When she finally used the word geometry, I confessed that I didn’t like math. I’d never liked math.
Jill lifted an eyebrow in disbelief. “Without math, how would we have art?”
She lost me on that one. I saw art as a free expression of color and shape, and as something I definitely wasn’t gifted in. Words came easier to me. Tony used to say that one-liners were my art form.
It wasn’t as if having sassy one-liners on the tip of my tongue was necessarily a gift, but for some reason as we strolled past another row of Aboriginal art, I felt compelled to think about how to make use of my own strange art.
“What does this art say to you?” Jill asked.
“I don’t know if it says anything specific. It reminds me of pottery.”
“Pottery,” Jill repeated. Obviously the comparison had never entered her mind. “What kind of pottery?”
“Navajo.”
We rounded a corner and came into a room with an umbrella-style clothesline set up against the back wall. Jill burst out laughing, but I didn’t.
From the clothesline hung a hundred papier-mâché bats, all linked to the clothesline wire with their toes, and all of them cocooned by their wings. The wings were delicately painted the same way the pictures had been with various rows of colorful dots. Each bat was different.
Or so Jill said.
I stayed far away from the clothesline bats, even though I knew they were too colorful to be real. They still spooked me. I already was fighting with my sense of being watched every time I hung our clothes outside on the line. I didn’t want to entertain even the slightest thought that a bat, decorative or real, might appear one day, hanging from the clothesline when I walked outside with a basket of laundry.
“Come on.” Jill cheerfully tugged on my sleeve. “You might enjoy some of the paintings upstairs a little more.”
We wandered through the high-ceilinged rooms, admiring what I referred to as masterpieces. Many of the huge, detailed paintings that lined the walls were originals by artists whose names I recognized like Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Victorian women these artists painted were round and fair skinned with diaphanous gowns and flowers in their flowing blond hair. They represented the idealized, romanticized woman and were everything I had grown up wishing I could be.
We strolled through more rooms where I saw a picture of a landscape with creamy-colored sheep. Jill saw a harmony of sky and earth in a sixty-forty ratio. I saw a picture of a woman darning socks. Jill saw a median line that intersected at the woman’s eyes and not her hands.
Somewhere between a dark and mystical oil of St. Francis of Assisi and a colorful rendition of the Parable of the Ten Virgins, I started to glimpse what Jill saw. What made the art beautiful wasn’t so much the subject of the painting but rather the balance of lines and color used to present the subject.
“It’s not so much what happens inside the frame,” Jill said in a final explanation of how math defines art. “But how balanced the subject is. That’s what makes the scene beautiful to our way of viewing it.”
I was enjoying the tour with my own personal art appreciation instructor, but I was slow to let Jill know how cool I thought she and her insights were. After all, she kept using math terms to make her point.
One scene of a Victorian woman bending to pick up a seashell caught our attention and caused both of us to stop and appreciate it for our own separate reasons. The image inside the round center of the gold frame was dressed in a creamy, loose-fitting dress that was accented with blue embroidery around the hem and flouncy sleeves. Her feet were covered with delicate sandals. In the distance all that could be seen was a faint peninsula that shaped the boundary of the calm bay.
“What do you see?” Jill asked.
“An elegant woman standing on a deserted beach. I love her dress and the serenity of her posture. She gives the appearance of having all the time in the world to stroll along the beach and examine shells.”
“It’s definitely a beach from this side of the world,” Jill said. “You can tell by the color of the sand, the water, and the cliffs in the background. Those are down under shades. That woman belongs there. That’s her beach. She’s not just visiting. She walks that sand daily looking for treasures.”
Apparently Jill was getting a personal message from the painting. I sat down on the wide bench in the middle of the gallery for those wanting to contemplate a painting. I chose, instead, to contemplate Jill.
“What do you see in this picture?” I asked.
Jill tilted her head.
