Here's My Life...

I've been looking back through these entries of the last few weeks and I realised that though I have talked about some feelings I have they are generally only the negative aspects of my life. Believe it or not I used to have a positive outlook; I used to enjoy things. So I thought I'd write a little about my long ago life. Here's my life.

Born on September six to my Mother and Father in the Hospital of my Town. Lived at 36 Denison Street until I was almost three and a half when we moved. The house- I guess- was too small with Mum pregnant with my little Sister. I don't remember a lot about the first house; I remember standing up in a cot in a room that had Peter Pan on the wallpaper and I think it had an outdoors toilet. The rest of it I can only remember from photographs; the above-ground pool; Dad chasing us pretending he was a shark- making whirlpools that stirred up the leaves. I remember our mongrel bitch Tantrum and our cat Rumble( his real name was Rommel but none of us could say it) though what happened to them is less clear. I think they ran away.

So we moved to the same house that my Parents still live in Today. The house ws diferent then; there was no back bedroom off the Red Room (so named because of the carpet which has long since gone, though the name has stuck) the carport was not a back verandah and the backyard was huge- no pool, shed or garage- just a huge Rubber tree that my Sister climbed with skill onto the roof of the neighbour's garage- often with the biscuit tin in tow. I recall climbing it too; having pictures taken beneath it holding the lamb we bottle-fed and raised- Gungadin- and the great ginger tom cat Monsewer. We did put a pool in; I remember the year we all got a floating toy for Christmas; my eldest Sister got a rowboat, my middle Sister and myself got water-police boats and my baby sister got a foam ring to sit in while she floated around in her sun-bonnet. The rowboat lasted the longest.

I was never fond of my little Sister when she was a baby; my first memory of her was her doing a wee all over me. I wonder now where her nappy was? So I never liked her for years; I was jealous I suppose that she took all of my Mother's attention and that I was no longer the baby. So went the first few years.

I remember my first day of school; I was looking forward to it; except for wearing a dress. I already knew one girl who was going to be in my class cos her Dad and mine were in the Wine Club together and we had been away camping. I can remember falling asleep in the green Jeep we had then and waking up and thinking that we had driven for days. I remember the Mudgee River; thinking how muddy and brown and deep it was. I remember the leeches that Dad scraped off our legs with a machete in Dungog. But that chick didn't sit next to me. I sat up the back of the classroom and, in my nervous state, did a very loud and noisy fart. When everyone turned to look at me I looked behind me as well; then said it wasn't me. But of course it had to be me. There was no one else behind me. I remember lots of other things at school; like when Crazy Linda's mother came to school and we got into trouble for being mean to her.

I was in Yellow group in Kindergarten, Red group in Year one, and the Dolphins in Year two. I was the only kid who spelt circus correctly in the spelling bee. I was pretty intelligent; the teacher used to let me go into class early if I wanted to read or write stories. I wrote a story about a giant crabshell that people lived in; it was a masterpiece. I remember breaking into the school with my Sisters and their friends when I was seven or eight; I stole Kelly's yoyo from under his desk but didn't admit it to the headmaster after we had been busted.

Most of all I remember my Kindred Spirit. We would walk home together after school, chanting rain dances; we'd wear our swimmers underneath our tunics and on hot summer days would peel off under the sprinklers in the Park. We almost stole a Dacshund puppy with her skipping rope for a lead; we reasoned that they had three puppies and we had none- but luckily the owners came home in time to stop us. It still scared us half to death. On the rest of the walk home we promised that we would both ask our parents for a puppy as soon as we got home. The next Christmas I got Kaboney Alcoreisa, a female begale puppy that I just loved. I don't remember anything else that I got that Christmas that year. When I was in Year two she ate some snail pellets and had to be put down; I remember crying on Dad's lap; asking him why the Devil had taken my dog. The next morning Dad used a heated screwdriver to inscribe the word Boney into a section of tree. It still sits on her grave in the backyard; under the pink-flowered tree.

Somewhere I still have her collar.