Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.

The last time I saw my mother she squeezed my hand tight, then vomited. A week later she was dead.

When someone’s been slowly decaying for years, death shouldn’t come as a surprise. But somehow it was. I’d become so used to her zombie existence, though barely a life, it seemed as if it would never end.

Early in the disease, I’d fantasised about death. As Alzheimer’s began to strip her personality, when giving my father respite, I’d toy with ‘forgetting’ to administer her blood pressure medication. Would a week be long enough to trigger a fatal heart attack or stroke?

Decades earlier my mother said, “If I lose my marbles, just set me adrift on an ice floe like the Eskimos.” A witty woman. Always the carer, never the cared for. Those weeks, when I flew home to look after her, I tried to find the courage to push a pillow to her face while she slept.

Each time I failed.

If she’d been aware or pleaded, maybe. But by then she’d forgotten about the Eskimos. No matter how much I loved her, I couldn’t kill her.

It was hardest at the beginning. She’d pace the house, unaccustomed to rest. In a perpetual state of frustration, always busy but never knowing what it was that needed to be done.

She knew something was wrong but did a good job at pretence. There were pat responses, a little vague and nondescript. Her face mimicked interest, not belying the terror growing under the surface.

The nights were challenging. Wet beds, wearing jumpers for pants and raiding the house for cigarettes in the early hours. We’d learned to ration smoking during the day and learned to hide the matches. Though her memory receded, rat cunning prevailed. Half-smoked fags turned up in slippers, pockets and drawers. It’s miraculous that the house didn’t burn down.

My father in his 80s, never the carer always the cared for, did his best. But he took his eye off the ball once too often. Distracted, it took a while before realising the house was quiet. He felt relaxed. That was the give away. There’s never peace when living with the demented.

A stranger found her walking a couple of kilometres away. She was going home to see her mother. My grandmother’s funeral was in 1968; the house bulldozed a decade later to build a supermarket.

Eleven days before my mother died I saw her eyes light up for the last time. It was Christmas, not that she knew it. I lifted a glass to her lips and encouraged a sip. Despite forgetting how to walk, talk and laugh, she still remembered the taste of gin and tonic. In those final nine months spent living in a dementia ward, this moment was her happiest.

The morning my mother died, I got up at dawn to catch a plane. The phone call came five minutes before leaving. Arriving hours later, to a cold body of an unrecognisable woman. Someone no longer my mother, that last remaining sliver departed.

Despite everything, I was still surprised. She was gone.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.

Dinner parties. How I hate them.

I sit, one wine too many, and watch myself as if through a window, laughing and talking and being the charming hostess.

Our friends have no idea. The happy couple. Still finishing each other’s sentences and correcting each other on the details of “remember that time when…”.

It is an out of body experience.

I wonder what my children think about daddy sleeping upstairs. It’s been going on for so long it’s their normal, so maybe they don’t think anything about it. In any case, the little one wakes and gets into bed with me most nights. I wonder if I should discourage it, but I haven’t got the energy and anyway, I like feeling her little cuddly body curled up next to mine.

I realise I am starving for physical touch. Skin hungry.

I look in the mirror. Even though I look tired, I still call bullshit on his “not attractive anymore” narrative and give myself a pep talk. I am fine. There is nothing wrong with me. I am small, slim, fit, strong. And still juicy.

I am reading the paper at breakfast one Saturday morning. My eye is caught and held by an article on male escorts for women. I read it surreptitiously while my husband is occupied on his phone. I am quietly gobsmacked.  Here are stories of women just like me. Attractive, professional women, whose relationships have gone wrong. Whose husbands won’t touch them. Who can’t seem to untangle the intricacies of their lives together.

So they pay a stranger to touch them. I mean I wasn’t completely naive – I knew there was such a thing – but here it was in black and white.

Respectable people, it seems, actually do this.

I can’t get the story out of my head. I reread it a few times. I hesitate. Until I’m alone one day and then I google the escorts in the article.

One is a dark brooding latino pretty boy, exceedingly gorgeous but too young. One is a handsome blonde haired blue eyed porn actor. I don’t quite feel right about him either.

I can’t immediately see a photo of the third one on his website. It doesn’t matter. I like how his writing sounds. Intelligent. Articulate. And there is a photo of his hands. They are masculine and sexy. Something stirs in me and I immediately imagine them on my body .

I clear the browser history.

A few weeks go past. I have read his entire website, every blog entry and every testimonial.  I know what he looks like. 40ish. Handsome. Nice. I tell no one.

I am not quite ready, but with shaking hands and my heart in my mouth I call him anyway because I want to hear his voice, to see if how he sounds in real life matches how he sounds in my head. It does. He sounds real. His voice is sexy. He is clearly practised at this because he takes no notice of my nervous faltering attempts at conversation and does the talking for me. I tell him I’m not ready yet but will call when I am.