“All the lines in the picture direct us to whatever she’s holding in her hand. And that treasure is kept hidden from our view because she hasn’t opened her hand all the way.”
Turning to face me, Jill said in clear, precise words, “I hold a treasure in my hand. But I don’t know what it is.”
“A talent, maybe? A gift? A passion for something?” I wasn’t sure I knew her well enough to guess what that hidden passion might be. However, I knew whatever it was, she was closer to discovering it now than she had been for many months. Perhaps many years. She had changed so much in the few weeks I’d known her.
We continued to gaze at the picture. I was beginning to see the lines, the symmetry, and the median angles. Those lines didn’t ruin my appreciation for the subject but rather made me aware of how right Jill was about the necessity of geometry.
Jill had said something earlier about how art is most beautiful when it’s balanced. Dark and light. Intense and subtle. I wondered if she saw the same balance in life. The heaviness she had carried the past two years was now giving way to a lightness in her spirit.
“Do you mind if we stop by the gift shop?” Jill asked, when we started to leave the museum a short time later.
I never objected to shopping. I bought a poster-sized copy of the Victorian woman on the beach while Jill bought a postcard of the same print along with a dozen postcards of the Aboriginal art.
“Do you think you might frame that?” Jill asked.
“Yes, I was thinking of hanging it over our bed. You’ve seen the picture Mr. Barry has there now. It’s a big bunch of tropical flowers. Ever since I took the obnoxious bedspread off the bed, the picture feels out of place.”
What I didn’t tell Jill and knew I would never tell Tony was that in a peculiar way I missed the old bedspread. The one I had bought on a shopping trip with Jill was similar to the one I had at home. The muted tones of the new, pale yellow bedspread would go nicely with the colors in the picture. But once I’d gotten the quieter colors on our bed, the garage seemed smaller. Duller. The bright bedspread had been the inescapable focal point of the room, but at least it gave the room a focal point. I knew that after Jill’s art lesson, I’d be sizing up our apartment with a new eye for balance and looking for “intersections of repeated colors.” I doubted that any of my decorating attempts from here on out would be easy unless I gave consideration to the importance of geometry.
“Remind me to give you a lesson in something later,” I said, as we left the gift shop.
“Okay. A lesson in what?”
“I don’t know yet. Something that will make you feel more informed yet leave you with the feeling that your life was less complex before you learned that lesson.”
“Okay,” Jill said hesitantly. “And before you decide what torturous lesson you’re going to teach me, are you in the mood for more shopping?”
“Sure. Shopping I can do painlessly.”
“Or are you hungry? Because if you want to eat, according to this map, I think we could walk to a place called Woolloomooloo and go to a place that serves pie floaters.”
“And exactly what is a pie floater?”
“It says here it’s a meat pie swimming in a bowl of pea soup.”
Jill and I exchanged grimaces.
She looked back at the tour book and added, “Served with a kangaroo tail as a spoon.”
I was only kidding about the kangaroo tail spoons.” Jill laughed
at the shocked expression on my face. “But the rest of the description is what it says right here.”
I grabbed the book out of her hand. “Do they have any recommendations for one of those cafés by the water we passed earlier? Not that I’m against meat pies swimming in pea soup or anything, but the Vegemite was enough of a stretch for my taste buds this morning.”
“Let’s walk back to the harbor and see what strikes our fancy.” Jill snatched the map back from me. “I think it’s shorter if we go this way.”
As we walked, I playfully asked, “Should I be questioning your sense of direction after the way we drove around in the rental car?”
“No. I’m much better on foot than I am behind the wheel. And before you say anything, Miss Kathy Girl, I happen to know how safe you are behind the wheel as well!”
We only made it two blocks before seeing a store with outback gear in the window.
“Wait, Jill. Skyler wanted a hat. An outback hat. Do you mind if we stop in here?”
Jill didn’t seem to mind stopping to shop anytime, anywhere.
