Columns from The Weekend West

Ros Thomas 23/08/2014 Ros Thomas 23/08/2014

When Darkness Falls

It was the wind that startled me awake. A gust outside the window buffeted the hibiscus against the gutter. The screeching of wood on metal unsettled my ears. A branch thumped loudly and my heart joined in. I closed my eyes, chastised myself for being lily-livered, and tried to summon sleep. It was no use. I was spooked.

I swung warm feet onto cold floor and padded out to the kitchen, catching sight of the oven clock: 05.22. What now?

I put on my running gear and tiptoed out the door. The dark was thick and soupy. I couldn’t see where the slabs of footpath beetled over one another, eager to trip me. My street felt foreign and menacing. Was I stupid to run at this hour?

Ros Thomas 23/02/2013 Ros Thomas 23/02/2013

Racking up the years

My first bra came from Jayne Mansfield’s closet. At least it felt like it did. It was pale pink satin and doubled as a bullet-proof vest. The label said ‘Action’ bra but that was the last thing I was going to get in it. The hooks at the back were large enough to catch herring, there was not a skerrick of elastic for comfort and I needed to be Houdini to get in or out of it. Houdini, or a locksmith.

That bra came from the bottom of mum’s drawer of antiquity and I’m pretty sure the cups hadn’t seen breasts since 1953. But I was 13 and desperate. It was Thursday night, there was school on Friday and late night shopping hadn’t been invented. My breasts and I could not face another round of heckling from the leering boys who hung on the fence watching our school softball.

Ros Thomas 02/02/2013 Ros Thomas 02/02/2013

Chewing the Fat

A few weekends back a girlfriend and I were at the beach for our first swim of the summer. It was an overcast morning and the water looked dark. We were trying to stave off the inevitable shock of cold water by discussing our chances of getting eaten by a shark. She turned to me and said: “Any self-respecting shark would take one look at me and say: Geez, I’m not that hungry.”

A real friend doesn’t lie about her weight. A real friend understands that a woman’s weight can be central to her mood: thin = happy, not thin = grumpy. My bathroom scales are an electronic slab of nastiness hell-bent on destroying my morning.

Ros Thomas 26/01/2013 Ros Thomas 26/01/2013

Under the Covers

I learnt more about men and sex in 1985 than I should have, thanks to a book called The Hite Report. It was a fat well-thumbed paperback, containing interviews with hundreds of blokes on everything from ‘What Men like Women to Wear’ to ‘How A Man Likes to be Seduced.’ Its pages were coffee stained at juicy junctions, underlined and exclamation marked, and I discovered a silverfish entombed near the spine in a chapter devoted to Men’s Fantasies. (‘Stop talking’ featured heavily in the advice to women.)

Ros Thomas 19/01/2013 Ros Thomas 19/01/2013

Doctor’s Orders

What is it about growing up in Perth that sticks to me like beach sand whipped up by the Freo doctor? Remembering mums and dads struggling to wrap wet kids in flapping towels. Brothers and sisters duck-diving under waves trying to stall their departure until someone shouts over the howling wind: “Icecreams for kids who help carry!” Everyone searching for their thongs.

Ros Thomas 12/01/2013 Ros Thomas 12/01/2013

Tangling with a bad hair day

A hair cut is not a trifling matter. This, men do not understand. To a man, a haircut is a way to kill fifteen minutes of a lunch hour. It involves no more mental taxation than reclining in a swivel chair arguing with a barber about Shane Warne’s discipline problem.

For women, a haircut is the fastest route to an identity crisis. Period. It can coincide with that too. I should know – I just had one – a haircut, and a freak-out. Some people will no longer recognize me because I’ve gone short – I had a whole 3 centimetres cut off. For me, a change is nowhere near as good as a holiday.

Men should also know that women have a fraught relationship with their hair because hair the only thing that can be changed at whim. And let’s face it, most women grow up wanting to change everything about themselves. Well at least I did.

Ros Thomas 05/01/2013 Ros Thomas 05/01/2013

Mutton dressed as man

My husband is so fashion forward he thinks he’s the new black. Apparently, the new black is a portly but cute middle-aged father of three with Henry Kissinger glasses decked out in an electric yellow Polo shirt and cargo shorts with a hammer holder.

He’s not alone – I know other charismatic men of a certain age who dress smartly at the office, but who throw caution to the wind at weekends and go out in public looking like a one man sailing regatta – all stripes and baggywrinkled Bermudas – convinced they’re the ship’s biscuit.

Ros Thomas 29/12/2012 Ros Thomas 29/12/2012

Success comes after a fall

Failure is not my friend, but I’ve got used to its company over the years. It has been shadowing me at a quiet distance since I was a kid, biding its time until I tripped up or blundered, then gleefully trumpeting my wrong turns and dead-end decisions. Failure has made a fool of me on plenty of occasions and brought me to my knees on others.

Most people like to measure themselves by their successes, but it’s their failings that are far more illuminating. I like to look back on mine as faint imprints on the stepping stones I’ve used to go places. They signal turning points in my life – those humiliating times when I made an ass of myself, or was blind-sided by hubris. Minor defeats were annoying reminders of why I needed to try harder, or get smarter. In truth, my career began with a succession of failures.