I hang up, already breathless and save his number in my phone.

Eventually I call again. Luckily he doesn’t answer, because my heart is pounding out of my chest, my mouth is dry and I don’t actually know what I want to say. I don’t leave a message. I compose a sensible sounding text and send that instead.

He calls me straight back – calm, self assured, matter of fact, no problem at all. I calm down a bit and we make the booking for a weeks’ time.

The week drags by in a haze of distracted fantasies. I worry about what to wear. I buy new knickers and get increasingly nervous as the day approaches. I confide in a friend with all the details because #whatifheisanaxemurderer and arrange to call her afterwards. She is shocked but supportive. She lectures me about condoms and contraception.

It’s the day. I get up and go through the motions – coffee, no breakfast, school drop off. My booking isn’t until the afternoon, so I do the groceries, a load of washing, some housework.  Eventually I have to get ready. I have already waxed off everything in sight and had a pedicure. I take the longest, most detailed shower in history. I brush and floss my teeth twice.

Hair done, a bit of makeup and I’m ready. Hardly.

I look critically in the mirror and consider what I am about to do.

I am a fit and attractive 46 year old married woman, mother to young children and I am about to pay a man I’ve never met to have sex with me.

Entirely reasonable behaviour.

Shit.

I get in the car and drive. I am full of adrenaline and am at the address before I know it. Way early. I wait in the car with the airconditioning blasting cold air onto me because its a warm day and I am paranoid about being all sweaty. Finally it’s time. Shaky but determined I make my way up to his apartment and hesitate at the door. He doesn’t know what I look like and I’m worried he won’t like me.

I take a big breath and knock.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.

If I had to be honest, if I couldn’t fake it, I’d say that life is pretty good right now. I think I’m finally out of the fog. The fucking bliss and heartache and shock and violence and wonder and aha moments that is having babies. Three of them in three years.

They are magnificent. We have made it through pretty unscathed. Actually, in better condition than most. Imperfect. Superbly imperfect to the point of perfection.

How did I not know that we’d get here? While at the same time being certain of it.

What a fucking ride. No matter what they tell you, you cope with what you get.

Here are some stories I made up that I tell my eldest when she nags me “tell me a story about a cat…” etc. She never gets sick of listening to the same shit. But I always have a message in mind. In my stories everyone is equal and little red riding hood and grandma are feminists who save themselves from the big bad wolf without the help of the huntsman. The princess is a queen and she doesn’t kiss the frog if she doesn’t want to. Fairytales are a fucking minefield of sexism.

1.

One day there was a black cat sitting in the shade napping.

He looked up and saw a yellow bird.

He crept and he creeped and just as he was about to pounce the bird flew up into a tree.

“What do you think you’re doing?” said the yellow bird.

“Nothing. I was just playing.” Replied the black cat.

“You were going to eat me.” Said the yellow bird.

“No I wasn’t.” Replied the black cat.

“Yes you were. Why would you want to do that? You’re not a hungry cat. You live with a girl and a boy. They give you food and water. Sometimes even a saucer of milk.” The yellow bird said.

“Well. You just look so delicious.” Said the black cat.

“Just because we’re different doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.” The yellow bird told the black cat.

And so the black cat and the yellow bird became friends. They did everything together and they were happy.

One day they were snoozing in the sun, when suddenly a dark shadow came over them.

The yellow bird looked up just in time and said to the black cat, “Quick up here!” and flew up into a tree.

The black cat followed him, clawing his way up the trunk.

The yellow bird and the black cat looked down and saw a big white dog with brown spots.

“What are you doing?” asked the black cat.

“Nothing. I was just playing.” Said the white dog with brown spots.

“No you weren’t. You were going to eat me.” Said the black cat.

“Well.” Said the white dog with brown spots. “You just look so delicious.”

“Why would you want to do that? You’re not a hungry dog. You live with a man and a woman. They give you food and water and even a tasty bone sometimes.” The black cat said. “Just because we’re different, doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

And so the black cat and the yellow bird and the white dog with brown spots became friends and had many adventures together.

2.

One day there was a grey owl who lived high up in the trees.

Sometimes she flew down to the lower branches to get food and twigs for her nest.

When she was sitting on a low log once, she met a green caterpillar.

“That will make a hearty meal.” The grey owl thought to herself.

Just as her claw was about to reach for it, the green caterpillar looked up and said, “Stop! What are you doing? Are you going to eat me?”

“No.” Said the grey owl.

“Yes you were.” Said the green caterpillar. “Just because we’re different doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

And so the grey owl and the green caterpillar became friends.

