Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Adjustments

(revised)

The Australian doctor probed glands on both sides of my neck.

"I keep waiting for you to say 'but,'" he said to me, fingers prodding.

"Butt?" I asked, confused, looking up at him from my seat on the chair. I wondered what my posterior had to do with this exam.

"But," he said, "as in abut...you know, like Canadians say it. I'm wondering if you're Canadian."

My accent.

"Oh," I said, relieved to not answer questions about my backside. "I'm an American, but from close to Canada. Washington State. But people from Wisconsin and Minnesota say 'abut,' too, like 'abut now I'd like to leave,'" I said, adding that sometimes it sounds like "aboot."

"Well," he said, smiling at me. "I learn something new every day."

I wanted to say that Australians have a funny accent too. As in various ways of saying "no" that sound like "noah," "noy," and "nah," but my husband's gentle jab to my thigh kept me quiet. He knows me. Or "noys" me.

While he took my blood pressure, Dr. Llewellyn asked me how I’m adjusting to the cold weather with the onset of winter in May. He also told me what he knows about cold places in America. He marveled that builders wrap blankets around concrete forms to help them set.

"Hmm," I said. "Not as cold as that where I'm from. But we do wrap homes in Tyvek." He gave me a blank look. Australians don't have Tyvek, I guess.

"I want you to have these blood tests done tomorrow and come back to see me on Thursday," he said, handing me paperwork...

..."So where are you from?" the nurse asked on the following day as she jabbed my arm with a needle to take the blood the doctor wanted. My accent again.

"America," I replied, wondering if she’d ask me the "butt" question. "Near Portland, Oregon, or about four hours south of Seattle, Washington."


"Oh," she replied distractedly as she maneuvered another vial onto the needle dispensing my life's sustenance. "Don't know where that is, but I imagine it's cold."

"Yes, it can be," I answered, looking at the dark red fluid filling yet another vial. I glanced in the bowl at the other five empty vials waiting to be filled. How much blood do they need? I've been fasting for this blood-draw, and I feel weird and shaky.

"So is it as cold there as it is here?" she asked.

"Similar," I said, "but it can get colder. It's not unusual to have snow." (Hurry up, I think)

"Wow, that's pretty cold," she said, filling the last vial. "So it doesn't bother you too much."

"Nope," I answered, putting my forefinger on the ball of cotton over the place she withdrew the needle, waiting for her to tape it in place. "I rather like it."

As I left the clinic bundled up in my warm jacket and woolen scarf, I marveled that it's mid-May here, the start of a southern-hemisphere winter. I had just returned from three weeks in America in April where it was springtime with daffodils and tulips pushing through the earth. There was a light green haze over trees forming new leaves and blossoms on flowering fruit trees. I breathed deeply of the earth-smell that is the harbinger of rich dirt ready for planting crops. The residents there are gearing up for 90-degree summer days.

But where I live now, in Scarsdale, Australia, there has been frost some mornings on the roofs of our house, garage and work shed, and covering the yard like a fine dusting of snow. When Buster, our pet parrot, is taken to his outdoor cage from inside the warm house every morning, he fluffs his feathers to trap air and keep him warm. Daytime highs are a cool 50s.

But the seasonal adjustment has been my way of life in the last 18 months since I relocated and remarried after living eight years alone as a single woman with a journalism career. Changes and adjustments not just to living with another person again, but to another country with its unique culture. Australia is not, I found, a mini-America.

There are vast differences in food, people, coffee, journalism rules, politics, and even home styles along with flora and fauna. I find the changes stimulating, but at times overwhelming. The seasons aligned with different months now have been the most difficult to get used to.


In Washington with the kind of near frigid weather currently enjoyed in an Australian May, I'd be preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving and get out Christmas decorations while warming my backside at a woodstove. I'd put out white twinkle lights to decorate the house and yard, and pray for snow for a white Christmas. But here, there is no holiday season to look forward to. Nothing to prepare for. No last minute gift shopping while hoping to get home before the roads freeze over from the rain that fell earlier. No family Thanksgiving dinner, no Christmas parties.

Winter here in Oz (as the locals call it) is quiet. No major celebrations, just settling in for the cold, making sure the wood box is full, waiting for the tourist season to start again with summer. If snow comes it will likely be in July and the locals will flock to Mount Buninyong in Ballarat with snowboards. Otherwise, they wait for surfboard weather in December.

But now I am entering my second winter here, and I find it isn’t quite the original jolt to my nesting senses. I’ll pull out my cinnamon and pine scented candles and scatter them around the house. I’ll treat my husband to an American apple pie, and invite a few friends over to share a pot of soup for a cuppa tea and a rousing game of cards. I’ll do my Christmas shopping now while I’m in the mood—without the last minute stress. And if I can find any for sale at this time of year, I’ll string up white twinkle lights on the veranda and decorate a gum tree in the yard.

And yet, there is something in common with these two hemispheres this time of year that helps me feel connected to the earth changes at “home.” The other day I came across terracotta clay pots holding buds of red and yellow tulips for planting a winter garden. And on my way home, I noticed autumn daffodils blossoming wildly in green paddocks.