Category: Autobiography

My Inner Warrior

sandybarker

We started watching The Mindy Project when it began airing this fall. I’m enjoying the fast-paced, self-deprecating humor. And Kaling is clever, sassy and cute, which works well for the style of the show.

In this week’s episode, one of the guys Mindy works with teaches her some prison wisdom; he encourages her to name her inner warrior and call on her whenever Mindy needs to source her inner strength. Later in the episode, we learn the name of Mindy’s inner warrior, Beyonce Pad Thai.

Brilliant!

I immediately wanted to name my inner warrior, pausing the episode to consider what she would be called. In my head she looks like a combination of Zoe from Firefly:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and this warrior woman I found online:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, maybe something like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For those of you who missed that Firefly is awesome, Zoe is kick-ass. She’s cool under pressure, a formidable soldier, and most men are terrified of her, including her husband and her captain. I liked this second image, because firstly, she is fully-clad, which is more than I can say for many of her contemporaries. Also, she is regal, has a sword, which she clearly knows how to use, and she coordinates well with her steed.  The final woman warrior is “…the eponymous Artesia of Dara Dess, a warrior-queen, witch, spirit-walker and former concubine…” (tvtropes.org). That is some kind of resume. I like that she has skills in multiple disciplines, plus she is leading an army of men, which I think speaks volumes for her credentials as a woman warrior.

My inner warrior certainly emerges from time to time. She does not suffer fools, is highly protective of her clan, and can silence the annoying, the dim and the fullhardy with a single look. She can be caustic and seductive, depending on what is called for, and she can paint an arrogant braggart into a metaphorical corner. She values loyalty, hard-work and accountability, and she has great hair and wears a pair of really tall, but comfortable boots.

Taking Mindy’s lead, I tried to add together the name of a long-admired woman and an Asian food. My first attempt was Anniston Kimchi.  Hmm.  Xena Spicy Salmon Roll?  Condoleezza Wasabi. Ooh, I like that!  I am still working on it, but I think I will have to abandon Mindy’s formula. Suggestions are welcome.

We need another song, Helen Reddy

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When I was a young woman of 22 I returned to Australia from the United States. Not long after my return I was sat down by the Bishop of my church, the Mormon church, and asked why I wasn’t married yet.

The conversation went something like this:

Bishop: I am concerned that you are not yet married or engaged, and that you haven’t as an alternative applied to go on a mission.

Me: I don’t want to go on a mission.

Bishop: Why not? You are over 21, and you’ve no imminent plans to get married. Do you?

Me: No, I don’t. Actually, I am going to university. I start in February.

Bishop: Why do you want to go to university?

Me: To get a degree, so I can build a career and look after myself.

Bishop: But you don’t need to have a career. Your greatest calling is to be a wife and a mother. If you are not seriously considering going on a mission, I would like you to think more seriously about marriage. I know that you’re dating (he shall remain nameless) and he is a good man, just returned from his mission. He would make a great husband and father.

I was dumb-founded. I excused myself from the meeting and never went back to church again.

I converted to Mormonism after my mother did, when I was nine years old. At the age of 21 I attended BYU in Utah for one semester. There I dated two guys, both of whom proposed after the third date. I declined; I was only 21.

BYU was rather expensive and it was a blessing in disguise when I was essentially forced to leave the U.S. and return to Australia to complete my education there. It was also a blessing in disguise that my Bishop called me into his office that day, as it forced me to play a hand I knew I needed to play. I left the church, and I have not looked back. It was the first time I took a stand against that kind of limited thinking.

To be clear, I have nothing against Mormons or people of any faith for that matter. I do, however, take issue with institutionalized misogyny or anything that remotely resembles it. I also have nothing against motherhood or marriage for that matter, but neither were things that I wanted at the age of 22; I wanted to go to university.

A few weeks ago, along with many of my Australian friends, I ranted about the appallingly disrespectful behavior directed at Australia’s Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Under the guise of disagreeing with her policies, she has been subjected to systematic and hateful behavior. It culminated in her asking for the resignation of Tony Abbot, leader of the opposition and a man guilty of perpetuating and allowing this behavior by members of his own party. He declined to resign, not surprisingly, but I loudly applauded that she called him out for his hypocrisy when he claimed to be offended by another politician’s behavior.

