December 2023,  Tullamarine Airport check-in, Victoria.

My cabin bag weighs right on 7kg but the Jetstar girl with her red lipstick and formidable frowning eyebrows who weighs it says “You’re 2k over” because I didn’t account for my handbag, and I beg a bit then say ‘I’ll just wear it all, give me a few minutes, could you hold this book for me please, oh and my umbrella, oh which pocket should I put it in I’ll hang it from my belt then, and oh.’  She rolls her eyes and says ‘Pack more carefully next time’. I promise I will and think, happy Christmas sweetheart, and mentally give her a wink.  I’m off to Noosa.

2003

She’s leaving. The uni degree under her belt, done and dusted, and now she’s going to live with her mates who have already had a year in Dublin, their base for exploring the world, exploring themselves, a long way from Wezza in Melbourne’s outer western suburbs where they’ve all grown up and schooled together. Schooled together. As if that was the thing. They bonded, it’s going to be life long, they don’t know it yet, and school happened to be the conduit.

I just want to know one thing. ‘When will you be back?’

She says, ‘Mum, I’m not planning anything. Come back? I’m not even there yet. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.’

I just wish she said: ‘Two years, Mum’. Even if it was a lie.

Is that what mollified means?

(Am I ever gonna see your face again?)

Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?

And we’re leaving too. I don’t know it yet. I mean I know it, but it isn’t within me. Yet. The heft of the decision is still in the air, it hasn’t centred, grounded in me. Yet. It should have, but maybe, probably, definitely, I’m in some sort of denial.

All I know is that we have 35 acres of paddocks with a farmhouse being built in the Surfcoast hinterland, taking shape slowly.  Hard work. Neither of us are farmers so who knows how this will pan out. And we’re in the ute driving down the freeway every Friday night to work our arses off there, me labouring for my builder husband, making somebody’s dream come true. And one of the CDs we’re giving a hiding is The Dixie Chicks as they were known then. That bloody Landslide song gets me every time. It’s about me and her and our boys. One older, already flown, taken the music with him that filled the home (goodbye Sunday garage jams, I don’t know it yet, neither does he, but music takes him around the world) one younger, I don’t know it yet, but he won’t join us at the farm when we eventually make the move, he’ll house share with surfie mates in Torquay, as he should. Our kids leave home young.

Can I sail through the changin’ ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Time will tell.

Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you

 Of course I have.

But time makes you bolder

Depends.


Even children get older

Goes without saying.


And I’m getting older too

 

That’s it. That’s the bit. The gulp catches my breath. Staring out the window and we’re only at Little River and emotion spills from me and fogs the glass.

2023

We’re all in their van, their Irish dad’s driving, back home to the Surfcoast from Tulla after the short holiday, pre-Christmas, up at Noosa.

Together. We even catch up with one of those old school mates, she lives up there, and her sweet twins play in the surf with my grandkids. We hit the Anglesea Road, and I’m feelin’ all the love. Surrounded by the soft flesh and sweet breath of the young.  It is, it’s not, it is it’s not breath, it is it’s not it is it’s not flesh, it’s the feeling. The feeling is beautiful.  And changes abound. Their oldest is about to go to high school. Their youngest is about to go into prep. Their son, 10 years old, has been jumping off a bridge that says ‘No jumping off this bridge’ (as he should – supervised rebellion).

My daughter’s Spotify list plays to the sound system. It’s Fleetwood Mac’s version for her.

Can I sail through the changin’ ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Time will tell.

Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you

 Of course she does.

But time makes you bolder

Depends.

Even children get older

Goes without saying.

And I’m getting older too

 She is.

 
 
 

Stereo Story #773

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Janet Brown is a short story, short film writer and playwright. Her plays are published by Australian Plays, and several have been staged. She's also written a novel and non-fiction books. She lives on a farm in the Victorian Surfcoast hinterland.