Emotional vandalism, the icon and the lion.

Once upon a time there was a woman so beautiful that people would stay away. Not just men though surely they avoided her. But children and women, old people, foreigners, locals. She was confident that she lived well. She knew they stayed away, she knew it affected her parents’ social life. But she was right.

She flowed around their large property. It was of farm like proportions. But it too was an icon of beauty. Every day she would rise early, just beating the sun out of bed. She would stretch languidly as her perfect feet hit the alabaster floor. She would gently approach her balcony and then rest her eyes gently open as the sun drifted up into her world.

One day as she joined the open window at her balcony, a lion cub moved into the corner or at least it seemed to be a lion cub. The peacocks and lorikeets stayed in their perfect trees looking down at the interloper, poised but interested.

Because of that she knew life would never be as she had imagined. The daily joy of her meditation in the gardens, watching dragon flies on the water, sipping iced limey tea.

And because of that she knew her life would be richer beyond measure. Her parents in preparing her for life had ensured she was a figure to behold. But they had not provided the substrate for friendship. The lion cub as it approached the 100 step alabaster staircase showed no reserve. Just an interest and curiosity. Until finally it approached her as she met his stare at the top step. She had never touched an animal before. Never been touched. Her breath sucked in involuntarily. How was her life going to be from now on with this burst of emotional vandalism she was now confronting. Did this cub, this gentle creature with so much dangerous potential have the right to just appear in her world like this and disturb it so. Could her perfection continue its trajectory or was her life over?

I have started dating.

I have finally, after 15 years of serial monogamy have started dating more as a result of a dare than actual want. My lovely gals at work, tired of my fairly constant bleak outlook sat me down and dared me to either sign up to an online service or they’d take me to a speed dating “event”.

Fuck that for a joke.

I got my own back by picking the easiest, laziest and least invasive method of meeting people.

Hello Tinder.

Welcome to the societal challenge of being a single parent, time poor, sarcasm rich who’s last date was going to see Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Last Action Hero with a boy called Adam who went to Hailibury. He threw popcorn down my top. Yup. I sure couldn’t pick them then, unlikely to be able to pick them now.

Reading online advice doesn’t help – most things are written by men who want sex – so they tell you to “flirt subtly” (whatever the fuck that means) and tell them you’re interested by laughing at their jokes. This whole thing is a joke. Or from the glossy women’s magazines (written by women controlled by men??) to “make an effort with your outfit but don’t be too intimidating.”

What?

Don’t be intimidating?

In my clothing? In myself? So… do I stow that I have an education? That I can read good? That I managed to dress myself today and drink a whole coffee without dribbling it down my chin?

Intimidating clothes? Crap. So now, my plan to wear my one and only dress (reserved for funerals and weddings) is off. Jeans it is. Do I do my hair? Nails? Lipstick? If I do those, am I not lying? I’m intimidating myself because I don’t do that normally.

Ok. Jeans, black top, the good bra (just in case I get hit by a car, naturally) because “non intimidating women don’t put out.” That’s that thing where really we’re stuck isn’t it. Tinder is supposed to be about sex. I like sex. Maybe I’ll wear the good Target undies too. Just in case. And shave my legs. Ahh… the expectation of sex.

Fuck. I think I just invented a word. I hope that I invented a word. Sexpectation.

Sexpectation!

If nothing else, Dev et al, I have made a word. I have achieved something good today.

I step out of the Gunnas Masterclass into the bright afternoon sunshine and already the negative voice in my head is at it.

Write something for the Gunnas challenge? Ha, good luck with that.  You’ll just go home, sit on the couch and procrastinate.  And anyway, who wants to read anything that you’ve written?

Fuck off I tell the voice. I’m going to write something.  But what? I decide to walk home to give myself time to think of a story.  Or procrasti-walk, says the evil voice in my head.

I set off through the back streets of Carlton, enjoying the sun on my face and the breeze blowing my hair.  Looking down a laneway paved with bluestone I spy two cats squeezing between a gap in a fence, intent on getting somewhere fast.  Maybe I could write a story about those cats and the adventure that they’re on. Nope says the voice, totally lame idea.

Heading deep into hipster territory I swing down Gertrude Street. Man buns to the left of me, flannette shirts to the right. Walking past restaurant after restaurant I start getting distracted.  Maybe I can drop into one for a quick bite to eat and write about that.   This time the sensible voice in my head speaks up and I make a deal with myself.  Go home and write, then take yourself out to dinner as a reward.

