are you my mother?
catefrances
Posts: 29,003
I remember when I was three, we lived down the south coast. my grandparents ran a pub and my da would throw us potato chips out the window cause we were too young to be in the pub legally. There was me, my two older sisters, my da and…well…
…I can’t remember my mum from back then. But I guess she must’ve been there, right? I told someone this story and they asked me how long has she been dead. I said, well that’s the thing, she isn’t. she is very much alive and living in Queensland. She had to have been there. But where she was I couldn’t really tell you. I had a baby brother so the best I can figure it, she was looking after him. While me and my sisters were running around exploring and getting up to mischief, my mum was with my brother. It’s the only reason I can up with to explain her apparent absence. Anyway where ever she was, she wasn’t with us girls.
as i said, my grandparents ran a pub. It sat right on the edge of a cliff. One false step and you could end up splattered on the rocks below being washed by the ocean. Turn the other way and you were faced with an escarpment. Its sheer size made the afternoons shorter. Being underage we couldn’t hang around the pub so me and my sisters did what all kids did in the late 60s and 70s; we ran free to discover a whole new world. A world that wasn’t open to grown ups. That only we knew existed and that only we understood. Nothing bad ever came out of the 60s.it was a mystical magical time, no?
We’d climb the trees that lined the quiet streets looking for empty cicada husks. We’d wander those same streets secure in our own naivety. When it rained, the park behind our house would flood. We’d wade in the water collecting tadpoles. Other times we’d play along the railway tracks. We’d lay our heads on the rails and wait to hear an approaching train. Tunnels were cut through the sandstone for the trains. We never were bold enough to go inside them. Or stupid enough I don’t think. We’d sit amongst the lantana and join the flowers together to make wreaths for our heads. I remember this one time, sitting with my father on his bed and making a model of the Apollo 11 lunar module. I remember sitting with him and my sisters on the front verandah of the pub and taping ourselves singing into one of those old reel to reel recorders. I remember sitting on the front step of the fire station eating easter eggs. I can still taste the vita brits we ate for breakfast and picture the white house we lived in. But I can’t remember my mother.
I loved it down there on the coast. I still do. It calls to me like no other place on earth. Not long after, we moved to suburbia. So far from the coast. I started school in the new year. But I never forgot climbing the trees. Or the flooded park. Or the smell of the plant we called ‘stinking roger’. But there are some things I can’t forget because I have no memory of them.
mum?
…I can’t remember my mum from back then. But I guess she must’ve been there, right? I told someone this story and they asked me how long has she been dead. I said, well that’s the thing, she isn’t. she is very much alive and living in Queensland. She had to have been there. But where she was I couldn’t really tell you. I had a baby brother so the best I can figure it, she was looking after him. While me and my sisters were running around exploring and getting up to mischief, my mum was with my brother. It’s the only reason I can up with to explain her apparent absence. Anyway where ever she was, she wasn’t with us girls.
as i said, my grandparents ran a pub. It sat right on the edge of a cliff. One false step and you could end up splattered on the rocks below being washed by the ocean. Turn the other way and you were faced with an escarpment. Its sheer size made the afternoons shorter. Being underage we couldn’t hang around the pub so me and my sisters did what all kids did in the late 60s and 70s; we ran free to discover a whole new world. A world that wasn’t open to grown ups. That only we knew existed and that only we understood. Nothing bad ever came out of the 60s.it was a mystical magical time, no?
We’d climb the trees that lined the quiet streets looking for empty cicada husks. We’d wander those same streets secure in our own naivety. When it rained, the park behind our house would flood. We’d wade in the water collecting tadpoles. Other times we’d play along the railway tracks. We’d lay our heads on the rails and wait to hear an approaching train. Tunnels were cut through the sandstone for the trains. We never were bold enough to go inside them. Or stupid enough I don’t think. We’d sit amongst the lantana and join the flowers together to make wreaths for our heads. I remember this one time, sitting with my father on his bed and making a model of the Apollo 11 lunar module. I remember sitting with him and my sisters on the front verandah of the pub and taping ourselves singing into one of those old reel to reel recorders. I remember sitting on the front step of the fire station eating easter eggs. I can still taste the vita brits we ate for breakfast and picture the white house we lived in. But I can’t remember my mother.
I loved it down there on the coast. I still do. It calls to me like no other place on earth. Not long after, we moved to suburbia. So far from the coast. I started school in the new year. But I never forgot climbing the trees. Or the flooded park. Or the smell of the plant we called ‘stinking roger’. But there are some things I can’t forget because I have no memory of them.
mum?
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
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