Caught by Surprise
In honour of salmon gums and nostalgia
I went to two beautiful celebrations of life this week. Both older people, friends of my parents, who had lived and loved fully. In their photo montages, I saw images of mum and dad as a young married couple. Old black and whites, with dad bashfully looking at his feet and mum peeking out from beneath a sailor’s cap with an impish smile. There was also a picture of them together with dad’s large hand clapsed firmly around her waist. And another of him, proud and tall, with my sister in his arms as a baby.
The photos caught me right in the centre of the chest. A quietly delivered sucker punch that knocked the wind out of me. Not that it was unexpected to see their photos in amongst the others, but more that it struck me how dramatically — how essentially — life had changed since my childhood.
In one of the eulogies, our family friend told a story of how his dad (my father’s best friend) went flying with another mate in an open cockpit Tiger Moth. When he climbed into the front seat, he discovered the joystick was missing, so they just fashioned one out of a sapling, and jammed it in slot. Bingo! Kangaroo hops in the sky over the wheatbelt.
There were tales of country life in the 1960’s. Greeting the day on the front verandah to watch a mate doing aerial acrobatics and have him swoop the house. Milking the cow at dawn in a tux and bow tie, on the way home from an all night party. Picnics at “the rock” where the children roamed surefooted and unaccompanied over the steep granite monolith. Waterskiing on the salt lakes until dusk. Body surfing the dry wheatbelt shrubs, just for the hell of it. And of course the never-to-be-forgotten football matches of ’61 and ’65 and ’72, and their symbiotic CWA afternoon teas of square cut ham sandwiches, jam scones and scalding hot tea.
The stories brushstroked a picture of innocence, pleasure-seeking, possibility, and friendship. An era where recklessness was met with no more than a shake of the head, and people just dealt with the consequences of their actions. It also spoke of Time. No computers, mobile phones, or connectivity. Just the daily rhythm of people going about their lives, long dusty drives to reach a destination, and the dogged pursuit of camaraderie.
It’s no secret to those who knew them, that my parents loved to socialise. Many nights I spent making Arabian tent palaces with sheets and pillows, in our car, parked outside the local bowls club. Or ran wild in the balmy, gum-scented dark, playing hide and seek to the backdrop of clinking glasses and hoarse adult laughter. Most legendary though, was the pedal powered military-style kid’s jeep. Tied and towed behind two pushbikes down a sandy slope, it became a race car, a steaming locomotive — a way to fly.
And I flew. Or at least my imagination did. Fuelled by freedom, the circle of friendships, the presence of nature, and the space to breathe.
The sucker punch has left an ache in me, a longing for how I was then — slightly tremulous, warm in my bones, stretched long and lying on the thick branch of a salmon gum, dreaming.
