September 2009
Stranger... Baby
The flag's at half-mast today, and no-one in town knows why.
When I'm out running with my mates on Saturday mornings and I complain of my ‘dickie-knee', no-one's imagination flies to a bloke called ‘Molly' and a red schoolboy hat stuck on a wooden stick.
At the school in which I teach, I choke
back an instinctive "It's like Pitt Street
traffic"! when I get caught in the halls
between classes. I suppose I'd rather hold
the comment in than offer it out to the
ignorant, jostling masses.
My theme this month concerns the loneliness felt when important bits of one's linguistic identity get lost in the translation.
These ‘bits', in general terms, are the national vernacular. They add colour and personality to our speech. They're part of the pigment of our social skin.
For the stranger in a strange land, these indispensable ‘bits' are, sadly, inseparable from the pain that comes from self-censoring one's cultural self. They are the scars born of hot words hid tight against the breast. Words that burn to be spoken.
I'm moved here by my own experiences, but knowing many immigrants to many nations, I know I'm not alone in my thoughts.
Because I live and work and have a family here, many people initially don't get it when they hear I'm not an American citizen, nor do I ever want to be.
"I just assumed you were one", they say. "Don't you need to be a citizen to work"?
"No. I'm a Permanent Resident".
At this point of the conversation there's often a look here that suggests the best of intentions melded with innocence and ignorance. They're good like that. But really, why should an average American need to know the finer points - or even the broader brush-strokes - of an alien's path to establishing a legal, tenable residency? Aren't there enough distractions already? So invariably I simplify things:
"I have a green card".
"Ahh..."
American's have a terrible reputation for mindless patriotism. Some of it is deserved. That said, most of the people I encounter understand and accept my argument against taking on American citizenship when we take time to discuss it.
I'm here (America), but my heart's there (Australia). It is that simple. I'm Australian, and nothing gets in the way of that. My father was born in England and my heritage on both sides is British, so I consider myself fifty percent British. But I'm a hundred percent Australian. The greatest flag-wavers I've met - and I've met a few - understand there's no room for American citizenship in that equation.
"Do you miss Australia?" they ask.
"Every Day" I say. "Wouldn't you?"
Often I tell them of the Valley.
To make it work you try and make a home here. Not long ago we started attending our local Presbyterian church. As it turns out, we are the congregation's third Australian-American family. An un-holy trinity, perhaps?
Serena hasn't been here for that long, but Bob Patton was lured to stay here thirty years ago under the same siren's song ‘we'll go back to Australia for a few years' ruse that I fell for. Bob possesses a set of championship eyebrows whose value falls in the same league as the ‘thirteen hundred dollar bowling arm' Mick Molloy spoke of in his lawn bowls film, Crackerjack, and Flo Bjelke-Petersen's prize pumpkin scone recipe.
Anyway, on the Sunday of the Third Test, I walked in late and tried to slip into the pew as anonymously as possible. Fifteen seconds later, a slip of paper appears over my left shoulder:
"What's the score?"
Bob - you made me feel like a million dollars.
(Today's the last day of the fifth test. Hence the flag at half-mast. Bob wasn't at church today).
As I write this on the verandah, listening to my mellow (some would say melancholy...) playlist on Pandora.com, out comes Molly, my curly-headed two year old. Smiling. Cute as a button. She winces when I give her a sip of my coffee, but it's all I have out here to give out her.
"Daddy beer"? she asks.
"It's coffee, baby".
"Co-hee"?
"Yeah, baby. Co-hee".
I pull her up onto my lap and continue typing. I promise I'm not lying here, but she just put her head on my shoulder and looked up into my eyes with loving contentment.
Then she stole the watch off my wrist and repeated the head-on-shoulders-breaking-daddy's-heart thing.
And so ends my melancholy mood. I skip a few songs on Pandora until something more upbeat comes on. Surprisingly, it is Belle and Sebastian, who usually have all the I-want-to-slit-my-wristability of The Cure or The Smiths at their very best.
I'm trying to think of some other references you might get. Imagine Carole King or Joni Mitchell with a depressive and mildly subversive dark side. Or hearing Vera Lynn sing "We'll Meet Again" moments after reading a letter informing you that your son or your father is missing presumed dead. Billie Holiday in a minor key. The opening moments of Beethoven's Fifth.
I'm at the end of my column, pondering what there is in this wondering / wandering around the mental suburbs of referential isolation and family that I'd like the average Valley Voice reader to remember. This line from Deuteronomy comes to mind;
"Welcome the stranger in your midst".
Kookaburra