Prologue
Melbourne, sometime in November
All was not well. Naught was well, one might even say, if one was being honest with oneself about what was transpiring within body and mind – the rapid decline of communication and cooperation between the two. But, then again, one was prone to avoidance, and as such, one would probably actually say one was fine, thanks, and you? Though, I suppose, if one was pushed, one might agree, yes, on the whole not great, the habitual illeism in and of itself a less-than-ideal sign. Best to try and drop that, moving forward.
Of course there were other, more outward, objective – perhaps even irrefutable – signs of definitely-not-okayness. The plastic hospital band, cut on an angle and discarded on the wicker coffee table, was being quite obnoxious about this. Eventually I had to discard it, in hopes of teaching the bracelet a lesson about the lost art of subtlety, a move that bought me some short-lived peace. When the face blinking back through the mostly de-silvered bathroom mirror was no longer my own, I probably should have conceded something was up. As the beloved literary quote from that famed feminist author way ahead of her time went:come on, girl, get your shit together. It was not as though it was somebody else’s face – this was far from aFreakyor evenFreakier Fridaysituation. It was much more mundane and only vaguely confusing: who was that person? Rather than raising this conundrum with someone, I simply made note to avoid reflective surfaces and carried on. The problem was twofold: having neither the capacity to understand it as conundrumical and therefore worthy of raising in the first place, nor someone to raise it with if I had.
The apartment certainly presented suggestions of another person residing there, but as day upon solitary day rolled up, over, and away again, I began to believe these were the cruel tricks of a dwelling that wished to be undwelt. There was the bottle of curly-girl shampoo, which even in my wild and warped state I found a little on the nose, the stack of textbooks with titles I could not pronounce, let alone understand, and the jar of green olives in the fridge. It was the olives that sank the boat. They taunted me, goading me to loosen my grip on the one remaining piece of self-identity I knew to be true: I hated olives. In avoiding most things, I became fixated on this small fermented fruit. To begin with, I learned olives were a fruit, and also fermented. I learned about the different fermenting processes, about bacteria and yeast and probiotics, about climates and soils and optimum rainfall. I read papers and followed links and watched videos and filled my mind with new information, because far better information than my own thoughts or feelings, obviously.
Once a day the woman on the computer spoke to me about the person she believed me to be – Nora – and I spoke back to her about Nora, desperate to figure out how to become her again. This woman, two-dimensional, older but not old, fast-talking, with glasses and cropped dark hair, was so sure she knew the way, never wavering from her suspiciously simple plan to bring this ailing houseplant back to full health. Same time every day, armed with new stories from my supposed life. That could not have been the way to rebuild a whole self – fragments from memories of concerned family members, as told via phone or email, processed through the perception of a capable but still relatively unknown and in all likelihood overbooked psychologist did not a functioning human make. A mess, you see. She felt at least somewhat trustworthy, perhaps on account of being the only person I was interacting with on a daily basis, though I knew my assessment of who to trust was in and of itself likely to be unsound. And I was not a houseplant, after all, or even a human being, but a candle, burnt down to its base. What hope did a candle have of recovery? This was the kind of thought that made avoidance – videos about yeast – the preferable option.
Twice a day, I sat on the balcony with a cup of tea and a cigarette, to let the outside air kiss my face and remind me I did exist. The view was somewhat leafy, with two whole trees stretched across this section of the street, to make up for the inhumane, unceasing traffic noise, both human and vehicular. Who was the person who had chosen to reside in this overripe place? There may have been trees, but not a bird in sight. That felt significant; apocalyptic, even. Perhaps my flat was trying to do me a favour, sending me mad.
Up to fifteen times a day I used the toilet, on account of all the tea, and zero times a day would I shower or eat, because both had grown out of the earth like mountains on fault lines – looming, insurmountable. The remaining hours I sat, or lay, on a bed, or couch, visiting memories both real and imagined. Lying down: life’s greatest pleasure. Anything else was overdone, a chore that stood between me and my desire to be horizontal for as long as possible, before another thing that required doing demanded me back in my body, upright, or at least sitting.
