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I sometimes think about moths as I daydream not because of some dull symbolism of transformation but because their lives end by trickery. They live by moonlight and are attracted to the white flowers that bloom at night. Moths are moon chasers, and they lived before artificial light turned night into day and turned their lives into a struggle to find a safe place to stretch their delicate wings on soft petals to pollinate. These days they throw themselves into the the glaring abyss of man-made moons that offer no comfort, but hard hot gleaming glass and their confused selves don’t know the difference and they die, twisted remnants of what could have been but nobody really thinks twice about them.

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More unfinished paintings - in fact all my paintings are

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(Robertson-Swann 1980)

860 words

Yellow Peril

There has always been something about yellow that resonates with me. It was the colour in the box of crayons that I’d pick first and mum would say, “lots of yellow Karen.” I can remember the first new car my Dad bought, it was a Datsun 200B. He wanted the blue at first, but the salesman said he’d have to wait a few weeks but the yellow was available immediately, so Dad bought it. Dad loved that car, though people would say “but it’s yellow!” (Robertson 2024). In the late 70s a yellow car was an odd choice for a man in a society where real men smoked a packet a day and drove Holdens or Fords and Japanese Cars still smelt of war crimes. Melbourne was however heading into the 80s and a piece of public art as bright as morning sun glared into the greyness and dared us to change. (Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 2021)

Back then Melbourne was a place that you travelled to for work by train, and at the end of the day, travelled back home by train. This was a time when Spencer St station had beige coloured tiles punctuated by the occasional DO NOT SPIT tile which as a child had me watching for spitters, though I never saw one. Bag ladies would wander through with shopping trolleys bursting with belongings and as I grew older, I realised they weren’t going to catch a train. People spent their lives rushing for trains, looking at their watches and running to opposite platforms in the hope of saving 5 minutes. At East Richmond station there was a large graffiti that said, HA HA HURRY YOUR LATE and as I gazed from the carriage I wondered if other people somewhere, were having more fun.

(Brown 2018)

Melbourne was drab, lots of grey buildings, lots of grey suits and men raised not to know any better would spend their working lives oblivious to the asbestos in the walls and the ashtrays full of dying butts on their desks. Fumes from photocopying machines would fill the air and windows were for lighting not breathing. After the workers disappeared the city was a barren landscape, and you could wander without seeing a soul and ponder the nature of existence whilst staring into empty streets. As a teenager the only thing to do was to see a new movie at Hoyt’s Mid City cinema, stare at boys in the foyer and gorge ourselves at the newly opened Pancake Parlour. I can remember my parents taking us to an art film and watching people walking out and a man yelling “pseudo artistic bullshit.” Art was flowing landscapes in muted colours that offended no one and idealised our country life as somehow similar to England, even though we all knew there was lies hidden in those sweeping plains. We were surrounded by statues of English gentry on horseback in frozen gallops leaping from the entrances of civic buildings in various shades of grey.

So what is it about yellow? In nature yellow stripes on the backs of bees signal a warning to us not to touch. Yellow flowers make us think of young love sitting in a meadow. Yellow is a symbol of joy and energy, it’s the colour I’d rather be, a person who doesn’t notice the grey, or at least not so much of it. Melbourne CBD in the 1970s was a workplace and the working class worked. There was little time for frivolity, and colour, especially dour colours, symbolised an unconscious oppression and a regimented workplace. There was nothing but the chill of a never ending winter of conformity. So they put the yellow sculpture in the heart of the city and our hearts moaned with an existential rage so fierce it revealed how effective our imprisonment to the workplace had become (museumoflost 2023). We circled the sculpture like an angry mob of mindless subjects imprisoned in homes with beige painted walls and houses with cream brick veneer and architecture whose invisibility was so comforting we could walk past without a glance. Sunday church was full of warnings about Yoga and the Devil, resisting dog ownership and our responsibility to pay the Tithe which had priests bellowing from the pulpits with an enthusiasm that made their eyes pop and their cheeks burst and Dad would tell us, “I think he’s been tucking into the blood of Christ again”. Yellow made our souls stir, it was that colour I picked from my crayon box that was fun and childish. It was my fathers yellow 200B (a Jap car) that was thumbing its nose at the men who drove the Fords and Holdens as dad waited at the lights and took off with his automatic transmission whilst the ‘He Men’ strained over their clunking gears. It was going to the National Gallery for the Picasso Exhibition to see the Weeping Woman and hearing my Nana wearing an old dead fox on her shoulders and batwing glasses say, “I like the frame.” It was teenagers playing electric guitar at the school eisteddfod and watching parents lead their children out in outrage. Yellow reminds us of something seen but not remembered. (Coleman 2019)

