Some time ago I found an old photograph taken of me from 1998, what a year, what fabulous memories.
In Katoomba, the Blue Mountains of Sydney the arts community is quite strong, not just painters, sculpture and photographers but writers too. My husband was into his sculpture at this stage, one such exhibition was themed origins. He decided to create the story of adam and eve in sculpture, casting back then was pretty basic, for us anyway. He completed the works, it was my face, his face, my hands and his, an apple and an egg, the yolk of life. All life sized, all patinered in such a ways as to look aged and weathered.
He won the prize, and me that night, you see he'd come out of hospital not long before, the work half finished before he went in. A lot of things were half finished that year, too many drugs, many many fights, rages and what can only be described as desperation.
I was a nanny back then, I think in many ways being a nanny actually helped, it was difficult enough seeing him in the morning and night struggling. Selfish isn't it? I'd rather the musings of children over my partner who was gravely ill.
I learned what fear is that year, I learned what it meant to love someone unbconditionally, how to prioritise life, I grew up fast that year. My handbag held many things including syringes, vials of hormone injections, adrenaline, pills and potions. My hands never shook but I did on the inside. Carrying this heavy bag everywhere I went.
I was also dancing Flamenco that year, a distraction, a way of invoking my own sense of self I guess. They were great friends too, many nights were spent sipping wine, playing guitar and dancing in someones kitchen or lounge room. One such night hubby was with me, he felt well enough to get out of the hosue, winter in the Blue Mountains is one of the prettiest places, snow, icy steam flows from you nostrils when you breath, woolen beanies and scarfs, colour joy.
I was talking with a friend, hubby was sitting next to me, he leaned back in the couch, then fell asleep or so I thought.
10 minutes later something gripped me heart, it wasn't fear, it was an alert, alarm a knowing of some red flashing light kind. Hubby had turned blue, not that I'm holding my breath blue, but dead blue. Then gray, I tried to feel his pulse on his arm then his neck, confusingly at the time I couldn't feel a thing, I placed my head on his chest and thought 'how very odd, why isn't his heart beating'
I think it was a good 10 minutes before he gasped, a good hour in my mind where I realised that fear of death is not scary, death itself is not frightening, but dealing with death, someone elses death scared the shit out of me.
Months and months of drugs, blood transfusions, infections, hospital stays, working day in and out driving two hours every second day, lifting a man of 70 kilo's out of bed, dragging him to a car which was all I could do, I'm only 5'8", he's 5'10", hes heavy for a man, heavier still ill.
I remember becoming frustrated one evening, his mood swings due to drugs, were wearing me down and I lost the plot. He has a bad habit of peppering his words with acidic personal attacks, so I picked up a very expensive egyptian mask and threw that baby straight at his head... needless to say I have poor hand eye co-ordination and luckily missed! yet at the point I knew it couldn't get any worse.
Towards the end of 1998 we had realised the both of us that to really move on in life we had to move, physically and reinvent ourselves, away from all the sickness, pain, pathos. Hubbies brother had moved far north and asked him to holiday there for a week.
When he came back, fresh and ruby faced he didn't need to say a word at all, I knew, we were moving. It took 8 weeks to organise and thats when I started my new life, here where I am now, where I call home, where I feel as though I've had the chance to become me.
My birthday present that year was my husband moving up here before me, when I arrived at the airport with our dog, he drove to a house in the middle of the rain forest, a beautiful house, open, warm and private. Hubby said to me that afternoon that he didn't want to find work until I felt ready to. I didn't for a long while, I had a physical breakdown. I think I lost something like 25 kilo's, I was waif like, the kind of fowl skinny that brings stares with it, I was so exhausted when I finally stopped I crashed.
In hindsight the only analogy that fits is; like removing a old dried and cracked skin, a shell of armour that held me on my feet for over two years had to be removed, it was a journey for sure yet when I came out of it I was a far better human being, to myself to my life, almost if I can use the tweeness of the sentence, the year my voice broke and turned me into a women.
Thats why 1998 will always remain for me the biggest year of my life, the most challenging the mot rewarding the year with memories that line the walls of mind from floor to ceiling no space for more.
End note ~ sorry for spelling mistakes, its 5am here I woke up at 4am to drop hubby off at a shoot, he's filming bull catching today to go with the mustering shoot we did a month or so back, me? I'm drinking coffee remembering old times, new dreams and feeling rather cosy! Thanks for reading.
