Columns from The Weekend West

Ros Thomas 07/03/2015 Ros Thomas 07/03/2015

Bumpy Ride

Whatever you think of middle-aged cyclists, I envy them their exhilarated faces. Rarely do I see joggers who inspire me. Middle-aged joggers, with their glazed eyes and their slackened, panting mouths, give me the impression they’re trying to hold back an infarction before breakfast.

Lately, I’ve been wearing the same expression. By the time I jog around the park and head for home, the twinge in my knee has become a roar. My lips are set in a grim line. I lead with my left leg to take the pressure off the right. My face is drippy with sweat and florid with exertion.

Ros Thomas 28/02/2015 Ros Thomas 28/02/2015

Middle Ground

A hair salon is a dangerous place for an existential crisis. Propped in a padded chair, I wear a black plastic cape like a shroud. A black hand-towel encircles my neck, fastened tightly at my throat with a press-stud. The young hairstylist stands behind me and slops her brush into a puddle of hair dye on her trolley. She carves a centre parting along my scalp then slaps her loaded brush back and forth across my greying head as if she’s painting a picket fence.

At some point, every client at the hairdressers must confront their reflection. And so, reluctantly, I drop my Woman’s Day and examine my mirror image. I’m pinned under a beam of white light from a ceiling as black as my middle-aged despair. (Salon lighting is designed to show off your hair at the expense of your face).

Ros Thomas 21/02/2015 Ros Thomas 21/02/2015

In the Wings

The bird-man entered our lives last Wednesday. He was parked at a small table outside our local growers market. A faded Bintang t-shirt strained against his belly. His right arm, bent at the elbow like a chicken wing, was hooked across the back of his chair. I noticed the stump of his ring finger, missing two knuckles. A long wispy white beard fanned out from his chin and tapered halfway down his chest. His nose was misshapen with a patchwork of scars where I presumed he’d had sun damage carved from the bone. Propped against the wall beside him sat a bag half-filled with empty soft drink cans.

But it was the bird attached to his shoulder that captured our interest. Its parrot-shaped head was electric-yellow, its nape and chest a fiery orange. Tucked against its small body, two long wings were splashed with turquoise. Ruffling its feathers, the bird cocked its head to inspect us and I saw a flash of bright blue tips in its tail.

Ros Thomas 14/02/2015 Ros Thomas 14/02/2015

Talk Isn’t Cheap

Small talk is the art of saying nothing in particular. This, in itself, constitutes a problem. Among strangers, I quail at converting my interior monologue to an exterior dialogue. What if my listener thinks I’m a braggart? Or a bore?

I have no issue with talking per se. I can efficiently convert my James Joyce-ian stream of consciousness to sound: words babble from my mouth with ease. I like to fill the gaps in conversations before they turn into unpleasant silences. I can talk incessantly by yoga-breathing through my nose.

Ros Thomas 07/02/2015 Ros Thomas 07/02/2015

Happy Hours

A new year always brings talk of happiness. We wish it on others, we hope to heap it on ourselves. We fantasise about it, plan for it, burden our credit cards to buy it. We tell ourselves that we deserve it. But how do we measure happiness?

As a child, I remember happiness feeling like my chest was going to burst. An uncle’s gift of a 20-cent piece pressed into my palm made me hyperventilate. I pedalled furiously to the lolly shop, seven-year-old brain frothing with anticipation, my precious coin snug in the pouch of my koala purse.

Smarties were three for a cent, musk sticks and caramel cobbers, two cents each, Gobstoppers, ten cents. Could I, would I, blow 20 cents on two Gobstoppers? I dithered at the lolly counter until Mr Gripps, accustomed to my life-changing deliberations, sighed and hung the white paper bag back on its hook. As he turned to unload a crate of peaches, I leapt to a decision. And then I rode home one-handed, clutching a bag of musk sticks (5) and a single gobstopper in one sweaty palm, wobbling with happiness.

Ros Thomas 31/01/2015 Ros Thomas 31/01/2015

Switching Off

Above the clatter of cups and the clamourous crowd, the girl’s laugh hee-hawed across the cafe. Heads swivelled in her direction. We customers grinned at each other. She was young, sitting with friends, posing for group photos, her phone bobbing on the end of a selfie-stick. After each press of the shutter, she’d retract the stick, examine the photo and bray loudly at the result.

My gentleman neighbour, roused from his newspaper, leaned towards me and raised one grey eyebrow:

“I don’t know what’s funnier,” he said drily, “that crazy laugh, or those stupid selfie-sticks!’

We nodded at each other in smug agreement. Then he flapped his newspaper and I resumed clattering away on my second hand laptop, relieved to be in such sensible company.

Ros Thomas 24/01/2015 Ros Thomas 24/01/2015

Like the clappers

Rough landings test my nerves. Belted tightly into my window seat, I stared at the wing tip flexing violently. The rain sheeted in grey gusts. My bird’s eye view of the city was a blur. As the cabin jolted and jerked, the young woman next to me clutched our armrest. She caught my eye, searching for reassurance. I returned her a half-hearted smile and stiffened for the landing.

One set of wheels slammed onto the runway, then the other. I gasped as we lurched sideways and the overhead lockers groaned. The engines roared into reverse and the air brakes on the wing bit into the thick air.

Above the dying screech of the engines, I heard the sudden but unmistakeable sound of someone clapping a few rows ahead of me. My neighbour glanced sideways at me and began clapping too. I felt compelled to join her. A moment later, the cabin erupted into brief applause: we passengers united in our appreciation for our pilots’ skill.

Ros Thomas 17/01/2015 Ros Thomas 17/01/2015

Greener Pastures

I’ve never understood the relationship between man and lawn. On any summer’s morning, I can wake to find my live-in greenkeeper out the back, in the smallest of silky pyjama shorts, inspecting his Sir Walter buffalo. Hands on hips, he meanders back and forth tracing grid patterns in his turf, engrossed in the grass at his feet. The swell of his New Year’s tummy throws a soft round shadow on his beloved lawn.

I lean against the kitchen bench and admire his XL silhouette through the glass doors. Something catches his eye. He drops to one knee and prospects in the grass with a stick. I predict a lone dandelion weed, or some marauding clover or – quelle horreur! – a lumbering black beetle.

Ros Thomas 13/12/2014 Ros Thomas 13/12/2014

The Ant’s Chance

My kitchen has become disputed territory. My enemy has drawn its battle lines around the sink. Each morning we meet at dawn, those ants and I. As I pad bleary-eyed towards the kettle, there they are: a black trail advancing upon my benchtop. A swarm of the blighters besieges a lone shortbread crumb.

Two lines of foot soldiers weave unsteadily between the crumb and the window sill, one coming, one going. I note there are twice as many ants as yesterday and feel a surge of annoyance. I watch three scouts march under the coffee machine and emerge next to the toaster, visibly excited by their discovery of a burnt sultana.

Ros Thomas 06/12/2014 Ros Thomas 06/12/2014

Bite Your Tongue

It was the first roadhouse I’d seen in forty-five minutes and I needed coffee and petrol. In that order. I swung off the Brand highway and pulled up at the pump, feeling dwarfed by the half a dozen road trains stretched out across the carpark.

At the counter, I stood beside a truckie who made me feel petite.

“A coupla cheese sausages and a pie n’ sauce,” he said.

In the bain-marie, two shrivelled sausages with wrinkly red hides lay sweating behind the glass.

“How’d they get the cheese in?” I said, thinking out loud.

“Beats me,” said the truckie, “but they’re bloody good,” and he slapped a ten dollar note on the counter and gathered up his two paper bags.