Post One Hundred and Forty Seven: I Forgo Thee, Unholy Nectar.

I love to have a drink.

I can have one single unit of beer and feel a slight laxity of composure. Two drinks in and I have the laissez faire and overstated confidence of a six year old at a wiggles concert. I level out after three or four beers into a state of entertainment, but any juncture after that is consummately reliant upon the environment at hand and the selection of poison. I get ripped easily, and frequently, and I think it's time to consider where that road can take someone, i.e. me, without much notice.

At 27, I've been drinking without a break for ten years. Most weekends without question. If I haven't sunk a couple on a Friday and Saturday night it's been due to that fact that I've been working or hung over from the night before.  Is my experience that different from most other people in my peer group? I think not. I am the poster girl for binge drinking 2012.

We enjoy getting together to share happiness and hubbub, and a drop of whiskey can lubricate our egos just enough to talk about the concepts that we haven't got the confidence or forthrightness to speak about sober. In some occasions, these areas of conversation shouldn't be entered into at any time, especially when under the effect of alcohol. Still, being a shy girl at heart, feeling free from social constraint is pretty fun and I can see why most weekends I so easily picked up a stubby and swayed my way into most Saturdays. 

Small but sure wrinkles are beginning to creep outwards from my eyelids. My face is slowly and certainly losing the apple shape that I used to hate.  Of course the crap that I'm putting in to my body, especially after ten years, is starting to have an effect on the supposed 'windows to my soul'. It's time for a regulation, a self check, before things go to far. 


About once a week I deal with a family who's mum/dad/sibling has died due to alcohol related disease. They often hide the real cause of death, but you can see in the shattered family dynamics that to have a loved one addicted to booze is to not really have them there at all. 


I'm not saying I'm an alcoholic. Family and friends please do not call an intervention. I'm just glad that I've noticed an involvement in a part of youth culture that is not always good, not always bad, but not always thought about proactively. 


Peace (and moderation). x

Post One Hundred and Forty Six: Pardon My Intensity.

Excuse my ardor, forgive my zeal. I am on a mission and I'm hungry like the wolf (Do do do do do do do dodo dododo dodo).

Herein lies an invitation to be my friend.

I'm in Melbourne, living in my little house, working from dark until dark. Things are getting familiar and routine is setting in. I don't need my GPS to get around town. My coffee boy sings to me in the mornings because he knows it makes me smile. Most of the time it's a Train song, but that's ok. I can answer the phone with "WASSUUUUUP" when my boss is calling and she isn't offended by my informality. I very much like the comforts of insight, and I'm slowly becoming accustomed to my new surrounds.

It hasn't been easy. In fact, almost daily I think about what it would be like to pack my car up again and speed back home. I knew that for every weekend in Brisbane there was a party to be had and rock solid mates to do so with.  During working hours I knew my craft, I was 'on my game', and I could walk away from the fridge knowing that sh*t was sorted.

Everything is new here. I'm driving hearses around suburbs that sound like sneezes. I'm preventing widows from jumping into graves. I'm breaking up fisty cuffs outside churches. The usual funeral director stuff, but business that a mortician doesn't often get to see from the inside of the parlour itself.

I miss the confidence and security in my old world, but I am refreshed by the challenges of the curious and unfamilar.

I'll be honest however and divulge a secret. I'm a little lonely. I value peer interaction over most other things. Being around death and seeing grief as an expression of love; it does things to the way I live, be it good or bad. I want to meet pals that I can talk shit to, without being worried that I'm too intense. I want them to be cool with wearing pyjamas while we eat cookies and watch the x-files, be cool with me getting too drunk and starting fights with cab drivers, and above all, finding folk that actively seek reflection, honesty, and enjoyment in general shit.

It would also help if  they like: words, harmonicas, animals that look worldly, pickles, stationery, loose puns, and unobnoxious lighting. I've thought about dating sites but I'm too polite. It would be a bad move.

Well then. Friends?

S.

Post One Hundred and Forty Five: The Swan And The Holy Man.

I found a dead swan. In the middle of the road. In the middle of nowhere. On the way to a funeral. Maybe there's a message from the universe in the experience. Maybe.