I understood, in no uncertain terms, that I was having quite a bad time. Being estranged from myself in such a way was not optimal, I was aware. Butbeingaware, putting any amount of energy towards focusing on or trying to change the situation, had the unfortunate effect of making it only more true. I was watering these seeds and allowing them to take root. Best not to look my particular circumstances directly in the eye. And actually, it was not as though I was the one making the choices or doing the things, anyway. I was watching the person making the choices and doing the things, not in a ‘floating above the room’ kind of way, more of a ‘ghost in the machine’ situation. A tricky one to explain; olives were far more straightforward. Did I mention they were a fruit? Fermented. Disgusting. I hated olives. Eventually, this fact became my anchor, no longer sinking but steadying. If I hated olives, then there had to be a salvageable person with a face that was mine, somewhere. And I had an idea about where I might find her – not squatting alone in the top half of a malevolent terrace house in South Yarra; she would, of course, be home.
1
Sunshine Coast Hinterland, 20 December
The birds are up but the sun is yet to rise. Here, the afternoon birds are blissful, serene – a meditation app soundscape in real time, whereas the morning birds are a cacophony of loud-mouthed arseholes – kookaburras shouting at other kookaburras to stay off their lawn, and the unholy trinity of lorikeets, noisy miners, and butcherbirds making their search for breakfast everyone else’s problem. I am unsure if the birds have gotten louder, perhaps due to evolution and climate change, or if I am simply more affected in my current state. Either way, if I could mute them all and leave only the whipbird, my day would start very differently. As it stands, I am awake because, I mean, how could I not be, but also because this is the only time of not-quite-day I seem to be able to breathe. There is scope to unfurl before other people rise to claim dominance over sound and space.
If I were a bird, I know now, despite dreams of grander status, I would be a brush turkey, more specifically the male of the species, the quiet loner, clumsy in any attempt at flight, but happiest when scratching around the forest floor, mound-making a singular focus – expert compost-creators, specialising in maintaining optimum temperature for egg incubation. They might be considered a joke in urban environments, adapting with blunt rudeness by robbing picnickers and stealing scraps, or ruining orderly gardens with their scratch-scratch-scratching, but in the wilds of the forest where they belong, they are masters of their task. Even with the threats of predators, and ridicule, and diminishing habitat, it seems a more comfortable existence. And black-red-yellow is a bold fashion choice, which I admire.
These are some new facts I have absorbed since arriving, what limited attention I possess being almost wholly committed to the monitoring of and relearning about local avifauna. I have also been trying my hand at reading books, which I have not yet achieved, switching to vapes, a ghastly necessity, eating regularly, with limited success, sleeping, with great improvement in this area, and walking, which I suppose I never really needed to relearn. I have also been talking to my psychologist – easy, since ‘why am I like this?’ has long been my favourite game, equipped as I am with so much data. The unfortunate outcome of this particular pastime is how obsessively focused on myself I am being, perhaps have always been, but then, what good am I to other people when I cannot even read a book, make a meal, recognise my own face? Basic, human things. I like to think I am slowly working my way towards being someone for other people, eventually. Until then, every turkey is I and I am every turkey.
This has all been more than enough to be getting on with, though now the happiest season has arrived to make us all miserable. No, that is not fair; I do love Christmas, in theory. I love the decorations and the pomp and the rituals and the twinkly lights and the wrapping of presents – beauty for beauty’s sake. In a world that seems to want everything to be faster, cheaper, busier, more efficient, it feels like an opportunity to pause and take stock, to appreciate things. If I were in charge, Christmas would be my favourite day of the year. It is more a question of capacity, and expectations, I suppose. This is why in practice, I tend to find the dawn before the thing more gratifying than whatever main event the collective cultural anticipation is building towards. And this is never truer than at this time of year. The after can be nice in its own way, too. The right kind of memory becomes a diamond – a gift I give my future self by enduring whatever pressure or intensity the big thing might bring. Memories, by their nature, have been processed, and can be revisited in my own time, at my own pace, without the physical elements that bring about so much stress. If I could live in a memory, in my head, I absolutely would. I have certainly given it my best try. There is something else stirring, though, uncontrolled – a backlog of processing that has clogged the system and triggered the alarm, now demanding attention – since I began waking in my childhood bed.
