F**k You – Cee Lo Green 2010

Sarah McLachlan sings a song that opens with the lyric, ‘hold on, hold on to yourself, because this is going to hurt like hell’. I have repeated this phrase to myself at least 12 times a day for the last three weeks, at times, while actually clutching a handrail or reaching for a wall (or bottle) before letting out some kind of devil-possessed howl. A howl that on one memorable occasion caused a very proper tweed and marmalade toast British gentleman to knock on the door of a Selfridges disabled toilet to make sure there was not a werewolf undergoing lunar transformation inside. No sir, nothing to see here. 

But if you lift up my t-shirt, I am quite sure my left ventricle just fell out of my chest. Nothing at all to see on the outside, but peer beyond my tear-stained skin, look through my ribs and inside is a heart that may just have suffered it’s last.

And now, back to the title… 

The F-word, formally of character of these pages, will hereafter be used to describe very many things, verbs, nouns, adjectives…diverse and multitudinous…but not fiancé.

Oh yes, just like Congreve’s Zara (that would NOT be the Spanish clothing chain)…

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned [sic].

  Modena

 

F is for F**K.

This is the overwhelming sensation that every single microscopic nerve fibre in your body may, of their own volition, exit your body from under your fingernails resulting in a new kind of pain that never ends, a pain that prohibits you from meaningful activity other than staring straight ahead and trying not to cry. F**K is the feeling that everything you thought would happen now will not. F**K is the only word that you can allow to escape from between two lips that want to say so much more but cannot because you genuinely fear that once you start, you may never stop and there are syntactical limits as to how many vile words you can string together in a sentence to describe one person. Unless…

F is for Feathers.

White feathers were the badge bestowed upon English soldiers that were too cowardly to go to war. English soldiers were frightened to go to war because they may well have become 387 small pieces of human-English-man-steak spread across a field in France after being on the wrong end of Napoleon’s canon. They were not frightened of being honest and telling the truth. In fact, these soldiers were so convinced of their own truth, they stood up against all of the pressures of a society that was constructed on the foundations of pride, honour and respect (England of course, not France) prepared to withstand public humiliation for what they believed in even if it was seen to be cowardly. They did not lie. They generally weren’t French.

F is for Fairytale.

Fairytales are tales about magical things, little people with wings and young women who do too much housework. They are not the stuff of reality no matter how sparkly and fantastical the shiny and magical ring may appear to be. A ring is, like all things, a spell and grown-up girls should stop watching Disney cartoons and reading stories about golden diaphanous dresses, diamond tiaras and long golden hair and spend more time watching bodies explode on the nightly news. Although it seems that the too much housework line made it into the prologue of the once fairytale text that is my life.

F is for Farce.

Unlike the Fairytale that is intended to amuse and causes no permanent damage to the childlike innocence of those who read them, the Farce is a far crueller and insidious form of storytelling. Farce occurs when everything that appears to be concrete, true and real is not. Words that are said in loud voices intend the exact opposite and inflict irreparable damage to the spectator. For example, ‘I want to marry you’ may actually be intended to be understood as ‘I don’t want to see you ever again, I am just waiting for the right moment to tell you’.

The Italians perfected the art of Farce in their Venetian Commedia dell’Arte. Characters known to us all like Harlequin and Scaramouche would act out stories of love, betrayal and duplicitous evil (and do the Fandago if you listen to Queen) on stage for the entertainment of the wealthy and powerful court of the Doge of Venice. Although, these cruel and nasty farces took place on a stage with colourful masks; it wasn’t real life and it certainly wasn’t 2011.

F is for Flight.

If ever you were going to be stuck in a place that you desperately wanted to leave, I would not recommend that that place was Italy or that you had to deal with Air France in such an emergency. It would appear that all of their resources have been diverted to retrieving Black Boxes in the Atlantic and avoiding a multi-million dollar class action.

