Taboo Subjects

Last night's Q & A brought up the subject of Taboo topics. The panel were made up of writers and artists. Comedienne Jean Kitson stated that menopause was the last great taboo in our society, and she has written a book about it to try and change that. I bet she's right because if I had any male readers here, I bet they stopped reading when the "m" word was mentioned.
It's certainly much talked about among middle aged women, in this day and age anyway.

I am at the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation. I remember the times when many subjects were taboo.
I remember when the word cancer was said in whispers and various topics were alluded to with strange words, metaphors or eyebrow raises. I remember a time when there were great uncles who had served in the war. These were usually strange, scary men to a child, and I was told they refused to speak of it. Post Traumatic Stress was not coined back then and these damaged men often turned to alcohol.

I still recall a time when there were lots of taboos. Things like divorce, death, race, illness, convict ancestry and even pregnancy. I remember as a child asking my grandmother if she had convict ancestry. She didn't want to exactly lie to me, but she was very uncomfortable about it. "Oh I think there may have been one way back somewhere" she told me.  When in later years I looked into this, I discovered he was her grandfather, hardly way back somewhere!

Happily many of these taboos are now broken. I do think it can be the responsibility of one who suffers from one of these difficult subjects to speak of it and try and bring awareness.

I suffered quite severe post-natal depression twice. At the time I would not have admitted it to anyone. I was ashamed and felt a failure. I hid it as best I could, successfully, I don't know? I looked for signs in my friends who had babies too. I knew what to look for. I felt very alone.
I wonder if I had my time again have things changed now? Would I more freely admit to it nowadays?
Fortunately mental illnesses are more openly discussed and understood now.
Tara Moss was also on the panel. She has just written a memoir about her personal experience of rape and abuse. "People call me brave" she said, but she stated that to speak of it and empathise, she had to tell her true story.

As for menopause, I'm not so sure. Richard Flanagan said his women friends all talked openly about it, he was quite relaxed about it. Tim Storrier was squirming in his seat when his turn to comment came, it was quite funny!



“The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.” 
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery


 P.S. Menopause can be a horrible event at times!!

The Shut Eye Train

Inspired by a poem by Eugene Field.

Last night I missed the Shut Eye Train to the Land of Nod. I almost got on, but then "toot toot" the whistle bleweth, "ting a ling" the bell it goeth, and off it went without me.

I waited on the platform, with much tossing and turning and fluffing of pillows. I started playing the alphabet game to pass the time and to lull me into a slumberous state. The theme I chose was rocks and minerals. Alabaster, Basalt, Crystal, Dolerite, E....E....E....stuck. Go on to F....F....F....stuck again.
Try another theme. Plants. Hang on, are we going to allow trees? No, no trees. What about flowers? No, not flowers, just shrubs or bushes, medium sized flora. Agapanthus, hang on that's a flower, yes but it's also a bush...okay we'll let that one pass, Briar, Catmint, Dahlia. E....E....E...stuck, F....F....F. Obviously this was not working for me tonight.

Eventually another train came and I boarded. Alas, this was not an express. It stopped at every station. First stop, I knew I'd been asleep but checked the clock some time after midnight. Next stop, an hour or so later. Finally got to Shut Eye Town in the Land of Nod, but I had the most disturbingly awful dream, you know the sort, you can't even begin to describe?

I heard a sleep expert interviewed on radio this week. Apparently the functions the brain performs during sleep are unlike any function of the awakened brain. We do things in our sleeping brain that we cannot when we are awake. Fortunately sleep brings with it a complete paralysis, or else we would be acting out our dreams. Now that would be bad. Neuro scientists are still at a loss to explain why we sleep, and why so much. Evolutionary science is at a loss too, as sleep leaves us so utterly vulnerable to danger, as all our senses are on shut-down. We are not like other animals, dolphins for example. They sleep half a brain at a time. The best explanation is that sleep and dreams de-frag the brain (like a computer) and sort and store memories.

Well, I love my sleep, and usually I love dreaming (flying dreams are The Best).
Today I might need a little Nanna Nap after last night's train ride.

A Writing Excise: A Modern fairytale.

Once upon a time there was a young and beautiful princess. She was from a small European principality and descended from a long and wide line of royalty. She was taking a gap year and touring Australia. That was how she found herself stranded in Lower Wilmot, Tasmania. Her car had broken down. She walked to the nearest homestead to garner help.