By the time I hit the backstreets of Richmond I realise that all I’ve been thinking about is where to take myself for dinner.  That’s not going to get anything written, just dreaming about food. Turning down Victoria Street I notice the local drug dealer doing a roaring trade.  Surely with the amount of business he gets he can afford some shampoo and maybe a new set of teeth.  I suppose he’s got different priorities in life.

Dodging the old ladies picking over vegetables at the grocers, families out for an afternoon stroll and kids skateboarding I still haven’t thought of what to write about.  My feet are starting to hurt.  What genius decided that walking would be a good idea I mutter to myself.  A little too loudly it seems, judging by the startled look the guy walking past gives me.

Finally I stagger through the front door, kick my shoes off and curse at myself.  Still no ideas, my brain is like a desert.  I imagine pulling the top of my skull off and peering inside to discover no brain, just grains of sand being blown about.

What was one of the tips from Gunnas? Find a fabulous frock, tiara or whatever and wear it while you are writing.  I remember the pair of purple Manolo Blahnik’s purchased in New York years ago after a particularly long and boozy lunch.  Gorgeous shoes, but totally impractical and as a result have been languishing in the back of my wardrobe.  They will be part of my writer’s outfit.  I put them on then sit down at my laptop, hands hovering over the keyboard waiting for the inspiration to hit.  The flatmate wanders by, looks at my rather unusual outfit and asks me whether I’ve lost my mind.

Taking a deep breath I just start typing.  Who cares that I haven’t got a brilliant story to tell.  I’m writing, and most importantly I’m sticking it to that that evil little voice in my head. An hour later I’m finished.  I mentally high five myself, then head out to dinner to celebrate.  And guess what, that negative voice is nowhere to be found.

Every day the children gathered twigs, leaves, and rocks – whatever they could find – and concealed these treasures in pockets, socks, cuffs, behind their ears and sometimes even in their mouths. Then they would hide and wait to ambush each other with their weapons.

On a day like any other the smallest of the children slipped his slender frame between a stand of eucalypts. His pockets full and a stone under his tongue, he told himself he was invisible.

At first the seeker was near, but soon enough she passed him by. Then he was alone, as the game migrated to a distant corner of the paddock.

Yet he daren’t move. He was good at this game and he didn’t get that way by giving himself away when he thought no one was watching. He let his thoughts rest on the smoothness of the pebble beneath his tongue. It was as if he could hide himself from himself, inside the stone.

By doing this he was able to make himself so thin, so silent, that he was barely perceptible. On this occasion he had been standing just so for many hours. He was almost completely invisible – even to himself.

Because of this, he wasn’t paying attention when the cat appeared on a branch above him.

“I heard your heartbeat,” it said. “You woke me.”

The boy was not surprised to hear the cat’s words, for his mind was inside a stone and therefore hidden even from the limitations of reality.

“I’m sorry. Are you upset with me?” His parents were often upset when he woke them. He had learnt to tread quietly and amuse himself in the pre-dawn darkness.

“No, but you’d better make a run for it. If you want to go home that is.”

“Why should I run?”

“Because I’m hungry. I’ve been sleeping sooo long. If you wait much longer you’ll be inside me.”

The boy was young, but he was not unwise and he was not easily intimidated. Even by talking cats.

He looked into the cat’s eyes to gauge if it was serious. But the cat was intent on cleaning its face – three licks on its left paw, two wipes across its eyes, then repeat. He knew that cats liked to clean themselves after, not before, they ate. So he decided it was unlikely that it was hungry.

Besides, cats do not eat small boys.

“Who are you?” asked the boy.

“I don’t have a name.”

“Don’t you have a mother or a father? Didn’t they name you?”

“Yes. But she’s waiting until I’m finished.”

“I’m not finished either. But I have a name.”

“That’s different. You’re a boy. You need a name so that your mother can call you for dinner, your father can scold you and your sister can twist it to make fun of you. I’m a story. I don’t get a name until I’m finished.”

As it said this, the cat stopped licking its paws, shifted position, and started licking its anus. The boy watched in silence for a minute as a question formed in his mind. There was something he had forgotten, something he needed to ask.

“What kind of story are you? I mean, what are you about?”

“I never know until I get to the end … it’s not far now though,” said the cat, momentarily looking up from its grooming to meet the boy’s gaze.

He could feel something cold and hard inside him. The pebble was now joined by a larger, heavier stone, growing in his tummy. A message, some kind of alarm, but its weight pinned him where he stood.