When we first entered the store, I was distracted from looking for a hat because the first thing I saw was a case of Australian opals in a variety of jewelry settings. A pair of light blue opal earrings in a silver setting looked like something Skyler might like, even if it wasn’t something she had asked me to buy for her. I tried to figure out the price in U.S. dollars while Jill shopped for hats.
“What do you think of this one?” Jill tried on a khaki green hat that flipped up on the side and had a tie that hung far below her chin.
“It’s a little manly, don’t you think? Maybe something smaller.”
“Actually, this one is the Manly hat.” The clerk stepped closer and handed Jill a wide-brimmed hat made from neutral canvas.
“It looks like a beach hat,” I said, wondering what the joke was since my husband wouldn’t consider anything “manly” about such a hat.
“Exactly,” the clerk agreed. “A Manly Beach hat.”
We looked around at a few other items and then exited without buying anything, feeling a bit worn down from the confusing exchange.
“Have no fear,” Jill said. “I can see another shop less than a block from here. We’ll find a hat for Skyler before the sun goes down.”
We made our way back to the harbor—one gift shop at a time. I was relieved that Jill enjoyed shopping as much as I did. For me, half the fun was trying on every hat and comparing prices on all the opals. I always felt better about a purchase when I knew I’d gotten a good deal.
“Look at these little kangaroos!” Jill said, as we entered one of the gift shops near the Quay. “They even squeak! I’m buying this one with the Australian flag.”
She picked up a stuffed mama kangaroo with a joey peeping out of her pouch. “Oh, and this one has to come home with me. My granddaughter needs it.”
Between the two of us, we snatched up all nine of the little kangaroos and started trying on more hats. I’d plopped at least a dozen on my head, but all the outback ones were pretty large and heavy.
“What do you think of this hat?” Jill put on one that looked more feminine than the others.
“That’s cute. If Skyler doesn’t like it, I’d wear it.” I took the hat from Jill and tried it on.
“Sold,” I said without even looking at myself in a mirror. This was the first hat of the day that wasn’t too big for a woman-sized head.
I took the hat and stuffed kangaroos to the counter and noticed another shopper browsing by the jewelry case. She was comparing her opal necklace with a silver one on display.
“That’s very pretty.” I nodded at her necklace.
“Oh, thanks.” Her accent sounded southern. “I just bought it at the Rock. They only had gold over there. I like this silver one better. Have you been to the Rock yet?”
“No, where is that?”
“Other side of the harbor. Darling shops. And they have a flea market going on. My husband bought himself a pair of leather boots. You should go over there.”
“You called it the Rock?”
“That’s right. Isn’t that right, honey?”
Her husband stepped in and said, “It’s the Rocks, not the Rock. It’s the oldest part of Sydney, right off the harbor, where the convicts landed in colonial times. The store we liked was on Lower Fort Street.”
“Thanks. We’ll go there next.”
Leaving the store with Skyler’s girlish outback hat and a bagful of kangaroos, we hailed a cab and asked to be taken to the Rocks. We were still in a shopping mood, and time was of the essence. When we reached Lower Fort Street, we did a little opal jewelry browsing before making our way down the uneven brick streets to the Saturday market.
The brick buildings around us seemed to hold in their secrets of rowdier times in this square. Today, artisans—not Great Britain’s undesirables—filled the Rocks.
I bought a Christmas ornament at the first stall we passed and paused to try some organic hand lotion. The woman who created the lotion showed me her line of soaps, shampoos, and bath oils.
“Step away from the bubble bath.” Jill teased, as she came up from behind and pretended to be on patrol. “You know what happened the last time you had several bottles within reach. Just put down the bath oil, and nobody gets hurt.”
I chortled and said I was sampling the lotion. I held out my hand for Jill to sniff the sweet fragrance.
“Nice. Plumeria,” Jill said.
“We call it frangipani,” said the clerk.
“We’d like two bottles,” I told the woman.
“I should get one, too,” Jill said.