I met with the Dalai Lama a couple of years ago, as the result of a random successful scholarship application whilst studying Eastern Religion at university. A true scholar I was not, but I found a way of picking elective classes that would boost my GPA while allowing me ample social time for boozing and sinning in ways that a 20 year old should. I wrote a pretty questionable essay on Vipassana Meditation which was pretty much just 3000 words on acting stoned when you're not. I got a 'high' distinction.

Anyway, I sent the essay in to the Dalai Lama and his gang. With it I wrote a note saying that I wanted to say g'day during his visit to Sydney but I had no money for tickets. I outlined that I enjoyed reading Buddhist scripture and was disheartened by the reality that a financial hurdle could stand in the way of enlightenment. Two weeks later I received a letter of acceptance into a scholars program and was flown to Sydney for a three day intensive. It was intensively boring, as half of the day was spoken in another language, but it was a special experience none the less.

Ever since then I have felt a connection with Buddhist monks. They are happy, they wear cool gown things, and they walk a 'middle path.' This basically means that anything goes in the loveliest of moderations. Some might see it as fence sitting, but I like to apply the middle path principle to remain impassive to trends and exaggerations. Being in the moment and finding calm in impermanence; these principles are woven deep into my personality like syrup on a pancake.

There is a point to this whole Buddhism thing. I was driving a Monk to this funeral when we saw the swan, neck limp and curled around like a cold hard question mark. If I was alone I would have stopped to move the body off the road. Instead I let out a drawn out  'ooooofph' sound, and I caught the monks placid response in the rear vision mirror. I continued on, slowly, thinking about both the swan and my passenger. I didn't know whether to talk about it or if the conversation would be deemed as inappropriate on the way to a funeral. The monk sensed that I was ruminating, because after a short moment he smiled and followed with "Death is a strange field for a young lady to be working in...."

Indeed.

Peace.

Post One Hundred and Forty Four: We All Start As Strangers.

We can go from strangers to companions in an instant. We can change people's lives in a single meeting. I am assured of this.

I met a man and he told me about death. We met by accident, in a cemetery, because I thought he was a gravedigger and I called on his services from across the monuments. The reality was that he was a man who loved his overalls but had just buried his wife. My bad.

I was arriving at an old rural cemetery early to sight a grave and make sure that everything was organised for a burial arranged for later that day. I saw a rugged man in boots and overalls smiling at me, and waving gleefully from afar. Being pretty pleased that someone living was wanting my attentions, I made my way over to talk about what I assumed was the burial plans that lay ahead of us.

I threw my hand out to shake his, and introduced myself as the newest and most competent member of my company. I joked about something stupid and grinned unabashedly. I felt a connection to the 'gravedigger,' probably because he was covered in tattoos but still had the gentle warmth and energy of a labrador.

He then said, "Sarah, I'm not a grave digger. You buried my wife five weeks ago."

Imagine my face. I must have looked like I was going to cry, because he gently reached for my shoulder and assured me that he wasn't insulted. In fact, I think he was oddly chuffed that he fit the bill.

I hadn't actually buried his beloved, because I hadn't been working in Victoria for long enough to have even been a member of staff on the service. Needless to say, our conversation started with how the lady had died and how he felt that the funeral proceedings went. Everything went according to plan, but death in itself was never in HIS plan.

We sat at her grave, alongside each other, looking at the headstone. We talked about how the five weeks had passed by so slowly. He seemed pained by the memory of her loss, but happy to talk to someone who understood. What he was saying was sad, but his face was happy, and I was confused by that.

We talked about how the first week blurred together. I asked if his friends and family were still in close contact with him, and he hadn't spoken to anyone apart from myself in almost seven days. We then walked for a short distance and he showed me his mother's grave in a nearby plot. I felt like I was being introduced into his family, even after their passing, and I let him know that I felt a priviledge in doing so.

I felt so close to that gentleman. He taught me about the reality of death for those that are left behind to wash the sheets, cancel the bank accounts and 'move on' with living. He taught me how to open up to those that are willing to hear. He taught me that I can find inspiration in dark places.

