This blog article is a collaboration with Nicole Douglas nee Carruthers, an amazing writer in her own right, and 2019 winner of the Western Australia-wide Armadale Writer’s Award for her short story “The Mushroom”.
When I finally got around to reading a rough draft of her story several months ago, I’d never been so impressed, and told her she needed to publish it, although I’m not sure she remembers through all the new baby haze. She captures everyday rural emotion so brilliantly. She wishes she could write funny like me, but I would kill to capture the nuances of emotions and gestures like she does. She can write a paragraph about a single moment and it’s beautiful. I’m a little jealous, but not at all surprised. I remember her telling me this story when we first became friends a decade ago! And I love the piece it was finally developed into.
You can read her story here.
It seems fitting that I should be writing this with Sara-Jane. Our friendship has been built on our shared love of words; reading them, writing them and of course speaking them at a million miles an hour. The first night I met Sara-Jane, I lent her a book and we’ve stayed in contact through letters. For my wedding Sara wrote me a book. Just for me. My book – though I am sure that she would argue that it was her book for me. I think that defines our story. That, and I was grateful to find someone who could talk faster, longer, and louder than me. I never thought it possible.
She lies. It’s not that hard to. I’ve always thought her quite kind, quiet and thoughtful, in the literal sense. But I like summing up our friendship this way. I met her in Australia. She visited me here, in Canada. I flew halfway around the world when she got married; she brought her husband back when I got married. Now she has two kids, so it’s my turn. And then after that I think the friendship ends because we have no kids at all? But I jest. I send her photos of our five guinea pigs, which she has only the slightest amount of interest in, and she sends me photos of her cat, to which I feel the same amount of indifference.
Oh and that book I made her? A spoof Victorian etiquette instruction manual for being married correctly called Persnickety. I deserve any shade sent my way.
But the road hasn’t been easy. You see, our shared love of words has not always equated to a shared understanding of them. The one thing we figured very early on in our friendship was that even though we spoke the same language, well, apparently we didn’t.
I met Nicole in a study group while I was on exchange at Curtin University in Western Australia. I think I pretty much just asked her to be friends. I’m not sure if at this point I was still asking people to go for tea, not knowing it meant dinner. But I may have asked her to go for tea, and not meant dinner.
We started hanging out and when she mentioned she lived out in the country I asked if I could go back with her for a week. Sorry, Nicole, I realise now that I basically invited myself over to your parents’ house for seven days. But in my defence, Katanning sounded really cool. And when I travelled back to Canada, we did stay in touch through letters.
It began with a text. When I asked to catch up in the afternoon. Or at least, I thought I had. But apparently arvo is not a universal abbreviation. Nor is any Australian abbreviation universal, apparently. I can still remember Sara-Jane’s rant after I asked her to pass my sunnies. She had no idea what they were, and when I repeated the phrase by asking for my sun-glasses she let loose all her pent-up frustration.
She couldn’t understand the Australian habit of shortening everything. For example: ‘bathing suit’ becomes ‘bathers’, ‘barbecue’ becomes ‘barbie’, the bottle shop is the Bottle-O and Benjamin becomes Ben. But if that seems simple, it isn’t. Because Australians love to shorten words, except when we lengthen them. So while David becomes Dave, Matt becomes Matty and Ben becomes Benno. Yes, I know Benjamin becomes Ben but if you’re name is actually Ben it’s Benno. Those are the rules. Kind of.
I spent a half hour in a shop in Fre-o (Fremantle, the port outside Perth, WA), and had a great conversation about ordering genuine Aussie made articles, such as kangaroo skins, akubras, and Ugg Boots. After letting the clerk go on for a while about how to order the genuine article, I finally stopped her and said, that’s great and all but I’m never going to order any Ugg Boots, I’m sorry but, and I started whispering, I just really think they’re so ugly. Her reply, you do know how we shorten words in Australia, right?