This past week in the United States, yet another Republican politician has made a highly offensive gaff when addressing the topic of ‘rape and pregnancy’. The list of blatantly stupid and offensive comments about this one topic is horrifyingly long, and even the President is taking the time to address them and labeling them as ridiculous. Tina Fey, respected comedian/actress/writer and all-around super smart woman, took these men to task this past week during an appearance at the Center for Reproductive Rights Inaugural Gala. Great work, Tina.

One of the greatest advocates for controlling reproductive rights for women is Paul Ryan, the Vice-Presidential nominee. He (strongly) supports a bill that would abolish the right to in vitro fertilization. To be clear, if this bill – or any bill like it – is ever passed, in vitro would be illegal. The same bill would require a rape victim who becomes pregnant from the rape to deliver the baby, rather than opt for an abortion.

My thoughts on reproductive rights, let alone other women’s issues, such as economic and professional equality, can be explained by the following flow chart.

‘nough said.

Behind Closed Doors

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I was reading an article about marriage in a women’s magazine about a decade ago and there was a quote from Angela Lansbury – yes, that one, the “Murder She Wrote” lady. She said that the secret to a long and happy marriage was a closed bathroom door and that she never let her husband see her put her pantyhose on. Of all the quotes about marriage I have heard over the years, this is the one that sticks with me. What it says to me is, ‘maintain a little mystery, even with the person who knows you better than anyone else.’

I consider this great advice.

Ben is away at the moment for work reasons, so at home it is just me and Lucy, the cat. When Ben is away the bathroom door is typically open when I am, ahem, using the bathroom (as the Americans like to euphemize). Lucy thinks this is grand and seems to think that the times when I am, ahem, using the bathroom, are good moments for her to seek out attention and be told how pretty she is.

When Ben is here, we consider this activity strictly a closed-door activity.  I know that there are couples out there who will disagree, but there are just some things that should remain a mystery. I have slipped a couple of times on the whole pantyhose thing, but every time I am putting on tights, or leggings, or pantyhose and Ben is home, I think of Angela Lansbury and try to do it behind closed doors.

10 Question Meme

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I was looking back over some previous blog posts and I came across this Stolen Meme, which I first posted in March 2008. I had forgotten about the two confessions at the beginning, but in reading them I feel warm affection for my former self. Whenever we watch the Inside the Actor’s Studio, I will ask Ben to give his answers to the 10 questions at the end, and then – of course – I will give him my answers (whether he wants to know or not).

They are quick, so here they are:

  1. What is your favorite word?     bridge
  2. What is your least favorite word?     bitch
  3. What turns you on (creatively, spiritually, emotionally)?     talented people who mentor and share their talent with others
  4. What turns you off?     mediocrity passed off as excellence
  5. What is your favorite curse word?     f*cker (an oldie but a goodie)
  6. What sound do you love?     a cork releasing from a bottle of wine
  7. What sound do you hate?     car alarms
  8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?     baker
  9. What profession would you never want to do?     join the military (I bow down to these men and women)
  10. The (stupid) pearly gates question.     I decline to answer; I don’t like this question.

I also found this 10 question meme:

  1. Describe yourself in seven words     creative, whimsical, clever, loyal, loving, stubborn, and an-awesome-dancer (played the hyphenated-word card)
  2. What keeps you awake at night?     wondering about the future and replaying the past
  3. If you could be anyone for a day, who would you be and why?    my sister. I think it would be cool to experience what motherhood feels like – but just for the day. : )
  4. What are you wearing now?     yoga clothes
  5. What scares you?     big, hairy, horrible Aussie spiders
  6. What is the best and worst thing about blogging?     LOVE getting my thoughts down on the page. HATE that I don’t have time to read all the other amazing blogs out there.
  7. What was the last website you looked at?     Indeed.com
  8. If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?     I would like to focus more on living in the present.
  9. Slankets – yes or no?    No. They are the death of human dignity.
  10. Travelling alone or with someone?    With Ben – always.

