when i imagine my life as a movie it always ends up a five part australian mini-series from the eighties. a bunch of loosely tied together memories with burnt earth in the background. and a bit earnest.
opening memory: eating kfc at my aunts house where i stayed each year between christmas and new year and how i always got homesick. and waking up at six am to go and clean the wainui pool as my holiday job. but hello i was seven.... not so much cleaning as playing.
rewind to the first time i saw the sound of music. fast forward to how i liked grease 2 infinitely better than grease until i was like fifteen.
rewind to having my photo taken by a professional photographer (think pixiefoto) when i was about two and a half and fastforward to my brother and sister having to share their equivalent of a pixiefoto with me and how even then it was just mum and dad's friend taking a photo of us with their flashest curtains as the backdrop.
long sequence, some kind of time series of how i used to turn the tree in our backyard into a house with the base of the tree being the kitchen and the two bedrooms being the two best climbing branches.
rewind to chasing butterflies in our neighbour's garden without asking and hre telling me off.
rewind more to how krispa biscuits were the best treat in the world.
fastforward to my dad trying to get me to help him catch a mouse and how it ran over my foot to get away and how I HAVE NEVER EVER RECOVERED. and probably never will. oh well.
fastforward to being babysat by a teenager who wore black nail polish and was obviously the living end. and arranging the kylie, jason and bros posters on my bedroom wall which took a whole weekend.
rewind to how i was certain the minister at church was god cos you could still hear her in the crying room even though you couldn't hear anyone else and how she used to give me books about christ every birthday. until mum stopped going to church. which meant i only got like four of five books out of god.
anyway, today i've been at pete's gravestone unveiling. that may explain why today i've been thinking about my life movie a lot. pete's life movie was played in highlight form today. and it was pretty awesome. he features in my life movie too. with the chocolate eclairs he made for his daughters birthday parties and the paua fritters he made us whenever there was a special occassion at mum and dad's. which most recently was my sister's wedding. with how gave sloppy kisses that you were best to avoid and with his 40th birthday in wainuiomata, which was one of the highlights of my tweenage life. and with how he made me include him in the plans for my dad's 50th birthday and with how he adored my dad, which is just as well cos i adore my dad too.
anyway, it was a good day, and even though my eldest nephew literally fell in a rubbish bin head first at the cemetary and then got hyped up on triffle and chocolate custard squares i remembered how awesome it is that my family all live nearby. tomorrow at ten pin bowling though that nostalgic love could disappear....
ps: the cutest photo you ever saw is of my youngest nephew teaks on christmas day in my living room.
