I’m back in the library and watching Spring make itself known in leaf buds. My sleeves are rolled up though I still carry. My jacket ‘just in case’. There’s nothing worse than being caught cold unprepared and I’m not yet trusting this weather enough to brave that chance. I should be working. I should be researching a character background. I should be finding the words for the copy that is nearly written. But I’m distracted. There are people all around and all I can wonder is ‘what is THAT person’s story?’
Yes, I’m procrastinating. It’s a wonderful thing to do. And I’m going to succumb to the delicious temptation of people watching.
At the table behind me is an older couple, they seem ageless to me in this year of 50. They’re speaking to one another in low voices, intimately. As they are speaking in a language I do not know I claim the freedom to eavesdrop shamelessly. Surely it doesn’t count if I don’t understand them?
What is their story? Where are they from? How did they choose to come here? Are they happy?
They are likely neither dull nor ignorant, this I know for sure, but I know nothing more about them. I can guess things. The right leg of her pants is hooked high below her knee and she seems unaware of this. The health professional in me wonders about the integrity of her sensation. The romantic in me applauds her devil-may-care attitude about her appearance.
The woman who brings me my coffee is limping bravely. She carries the mug carefully and we both hold our breath as she sets it on the little table by Tallulah. It’s my knee she grimaces. I’m nearly 40 and it just went when I got up out of the chair. It is what it is. Perhaps it is. I imagine that her story is one of everyday work. There will be children grown and already leaving home. A partner and an ex-husband and her old dad still living in the granny flat out the back. I think she will have been a netball player. Before she hurt her knee, of course.
There’s another woman two tables down with a computer in front of her. Every time I glance in her direction she is gazing into the middle distance, almost exactly where I have placed my chair. Every time I accidentally catch her eye and we both look away in embarrassed recognition. She’s a storyteller. I recognise one when I see one.
Two women are so deep in conversation over their pot of tea they are oblivious to the rest of us.
The man in the business suit in front of me is engrossed in his file. His lanyard has the word visitor repeated along its length. Where is he from? Who is he visiting? Do they know he’s here and not with them?
There is a gentleman in an untucked checked shirt browsing the magazines with a stethoscope hanging around his neck. Now that’s curious. Has he forgotten he’s wearing it? Is he on a stolen break, ready to spring back into action at some unseen alarm? Perhaps he sees it as decoration. It is the pen with which many write a story of importance.
I’m avoiding the obvious untold tales. When I look out the window from my table in the library I am blessed by a view of the gorgeous Town Hall. An example of the wealth that appeared when these lands were taken as goldfields, it is just one in the collection of incredible architecture in the centre of Bendigo. Council still meets under the soaring roof and the huge space is the site of dancing and markets and fundraising dinners and civic celebration. It’s the backdrop to the rainbow flag on the road that inspired my novel.
It’s also a haven for the unseen. In nooks and crannies created by porticos and recessed windows there are flashes of colour. I, like so many, have learned to walk past and avert my eyes. Yes, I’m ashamed of this. The homeless and downtrodden aren’t particularly visible in out town but some do find shelter here under the noses of business people and civic leadership. Oh, the sad story this tells about all of us.
At a workshop on writing memoir recently with the brilliant Lee Kofman a fellow attendee mentioned that she’d love to write her story for her children though she feared she had done nothing interesting and would have nothing to say to keep anyone reading through her life. Her name is Dimity, she told us, which means plain cotton cloth. As a result her nickname found its way through a series of derivations until she became known as Rags. I was spellbound just following the trajectory of her name.
I want her to write that memoir. There are greater riches and strength and depth in the strength of a natural cotton than have ever been found in the delicacy of silk or the texture of velvet. I want Dimity to tell her story in all it’s glorious plainness and I dearly want her to share it with not only those who love her but those of us who relish the stories that are best illustrated on a good plain cotton fabric.
The best Australian stories are these. When you read them you can smell the dust and the exhaust and sometimes a strong cuppa brewing in the background. My husband’s family stories carry a whiff of seabreeze and a sandy coastal grit. My family story is softened with lanolin and lambswool with a generous dollop of grain cropped on dusty inland soil. The curve of the Australian story arc is subtle – the highs and lows aren’t really that far from the midline or one another, both may well prove to be part of the story thread.
I go back to gazing out the window as I sip my coffee. Gee, it’s good! There are stories everywhere I look and not all of them are mine to tell. Perhaps it’s best if I stick with the ones I’ve chosen to capture and leave the rest to continue to unfold without my interference.
As the couple with the delicious but unidentified language leave they walk side by side. Each with a bag of their choice, a leather satchel and a fabric shoulder bag. A book each. Her purse out and library card in hand. She takes his book and he stands back and lets her do the task of borrowing but it’s awkward. He doesn’t let go of her left hand. Yes, there’s definitely a story there.
I love this Melinda. The line: ‘smell the dust and the exhaust and sometimes a strong cuppa brewing in the background’ is so evocative. This piece shows what happens when we slow down and think about the multiple layers a person inhabits in their own life.
I think of Australia in terms of smells and temperature. The scent of wattle in late winter is the current one, and that hint of humidity on the wind…