They saw each other each day when the grey owl came down from high up in the trees to the lower branches to fetch her food and twigs.

One day, the green caterpillar was nowhere to be found. The grey owl searched and searched, but could not find her friend.

She went to the same place each day and waited for her friend the green caterpillar, but could not find him. Instead she found a strange silver blanket in its place.

The grey owl never gave up and returned every single day, again and again. She flew down to the lower branches each day to wait for her friend the green caterpillar, but he never came back.

Sometime later, the strange silver blanket began to tear and out came two colourful wings of orange, red and blue. The grey owl looked in awe at the creature coming out.

“Hello”, said the creature. “I am a butterfly and I am your friend.”

“You look familiar.” Said the grey owl.

“Yes. I used to be the green caterpillar. Now I am a butterfly.” It said.

The owl and the butterfly remained good friends and had many happy adventures together.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.

First up, I love a good emoji. Nothing quite says you mean a lot to me like a well-placed eggplant. Nothing says please pass the salt like a pile of cat shit.

But we have to admit – we go overboard. We’re a little OTT when showering our friends, acquaintances, colleagues and random people on the internet with our emoji-filled love.

And we have to ask ourselves – would we really be so quick to plaster someone with praise in real life? Would we be so exuberant with our thanks and congrats if we ran into them in Woolies?

Would I really KISS KISS Cath from HR? You wouldn’t walk up to Brian from IT and say ‘thanks for fixing my computer HIGH FIVE, THUMBS UP, EGGPLANT, FLAMENCO DANCING WOMAN, BOWL OF NOODLES’.

Why does a simple text message/email/Facebook comment now seem cold without the inclusion of a bunch of tiny pictures? We’ve been pretty bloody amazing at communicating for centuries with just the written word. Do you really need to send a picture of a pizza to say that you’re hungry? ARE WE CAVEMEN?

With every insert of a smiley face/peace sign/prawn cutlet are we dumbing down what we’re trying to say? Maybe we’re trying in vain to make ourselves more likeable, more sharable.

Is it really that bad if we don’t wish Donna from primary school a ‘fab day and the most amazing year yet CAKE, PRESENT, PARTY POPPER, PARTY HAT’ every single year?

Let’s just be honest, we don’t actually give a fuck.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.

Naming a child is always very difficult. It is excruciatingly difficult if you have a mixed marriage with different languages and cultures to appease! My family is mixed Australian/Indonesian living in Sydney, and it’s always difficult to name a child with a name that doesn’t get eyebrows raised in each culture. After all, you don’t want the kids to be teased at school, or to have no-one able to pronounce it.

When my firstborn emerged, I was so ready! I had laboriously collated a long list of names for either a boy or a girl, as the sex was going to be a surprise. I decided that Indonesian names were what we wanted, and as my husband came from Java we decided to go for old Javanese names with Sanskrit origins. I needed a long list, for after the birth my mother-in-law, Grandma Siti, would then be able to choose the name from the list that fitted perfectly to the Javanese numerology of the birth-day.  This is the combination of the numbers from the 7 day European week with the 5 day Javanese week that the birthdate falls on, and its congruence with the numbers from the letters in the name itself! Fortunately Grandma Siti was staying with me for the birth, and she knew how to calculate all this stuff!

As well as helping out with her new grandkids, Grandma Siti performed all the proper rituals after the birth as well. The Javanese are Muslim, but many of their rituals come from Hindu/Buddhist traditions – from the deep layers of their ancient culture. After a child is born the husband brings the placenta home to be buried in the garden with objects placed within it, to ensure calmness for the baby and good attributes. For example, a sewing needle for good health, some rice for good luck and wealth, a pencil & paper for study aptitude and a prayer written on paper to encourage good character.

And that is how my firstborn got named Kartini, meaning serenity. It was also the same name as Princess Kartini of Jepara, the famous first feminist of Java, which I was doubly happy about!  It suited her admirably from day one – she didn’t even cry when she came out, but opened her eyes and looked at each of us present, one by one.

When it was time for my secondborn, I was so tired and busy I didn’t have any time to put together a long list of names for either sex before the birth! After all, why not wait until we found out which sex it was first, so I could halve the time spent on the name list? I did bring an Old Javanese dictionary to read through while in the hospital, with a vague hope of getting a list together to bring home with me and the baby. And so my second daughter was born without a list! I tried to go through the dictionary while breastfeeding the newborn, but didn’t manage to get very far.  There was one name I came across that I liked: Kartika, meaning star. I didn’t write it down or mention it to anyone, I just made a mental note that when I got home from hospital I would start my list off with this name…

When my husband drove the baby and I home from hospital, in the car I told him I hadn’t put together a name list yet. He threw me a sheepish look.  He then told me that his mother had already buried the placenta with the new baby’s name in it! I couldn’t believe it! I started to fume with disappointment and even anger. My voice was getting shriller and shriller as I asked him why on earth his mother had chosen a name without consulting me and him, the baby’s parents! It was not the custom in Java for the grandmother to choose the name without consulting the parents, I exclaimed! What if she had chosen an awful name that meant our baby would get bullied at school, something like say Fatmawati? I could hear the school ground chorus of “Fatty Fatty, Whatty is a Fatty!” ringing in my ears already…

After a long anguished pause, I asked him with great trepidation:

“So what name did she bury with the placenta?”

