“Because”, she leans in close and says, “they watch how much you drink.”
“Umm, who’s picking you up from the airport?” I ask.
“My son.” she says and starts a droning monologue about him, his ex-wife and her grandchildren.

I’m thinking about that dull-pink pill I swallowed.

I get the attendant’s attention… and buy her another red.



A friend recently pointed out that it was ironic that one who loves to travel as much as I do is terrified of the process of travelling.
He was right.
I’m just plain fearful of flying.
And I remember the exact moment that I lost my nerve.
In 1994.



Friday 7.04am
The flight attendant has a tight little smile, “Yes, I’m happy to sell you another one.” She says pointing to the three-quarter full glass on the tray table. “When you’ve finished that one.”
The woman lifts the glass to her mouth and swallows the lot in two gulps.



It was a domestic flight in the US. The home of white-knuckle-airlines.
The air currents toyed with us that day.
The plane lurched from side to side, shuddering, quaking in fear.
With great effort my husband unclenched my hand from the armrest, held it tight, then said,
“If we go down honey at least I’ll die with the person I love.”



Friday 7.10am
The woman reaches across me and slaps at my son’s arm in an effort to get his attention.
“Ya think you’re heading to the gold coast so you can have a great day at Movieworld donchya?” She gabbles.
My son nods his head, slowly, just once.
“Well you’re wrong. You see really you’re here cos you think this is yar mum,” She pokes a long purple false nail at my chest, “but it’s not true! I’m you’re real mum and you’re gonna come live with me now!”

She laughs the cackle of a fully tanked woman.

My son leans in close, points at the clouds and whispers in my ear,
“If that was true Mum I’d jump right out of this window.”



The plane drops. The sensation leaves my stomach sitting uncomfortably in my mouth. The corners of my brave-face dissolve. I paste a smile back on. My son reaches for my hand. I try to squeeze his hand reassuringly.
“Mum,” he says, “I don’t want anything to happen, but if we do go down I’d be with the person I love.”
As the plane pummels its way through the storm I’m suddenly thinking about apples.
And trees.

And then I realise that I’m not holding my son’s hand.
He is holding mine.



Friday 7.45am
“Give us yar number. You’ve been so lovely. Not stuckup like the last flight I was on. That woman wouldn’t even talk to me.” She has a bit of paper perched on her lap. I tell her my number. She reads it back.
I see that she’s written the last digit down wrong.

I have a dilemma.



Touch down. Sweet earth.
The man gets up quickly and offers to get my hand-luggage. He hands my bags to me in the most gentlemanly fashion and bids us farewell.



Friday 8.30am
The woman is tottering ahead of us down the plane steps.
She turns and calls out, “Bye! I’ll call youse in an hour or two!” I smile and wave back.

My son is wide eyed. He whispers “Is she really going to call us?”
“Hmm,” I pause for a minute. “I don’t think so honey.” I say as we step onto the ground.
“Phew!” he says, with a smile.
“Phew!” I agree, as we walk together across the beautiful, cold, hard, grey-black, airport tarmac.

There are now seven screwed up bits of paper to my side.



Last year as we were packing a little suitcase together for the big-grade-three-camp my daughter asked me a simple question.

Will you miss me Mummy?

Of course, I answered.
Her face crumpled a little as she placed her left gumboot into the case.

It’s funny, I said as we folded the prescribed number of size-eight sweaters into neat rectangles, when you love someone and they are headed off on a grand adventure you have what they call mixed emotions.
She stood, looking up at me while wringing a pair of High School Musical Socks between her fingers.
I feel sad, I continued, that you will be away from me and yet also blissfully happy knowing that you are going to have such an amazing time.
She rolled her socks into a ball and stuffed them into a runner.
There, she said ticking off the last item on the list-of-things-you-must-bring, all done. She smiled.
Then she zipped up the case.

In front of me is another sheet of blank paper.

I can’t quite get the words out of the thicket that is my head, down past elbow, wrist and finger tip and out through the pen onto the page. I’m stuck on I’ll miss you.

I try again. She is only nine years old. She doesn’t require an elaborate message. I’m pretty sure she’d be as happy with a page of red-biro love hearts as with perfectly worded sentiments.