Whidbey Island Retreat

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The night was dark and stormy…

Saturday night I was snuggled in my little corner room of the Captain Whidbey Inn while a storm raged outside. A screen door on the ground floor kept slamming in the wind, waking me throughout the night. Fellow guests had talked about the two ghosts that haunt the inn while we ate dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I wouldn’t have traded places with anyone – not even my boyfriend who was winging his way to sunny Australia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was on retreat, and what better place to lock yourself away for a weekend of writing than an old inn on the water, and backing onto the forest?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What an incredible weekend! I was part of a wonderful group of creative women, Anne, Thea, Lea, and Beverley and we had three incredible writing workshops with three diverse and exquisitely talented authors:

Stephanie Kallos

Bharti Kirchner

and Terry Persun

As well as my immediate group, I also met Megs, Kate and other gifted and passionate writers. I loved the collaboration, the camaraderie and the incredible amount that I learned. I have seen my own work with a renewed and critical eye, which means I can take another pass at it with particular attention to the following:

  • Differentiation of character (there are a lot of women in my book – are they all distinctive from each other, or do they bleed into one?)
  • Fleshing out the antagonists (‘bad guys’ have feelings too!)
  • P.O.V. shifts (oops – slap my hand)
  • Setting (the oft-neglected child)
  • Depth (short-shrifting the reader will only piss them off – thanks Stevie!)

Bharti made this great point that some authors get to the end of their book and realize that the characters never eat. Mine eat, but it is a detail that can evoke setting really effectively, so I need to ensure that I have given it the right amount of attention. Much of my action in part two takes place on a coach and I know that I can spend more time on developing the sense of claustrophobia that develops on a six-week trip. Stephanie told me that chapter one intrigued her, but that she was pissed off because I start after the crucial, catalytic moment. This is a great point! I am now working on a prologue to see if that addresses the issue. Of course, chapter one, which I am in love with by the way, will now need a major re-write. Terry’s workshop highlighted for me that one-note characters are boring. My villain in part two needs nuances and I have just the scene to bring his out.

I am so very excited to get to work. And I have a hell of a lot of it to do!

 

Coming of Age

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Last night I watched the film Liberal Arts, which is written and directed by and also starring Josh Radnor from How I met your mother. I am not a huge fan of the show, but it isn’t because I don’t like Radnor, and this film is about as far from the show as you can get. It is really good.

It is considered a coming of age film, which I particularly liked because the protagonist is 35. He returns to his alma mater to farewell his ‘second favorite professor’ who is reluctantly retiring after 37 years of higher education. There are many authentic and authentically awkward moments, which made me wonder how much was scripted and how much evolved organically through improvisation while the cameras were rolling. One of the characters – a Drama major – even notes that life is not scripted; it is just one long improvisation, which may be a clue. Regardless, the acting is lovely.

While studying my own Liberal Arts degree – double major of English Literature and Theater Arts, “just to make sure I was completely unemployable”, as Radnor’s Jessie says of his own education – I was never that good at improvisation. I always preferred scripted performance to the ‘be amazingly clever and witty on the spot’ school of acting. I watched in awe as many of my classmates took the stage time and time again, scriptless, and came up with improvisational gold.

Through the awe, the gnawing nerves ate away at my stomach while I waited my turn on the stage. With a script in hand I felt invincible. With a chair and an empty stage, I got stage fright. In the film, Radnor’s Jessie oscillates between distressed and uncomfortable when he is ‘off-book’. In his personal life he relies too heavily on snippets from the classics and professionally, his trite, seemingly scripted responses have no effect on the young minds he is trying to inspire. It is only when he throws the scripts away that he has any kind of real connection with people and in being authentic, he comes of age.

So, let’s get back to me, the wary improviser. How has that played out in my own life? Well, professionally I am typically a good improviser. I store a lot of information in my head, and my brain tends to know when it is connected to other stored information. If a meeting or a lesson plan or training session goes off on an unexpected tangent, I tend to excel. I can think on my feet and make quick decisions. Professionally, I have had many milestones that have been a ‘coming of age’ and I am looking ahead to the next one.

But what about my personal life? Last night, as I walked home through my neighborhood where I have lived for the past 4 years, I asked myself about my own coming of age. “When was it?” “Has it happened yet?” I have certainly experienced some significant transformations in the past 20 years of my adulthood.