“Kartika”, he said.

I shut up and rode in silence all the way home.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.

Dinner parties. How I hate them.

I sit, one wine too many, and watch myself as if through a window, laughing and talking and being the charming hostess.

Our friends have no idea. The happy couple. Still finishing each other’s sentences and correcting each other on the details of “remember that time when…”.

It is an out of body experience.

I wonder what my children think about daddy sleeping upstairs. It’s been going on for so long it’s their normal, so maybe they don’t think anything about it. In any case, the little one wakes and gets into bed with me most nights. I wonder if I should discourage it, but I haven’t got the energy and anyway, I like feeling her little cuddly body curled up next to mine.

I realise I am starving for physical touch. Skin hungry.

I look in the mirror. Even though I look tired, I still call bullshit on his “not attractive anymore” narrative and give myself a pep talk. I am fine. There is nothing wrong with me. I am small, slim, fit, strong. And still juicy.

I am reading the paper at breakfast one Saturday morning. My eye is caught and held by an article on male escorts for women. I read it surreptitiously while my husband is occupied on his phone. I am quietly gobsmacked.  Here are stories of women just like me. Attractive, professional women, whose relationships have gone wrong. Whose husbands won’t touch them. Who can’t seem to untangle the intricacies of their lives together.

So they pay a stranger to touch them. I mean I wasn’t completely naive – I knew there was such a thing – but here it was in black and white.

Respectable people, it seems, actually do this.

I can’t get the story out of my head. I reread it a few times. I hesitate. Until I’m alone one day and then I google the escorts in the article.

One is a dark brooding latino pretty boy, exceedingly gorgeous but too young. One is a handsome blonde haired blue eyed porn actor. I don’t quite feel right about him either.

I can’t immediately see a photo of the third one on his website. It doesn’t matter. I like how his writing sounds. Intelligent. Articulate. And there is a photo of his hands. They are masculine and sexy. Something stirs in me and I immediately imagine them on my body .

I clear the browser history.

A few weeks go past. I have read his entire website, every blog entry and every testimonial.  I know what he looks like. 40ish. Handsome. Nice. I tell no one.

I am not quite ready, but with shaking hands and my heart in my mouth I call him anyway because I want to hear his voice, to see if how he sounds in real life matches how he sounds in my head. It does. He sounds real. His voice is sexy. He is clearly practised at this because he takes no notice of my nervous faltering attempts at conversation and does the talking for me. I tell him I’m not ready yet but will call when I am.

I hang up, already breathless and save his number in my phone.

Eventually I call again. Luckily he doesn’t answer, because my heart is pounding out of my chest, my mouth is dry and I don’t actually know what I want to say. I don’t leave a message. I compose a sensible sounding text and send that instead.

He calls me straight back – calm, self assured, matter of fact, no problem at all. I calm down a bit and we make the booking for a weeks’ time.

The week drags by in a haze of distracted fantasies. I worry about what to wear. I buy new knickers and get increasingly nervous as the day approaches. I confide in a friend with all the details because #whatifheisanaxemurderer and arrange to call her afterwards. She is shocked but supportive. She lectures me about condoms and contraception.

It’s the day. I get up and go through the motions – coffee, no breakfast, school drop off. My booking isn’t until the afternoon, so I do the groceries, a load of washing, some housework.  Eventually I have to get ready. I have already waxed off everything in sight and had a pedicure. I take the longest, most detailed shower in history. I brush and floss my teeth twice.

Hair done, a bit of makeup and I’m ready. Hardly.

I look critically in the mirror and consider what I am about to do.

I am a fit and attractive 46 year old married woman, mother to young children and I am about to pay a man I’ve never met to have sex with me.

Entirely reasonable behaviour.

Shit.

I get in the car and drive. I am full of adrenaline and am at the address before I know it. Way early. I wait in the car with the airconditioning blasting cold air onto me because its a warm day and I am paranoid about being all sweaty. Finally it’s time. Shaky but determined I make my way up to his apartment and hesitate at the door. He doesn’t know what I look like and I’m worried he won’t like me.

I take a big breath and knock.