I hold her camera for inspiration.

My plan is to photograph the note.
I know my daughter. As soon as she shoots a few frames the first thing she will do is turn the camera around to marvel at the images she has captured.
She’ll flick past the cheesy shot of her Daddy trying to hold the leaning tower of Pisa aloft with the palm of his hand, and the three shots of Nonna and Nonno smiling over their short black espressos in a cafe on the Piazza dei Miracoli and she will reach the end of her snaps…

and find my message.

If I can actually ever figure out what I should write.



I’ve laid out all her summer clothes on my bed. I am the mixn’match travel Queen. Everything has a purpose. Anything unnecessary is ruthlessly dumped.
She looks at the outfits I have selected… we are negotiating whether to bring pink runners as well as white ones. She decides one pair is enough.
Besides, she says, that leaves more room for souvenirs.
Clever girl.
She smiles as she zips up the case.



I think it’s the amount of time that she will be away that is causing my brain to seize. Over one month. Four and a bit weeks. Nearly five. Exactly thirty three days.

The little white squares of August suddenly take on new meaning.
I shut my calendar.



I unfold my seven attempts and smooth them out in front of me.
I see the same three words written over and over.
I’ll miss you. I’ll miss you. I’ll miss you.
Three words.
Three words.
Three
words.
oh.
I stop.

Three words.

I just had the wrong three words.


I write with conviction. I love you. It’s perfect. It’s simple. And it won’t make her cry.
And she will know it is woven, richly, with all of her Mother’s mixed emotions.

I frame the shot, take the pic and throw away the written evidence.


I put the camera, with its secret embedded message into its little protective bag
and I smile.
Not a very big smile. It’s a bit wobbly round the edges.
But a smile nonetheless…

Then I,
very carefully,
zip up the case.

Rizado posed this question to me,

“Name your top five foreign locales that everyone should visit?”

Whittling down the list of amazing places that I have visited – to just five… became a battle of the senses…

You can read the full interview here.

Thank you Rizado… it was fun talking to you about one of my great loves… travel!

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.        -Mary Schmich

Smile and wave, thumbs up, camera click, wipe the sweat from your brow, no stand this way, closer, closer and camera click again, smile into the lens… perfect!

Look at us on the Great Wall, see how far it goes through the countryside! Wow!

They say you can see this from the moon, or maybe that’s a myth, we’ll google it when we get home.

Yes that’s right, built to keep out the Mongols…or the rabbits ha-oh-ha.

Can you believe that we are here? Let’s buy a t-shirt on the way back down, yes what a great souvenir! What do you think? The one that says “I’ve climbed the great wall!”

Don’t forget, they say never pay the price that they ask, oh no sir, haggle with them to a tenth of the price… that’s what it’s worth after all.

Do you think Grandpa would like one? Of course, let’s buy three.

The climb up was hard, but we had modern convenience on our side. Imagine it is three thousand years ago. Where do you think these rocks were quarried from? Not nearby I’m sure. It’s a marvel, a feat, this structure of protection.

But there is the echo of a throb here, a throb of living-beats that were silenced by this grey and cold blooded snake.

Now we are at the top, feel that under your feet? We are fortunate to be in a place that many dream of visiting, and yes, you and I, we are here.

Place your hand there. Yes, there on this rough hewn rock. It’s not as cold as you expected? Perhaps because it holds an eon of misery. Pain rising and sighing through its stony face and jagged miscoloured mortar. It’s been said that every foot of this wall represents one human life. Can you see how far the wall stretches? Yes, you are right, it stretches beyond sight.

In the earliest dynasty the tyrannical Qin Emporer would send scholars here to work on the wall, as a lonesome, soul-breaking punishment. Yes, it’s hard to imagine how many people would have perished.

And see these spaces in the wall, pretty, steeple shaped spaces, like little windows in a child’s doll house. Well that is where they would have laid their bows, arrows poised. Weapons of death to the marauding nomads. And this space? Yes, you learn quickly, no, not from a dolls house. This space was for pouring burning-missives to assail the enemy.

