Alone March 2

Despite believing that a woman can do what she likes and be who she wants it has become obvious to me that there is one thing a woman should never be. Alone.
I’m about to disappear for a few weeks to Venice, Italy. Alone. It’s the best news I’ve had in years that I’ll be free to wander the canals of Venice and tap away on my laptop for hours pausing only to cater to my needs, not anyone else’s.
But as news of my trip has spread the reaction has been overwhelmingly negative. One person close to me inquired if they had ashrams in Venice, dropping a huge dollop of suggestion that I might be having a mid-life crisis. Another person, also closely related, wondered why I would even consider travelling anywhere on my own when I had a nice husband to go with me, and suggested Hawaii would make more sense. I’m not sure why Hawaii, perhaps a woman is better alone wearing a coconut bra?
Someone else, on hearing my reasons for wanting some time out as translated by a friend: “she never gets a moment to herself,” managed to make me feel so much better by highlighting how awful, indeed, my life really is.
“I could never live your life,” she said with the dread more commonly used for conversations discussing cancer diagnosis.
A colleague, live on the radio, stated that he was worried about my family. The inference surely being that when the woman of the house was away the children starved, the power was cut off and the Ebola virus moved in.
And then there was the expense. “I thought you were paying off the mortgage,” smirked a very brave person. Necessitating a long explanation about my previous book proving a little controversial which meant I ended up with a bit of an unexpected windfall, most of which went on the mortgage actually and some of which I was putting into the next book. Beat that.
And then there were just the looks. From various people searching my face for signs of a marriage break-up, a terminal illness prompting me to get out my list of 100 things to do before I die, or an assignation with a lover of indeterminate nationality, but most probably Italian.
“No seriously, I just want some time alone to write my novel which is set in Venice,” I repeated until I was blue in the face.
Which then prompted a thought bubble above their heads which said: “She’s taking herself a bit seriously isn’t she?”
I will never be one of those pale women who waft across the stage at the Montana Book Awards looking like they need an intravenous drip for basic nutrients and a sense of humour. But I’ll be damned if I’ll let my novel be set in mystifying Karangahape Rd when I have Venice at my disposal. I’m a popular fiction writer with the sole aim that one day someone might curl up with my romantic thriller on a rainy winter’s afternoon and have a pleasant read.
But as the time draws near I am outraged that I have had so much damn explaining to do because I am stepping out of the antiquated expectation hat a woman’s place is in the home. We have obviously not progressed since the 60s when the only reasonable excuse for a mother to leave her family was to go into hospital for a hysterectomy or to attend the funeral of a distant aunt down country.
Hours were spent preparing freezer meals labelled: “Beef stew, Monday night, defrost then heat slowly on in the pot on medium” or “Macaroni cheese, Tuesday night, defrost then heat slowly in the oven on 150 degrees.” And brave souls left notes suggesting fish and chips on Friday. Other women in the neighbourhood rallied around and invited hubbie and the kids over for a meal to save them “fending for themselves.”
Men however, have always been allowed to travel alone. Far and wide they go conquering deals and takeovers. My travel writer husband does a fair bit of it with no such reaction from anyone about being alone or being any more odd than usual.
The only people who are quite happy for me to disappear are my five children. The very people I am escaping from with their love of interruption, need for nurture and givers of conversations I never regret finding time for. And that’s why I love them.

