one thing I can't change is my waist.  Well I could with enough money and if had my lower ribs removed but this seems a bit radical for a woman who isn't Cher.

In the morning or before going out at night, it takes me forever to decide what I should wear.  Here's how my thinking goes, say for a summer dress:

I like that one but it's too hot for today.  It's humid in Brisbane even when it's not too hot.  I discovered early on that polyester is the enemy in this town.  My skin just can't breathe when I wear it.
One dress is too frilly, one too formal and with no stretch.
There's another I only wore once when I went to a party on the wrong night.  The couple invited me in for a drink anyway and I demurred.  A week later the husband hanged himself and I've felt superstitious about wearing the dress ever since.  I really must throw it in the bin but it's a lovely dress.
A couple more dresses are halter or backless and just won't do for what I'm planning that day.
Another is too Hausfrau and another is cool and bright but a bit shapeless.

That's when I reach for my all purpose standby black, stretch, singlet top, short dress, the one that is my second skin.  I live in it on weekends.  I've tried to copy it but bought the wrong material.  The knit was too loose and the outcome was a disaster.  I just don't know what I'm going to do when the little black dress disintegrates.

I like skirts and tops as an alternative to dresses in summer.  I bought a great skirt that fitted and then couldn't find another like it.  Instead of cutting it up to make a pattern I found an old Butterick pattern for a pencil skirt and made a few.  It had a waist band and the pattern piece for this just mocked my waist so I left off the waist band and made it with the top of the skirt having a self-facing instead.  In fact this makes it like the shop bought one.  I've made about six of these now in different colours.  You can never have too many skirts.

I have tried making shirts with some success but haven't quite got the hang of the best fabrics to buy to make them.  I buy shirts now instead and always buy tops.  I have a great selection of stretch tops with fabulous patterns on them.  Lovely as they are I get sick of the same old, same old but I have enough and no excuse to buy any more.

Jackets are items I don't like to wear but must have.  You need jackets for every type of weather and climate.  I have a great selection of these that I collected as I lived in various cities.  None ever seem to serve the purpose when I move to a new place and I have to invest for the new climate.

I have a Parka I never wear here in Brisbane.  I have a wind/rain padded jacket great for early mornings when I drive to work.  It's soft and rolls up easily to put in a big bag I carry in the car.  I have a heavy wool jacket only suitable for a Melbourne winter, a light wool swing jacket, two office type suit jackets, a light linen one and a fake leather one.  All are classics and have outlived fashion trends.

I have a quilted silk evening jacket I bought when I lived in Hong Kong.  It is brightly coloured and I wore it many times.  For some reason I wouldn't be seen dead in it now and I can't put my finger on the reason why.  I also bought a French designer denim jacket with diamantes scattered over the back during the eighties.  It was reduced to a ridiculous price so I snapped it up.  Unfortunately it has bat wing sleeves.  I just can't figure out how to alter it so I just look at it in the wardrobe and sigh.

The Quilted Silk Jacket

I rarely buy anything now.  I just wear things to death and try to buy a replacement if I can't make one.   Clothes I don't wear remain in the wardrobe as a tribute to my past when there was more money and I went out to more functions at night.  I also feel they might come in useful again one day.

In Hong Kong I bought a full length, beaded, black chiffon dress by a well known designer.  The beads are iridescent blue and pewter.  It is a twenties flapper style classic.  I was TINY at the time and now, although slim, I look like a full-length black brick in it.  Anyway there is nowhere to wear it here.

I bought its matching jacket which I'll never part with and is superb.  I couldn't sell the dress on eBay even for a quarter of its price.  It also weighs an absolute ton.

I have collected sweaters over the years and most of them reside in a sealed plastic bag.  I always have this silly thought there may be a disaster one day and we'll need all the clothes we have stored away.  But is it worth it, I ask myself?  If the bag wasn't sealed the moths could get in and I'd have an excuse to throw them away.

What about charity bins you say?  Those things are always filled to the brim and again, no one in Brisbane, unless they are homeless and sleeping in a park in winter, needs the kind of sweaters that take up storage space in my house.