In the film, an almost unrecognizable Zac Efron pontificates about the incredible feat that is a caterpillar turning itself into a butterfly. And he is right; that is amazing if you stop to think about it. At some point I did really think about it, because I have a butterfly tattoo and I chose it for its homage to the idea of transformation. As I watched the scene I reminded myself to remind myself of that fact more often. Transformation is very, very beautiful.
So, as I further ponder my own coming of age, I realize that there have been many moments that define some form of transformation, and that I want there to be many more. Those moments, those decisions, those risks that we take that shape us into a more real, more complete and more beautiful human being, those are the times when we ‘come of age’.

The very exquisite Richard Jenkins, who portrays the reluctant retiree, responds to Jessie’s question, “Do you think of this place as a prison?” with “Every place is a prison if you never leave.” That line resonated with me, because I have an internal kinetic-ness that makes me want to go, well, everywhere. In my life, many of my coming of age moments have been around departures to somewhere new. Moving to LA, moving to London, moving to Sydney, coming here to Seattle four years ago to live with Ben – all highly significant times in my life when I stretched myself, faced my fears and went for it.

These defining moments are different for everyone, however. For me, traveling and living in different places is innate to my contentment, but Jenkins’ line about every place being prison if you don’t leave is not true for everyone.

I know 8 couples who are currently expecting a baby (7 for the first time), and I cannot express how much I admire their selflessness and courage. My sister and brother-in-law became parents for the first time about 15 months ago and I am in awe of how brilliantly they parent my (clever and beautiful) nephew. Talk about a coming of age!

So, back to my questions, “When was my coming of age?” and “Has it happened yet?” The answers are, “Many, many times before,” and “Not yet.”

The night I didn’t meet Kevin Costner

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You know those lists that couples write where they name 5 famous people that they are allowed to sleep with – without any repercussions or recrimination? As if those 5 famous people would be so flattered by being on THE LIST that they would not only jump at the chance to sleep with the person, but also make themselves available to that person so that it could actually happen?

Yeah, me too. Although I have never actually handed Ben a piece of paper and said, these are my five. I have, on occasions, mentioned, ‘he’d probably be on my list,’ but have never taken that extra step of writing down the four others who would join ‘him’. I may have actually written lists in my younger days, but I didn’t keep them, and if I did they are in storage at my mum’s house along with my certificates and Duran Duran scrapbooks (don’t judge me).

So, if I cast my mind back to my mind, say circa 1989, who would be on the list that I probably wrote and possibly gave to my first real boyfriend ever, but likely didn’t keep?

  1. Sean Connery. Yes, old enough to be my grandfather, but I was a sophisticated 19-year-old, and he was People’s Sexiest Man Alive, people!
  2. Jimmy Smits. I was a mad LA Law fan and Victor Sifuentes was just yummy.
  3. Tom Cruise.  Did you see how good he looked in that suit in Rainman???
  4. Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode. Just sex on legs, really.
  5. Kevin Costner. No way out (sexiest sex scene in a limo ever). Bull Durham (sexiest sex scene in a bathtub ever). Field of Dreams (just a lovely film, really).

Flash forward 23 years. It is February and Ben and I are in NYC, celebrating us, and the fact that I have never been to New York before. We are seated in the Eugene O’Neill Theater about to watch The Book of Mormon. To say that I am excited is an understatement. The theater is packed, having been sold out for months, and there is little room to spare. My knees almost touch the seat in front of me, which is still empty even though it is only five minutes to curtain. Ben’s seat is on the aisle and I lean over to ask him if a tall man sits in front of me, will he switch seats so I can see?

“Of course, babe,” replies my lovely date. I sit back in my chair just as a very tall man, accompanied by two beautiful women arrives and pauses in the aisle right next to us. I glance up and hope like hell that of the three of them that the tall man will not sit in front of me. And then the tall man speaks. “Honey, do you want to go first and I will sit in the middle?” The middle would be right in front of me and one half of my brain sighs heavily, while the other half registers that I know that voice.

I take another look at the tall man and my eyes widen and I grip Ben’s leg as if to telegraph my realization to him without words.  The tall man is Kevin Costner. THE Kevin Costner. And he is so tall, and so handsome, and so there!

He and his gorgeous second daughter and his gorgeous second wife (who I should add is younger than me), get settled. He is sitting less than 24 inches from my face. I turn to Ben. “Do you know who that is?” I mouth silently. He smiles at me, nods and returns a silent, “Yes.”  “I LOVE him,” I mouth in reply.