And he taught me that I should exercise more care and restraint when approaching citizens in a cemetery to avoid looking like an idiot.

Peace.

Post One Hundred and Forty Three: For Reals.

This guy knows where it's at.

WHY IS HE SO HAPPY? How the sh*t do I get so convivial? How do I get there, during the course of my humble life trajectory?

I have questions today. Serious questions, because I had a very serious day.

I answered my first "Hello ma'am, my mum just died. Help me?..." phone call today. It was the worst Jerry, the worst.

I've been perfectly trained in what to say and how to say it, but when you pick up the phone and you can hear the pain in the callers voice as they whisper over the line from the room beside the one that their mothers/fathers/lovers body is going cold and stiff in, that transaction f*cking sucks.  Attention is aggressively pulled away from the clear view of the hot dudes punching the boxing bag in the gym across the street. The fax machine noises that have pissed you off all day vanish. Everything disappears as you try to dive into the phone receiver, twisting through the wire to come out the other side and into the person's mind-space. If only.

I desperately want the words to flow out of my face naturally during the conversation so that I can actually HEAR what the other people are saying (as opposed to what is going on in my own head whilst I kick myself for stuttering/whimpering/pitching my voice too high because I'm stifling tears).


And then I have to muster up the balls to talk to these grieving people face to face, mano to mano. In this arrangement procedure we talk about family history to register the death legally. We make choices like whether they require a cremation or a burial, a coffin or a casket, a religious or non religious ceremony; and the list extends to all the madcap things that you can do to celebrate the life of someone who has died. I have only just now begun to comprehend how much of a multi-tasking genius I have to be, how trusted I need to be by my folk, and how responsible I will be if I stuff sh*t up.

Funerals are pretty crazy. Ladies cry. Men cry. Kids cry because the grown ups are crying. Today even a priest looked like he wanted to cry. The lass that had died had lived very very short life. She left a small, scared child behind. Did that lady know a happiness? If so, does her child know that she did? Will her child remember the funeral in 20 years time?

Gosh, will that child remember me? If so, I hope I said the right thing.

Peace.

Post One Hundred and Forty Two: Release The Hounds.

One month of living in Melbourne is all it takes for most of what you know to expire.

More specifically, one month away from familiar custom is how long it took for me to understand in retrospect that what I had in Brisbane was bloody sterling. I miss my friends, I miss my co-workers, and I miss my heap of shit granny flat in Paddington. I realise that it's alright to have these feelings, but I feel like a dickbag for not reaching this appreciation earlier.

I had grandiose expectations about my new life here.  Presumptions of a type of rebirth into a dashing life of unconventional glory. This brings me to realisation number two; converging with new people is exhausting and comparing folk to those you already love will get you nowhere. Cities change, but my social inaptitudes endure. I will expect nothing more from Melbourne apart from death, taxes and f*cking great coffee and cake combos.

Going from the busy underbelly of the biz to a public show pony of death has been preoccupying. Repairing skulls and buttoning blouses has been replaced with squeezing the cheeks of infants, helping old folk up church steps and inspiring personalised floral choices. It's copacetic, but demands reflection on the change in pace from the days in the mortuary of listening to tunes and drinking tea on demand. 

Time, you tricky trickster. I will place no pressure on your healing ability.

Peace. x

Post One Hundred and Forty One: I Was Just Wandering.

And there ain't nothing wrong with a spot of homelessness.

(Obviously this is a highly insensitive statement to true homeless folk and I'm not actually dumpster diving and huddled in a trolley.)  I'm drifting from place to place until I find a home.  It's a bit shit, but I have hope that a house will be all like "Sarah, I'm cosy and cheap, look at my strong walls and generous pantry! I want you, I need you etc...."

It's a long story, but one that one day will deserve more than a brief mention. Needless to say, I am without roof of my own. It's not ideal by today's societal standards, but y'know what, it's a bloody thrill.

What makes a mortician comfortable at the end of the day? Is it four walls and a door to close? I think not, and something tells me that I'm in for some learnings.

Fate be kind, and bring me a chimney.

S.