In My Youth

By Diana Jenkins

 

The endless cycle of the waves crashing onto the sandy shore lulled me into a meditative state as I sat on my towel and enjoyed the sun’s rays warming my still glistening body as the ocean’s grip clung to my skin like fine silver. The sensation of my toes disappearing under the piles of sand delighted me as the grainy coarseness rubbed my feet and made me feel deeply earth-bound, real and alive in a profoundly satisfying way.

I gently scooped up a handful of sand and watched the grains slowly escape from the opening of my fist and fall back onto the sand.I did this several times and even though my mind was empty, the action evoked in me a sense of pensiveness. I continued to scoop up the sand and watched the grains fallaway. It felt beautiful and tactile, smooth and sensuous all at the same time. I made arc-like patterns, erasing one pattern and recreating another over and over again as I sat, knees bent on my towel.

I was used to spending time alone. Often it was not by choice, but it was how I lived, particularly after Year 12 when friends parted ways to begin new chapters.
I spent the summer at the beach. I swam in the ocean as the warmth of the days caressed my body living off the savings I had earned night-filling during school.
Just like the changing of the seasons, though, my father decided it was time for me to kickstart my working life. Rather than have me go to University, he instead drove me around the city where I dropped off CVs and didpre-interview tests.

I finally landed a job as a typistand before joining, I asked if I could visit the workplace. The moment I entered I was filled with dread. I later realised it wasn’t the nature of the work that drove my fear but my undiagnosed anxiety. The typists were chatting as I was introduced, and they smiled at me as they leant casually over their typewriters. As encouraging as they were,I knew I wasn’t ready,for this, but I didn’t want to tell my parents since they had enough problems, so instead I said nothing andtook the job.

In the early weeks, my fingers trembled as I painstakingly strove to type near perfect documents. I shuddered if I realised, I had made a mistake as I had to either backspace on the correcting button to remove the error, or if I didn’t realise it at the time, I had to use whiteout and then see if the letter would pass the quality checks of my supervisor.

Most days, I would dry retch when getting ready for work and when I thought about why I did this, it occurred to me it was due to performance anxiety. I felt ill-equipped to handle the job. My appetite decreased, and I did not eat very much. A colleague nicknamed me the ‘coat-hanger,’ but little did he know the reasons behind why I looked so thin. I lived for the weekends where I would drive to the coast, swim in the surf and run my hand through the sand, while looking up as the waves rolled in. These pursuits revitalised me,and I was ready to return to work on Monday to begin the cycle again. After 12 months in the job, word-processing arrived, and typists were being

re-trained. I asked if I could join the word processing pool since I knew I could easily erase any mistakes I made and re-type the words without needing to use whiteout or the correcting button. This sounded like a lifeline as I figured I wouldn’t be under the same pressure to perform to perfection the way I had on the electric typewriter.

At the same time, I had applied for a clerical job and when I was offered this, I accepted and left the typing pool. I was relieved to no longer deal with the daily pressure of typing near perfect letters. I settled into the job and since the organisation was large, I met many people from a variety of backgrounds and age-groups. There was Joanne from accounts who would’ve been in middle management by today’s standards. She always dressed in knee-length skirts, sheers and wore crisp looking shirts with sensible courtshoes. Her carefully styled tightly coiffed curly hair never moved, even when her skirt bustled, and her hips sashayed as she walked.

Joanne was known to have foul moods, and I approached her with trepidation, in case I was on the receiving end of one of her outbursts. I quickly made haste when finishing my business with her. I was petrified of dressing corporately in case someone actually took me seriously and offered me a responsible job. So, to deter potential prospectors, I deliberately dressed down and cycled through a collection of clothes. My favourite was a lilac-coloured sweatshirt emblazoned with the logo espritwhich featured skiers racing down the side of a mountain.

Staff in the Human Resources unit worked in the cubicle next to me and wisps of cigarette smoke would find their way over to me throughout the day. I’d walked past and see the smokers gently tapping their pencil-thin smokes against ashtrays, as mounds of grey ash gathered. When they had finished, they’d ground their butt into the ash, return to their paperwork, until they were ready to light up a fresh smoke.