Why do you think they call this section the wall of the bones? It’s simple really and gruesome too, for if you died up here they simply threw your body over the edge.

And maybe, they hoped, your lifeless, worthless existence would knock an enemy asunder on its perilous way down.

Cruel you say? Yes, cruel it is true, but it was the way of the world back then and now that you sense the immense history you can also marvel at the feat of structure and engineering and planning and endurance. 

And the enormous power that the Emperors wielded, in human life, with the stroke of a calligraphed signature and the stamp of a Royal seal… in the name of defence.

“Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.” –Mary Schmich

Journal entry:

Friday 11pm , 19^th June 2009. 

We had the good fortune to spend three weeks over June and July of this year, sightseeing our way through Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and China.

I’d spent many months planning the trip. Researching it down to the finest detail.

Preparing documents, planning contingencies, consulting travel sites. Arranging, organising, co-ordinating.

I’d even made little laminated cards with the addresses of each hotel we were staying at (in English and in the appropriate native language) to hand to taxi drivers so we’d have no trouble getting to where we needed to go.

My family called me the “little travel agent”. 

My friend’s called me an anal retentive freak a well organized planner. 

The highlight for the kids was a trip to Hong Kong Disneyland. 

We spent the day immersed in Disney shenanigans, enjoying the children’s fascination with all that is sugary-sweet and finishing up with the bang that is the night time fireworks spec-tac-u-lar. 

While we waited for our first train back to the hotel a young man began talking to the children, asking them if they had enjoyed themselves. I moved into protective-mama-mode but he seemed pretty harmless and when it was discovered that we were heading in the same direction he took it upon himself to act as our impromptu guide. 

Just before the second train pulled to a stop he pointed at another train across on a distant platform and motioned for us to get ready. He looked spring-loaded. When the door opened he bolted for the other platform with us in tow. 

My son, Husband and step-father made it inside the train, but my daughter had dropped one of our shopping bags and upon seeing that we wouldn’t make it they stepped out of the carriage, my hubby pulling our son out by his arm. 

But the doors of the train shut before my son could get through. 

I looked at him, inside the train. 

All by himself. 

His face was pulled and stretched. White. He was just two eyes. Two big, huge eyes.

I screamed without knowing I was going to scream.

It was a guttural sound which began in my womb, accelerated by my pumping blood, gushing out through my lungs.

People stopped to help, pulling and tugging at the door, trying to free his arm from the metal jaw that had clamped around it. The train lurched forward and then stopped.

The door was released.

We rushed inside the train. The passengers around us were quiet. Watching. One handed my son a tissue. I mopped up his face, then used it for my own. 

As the train pulled away his terror turned to shock.

“Mum,” he said “I think I’m going to be sick.”

I emptied the souvenirs from a shopping bag onto the floor of the carriage and he vomited long and loudly into the luminous orange Disney bag.

The passengers on the train looked away politely while my son exorcised his fear. I looked for a place to put the bag, but there was no bin or hidey-hole, so I held it in my hand for the rest of the journey. 

Every so often I would look at it and see Mickey Mouse staring back at me, his arms spread wide as if he’d just performed the greatest magic trick in the world… “Ta-daaaaaa!” he said.

My son sported twin black bruise-stripes on either side of his forearm for many days after. As they faded to purple he still shuddered remembering the awful-ness that was the night on the train. But by the time the bruise had morphed through shades of green and grey he would grin and say… 

“Mum, remember at Disneyland? Remember how scared I was to do Space Mountain? Remember Mum? I didn’t want to do it at all! And then I stopped worrying and tried. Mum you should have come on it. Mum it was great.  It was aaawesooome! I can’t believe I did Space Mountain…I can’t wait to tell all my friends that I did it three times!”

“Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.” -Mary Schmich

At twenty one I’d finished my university degree and headed to Europe for the traditional coming-of-age journey so many Australians do. 

I started travelling by myself- exploring London and Paris before connecting with a group tour of young people, forging our way through seven European countries over several weeks. 

In Italy we travelled by bus to the Isle of Capri. 

I was dumbfounded, like most tourists, by the azure waters. They were a colour of blue that was so deeply, vividly haunting that it almost hurt. That it stung at your soul. 