Every five to eight years I possess only two nighties at a time.  When these fall to bits I buy two more that are just right for comfort and temperature for the next five to eight years.  My husband followed by my partner both threatened to throw them away.  I also have one teen bra and seven pairs of flesh coloured and black knickers.  I only started wearing a bra five years ago as I could feel bouncing going on when I drive the taxi ten hours per day.  I wear it as a prevention measure against sagging.

I realise that what lies beneath my clothes is of no importance to me.  Underwear must just be comfortable and invisible through my clothes.  Where I can get away with being lazy and badly groomed, I do, but never on the surface.

What I have noticed is that, as fashion has changed and become shabbier and more casual, women have started to buy underwear that is more structured, lacy and feminine, such as the kind for which Victoria's Secret is famous.  This means I am the opposite of most of my gender.

It must be lovely to be a royal with a person who is your dresser.  This person chooses your outfit for the occasion, knows your likes and dislikes, maintains your clothes, gets rid of them when they are used, saving you the feelings of guilt, washes items before they are put away so that they don't develop brown stains as some clothes do that you think are clean before you put them in your wardrobe.  She would clean out the muck that accumulates on the inside of your shoes and make sure there is rubber on the soles and heels.  She is the fairy god mother of the wardrobe.

Wouldn't it be great if you got up, had breakfast, showered, brushed your teeth, did your make-up and then stood before your wardrobe.  The wardrobe mistress would step out, wave her magic wand and, poof, you would be perfectly outfitted without even having to think about looking in the mirror.  You wouldn't even have to do the contortions required to put on your pantyhose and these would never have a run in them.

She would then allow you to do your hair while she fetched your handbag, cleaned it out of old tissues, receipts and removed hair from your comb.  She would place in it the touch-up makeup and a lipstick to match your outfit that you would need for the day, make sure your charged phone, credit cards, license, clean tissues, money and keys were inside and then hand it to you before you walk nonchalantly out the door that she closes and locks behind you.  She also checks that the stove is off as is the iron, because, after all, you never have to use it.

One can but dream. 

My all time favourite dress

THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE.

The Winning Spermatozoon

You know what it's like when someone asks you what is the best book you've ever read or best film you've seen? I honestly couldn't name one from either of the two categories.

I've enjoyed quite a lot of both but there are none that top either list.  Also, as I grow older, a lot of things lose their original impact.

When I see a film for the first time, I may really like it, but later it will blend in with all the other good ones that I remember.  It's the same with a good time.  Something may be momentous when it happens, but will gradually become just a part of the large quilt of experiences that make up my life.

I have many happy memories but oddly there are three separate days that really stand out in memory and it is because of their dreadfulness.  They were the kind of awful that, at the time, detached me momentarily from reality.  Each involved the extraordinary behavior of people I knew and loved.

I am not about to recount the events but they stand out as crystalline episodes of horror.  I don't dwell on them at all and they came to mind as a comparison when I had the idea to write a blog about my happiest memories.  I'd rather not remember these unhappy ones but they made me wonder why my happy memories don't compare with them in intensity.

When I tried to think of my happiest memories the three bad ones presented themselves as memories that spring vividly to mind, while the happy ones tended to homogenize into a whole.  This concerned me and I had to think of why this had occurred.

I do have very happy memories.  I really gave this some thought and came to an interesting conclusion but will take you along the lines of thinking that led me to it.

Do the memories of the unhappy episodes stand out because of some survival instinct?  Is it the shock value of an event that imprints it so distinctly on my mind?

The happy memories have no shock value.  There may be the element of surprise but not of shock.  The happy experiences are also usually longer lasting and as such, the time frame is less concentrated and intense than an unhappy experience.

I thought about the day I was married, being the usual generic notion of a happy day.  Is that a happy memory of mine?  In a word 'no'.  I hate weddings and wanted to elope and spend the money on a honeymoon but my mother insisted.  I spent the morning detailing my car to keep my mind off the coming ceremony and post-celebration.  I also hate wedding dresses and can't understand people who save for years for the ceremony and reception rather than spending it all on a honeymoon.  This isn't criticism, I just don't relate to them.

