by Nicole Skeltys
Man About the House
Where I have settled in Pittsburgh, the freight trains wait until dusk then come out like great mechanical cows and commence their lowing which continues long into the evening, increasing their frequency in the early hours. I am a poor sleeper, waking often in the witching hours after midnight. In Melbourne, I would lie awake for hours, with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company. But here in the railway-zippered suburb of Lawrenceville, I will never again be alone at night. I am kept company by the conversation of the freight train horns. Every half hour or so, a new blare of exquisite tonalities erupts, a unique plaid of harmonics that is flung into the universe. Its 5.00 am as I write this propped up in bed with my faithful laptop Larry, and Larry and I have been digging horn solos for hours.
There is no predicting the rhythm or timing of the blares. Sometimes they are short, insistent bursts suggesting urgency, danger, get out of my way. Other times, they are are long, languid squirls of sound, like the cries of a delighted lover. The cry of each train as it rattles through is so erratic, that I think it must surely reflect the different moods of the men pushing the horn. Before I got up to write, I lay awake and listened closely to what I imagined to be the morse code of yearning. Some railway guy was leaning against a metal cab interior, he finished a cigarette and flicked it out the window, he reached over and and pushed on the horn pedal (or pulled the lever, depending on how old the train is) according to how he felt about his life at that exact moment in time. And motionless under my mountain of borrowed blankets, miles away, I heard it and I got it. Like him, I could hear what the sound contains: the the off-key, stained satin, diaspora of emotion that sums up our lives.
The freight trains have been providing the romantic soundtrack to our new lives, as Tanya and I settle into our second floor apartment, right above our buddies Scotty and Dan. My nights of sleeping on the floor of Scott and Dan's basement were now over. No longer did I have to battle with my constantly deflating air mattress while Tanya rustled and flopped behind the makeshift curtain that Scott had pinned up to separate our sleeping areas. I had my own completely solid mattress - heaven! T and I each had our own room - heaven again! It was typical of the great good fortune that had swooped upon us as soon as we arrived in Pittsburgh: the cheap, groovy little oak paneled, bi-level apartment above our hosts just happened to have become vacant. It was all too easy - why don't we just move in?
We did, however, have one hurdle to cross before we could settle down after our exhilarating but exhausting 5 months of being on the road. And that was our potential landlord, Jim. We needed to persuade Jim to hand over the keys to us, that we would be good tenants. Jim, according to Scotty, was around quite a bit. And usually fairly tanked.
We first met Jim when one day he was bustling into the back yard, about to climb to the steps to the 2nd floor apartment. Scott saw him from the kitchen window and called him over to introduce us. He poked his head into the kitchen, saw us, and his eyes bugged. He knew that Scotty and Dan had a couple of Australian women, "aussie chicks" staying with him for a while: but our corporeality, the actual sudden presence of two female bodies in a house that had previously only contained two young male bodies clearly hit him with some force. He barked a slightly startled hello and after some awkward pleasantries, asked with great curiosity how long we intended to stay. When we replied maybe for the long term, and that we might be interested in the 2nd floor apartment, Jim looked even more startled and affected a skeptical stance: "Well. We'll see, we'll see. We can talk abart it, we can talk abart it." He backed away and retreated up the back stairs, carrying his 6 pack of Yuengling lager.
Over the next couple of weeks, Jim's presence became familiar, as every second day he bustled up and down the back stairs and rattled and banged away upstairs fixing whatever it was that needed fixing in the wake of the last tenant. Jim was probably in his late 40s, early 50s, and was a 'yinzer' - what the locals call native Pittsburghers. This meant he was never without a baseball cap, even (or especially) indoors and at night, talked in a crimped, guttural Pittsburgh accent, drank goodly amounts of lager, barracked for the Steelers and engaged in a blue collar profession - in Jim's case, he was a plumber. Tanya had further expanded on the classic yinzer definition by including what she regarded as the defining physical characteristics of native Pittsburgh men: they looked like moles. Cute, cuddly moles perhaps, but moles nevertheless.
When we had finally made the decision to stay, we lay in wait for Jim's next appearance. One afternoon we spied him out the kitchen window, coming through the gate with his tool box in one hand and his lager in the other, looking every inch an industrious mole. We stopped him and told him we were definitely interested in renting the apartment. Jim affected a skeptical stance again. "Well, nah, well nah, do yez have a job? How are yez gonna pay the rent if yez dont have a job?" Luckily Tanya had just been offered some teaching work at the Point Park University film faculty; I mumbled some outright lie about doing "contract work".
However, as it turned out, Jim didn't actually require much convincing. He tried to look hard nosed, and complained sternly that "every tenant sez thar gonna pay the rent but they don't" (his last tenant had split without warning, rent in arrears). But moles, as we know, do not have hard noses, they have soft noses, and after chatting to Jim for a while, he loosened up quickly. Soon, we were heading up the steps and he was showing us proudly around the newly painted apartment. He showed us how he was now fixing the shelves in the kitchen and even started asking us what other repairs we thought we might need. This was a first for Tanya and I: neither of us had ever had a landlord who was anxious to improve a property to the tenant's liking. Jim was turning out to be just like everyone else we had met in Pittsburgh: generous-hearted to a fault.