The sting came from the knowledge that no photograph, no postcard, no words would ever capture that colour. 

It would never be yours to hold. 

We spent the afternoon exploring and then climbed onto the bus for the mountain hugging trip back to the hotel in Sorrento. On one side was rocky monolith, on the other was cliffs and sheer drops. The road was barely wide enough for two cars to pass, let alone a bus and any other vehicle, but we were carefree, sharing our experiences, talking about the food, the people and the vivid waters.

I sat in the back seat pressed against the window- part of the squash of six friends, enjoying their chatter and watching for glimpses of blue.

The bus was old, and although it creaked and groaned the driver had a lead foot, taking corners at a precarious speed.

At one point we rounded a sharp bend. We lost our seated balance, all five people tipped full bodied against me, pushing  me hard up against the window.

But it wasn’t a window at all.

It was a concealed door, an emergency exit and access to the storage underneath the bus.

The force of us swung the door open wide. I fell head first through the gap vaguely registering that someone was screaming. I felt hands, strong hands gripping me. Holding my arms, my back, caught in my hair. I watched three red balls fall out from the storage compartment below. I followed them as they hit the road in slow motion. One… and then two bounces before flying over the edge of the cliff in a graceful arc… down, down toward the blue waters. 

The driver brought the bus to a neck lurching stop. I was hauled inside and then realised so many people had held onto me. Along with my friends who had been sitting close there was one guy holding my wrist. I could have sworn he had been sitting near the middle of the bus and I couldn’t fathom how he, in particular, had gotten to me so fast. But I was grateful to them all.

At the end of our trip around the seven countries of Europe we were each given a book to commemorate our journey. These books and pens were passed around, the last two blank autograph-pages filling with jovial comments and snail-mail-addresses and “stay in touch” messages. 

When my book finished the rounds I opened up to read the commentary. My eyebrows crinkled in surprise as I saw someone had taken up nearly a whole page. What the fuck?? I thought. Someone’s written me a bloody essay. 

But it wasn’t an essay.

It was a love letter. 

A confession of feelings from afar and admiration from a guy who had rarely said a word to me the whole trip.

He was the boy who’d sat in the middle of the bus. 

He wrote that he would never act on his feelings because he knew I was already taken. He called my fella in Australia the luckiest man alive. 

And just like that I suddenly realised it was a joke.

I showed it to my friends chortling good naturedly. But they all looked puzzled. 

Why are you laughing? They asked.

Huh? Didn’t you know? They said.

Oh really? Are you for real? How could you not know? They sounded surprised.

Well everyone else knew… They whispered.

But I didn’t know.

I’d been totally and truly and completely oblivious.

In the car I snapped open the bag and popped a black stick into dear hubby’s mouth as he drove. He snaffled it quickly and opened up for another. I had an instant flash back to the time of our early dating.

 Back then, as Uni students, we couldn’t afford too much so we’d drive to the closest Red Roo[s]ter and buy a large box of hot chips for around two dollars. We’d then go for a drive and- romantically- I’d hand feed him the greasy-sticks-of-potato-yum. We’d usually end up at Elwood beach to have a cuddle and lick the salt of my fingers- as we watched the moon drift over Port Phillip Bay. 

Those were joyful moments of blossoming infatuation. The biggest issue we faced was the weekly scrambling to find a freebie pass into our fave nightclub-so we could avoid the ten buck entry fee. We weren’t worried about cholesterol, or high blood pressure, or diabetes.

Nearly two decades on- I’m now feeding my husband licorice sticks.

“We’re getting old.” I said. He laughed.

But it’s true. We have swapped dancing at clubs till the wee hours of the morn for tango-ing stray children back to bed after bad dreams.

We have swapped long night time drives to hear the ocean caress the shore for short drives to cart children from basketball- to ballet- to birthday parties- to band practices.

We have swapped holding hands and whispering sweet nothings for messaging each other on Face Book. 

As I chew on this memory-evoking licorice I realize that ‘transitioned’ is probably a more apt description- than ‘swapped’. When did we morph from the free spirited pair into the “eat this it’s good for your bowels” couple?

I panic….Could this be the beginnings of a mid-life-crisis?