Other people who I worked with included Claire who had glossy black cascading hair who dwarfed me at 180cm, reaching 184cm with her high heels. She had skin like ivory and spoke as if she had just stepped out of an elocution class and walked like she’d been training in ballet her entire life. It didn’t surprise me to learn she had actually trained as a ballet danceronly to stop when she reached puberty as she became too tall to be a professional dancer.

She managed the recruitment of new graduates and one day,a graduate who was on rotation in the area I worked said she was star struck when Claire spoke with her, and we both agreed her regal-like qualities were intimidating!

Shaun from records would visit and we would talk about our jobs. When he described his problems, he would scowl and furrow his eyebrows. It didn’t surprise me when he resigned. I was incredibly sad to see him leave. He was one of many people I bonded with who left their jobs.

As time meandered on so did my circumstances. I enrolled in a degree while working and buying a flat with my boyfriend. My colleagues would say my boyfriend should be the one doing the study, but I shook my head. Ryan struggled to stay employed soI thought the idea of him enrolling in a degree was farcical. As it turned out, I shelved the degree after two semesters and focused on being a homeowner. We had some good years together, sharing our lives with the neighbours. One day however, Ryan and I decided it was time to split because our lives were heading in different directions. Ryan had taken up with a crowd whose values differed from mine, and I wasn’t ready to adopt their lifestyles.We stayed together for six more months until we sold the flat and went our separate ways.

I had always wanted to travel so I booked a European tour, 16 countries in 35 days. It was certainly a whistle-stop, point and click tour where I saw all the attractions of Europe I had wanted to see, so I was very satisfied. As it turned out, I decided to stay on and worked as a nanny in Edinburgh before visiting a Kibbutz in Israel for three months as a volunteer.

The war currently in Israel and Gaza is truly despairing since when I visited Israel in 1989/90, almost every person both Arabic and Israeli all said the same things – we just want peace, we don’t want to live with any fighting and often it was exceedingly difficult for me to differentiate between Arabs or Israeli’s on the street, particularly secular looking people as their similarities were so striking. I met some deeply passionate people who were working hard on both sides to negotiate better outcomes for both partiessuch as better access to education for children, secure housing and economic stability for all citizens.

Travelling and living in Israel during the summer was one of the best periods of my life. I felt free and my anxiety left me. For the first time since I had left Year 12, I was unencumbered. I travelled to the southern parts of Israel, visiting well-known sites such as the dead sea. I have a quintessential photo of me reading a book in the dead sea while floating due to the sea’s high salt content.

I also visited Ein Gedi, an oasis in the Judaean Desert, near the Dead Sea, a 3.5 hours’ drive from Eilat, a sunny paradise on the Red Sea. Ein Gedi is now affected by sinkholes due to the decline in the water levels of the Dead Sea. I feel extremely fortunate to have visited in 1990 to see this amazing nature reserve.
Since all things end, so did my time overseas and after 12 months, I boarded a plane and flew home to Australia. I was fortunate that my family made themselves available to collect me from Sydney. I stayed with my sister for six months and returned to my office job having been granted 12 months leave without pay.

I was a mess. I craved my freedom and spent my days at work reliving my travel experiences. I had plenty of time to reminisce as I didn’t have work and a colleague said I would be better off getting a job at David Jones. I knew she was right, but I had rent to pay, and I knew that while I didn’t have a role,thesalary,I earned for showing up motivated me to continue.

One day during my lunch break, I was at the shops near the officeand a stranger approached me and said, “hello.”

I turned around and saw the most gorgeous looking guy speaking to me and I was flattered that he had stopped me.

I said, “hi,” and he asked me what I was doing in Peece.

I told him I was on my lunch break, and he asked if he could join me.

Surprised and thrilled at the same time, I said, “sure.”

We went to the café that served Italian and we shared a pizza. He told me he had Italian heritage and I told him about my happy-snap trip to Europe, visiting Florence and Venice. He was extremely interested to hear about my travels.

When there was a pause in the conversation, it dawned on me we hadn’t introduced ourselves and I learned his name was Nathan.

“Nathan,” I thought as my eyes roamed over his physique and settled on his deep brown eyes that shone like black pearls in the shadows of the café.

He asked me if I would like to see him again and I nodded. He took my number, and we exchanged a hug before leaving one another.