At one point, as Jim was showing us the downstairs bedroom he said: "Theres a bedroom for one of yez." then he glanced at us and added in an almost apologetic tone of voice "Or both of yez! What yez get up to is none of my business! You know yez can do what yez want, do what yez want. Doesn't worry me!" He paused and he looked at us. We smiled broadly and didn't respond. We moved out onto the verandah so Jim could show us the sealant he intended to apply to the railings. We mentioned we would be continuing to share some facilities and tasks (such as gardening) with the boys. Jim couldn't help himself again: "Well, nah, one big happy family is it?" he asked with another meaningful stare in his wide eyes. "I mean, I don't want to pry, what yez all get up to is your business, none of my business, yez can get up to whatever you want!" In Jim's mind, 227 45 St had clearly turned into a hothouse of sexual intrigue - just who was sleeping with who? The possibilities were endless! and exciting! anyway you cared to think about it.
T and I just smiled knowingly back at Jim after every leading statement and continued to ask questions about the apartment. We let his imagination continue to cook away.
The Boston Marriage
We started to move in our very few belongings the last week of October. As we set up our new home over the following weeks, we became aware that there was a term for our new co-habitation status. Scotty sent us a link to an MS article entitled "So are you two together?" The article was about women who decide to move in together to provide each other with emotional support, share financial responsibilities and work together on creative or other kinds of joint endeavors. Other people (such as our landlord, who reminded me strongly of the forever perplexed and titillated Mr Roper in the classic '70s British sit-com "Man About the House") would often assume a lesbian relationship where this was not the case. The term for this kind of living choice was a "boston marriage" - a term derived from Henry James' 1886 novel The Bostonians whose main female characters have chosen to move in together as each other's "helpmeets".
Our ability to actually set up the rudiments of a household was assisted greatly by the financial generosity of donations from family and friends, particularly those triggered by the now infamous "flying mattress incident". We were also highly dependent on the only two people in Pittsburgh we knew with cars - Charlie and Scotty - to help ferry us around to buy household goods and act as our surrogate husbands. One glorious day, we found three perfectly good (if somewhat faded) armchairs, plus a couple of sidetables just sitting outside a church around the corner from us on 46th St. Scotty was once again pressed into service with his Chevvy pick up, and by late afternoon our loungeroom started to look like a loungeroom.
Jim continued to drop around and fix things, and we started to enjoy his company. One night when we were hanging out with Scotty downstairs, he even went next door to the mysterious AmVets hall (he was a Vet as it turned out) and bought us all back a bunch of beer. This was no small favor as in Pittsburgh, for reasons that defy all logic, you can easily walk down the road and buy dangerously cheap wine and hard liquor from a liquor store, but the only place you can buy beer is from specially designated outlets. Why relatively low alcohol beverages are in restricted supply whereas serious liver and brain corroding beverages are everywhere is beyond me. But it made us especially grateful to Jim for saving us having to go on a quest to find a distant beer depot.
Our Boston marriage was certainly more functional than Jim's. Jim had divorced after only 4 years, but 2 years later the divorce proceedings carried on and were clearly causing him a great deal of pain and anxiety. We felt sorry for him, as he had a good heart, and clearly his general yinzer fondness for brews had developed into a stronger addiction to cope with post-marital stress. However, he had not lost his sense of humor and he too became another surrogate husband, cheerfully complaining about "typical women, always wantin' stuff done round the haus" as he trudged in with his tool box and beer to fix a blocked drain, or to bleed the heaters.
Jim was perhaps becoming a little too comfortable in his role as surrogate husband as one night last week he gave a perfunctory knock and walked in the kitchen door, starting to tell me how the boiler pressure was all wrong and needed adjusting when he stopped dead in his tracks. There I was sitting in the loungeroom in our borrowed pine hutch having a drink with another man. It was only Charlie, who had dropped in briefly after some new errand he had uncomplainingly done on our behalf. However, the sight of a strange man in our apartment was enough to make Jim visibly embarrassed, and clearly provided yet more fodder for an already inflamed imagination. He moved quickly upstairs to Tanya's attic room to adjust the bleeds, then hurried down back past us again moving quietly and sheepishly as if he had interrupted something momentous. I burst out laughing after he left.
The extraordinary alien
Something momentous did occur, though, a couple of days later, as I accompanied Charlie to see an immigration lawyer about my plight. My visa was due to run out the following week. To say this caused me some anxiety was an understatement: I had just put down a deposit and moved into an apartment in a town I was determined to live in with no legal means of staying or working there. This was a major cause of waking up in the middle of the night and spending hours focusing on train horn harmonics. Charlie had to see the lawyer on behalf of Dan Jemmett, a British playwright who also wanted to stay in Pittsburgh. He asked me to come along so we could get some advice on my situation too.
Prior to the meeting, I did some research on visa categories, and for the first time I saw a glimmer of hope. The category of visa that Dan was applying for might - just might - apply to me. That visa category was an EB-1 or "extraordinary alien" visa. To qualify to be an "extraordinary alien" you had to have received an academy award (it was THAT easy); but more relevant to my situation, you could also be considered if you had an outstanding record of achievement in your field of endeavor. As I scrolled through the criteria, it dawned on me that my years of slogging it away punching out electronic and electronic influenced music, album after album, might make me an "extraordinary alien". After all, I had been nominated for an ARIA once, wasn't that kind of extraordinary? It certainly stunned me at the time.