Out loud Ben says, “Do you want to swap places, babe?” Nonchalantly, I reply, “No, I’m fine thanks.”

With Kevin Costner two feet away from my face, I start to watch the show. And it is brilliant. And Kevin thinks it is brilliant. I know this because for every minute I spend watching the show, I dedicate about one and a half minutes to watching Kevin Costner watch the show.

Intermission. I am desperate to use the bathroom and so is Ben. We are half-way up the aisle before the house lights come up – he goes left and I go right. I am fourth in line for the ladies’ loo and I am very impressed with their system. There is a switchback at the bottom of the stairs and a woman in a uniform directs women to stalls like a skilled NYC traffic cop. I am in and out in moments.

Back in my seat, Ben next to me, we are painfully aware that Kevin is now on his own and we silently communicate the following conversation:

“Are you going to talk to him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Shrug.

“He is one of your favorite actors.”

“I don’t want to be that person. You know, all, ‘so hey, I will nonchalantly ask if you are enjoying the show, just to say I talked to you, and you are all like, ‘I hate being a famous person’.’

Shake of head and sweet smile at pathetic girlfriend.

“Plus, he is here for Whitney’s funeral. I can’t.”

We then switch to audible dialogue, where I am witty and clever, comparing my life growing up Mormon with the play, secretly hoping that Kevin will find me so fascinating that he will interrupt and join in our conversation.

He does not. Instead his wife and daughter return from the bathroom to expound on the horrors of the bathroom line.

The play continues and is brilliant. At the end we stand with the others in the audience, delighted to reward the stunning cast, and Kevin is whisked away by someone in black wearing cans so he can meet the cast.

I am now the woman who was too scared to talk to Kevin Costner.

Back in the hotel room, I am typing away on my laptop when music suddenly blares and startles Ben. “Sorry,” I say as I fumble with the volume.

“What on earth is that?” asks Ben.

“Kevin Costner dot com,” I reply, feeling even more foolish. “He is only 57, you know.”

My lovely, tolerant, sweet boyfriend just hugs me and says, “Not old enough to be your father. You know if he’s on your list you totally should have talked to him. He clearly likes younger women.”

I know when I am being teased, so I close my laptop and pretend not to know what Ben is talking about. I found out later that one of the other guys ‘on my list’ was at the play that night, too. But I only like him because he reminds me of Ben.

Reminiscences of an Olympic Volunteer

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12 years ago I was a volunteer at the Sydney Olympics. Don’t laugh, but I worked in security. I was based at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Hall in Darling Harbour (I included the ‘u’ because that’s how we spell it in Australia.)

Two days before Day One, I showed up at an enormous warehouse just west of the city along with thousands of other volunteers and got my full uniform kit. It was the year 2000, and the uniform reminded me of something I would have thought was cool in 1986. We looked like this:

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Disclaimer: I am not in this photo

Fetching, yes?

On Day One I reported for duty along with about a hundred other people. We would work 10 hour shifts with a 30-minute meal break. We would have access to an unlimited supply of muesli (granola) bars, and I sensed that this detail was significant. If I was assigned to work at the other end of the venue (a 1/2 mile away) it could take most of the meal break to get to the cafeteria and back.

“Does anyone know how to work a walkie-talkie?” asked our leader. I thrust my hand in the air before I realized that I had never even seen one up close. My id apparently knew that this question was what would separate the next two weeks into ‘exciting and fun’ and ‘watching paint dry’. My id was right.

Along with the 8 others who raised their hands, I was taken to another room and kitted out with a roster, a clipboard and the aforementioned walkie-talkie. I was going to be a team leader. Not only a team leader, but “Gold Team Leader”. How could I not think to, “stay on target, stay on target…?”

I looked at the walkie-talkie, heavy in my hand. I sneaked some glances at my fellow team leaders while they turned theirs on and made adjustments. I did the same moves, a beat behind, and within about 90 seconds realized that pretty much anyone could have raised their hands when our boss asked the question. A piece of cake.

I met my team, we moved down to our part of the convention center – fencing that day – and I took them through their roles. Essentially, ‘security’ meant that we checked credentials at check points, which were posted between events and for anyone other than paying public to get into the venue.

