REACHING OUT TO THE CITY LIGHTS...CHAPTER FIVE

                                            Peter, Paul and Mary...."Leaving on a Jet Plane"

 

(I apologise for being slack  in reading, and commenting on your blogs.  Life has been a little topsy-turvy of ate for me, and being the turtle that I am, I'd retreated further into my shell, far away from the madding crowd.  I'm feeling much better that I was...and my spirits have lifted somewhat, and the anxiety that is often sky higher and higher has lowered somewhat. My intention is to catch up on everyone's blogs.   Take good care, one and all.)

                                      

November was around the corner and so was my twenty-first birthday. No huge “coming-of-age” celebration was planned for the “event”. I still didn’t know a lot of people in Brisbane, having been in the city for only a little over three months. Most of the people I’d met up to that point had been through Randall, my fiancée, his work associates, and subsequent others involved in the advertising, radio and music fields.

I’d become fairly heavily involved in Randall’s radio career in Gympie. Nightly, unfailingly, I taped his evening programmes to be played back and critiqued after his shift finished. Every evening following his four hour on-air shift, he came back to my home, where I always had a snack and coffee waiting for him. Together we would sit for hours, playing and re-playing his broadcast, picking holes in it, commending parts that deserved commendation, generally treating the sessions like a “broadcasting tutorial”.  Randall’s deep, distinctive, resonant voice was a special gift, confounding many when they first met the slim young man with a voice from the Heavens. Although it wasn’t allowed by the radio station in Gympie, or elsewhere for that matter, I would sneak into the studios during his Saturday night shifts and sit across from him at the turntables, having had carte blanche choice at the record library. Most of the music played those nights was of my choosing. It was fun…a bold action, not allowed...a rule broken! The hierarchy of the 4GY was unaware of our escapades, thankfully. We were pushing the boundaries, but the thrill of the game made it worth breaking the rules.

Randall had a brash, confident air about him that fooled many, but not me. He was handsome, independent, and highly intelligent. He drove a sports car, and was gifted with vocal chords that females swooned over and males envied. However, all of those curtained a certain lack of inner credence in his own abilities. He had turned twenty-one in the January before my November date with the milestone. As I’ve written earlier we became engaged on his birthday, with an agreed long engagement in the wind. Neither of us was in a hurry to be married. We were young. A persistent desire to travel nagged at Randall. He frequently talked of his wish to travel overseas…"to spread his wings...to see the world"   It was his desire, his dream, not mine, and I had no intentions of standing in the way of his dream.

A couple of weeks before my birthday, he came to the flat to see me.  My flatmate was out somewhere, so we had the place to ourselves. Sitting on the sofa, Randall told me he had handed in his notice to the management at Color Radio 4IP. The next bombshell to crash down upon me followed soon thereafter. He was going overseas at the end of November, firstly to New Zealand briefly before travelling across to the United States, with New York as his destination.

My heart felt like it had been gripped by an ever-tightening iron vice. My stomach flipped. All that remained, it seemed, was a giant, endless, empty pit. I went cold all over as I sat, somberly listening to him excitedly detail his plans. He’d never kept it a secret from me his dream to travel, to go on his “odyssey” in search of the unknown.

Although I didn’t harbour a similar desire to his, I understood his want to see the world. My understanding didn’t make it any easier for me, however, as I sat there stoically bracing and steeling myself. I believed then as I still do now, one cannot live for the sake of another, nor can one choose the path another decides is best for him or her. To travel overseas was Randall’s decision and desire, not mine. It was not for me to try to change his mind, or alter his decision, no matter how much I was hurting inside. There was nothing I could do to stop him, whether I wanted to do so, or not.

Of course, I didn’t want him to go, but it was his individual right to walk the path he wanted to walk. From the moment we’d met he had shared his dreams of travel with me. I didn’t share those dreams to travel...they were his, not mine...but I understood his wanderlust. Tears I shed, I shed alone in the darkness.

My birthday grew closer, and so did the date for Randall’s departure. His flight to New Zealand was booked for November 30^th. My birthday was November 11^th. I intended to make the most of the little time we had left together and not allow myself to be bogged down in self-pity and sorrow. Time enough for all of that later when I was alone. I was going to make sure I had a damn good time and to hell with heartache and feeling sorry for myself.

We were still engaged, nothing had altered on that situation. True to our word at the time of our engagement, marriage for the both of us was a long way off. I soon wearied of fielding questions from others who didn’t understand Randall’s change in direction. I told every curious by-stander he was fulfilling a dream. It was not for me to stand in his way. And I meant it. It was nobody else’s business, anyway. Privately, my heart was torn into many pieces, but I wasn’t going to allow others witness my pain. It was mine and mine alone to deal with. It was my life, and it had nothing to do with anyone else.