Charlie oscillates with nervous energy pretty much all of the time. As we sat in the all white po-mo waiting area, I too was oscillating - if someone could have plugged us into a circuit board and hooked us up to an amplifier, we would have made a very high pitched sound. Larry, our lawyer, greeted us warmly and ushered us into the conference room, asking us to take a seat at an extremely long walnut table. The small talk consisted of Larry's plans for the sterile white foyer - he intended to use it to showcase local artists' work. Charlie quickly jumped at the chance to offer to broker curatorial services as part of a deal, and within minutes he was gone, ferried away by the marketing lady to talk artwork turkey. I sat alone with the lawyer, almost unable to keep my buttocks on the chair due to anxiety and looked at him as a penitent with heavy sins might look at a confessor.
Larry asked me what I wanted and I mumbled that I well, just wanted to stay here, and write and perform music. Larry nodded enthusiastically and, after asking after my visa status, noted that we were "looking at a rather tight timeframe" to sort all this out. Then he put on his glasses and started reading the material I had sent him - my CV/biography and the two pages worth of self-promoting bravado I had put together as my claims to be an "extraordinary alien". The funny thing was, though, that as I had sat down the previous night, gone through the acceptance criteria and jotted down my potential claims, I realised that I had, in fact, achieved stuff. I had always moved through my music career like a salmon spawning up-stream: I never looked behind me or thought about what I'd done, after an album or project had been completed and promoted, I just wanted to hurry up and get onto the next one. But as I forced myself to go back over the last decade, particularly over the tons of press clippings that I'd scanned before I left Australia, I thought maybe if you were looking at all this from a consciousness other than my own self-deprecating Australian consciousness, particularly if yours was an American can-do, boosterish consciousness, you might form the opinion I was a person of some note in my field. You might start slowly mouthing the words "extraordinary alien".
Larry scanned the documents silently then put them down and looked at my half-terrified, half-pleading face. "This is excellent. No problem, I'm almost certain you will qualify. The green card takes about a year, but in the meantime we can rustle up an application that should be able to get you a temporary work permit so you can stay here while we work on the EB-1 process." It was a Rocky moment. I leapt up from the chair and punched the air:"YEEEESSSSSS!!!!" I cried, then composed myself and sat down. It did indeed seem possible that I was not just any old alien; I could hear the theme from Close Encounters start to build, I could see the massive disk of light descend from the sky over the Devil's Tower formation, I could see rows upon rows of speechless people, faces upturned in awe: they were looking at me as I emerged triumphantly from the spacecraft and started to walk grandly towards them: watch out America here I come - I'm an extraordinary alien!
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Pittsburgh (Part2) - Hope
by Nicole Skeltys
Graeme and Eugenie: the ties that bind
Last night I Skyped Canberra to try and speak to Eugenie, my adopted Mum. I have been more than usually anxious about Graeme, my adopted Dad, for over a week now. When I was in Philadelphia I received an email from Eugenie about Graeme with news I never wanted to get. Graeme was in hospital, he had had a massive stroke which left him paralysed down the left side of his body. In shock, I read the email twice, once out loud to Tanya who gasped.
My heart wrenched. I felt a deep tangle of emotions which even now, I struggle to describe.
Graeme had been there for me through all my major life transitions and struggles over the last 10 years.
In 1997, I finally made a break out of the sterile, small town/ government-town atmosphere of Canberra, where I had been working in the public service since graduation, trying to save some money. I fled to the music haven of Melbourne, where I was initially giddy with the stimulation of being in a real town with real stuff happening all the time. Here were lots of great venues, cool bars, restaurants, large herds of people from other cultures and sub-cultures, people who knew how to dress snappy. I was at the time in a long-term relationship with Peter, who I had met at University, and he and I moved into an old warehouse on top of a shop in Smith St, in the hip inner city suburb of Fitzroy. Each morning I would walk down the crowded street like I was stoned, listening joyfully to all the different languages being spoken, smiling at all the junkies and freaks, delightedly sucking in the dank pot-pourri of Vietnamese cooking, musty second hand clothes shops, and pollution. Trams crashed past my windows late into the night, as soothing as the throb of the ocean. When I met new people, I would joke that I had just spent the last 7 years "in a sensory deprivation tank", which I still think is a pretty accurate description of Australia's capital city even today. Melbourne, in contrast, was an acid trip.
Graeme had been my last boss at the Department of Finance; but once our formal relationship ended, a richer connection developed. We stayed in email contact. Gradually we realised we were starting to rely upon each other to talk about our minor worries and celebrate our little life victories. We emailed each other regularly, not every day, but frequently enough to make it feel like our lives were becoming more and more connected. Over the years, Graeme would come down to visit, often as part of a work trip, or sometimes just to visit his ex-wife's sister, and to see me. When my relationship with Peter ended, and I found I could no longer afford to live in increasingly yuppie-crammed Fitzroy, I moved further out to a share house in Brunswick, a sprawling working class suburb full of Italians, Greek, Turks, Arabs and eco-activists. The house was '70s 'wog kitsch', and featured a little concrete porch facing the plane-tree lined street. Graeme and I would spend many hours on the porch, watching the Greek mommas vigorously sweep much hated leaves from their gardens out onto the street. We'd drink wine and discuss relationships, his kids' ups and downs, people we knew, spirituality, politics, all the while giggling a great deal as we shared the same irreverent sense of humor.