I am positive that had I rang QANTAS and pled diplomatic immunity arguing that my life as I knew it had just ended in Bologna and I desperately needed to leave, a solution would have been found quicker than you can say ‘my life as I know it has just ended’. A woman of a certain age, probably a drawling Queenslander would have answered the telephone with a ‘there there love, don’t worry, your mother loves you and there are plenty of fish in the sea, let me charter you a jet to fly your mother over there to give you a cuddle’. Instead, a screaming queen with a Gallic accent as thick as the crust of dried tears and mascara that had sealed shut my right eye answered with ‘I am sorry but I cannot help you no matter how much you cry, sob or scream. Madame, you do not understand, in France, we do not emote, we do not cry, we simply speak to each other with Cartesian reason arguing all of the ways in which the facts exist as they are and romantic love is like our wine, bitter, acidic and not worth the price you pay.’

OK so maybe the gay Air France Guy did not say that last bit. But it did take me a tear-stained, unwashed and un-made-up eon to get on that bloody plane.

F is for Faith.

This is the hardest bit. Losing faith in yourself is never a joyful experience as you wonder whether you have ever made a decision that was not similar in stupidity to Mel Gibson featuring in a film called The Beaver. But there is also losing faith in the intentions of others. I’ve loved three men in my life, two of them I share chromosomes with, two of them have lied to me and one of them did not love Madonna. Either I am stupid, I am gullible, and I am a moron (which given my enormous brain and passion for Madonna I refuse to believe) or, most likely, the pattern of self-loathing inflicted by the first of these men has resulted in poor choices and misplaced faith ever since. A special kind of pain follows when you did not see it coming and you ask yourself over and over if anything was ever true. Faith is for…

F is Fool.

I speak two and a half languages. I have lived in 5 countries and visited all of the continents that don’t have spiders. I was a private school scholarship student, I was the first person in my extended family to graduate university and I was an exchange student when I was sixteen. I can successfully argue for hours on just about anything and usually win. I can speak on the phone, wash up and stuff a chicken at the same time. I can run for an hour without stopping because I quit smoking, by myself with no chemical aide. I can sing show-tunes, rap to 80’s hip-hop and dance in time rather well. I can paint walls, make IKEA furniture and have learned to grow stuff in my window.

But if you tell me you love me, I will set aside every grain of neurologic capacity in my enormous skull. I’ll tolerate just about anything.

Parma

 

F is for Friends.

While they are not so super numerous as an American army, they are rather more like elite SAS forces; a small group that closes in on the target, observing it for changes in behaviour and ensuring that it remains unscathed by enemy attack. The Academic took the Saturday shift and ensured I was fed and washed and listened as I rambled after a little too much of the local elixir in a bar with Australian soldiers. The American (who is only unlike George Clooney’s character in that he can’t speak Italian) took the Sunday shift and treated me to home cooked food, apple pie sarcasm and affectionate little children. The Fashionista took over on Monday, and armed with Rosé, did what she does best, listen and reinforce (and insult), and plan a counter attack. Louis XIV, far away from his Parisian castle, treated me to a weekend in the countryside, and reminded me on a bi-hourly basis, just how amazing I (and of course he) was. Positivity, along with very expensive man-face-cream, simply oozes from his aristocratic pores.

F is for Family.

It will be hard for me to get to the end of this sentence without howling in sorrow.

In the middle of the night, in the morning, in the evening, every day twice or more a day, one of them called. One of them would send a note to make sure that I was waking up and smelling the roses. One of them would remind me of all that I had achieved in life and that being treated like sh*t by men was as hereditary as our curls. One of them would say they loved me. One of them would make me feel special by laughing at my jokes. All of the things that people do when they really love each other.

F is for Future.

Mine is bright. I am a f**king Rock Star. I am strong. I am invincible. I am woman.

I am not dead. There is a new Harry Potter movie around the corner. I think I am fertile and am taking steps to ensure it. I am re-discovering the joy of being outside before noon. I have 4 new shades of turquoise nail polish and eye shadow and even glitter. Glee is signed up for a third season and they just launched a Glee App. It is springtime in Paris. My niece squeals and claps when I sing for her on videochat. I can watch master-top-chef-masters from four countries. This too will pass.

 

    Bologna

 

…though there’s pain in my chest, I still wish you the best, with a f**k you…

Comments

[Tonybullant@gmail.com]

I feel I need to say something but at a loss as to what it should

[Jo Weatherhead]

You have more than enough people to tell you this, and my 2 cents are only worth that, but I wanted to say: You are all kinds of awesome.

[MM]

Thanks so much Jo and glad you took a moment out from a busy Mum schedule to read my words. Look forward to seeing you back again soon