Author’s note

My story is about the way a public sculpture was received by Victorians when it was revealed in the 1980s. Vault was dubbed “Yellow Peril” by the media, and it has been known by this since the early days. It was removed to a more suitable location away from the City Square because it was viewed as unsuitable i.e. it was unpopular / hated. This name calling suggests how xenophobic society was in the 1970s and early 80s. I’ve used the sculpture and its colour as a memory cue, an attempt to take the reader back to my life as a teenager.

REFERENCES

Australian centre for Contemporary Art, (2021). Vault,

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/vault-aka-the-yellow-peril

Brown, L. (2018). ‘Do not spit' signs at Flinders St Station to survive $100 million new-millennium makeover. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-20/do-not-spit-signs-to-stay-at-flinders-st-station/9461510

Coleman, C. (2019). Boodjar ngan djoorla: Country, my bones. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.186316784427328

Robertson, R. (2024). PWP210 Narrative Nonfiction - PWP210 (OpenUnis SP 1)

Curtin OUA / Writing about art (week 3)

https://www.open.edu.au/

Robertson- Swann, R. (1980). Vault . Painted Steel Dimensions (H x W x D)

615 x 1184 x 1003 cm. Reproduced from https://citycollection.melbourne.vic.gov.au/vault/

The museum of lost things. (2024). The Great Vault Sculpture Controversy, https://www.museumoflost.com/the-great-vault-sculpture-controversy/

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My unfinished latest painting. It’s pretty rough it’s a painted over canvas .

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TRAVELLING AT 80 FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A GRUMPY INSOMNIAC

“The world is a book and he who does not travel only reads one page.” (St Augustine, 340 – 370). A philosopher in the Middle Ages whose words capture the imagined joys of travel. For those of us who find such joy fleeting, travel can conjure a vision of hell. I am a delicate flower, whom as the years have crept up my limbs, finds sleep elusive unless I slumber in familiar surroundings. Lumpy beds, hard pillows, the droning hum of 24-hour traffic, the single distant fly buzzing on left out takeaway, the breathing of others whilst I lay awake, ensure that when I come back from a holiday, I look like I need one. Typically, I will catch some vile bug that more robust types shake off and when I look back at what should be happy snaps with friends, I see a pale, puffy face, and a forced grin.

I am puzzled by the fervour to holiday, but I am also a little envious of those who come back smiling with tales of adventures I can no longer manage. Vera and Louise are from my country town and at 80 are still exploring overseas escapades with enthusiasm. This may be a tale told by a grumpy insomniac, but I am willing to suspend my prejudices momentarily in the knowledge that learning of others’ adventures broadens my own.

Though I had trepidations about interviewing these 2 women because my experience of travel at 60 usually causes me to wander around in a dressing gown for 2 weeks on returning home, I consoled myself with positive affirmations such as, not everyone is like me etc. I gave them a few days grace before contacting them about our arrangements. I sensed the deadline looming and was feeling that nervous tension that occurs with uncertainty and of course my premonition was correct, they cancelled. A week passed and an inner panic was building and my untidy dwelling which disobeyed every law of Feng Shui didn’t help but like all amateur writers I ruminated on writing an interview about not getting an interview in the style of Gay Talese. (Talese ,1966).

During those anxious days I sought out research and I came across a blog on Seniors travel by Alison Armstrong. (Armstrong, 2024). At 68 she had rediscovered her joy for skiing despite arthritis and a hip replacement. Stories of people who can do everything as their age advances are a blight, that much like Instagram influencers should be read with a healthy scepticism and of course they never mention the health insurance. Alison’s blog sees her running at the beach in swimwear that denotes a youthful enthusiasm which most 68-year-olds would find a tad far fetched, but of course this is what advertising is all about: possibilities, not negative Nancy's (or Karen’s) whose trips to the beach are restricted to the couch and ads for Home and Away .

