Chapter 125
Our country is freakin’ fabulous! What glorious colours, what an extraordinary sky, what amazing mountains and vistas. I spoke with a friend in California who is basically restricted to a concrete box (his apartment) in a town outside San Francisco. No music, no dance, no eating out, no social life… his existence has suddenly shrunk like a popped balloon. How challenging to be isolated from the natural beauty we have here in abundance. How depressing to be stuck with concrete underfoot rather than the life-giving earth. Everyone is undergoing challenges and trials they would never have anticipated a year ago. No matter how restrictive it feels to us in the foothills of the Rockies, we are so privileged to be here and I try to remember that when my mood starts to dip.
On a certain day in December I drove to pick up eggs & gave in to a deep, dark desire for something that I haven’t done in three decades. I needed to indulge in rubbish chocolate – candy bars that consist of sugar in at least three forms. I bought a Skor bar, something I haven’t done in 33 years. How can I be so precise, you may ask. Vivid memories! When I left university and was awaiting a summer contract in the US, I met a girl named Mandy. I can’t remember how we met, but I suspect in the bar of the local sports and squash club where I used to play badminton in an effort to meet people, stay fit and give myself something to do. Everyone else would gravitate to the bar after the game and stuff themselves silly with alcohol while I sipped a pint of orange juice.
I began talking with Shariff, a guy who managed the place at the time. I later discovered Mandy was having an affair with Shariff, despite having a rather lovely boyfriend with whom she lived, by the name of Tom, or Black Tom as he was know for his swarthy complexion and black hair. I liked Tom. In retrospect, I didn’t really like Mandy that much, and as I eventually realised, I didn’t like her attitude to life within a community at all.
At my very tender and distinctly naive age of 21, Mandy was lots of fun, quite outrageously exciting, almost daily presenting something new and different to my expanding world. She ran a stall on the local market where she sold cheap handbags, purses and backpacks. I remember the fashionable colour of the moment was taupe, an innocuous mushroom-mole-ish colour that I found utterly blahhhh. Apparently very desirable to those who care about such things.
I enjoyed setting up the market stall and the banter with the customers and other stallholders. Those stalls were permanent fixtures that folded out of themselves like inverse wooden origami. Acres of wooden panels painted dark green – British Racing Green – and white, I’m not sure I’ve seen anything like it since. It was bloody cold standing around a market in Lancashire… almost as much fun as helping out on the soup stand at Millarville Market at the last meet of the year with a hot water bottle shoved down my pants to stay warm! By ‘eck, you meet some characters in those places.
Mandy and I used to hang out, do silly things – probably the closest I’ve ever had to a girlfriend/sister type of relationship. We swapped clothes… I still own a belt and dress I got from Mandy in exchange for an outrageous outfit I bought in a wild jungle-themed store on Oxford Street in the ‘80s. I’ll bet it’s right back in style now. We used to drive into the heart of Manchester to go clubbing, memorably returning to a high-rise parking lot to find our car with a dead battery at 3am one morning.
Back to the Skor… one night at Mandy’s sitting in front of the fire as the Lancashire winds howled around the eaves and occasionally puffed back down the chimney. We ate Skor after Skor after Skor until we felt nauseous. I have never eaten another until this week when the desperate need for a silly sugar fix overcame me. It was, quite delicious. I may never eat another. It could have been the same night that Alternative Tom came into my life: The phone rang and I answered it – that was when the phone was a rather large, heavy machine, permanently attached to the wall – a man’s voice came on the other end and I, feeling hyped up on sugar and terribly jolly, thought it was Tom & started gibbering away. The conversation went something like this:
“Tom…?” “This isn’t Tom.” “Oh, well you do sound like a Tom.” “Well, my name is actually Colin, but I could be anything you like.” (flirty much?) “I’ll call you Tom, you sound like a Tom to me…”
So Mandy’s friend Colin became my friend Tom. He owned a Racing Green convertible Datsun or some similar sporty little vehicle. We would roll around in it at the height of summer, Tom’d have the James Bond movie theme rocking full blast & we’d pull up outside a place (pub) where a bunch of his friends were hanging out and much raucous banter would be exchanged. Back then it felt like endless fun and laughter, nary a care in the world.
A while later, Mandy announced to me that she was pregnant. Turned out that Shariff, not Tom, was the father, but Mandy was having nothing to do with either of them.
But how will you cope? How will you raise your child? I asked in confusion.
“Oh, I’ll just claim off the state,” she airily replied.
I think that was the last day I spent any time with Mandy, I couldn’t reconcile that blasé attitude with my own ideals on personal responsibility.
Shortly after that I left for the US, to be a Camp Counsellor in North Carolina for the summer. After that, everything changed again… as it does. More to come!
With gratitude and love, Kat Dancer
bodymudra@gmail.com
www.kat-dancer.com
415.525.2630, ph/txt/wtsp