Well, didn't I enjoy it at the end of the day?  No, I breathed a sigh of relief when it was all over.  In fact that made me happy.  There's nothing like relief to make you happy.  I do credit my parents with giving a wonderful reception at our home.  I only wish my heart had been in it.

What about having a baby, which is meant to be one of your happiest days?  No, it hurt and I felt too sick to be overcome with joy.  I loved the result but only after I was capable of feeling normal again.  It is a very foolish thing to make women think that they should be overwhelmed with joy after they give birth.  I'm sure many feel guilty when they don't feel this way.  Some women do, of course, but most are too exhausted or overwhelmed after the experience to feel immediate joy.  Some births are kinder than others naturally which helps mother and child bonding.

My mother did a rather sweet thing before I had my son.  I asked her if giving birth to me had hurt.  She said she was too anesthetized to really notice.  Afterwards I told her it had been incredibly painful and that she must have been lucky.  I had also been given two epidurals, one when the other wore off.  "No," she said, "I lied.  I didn't want  to worry you."

It's unexpected things that make people happy.  For me it's a beautiful day, the sight of the ocean or some other body of water, the quality of sunlight or a storm.  Nature has always been my greatest source of joy.

Having eyesight makes me happy.  I couldn't enjoy life without mine.  I'm not a bit musical and can live without music entirely.  I love silence and the sounds of nature.  I love the smell of the beach and an ocean breeze.

Living in Hong Kong for three years is one of my happiest memories.  Some bad things also happened there but my love of the place was such a buffer these faded away.  Most of all the memory of where I grew up makes me happy.  I was lucky enough to live in the most beautiful place in Australia.

It had an incomparable view of water and headlands.  The colours changed with every angle of the sun and the weather changed the mood and colour of the water.  There was nothing like it when, after a sunny day with a dazzling blue sky and calm water, a Southerly buster blew in and the water whipped up into frothy tips, dark clouds swirled above it and lighting forks split the sky.

Sadly my parents sold the place to retire and I mourn the loss of it to this day.  I am still eternally grateful to have experienced my childhood in such a beautiful setting.  I honestly feel that I am a part of it that has been torn from the whole and, like the Flying Dutchman, destined to wander forever detached from it.  Better to have loved and lost, as they say, than never to have loved at all.

The people in my life have proved to be problematical.  I need and love the people to whom I am close but all relationships require constant negotiation and tactical redistribution according the moods of those involved in them.

I try to be constant and amenable but I'm still accused of being difficult on occasion.  I often think this is because of the other party's change of mood.  You know the situation: "It's not me, it's you."  The problem is, it is all relative no matter who is right and who is wrong.  Perhaps no one is right or wrong.  Certainly there are rarely winners.

I do know, however, when I'm in a mood.  I feel guilty about it and even tend to apologise instead of just letting it rip.  As an only child to a charming yet depressive mother prone to moods I learned to do what I call 'the Boston two step' around her throughout my childhood.  This is a bad habit as it didn't prepare me to deal with other people.

I am strong and do stand up for myself, but even when I do I tend to see what the other party is thinking and see myself from their point of view.  When I was married and at twenty-four years of age I finally stood up to my mother and lost my temper with her.  She hardly spoke to me for the next six months.

My father had always been oblivious to her nature.  He didn't understand people at all but just treated everyone well and the same.  The result was that he never understood why my mother and I fought.  Eventually after he died my mother mellowed and we became close in the way I had always wanted.  It may have been late in the day but it finally happened.

Holidays and vacations away always give me pleasure because I love to explore the unknown.  I haven't had the money for a while and this has been very frustrating.  It's not cause for unhappiness though because I am healthy.  I wasn't for a long time.  I suffered from Chronic Fatigue for twenty-four years.  I first came down with it when everyone thought it was a psychological condition.

Because I had previously suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Panic Attacks, it was assumed I was imagining things.  The fact that I had overcome both those conditions didn't seem to count.  Gradually the medical profession along with other professionals realised it was physiological.  That was a relief in itself.  I was fortunate in that the condition gradually lifted five years ago.  I was thrilled to bits.  Life became easier again and it's so great to feel good that lack of money doesn't matter.

