Friday, July 29, 2011

Spectral

I have a work colleague I particularly like and in the last year a unique bond has grown between us as we chewed over our shared long distance relationships and the emotional curve balls they have thrown our way. We’ve commiserated over separations which come around all too often and congratulated ourselves on love’s triumph over physical distance.

Her situation is much worse than mine, her partner is further away and their future more tenuous. Lately it’s been overwhelming for her, as her Sydney domestic life crumbled she felt the keen absence of her long distance partner, confessing through tears that she was finding the distance too difficult. In her endearing Eastern European accent she explained that it ‘was like being in love with the ghost’.

I know how she feels. For the 18 months that the Country Mouse and I have been what my mother quaintly described the other day as ‘an item’, his absence, as well as his presence, has been a defining part of our relationship.

There is the difficulty of facing emotional hurdles alone, like a single person, when you actually have a partner. An absent partner is much worse than no partner at all. If you are single you organise your life accordingly. When you are in a relationship you organise your life accordingly. To have a partner who is emotionally with you, but often physically absent, does your head in. It works on many levels, but the one I didn’t expect was how it would affect us socially.

Recently the disparity in our social lives was brought home to me when, at a Hunter Valley based social event, I scanned the room and realised that I now know most of the people in the Country Mouse’s world (good) whereas he still knows almost no-one in mine (not good).

“I DO HAVE FRIENDS YOU KNOW!” I announced suddenly, with conviction. Obviously too suddenly and maybe with just a little too much conviction because the Country Mouse looked at me with a frozen, terrified look. “I know you do!” he answered sensing instinctively that a strong affirmation was needed despite not knowing why.

I have many close friends he has never met and one in particular used to go further than the standard “when are we ever going to meet this man?” running commentary, joking that the reason we had never met the Country Mouse was because he didn’t exist at all. I had simply made him up (maybe just to create an angle for an angst-ridden blog?). How could, she argued, have so many people in my life have never met this man after so long?

To counter her argument I started to bring to our Sydney social events photographic proof of the Country Mouse’s solidity. By now we have been on enough holidays for there to be evidence, “See...here we are mountain climbing on Lord Howe Island”, “See...here we are snorkelling on Maui”, “See...here we are at dinner at Bondi Icebergs”, “See...here we are on Terrigal Beach”. She remained unconvinced, smiling smugly and purring “Photoshop”.

The Country Mouse’s chief denier argued that I had simply found a random male photo online and photoshopped him into my holiday photos. Of course I could of, so there was no argument, I was defeated. When I miss him and Iook at the empty space beside me I wish he was occupying, the Country Mouse may seem to be like a phantom, but to at least one friend of mine he will always be the Invisible Man.





Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Starry, starry night

I recently read an article in the SMH about Sydney natives who had transplanted themselves to rural cities and towns. They were asked the predictable question - what did they love about their new home - and most of the answers were easy to anticipate: a more relaxed lifestyle, cleaner air and a sense of community.

One unimaginative ex-Sydneysider said that what he liked most was the “lack of traffic jams” (who moves to a rural area because of road congestion?) but one new Hunter Valley resident was right on the money. He said one of the things that made it such a great place to live was “you can see the stars at night”. Absolutely.

The Country Mouse is most amused by my love of the country sky. “Look at the stars, look at the stars” I regularly exclaim to which he replies with typical CM practicality “They are the same stars as in Sydney”. They may be, but you can’t see them in the same way.

I discovered starlight many years ago on a memorable inland road trip through Parkes, a part of inland NSW which has rightfully rebranded itself Big Sky Country. It didn’t lie. Every night the sky was a fairyland and I fell in love with the night sky magic in a way I never anticipated. After that trip the stars and I had a whole new relationship and I now watch the night sky mesmerised.

One of my must dos in Hawaii was to see the Southern Cross in a new position in the sky. Late one night on our O’ahu hotel balcony the Country Mouse found it, low down in the Hawaiian skyline, just a few degrees above the horizon. It felt like a strange connection to home.