I was relieved to discover that we would not have to actually enforce ‘security’, because the only move I had was to put my keys in between my fingers so as to rake them across an assailant’s face. And, I didn’t think that this was in keeping with the Olympic spirit. Besides, there was a team of paid security guards to assist the Gold Team with securing the venue.

I was disappointed, however, to see that as the days passed, fewer and fewer volunteers returned for their shifts. By the end of the 2 weeks, we were down to 1/3 of the original group. This meant longer shifts for those of us who showed up, and that many checkpoints within the venue and between events were left unattended.

Late into the games, came a highlight of my volunteer experience. I met Evander Holyfield. I was back-of-house at the Boxing, and he showed up with his entourage. They all had their Olympic credentials, but he didn’t; he had left it in the hotel. I wouldn’t let him in. To be clear, it was my job to not let him in. One of his minders asked if I knew who he was. I did not. After the 30-minutes it took one of his crew to go back to the hotel and get his credentials, I knew all about him.

His name meant very little to me, but when he said that Mike Tyson had bitten off part of his ear, I finally put two and two together. He was carrying an armful of stuffed toys (Olympic mascots), which he said were for his kids. I teased him, “Sure they are,” and he laughed a big laugh with his head thrown back. “It must look a little weird, huh?”

He was being very good-natured the hold-up preventing him from seeing the boxing. Finally his minder returned with his credentials, and he shook my hand and said it was a pleasure to talk to me. When I got back to where I was staying, I looked him up. He was a much bigger deal than I had thought.

I also met ‘Aussie Joe’ Bugner, the Australian boxer-turned-actor, who lost to Ali in 1975. He is a bit of a legend in Australia, so I knew who he was, and he came and hugged me at the conclusion of the boxing to thank me for my volunteer work during the games. Nice.

By the end of the games, I was working an average of 14 hours a day. I rarely got time to all the way to the cafeteria so the muesli bars were my main source of sustenance. I got to use my limited French a few times, but my very limited Spanish made a Spanish official laugh out loud. Apparently, instead of, “I don’t speak Spanish,” I told him that he didn’t.

As a volunteer I was given tickets to see Cathy Freeman’s victory at Olympic Stadium and to attend the Closing Ceremonies, not to mention all the bouts of boxing, wrestling, fencing, judo and weightlifting I saw. I met medalists, dignitaries, athletes and travelers from all over the world. It was brilliant.

At the London Olympics my good friend, Dawn Denton, is volunteering with the South African team. You can follow her adventures here. How privileged we are.

Half-way there

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As I start writing this, Gwen Stefani is demanding to know ‘what I am waiting for’. Perhaps her bleats from the radio are rhetorical, but I can’t help asking myself the same thing. What am I waiting for? Anything in particular, or is it all good, right now? Good bloody question, Gwen!

In a few days I turn 43. Let’s say, all else going well, I live to enjoy 85 (I plan to live longer, and to be a spectacular octogenarian, but I am picking a good number to aim for). If 85 is my magic number, then I am now more than half way through my life.

There are many reason to be happy about 43. Firstly, I don’t feel it. I know, lucky me, but I don’t. I just feel like a much smarter, less-likely-to-take-any-crap, more financially-savvy version of my 28 year old self. Those are all other reasons to be happy about 43.

In my 20s I thought I knew it all, and in my 30s I realized that I didn’t. The first few years of my 40s has been about realizing that it’s okay that I don’t know it all.

This means I am less inclined to labor a point ’til my love ones want to stab me in the eye with a cheese knife (the one with the sharp little fork on the end).

It also means I can rely on others to know the stuff that I just don’t care to know about – like how to set up the router and how to make martini. It also makes me very grateful when someone else takes on these things that I don’t care to know about.

And, when Ben corrects my pronunciation of a word I have been saying wrong since I learned it from a book 20 years ago, I can just shrug and say, “Huh, how about that. All these years. Thanks, babe.”

The best thing about being 43, though, is that I laugh at myself a lot more than I ever did at 28, or 38 for that matter. I think at this rate I will find myself completely hilarious by the time I am 60, and bloody hysterical at 80. At 85, I will be that funny, laughing lady who still rides her motorcycle. Note to self: learn to ride a motorcycle.