“Are you a scary story?”

At this the cat stopped its grooming altogether. It looked in his face and began to purr.

The boy shifted the pebble in his mouth, placing it in the hollow between his lower jaw and his left cheek. It was warm now. He sucked cool air in through the corner of his mouth, letting it flow over the stone.

“Do you like scary stories?”

He remembered a story that his sister had told him. About a creature who lived in the tiniest of shadows and roamed freely only in the dark, drinking children’s souls. He’d slept with the light on for a week. Even now, he still kept a torch under his pillow for emergencies.

The purring was louder now.

“No.”

“Why not?”

If it was his sister asking he would have said that scary stories were for babies and he was too big to be afraid. But the stone in his stomach told a different tale and in this story he was not able to lie.

“Do you have a name yet?” he countered instead of answering. “I mean, will you be finished soon?”

“Soon. But first, you need to do something for me.” The cat jumped down from the branch, and as it did so it twisted its body into an upright position, so that when it landed it stood not like a cat, but like a person. “Give me your name.”

“But it’s mine.”

“Is it really? Then what is it?”

He knew that he knew his name, but it was hiding in the corner of his mind, buried beneath a pile of stones. Each time he lifted one stone another toppled down to fill the gap. It was like trying to write something down in a dream, the sounds and letters slipped from his mind’s grasp like a child shirking a mother’s kiss.

“Well?” prompted the cat.

“I can’t.”

“Aaaaaah. Now we’re both finished then.”

Someone once said, or I once heard someone say, that you can only know yourself by what you know about your grandparents. If that is the case, then that explains why I know so little. When I was young, I had a couple of grandmothers but no grandfathers. All of these wrinkly old people were shrouded in mystery to me… who were they and what did they actually mean to me? My old grandmother, my Bubi who was around when I was young, had cat’s eyes bejewelled glasses, framing her soft face. In my memory she wore blue rayon tent dresses and had a blue couch with white trim that she covered in plastic. But what do I actually know about her? There were loud tall men around her — turns out they were my uncles. She let me chop liver with this three-bladed device that chopped — something I have since spent a lifetime looking for.

Either they were all so loud, or I am creating a personal history mash-up with a more romantic Woody Allen version of my life. How did my Dad ever cope with this noise? He, who my whole life hated noise, was always telling me to be quiet, who continues this tradition by demanding silence from my two crazy and active little men. Where did that intolerance come from? Couldn’t be from Bubi, maybe it was his Dad? The man I never knew but from a picture. What do I know about him?

He was a mystery that I romanticised endlessly over — didn’t he smuggle people out of war-torn Europe? Didn’t he help refugees find a new and better life? Wasn’t he a hero of some sort? He tried to smuggle himself out and it was that journey, looking like an Italian living in Jamaica (yes, somehow specifically ambiguous, but we are talking about what I know about my grandparents, not about what makes any sense). He got caught, he got himself deported to Canada and from there somehow re-entered the US.

These are their facts as I know it. They lost everyone who wasn’t with them. The family seemed huge to me, and still does, but this is only an indication of the vastness that was lost. Is this why community and family are important to me? They owned a furniture store in Chicago — is this why I have a weakness for mid-century furniture and architecture? What did they think of my Mom? Did I hear, or was that another story, that they didn’t much like her until I was born?

Did my mother’s family feel any better about Dad? I know they thought she would never marry. I knew both of my Mom’s parents, well, that may be a stretch of the language. I share no language, I share no culture and I share no living history with them. This is the mirror of my relationship to my mother, in spite of giving me life and growing me up, she professes no understanding or cultural closeness with me or my choices. This is what I know about them: My grandfather, my ojiisan, he killed people. He did horrible things. Things that I am only now starting to understand – not from him or through him, but from the viewpoint of historical judgment. Ojiisan had bullet holes in his body. Obaachan was considered a beauty and was wealthy until he squandered it all. My mother grew up in the vastness of disappointment, anger and doubt.

This is what I know about me. I find it easier to understand my father and the horrors of his past are more familiar to me. Is it racist that my mother has always been the “other” to me? While his Jewishness has always been a club I have tried to enter, her Japaneseness has always been an inconvenience. As I grow up I am trying to build a bridge back over to her side – but this is not something that she makes easy for me. Perhaps the years that we have spent on opposing sides has left a permanent scar, perhaps she is merely human.

Twitter @noeharsel