You and Me, We Story

A long time ago when I was just a wee nipper, a travelling priest came to visit our Catholic primary or intermediate school.  He spoke about how in the culture that he was living in, I really for the life of me cannot remember where he was missioning, that it was the custom to sit and tell stories upon meeting a new person.  He said it was through story telling that you learnt about a person’s life, their past, their future and their families.  He said that the direct translation of the words that they used was ‘You and Me, We story’.

I often think of this travelling priest and just how right he was, now that I am traveller myself, however not a priest.  Often when I meet a new person we sit telling stories about our families (maybe this is just a traveller thing), about the places we have visited, the people who are important to us, the things that we have done and want to do.  Without sounding cheesy, our hopes, dreams, loves past and present, and what we want for our future.

So at this stage when I am constantly meeting new people here are a few of the funny stories that I have been telling or have recently remembered.

• ·         My friend Elissa is currently visiting London and staying with me.  The very first time I met Elissa, I was in my parent’s pantry, I was probably about 17.  It was late at night and I was in my jammies and back then my hair was white blonde.  My sister and brother both have very dark hair.  Elissa, came in with my sister and Paula introduced her to me.  She began to speak to me very slowly.  ‘How a r e  y o u?’  ‘I’m fine’ I replied.  She then asked me how I liked it here.  At this point my sister stepped in and said umm what are you doing?  Elissa and I were both looking very confused.  Is this not your Scandinavian exchange student? She asked.  Ummm no this is my sister, not my host sister, my actual sister, Paula replied.  From that time on I have been known to her as the Scandi sister and we joke about it often.  There are numerous facebook posts in Scandinavian that we have to Google translate and lots of Ja’s. 

• ·         The time I was walking back from the train, and as I neared our road, my Dad was pulling out in his ute.  He beckoned to me to come and talk to him.  I was wearing what was a trendy satchel at the time.  It was full of my heavy uni books.  As I stepped out to begin to run to him, the bag swung forward and the momentum caused me to fall.  He of course drove to me, pulled over and got out to help me.  However, just before he got there, a very kind lady pulled over to help as well, when my Dad went to pick me up off the pavement, she batted him away with her handbag and basically told him to get lost.  I had to kindly explain that he was my Dad, and she got embarrassed and left before I could thank her.  But I still laugh about her batting my Dad away.  I still have a scar on my elbow from the experience.

• ·         When I was at high school, we were playing Petanque on the field.  My friends and I thought that it would be a fun idea to play Braveheart with the boules.  I was holding a boule in my hand when my friend ran to me with one also in her hand.  My little finger got bashed between the boules and it broke, it really hurt.  Even my doctor was laughing at me, he reckoned it was possibly the one and only injury from Petanque.

• ·         My parent’s pantry is the stuff of legends, my friends love going in there, I love going in there.  I used to love shutting myself in there, and when Sam who was about two at the time, would toddle past, I would jump out and scare the living daylights out of him.  He would jump in the air and shake.  I would be in fits and he would have a giggle too.  Then we would both get in there and scare Nana.  But the best pantry story was when my parents were away one weekend.  My besties were over and for some reason I had to pop out.  My friend Sandie was driving me somewhere, possibly to the supermarket.  When we got back, the pantry had moved to the living room to decorate it.  There were candy canes on the curtain rods, there were statues holding muesli bars and just food everywhere.  It was hilarious.  Thankfully my parents saw the humour as we were finding food for the next few days.

There are of course many more of these stories, the best ones of course are not publishable.  But I guess that the point is that to get to know someone you get to hear their stories.  If you know them long enough you get the juicy ones.   One of my friends often says to me – Nic keep living it, we love hearing the stories, remember I am married and have a baby now, I am living vicariously through you.  So I keep living a life that creates stories that people want to hear.  Which brings me to the cheesy ending and the moral, just like every story should have – Live it so that when you are old, you can amaze your grandkids with what you have done!

Perception is a flick of the hair

A week ago I was sitting in the sun, enjoying my voddy and lemonade, chatting to some friends.  We got on to complaining about our hair.  One by one we all stared at each other in amazement, you see I had always been envious of these girls, their hair and well, them in general always looks so effortless and beautiful, and they thought that of me.

See this is the thing, we all make a massive effort to make it look easy and well for myself, lately I have taken to twisting my hair up in a bun as it’s in desperate need of a cut that I neither have the time or the money to sort out.  One of the girls looked at me in disbelief and said, but your hair is always immaculate – hmmmm only because it’s so unwieldy it needs to be restrained (might have been reading too much 50 Shades of Grey!).  She was so amazed that some hours later she was still looking at me saying, ‘I can’t believe that you can twist it up so easily’.  Whilst I was looking at her lovely shiny locks that were straight and beautiful thinking the same thing.  

I guess this is it, we are all so busy worrying about what we look like to others, that we forget that actually most of us are beautiful, some of my friends are in fact stunning.  But we are also normal down to earth people.  We have lives, that mean that we cannot spend 3 hours getting ready in the morning.  God what time would I have to get up if that was the case, my mornings are about maximising my time with my eyes closed and snuggled up under the covers.  We all have jobs to do, friends to see, dinners to cook, exercise to complete and one million other things to sort out.

My own beauty routine has taken a turn for the worse over the last few weeks; I have actually left the house without make up.  I remember making a decision a few years ago not to leave the house without makeup, and for the most part I have stuck to it.  It has been a busy and tiring time for me recently, I seem to have come out the end of it though.  Make up made a return on Friday.  Yay.  My mother and my sister routinely go without makeup, not even mascara sometimes.  I remember for my sister’s wedding, that she was concerned about the amount of makeup that she would have to wear as she wanted to still look like herself.  For the record she looked stunning so there was nothing to be concerned about there.

It always amazes me when I make an effort the reaction that I get.  I remember vividly in the days where I rarely wore makeup to work (early 2000’s were dark days…) and getting dressed up for a work dinner – straightening my hair, putting on makeup and wearing a skirt.  Many of the managers were stunned, one even asking me if I had a sister that worked here (with a glint in his eye!).   Another time at my fav local for my birthday, we held a tube party, where you dressed up like a tube station.  I went as Victoria, Queen of course.  I put my hair up, donned a crown, and wore an lbd and some killer heels.  As I emerged from the taxi, a barman that worked there, who was at best a man of few words and at worst mute, wolf whistled me and made some comment about how different I looked. 

 

All of this begs the question then, why, if I know that this is the reaction that I get, given my current single status, do I not make this level of effort all the time.  The simple answer is because it is exhausting.  Given that for the most part I hate getting up early, it is not going to happen on a normal work day.  On the weekends depending on what is happening, I might make more of an effort but not often.  I am the wash and wear kind of girl.  I truly believe that if men had any idea what we have to go through with waxing, moisturising, conditioning, plucking, potions and lotions, they too would agree that it should be a sometimes not an everyday occasion.  And there is the argument that if I made the effort everyday what would I do on a special occasion.

So there it is, I guess that we are all a bit clueless to just how cute we actually are, we all have the same struggles when it comes to finding the time to look after ourselves properly, and I hate getting up early, even if it means time to make myself look good.  Here’s to another week of wash and wear hair.