Fate looked kindly upon me in a couple of instances, though. My birthday fell on a Friday, so I planned a party, inviting everyone I’d met since my arrival in Brisbane. It wasn’t a great number of people. My landlady who lived on the ground level below the two flats above, one of which Dawn and I shared, was absent for a few days, including the weekend of my pending celebration. That was a blessing in itself as I knew our landlady wouldn’t appreciate the pounding of feet to the beat of music upon her ceiling!

Dutifully, I did forewarn her of my planned party, subtly asking her permission, which she gave willingly. In the other upstairs’ flat adjoining ours, dwelt a very tall Canadian young woman of around twenty-five or six years of age.  She had moved in, with her little lady Chihuahua shortly after Dawn and I had set up our abode. We’d passed pleasantries while collecting our respective mail, or while hanging out our laundry. I’ve never been one to “pop-in” on people, and have never encouraged others to just “pop-in” on me. That’s one of my many quirks, I guess. Even so, the girl next door and I formed an “acquaintance”. I invited her to my party. It wouldn’t have seemed fair or polite not to have done so.

What became a habit formed back then in those early days, I handled the catering for my small gathering.  Leaving the office an hour or so earlier on the day in question, I raced home, eager to start my preparation for the night ahead. I’d bought a new “outfit” for the party at David Jones, a major department store in the CBD. I felt on top of the world. My new outfit was called a “skidoo”…and no, it wasn’t a snowmobile! It was actually Jamaican shorts, with a slit tunic of similar length to the shorts worn over the top. My “skidoo” was in a beautiful aqua-coloured woven-cotton plain fabric with the reverse side of the tunic, matching soft, multi-coloured floral voile, or similar material. I’m not a wearer or lover of floral so I never did reverse the tunic, but when I walked or danced, the contrast was very effective, or so I believed!

Of course, again, a habit formed all those years ago, I over-catered. At least I had food enough to cover Dawn and me for the rest of the weekend, if not the following week as well!

I enjoyed my twenty-first birthday party, spent with Randall and my new acquaintances, which included many of his co-workers, fellow radio announcers from Color Radio 4IP...known as "Color Radio Good Guys", who were joined by their spouses in some cases, and girlfriends in others.  Wee Scotsman, Donny Lloyd brought along his advertising girlfriend, Carol. Carol and Donny married sometime later, and then later divorced. Carol Lloyd, with her wild, flaming red hair became known amongst many circles as “Australia’s First Lady of Rock”. She was lead singer/songwriter in the rock band, “Railroad Gin”, which rose to fame in the Seventies, and established quite a cult following. Carol continued on with her genius in the advertising world and has been the recipient of many awards in that field.  David Jull, who had worked with Randall when they were both younger within the confines of the ABC, and who himself was at the time of my “coming of age”party, employed by ABC TV as a news presenter, also was in attendance. Also amongst my party-goers was a jazz pianist whom I'd met briefly previously.  I couldn’t help but notice he and our Canadian neighbour had struck up a friendly conversation in one corner.  The place was rife with radio and television folk.

My birthday had been a happy one. The party was a roaring success. I managed to push aside, for a little while at least, what lay ahead of me. I tried not to let Randall’s rapidly approaching departure put a damper upon my special evening. I succeeded, if only for a short time.

Putting on brave front, inside I was being torn apart, bit by bit. I didn't want anyone else to know of my torment or heartache. My steely facade and determination not to show to others what I was really feeling helped get me through the following couple of weeks between my party and his departure. Deep within, I knew our separation by sea and air wasn't going to be brief. However, I kept my thoughts to myself.

"Good-byes" have never been one of my fortes! I can manage to keep a "stiff upper lip" for only a short while when in the presence of a loved one's departure, then I'm ready to privately crumble in a melting mess. It is best I make such farewells, brief, disappearing out of view of the "departer" before both parties become drenched in my tears. I prefer to perform this flooding feat privately.

Fortunately, I accompanied Randall’s parents to Brisbane airport to farewell their son, my fiancee, my love, on his flight into his future…his adventure into the unknown. My being in their company forced me to control my emotions, if only until I was once more on my own in my flat.  Randall’s parents and I were the best of friends.  I loved them dearly.

 

Once alone, I crawled into my bed, pulled up the covers, and shut the rest of the world out. At that time in my life, I didn't even have a cat to comfort me! “Cat” was had remained in Gympie, being cared for by my mother and grandmother.  I wanted nothing to do with the world, or with those who inhabited it. What was the point? No one could possibly understand what I was feeling. I was in no mood to try to explain. My feelings, my emotions were my own. I had to deal with them in my own way, in my own time and space.

To be continued....