Eight

With eight days left of Blogtober, after today, I thought it might be nice to celebrate the number eight. This wonderful number that if you tip it on its side, it turns into the infinity symbol. The number without a start or finish, just a constant weaving line, feeding in and out of itself. Eight. Standing upright it looks like an hour glass. Or two tear drops meeting in the middle. One forming from the other. The beautiful and elegant number. Eight.

I am pretty sure it was in my eighth year, the year leading up to me turning eight (because remember, we start our lives at zero, so by the time we reach our birthday our age is the year we have just finished, it acknowledges and celebrates the year we have just lived through). I am pretty sure it was that year that we had our famous family holiday. Our first caravan trip as a family, and our last. We travelled in the emerald green Holden Premier, with its glittering paint, three kids in the back, one in the front sitting between the driver and the front passenger, between mum and dad, sitting on a pillow on the centre console, the driver’s armrest. We were towing a brand new, large six-berth 1978 Franklin from the middle of Victoria to the capital city of Australia, Canberra, at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory and beyond. We were all very excited, but I must say, it didn’t start too well. Our first rest stop we set up in a park for lunch and I had an argument with my parents. I got in trouble for refusing to eat Spam, that canned cooked pork, which looks scarily similar to canned dog food. There was no way I was eating that. My nose turned at the smell as the can was opened, and then my stomach turned. With tears I sulked, drinking a milkshake in the car, which I then proceeded to spill everywhere (I am not sure how) and so we had the sour smell of milk accompany us for the rest of our trip. Did I mention, it was the middle of a very hot summer?

The joy of the holiday did not end there. The peak was probably at Taree. A town on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. A beautiful historical town. We had been at the caravan park for a couple of days from memory. Had settled in really well. My older brother, sister and I were all playing on the playground, particularly this enormous slide they had. It was one of those old metal ones which would get super hot in the sun. It was fairly much the only thing in the playground, or the only thing I remember. And from memory, I think it was bolted into either a concrete base or some kind of hard sandy dirt. There was no shade cloth and the sun was beating down on us. A helicopter was going over us, and my brother, sister and I were playing some version of M.A.S.H, inspired by the TV show. We were at war, the helicopter was the enemy, we had to go down the slide as fast as we could and run. Hide under the slide. I went down on my knees. I hit the joint in the slide, at the midpoint, where two bits of metal were welded together. And over I went. Off the side of the slide. Hit the ground, broke my wrist (although we didn’t know that at the time). My brother and sister tried desperately to calm me down, and fix the situation with the bribery of an icy-pole or ice cream from the caravan park shop. When that didn’t work they took me to mum and dad, and I lay on their double bed in the stinking hot caravan in pain until they realised it was serious and took me off to the hospital where I walked out of emergency a couple of hours later sporting a plaster cast right up to my elbow. All swimming for the rest of the holiday for me was off. The one thing I loved to do more than anything else in life at that age was to swim. I was in the pool for hours, had to be dragged out. Loved the feeling of swimming underwater, the world buffered by the pool water which muffled the sounds above. I loved swimming deep down and looking back up at the distorted shapes of the world outside the pool. The people and trees bending and moving in impossible ways, their shapes transformed through the water’s movement and the sunlight. With my plaster cast I was relegated to the baby pool with my younger sister. I walked that pool kicking angrily at the shallow water which barely reached my ankles. A scowl on my face for the rest of the trip.

Turning eight was also significant at school. Because in my eighth year I would transfer to the ‘big room’. Our small country town primary school was basically a two room portable with a small corridor for our bags. On one side was the room for prep, grade one and two. On the other side was the big room, the room for grade three up to grade six. I would turn eight in the big room. I couldn’t wait. Although when I got there, I realised it wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be. There was a real focus on writing neatly, something which just did not come naturally to me (and still doesn’t). My handwriting wasn’t sufficiently legible and it was a focus of criticism from the moment I walked into that room, until the time I left a year later, when I was sent off to a bigger school, closer to the centre of town. A new school, where I would make new friends and new memories to carry in my heart through high school, university and life. Memories of camps, plays, sleep overs, rounders on the sports court, folk dancing, lunch orders and monkey bars, and the pure joy of being young and carefree.

Eight. The first number which is neither prime or semi-prime. Eight. The number of the parts there are in speech. In the English language. Eight. The number of sides on an octagon. Eight. The atomic number of oxygen. Eight. One of the magic numbers of physics. Eight. The number of legs a spider has. Eight. The number of abundance. Eight. The Buddha’s birthday. Eight. A musical octave. Eight. A memorable holiday, a broken wrist, learning to write with my other hand, graduating to the big room. Eight. A year of growing up. Eight. A constant flow of energy. Eight. The number of the hour glass, of time passing. Eight. A magical number indeed.