Tar Very Much

I can't remember what I called this article when I first wrote it in 2001, but 'Tar Very Much' is what The Big Issue called it when they published it in September of that year, so I'll stick to that till I remember what the original title was.

I'm hunting up all my old pieces and posting them as I have the time to do so. I'm giving the published a new lease on life and the unpublished a chance to shift out of the filing cabinet and on to the e-waves.

I’ve been hacking and hawking the foulest stuff, all shades and textures, from my lungs. They’re heaving a sigh of relief before getting down to the business of healing. But I’m not thinking about it too much, just focussing on the quitting part, working my way through cartons of gum and kilos of barley sugar. The jaws are getting tired but it’s important to keep them moving. It stops me from thinking about lighting up – just one more smoke, just one more time, for old times’ sake. Eight weeks on and I’m the original can’t-say-no girl, rejecting her favourite activity.

The upside is that I’ve saved myself at least 7000 inhalations so far – more if you consider that as a nervous smoker I’d take four puffs to other people’s one. And two days after I quit the cigs, I could run for the bus without wanting to collapse in agony at the driver’s feet.

My husband thinks it’s a definite downer that my husky pack-a-day hacker voice has gone but he’ll have to do without. What counts is that I can now sing ‘Ba Ba Black Sheep’ to my granddaughter without scaring her too much.

I’d like to turn it into a virtue, say that I quit because of the graphic television ads, but the remote control can whisk you away from unpalatable truths in an instant. And it wasn’t the thought of saving heaps of money, either; addicts are only interested in the next fix. No, it’s about my waking one morning and finding both nicotine and oxygen jockeying for first place in my affections and the nicotine was winning hands down.

It’s a shame, because I’ve had a cig chopsticked in my fingers or dangling from my lower lip since I was 16 and there’s nothing like a smoke. From first puff to last gasp we’ve been pals, the cigs and I, sharing countless sunrises and sunsets. There’s nothing like the garden first thing in the morning; just the birds, the caffeine, a nicotine fix and me – spread out on a chaise lounge. I’ve tried a carrot stick as an after dinner stimulant but believe me, carotene and conversation loses something in the translation.

The party’s over, I said to my packet of Alpine ultras before tenderly tossing them into the council bin. But it hasn’t been an amicable separation. The cigs haven’t been good sports, and withdrawal isn’t a convenient bank transaction.

Once the pall of smoke had cleared, a generation’s worth of squatters were screaming for custody of the body the nicotine mafia tramped through my bloodstream in high heals, cha cha’d o my chest and reminded me who was boss. I’d just take deep breaths and say things like, ‘you’re fired, you’re history you bastards, give me my life back!’ I won the skirmish and they went off to regroup. Eight weeks later, their best effort is the occasional poke in the ribs, but I’ve learned to call out ‘nyah, nyah!’ and give the mafia the finger.

There’s a little more waddle in my gait now, but there’s going to be nothing more ominous than a piece of carrot cake and a scoop of low fat ice cream to deal with after this. And If I’m thinking of lapsing, JM Barry, Peter Pan’s literary dad and a fellow quitter is my role model. More than a hundred years ago, he said, ‘No blind beggar was more abjectly led by his dog, or more loath to cut the string.’ (My Lady Nicotine, 1890). Which only proves that there were the same sorts of idiots then as there are now.
We used to smoke behind the girls’ shelter shed. We were the smokers’ club, practising for the distant day we’d come out from behind the shed right onto street corners. We were bad, we were cool, now we’re just plain cold and old and wondering what price the piper is going to ask of us, wondering if we’ve left it too late.

The glory days of smokPing – on planes, trains and in hospital foyers – are dead. Long live the Surgeon General’s report and the ubiquitous anti-smoking lobby. They’ve turned a glamorous lifestyle into a filthy habit in less than three decades. There was an idea, then, whose time had come. And like all good ideas, once born into the world there’s no going back. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before we can all give Sir Walter Raleigh the finger and finally have some closure.

Pubished in The Big Issue, September - October 2001

Orthopaedic Shoes and Lamingtons

I seem to have made a career of writing about my granddaughters. I'm trying to expand my literary horizons but here's a fourth post that should have been first. It's over seven years old and I wrote it about my very first grandchild, Dezeree. She made me what I am.




