A solitary tear falls as I pull into the driveway of my parents’ house. “Home” is the last place I want to be right now. After four funerals in as many weeks and a fifth on Monday ... you can imagine how I feel. I’d rather a good bottle of scotch and better woman. Yet I promised to be home this weekend after reneging on the same promise twice in the previous month.
As I open the door, I’m assaulted by the aroma of baked goods. Hmm – muffins and scones. Mum must finally have her new oven installed. It has been the source of much protest from the other end of the telephone in the last month. It’s a strange feeling. I think it was Winston Churchill who said (and I hope to be forgiven for paraphrasing) that nothing invokes memory like a smell. The happiest memories of my childhood are entwined with cookies, cakes and all manner of saccharine delicacies. I lament the fact that all changed when I was 10.
For reasons I will not explore in this forum (though one other member knows) my relationship with my parents is best described as distant. I had to grow up quickly when I was 10, perhaps a little too quickly. I know what you’re thinking: Stu, it was 16 years ago GET OVER IT! Yet there are some things that cannot be undone. Too many words spat in anger and disgust to be unsaid. And the slowly chiselled rift is where we find ourselves. We’re not teetering on the precipice, but certainly our relationship is not as wholesome as others.
And still my mother surprises me. “Is Rachel coming?” I think it’s the first time she has spoken her name, indeed the name of any of the girls I have gone out with. She’s usually more nondescript. My first ‘serious’ girlfriend was “that cute girl who works at the newsagent. Not Amy, the other one”.
The thought flashes in my mind: Wait, so suddenly it’s OK for me to be seeing a Catholic girl? Well, that is a change. Maybe our “second time around” was the catalyst for her acceptance? Nah, my mother’s a little more cunning.
Fast forward a couple of hours and I’m by myself in the backyard, where umber tongues lick at the stars. They crackle, fizz and dance. Sat in a captain’s chair, nursing a large glass of twelve year-old blend, I sip and gradually fall into the fire’s trance. The night sky is dotted with a few stars. Your words of nigh on a month ago suddenly needle at me. I have so much to say but no time to write and like the incessant whining drone of a nearby mosquito, I am momentarily unable to hear anything else.
As I open the door, I’m assaulted by the aroma of baked goods. Hmm – muffins and scones. Mum must finally have her new oven installed. It has been the source of much protest from the other end of the telephone in the last month. It’s a strange feeling. I think it was Winston Churchill who said (and I hope to be forgiven for paraphrasing) that nothing invokes memory like a smell. The happiest memories of my childhood are entwined with cookies, cakes and all manner of saccharine delicacies. I lament the fact that all changed when I was 10.
For reasons I will not explore in this forum (though one other member knows) my relationship with my parents is best described as distant. I had to grow up quickly when I was 10, perhaps a little too quickly. I know what you’re thinking: Stu, it was 16 years ago GET OVER IT! Yet there are some things that cannot be undone. Too many words spat in anger and disgust to be unsaid. And the slowly chiselled rift is where we find ourselves. We’re not teetering on the precipice, but certainly our relationship is not as wholesome as others.
And still my mother surprises me. “Is Rachel coming?” I think it’s the first time she has spoken her name, indeed the name of any of the girls I have gone out with. She’s usually more nondescript. My first ‘serious’ girlfriend was “that cute girl who works at the newsagent. Not Amy, the other one”.
The thought flashes in my mind: Wait, so suddenly it’s OK for me to be seeing a Catholic girl? Well, that is a change. Maybe our “second time around” was the catalyst for her acceptance? Nah, my mother’s a little more cunning.
Fast forward a couple of hours and I’m by myself in the backyard, where umber tongues lick at the stars. They crackle, fizz and dance. Sat in a captain’s chair, nursing a large glass of twelve year-old blend, I sip and gradually fall into the fire’s trance. The night sky is dotted with a few stars. Your words of nigh on a month ago suddenly needle at me. I have so much to say but no time to write and like the incessant whining drone of a nearby mosquito, I am momentarily unable to hear anything else.