Then hubby looks at me, I know what he is thinking.

Next weekend we are getting us some red rooster chips.

The single piece of marble is intricately and symbolically carved with dragons- the symbol of celestial power and the Emperor. It forms a ramp flanked by two marble staircases and measures sixteen metres long (that’s over fifty two feet for my non-metric friends).

The Emperor was the only person permitted to travel over the carving and he would be carried up the ramp via a sedan chair.

The difficult task of hauling the large stone into position was performed by rolling it along carefully placed logs. In winter the task was completed by pulling the marble over man made ice trails. Sounds easy? Doubt it- the stone was hewn from the FangShan mountains approximately seventy five kilometres west of Beijing and the historic description of the journey suggests it took several seasons.

It makes me wonder which ancient Chinese herbal remedies were created for back ache as a direct result of this magnificent work of art?

Behind the Hall of Preserving Harmony is the largest courtyard of the Forbidden city.

As some of our group, sweaty but determined, headed up the grand marble staircase I was distracted by a gathering of folk who seemed intent on trying to fan themselves while catching two wild children.

These kids were slippery indeed.

They sped up and slowed down to taunt the grownups who had now drooped- either exhausted from the chase or from the heat or quite possibly both. As I got a little closer I realized that the pair of terrors were dressed identically and were obviously twins. I’ve read that triplets and quadruplets were considered bad omens in Ancient China, but in a nation of family life governed by a one child policy I suddenly realized that a multiple birth would now be a different kind of omen.

Attention turned in our direction as the group watching the twins, act out all kinds of naughtiness, spotted my daughter. With her long dark-blonde hair and fair skin she had been treated as somewhat of a celebrity in Beijing. Every where we went people asked if they could take her photograph, posing with her and intrigued by her ability to speak rudimentary phrases of Mandarin- thanks to three years of weekly Chinese lessons at school. The Mother of the twins smiled broadly and waved her camera at us pointing at my daughter and then in the direction of her girls. Miss 8- who had begun to enjoy the Miley Cyrus treatment struck a pose and waited patiently as the Mother called her girls over.

The twins however weren’t all that interested in obeying.

They ran around their Mother, black plaits whipping the stodgy air and cackling at their own defiance. Everyone looked a little embarrassed and our guide looked away muttering  “spoilt princesses”.  The Mother- maintaining a composed face grabbed at the little boy standing next to her and pushed him into frame. He obliged instantly and beamed into the lens.  I asked if this was her son mistakenly now assuming that the twins were actually a trio, but got told no he was “just a cousin”. The girls did eventually saunter over and pose, curious perhaps as to how attention had so suddenly shifted away from them.

Miss 8 is now in our lounge room adding the final touches to her suitcase for her next big adventure- tomorrows grade three camp to Mt Eliza. Her big brother is giving her all kinds of advice like:

Don’t be scared of the flying  fox- it’s a blast.

And…

Just eat everything they give you or you don’t get any dessert.

And…

Watch out for the snakes and tigers (chortle, chortle).

She’s listening intently and throwing him a playful punch when she knows he is teasing her. He suddenly gets all serious and says “You know I’m going to miss you?” she gives him a quick hug and throws in another punch just to place the sentimentality firmly back where it belongs. “Muuuuuuum” he screeches “she punched me…”

My instant reaction is to think of the heavenly quiet that will transcend our home over the next three days. Ahhhhh no sibling rivalry! But then I flashback to those  twins, and China, and the One Child Policy.

As I continued my walk that hot, hot day I found it increasingly difficult to align modern day China’s family policy with that of the world of the Dynasty Emperors. In front of me lay Palaces- one more sumptuous than the last, erected to house the abundance of Empresses and Concubines whose sole purpose was to seed as many descendants as possible. These walls would have contained a bounty of brothers and sisters. Spoilt and plump and plotting. But now mostly families with only one child walk through the courtyards to sightsee the old ways.

And of course there are those families lucky enough to have twins.

Three days of peace and quiet will be lovely.

But to be honest I’m also looking forward to hearing my kids argue with each other again on Friday afternoon….

my walk/great wall of china/mutinyu section/july09