And bathers. This one bothered me for a while. Can ‘bathers’ really be a real word that you can even use in an essay? Surely it changes to bathing suit in anything important. Several years later I came across something that pointed out that ‘movies’ is a real word and we never really say ‘moving pictures,’ much, that is. And I’m okay about it now. Kind of. Maybe. If I don’t think about too much, late at night. While I’m trying to sleep…
We also have strange names for towns. Kojonup, Gnowangerup, Narrogin and Katanning. All Australians will know that Kojonup can be Koji but Narrogin can’t be Narrow. Gnowanger stays No-ang-ger-up and Katanning becomes Ka. As in kay-ay. Got it? If not, then the source Sara-Jane’s frustration should be becoming apparent.
What I find funny is seeing a sign saying ‘Warburton 898 km’. And there’s nothing in-between! I had to explain that in order to just drive from St.Catharines to Toronto to pick her up from the airport, I’d drive through parts of nine different towns and cities, and that’s only about 100km from here.
But, like all friendships it’s a two way street. And Canadians don’t get off entirely scott free. The two times I visited Canada, food-shopping was a trialing event. Your ketchup is our tomato sauce. Your cider is our cloudy apple juice. Your shrimp are our prawns, so you will never hear an Aussie say “Put another shrimp on the barbie!”. Your peppers are our capsicums. Your squashes are our pumpkins. And I never figured out the equivalent of our squash. It’s hard to find out the name of something, when you don’t know the name!
Say what? I believe you, but you lost me.
But I remember us going through the subway station and me explaining the money. Okay so five cents is a nickel because its made of nickel, and ten cents is a dime because the prefix di or whatever, in latin means tenth, and it’s a tenth of a dollar, and then you have a quarter, because it’s a quarter of a dollar, and then a dollar is a loonie because there’s a loon on it, and then two dollars is a toonie because… and then I realized how much of an idiot I sounded like, and just counted out her damn change, and dropped it in the subway ticket collection box.
There are other differences too. I discovered that “How are you doing?” and “How are you going?” are NOT interchangeable phrases. Your pick-up trucks are our utes (though admittedly yours dwarf ours a little bit!). Discovering this made me rethink all my visions of Twilight (sorry Sara, I was young, what can I say?). For years I had seen Bella driving around in a small truck – think a removalist truck. I really couldn’t understand why her father had purchased her one of these!
Sometimes I ask people here how they are going, just to see the look of confusion on their faces.
But to make matters worse, even in Australia we seem to speak a different language depending on what side of the country you live on. I mentioned bathers earlier – the bathing suit for any Canadians. But apparently, if you live in the eastern states these are called togs. That’s right. Togs. Don’t ask me why, I live on the West Coast. But most people from the Eastern states would be unimpressed with our word for flip-flops. If anyone doesn’t know, ask Sara-Jane. Because once again, it means something completely different for Canadians, and I’m not sharing!!!
I am. People in Australian wear “thongs” in the summer, not flip-flops. Maybe because they go up your toe-crack? Yes, I had to go there. But what I also found funny was “jumpers”, I couldn’t figure out why everyone would be referring to wearing cute little overall dresses that girls usually stop wearing by ten. I loved wearing jumpers as a kid. Sweaters. Jumpers are sweaters. Pullover sweaters, not cardigans. Nicole, what are cardigans?
With all this confusion, it seems impossible that Sara-Jane and I are still on speaking terms. When the very words we use to communicate often don’t communicate the meanings we want. And yet, somehow, despite all this our friendship remains. Perhaps our love of words means we enjoy the challenge of having their meanings challenged and broadened. Perhaps our love for books and reading has conquered all. Or perhaps, despite our inability to say what we actually mean we understand each other. A friendship based on words. Kindred spirits. Go figure.
I sent her the entire Anne of Green Gables series in a package, so she definitely knows what kindred spirits are. Those are definitely universal.
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