Farewell, Friends

Farewell, Friends
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday December 12, 2015

This column started as a happy accident. After twenty years in television, I’d resigned from the ABC to welcome baby number three. And then The West phoned, requesting a column on domestic life from the wilds of suburbia.

An old boss rang: “Are you sure?” he asked. “Every week, you’ll sit down and open up a vein for inspiration.”

He was right. I became attuned to my surroundings. I made small talk with interesting strangers. I stored away the snippets of a spat overheard at the checkout. I pushed my life outwards to absorb more. I once drove to York because the town was having a Medieval Fair and I was desperate for ideas. That became a column on manliness. Never had I seen so many grunting he-men in one paddock.

I made a rule to only write from personal experience: I hoped it would keep me authentic. I learnt that good writing needs clear thinking. I carried a notebook with me everywhere. My family and friends became used to my cries of frustration and woe. The gist of a column would float around in my head all weekend, then the column itself would arrive about four days and six drafts later.

I fretted about my deadlines. It was like standing under a windmill and being knocked down by one blade, only to scramble up to see another bearing down on me.

So this is my last column. It’s time to leave before I run dry, become stale or worse – begin to disappoint.

Over the last three-and-a-half-years, I’ve collected a wealth of stories. My great delight has been that so many of you have taken the trouble to write to me. I’ve marvelled at your insights. Back and forth we‘ve emailed, sharing crumbs of conversation and small truths until we’ve become like old pen pals who are yet to meet.

My first column traced my insecurities as I put my career on hold for toddlers. “When did we tell women who are ‘only mothers’ that their contributions are somehow less worthwhile?” I asked. One reader’s email I committed to memory: “Don’t ever confuse your life and your work,” he wrote. “The second is only part of the first.”

Your letters have made the writer’s block worthwhile. A one-liner that said: “Please get out of my head!” kept me going through a rough patch. My favourite came from 60-year-old Roger: “I read your column to understand my wife.” Underneath, his wife had written: “Are you sure you’re not living with my husband?”

Over time, I’ve discovered that the extraordinary often lies in the everyday. I’ve written about the oddities I see in suburbia and the absurdities I contend with at home. I’ve tried to make sense of the social order of things. I’ve written about old people and young people; why ageing is a privilege; why the story of loss is universal. I hope I’ve reflected the confusion we feel about being good parents, good workers, and good people. I’ve plumbed the ups and downs of relationships, using my own as a touchstone.

My husband has never once read the column before it goes to print. So I’m always nervous on Saturday mornings. I’ll study his face for amusement, boredom, or rising indignation. And then he’ll slap the magazine closed and say ‘Nice one, Blossom.’ Or shrug: ‘Not your best.’ (He likes to tell people I write fiction).

Last summer, at Bunnings, a woman berated me: “I don’t know how your husband puts up with you using your lives as constant fodder for your column.” That hurt. At 2am I was still churning. (“Hang on!” I should’ve said. “He’s the one who provides the constant fodder!”)

At times, I’ve been called a muppet, a ninny, and, since losing my licence, a public disgrace. I grew a thicker hide.

My most enjoyable subjects have been the people I’ve befriended in unusual places: the one-eared man at a train station, the leopard-printed lady at the Cat Show, the truck driver near Geraldton who freed his cargo of homing pigeons just so I could see how they clouded the sky.

But I’ve also dredged up my own traumas: the childhood emptiness of not knowing my dad, for one, and was overwhelmed by readers who wrote intimately of their own absent fathers.

I’m always trying to snatch time at my computer, sometimes at my family’s expense. Little did I imagine, back in 2012, that I would write nearly 200 columns. As a girlfriend recently pointed out: “Your writing used to be about your life, but now your life is about your writing.”

So thank you for all the stories we’ve shared. Without your loyalty, I would not have thrived on this weekly page.

To Matthew, my children Oscar, Dan and Gabriella, and to my nearly 80-year-old Mum, Joan: this summer, I’m all yours.