Allison Howard – Walking heart

Just recently I missed out on going to a school reunion. Now don’t get me wrong I really wasn’t aware that it was happening until an old school friend rang me up all enthusiastic about the event. “So, are you going to go?” was the excited question that came bouncing out of her mouth. 

You see, the reason why I was unaware of this event was that many years ago I got sick of all the communication that was being mailed out to me from this institution, giving me “Old Girl News”, asking for money. So one particular day I had enough, and I bundled all the unopened mail together, marking the front in thick black pen “Please stop sending. Allison is now dead.” Extreme? Maybe, but thankfully a tactic that worked. 

So, with this, I am sure you can imagine, when I heard about the reunion I was not really shocked, but more horrified, and my only response was a confused “Why?” Giggling, my friend ran off a few standard responses, “it will be fun, there will be champagne.” “We will get to see some old friends.” and my favourite was, “it will be fine, it’s all different, we have grown up now”. My response to this was simply, “Have we?” 

Now, to all the people reading this that don’t know this part of my history, I feel I need to explain why I so passionately avoid anything to do with that place. 

You see, I grew up there. 

Don’t get me wrong, I was born, and spent most of my young childhood in a beautiful sleepy town nestled in the nook of the amazing Murray River. I toddled amongst the red dirt and grape vines, riding my bike and swinging off tree ropes into the cool wide river. Looking back now I had the most special and idyllic start to life. 

But where I grew up was a little different, at the interesting age of 14 I left this protected,  peaceful setting and was sent to boarding school in the big city of Melbourne. Now I think the intention and reason for sending me away was good, as this particular institution was a very prestigious, “top tier” school and I was sent there to help me with my education and in turn life. You see, my parents felt that the country high school system, was not equipped for my particular needs. However, looking back now, I believe that in the early 1990’s, I am not entirely sure any school, regardless of the financial pillars it was standing on, was well “equipped” for me. 

So did it help? Well, it certainly did assist getting me to where I am today, but not in the intended scholastic or achieving any lofty social climbing heights kind of way, but more of a determined, if I can get through that, I can get through this, kind of way. And I have used this “Fuck You” approach to most of my life’s difficulties and challenges, which is a great survival skill to have, and was strongly cemented during my years away at school. 

You see, to be frank, the strangeness of growing up solo through my teenage years in this antiquated system was – to be blunt – quite dislocating, abandoning and just generally traumatic. Now don’t be upset for me, I wasn’t completely alone, in fact I had a whole gang of similarly aged comrades of which we all stumbled up through puberty together. Basically it was babies raising babies. 

Now, when I became a new Mother, the one thing I always remember, was the health nurse sitting me down and plainly informing me “the only difference between a 14-year-old and a 4-year-old is their height,” and she was right. The confusion, tantrums and the emotional overwhelm that went, unchecked, un-soothed and then inflicted on each other was actually out of control. Some children where treated so horribly, it makes me cringe thinking about what happened, how bitchy and catty it all got, sometimes even violent, and what was even worse was that the more “different” you where the harsher the isolation and treatment was. 

Looking at it now, and thinking with some perspective on how we all treated each other. How we fumbled blindly through a very fragile and important time, is that, we simply had no support or role models to help us through this strange part of life. It wasn’t our fault. We certainly did not have love or kindness, to guide us through our errors and see life truths. The boarding house mistress’ (yes, that was what they were called), used a penitentiary style approach to our experience. It was not patients and education, but more control by suppression, discipline, and intimidation. As we were in this situation, and lost children, we had to bring each other up, dealing with an antiquated social hierarchy, confined within the walls and grounds of a blue stone cobbled institution. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, we did have a lot of fun and got up to some incredible mischief that makes my hair curl at the thought of my daughter ever do anything remotely close to what I/ we did. Also, the memories and friendships that where formed through those years are unlike any others and are the strongest most powerful friendships I will ever have. Even though we all live in different parts of the country and move in completely different avenues of life, we are sisters, and are there for each other no matter what. These children I grew up with, these amazingly strong women, have supported me throughout my whole life and there have defiantly been points in time where I would not be here if it wasn’t for either one or all of them banding together to comfort and support me. Because that is what we did from the age of 13, that is what family does, and I love them all completely. 

In saying all this, if my excited friend needed me to be at this reunion of course I would have gone, in fact being honest, I was mildly curious, but as luck would have it, I had other plans for that date and could not be there. But I did hear about it and it sounded deliciously funny. So what happened? Not much really, all the boarding house mistress’ are long since dead and gone, probably applying the rules of fiery hell on some poor unsuspecting demon. And with all the rest? Well, I feel we have all watched enough high school reunion movie specials to know what happened. Basically no one had grown up, the bitches were still bitches and the social structure that we all lived through went easily back into smooth working order 30 mins after the speeches ended and the canapés came out. 

The only thing I was annoyed hearing about was that when the school principal gave the “welcome back, old grammarians” speech, my name was not read out during the memoriam acknowledgements, which on the whole, not surprising, but at least a little bit rude don’t you think? Anyway at least I am still in contact with all the people I want to be, and most importantly, I am not getting any more junk mail.

All these thoughts have inspired my latest drawing. Titled “The 3 Little Girls” This image was inspired by the hazy memories that I have of myself and the others I grew up with. I actually cant remember where all my photos are of that time I am sure they are somewhere, all I have are just some old black and white photo booth shots I found in the back of a half written/scribbled in journal, but i am sure it catches the “vibe” .

I hope you are all well and keeping safe.