That brings me to what really was the happiest day of my life.  I can say unequivocally that it was the day I was born.  Being born is a privilege and there'll always be bad along with the good.  The fact is I'm here to experience everything as opposed to not being here.

Life is a happy surprise which is why, I believe, that it's the awful days that create the strongest memories.  They don't add up to much in the whole span of my life so I can count the number of these, whereas I can't count the happy ones because there are too many.  The former are too rare in the happy event that is life.  There are days that are neither happy or sad but just run of the mill.  At least they seem run of the mill.  Just have flu for a week or feel rotten for some other reason and you'll come back to 'run of the mill' and revel in it.  Sometimes, we just take things for granted.  The fact that we do is positive in a way.  It means nothing really bad is going on.  I think that's all part of being happy.

I like to imagine the little spermatozoon, that made up one half of me, swimming against millions of other hopeful, competing spermatoza towards the egg that made up my other half.  It's the first race I ever won.  It made me the unique person I am against so much competition.  I am not going to fail the little guy by not enjoying myself now that I'm here.

THE END.

ELLIOT'S FIRST BIRTHDAY.

 

For my grandson Elliot Dessaix    

on his first birthday, March 5, 2014

PART 2 - A 1959 ROAD TRIP AROUND AUSTRALIA.

Tenant Creek part of the Red Centre

I finished the last instalment at Katherine in the Northern Territory but didn't add anything about Alice Springs, the town situated in the centre of the Australian Continent or Tennant Creek.

Above is a tableland at Tennant Creek, a place known for its Gold and Copper mines.  It lies between Alice Springs and Darwin.

In 'the Alice', as it is known, we visited a church named after Doctor John Flynn who started the The Royal Flying Doctor Service.  This wonderful service is still operating throughout the Outback, flying to towns and properties where patients need medical attention and often flying them out to hospital.
 

The John Flynn Memorial Church, Alice Springs

Another feature of Alice Springs is Katherine Gorge and scenery that inspired our most famous Aboriginal painter, Albert Namatjira.

Katherine Gorge near Alice Springs

A landscape reminiscent of an Albert Namatjira painting

A Painting by Albert Namatjira

The landscape in South Australia had been dry and dirty beige but mostly the Outback was red and dusty.  I found the red outback quite beautiful.  It doesn't seem harsh with its white ghost gums and azure blue sky contrasting with the red ochre dirt.

A Beer Bottle Tree

We drove past an interesting piece of flora in the desert landscape.  It was a variation of a Bottle Brush, or Banksia plant, for which Australia is renowned.  This one was covered in real beer bottles and the actual tree quite dead.  I wonder if it's still there all these years later.  It may even have grown, in bottles that is or given rise to others.

I remember little of Darwin except another church that still stands today and for its time from very modern.

Darwin Uniting Memorial Church

Dad was a devout Catholic and it says something that this church appeared in his photographs.  He was nothing if not ecumenical and a church was a church to him.  I think, however, he was more interested in the architecture which was very new for its time.

A Termite Mound, something actually bigger than Gordon

From Darwin we headed around the Gulf of Carpentaria and stopped at a coastal town north of Normanton called Karumba.  Prue and I swam in the water in a pool made by enclosing pylons.  I knew there were sharks there, I didn't know there were crocodiles, but as there was so little vegetation, these must have remained in the river estuary.  Now to a girl, this place was interesting.

Gordon Brown gets to pull in a Shark

Kim and Prue with what's left of the Shark

Kim with a local girl

Gordon with a boar he has shot

The owner of the hotel in which we stayed was a famous crocodile hunter.  We later saw him at the movies in a documentary in which he hunted them.  That's him above with Gordon looking at the poor dead boar Gordon shot.  As you may remember if you read the first instalment, after shooting an eagle, my father refused to hunt anymore.  He went along and took the photo but that's all he shot.

I remember my mother, Bev, Mollie Brown, Prue and I having toasted cheese sandwiches for lunch in the dining room.  We were the only people there.  It's one of funny things that come back to mind but the cheese toast was cut into three strips.  My nimble fingers always went for the centre one without the crusts.  There were quite a few slices of toast and when I went for another centre piece, my mother firmly told me to leave it for someone else.  It was the prize piece and I never forgot this little lesson in manners in the wild coastal town.