Illustration by Anthony Ellison

The Privilege of Breeding February 24

“Mum you can’t park here, it’s only for parents with babies,” said my youngest daughter in her patient voice. The one she uses to explain that I have my dress on inside out or I might be a little drunk.
“I don’t care, I’m making up for lost privilege,” I replied testily.
“Lost what?”
“The lost privilege of breeding, grab the shopping bags and lock your door.”
My local Foodtown has gone to the trouble of branding the 10 car parks closest to the door exclusively for use by parents with babies. It’s a fantastic idea especially for those working mums who dash in at 5.30 with overtired children recently retrieved from daycare and attempt to buy something resembling dinner.
I’ve been there, I know how they feel. Just as you finish one job you are about to start another, and it won’t end until dinner is cooked, babies are bathed and safely asleep. Approximately four hours to go and parking close is a great help.
But in my day we never had branded carparks. We had to park with the normal people, because in the 80s breeding was not a privilege. We didn’t even have those cute seats in the trollies and had to somehow fit the carseat in the trolley along with our 12 pack of Treasures and packets of mince.
Recently I’ve considered suing the government for that loss of privilege. I’d like to claim the 14 weeks paid paternal leave I never got for my four babies. The childcare subsidy which wasn’t available for my children, had there actually been childcare centres back then. The Working for Families tax subsidy which was non existent. I reckon it cost me $50,000 to choose to have a career and give birth to four children so where’s the back pay? Surely my babies are just as valid as today’s ones?
In 1986 when I had my first child there were only 52,823 of us breeding that year. And you didn’t’ really get much help especially if you insisted on being a working mum. Like many young women in the 80s I made the tragic mistake of believing I could combine the feminist dream of working full time and having children. I did it, but at a price thanks to Rogernomics, Ruthanasia and a Labour government more interested in free markets than free children. And it was very lonely. At 24 I was regarded as a bit eccentric having a baby, I had no friends who were pregnant, no one at work was pregnant, and there were no exceptions made for pregnancy in the newsroom. You still worked the late shift and if you went over your 10 days sick leave allowance because your other baby was in hospital with pneumonia your pay was docked.
It’s hard to believe employers could be so harsh when today they are falling over themselves to let mothers work part time, from home, up a tree if they want to all at full pay because there just aren’t enough workers out there to fill the jobs.
So, is it any wonder we are experiencing a baby boom not seen since 1963? Just over 64,000 babies were born last year to parents who planned their pregnancies knowing that they will receive everything a privileged couple should to help them add their precious bundle to our population.
But according to a shocked media obviously incapable of economic analysis, the baby boom can be explained by celebrities. Apparently women are more than happy to put themselves through nine months of strenuous baby growing, not drinking alcohol and limiting what they eat to look like Angelina Jolie and Heidi Klum. I don’t think so, Kiwi women just aren’t that thick. They know that Angelina and Heidi have an army of trainers, dieticians, beauty therapists and nannies ensuring they look fantastic during and two days after their pregnancy. But what pregnant celebrities have done is make it okay to walk around with your gorgeous naked belly exposing itself in a bikini or above low waist jeans. Gone are the days when we were reduced to hiding our bump under ridiculous gathered frocks and sewing wedges of elasticized material into the front of our jeans to make room.
There has never been a better time to have a baby, and it’s almost worth having another one just to make the most of all that privilege and the Foodtown carparks.

Illustration by Anthony Ellison

Sorry February 17

Some people are a long time coming to the art of saying sorry. Volunteering an admission of guilt just seems wrong when you will most likely be able to argue your way out of it. “I only did that because you backed me into a corner” is a good one. “You just can’t accept the fact that I’m right” is another and “Get over it” a very useful statement to cover most situations.
I don’t think I used the word “sorry” once before the age of 40 and I still lapse back occasionally into the belief that people should accept me as I am and respect my right to be a pain in the arse on occasion. I am who I am, live and let live, that sort of thing. But in recent years I’ve found the wonderful panacea that saying sorry can be. Instead of days and sometimes weeks of stewing over a disagreement you just wake up the next morning pick up the phone and say you’re sorry. Problem disappears. Now I understand the whole confessional thing with the Catholics where you confess, say some Hail Mary’s and walk out feeling much lighter.
But saying sorry is more than just letting those two syllables escape from your mouth. It is widely regarded that a successful apology must have three elements. Regret for your actions, taking responsibility for them and being willing to remedy the situation by not doing it again.
Which is where Kevin Rudd and I part company. I’m very glad that seven years after I witnessed the march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge demanding an apology for the treatment of Aboriginals someone has finally got around to it.
But making it all about the lost generation is very convenient. It points the finger at a bunch of British influenced government officials who took Aboriginal children away from their families. Not good, definitely needs an apology but what about the rest of the past 200 years of deep racism, certain apartheid and wilful neglect shown by Australians towards these people?
Who is going to apologise for that situation and who is going to take responsibility and remedy the fact that every day in every way, white Australians, as they have done for the past two centuries, prefer their Aboriginals to be neither be seen nor heard.
I lived in Australia for 18 months which was about all I could stand. There were several reasons I came running home but one of the main concerns I had was their treatment of Aboriginals. In the white middle class circles I mixed in you just didn’t talk about it. At least in New Zealand when Tame Iti goes running around the bush with some guns most households would sit down over dinner and have an energetic discussion. The dialogue would happen because as New Zealanders we are engaged with its people. We care. Which is not to say we aren’t racist also, a mere 10 minutes with an ear to talkback will tell you that. But we have the passion to discuss and debate the issues which have the power to tear us apart. In Australia you sit down at a dinner and utter the words “so how about those Aboriginals?” and the room goes deathly silent. With that one topic you have stormed into a cultural territory which was fenced off years ago. They appear numb and in denial about the apartheid which is taking place in their very own land. They seem powerless, blinkered and unable to utter one word about the situation either through fear it would be the wrong word or a lack of information on which to make an informed comment. The most I ever got any Australian to say about the situation was that what was done is done. And it is no wonder that every time Germaine Greer puts pen to paper expressing an educated understanding of Aboriginal culture and their treatment by the Australian Government in the British media she is widely discredited by her home country’s media.
And if you do travel out in the desert you are likely to meet, as my husband did just a few months ago, a whole tribe of displaced Aboriginals who were living in a settlement while they waited for their homeland Maralinga to be cleaned up after the British tested atom bombs on their land in the 60s. The Australian Government has done some work, and forked out some money, but there is still a long way to go. Sorry.

