Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, February 25, 2004


OUT OF PLACE, OUT OF TIME


“The artist, the writer, the filmmaker, moves on, and the friend who liked him no longer likes him. It has to be like this - people fall away.” - Author V.S. Naipaul. The Times (August 7, 2002)

SITTING comfortably? How has the year gone for you so far? Yeah, me too, and it seemed so promising early on. My year began to go awry while standing in the urinal at the Playford Radisson with Gounod's Ave Maria piping through the walls - an eerie sensation, standing there. The next track was Faure's Requiem. Not good omens. My friend Lyn died in the same week and her choice of funeral music included Queen's Another one bites the dust. Way to go, Lyn! I was having my usual afternoon slump at work earlier when a bird banged against the window outside. Distracted, I drank from the wrong side of the can and poured Coke up my nose and down my neck. The bird squatted on the ledge, surprised to find it was still alive, and then flew off. I do not hold much hope of it surviving long-term. An aside: Do eagles soar in clockwise or anti-clockwise circles in the southern hemisphere? I went home to change my shirt and found a carton of chocolate supreme gelati melted in the cupboard instead of in the freezer. What possessed me last night? Sigh. For several days now I have felt oddly out of sorts. I have the clunky sense of being born out of place, out of time - whatever that means - and do not feel part of the here and now. All in one weekend I forgot the PIN code for my mobile phone; dropped the barbecue kettle lid off the balcony; and ricked my back after falling asleep on the sofa watching cricket. At least I still have friends. Actually, I have been letting people fall by the wayside, especially those who bring nothing to the table except greed and grievances. I have become less forgiving, less patient. Nobel Prize-winning author and notorious grump V.S. Naipaul was right on the money: friendships fade away, people move on and others occasionally clamber aboard. My rule of thumb is you can never have more friends than can be counted on the fingers of one hand. My fingers keep forming rude, unwelcoming gestures. My father had a touch of the Naipauls, being thought in his latter years to be cross and difficult. I just think he was discarding excess baggage among the hangers-on. The problem is some friends feel they have the right to tell you where you are going wrong, to talk about their own grim relationships, their ill health, their out-of-control neurotic kids and to criticise you behind your back for not sharing their views. And yet I know of middle-aged people who have clung to the same clammy circle of friends from their school days, play cards together every week and virtually live in one another's pockets. Not being raised in Adelaide, I do not have the same problem, thank goodness. Sunrises are best viewed by yourself; sunsets are best shared with company. I do not know why. My sunset years will not be crowded.