I managed to upset the mother of the little aboriginal girl in the photo with whom Prue and I played.  I asked the little girl, in all innocence, why she was always so sandy.  This got back to her mother who helped in the hotel kitchen and it turned out I had insulted the little girl.  I would never have done so deliberately and my mother realised this.  I didn't get to apologise, not that I would have managed without putting my foot innocently in my mouth again.  The mother was fired from the kitchen on an unrelated matter about, from what I recall, was something to do with stolen scissors.

It was all too complicated for one of seven but I never forgot and felt bad ever after that the little girl had felt insulted.

The local men had caught a shark on a line and they asked Gordon, the man mountain, to pull it in.  We all went down to watch.  What was left of the creature afterwards was framed about Prue and I, the jaws still dripping with blood.

There were bigger jaws all around the wall of the pub or restaurant at the water's edge.  It was a wild place at the back of beyond and I loved it.

We moved on through dry, hot desert towns in Queensland's outback before coming upon lush cane fields where harvesting was underway.  What I remember of coastal Queensland was the lovely shades of green of the foliage and how lush everything was.  I fell in love with it and its why I live here now.

An Outback Town in the Northern Territory or Queensland

Our Holden FJ with boulders

Brumbies, wild horses, in the Outback

The old fashioned way to plant sugar cane, Queensland

Three flowers probably in Cairns

We arrived at the coast probably at Cairns judging from the photo of myself, Mum and the orchids above.  Then we made our way down the coast to Mission Beach.  I fell in love with the place.  It looks over to Dunk Island, a famous Whitsunday Resort Island known for its spectacular blue, iridescent butterflies.

Kim and Prue riding Gordon at Mission Beach, Queensland

No matter how everyone assured me there were no deadly box jellyfish in the water in June, as it was the wrong season, I wouldn't get down from Gordon's shoulders when he went in the water.  Really, I didn't.  Later as our parents set up camp and the evening meal, Prue and I dug a hole in the sand, lay in it and watched as evening fell.  I fell asleep in the warm sand.  I remember that to this day and the lovely time we had there.

After this we went on a boat to explore the Whitsunday Islands.

Bev, my mother, looking like a Vogue model in the Whitsundays

On Green Island there lived a scientist, whose name I have forgotten, with his wife.  He had studied the marine life there for years.  We met them both and they gave us a tour of the island.

Scientist who lived on and studied Green Island

Scientist on left, his wife, second from right, and others on Green Island off Cairns, Queensland

I was very excited to find a TV character staying on one of the islands.  He hosted a television show as a captain.  Of course I can't remember the name of the show but I remember being thrilled to be in the presence of a real live television personality.  Below he salutes as we leave, making my day complete.

TV Captain on a Whitsunday Island

There is so much more from earlier in the trip I could have included in the first instalment, however it is taking me an eternity to scan the slides that my father so carefully stored away.  I had to look at each one to see what was on it.  This proved no easy task.  Just when I had enough slides on disk this blog decided it wouldn't take BMP or PDF files and so I have had to convert them.

The slides will grow old and mildewed and I am trying to save them all.  This is my history that I leave for my son and his children.  I think it is wonderful that photography has allowed us to look into the past and preserve memories.

The girl I was then as I travelled with my parents around Australia in 1959

I still feel so young.  I am basically young in mind and body now at 61 years of age.  I don't look my age.  But looking back into this past seems almost like another person's life.  Yet I remember it.  I look fondly at the photos and the young girl in them.  She is almost like a daughter to me.  I know her future and wish I could tell her so many things to protect her and to stop her taking certain paths.  But she knew then, as she does now, that life is good and she loved the environment and always will.

But if I had changed things, I wouldn't have the son I have now or my new grandson.  I am just grateful for my past, all of it.  I treasure the memories my father has left me here, for he recorded them.  I treasure my parents, now passed away.  The trip around Australia was the best of my life because I was ready for it and the country is magic.  It filled me with its spirit and fortified me for the future.

That's All Folks

So long.  Drive straight and true.

THE END.