"Come in dear" said the friendly local lady upon hearing her plight. "No you will simply stay the night here with us. Brian will get the car going in the morning."

As it happened, Brian was also descended from European royalty. His wife Marlene was quite proud of her royal connections but never mentioned the fact that her husband's great great grandfather was shipped off to the colonies as a matter of convenience for the family.

Marlene had high hopes her son Shaun would marry well, but well connected aristocracy didn't surface much on rsvp.com. Now here she was, at her door, beautiful, young, excellent english.

"Brian make up the guest bed" Marlene said. "But use the KMart sheets. If she's really a princess, she won't sleep a wink in them."
In the morning the Princess emerged looking very well rested. "I slept wonderfully, thankyou" she replied when asked. "Brian, get her the Black & Gold brand Corn Flakes' Marelene whispered "if she's really a Princess, she'll choke on them". The Princess ate them with enthusiasm. Marlene was getting suspicious.
"Now the bathroom's down the hall, go have a shower dear" said Marlene.
"Brian, get a new block of  Country Fresh soap, if she's really a Princess that stuff will bring her out in an awful rash."

She emerged happy and refreshed. Marlene was getting surer this girl was a fraud. "My you speak excellent English dear, did you learn that at the Sorbonne?"
"No, I watch lots of Disney movies" she laughed "somebody poisoned the waterhole" she said in a perfect American accent. Brian walked in. "Got your car going love" he said.

Marlene was very keen to find out more before she let this girl go though, she really wanted Shaun married off well. "Your family, they are financing this trip for you?" she asked
"haha, no" she replied "my job at Maccas financed this. Even before the GFC my family had long since lost their fortune and sold the jewels".
"No castle?" Marlene further enquired.
"No, there may be a slight ruin left."
"No tiaras, orbs, sceptres?"
"Haha no, none of that old rubbish."
Marlene sighed. "Oh what a shame my dear. You'd better be off them"

The young Princess lived happily ever after and Shaun moved to Ulverstone.

A Bit of Gothic.

I do love a good ghost story.
I have just read "The Woman in Black" by Susan Hill. This is the first time I've read anything of that genre as my reading genres are pretty limited :(
Susan Hill is a classic writer and this book is a traditional gothic story.

My love of a good ghost story stems from childhood when my friend and I would scare each other witless with repetitive recounting from our repertoire of cheesy, clichéd stories. This is the best way. Oral retelling, at night, by candle light or camp fire. We were about age 11, the perfect age. Too old to need to run to a parent for comfort, but too young to be a cynical non believer. There was The Black Hand, the slightly less scary Brown Hand and a few local tales such as the Stone House in Dunorlan where no man would dare spend the night.

I first came across The Woman in Black as a movie in 1989. This was one of those old school movies where less was more and it was your own imagination that scared you, not the visuals. What could be more scary.... walking into the old nursery of a completely deserted, remote old house to see a rocking chair rocking as if someone had just been sitting there? Or seeing a woman in a distant graveyard, wearing Victorian mourning dress and then mysteriously disappearing?

The recent remake of this starring Daniel Radcliffe, while having some good elements, was not in the same class in my opinion. I don't like the use in recent years of graphic horror and over use of creepy supernatural themes.

The book was great, a classic tale. Set in the deserted house of the late Alice Drablow, a young lawyer must sort through her affairs. The house is only reached by a causeway which the tide cuts off every day. This story has every element needed. A great unfolding plot and a scary, haunting location.
I wouldn't call it horror, I wouldn't call it supernatural, just a good old-fashioned haunting.
I did avoid reading it at night though!

Winter Reading.

Is reading seasonal? There's the summer holiday read, but is there spring, autumn and winter reads too?

"Woman at Beach Reading" Marie Fox               "Woman Reading in a Forest" Gyula Benczur

Summer and Autumn.....

"Woman Reading" Tavik Simon
Spring, you can tell by the peonies on the table.
It is warm enough to have the window open, but not warm enough to have a summer dress on.......











and winter.

"Woman Reading on a Settee"
William Churchill

Trying to catch that winter sun.






We are well into autumn now with the prospect of winter upon us. Thoughts of snuggling up with a book (or a movie) are wonderful.
So...three winter books from me:

The Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe, also a movie.
This is a lovely winter book because it places you so well into that snowy, wintry environment, you can almost hear the crunch of snow under foot and feel the warmth of the collar of the fur coat on your face. One of the wonderful things about winter is the promise of an eventual summer. This book shows the bleakness of a prospect of an eternal winter. Always winter, never Christmas. The cover says it all though, spring does come and the White Witch is defeated.