Graeme became more and more important to me as a shoulder I could lean on, an older, wiser man I could rely upon to give me unconditional love and inflinchingly honest advice. My relationship with my own father had been distant. As a child I knew he loved me very much as he was always giving me presents and was proud of both myself and my brother's academic achievements. But he was a reserved man, and hid much emotional turmoil behind his proud Lithuanian masculinity. He was a taxi driver and a workaholic, driving late into the night, 6-7 days a week. When he got home in the early hours of the morning, he would go down to the rumpus room which he had helped build, put on his headphones and play the Lowrey organ for hours - although he was a war refugee from a poor farming background, he had taught himself (amongst many other skills) to read and play music. Late one night, he did not come home. There was a knock on the door, and I got out of bed to answer it. There was a young policeman standing there who held his cap in his hand and looked down awkwardly as he told me my father had committed suicide by hanging. I was only 14, which meant that I then went through the formative years or adolescence and teenage-hood not knowing what it would be like to have fatherly support around.
Later in my life, Graeme filled that gap. His naturally warm and generous heart simply expanded to include myself. Three years ago, as I went through the durm und strang of yet another relationship breakdown, Graeme was there, patiently wading through my angst ridden emails, striking just the right balance between genuine concern for my broken heart and fatherly annoyance that I should be so bonkers over someone who Graeme regarded as "a twit". Graeme would often refer with pride to the success of his own relationship with Eugenie, his second wife. While they argued about many topics, he regarded this as a sign of relationship health, that the friction (within bounds) kept the spark alive and indicated genuine engagement. He adored Eugenie, who was temperamentally quite opposite to him in many ways - she was a highly gifted landscape painter, who could let fly with strong emotions at dinner parties, particularly when she felt in the presence of fools, a situation which, in Canberra, happens particularly often. Graeme told me over and over again he and E accepted and valued each other's differences, and that was a key to their relationship longevity.
In mid-August 2006, Graeme 'just happened' to be down for a visit when the Queensland police rang to tell me they had found my mother, she had died suddenly in her Brisbane flat. I could not have got through that night or the following few weeks without Graeme and Eugenie's tireless emotional and practical support. And when 6 months later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, Graeme flew down and stayed, sharing the journey with me, making sure I got through the surgery and the subsequent diagnosis ok. Before I left for my epic supertramp through the US, Graeme and Eugenie let me know that I always have a home with them if I need it, they are my family and will always be there for me.
The night I got the news about Graeme's stroke, I called Eugenie who turned out to be at the hospital in the stroke ward with Graeme. When she passed me onto Graeme, he could hardly speak, and his voice was almost unrecognisable, like that of a frightened child. When I finally put down the phone, after a long silence, I recognised a familiar emotion - grief. Grief that this formerly cheerful, energetic, charismatic man was lying scarcely able to move in a hospital bed, facing awful uncertainties about his future. I could feel his own grief, frustration and terror about the loss of bodily power. But I also grieved for myself, that my rock had crumbled, that the person who I loved and could rely upon in my hour of need now was in direst need himself. And here I was thousands of miles away, helpless.
For two nights I hardly slept, considering seriously whether or not to fly home immediately and join Eugenie. Tanya was disturbed too, as she and Graeme had hit if off when they met briefly before we left for America. Graeme had come down to Melbourne to visit before I left, as he knew he may not see me for a long time. After our first group lunch at Bimbo's pizzeria on Brunswick St, Graeme had pulled me aside at the bar while T had gone to the toilet (thats a 'restroom' in American), and said "Shes great, you'll make a great team". Although he could now scarcely form sentences, he had asked after Tanya when I called him.
But then I considered the situation more objectively, and realised that Graeme would be facing a long recovery and rehabilitation process, after the initial crisis rally-around, many friends and family would probably taper off, I could be of most help in a few months time when I had originally planned to use my return flight to Australia.
Last night I found myself talking to a woman with a rich Scottish accent, Graeme's niece who was staying with Eugenie and helping her out. She told me progress was slow but steady. Some mobility and balance was being gained. Graeme was finding it easier, although still tiring, to talk. I asked after his spirits. "He keeps saying how much he is determined to ride his motor bike again" she said, adding sadly "But the doctors say that won't be possible." I thought about my own journey through cancer, and the number of stories I read about sick and gravely injured people beating the statistics, people written off by the medical profession who pulled through, some testaments to the individual's sheer pig-dog determination to survive, others bordering on evidence of divine intervention, miracles. I said "The biggest healing power of all is hope. Graeme needs hope more than anything else. I'm glad he is thinking about his beloved bike. Its a symbol of hope."
Hope
Three weeks ago today I clicked on "post" for my first blog about Pittsburgh. I was in the bleakest of moods because of the dramatic loss of my brand new mattress. It had blown off the back of Scotty's Chevvy pick-up on the way back from the shop, and instead of providing me with badly needed nights of soft passage into the land of nod, it had turned into a terrifying zeppelin with a short lived flight down the highway, crashing to its premature smouldering end under the wheels of an SUV. More than that, both my money and my visa situation were looking hopeless. I loved PIttsburgh and I loved the people I had met here, but I couldn't see how I could keep the dream going much longer.