Six months ago, I had an inexplicable urge to dye my hair in pastel shades of pink, buy orthopaedic shoes and bake lamingtons. I don’t care for lamingtons, so I was relieved to discover that it was all about the birds and the bees; my son explained it to me when he phoned to tell me the news. I have notched up another credit to my long list of credentials: daughter, wife, mother, mother-in-law and now grandmother. I am a long distance Melbourne grandmother to a Sydney granddaughter: Dezeree, Jacqueline. This news was a preferable alternative to visions of jackets that tie n the back and nursing homes for the cerebrally distressed.

I rushed into the street and accosted two elderly ladies on their way to Bingo. The amused and bemused pair shook hands and gravely congratulated me. I tried to tell it to the golden Labrador crossing the road and narrowly missed being concussed by a Volvo. The grand aunts, the cousins, the grand uncle, the great grandma were thrilled, chuffed and overjoyed, but great grandfather was confused because he thought he was already great.

We had a heated debate about my title. I hadn’t realised there were so many ways to say mother of child of my child that were both exotic and familiar: Nanny, Nan, Granny, Gran, Nona, Grossmutte, and Savtah are just a few of the choices that I had. As mother to the mother of the child, the other granny has first dibs on a name; this is the protocol I’ve been told. She has chosen Anyu, a Hungarian title, which left the field open to me. But there were still weighty decisions to make. I could be dignified in pearls and twin-set or a homey milk and cookies gran. But pearls don’t do much for a five foot two inch dumpling and milk and cookies don’t travel well, so I’ve settled for nanna. It has style and doesn’t make me feel too old. Because a two and a half kilo morsel has brought my mortality home to me in a way that arthritic kneecaps and failing eyesight has failed to. I’ve learned to adjust to my slowly disintegrating body, by ignoring it. The secret to feeling twenty-one when you are fifty-something is to ignore Newton’s law of gravity, and the mirror. Now I find myself checking out sagging chins and crows’ feet. It’s all downhill and across the New South Wales border from here on in.

Geographic restrictions have also put me at a disadvantage. My geriatric friends knit and chuckle over Jamie’s reaction to the zoo, Celia’s introduction to the hairdresser and the joy of Brendan’s first trip to the potty. I talk about Dezzy’s sunset smile, her winning ways and her nappy rash, as told to me by my son. Then in an unguarded moment I whip out my portfolio of Dezzy photographs, courtesy of the Internet. Timing is the key to being a successful long-distance grandma.

The brag book and the wallet are passé. Dezzy’s face, her biography – such as it is – and her cackles can be found on (web) site. Her doting and besotted father has created one especially for his porky princess. Photos are printed and placed in a manila folder for each family member and every stranger’s delectation.

With apologies to Malcolm Fraser and Kermit the frog, it’s not easy being a long distance grandma. Dezeree’s there in Sydney and I’m here in Melbourne calculating how much luggage I will need in order to take that trip and how often I can get away. With luck I can time visits for her first tooth, her first word and her graduation, by which time the luggage will include a walking frame and an embarrassment of pharmaceuticals.

I need to cram in the maximum in auditory and tactile experiences, to replay when I get home. The first visit is for her naming: she lies quiescent, bedecked and beribboned in her mother’s arms. At home, Dezzy dozes, eats then sleeps some more.
The second trip is on fast-forward and Dezzy is much more interesting. She already smiles and chuckles. She rolls over on her stomach and I’m the first to see it. I feed her milk and mush, which she generously shares with my blouse, my pants and my forearm. It’s all coming back to me. And Dezzy speaks. She says, mmh, mmh and mwa mway – a highly articulate child.
She’s a tender little tidbit. Several older types (at least nine or ten months old) have put their names down for that first date just on the strength of her brown eyes and pouty mouth. But they’ll have her daddy to contend with. Her daddy plans to gently guide Dezzy through her puberty and teens. The tennis lessons, the swimming lessons, the art galleries and classical music have been pre-planned. The kinder, the school., the university have already been vetted. Dezzy’s pre and post-pubescent years have been efficiently programmed.

But I have the Melbourne bridegroom lined up.