Confessions of a Bondi Blonde

When was the last time you felt really safe?

I have felt the safest when cocooned in care and strength while the tempests unleashed their fury, somewhere close but not close enough to inflict harm. While nasty, angry power has surged violently outside, I was peacefully protected by people that I trust. I have been able to sleep soundly, free for a little while from worry, my life on pause; rebuilding my strength while waiting for the storms to pass.

My childhood was full of wonders – tadpoles turning into glossy frogs, trees heavy with sweet, ripe mulberries which stained skin and clothes a rich purple and once a skinny green tree snake which slithered quietly from the TV one hot summer afternoon.

But my childhood had its fears too.

I was scared of the bogeyman I feared would pounce in the early night as I raced down the stairs to get the clothes off the line. After the fifteenth request from my mother, I would leap down the steep stairs in one bound into the quick Queensland darkness. I’d tussle the clothes from the line, pegs pinging into the long grass and lost forever and then race up the stairs three at a time, balancing a precarious pile of sheets, my mother’s faded nightgown and sun-crisped school uniforms.

I was scared of being taken from my bed in the night by who knows whom. I was a chubby child and it was a source of solace to me in the pre-dawn hours when I lay awake in my bed, heart pounding seeing wolves in the shadows of my room with the low window that wouldn’t lock.   I thought that the heft which made me an object of ridicule in the day would make the invisible bad men choose a house with a prettier, lighter little Barbie girl to steal in the night.

I was scared of the “uncles” and fishing buddies of my father who popped around at unsocial hours, smelling of beer and fish guts. My father was almost teetotal and the smell of alcohol on a man full of false bonhomie made me uncomfortable. I sought solace in the familiar shadows of my sisters and behind my mother’s skirts.

But I never felt as safe as a child as on Australia Day, 1974 when I was eight years old and when cyclone Wanda bashed Brisbane.  

When a cyclone hits Queensland, rain definitely stops work, but not necessarily play. The long summer holidays were drawing to a close and everyone was getting ready to start a new year of work and school. Wicked Wanda arrived with a bang. She hit with full force, deluging Brisbane in a Bible-worthy flood, ripping the metal rooves off houses like tinfoil, killing 16 people and stranding my family in our house safe and high on a hill. Flood waters had, New Orleans-style, broken the banks of the river and had flooded whole neighbourhoods, turning Brisbane into an inland archipelago. We lost power and light. But we had candles, gaslight, a radio, enough food and a variety of board games that we had received at Christmas. For the first time outside mealtimes, my mother stopped her domestic duties and joined her children at the kitchen table. We played Monopoly for hours and ate tinned spaghetti sandwiches and Christmas cake for dinner.

The sound of the cyclone warning on the radio made me feel as if I was part of some grand adventure; I could imagine what it must have been like to be in an air raid shelter in London or Dresden in the early 1940s. At bedtime, the rain continued sheeting down as my mother tucked me tightly under flannelette and stroked my hair gently. The roof groaned in protest above me, fighting the wind and winning.  Our timber house stayed strong and inviolate. The Category 1 cyclone continued through the night but with my mother’s kiss lingering on my brow, I felt safe from the tempest and fell asleep.

My second memory of pure safety was when I caught a sleeper train through the former Yugoslavia in 1992, as the Bosnian War unfurled in cafes and meeting halls throughout the strife ridden country. I was travelling alone and needed to get from Athens to somewhere else. I hated Athens. Travelling as a solo female meant being hassled in many countries and I was kind of used to it. But in Athens I had the added bonus of being aggressively stalked by masturbating men, not once, not twice, but three times. I never did reach the Parthenon and I felt scared and a need to get the hell out of Greece. So I caught the first train out – to Vienna – via Yugoslavia which had started to disintegrate in isolated acts of murder and mayhem. The train was filled with armed guards and I shared a four berth sleeper cabin with a Muslim family. I read Wuthering Heights and Charlotte’s Web over two days as the train trundled onwards, the guards vigilant. Looking out of the window I saw oxen ploughing fields, dirty factories and people working on farms. It didn’t look like a war zone to me. I ate in the rolling dining car but spent most of the time high on my upper bunk, hidden, sleeping, and reading. Safe. I had spent the previous six years travelling away from my childhood, so the enforced stillness enabled me to rebuild strength and peace. When we finally reached Vienna, two nights later, an Austrian Army band greeted the train. A new line of track had been opened and the band was part of the celebrations. I ate free sausages, drank free beer, opened my travel guide to find a place to stay and walked away from the train, into the cold Austrian air.

My third memory of absolute safety was after the birth of my last child. He came into the world, perfectly formed and in rude health around 11:00 p.m.  one Friday night when Sydney was being buffeted in a severe thunderstorm. The birth, although painful, held no fears for me. The pregnancy has been easy, I had given birth before, and my doctor was a gentle, kind man who gave me the drugs I requested quickly. I moved to the post-delivery rooms at around midnight. My lovely child lay asleep and clean in the hospital cot beside my bed and I enjoyed a hot cup of tea as I gazed in wonder at his squashed little face. The storm still lashed relentlessly against the double glazed hospital windows but I knew my other children were home safely sleeping in their beds. Tomorrow would bring an end to the storm and would also bring their happy faces into the hospital to visit their little brother. I had done a big job that night and I knew there was, for now, nothing left for me to do but pause, be still and enjoy a little peace inside the sleeping hospital. My son slept through till 5:00 a.m. when he awoke for his first feed. It was a magical night.

So I suppose feeling safe for me is relative. When the gods are showing their displeasure at man’s or nature’s activities, it is lovely to know that, if you need it, you can find a bolthole for a few hours or a few days where you can regroup and then face the new phase of life with optimism and anticipation.

When was the last time you felt really safe?

 

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