Illustration by Anthony Ellison

The Letterbox February 10

It all started when my mother-in-law turned up on the doorstep out of breath and a little worse for wear.
“I was going to drop these off in the letterbox but there doesn’t appear to be any bottom in it,” she announced taking long lung filling gasps of air every three words.
It’s quite an effort to get to our front door involving a steep path, steps and a fair bit of fauna and flora clearing.
A cup of coffee and a sit down saw to my mother-in-law, but alas the letterbox on closer inspection did indeed have no bottom. Suddenly the mail which kept appearing in our garage, five metres to the right of the letterbox, delicately slipped under the locked door made sense. We had simply thought our mailman had gone a little odd and preferred the slot under the door than the slot in the box. We also understood why we frequently had to hunt in our overgrown garden looking for our mail.
Our letterbox was old when we moved in. It was possibly constructed at the same time as the garage which is pre-war. And like the garage which is barely standing, we just didn’t want to see that our letterbox was past it. We were convinced it was made from heart Kauri and so old and iconic we considered registering it as a historic place.
My mother-in-law offered to buy my husband a new one for his birthday but he couldn’t wait that long. Instead he instructed me to have a look on Trade Me, and a week later our marriage was severely strained. Who knew that men and women could think so differently about a letterbox?
“Not white, not metal, slot needs to be wider, too big, honestly how do you thank that is going to fit on our post?” he barked as I showed him my Trade Me selection of iconic and slightly weathered Kiwi letterboxes.
“Put in a search for ‘letterbox wooden’” he instructed (again) before marching off to address some literary crisis on librarything.com.
Unused to being instructed, let alone twice in one morning I went for a long walk to consider my options. Would I tear his heart out now or give him another 24 hours? As I walked I felt the same way I did when I got pregnant. Overnight you notice every pram, every baby, every other pregnant woman and that whole aisle in the supermarket with nappies in it where the day before they simply didn’t register on the radar. I stopped and admired every single letterbox, from the architect designed cedar and metal creations currently in vogue for Grey Lynn renovators, to various versions of the nice white metal one with room for four bottles of milk and a carrier I remembered from my childhood to the quirky artistic creations ranging from one painted to look like a TV and another involving pukekos and a great deal of ceramics. In Grey Lynn when people aren’t appearing on or making television, they express themselves with artistic letterboxes.
I returned home more confused than ever and stroked my broken letterbox. I’d never had to replace a letterbox before and you certainly don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Perhaps I could patch it, but where would I find the right grade and age of heart Kauri to match?
“I need to talk to you about the letterbox,” I said to my husband in the voice I use for getting my own way. “You’re being bossy and unreasonable and I really want one of those white metal ones from my childhood.”
“I was not bossy,” he retorted. “I just thought you’d appreciate my input.”
“Next you’ll be blaming the full moon and the hot summer,” I snarled, instantly regretting it.
“Right, I can see there’s only one way to sort this, get in the car we’re going to Mitre 10,” he instructed (again).
The good news is that we now have another letterbox, even though we left a trail of helpful Mitre 10 staff in our wake as they all tried to help the war of the worlds taking place in the letterbox aisle, before sensibly retreating to the safety of the lawnmowers.
It’s a wooden version of the white one and if you squint your eyes you could almost call it iconic.
“Happy now?” he grumped, content only that he got to choose the number to put on it, which is quite frankly gaudy.

Illustration by Anthony Ellison