But seriously…

As the lovely wishes of ‘happy birthday’ start to arrive – in person, online, on the phone and in the mail, I feel very blessed to have a beautiful person to share my life and laughter with, a wonderful family, and friends who have become family over the years.

And, Gwen, I am not really waiting for anything.

Standing By You

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A few weeks ago Ben and I went to the local cinema with some friends to see Stand By Me. It was the first time in more than 25 years I had seen it on the big screen, although I do not exaggerate to say that I have seen it at least 40 times since it came out in 1986.

The film still holds up. The performances of the four young leads are terrific – both laugh-out-loud funny and teary-eyed poignant. And the story is simple and elegant.

It is no wonder that this was a film that resonated deeply with me and my fellow generation X-ers. Even though it was set in the 1950s, it was a nostalgic homage to an era that was coming to a close.

I grew up with parents who encouraged me – no, required me – to ‘go outside and play’. And I did. My best friends when I was in single digits were usually boys. When I was in first grade my besties were Greg and Rodney. After hours of playing on abandoned farm equipment, or making mud pies, or building cubbies in the bushland behind our houses, their respective mothers would clean me up and send me home in their son’s clothes with a note pinned to my chest, “Sandra got too dirty to send home. I will wash her clothes and bring them over tomorrow.”

When I moved into double digits, I could be found making miniature houses out of moss, gravel and sticks. The tiny families never moved in, because the fun for me was in the building, but I was always filthy by the end of a long day ‘playing outside’. I would sometimes come inside with sand in my pockets. There was a time when I loved my namesake.

At 11, my family lived next to an abandoned rodeo. Talk about the coolest clubhouse ever! My friends and I commandeered the announcers tower, which could only be accessed by a very dodgy ladder. When we got bored with the rodeo, we would play exhausting, involved game of cops and robbers. There were a dozen of us, and we would play – gun-sticks in hand – for hours, ducking between trailers and forming alliances. We were the cliched neighborhood kids; we only came in for dinner when our mothers shouted that it was dark and to get inside. Now!

As recently as three years ago I taught 11 year-olds. Most of them had cell phones and some sort of fashion sense. I can’t imagine that many of them played cops and robbers with their friends until after dark.

Back to 1986.

1986 was a big year for me. I turned 17 and was given a car for my birthday, and I graduated from high school. I saw Top Gun for the first time in a cinema filled with crew from the U.S.S. Enterprise, which was docked in Fremantle harbor. My girlfriends and I swooned over Tom Cruise while the sailors around us roared with laughter at the wanky way Tom and Val strutted about the deck of the Enterprise. It was an interesting lesson in truth versus reality.

And I saw Stand By Me.

I immediately fell in love with River Phoenix. Okay, I know I was 17 and he was a boy of 14 when he made the film, but I could already see the young man he would become in his subtle, skilled performance. And, as a side note, he did grow into that sexy teenaged smile. What a beautiful young man – and, so talented!

In October of ’93, my dad came into my study and announced his death, “That Phoenix River guy you like died.” I actually cried out, and pushed past my dad to the living room, where the television showed grainy images of the street outside Hollywood’s Viper Room. He had died before I had a chance to meet him. It sucked.

I watched Stand By Me again just after his death, and in the scene where Chris says, “Not if I see you first,” and walks into the sunset, fading away to nothing, I choked out a sob. Chris Chambers had died, and so had the boy who had brought him to life.

But again, I digress.

The film resonated with the seventeen-year-old me on a very deep level. I loved my ‘go outside and play’ adventures from my childhood. In fact, even though my friends and I were getting our driver’s licenses and our first – horridly cheap and run down – cars, once in a while we still got on our bikes and rode for miles, spending whole Saturdays having adventures in neighboring suburbs. And there was the ubiquitous bushland near home, where we would still wander on occasion, jumping the creek and walking along fallen trees, talking about all the things that were important to us at the time.

Is it a little weird that even in our late teens we did this stuff? Maybe…we were older than the boys depicted in the film, but the film’s themes rang true for us.

Stand By Me is about friendship, and adventure, and fear and laughter, and growing up. I cannot see it without remembering the friends who experienced the end of that era with me – Stace, Tara, Kerry, Jode, Tonia, Danielle…

Thanks, girls. It was fun.