BLATHER, 1 : voluble nonsensical or inconsequential talk or writing 2 : stir, commotion 3 : to talk foolishly at lengthfirst known use 1524
My work involves visiting many different people in their homes, it is part of why I love the job so much.
I have had afternoon tea on the elegant verandah of a multi-million dollar home at Hunters Hill, looking out over the Lane Cove River and been offered a bong by some bikies looking to sell some china once owned by the mother of one of them. This visit involved stepping over sleeping ones of their number in order to reach the place where the goods were stored. “Don’t worry, they are out for the count” was the reply when I offered the view that we might wake them.
Tonight I visited a north western suburb of Sydney to see a man who wanted to sell “lots of collectables, a house full, rabbit traps, old railway lamps, you name it”.
It was getting dark as I drove slowly up the unsealed road trying to find the house. Felt somewhat nervous as I realised it was not within screaming distance of the next house, but as usual I tried to bury any anxiety. The front yard was ‘cobbled’ with pieces of concrete, broken up and laid as a sort of path.
Calling at the door, I resisted the temptation to go back to the car to ring and say I was sick and couldn’t come. But once inside I was glad I hadn’t. The occupant didn’t have anything worth buying or even worth looking at, in fact the railway lamps didn’t exist and the rabbit traps weren’t there either, nor the collectables.
What he did have though was loneliness and loss, his wife had left five weeks ago and his mother wasn’t answering his calls. Did I know where she was? No, sorry I didn’t. He explained he had been going to a local church, “I don’t believe in god, but they are so nice there and I’ve felt better in the last few days since I’ve been going there.” Aha, the church is a short walk from my shop, so I am figuring it out a little better, this lady will come to your house if you have things to sell, another shoulder, another person to listen to the story.
So to the house, four small rooms, and I mean small, maybe each the size of a bathroom in the modern homes I visit. Lined with sheets of………well I’m not sure……..cardboard maybe, or Masonite? The lounge room where we sat was wall to wall decorated with all manner of things, but the fairy castle toy sat alongside a sign with a swastika, near the toy cars and the hand lettered signs “Andrea loves Mike” (names changed of course). “What other man’s wife paints signs like that with glitter and all?” he said. True I thought.
The bedroom I didn’t enter, but saw enough through the open door to be sure I didn’t want to. The enclosed back verandah seemed to be the wardrobe, the clothes piled high in a corner were taller than I am, two large plastic bags on the floor had drying marihuana plants sticking out of them. “Oh yeah, that’s the marihuana” he said casually.
We ventured into the back yard on the off chance that it held something saleable, past the hand lettered sign “YOU ARE ON CAMERA CUNT” set to deter burglars who were desperate enough to try to steal his meagre possessions. But sadly there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that was worth a cracker. But it wasn’t money he was looking for.
I had noticed a number of large plastic containers of butts around the place and thought plastic was an odd choice as an ashtray. It soon became apparent why they were there, for as we talked, he began unselfconsciously opening the butts one by one, retrieving the ends of tobacco to roll a new cigarette.
“I can’t find her anywhere” he said. “She is a terrible gambler, picks up every coin I put down, but even the pubs and clubs haven’t seen her. And why isn’t my mother answering the phone, I can’t find her anywhere either.”
I entered anxious, I left sobered.
I don’t know why I’ve been thinking about Robert Dessaix lately. Sometimes you just need to be with people you understand or who understand you. I certainly feel at home with Dessaix.
Robert Dessaix’s writing is so intimate that it feels as if he is in the room spouting forth on subjects that take his fancy. One of my favourite books is his “(..and so forth).” Strangely I always agree totally with his opinions or else disagree entirely, though this is much rarer. In this book he ranges over his pet topics like travel, particularly to the Middle East, and language, swearing and the use of phrase books in this case. His views on sport and on Australia and his inability to belong to the Team Australia mentality struck a familiar chord with me. Robert Dessaix always manages to focus our minds on a beautiful idea.
While I feel comfortable with his work, or with his wonderful portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, which is a must visit whenever in Canberra, I was less than comfortable on the two occasions I have met him at literary events.
I found him arch, distant, cold even, despite the fact he was there trying to sell books to his audience. He seemed to want to rise above us all, not to have to mix at such a base level. Those ice blue eyes looked through me even as he signed my copy.
I have read that often when people fall in love, it is not with the person who is really there, but with an image in their minds of that person and when the first flush of love recedes, the person they fell for sadly isn’t there at all.
Yet, here in my lounge room Robert Dessaix is my friend, whose opinions I value and whose company I never tire of. Funny isn’t it?
I decided to write a letter to Hermann Hesse about his book Siddhartha. Seeing I am a Westie girl by upbringing, I reverted to south of the Parramatta River for the missive.
“G’day mate. I fort I’d let you know how an Aussie sheila feels about this book a yours. This Sid seems like a bit of a dill mate.
He wastes is yoof denying himself everythin, then he goes mad dooin the lot, gets his girl up the duff, pisses orf, then he tries to neck hisself and by then he’s old. I liked the bit where the red-bellied black gets is missus though, that was sweet as.