When things seem difficult I find comfort in the stars and the moon; I gaze heavenward to see what the moon is up to and which stars are going to reveal themselves. How could Oscar Wilde have got it so right so long ago? “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

Monday, July 11, 2011

Back to the future

The Country Mouse and I are back to reality, but hopefully not for long. Our blissful Hawaiian holiday is now just a memory of halcyon days zip lining through the mountains of Maui, having our own private encounter with a green turtle on the Big Island and the Country Mouse playing bass with the house band at Jimmy Buffet’s restaurant ‘Margaritaville’ in Waikiki.

Reality = I have headed back to my work life in Sydney, while the CM settles back into life in the lower Hunter Valley. Damn.

It’s been frustrating going from the sense of togetherness we had on our Polynesian holiday to ‘face time’ of only about two days per week. House projects are progressing at an agonisingly slow place and I pray that we will return home one day and find a reality show makeover team has paid us a surprise visit. In this particular fantasy they have turned the junked up back room into a funked up chill-out zone and the messy laundry into a sleek washing space.

I am trying to cultivate my inner Buddhist (she used to exist); telling myself this situation is a great opportunity to develop my (virtually non-existent) sense of patience. Yet despite teeth-gnashing frustration on my part the Country Mouse remains almost unflappable. Does nothing rattle this man? He is so naturally Zen about our situation, adopting the attitude that in 12 months time the limitations we live with now, which are the DNA of a long-distance relationship, will be in the past and I will be happily settled in the Hunter wondering why I ever got so emotional about it all.

But this week does see a milestone for us long-distance lovers; I have gone from full-time to part-time work meaning that I now live part of the week in Sydney and part of the week in the country. It’s lots of commuting and I am definitely getting better at it, but it still has its moments.

After my full-time love affair with the F3 went sour (see earlier blog post) I started to train it north as well as drive it.  Alternating between the two on such a big commute is the key to travel sanity, but each of them has their unique moments of angst. My most recent travel to the HV was by train, which for some reason was jammed-full, and my initial thrill at finding a seat was soon crushed when I realised why it was empty.

I had unwittingly stumbled into a dedicated teenage bogan space and because the train was packed they were closing in around me. How close? I could smell them. One young women’s chosen body spray, stale beer and cigarettes, was a particular nasal assault, but I suppose that school holidays are long and you have to fill your time somehow.

For an hour and a half, from Central Station to the Central Coast, they swore/shrieked/screamed/shouted at full volume, but when they started playing their hideous music also at full volume I could be silent no longer. My firm but polite request “Do you have a headset?” met with a foul tirade about being ‘a fuckin’ music hater’.

Realising I was trapped I tried to adopt an out-of-body state of mind, trying hard (and unsuccessfully) to remember the Buddhist practice of detachment My body is here but my mind is somewhere else. It didn’t work. I then plotted my revenge – I would post all kinds of uncharitable things about these train companions on the superbly acidic blog ‘Things Bogans Like’. A crisis of conscience (mine) so far has saved them.

At that moment sitting in the bumper-to-bumper traffic out of Sydney seemed immensely appealing and I thanked the F3 god that my next trip up north was going to be in the privacy of my own vehicle, rather than on the forced intimacy of public transport.

But public transport does have its compensatory moments. When the Country Mouse took me to Newcastle station for my return journey it was a blue, crisp winter morning and I was mesmerised, again, by Newcastle’s working harbour.

As the train pulled away I watched a coal ship come into view, it was heading out toward Nobbys, guided by a tiny tug. It needed to be patient, progress was slow but it was gradually going forward. Soon it would pass between the heads and be out at sea – free – it was on its way to somewhere good. It seemed like a portent and I turned to watch it for as long as I could. As it swung toward the harbour entrance I saw the ship’s name, ‘Sea of Future’. An omen indeed.