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As the Swans mounted a charge in the
second quarter in Brisbane last Sunday evening, I entered the ancient history
department of Sydney’s Macquarie University to witness the hand-over of a
collection of prints, engravings, etchings and photographs of the Roman forum
spanning some 500 years. Life works in mysterious ways.
The invitation had
come through the Cygnet’s trapeze teacher whose mother is the collector,
curator and donor. It was her 60th birthday. It was Julius Caesar’s
birthday too. He would have been 2115. We drank red and ate cheese, surveyed
the remarkable collection and evaluated the many faces of a joyous crowd we
didn’t know.
The academics
spoke in turn. Of Rome, foundation of civilisation, of the forum as it was, a lived
space, a space of plants growing wild and the busy efforts of daily life, a
space eventually emptied and deadened by archaeologists attempting to uncover
and explain. They spoke of their love of history as inquiry, of the knowledge
it gives and the further inquiry that knowledge must precipitate. The founder
of the department spoke of the beginning of the Museum of Ancient Culture’s
collection, the purchase in the early 1970s of a copper wire—a medical tool
apparently. It was set up in a spare room in the then almost rural campus of
Macquarie Uni and an unused faculty secretary was despatched to guard the
precious inaugural acquisition. As they talked—and they talked!—I leant into Patrick
and the Cygnet and whispered Gee, I find
it reassuring that there are subcultures of people who know deeply about things
I know nothing about. That there are people looking after these things.
*
Last week we went to see my
parents. We hadn’t seen them in months, not since adventures in Iceland and Europe.
Vicissitudes intervene. Water had flowed back here. Dad had had a back
operation. Mum had played nurse long time. Daily life in the country progressed
with autumn’s winds and winter’s orchard fruits. School holidays opened a
window and we drove down on a bitter night, arriving in the dark under a dish
of stars.
Dad always buys
croissants for breakfast when we visit. There they were on Tuesday morning. I
handed him a bag of coffee beans. I’ve
brought you some good coffee from Leichhardt, Dad.
But non, he said with an apologetic
expression stretched over those expressive cheeks, Aym not dreenking coffee any more. Aym dreenking tea.
I assumed it was
medical contraindication that had driven him to this.
Non. Aye jurst deedn’t warnt coffee anymore.
I preefer tea now.
I didn’t say anything more, reassured
by the cheese plate that appeared at lunch, the French Beaujolais served with
it. Until evening fell and with it that feeling again that something really wasn’t
right.
Mathildie, do you warnt a geen and tonic? A
leetle geen and tonic? A little aperitif to accompany the pre-dinner tele
the olds often enjoy. Dad watches the global report on SBS before feeding time.
But instead the Antiques Roadshow ignited on screen, a manor garden and a
polite queue of Manchester locals waiting for their consultation with a cast of
clown-like Britons in tight, bright suits chuffed at the appearance of a music
box or a pocket watch or a chest of naval documents. Dad seemed to know each
category specialist by name. Ah, zat’s
(insert name. I can’t for the life of me remember). He iz wornderful, he said as he handed me my drink.
I cornered Mum
by the stove.
What’s happened to Dad? He’s become English.
Oh she added, seemingly unfussed, and he’s been talking recently of all the
interesting places there are to visit there. We might like to go on a trip
through Britain. I felt my French blood drain from my face and gulped the
drink in one.
When we all
settled in for the first ball of the first Ashes test that night, I was half
expecting the ex-Frenchman to say that he was barracking for the Poms.
Patrick, the
Cygnet and I headed up Woodhill mountain to Drawing Room Rocks the next
morning. We started in a pea soup fog. Couldn’t see the road, couldn’t see the
escarpment, the trees, the clouds, the valley. Just walking into a beautiful mystery
until the sun parted the red gums and accompanied us all the way to the top, all
the sturdiness of age-old sandstone underfoot and the company of lyrebirds
singing us up the mountain. We stood at the top and looked out out over a
crystal-clear Shoalhaven. I couldn’t help expressing what was on my mind: All the underpinnings of my Frenchness, my
very foundation, they’re crumbling into ruins.
*
We drove home from Macquarie Uni via
an excellent Grandma’s Tofu in Eastwood and a distant view of the Olympic
Stadium. Hmm, Hawthorn on the mind. We’d checked the victory in Brisbane.
Simply said and done, that one.
We watched the
recording back home. Lots of unremarkable movement from our side. Lots of everyday
efforts, jobs half done, enough but not much. A few nice rebounds from Rampe,
some good presence from Kurt, millions of in-close touches from Kennedy and Dan
and Buddy’s pocket roller.
Some ailments
need diagnoses. Some are more mysterious and just need time to right
themselves. It’s often hard to know the difference but we usually have a hunch.
This one seems to need time, at least until we see how serious it is.
But I’ve been
wondering lately whether some of the vitality of the Bloods ethos has been deadened
by sanctioning it so deeply, whether it’s become a bit punitive rather than
generative, whether the players may be feeling the grind of it rather than the
joy of it.
I’ve been wondering whether the
club’s installation of that ethos as the foundation stone of all recent success
has made the players’ attachment to it more like a mantra than a process of inquiry.
Knowing your nationality, being told that you are a Blood, it’s no guarantee for how you’re going to behave.
At the moment the
Swans’ game feels a little like the hallowed piece of wire locked away, the
life stripped from it. Perhaps it needs the secretary to unlock the case and
leave the room for a while.
*
If Rome had Lucretius and Cicero, I
have the Moomins, those white hippo-nosed Scandinavian philosophers. I live my
life by their creed. Yesterday they posted their daily Instagram, a black and
white sketch of Moomintroll and Too-Ticky sitting opposite each other around a
fire. The quote is from Moominland Midwinter. Too-Ticky says: All things are so very uncertain. And that’s
exactly what makes me feel reassured.
Yesterday was
Bastille Day. My father did not ring. I rang him, but got the machine. Maybe
it’s a good thing he’s exploring his inner Brit. It may make him appreciate his
Frenchness again. Maybe he was out drinking real bubbles with some of his
Francophile friends. I don’t know.
We have Hawthorn
this week. I know I am going to see men seriously working through the mysteries
of winning. I’m so glad they are looking after the game. Because I couldn’t set
up behind or in front of play. I couldn’t back back with the flight in the
pocket. Or burst and run for hours. I couldn’t judge the perfect landing point
of a dynamic trajectory or initiate the kick that would carry it. And who
knows? These experts—they might just be my
boys I’m talking about. That possibility, it’s so reassuring.