It is hard not to panic; peace of mind already a scarcity, and now a new threat looming. So, I focus on my breath. Here is one rare hour where I can turn off the night-time air-conditioning, a protective measure against fluctuating humidity, and crack the window to let cool air rush in. It moves around the room like water, fresh and not yet weighed down. It is the time for being in my body, breathing this air. If I could store it, I would. Instead, I have to exist for the rest of the day in a mild state of hypoxia because the air isn’t right, or I forget how to properly breathe. Based on my current trajectory, I do wonder if I might genuinely asphyxiate in the coming months. It would not happen in my sleep; it would happen at the supermarket self-service check-out while the screen flashes at me to wait for an attendant because I have made some kind of weight-based error. That is where I feel it the most, this lack of air. Of course, I am already thinking too far ahead, when I have only been home recovering for a few weeks, and about dying a bizarre and unlikely public death, because I am struggling with the adjustment, and hyperbole is baked in, unfortunately. As a child, Mum would call me a hypochondriac, while Dad preferred ‘drama queen’, and this says a lot, I think, about the way I existed in Elsie and Chris’ eyes. Disordered? Artistic? Two sides of the same coin, perhaps. Perception is everything, only I don’t seem to be able to perceive myself without the guidance of other people at all. I am amorphous, waiting – mirrored glass reflecting back whatever fragments of themselves they wish to see.
It is also possible I travelled home via time machine – my parents having organised everything from the taxi to the airport and the flight to the real estate agent who took on the rubbish removal and bond clean, just leave the keys in the letterbox, happy to do that, not a problem at all – so who knows what else went on beyond my understanding. This makes it even harder to conceptualise a new and present version of myself, which will only become more apparent once my siblings arrive. I no longer wish to be youngest daughter problem child™, which is a problem, especially for me. It is hard to think about them, barely aware of myself as I currently am, but when I try, I imagine them as children, all of us children. Luke, a lot of performance for our parents – eldest child, only boy – but he could be gentle in his quiet moments. Olivia, the opposite – performing kindness towards me in their presence, but less soft when we are alone. These facts are olives, of course, fragments of which I can be sure, but not of their scope in comparison to anything else. For now, they make the whole. My mind, in any state, likes to have a place for everything, and everything in its place. And it feels a bit late in the game to be trying to change that. Or at least, this is not the week for the fixing of oneself. If I can avoid a backslide into complete psychological breakdown, I will count that as a win.
Upstairs, the good plates are out, and the worst cushions are away, because heaven forbid anyone bear witness to the sequin cushion with the few missing sequins, or the big corduroy one with fringing that is slightly frayed. We could not possibly have that. No, Christmas is a time when everything is perfect, and no one says the wrong thing. My siblings will be flawless, my mother will be stressed, my father will be busy, and I will offset all of this by being the main cause and/or focus of everyone’s distress. I am the pressure valve, the safety mechanism that allows frustrations to be controlled. Who knows what will happen when that mechanism is itself faulty, malfunctioning.
As a child, I could be relied on to draw those frustrations by waking too early, or opening the wrong presents, or refusing to eat the food Elsie had painstakingly prepared, or not being adequately grateful, or refusing to hug a distant relative on cue. These are the memories that have stuck. I was difficult, though back then this was less deliberate. In recent, adult years, I have found new ways to embody that word. I have tried to make it easy for others to get where they need to go, emotionally; everything in its place, you know – overindulging in drinking, or being too hungover to eat, or not showing up, or giving my younger cousin a cigarette that she pretended was her first one to avoid becoming her family’s own safety mechanism. And this year, well, I have no energy and no idea how to be a person, so I am sure I will not disappoint, though perhaps in unprecedented ways. It is almost thrilling to consider. My plan is to spend the week either sedated or dissociated. Either way, minimal speaking is the goal.
