#18: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 18

The 3pm to 11pm shift suited me. Before joining the Australian Federal Police I had been running around as a chef in hot and stressy kitchens – and did so for 11 years from 1985. With only two exceptions over this period, I would step into the kitchen at around 2-3pm and finish anywhere from 10-11.30pm, a little later was not unheard of either. The first exception was in 1991, when I churned out poached eggs, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, with or without toast, with or without Turkish bread, eggs with hollandaise sauce, eggs without hollandaise sauce, eggs with hollandaise sauce on the side (which side? I used to tease and confuse the waiters with), eggs Benedict and any number of other million menu items George’s Restaurant, Double Bay offered – while yelling out to (not ‘at’…settle down Gordon Ramsey and others, it’s counter-productive) Chinese Tom to churn out his pancakes, waffles and other items in a manner that was in sync with my dish churning. Let’s get it up at the same time, guys. 

#17: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 17

Then shift-work became a hindrance to my social life and begun having a detrimental effect on my health. Nothing major. Just that my body had slowly commenced turning itself completely inside out. I had been with the Australian Federal Police for two years now – give or take a couple of months. At the time, I was positioned within a 24/7 response area. Our schedule consisted of three basic shift types: 7am starts to a 3pm finish, a 3pm start and finish at 11pm, and an 11pm start winding down at 7am. In between each of these three different blocks we would enjoy very generous days off. But, the graveyard shift was what started burying me. It was the instigator of my body’s newfound disruption.  I lost weight, periodically took on a sickly, pale complexion and generally fell unwell at times. Not feeling well or feeling tired and working odd hours also meant I suffered socially. It often meant having to cut my time out short with friends and head for work. Other times I just felt completely out of it and wanted to drop on the spot and sleep.

#16: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 16

When I met Erin my job had entailed shift-work, which proved to be a novelty for a while. Like exiting the building lift to greet a brand new day on the way home at 7.30am, or thereabouts, while corporate-dressed figures with long faces stepped into the same lift only to begin their working day. I’d dawdle off amongst the influx of public service drones. I’d tap dance down the building entrance stairs and along the brick pathway of the building grounds and out into the streets I’d go, rotating my torso this way and that as I past the thicket of hurried individuals. I’d sit down at a nearby café. I’d sip a hot coffee. I’d settle comfortably and meld into my chair as if melting cheese over piping hot bread. Ahhh…I’m not part of this, the madness, the predictability, the pessimism and sense of resignation – I can go home now, do a couple of things for myself. It felt like someone spiritually high up there had bestowed upon me an exemption from regular life down here. 

#15: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 15

Saying I love you to one another elevated our relationship; or perhaps cemented what was already there. Whichever was more accurate, maybe a combination of both, it pointed to our unassailable commitment to each other, and our legitimacy as a couple. Never mind that people here and there viewed our connection as a doomed fairy tale.

While others understood, “Yeah it’s risky, Julian, but it’s so hard to find someone in life you feel this way about. I agree. I think you should go for it” reassured Sharon, a lady I worked with at the time.

Had I conferred with a male I suspect I may have received a different perspective, at least from some males. Although not exclusively, matters of the heart – at the expense of purely physical gratification –  often find a happier home in a woman.

#14: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 14

In the short time I knew Erin my opinion had always been that she well knew her own heart. So, the day when she said those words to me I accepted their full force and the conviction with which she had uttered them.  I was sitting on a stool in my living room, only days after Erin’s return home.

“I love you, Julian”.

Still, by the time I had processed the gravity of her words – merely a split second – much had flashed through my mind. Past relationships with girls. The direction I thought my life had been heading prior to meeting Erin and the month in Australia I had just experienced with her.

It was a surprise, and those few words caused in me a whole of body experience, ending with elation and the recognition of knowing I felt the same about Erin.

“Erin, I love you!” I spilt these words into the mouthpiece without knowing I had done so; simultaneously had spoken them with the utmost purpose and awareness. This seemed like a relationship gaining momentum that I had for once not fallen into by some error, caprice or default. 

#13: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 13

We spoke by phone just as soon as possible, less than twenty four hours after the jet’s dangling rubber tyres slapped the tarmac at Dulles airport. Once again, it was a huge relief to hear Erin’s voice. We reaffirmed that although living in different countries, we would be committed to each other. That somehow, sometime we would be together.

It was so good to be on the same page.

The telephone quickly became our life-blood. Inevitably email also came into play as a quick way to reach out, to send a reminder to the other that we were thinking of or missing them – and an easy way to keep the flow of communication from falling prey to inconsistency. Within the next four weeks we had each written a letter to the other. One remained the grand total, though – a sign of the technological times. But my letter, as did Erin’s, was brimming with emotion, hope and remembrances of our brief yet seemingly eternal time together in Canberra.

We got into a lovely habit of telephoning each other at all hours. My chunky telephone – I now realise to be out-dated – would ring in the smallest of hours and before I seemed even fully conscious, I’d stick an excited arm out of bed and answer it. I couldn’t wait to get to work to see an email from Erin. Then, I couldn’t wait to be home to receive another phone call from her. When I wasn’t receiving calls or emails from Erin, I was calling or emailing her myself. It all happened around the clock, and time to us was irrelevant.

#12: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 12

Over the course of a month, Erin and I met up regularly before we reached that dreaded day. The day Erin’s study came to an end and she had to return home to the US. We shared a bitter-sweet last dinner together at Belluci’s in Manuka. At the table, after what we both agreed to be the best fried calamari we’d ever singularly eaten, I presented Erin with a black and white card depicting an elegant, romantic couple on the front. I covered almost every square inch of the inside of that card with my thoughts and emotions. Part of what I wrote expressed my sorrow for her having to leave: “…it doesn’t feel right because our flower was just starting to bloom…”

But I ended my blue-inked smothering with a borrowed quote: “The fulfilment in life lies in the beauty of the future”, because I wanted to leave Erin with a positive feeling, and for her to realise I didn’t believe that her leaving spelt the end for us.

After sips of wine and with moistened eyes, Erin then reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a mini-wad of handwritten notes on faint-ruled note paper in tatty condition. She handed me the little wad. I unfolded it and read it silently, filling up with emotions. Her words were different to mine. But the two of us had said exactly the same thing to one another. Although neither of us actually used the word or phrase itself, this was love, and we now couldn’t bear the coming separation and distance that would soon engulf us.

By the time Erin was on the plane and in the air the next day, I was in bed. Fully awake. Couldn’t sleep. Erin’s scent lingered on the spare pillow and on my bed sheets. I didn’t wash the bed linen until a week and a half later for fear of washing her away from my life completely. I pictured her high up in the sky sitting in her metal vessel. The further away the jumbo jet stole her, the emptier I became but simultaneously our experience together gained more definition and prominence.

How could we ever make this work? You can’t let this go.