Things were continuing to look up for Tanya, as (thanks to Charlie yet again) she was offered the job of filming five promotional reels for Mount Washington's Grandview Scenic Byway Park, the newcomer in Pittsburgh's impressive cornucopia of parks. The park's authority wanted a series short promotional films shot over all 4 seasons. I could do sound design, music and narration...provided, of course, I could somehow stay in Pittsburgh.
The day after the blog post, Charlie emailed. He asked if T and I wanted to go for a ride to a local music shop. I agreed for the sake of an outing from our freezing flat, although musical ambitions were far from my mind. As we cruised down more leafy autumnal Pittsburgh streets, I was preoccupied with the problem of how we could get hold of another mattress for free. The concept "free mattress" was blooming and repeating in my mind like a Hindu chant. At the shop, I wandered around in a distracted sleep deprived haze, twiddling with a few synths. When Charlie asked which one would be best for The Jilted Brides, I pointed at the Korg X50 and said it was very good value and would do the trick, I would buy something like that one day. Suddenly, Charlie was at the counter clutching the Korg, handing over cash. When I realized what was happening, I tried to protest, but to no avail. Is there a word for "feeling shocked, humbled and made speechlessly happy with gratitude?". Well there should be, lets say its "shumbled". I was shumbled. I remained quiet in the back of the BMW, occasionally stroking my brand new Korg, all the way back to our Lawrenceville flat.
The day after that, I received an email from Tom Gates, a man I had met once in New York. Tom was a partner in an ultra-cool music management/publishing company called Nettwerk. He liked our music and was supportive of our crazy journey, which made us feel good as this guy had discovered then managed Cold Play and was as warm as he was smart. Tom wanted to know how much money I needed to keep going, 'just tell me straight how much you need', he'd help me out. When I got the email, I was shumbled all over again - someone I hardly knew was offering me hard cash to keep going.
And this was quickly followed by more offers of help: Nick Meyers, an old friend and ex-lover from Sydney, offered to cover the cost of the AWOL mattress: when we next looked at the bank balance, there was an extra $2000 sitting there, enough for 4 mattresses!! Gabrielle Dalton, an Australian film producer who is a friend of Tanyas but who I have only met once, also put money into both our accounts, to help us improve on our scanty can-o-beans biased grocery list and "buy yourselves some good food!". And my dearest oldest friend in Melbourne, Kazza, offered to go through all the expense and paperwork of organising to sell my little Hyundai for me, so i could get more cash that way too.
As a result of this extraordinary outpouring of generosity by strangers and friends, I felt my spirits start to climb again. It started to become clear to me that neither I nor T were entirely on our own. We wouldn't fail to start a new, more hopeful life, we wouldn't sink into penury and oblivion, because there was a safety net. A safety net made of the kindness, altruism and passionate imaginations of people we had had the great good fortune to become friends with over our lives. People who would help us out because they believed in us, they believed in ideals of freedom, kookiness and romance, and they believed in 'spreading the love'.
And I felt that what was happening on a personal scale for me, was happening for America. Over the last few weeks, the Obama campaign had boiled down to a simple image; Obama's handsome face stenciled with primary colors , tilted upwards, looking passionately but intelligently into the distance, stylistically hearkening back to a time of late '60s cultural revolution and optimism. This poster was all over America. I saw his youthful, black, iconic face in residential and shop windows - cafes, supermarkets, bars, record shops, book shops, clothes shops, libraries, everywhere, all over Montana, all over Colorado, all over New York, all over Pennyslvania, everywhere I went across the country. And underneath his face was one word: HOPE.
Yes, we can!
On Tuesday 4 November, Charlie lined up a meeting between myself and Councilman Bill Peduto, a progressive local Pittsburgh politician with wide ranging portfolio responsibilities and interests, including arts and cultural development. Bill had at one stage been recognised by the Democratic Leadership Council as one of the "100 to watch" New Democrats in the nation. Charlie described Bill as a man of impeccable integrity and vision and who should be the next Mayor of Pittsburgh. I was glad to be meeting a rising star Democrat on this historic day, the day when Americans had to decide if they wanted more of Bush's policies delivered in the Republican chicken-suit of McCain or if they wanted real change as represented by Obama. I was meeting Bill because there was a chance he could help me find employment in Pittsburgh, a sponsor to help me stay in America. It was, I thought, a slim chance, but one worth taking.
We shook hands outside a Butler St cafe, and started to shuffle towards the door. Before we got there, cars beeped and waved in recognition to Bill. We were then further delayed by another pedestrian recognising Bill and wanting to shake hands and chat. When we finally got into the cafe, the cafe owner lit up when she saw him, and more local political gossip was exchanged before we could order our sandwiches. I noted this was the life of a popular Pittsburgher politician, Bill had all the visibility of a sheriff in a one horse town. Still, Bill thrived on the interaction, he was clearly a people's representative born and bred.
We talked about Bill's history in the Democrat party, how he had opposed the Iraq war right from the start and initially paid the price by being marginalised by the party's power brokers. As time wore on, and popular opinion began to swing against the war, his status in the party rose too. Now he was now one of 8 local Pittsburgh Councilmen; his personal priorities were to tackle environmental sustainability initiatives, social equity programs, improved public transport, and enhanced support for the arts.