For the rest of the afternoon, I welcomed the spare time at work as I would not have been able to concentrate if I had tasks to do, since Nathan was on my mind. I hoped he would call me soon and I kicked myself as I hadn’t gotten his telephone number, but I knew his last name.

The week wore on and I still did not hear from him, I felt lost and in love without the love being returned. I wondered how I could contact him. I knew he studied at the same university I had enrolled in so I was familiar with the campus and the noticeboards where you could post messages. That night I wrote out a dozen messages asking for anyone who knew Nathan to pass my contact details on as I needed to contact him urgently. On the weekend, I drove out to the campus and pinned the messages on boards. Since Nathan had told me his major, I pinned the notices around the Business and Administration building and then I waited.

One evening as I was cooking, the phone rang. My heart leapt as I wondered if it was Nathan. As I picked up the phone, the sound of Nathan’s voice breathing my name into the receiverdelighted me. Even though I was pleased to hear from him, my nerves were jaded and gasping, I mumbled aninaudible response rather awkwardly into the phone. There was silence and then Nathan said I was very persistent in wanting to find him.

I sensed his surprise, and I was a little embarrassed at how I had tracked him down. He saida classmate had told him about my message. After a while, he blurted out that his former girlfriend lived with his family while she was studying. It wasn’t clear to me why she couldn’t live with her own family, but he said it was due to an estrangement with her family which saw her living with him.

I thought about this, thinking about why a former girlfriend would be living with him but before I could ask, Nathan spoke.

He said, he was busy with his study, but he could meet me on Monday after work and asked if that would that be, ok?

“Of course,” I said.

I told him to meet me at the carpark closest to my workplace after work.

I rang off and finished cooking. I was thrilled Nathan had gotten in touch.

However, as it turned out, after all the effort I had gone into tracking Nathan down with my message board plan, incredibly, my meeting with Nathan, did not eventuate. The date did not go ahead. In fact, I never saw Nathan again.

Instead, an unexpected encounter on the very day I was meant to meet Nathan saw me meetmy future forever lover rather than go on a date with Nathan.
It played out like this –Mondays in the office were finance days where my co-workerwould drop off invoices to the Account Manager in the Finance Department. On the same Monday, I had planned to meet Nathan, my co-worker called in sick, and I was asked to do the finance run.

After driving over to the Finance Department, I made my way to Jason Shoebridge’s office where I was to hand over the invoices. As I approached his office, the door was closed. I stopped in front of the door, and just as I was about to knock, the door suddenly opened and out stepped my future life partner. As we both faced each other, I suddenly reeled backwards as an unknown force overwhelmed me. It wasn’t from any gust of wind; I could see from an open window ora blast of air from the air conditioningthat caused me to reel in such a way.

To me, it was more of an esoteric sensation that overcame me. The way I explain it is the sensation of feeling knocked off my feet, represented the colliding of our worlds as we had somehow stumbled across one another amongst the crowds of people in the cosmos. It was an encounter neither of us had planned and it had a deep impact on me.

As I recovered, we got talking about our interests outside of work and we discovered we shared a love of Mediterranean food. Before realising it, I had accepted Jason’s invitation to join him for dinner after work at Mediterranean Place, a restaurant not far from his office.

When I returned to my workplace, I scurried to my car and moved it to another carpark on the far side of the building so Nathan would not meet me at our designated meeting place that day after work. This sudden metaphorical U-turn from Nathan and into Jason’s arms left me breathless and excited. For the rest of the day, I anticipated my tête-à-tête later that night. I cannot be sure if I thought the decision I was making was right. It’s just the way the circumstances unfolded that saw me unexpectedly change my mind and alter the course of my future.

Now 33 years later, after first meeting Jason, I watch him standing at the water’s edge, as both of us look across to the horizon. We’re facing the same direction yet separate as our thoughts take us back to the pastand towards the future.

It’s our shared awareness of nature’s beauty, however that pulls us together in a unified bond as the salty breeze ripples across the water and seizes our thoughts, casting them into the waves that playfully skip across the ocean.

I gently scoop up handfuls of sand and watch the grains fall silently back onto the beach just as I have done countless times before as I reflect on nature’s beautybefore rising from my towel to join Jason at the water’s edge.

 

Diana Jenkins lives in Australia and loves storytelling, leaving readers gasping for another story as her words dance playfully, coaxing the reader to continue.