Much like my first five years of life. Upon reflection, perhaps cause forsomeconcern, or at least curiosity, but my parents instead built family mythology where there might have been value in professional psychology – ‘you just waited until you had something worthy to say’. I only need look to the people who say the most to know there is no correlation between output and worthiness. Family mythology has allowed anecdotes to do the heavy lifting, allowed the onus to fall on me. But I happen to think that four-year-old Nora could have had something of value to share, had she been given the chance. From an early age, my behaviour was certainly communicating a level of internal unease with the state of being alive – the forced participation, ongoing compulsory service, and achievement-oriented growth markers that were the only ones recognised never felt comfortable to me. Who dreamt these parameters into being? I am, in contrast, a strong advocate of the participation ribbon, which positions me at odds with the majority as a starting point. Every year of survival in this world is worth celebrating, in and of itself, though I suppose what I have dreamt up in this instance is birthdays. It is this kind of moment, deep in rumination, on the cusp of the profound, when the starkest reminder of my not-okayness dawns. This bitch thinks she just invented birthdays.
Take a breather. Until the festivities begin, this quiet hour steels me in the softest way. Nobody pays it any attention, and if they do it is only to scorn it as an ‘ungodly hour’, but I celebrate this all the more. There are no knocks or intrusions. I sit back in bed, safe from human interference, limbs loose, and exist, amongst pillows and blankets and all the gentle things. When I am alone, I can lay it all down, the things I must remember to carry in my mind to be a real person in the world. The right questions to ask and the subtle expectations around manners that people demand but never think to explain. The pace and the beats of it all, and the need to smile, smile, smile. I do not smile when I am alone, though that is when I feel most at ease. A smile is a performance as much as anything else. These things have only grown heavier with age, and at this point I have been forced to reassess the plan for moving forward, because the current system is unsustainable. I have not treated myself well, and I have not treated others well either. But how does one go about enacting such monumental life changes, when one does not have enough mental energy to make it through the day without losing their proverbial shit? Tree by tree, perhaps. Retracing one’s steps, finding the point where the path diverged, starting over from there.
There are wallabies by the back fence eating dew-kissed grass in the first moments of perfect, perfect light. A person cannot truly understand the colour pink if they have not seen this kind of sky. Of course, I think of Fran. To try to recall a time when my life was even slightly more on track is to think of Fran. I have never wanted to be someone more than the person he saw in me. Do I know her? No, not at all, but I know him, to his bones. My perception of his being is so strong, I often wonder if I could summon him with the power of my thoughts. Always, I start with the first time we met.
When I was eleven, my mother bought me an antique wooden desk, the kind with the built-in seat and a lid that lifts to store treasures inside. She found it online and maybe it was from an old schoolhouse, or maybe I just imagined it was, to make me feel more like Anne of Green Gables. Memory is an odd thing, though perhaps fact and fiction do not meld so easily for others as they do for me. Whatever its origin, I remember Dad carrying it in from the back of his ute – he had picked it up on the way home from work – and we positioned it at the window to face out towards the garden, my downstairs room feeling sometimes like a dungeon and other times a magical world of its own. I did my homework at the desk in the afternoons, draping vines a backdrop to my imaginings. If I didn’t think about long division I could do it just fine, and so I daydreamed in the vacant corners of my mind while the maths part did its thing. Instead of storing my pens and notebooks inside my desk, I set up little rooms for my toys to live in, secret and tucked away. Sometimes I made things out of cardboard or paper, and other times I repurposed items from around the house. Nothing delighted me more at that age than an empty toilet roll or small postage box. I longed to join my toys in these handcrafted scenes, tiny and out of sight.
Not quite being in my body gave me a somewhat lagging reaction time, and I stared in confusion for a moment at the small form that popped up in my blurred line of vision, all elbows and feathers. Sounds came at me, at a slower speed than the visual, and I was forced to recite my most-asked and least-preferred question.
‘What did you say?’
‘Is this your chicken?’
The smiling boy held up Chook Chook at the window with the ease of someone who trusted animals and knew they trusted him. My favourite chicken, on account of her crooked beak, could not have looked more serene there in his grasp.
I got up from my desk and walked to the door that led out to the patio. Later it would be the door I snuck out of at night, and staggered back in through at some obscene hour of the morning, but here it served its first real purpose – connecting me to him.
‘Yeah, where did you find her?’ I asked, reaching out to take her off his hands.
‘She was in our yard and we’ve got a dog. He’s a good dog, his name is Ranger, but you never know, he hasn’t met a chicken before,’ he replied.