As we rose to leave from our lunch, Bill suddenly said: "Don't worry, I'll help you. I know everyone involved in the local not for profit arts and welfare sector. I can help you find a job. And I know a Congressman who can help with the visa process too. Together we got a friend's wife released from a Chinese prison where she had been held for her Fulan Gong beliefs. If we can do that, we can help an Australian stay in America". I felt shumbled again, as Bill had now beat the record of complete strangers wanting to help me out - we had known each other for less than an hour.
As we parted ways outside of the cafe, instead of shaking hands we now spontaneously gave each other a hug. I said "God help us, that we win tonight. What are you doing? Are you hanging out with some Democrat folk?". He responded with a supremely confident shake of the head "N'ah. I'm just going to play ice-hockey with some kids. Obama is going to win. Its in the bag".
As I trudged back up the hill to our 45th St apartment, I drank in Bill's confidence about the election results. He'd crunched the numbers, he knew the predictions, better than most. So it was really going to happen?! We would soon have a new, black, young, progressive president of the United States? and (just as life changing from my own micro-personal perspective) - I would have real help for me to remain in this country? For both those reasons, I felt more and more tension unravel out of my body. When I reached home, I made a quick dinner then fell asleep early.
The next morning, I woke up at dawn and rushed out to log-on to find out the election results. The first email headline that came through was from my dear old friend Aaron, that told me everything I needed to know, that told me that an historic change had happened in America, and there was now hope for a better global future:
"YES WE CAN!!!!!!!!!!"
Graeme and Eugenie: the ties that bind
Last night I Skyped Canberra to try and speak to Eugenie, my adopted Mum. I have been more than usually anxious about Graeme, my adopted Dad, for over a week now. When I was in Philadelphia I received an email from Eugenie about Graeme with news I never wanted to get. Graeme was in hospital, he had had a massive stroke which left him paralysed down the left side of his body. In shock, I read the email twice, once out loud to Tanya who gasped.
My heart wrenched. I felt a deep tangle of emotions which even now, I struggle to describe.
Graeme had been there for me through all my major life transitions and struggles over the last 10 years.
In 1997, I finally made a break out of the sterile, small town/ government-town atmosphere of Canberra, where I had been working in the public service since graduation, trying to save some money. I fled to the music haven of Melbourne, where I was initially giddy with the stimulation of being in a real town with real stuff happening all the time. Here were lots of great venues, cool bars, restaurants, large herds of people from other cultures and sub-cultures, people who knew how to dress snappy. I was at the time in a long-term relationship with Peter, who I had met at University, and he and I moved into an old warehouse on top of a shop in Smith St, in the hip inner city suburb of Fitzroy. Each morning I would walk down the crowded street like I was stoned, listening joyfully to all the different languages being spoken, smiling at all the junkies and freaks, delightedly sucking in the dank pot-pourri of Vietnamese cooking, musty second hand clothes shops, and pollution. Trams crashed past my windows late into the night, as soothing as the throb of the ocean. When I met new people, I would joke that I had just spent the last 7 years "in a sensory deprivation tank", which I still think is a pretty accurate description of Australia's capital city even today. Melbourne, in contrast, was an acid trip.
Graeme had been my last boss at the Department of Finance; but once our formal relationship ended, a richer connection developed. We stayed in email contact. Gradually we realised we were starting to rely upon each other to talk about our minor worries and celebrate our little life victories. We emailed each other regularly, not every day, but frequently enough to make it feel like our lives were becoming more and more connected. Over the years, Graeme would come down to visit, often as part of a work trip, or sometimes just to visit his ex-wife's sister, and to see me. When my relationship with Peter ended, and I found I could no longer afford to live in increasingly yuppie-crammed Fitzroy, I moved further out to a share house in Brunswick, a sprawling working class suburb full of Italians, Greek, Turks, Arabs and eco-activists. The house was '70s 'wog kitsch', and featured a little concrete porch facing the plane-tree lined street. Graeme and I would spend many hours on the porch, watching the Greek mommas vigorously sweep much hated leaves from their gardens out onto the street. We'd drink wine and discuss relationships, his kids' ups and downs, people we knew, spirituality, politics, all the while giggling a great deal as we shared the same irreverent sense of humor.
Graeme became more and more important to me as a shoulder I could lean on, an older, wiser man I could rely upon to give me unconditional love and inflinchingly honest advice. My relationship with my own father had been distant. As a child I knew he loved me very much as he was always giving me presents and was proud of both myself and my brother's academic achievements. But he was a reserved man, and hid much emotional turmoil behind his proud Lithuanian masculinity. He was a taxi driver and a workaholic, driving late into the night, 6-7 days a week. When he got home in the early hours of the morning, he would go down to the rumpus room which he had helped build, put on his headphones and play the Lowrey organ for hours - although he was a war refugee from a poor farming background, he had taught himself (amongst many other skills) to read and play music. Late one night, he did not come home. There was a knock on the door, and I got out of bed to answer it. There was a young policeman standing there who held his cap in his hand and looked down awkwardly as he told me my father had committed suicide by hanging. I was only 14, which meant that I then went through the formative years or adolescence and teenage-hood not knowing what it would be like to have fatherly support around.