“No, that’s why I’m buying two. One is for you.”
Jill put her wallet back in her purse and gave me a tender look. “Thank you, Kathy.”
“You’re welcome.”
Jill looked as if it had been a long time since anyone had surprised her with a little gift.
We headed toward another stall where a man was playing what the sign called a didjeridoo. He blew into the end of a long, hollow tube, and the vibrating sound that came from the primitive instrument filled the area with a rounded sort of hum.
As we watched him play, we noticed three women who had to be at least our age, dressed like underwater ballet swimmers but with some comic twists. They wore brightly-colored swim caps that had plastic flowers attached to their sides, orange swimmer’s goggles, one-piece bathing suits in matching blue with yellow and pink polka dots, matching blue tights on their legs, and pink jelly sandals. Their waists were decked out with inflatable kiddy inner tubes that had yellow duckies on the blue circles. The women’s arms were adorned with blown-up, bright yellow floaties.
One woman had a snorkel in her mouth and was making exaggerated gurgling noises. The other two women were calling out the strokes, “And one, two, turn to the side, three, arms up, and four.”
Jill and I, along with a dozen others, stopped to stare at the bizarre street theater company. The three women, in perfectly synchronized motions, treated the open air as their practice swimming pool and moved through the crowd performing their routine as smoothly as any dance ensemble. Trailing behind them was another woman in a gray shark costume, blowing bubbles through the shark’s wide-open mouth. They were having a ball.
Jill and I laughed even though none of the other spectators seemed to know how to react.
“Chilly, this water today, don’t you think, girls?” one of the swimmers said.
“Brisk!” said the other.
“Gurffple!” said the one with the snorkel.
“Lovely day, no less. Again, ladies, from the top. Push to the surface and down …”
Off they went. Arms up, then bending at the waist, all in unison.
The gathering of curious viewers was now laughing with Jill and me. “Well, that’s one way to get your exercise!” a woman said.
“Where do we sign up?” Jill asked me, as we watched the blue-legged ballerinas waddle and wiggle a
way from us. “That was daring and darling. I loved it!”
“Should we see about starting up our own routine and try it out in front of the Chocolate Fish?” I asked.
“I’m sure Tracey would be all for it.”
“Come on, Jill! You could put those old cheerleading skills back into use.”
“Thanks for the encouragement, but I don’t think out-of-water ballet is the hidden treasure I hold in my hand.”
We chuckled and continued our trek through the open market. We could still feel the low vibrations of the didjeridoo instrument, as it released more vibrating sounds into the air and into the earth beneath our feet.
This is a strange and wonderful place.
That same thought repeated itself throughout the afternoon. We bought a variety of fun souvenirs at the outdoor market, including a boomerang and a wooden bowl made from the burl of an aged eucalyptus tree. Jill wanted the bowl for her coffee table and was enthralled with the various lines and squiggles that showed through the sides of the polished wood. Her appreciation for the symmetry of the lines didn’t bother me so much anymore. I wondered if I was beginning to make peace with math.
We found great prices on opal jewelry, and I splurged on a blue opal necklace with matching earrings for myself. The shade of blue in the stones reminded me of the blue sky over Christchurch and the inviting blue of the water in front of the Chocolate Fish. I knew that whenever I looked at the necklace, it would make me feel happy.
By four-thirty we were more than ready for something to eat and were thrilled to find an outdoor café right on the harbor that had a table open for us next to the water. Our prime seats gave us a perfect view of the bridge the Opera House, and the ferries that came and went at a quick pace from the Quay.
“This couldn’t be better!” Jill motioned to the panorama before us. “What a beautiful afternoon; the air is so warm and nice. We’ll have to take a ferry ride tomorrow.”
I took a drink of my iced tea. “I just thought of something. We aren’t exactly dressed for the opera, and I don’t think we’ll have enough time to go back to the hotel to change.”
Sisterchicks Down Under Page 13