He wants to know what life’s all about mate, so I’ll tell ya and ya can pass it on to Sid. It’s about nuffin. Look at our koalas (little bears mate). Do they keep askin? No, they just eat when they can and shit when they have to. They’re happy and smarter than this bloke I reckon. So tell old Sid there’s nuffin more to it, the koala knows and they reckon he’s a dumb animal!
So thanks for the book mate, but I won’t be readin any more about Sid or any of is mates neither. Life’s too short mate. It looks like he’s just wasted is time, just like you’ve just wasted mine mate. Cheers.”
This is not a rhetorical question.
We see regularly the right-wing commentators and shock jocks using appalling language and imagery, think of Alan Jones’s suggestion that Julia Gillard be “put in a chaff bag and thrown into the sea”. Can you think of a left-wing equivalent? No, I didn’t think so. OK, Mark Latham is on that spectrum, but one exception surely doesn’t refute the premise.
Jakov Miljak, an electoral officer for the right-wing Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, was involved in a physical altercation with someone in the Young Liberals who spoke out in favour of Turnbull. It was almost a given that the conservative was the aggressor and so it turned out to be.
Then there is Donald Trump………..no need to elaborate there.
I happened on a nice light read this week about Waleed Aly winning a Gold Logie, surely congratulatory or a reasoned argument favouring Lee Lin Chin? No, a nasty diatribe on his win by Miranda Devine, who doesn’t seem to like anyone frankly. Where did I read something about the mark of mental health being the ability to like something about most people you meet? Or did I make that up?
Last week’s Daily Telegraph attack on Q and A questioner Duncan Storrar shows how low it can go. Eek, he has old criminal convictions, eek, his eldest son doesn’t like him, eek he once let a library book go overdue. I am sure any of us would look crook once these mongrels went over us with a fine tooth comb. Who is going to ask a tough question on national tv once we’ve frightened everyone with this sort of response? That is the purpose of the exercise, leave the talking to the pollies and keep the little guy in his kitchen.
But the question remains. Why exactly are these people so damned ugly? They seem to have much in common with religious fundamentalists in that they are highly submissive to authority and believe that the rest of us should readily submit to that authority. They are themselves fearful, so they are keen to subject the rest of us to their fears. They seem easily led by their herd and are disinclined to think outside their highly compartmentalised ideas.
How many conservative politicians and religious right-wingers can you think of who have tumbled in sex scandals? Yet, in the midst of so many world problems they are obsessed with moral minutiae.
In a word, they are bullies. Political bullies and bullies on social issues.
Sad but true, bullies are drawn to positions of power, whether that be as politicians, shock jocks, police or bouncers. When did you last meet a bully who was an optometrist or a paramedic or a fire fighter? Enough said.
To me, the only time it is ok to hang up on a person you know is if they are screaming at you down the phone and you need to cut the call short for your own (mental) protection.
So how come with some people it happens in a normal quiet conversation? Hanging up on someone is rude, obviously, but more than that, it is passive-aggressive behaviour in order to win, despite not having a cogent argument.
It is the ultimate form of dismissal of who you are and what you have to say, usually by someone who is incapable of rational discussion.
Not that I don’t FEEL like hanging up on people from time to time, it is just that it is such an admission of inadequacy that I don’t do ever want to be guilty of doing it.
Coming up 68 and still learning to trust my instincts.
Just watched the middle episode of ABC’s doco The Killing Season on Julia Gillard’s rise (and Kevin Rudd’s fall). It reminded me of my initial instincts on the matter, that in fact Julia Gillard had engineered the demise of two Labor Prime Ministers.
While I was naturally disgusted by her treatment at the hands of Abbott and his ilk, I came again to the view that she was a big girl, was very politically experienced and should have realised that her actions were bound to give the conservatives the upper hand. And I can’t forgive her for that.
Kevin Rudd had the electoral magic shared only by Bob Hawke in my lifetime, he was a person with whom the electorate could be very angry, but would forgive, because of what they saw as his warmth. They classified him into the ‘good bloke’ box.
However, the most stinging thing for me is the fact that those Labor members whose motives and values I had mistrusted on instinct were at the heart of the betrayal. Bitar, Dastyari and Arbib. Just as in the previous state Labor government I had strongly mistrusted Obeid, Macdonald and Roozendaal, each of whom was proved at ICAC to be of a type who considered the parliament as just a treasure chest for their own interests, to use at will.
Science teaches us to weigh up evidence and to be able to carefully and methodically explain our reasoning, yet sometimes (all the time?) our brain computes things about other humans in a way that is instinctive.
Perhaps it is scientific after all? Just that the process is so fast that we miss seeing the steps. But give me some time listening to someone speak in a court, in a meeting, in an interview and, just like the dog who hates the postman, the decision is there.
So it makes sense to me now to just trust my gut reactions, unscientific as that may seem, and classify into trust, don’t trust and pending. Few will need to move category I’ve discovered.