Take Your Passion, And Make It Happen!

Winter usually conjures up visions of warm fires, comfort food and layers of clothing but for me it also conjures up "Flash dance"! Yes at certain times during winter I am reminded of a great childhood night out. It was a Friday! - It was Winter! - And it was Great!.

My friend at school during this time was Irene and she was from a strict Italian family. She lived in the classic big "wog" house which was not far from my place and I thought she lived in a right royal mansion. Of course I was of the firm believe that her father must have been involved in the Mafia! How else could they afford such riches because as far as I was concerned at the age of about 8 or so they were rich beyond my wildest dreams. They had a two story freaking house they MUST have been rich!

Of course this was due to my childish observations as I lived in a two bedroom fibro home that you could barely swing a cat in. The back yard was five times the size of the actual dwelling. There was lice in the roof and holes in the floor where the walls would not meet - therefore exposing - well - the soil underneath the house! It was paradise! The fact that we lived only a few streets away did not deter my believe that they were in fact the richest people in the neighbourhood or in fact the entire world.

I was not jealous of their riches I was resided to being systemically poor for life and I loved going into their home. It was completely different to mine. The floors were tiled and the house was always immaculate although we shared that in common as my house was like a hospital theatre. Irene's home smelt different to mine, it felt different to mine and the cultural activities that took place at her home made me feel like I had stepped off Earth and into another planet. Though these are where the differences ended.

The things I do know we shared was the fact that we didn't fit in. She was different because of her cultural background and I was different for reasons that I still can not explain. Even when pressed in a lecture full of teenagers waiting for my big response on the matter. ("Wear it Purple" lecture circa 2011) I now feel that we also shared a common but unspoken of bond which was the pain in our lives during that time. This was due to factors outside of our control as children.

My family life was tearing apart. Nobody discussed divorce in those days, it simply wasn't spoke of and it certainly was not discussed with children. This was because of course as we all know it wasn't about the children! It was about the parents. Their loss, their pain, their sorrow. (Incidentally as this is in written format let me assure you I am being sarcastic. Divorce with children IS in fact all about the children. At least in perfect world it would be about their welfare but it rarely is)

Irene on the other hand, and it is only now as I grow older, and emotionally wiser, that I remember that she may have been a late baby for her parents. Her brother and sister were much older than her so she was kind of brought up like an only child, the baby of the family. However I don't believe this was a problem for her. What I know is that her brother was killed in a car accident. I remember it very clearly but as a child I did not have the emotional maturity to know how to deal with this sort of thing, what child does.

I remember feeling awkward around her mother in particular. Perhaps because I felt so sad about what had happened I could feel she was terribly devastated and I felt by being around at Irene's house I was just a hindrance and in the way at a time for many years they just wanted to be left alone. The fact that I could not speak Italian and I was an alien in many ways didn't help convince me that having another child under toe was a wonderful diversion for her family.

Of course now that I am a fully paid up member of the adult club I realise that they probably didn't think anything like that. No doubt as hard working people they were simply trying to get through their lives as best they could under such terrible circumstances as losing a vibrant young man, their son.

Irene and I would walk home from school each day together the distance not being particularly far but it took us all afternoon. We talked and talked and talked in fact I think I collectively spoke more words to Irene in those early years than I spoke to any other person in my life at the time. How I wish I could go back in time and walk behind those two young girls, chitter chattering away. I am sure I would be shocked and stunned, in fact I know so. We were both mature for our age but under the circumstances we had to be. And it was this among other traits that drew me close to Irene. She like me had to prepare the house each evening as our mother's worked. We were responsible for starting dinner preparations, cleaning the house and getting our homework completed. We also spent the rest of the afternoon that we had left talking on the telephone to each other.

I remember how much we both loved food. I loved going to her home because the food was so different to what my mother prepared. I loved going into her father's cellar and looking at all the bottled goodies that they had stored up. I loved wondering around in her garden and feeding the chooks. I especially loved when we convinced our parents that we needed to complete some homework together on a Friday night and we could steal away as much chocolate and salt and vinegar chips as we could eat and gobble them up without having as much as drawn a border on our project cardboard. It was great.

I remember when she went to Italy and the excitement of receiving a post card from - Abroad! I fondly kept an ashtray she brought back for me from San Remo and when I actually went to San Remo as an adult I thought I had made it as far as the ash tray had come. Wow!

Though my fondet memory will always be when her sister on one freezing cold winter's night took us to see Flashdance at the movies. A really big treat. I remember feeling very grown up with my hand bag and friend on a big night out. We possibly were home by 6pm as it was day light saving and the sun had gone down early but I am hoping it was later, perhaps 9pm? I remember the movie theatre being packed out and the subject matter that we were seeing was as mature as we clearly thought we were able to cope with. The one part of that night out which was a lucky escape was the fact that neither of us had grandiose dreams of being instant dancers. In fact I don't even think we talked about that aspect of it, phew! I would have been washed up as a dancer about a year later when they worked out that ahem I could not in fact dance. Okay, okay a week later!

It was simply brilliant, the movie, the friendship and the great childhood memories.

By the time we went to high school we remained friends but we went in different directions.

It was a normal and natural part of growing up.

So in the dead of winter I often crack open a packet of salt and vinegar chips and snuggle up to watch Flashdance and remember my friend - Irene -Who I hope took all her passions and made them happen.

The Tyranny Of Time

Coyote txt msg to Jodie: I'm here, can't wait to see you!

Jodie txt msg to Coyote: Me too! See you soon miss. I'm coming from town hall on train.

Coyote txt msg to Jodie: Hurry!

Jodie txt msg to Coyote: I'm walking to Enmore Theatre, This is like a bloody first date!

And so it was that Jodie + Jodie = healed.

I never thought this day would come that I could actually say that I have finally healed a part of my past that I never thought I would, but I have. After posting my blog regarding my school friend Jodie we got in contact. We organised a night out and a rather big catch up. We starting talking at 6pm and did not stop until 3am and I have no doubt if we could have physically kept talking we would have.

It was like no time had come between us but it was glaringly obvious that it had. We are older and wiser and as I said on the night our sixteen year old selves would have been very pissed off that we no longer swing from the chandeliers. As we sat talking it was as though we were the only two people in the pub and eventually we were. The whole world stopped around us and we transported back to our old selves. Laugh, laugh and laugh some more the chortling must have been deafening for anyone seated around us but it was like our parents had gone out for the night and we transported back into the naughty little school girls that we once were.

I always knew that we would have lived one degree of separation away from each other all these years and we certainly did. Though I am left with little doubt that the wires that we crossed and the doors that closed in around us and our friendship were all due to one merciless and basic young and inexperienced fact. Emotional naivety.

So at one point we both had to go to the bathroom. As we stood dolling ourselves up about to depart the bathroom Jodie said "Wouldn't it be a blast if we opened up the door to the bathroom and we stepped back in time, transported back straight into a school dance.

In a way I truly wished that it had happened because there are two things I would have done;

1. Pashed Peter Kapusi on the dance floor.

2. Told Jodie that her friendship will always hold a very special place in my heart and even though we will be subject to the tyranny of time in our future eventually time will mean little and we will be friends for life.

The above is not necessarily in order of how I would execute them in my portal back in time but I can tell you I would not leave without doing both. So all there is left now is to play you a song.