Later in my life, Graeme filled that gap. His naturally warm and generous heart simply expanded to include myself. Three years ago, as I went through the durm und strang of yet another relationship breakdown, Graeme was there, patiently wading through my angst ridden emails, striking just the right balance between genuine concern for my broken heart and fatherly annoyance that I should be so bonkers over someone who Graeme regarded as "a twit". Graeme would often refer with pride to the success of his own relationship with Eugenie, his second wife. While they argued about many topics, he regarded this as a sign of relationship health, that the friction (within bounds) kept the spark alive and indicated genuine engagement. He adored Eugenie, who was temperamentally quite opposite to him in many ways - she was a highly gifted landscape painter, who could let fly with strong emotions at dinner parties, particularly when she felt in the presence of fools, a situation which, in Canberra, happens particularly often. Graeme told me over and over again he and E accepted and valued each other's differences, and that was a key to their relationship longevity.
In mid-August 2006, Graeme 'just happened' to be down for a visit when the Queensland police rang to tell me they had found my mother, she had died suddenly in her Brisbane flat. I could not have got through that night or the following few weeks without Graeme and Eugenie's tireless emotional and practical support. And when 6 months later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, Graeme flew down and stayed, sharing the journey with me, making sure I got through the surgery and the subsequent diagnosis ok. Before I left for my epic supertramp through the US, Graeme and Eugenie let me know that I always have a home with them if I need it, they are my family and will always be there for me.
The night I got the news about Graeme's stroke, I called Eugenie who turned out to be at the hospital in the stroke ward with Graeme. When she passed me onto Graeme, he could hardly speak, and his voice was almost unrecognisable, like that of a frightened child. When I finally put down the phone, after a long silence, I recognised a familiar emotion - grief. Grief that this formerly cheerful, energetic, charismatic man was lying scarcely able to move in a hospital bed, facing awful uncertainties about his future. I could feel his own grief, frustration and terror about the loss of bodily power. But I also grieved for myself, that my rock had crumbled, that the person who I loved and could rely upon in my hour of need now was in direst need himself. And here I was thousands of miles away, helpless.
For two nights I hardly slept, considering seriously whether or not to fly home immediately and join Eugenie. Tanya was disturbed too, as she and Graeme had hit if off when they met briefly before we left for America. Graeme had come down to Melbourne to visit before I left, as he knew he may not see me for a long time. After our first group lunch at Bimbo's pizzeria on Brunswick St, Graeme had pulled me aside at the bar while T had gone to the toilet (thats a 'restroom' in American), and said "Shes great, you'll make a great team". Although he could now scarcely form sentences, he had asked after Tanya when I called him.
But then I considered the situation more objectively, and realised that Graeme would be facing a long recovery and rehabilitation process, after the initial crisis rally-around, many friends and family would probably taper off, I could be of most help in a few months time when I had originally planned to use my return flight to Australia.
Last night I found myself talking to a woman with a rich Scottish accent, Graeme's niece who was staying with Eugenie and helping her out. She told me progress was slow but steady. Some mobility and balance was being gained. Graeme was finding it easier, although still tiring, to talk. I asked after his spirits. "He keeps saying how much he is determined to ride his motor bike again" she said, adding sadly "But the doctors say that won't be possible." I thought about my own journey through cancer, and the number of stories I read about sick and gravely injured people beating the statistics, people written off by the medical profession who pulled through, some testaments to the individual's sheer pig-dog determination to survive, others bordering on evidence of divine intervention, miracles. I said "The biggest healing power of all is hope. Graeme needs hope more than anything else. I'm glad he is thinking about his beloved bike. Its a symbol of hope."
Hope
Three weeks ago today I clicked on "post" for my first blog about Pittsburgh. I was in the bleakest of moods because of the dramatic loss of my brand new mattress. It had blown off the back of Scotty's Chevvy pick-up on the way back from the shop, and instead of providing me with badly needed nights of soft passage into the land of nod, it had turned into a terrifying zeppelin with a short lived flight down the highway, crashing to its premature smouldering end under the wheels of an SUV. More than that, both my money and my visa situation were looking hopeless. I loved PIttsburgh and I loved the people I had met here, but I couldn't see how I could keep the dream going much longer.
Things were continuing to look up for Tanya, as (thanks to Charlie yet again) she was offered the job of filming five promotional reels for Mount Washington's Grandview Scenic Byway Park, the newcomer in Pittsburgh's impressive cornucopia of parks. The park's authority wanted a series short promotional films shot over all 4 seasons. I could do sound design, music and narration...provided, of course, I could somehow stay in Pittsburgh.
The day after the blog post, Charlie emailed. He asked if T and I wanted to go for a ride to a local music shop. I agreed for the sake of an outing from our freezing flat, although musical ambitions were far from my mind. As we cruised down more leafy autumnal Pittsburgh streets, I was preoccupied with the problem of how we could get hold of another mattress for free. The concept "free mattress" was blooming and repeating in my mind like a Hindu chant. At the shop, I wandered around in a distracted sleep deprived haze, twiddling with a few synths. When Charlie asked which one would be best for The Jilted Brides, I pointed at the Korg X50 and said it was very good value and would do the trick, I would buy something like that one day. Suddenly, Charlie was at the counter clutching the Korg, handing over cash. When I realized what was happening, I tried to protest, but to no avail. Is there a word for "feeling shocked, humbled and made speechlessly happy with gratitude?". Well there should be, lets say its "shumbled". I was shumbled. I remained quiet in the back of the BMW, occasionally stroking my brand new Korg, all the way back to our Lawrenceville flat.