The Remains of the Day, also a superb movie.
The story of Mr Stevens, the old-school butler at Darlington Hall, recalling his life and his relationship with Miss Kenton, the house keeper. After serving Lord Darlington for many decades, the estate is purchased in 1950 by an American , Mr Farrady. It is a story of duty, loyalty, memory and loss. It's about the winter of life, the passage of time and eras that are no more
I must confess, this book sits by my bedside still as yet unfinished.

Wanting.
A Tasmanian book, by a Tasmanian author. I love Richard Flanagan, but he's no lightweight summer read that's for sure. This book tells the story of the young Tasmanian aboriginal girl, Mathinna, adopted by Lady Jane Franklin in the 1840's. But it is the interweaving of the story of Sir John Franklin's disappearance in an Arctic expedition with the failing of the marriage of Charles and Catherine Dickens that is chilling and heartbreaking. It's a cold and crushing book, but one that you can't forget.

By The Time I Get to Phoenix

By the time I get to Phoenix, she'll be rising
And she'll find the note I left hangin' on her door
And she'll laugh when she reads the parts that says "I'm leavin'"
'Cause I've left that girl so many times before

And by the time I make Albuquerque, she'll be working
And she'll probably stop at lunch and give me a call
But she'll just hear that phone keep right on and ringin'
Off the wall and that's all

And by the time I make Oklahoma, she'll be sleepin'
She'll turn softly and call my name loud
Lord and she'll cry just to think I'd really leave her
Though time and time I try to tell her so,
Guess she just didn't know that I would really go

No, she didn't know I'd go
She didn't know I'd go

I love this song and have done ever since Glen Campbell made it popular in 1967. I've got it on my ipod sung by Jimmy Webb. He actually wrote it and does a better version of it in my opinion.
It's evocative of childhood times and memories for me. I reckon "she" would have had a nice mod phone like this one on her wall. "She", wiki informs me, was Susan Ronstadt (cousin of Linda).

It occurred to me recently as I was listening, that no one could write a song like this anymore.
The version written today would have to go something like this:

By the time I get to Phoenix she'll be rising (auto correct would fix this error)
and she'll find my text I sent 11:43pm.
And by the time I make Albuquerque she'll have texted me 16 times from her desk and emailed me,
she'll probably call me again and get message bank "the person is unavailable".
And by the time I make Oklahoma, someone will have tweeted that they saw me in the street, she'll have located me on her smart phone and have snapchatted me several times.
She'll be lying in bed with her laptop, changing her facebook relationship status and blogging about our break up
"I just didn't know, he would really go"

Ahh, simpler times when a man could just walk out on a woman. Wiki also tells me Jimmy and Susan remained friends after this. :)

Stereotypes

Stereotypes.

I do love it when we get our preconceived stereotypes blasted out of the water. I suppose because it challenges our thinking and opens us up to how wrong we've been all along.
The youtube currently doing the rounds of a young nun belting out an Alicia Keys song on the Italian version of The Voice does just this. I did notice she'd been severely criticised on some of the comments. One comment suggested she's prostituted herself singing a worldly song and dishonoured God and her vows.
Nuns are good fodder for stereotyping. I know as a child I was brought up on a good solid dose of nun material from movies and TV. The Flying Nun, Sound of Music, Airport to name a few.

I did know real nuns weren't as beautiful as movie nuns though!!

My favourite nun who did this for me back in 1992 was Sister Wendy. I loved Sister Wendy's Odyssey and seeing her leave her little caravan where she lived her consecrated hermit life, and travel the great art galleries of Europe giving us a commentary on masterpieces. I loved how this tiny little unassuming woman would stand before over sized scenes of naked, muscular gods and men, and talk about the rapes, passions and lusts and all the worldly stories and emotions that went along with them. I love art commentaries, but this one was so different.

Sister Wendy wasn't naive, uneducated, unintelligent, foolishly innocent just because she was nun, something I might have easily assumed. Maybe some criticised her too for pursuing worldly, self-interested projects in her art documentaries, I don't know.

Anyway, I though she was great and I love to be reminded that we can't just presume we know people by their outward appearance, their job, where they live. People are so gloriously surprising.