Thoughtful dithering led me to ring a Senior’s magazine, and I told the receptionist about my situation, and I was granted a 15-minute interview. This talkative, friendly lady was also a Tour Escort and as a 60-year-old herself was clued up about the Travel Biz. Data on travel at an advanced age is sparse and much of the statistics available register anyone who is over 65 in an inclusive bracket. Unsurprisingly, the primary determinant influencing travel is not age but income. (Lung, 2017). Of course, income denotes comfort and the rich don’t backpack. I think momentarily about travel without limitations and have every worry catered to. For a few moments I’m Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. (Wyler, 1953).

I ask Anna (not her real name).

“Are a lot of people travelling these days after 80?”

“Oh yes” she replies but she does talk about the differing abilities of the aged.

“I had a lovely, lovely lady in her early 70s who had no use of her quad muscles and had to find a ramp everywhere and that made it extremely difficult” but adds “I had a 95-year-old man who was incredibly spritely and got involved in all the activities. It really depends on your own physical fitness.”

She said coach tours and cruise ships were notorious for their contagious abilities.

“You might have someone on a plane that’s sniffing and coughing, and it goes around like crazy.”

I mention briefly that I find it difficult to sleep on holidays.

She answers, “you have to pick your tour.”

My mind wanders briefly into possible internet searches: Tips for travelling as an insomniac. Group travels with insomniacs, Zombie travel guide etc.

Anna continues, “There are unpredictable things that can be dangerous for elderly people and a cobbled street in an unfamiliar environment can cause falls. Foot placement in your 80s is something to consider.” She recalls “I had one lady who stepped off the kerb in NewYork and broke her ankle.”

A passing thought that I wish to express of I couldn’t think of anything worse is overridden by Anna’s breathless monologue and she declares, “a positive mindset is a must” and I’m pleased I didn’t interject.

“One fellow, we were sitting out on the deck one night and we all had cocktails in our hands, and he said to me, Anne I wouldn’t be dead for quids.” Anna emphasises, “it’s the little things that bring joy.”

After interviewing Anna I conclude that travelling at an advanced age is about fitness, luck, and mindset. I am hardly off the phone when I get a message from one of my cancelled ladies saying she would help me out. I feel immediate relief and Gay Talese is relegated to a comforting distance. The following day I get my phone call with the sickly lady (Vera not her real name) from my suburb whose first words are, “you’ll have to put up with me I’m still on Cambodia time.”

I ask, “oh yes how is the jet lag?”

She replies “I feel dreadful, I dare say it’s due to my age. Just worn out basically because of the heat.”

What was the temperature? I ask.

“It was 38 degrees (Celsius) and 98% humidity it was humongous. My head, I wore a hat and my whole body felt like it was burning. I didn’t realise till I got home how burnt I was. After a tour we’d go back to the air-conditioned room and lie on the bed and after half an hour I’d still feel hot.” She replies.

I must say I was a little relieved at her frankness and I find myself placing my hand on my heart in sympathetic hypochondria. Having visited Vietnam in my younger days it was a test which requires some stamina and heat has a habit of sucking the joy from the happiest of travellers.

I ask, “what was the age group you travelled with? Did they make any accomodations for your age?

“Everyone was over 60, I found it rather surprising that the accommodation was Five Star, but I found in the showers there were no rails, nowhere to hang towels it wasn't good for people around our age.” She answers, her voicing lilting slightly with mild irritation.

I ask, “How is your travelling companion doing?”

“We noticed a few days before we got home that a lot of us had sore throats which affected her ear’s because she was already partially deaf, we were just exhausted, and I've got a sore mouth from sunburn.” She replies.

Here I have two differing views on Travel as we age, one from a Seniors Magazine and one from an 83-year-old. I tend to agree with the latter. I’m glad Vera survived, which is a measure of success for an elderly traveller but picking a Holiday which doesn’t involve sweating would be a must for fragile types like me.

You won’t meet me on your next holiday.