The day after that, I received an email from Tom Gates, a man I had met once in New York. Tom was a partner in an ultra-cool music management/publishing company called Nettwerk. He liked our music and was supportive of our crazy journey, which made us feel good as this guy had discovered then managed Cold Play and was as warm as he was smart. Tom wanted to know how much money I needed to keep going, 'just tell me straight how much you need', he'd help me out. When I got the email, I was shumbled all over again - someone I hardly knew was offering me hard cash to keep going.
And this was quickly followed by more offers of help: Nick Meyers, an old friend and ex-lover from Sydney, offered to cover the cost of the AWOL mattress: when we next looked at the bank balance, there was an extra $2000 sitting there, enough for 4 mattresses!! Gabrielle Dalton, an Australian film producer who is a friend of Tanyas but who I have only met once, also put money into both our accounts, to help us improve on our scanty can-o-beans biased grocery list and "buy yourselves some good food!". And my dearest oldest friend in Melbourne, Kazza, offered to go through all the expense and paperwork of organising to sell my little Hyundai for me, so i could get more cash that way too.
As a result of this extraordinary outpouring of generosity by strangers and friends, I felt my spirits start to climb again. It started to become clear to me that neither I nor T were entirely on our own. We wouldn't fail to start a new, more hopeful life, we wouldn't sink into penury and oblivion, because there was a safety net. A safety net made of the kindness, altruism and passionate imaginations of people we had had the great good fortune to become friends with over our lives. People who would help us out because they believed in us, they believed in ideals of freedom, kookiness and romance, and they believed in 'spreading the love'.
And I felt that what was happening on a personal scale for me, was happening for America. Over the last few weeks, the Obama campaign had boiled down to a simple image; Obama's handsome face stenciled with primary colors , tilted upwards, looking passionately but intelligently into the distance, stylistically hearkening back to a time of late '60s cultural revolution and optimism. This poster was all over America. I saw his youthful, black, iconic face in residential and shop windows - cafes, supermarkets, bars, record shops, book shops, clothes shops, libraries, everywhere, all over Montana, all over Colorado, all over New York, all over Pennyslvania, everywhere I went across the country. And underneath his face was one word: HOPE.
Yes, we can!
On Tuesday 4 November, Charlie lined up a meeting between myself and Councilman Bill Peduto, a progressive local Pittsburgh politician with wide ranging portfolio responsibilities and interests, including arts and cultural development. Bill had at one stage been recognised by the Democratic Leadership Council as one of the "100 to watch" New Democrats in the nation. Charlie described Bill as a man of impeccable integrity and vision and who should be the next Mayor of Pittsburgh. I was glad to be meeting a rising star Democrat on this historic day, the day when Americans had to decide if they wanted more of Bush's policies delivered in the Republican chicken-suit of McCain or if they wanted real change as represented by Obama. I was meeting Bill because there was a chance he could help me find employment in Pittsburgh, a sponsor to help me stay in America. It was, I thought, a slim chance, but one worth taking.
We shook hands outside a Butler St cafe, and started to shuffle towards the door. Before we got there, cars beeped and waved in recognition to Bill. We were then further delayed by another pedestrian recognising Bill and wanting to shake hands and chat. When we finally got into the cafe, the cafe owner lit up when she saw him, and more local political gossip was exchanged before we could order our sandwiches. I noted this was the life of a popular Pittsburgher politician, Bill had all the visibility of a sheriff in a one horse town. Still, Bill thrived on the interaction, he was clearly a people's representative born and bred.
We talked about Bill's history in the Democrat party, how he had opposed the Iraq war right from the start and initially paid the price by being marginalised by the party's power brokers. As time wore on, and popular opinion began to swing against the war, his status in the party rose too. Now he was now one of 8 local Pittsburgh Councilmen; his personal priorities were to tackle environmental sustainability initiatives, social equity programs, improved public transport, and enhanced support for the arts.
As we rose to leave from our lunch, Bill suddenly said: "Don't worry, I'll help you. I know everyone involved in the local not for profit arts and welfare sector. I can help you find a job. And I know a Congressman who can help with the visa process too. Together we got a friend's wife released from a Chinese prison where she had been held for her Fulan Gong beliefs. If we can do that, we can help an Australian stay in America". I felt shumbled again, as Bill had now beat the record of complete strangers wanting to help me out - we had known each other for less than an hour.
As we parted ways outside of the cafe, instead of shaking hands we now spontaneously gave each other a hug. I said "God help us, that we win tonight. What are you doing? Are you hanging out with some Democrat folk?". He responded with a supremely confident shake of the head "N'ah. I'm just going to play ice-hockey with some kids. Obama is going to win. Its in the bag".
As I trudged back up the hill to our 45th St apartment, I drank in Bill's confidence about the election results. He'd crunched the numbers, he knew the predictions, better than most. So it was really going to happen?! We would soon have a new, black, young, progressive president of the United States? and (just as life changing from my own micro-personal perspective) - I would have real help for me to remain in this country? For both those reasons, I felt more and more tension unravel out of my body. When I reached home, I made a quick dinner then fell asleep early.
The next morning, I woke up at dawn and rushed out to log-on to find out the election results. The first email headline that came through was from my dear old friend Aaron, that told me everything I needed to know, that told me that an historic change had happened in America, and there was now hope for a better global future:
"YES WE CAN!!!!!!!!!!"
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