She'll be apples

As our wee Feisty rolls in the swell, my rugrats are behind me bickering in the bow. I'm propped up at the galley table (which by night performs double function as my bed), pondering this post. It's the last night of our week-long Feisty tour of Wallis Lake; we trailered the boat up here last week and put in at a secret boat ramp in the far reaches of the Coolongolook River. We've spent the last few days moseying around the tributaries and lake and arguing about the risk of rigging more sail, or the advantages of this anchoring versus the mooring. I'll post some photo's for your viewing pleasure, but bear in mind they belie the moments of stress and tense debate as Captain Dad and I negotiate the balance between thrill and caution. I can't count how many times I've been on the bow getting ready to drop the anchor and calling the most helpful instructions back to Captain Dad who responds with,

"I can't hear you! I'm by the motor!" 

If you imagine that repeated ten times over for each anchorage we made, then you may glean an image of our reality. So often, we'll reconnect, once everything is settled and he'll say, 

"You pulled that anchor up faster than I anticipated."

And I'll say,

"I called out to you that I was pulling it up. I wasn't going fast!"

And we'll both sigh with emphasis and look to huffily stalk away from each other, only to realise that we have a living space of three square metres. 

And I come back to the eternal question of how to be an effective communicator. How to be someone who conveys her message thoroughly and who is receptive and responsive to others feedback. I suppose moving closer to Captain Dad while he's motoring our boat would be a good first step. I recall a long ago summer evening, by a Palm Springs pool, when a courting Shea asked me what I thought the secret to a successful relationship was. I remember being taken aback as I'd never even considered it. When I turned the question back on him he succinctly replied, Communication. 

Since then, we've worked on the skill with varying degree's of success. I remember getting an inkling of the difference in how our home cultures communicated before the Copper River rafting trip. We had a pre-trip meeting, pulling together the three men and three women who would be the adult component of the expedition. Before we'd even downed the first glass of wine for the evening, our dear friend Jaret cleared his throat and asked for our attention. We should, he explained, all begin the meeting with a sharing of our expectations and feelings, our apprehensions about the forthcoming trip. As I glanced around in disbelief, I saw the two other men, sagely nodding their agreement, I reflected that these were no Australian men. Speaking of our feelings? In advance of something that hadn't even yet happened? Canadians, it seems, communicate quite differently to Australians.

In the land down under, it is now Mountain Dad who is struggling to get his head around the subtle differences in the ways we interact.

"I think it means they like me, when they make fun of me," he pondered the other night after his soccer match. It's been his soccer team that has taught him the most about Australian discourse. Each Friday night, this group of over 35's men meet to belt the ball around and practice a form of communication that leaves Mountain Dad floundering. He brought it up with a couple of them while on a car ride to an away game and was tutored that what you need to worry about, is if mates aren't piling shit on you. Then you know that something is wrong. You certainly don't tell a mate that they're doing well or that you're proud of them. The closest you may get is to mention it to someone else within the hearing of the aforementioned mate. 

"For example," they said, "Matt is doing really well this season. He's really grown his skill. But we'd never tell him that to his face."

For those of you who know Mountain Dad well, you won't be hard pressed to imagine how utterly aghast he was on hearing this. He marched right up to Matt when they got to the match and shared the praise about him that he'd learned during the car ride. There followed an uncomfortable silence before Matt muttered,

"Ah geez...I'm feeling kinda awkward..."

That silence was nothing in comparison to the thick silence that blanketed the change room on the night that Mountain Dad said his farewell speech. Due to our Feisty trip, he'd be missing the final team game and so, on the last that he played, he took the opportunity to tell the team as a whole how much he had enjoyed the season. How he'd really loved getting to know them all and was thankful for the opportunity to have met such a great group of guys... 

Deafening silence. 

Then another chap piped up as it was also his last game;

"Fuck ya's all!" 

And the room erupted in cheers and guffaws...

Mountain Dad is still pondering the situation all these days later; the way that Australian men communicate. Or don't communicate, as the case may be. He's trying to figure out this Australian language of bro-love, yet determined to sensitize them, one soccer season at a time. 

In strange echoes of Shea's bamboozlement, the Mountain Kids have come home sprouting a new language; 'tips', is the game of tag. Texta's are markers. Torches are flashlights. Dunny is the bathroom. 

As their vocabulary expands, we also notice subtleties of accent slipping in, most noticeably with Little Laide who is more cognisant of being different. 

"The ca-h is ov-ah thair," she'll pronounce to our mirth. 

For me, it is a touching experience to observe my crew observing the local differences and how they each respond to the change. It makes me reflect on all the glorious facets of Canadian life that we are missing out on, and the funny warmth of Australian life that we are learning. It's a strange feeling to be the one who doesn't have an accent, to no longer be a person of interest to a room full of rowdy teenagers due to my Australian-ness. I'm having to work a lot harder to build conversation with those aloof kids, struggling to find something we can chat about. 

Maybe I can tell them about this latest trip on Feisty? About how we were the only sailboat on a lake a-buzz with motor boats. About how we once moved the oat at 4am because the wind had swung and our formerly calm bay was awash with swell. Or perhaps I'll share with them my absolute love of being in a very small space with my three dear ones? That when the distractions of school and jobs and chores is momentarily shelved, we delve into each other with an odd mix of joy and irritation. The language of family, I might suggest, is a universal thing. 

At the end of September, when we're in the Yukon we say that it is the birthday of ol' Lox, "when the leaves turn brown." We had no brown leaves but lush spring greeness to welcome his 7th year.

We celebrated with a tug-boat cake, not half as delicious as those his Canadian Grandma makes, but slathered in teeth-rottingly sweet icing to disguise the fact. We had a covid-safe birthday party which included a treasure hunt and 'paint-smash' game. Mountain Dad just cleaned the acrylic paint from our car windows and suggested we don't dry kids paintings on it again.