Life Writing
Life Writing
Snapshots is an ongoing life writing project that aims to distill moments in time that connect with identity, life trajectory and memory, as integral parts of being. Each snapshot focus' on the craft of writing and the power of descriptive language to evoke the senses and build worlds for the reader. I hope to launch this as a collaborative work that other writers can interact with and contribute to in the future.
Ignoring the aching in my back I push forward up the hill, being stop started by the need to sniff and cock a leg on every tree and bush. My old mate was becoming more salt than pepper, the beginnings of his winter coat already making him resemble a small, overly curious sheep. His purposeful gait directs me to the task at hand. The evening is creeping quietly in, still so still and crisp and bright. Through the silver gums, the last rays of Autumn sun cut a path, illuminating their robust leaves. This is my favourite time of year.
The smell of wood fires beginning to warm loungerooms mixes with my thoughts. I had missed this all those years up north where the light wasn’t this shade of gold, where the evenings were rarely crisp and the gums were of a different ilk. As I turn the corner I face two different moments happening in synchronicity.
The first, a small bunch of evening churchgoers exiting the Salvation Army building, bunched tightly and clutching at freshly pressed suits and skirts, heads bent in a focused discussion. The second, a white ute pulls up to the curb just across the road from me and two figures swing out of a front gate, dressed for work, the truck tray filled with cleaning products and hoses. They both light up before getting into the cabin and driving off, the windows down, the embers of their cigarettes glowing, their faces in shadow. I starts to brick together my imagined life for each of them. Who they love, what makes them mad, who their mothers are.
Hugo tugs insistently on the lead, lifting me out of the moment and back onto the footpath and forward. As we reach the top of the hill the horizon is blushing in her apricot dress as the sun sinks and disappears. We turn our footsteps towards home.
The air is hot and stale as a mosquito’s whine lazily circles, the camping mattress is limp and defeated beneath my body. Shifting toward the sounds of my family in the camp kitchen, a spasm shoots violently from my lower back down my left leg. The shriek of pain brings my husband blundering through the zippered flap.
An awkward crawl and some levering gets me into a standing position. Looking skyward the edge of my vision is white hot light. I dry retch, each convulsion sending fresh pain south.
Concerned shuffling noises hover around me.
‘How can I help?’ My husband cautiously asks.
‘You can’t.’ I bite back, my voice flat and brittle.
‘Mum, will you play No Mercy UNO with me?!’ My youngest whines.
I have always had a dodgy back but this is something else, something sharp and terrible. My left leg feels shortened. The muscles around my pelvis are clenched fists.
My sister-in-law fusses with the breakfast things, brow furrowed and mouth tight.
‘Cette douler n’est pas normale.’ She mutters. She is a fixer and it irks her when she can’t fix.
I lean gingerly toward her on my good leg. ‘I don’t think there is such a thing as normal pain when you have MS.’ I can taste the wryness of my smile.
Her arms wrap around me, she smells of salt, brioche and dog.
No longer able to ignore the protests of my bladder I hobble toward the toilet block. Turning the corner, I come face to face with my reflection, torso stooped like an octogenarian, hair wild, thin lips pulled into a grimace. At 39 I want to believe that I can defy my disease and push my body but when things like this happen, and they do, I am reminded that Multiple Sclerosis and I are intimate partners in this life.
A steep, narrow driveway ran up the right-hand side of my Grandparent’s house in suburban Sydney. Beyond that, a paved terrace with a picnic table that followed the sun, and a path up to a slice of grass. We used this flat space to run egg and spoon races on Easter Sunday. The garden continued up the hill to a vegetable patch and beehive. Beyond that, it was all steep slopes and fruit trees.
From the terrace, a sliding door took you into an open-plan kitchen and living room of warm timber and cork tiles. Quiet and cool. Both my grandparents loved to cook. My mother said growing up her mother was always on a diet. Maybe she had given this up by the time I came along because, for me, food was her love language. My Grandfather was a food chemist whose passion was jams and chutneys. Steam forever rising from pots, bubbling on the stove. Fascinating smells. Cloves. Sugar. Ginger. As a church elder, he baked the bread for communion. The smell of bread baking still conjures up the memory of my time there.
My Grandmother always got me to help with the cooking, standing on a little stool beside her pulled up to the island bench. A school project of mine on stick insects was proudly pinned to the façade of that bench. Curled and faded with age, it remained as I grew taller. The walk-in pantry with its sliding door where I hid when I was in trouble. The shiny black hand-operated coffee grinder bolted to the wall near the fridge. My Grandmother bent over her sewing table on the other side of the island bench. My Grandfather, reading the newspaper in the morning light as he carefully ate half a grapefruit sprinkled with sugar the night before. Home-grown tomatoes, sharp and tangy, on rye toast with butter and black pepper.