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Defining Moments

New York, January 2007
Manhattan

My mother's smile beamed down at the girl on the New York bus.

My mother's smile. Not seen for many a year. A slightly distant smile, distant yet polite. Kindly with a hint of embarrassed reserve. An Ango Saxon smile.

"No, thank you, I'm fine," I said, as the young woman indicated she was offering me her seat.

A defining moment in my life. I'm growing, ... no, I've grown, old.

I remember when my children were young. I'd hear my mother's voice coming from my mouth. I'd correct myself, horrified that I'd uttered a sentence identical to one I'd hated when I heard it from my mother when I was a child.

But on the bus last week, it was even worse. I was my mother.

And so I transitioned from middle to old age.

It was twenty years ago today
Rotorua, New Zealand

I was there for just one week. I had not seen my father for fifteen years. He was dying. Emphysema and throat cancer. A life of hard living had taken its toll. I was with my Dutch boyfriend. We drove him around in is car. I remember it. An old Hillman Imp. You would never have seen one in Australia, but car prices were high in New Zealand, and an old Hillman Imp was quite a common sight in New Zealand in the eighties.

We parked somewhere. I don't remember the town. I do remember the Hillman decal falling off, onto the pavement.

My dad looked concerned and started to try to pick it up from the gutter, where it had fallen.

Suddenly his look changed from concern to "why worry". What was the point? He'd never drive that car again. Once his pride and joy, it was now an irrelevance.

In that instant, I knew his life was over. Nothing mattered.

He was dead within three months.

It was forty five years ago today
Elsternwick, 1960

I was coming home from school on a hot Melbourne day, a day no different from the summer days before. As I walked down the suburban street I passed garbage bins - trash cans. I suddenly felt a desire to run, leaping over one garbage bin after another.

"The end of my childhood," I thought. "I'll be too old tomorrow to do this"

The last day of my childhood. Recognised and accepted.

And there other "defining moments". Most are depressing in their memories. Occasionally though, there's a moment that defines a happier, more optimistic something.

Yesterday
On my way home from work. Second Avenue and 60th Street

A traffic cop. I'm vaguely looking in his direction as I wait for my bus.

A young man is walking in his direction. His face is studded with metal - nose rings, eyebrow studs. A Village person. Hip, punk, whatever the word is today.

As I watch him approach the traffic cop, I see them both smile. They get closer. And embrace. Passionately. They kiss and draw slowly and reluctantly apart.

"See you at home," I hear the traffic cop say. They young man walks away, looking back. They are in love. A few people at the bus stop look up. No one turns a hair.

New York at its best.


My mother smiles. .

Till next time,

Kate Juliff
New York
January 2007