Rambling memories part 3: Moon Safari

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyGF4pvTwW4_GYk3jSZy4IGXT7hW1PkdB

Douglas has music on constantly. He also has slight hearing loss, so I had to make him put his phone underneath the pillow each night because the music playing from it was too loud for me to sleep. I have long since lost count of how many nights I feel asleep to Moon Safari. Air are really a band for all occasions. They do dinner parties, relaxing, dance, sex … although these days, they are so strongly associated with happy times with Douglas, they also make me cry.

In his early 20s, Douglas had long red hair. I have a massive thing for men with long red hair. Did you know that only 1.5% of the population have red hair? Then half that for the number of men, then think about how many men have long hair … ok, it’s a specialist field. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t know Douglas then. He and Natasha moved into Natimuk at pretty much the same time Jason and I did. Douglas’s hair was still long, but he wasn’t dying it anymore. Does dyed red hair count? I never got the chance to find out anyway. That was 20 years ago.

Natimuk being Natimuk, we went climbing, we socialised and Douglas and Natasha demonstrated some fine outfits. I should add a nudity warning here. There may be a bit of Douglas flesh in these photos. Of course, Douglas being Douglas, you’ve probably seen it all before. If it wasn’t some skimpy costume, skinny dipping or life modelling, you may have caught a glimpse of the time he and Natasha road the tandem naked to the fire dam for a swim.

Douglas followed me up the delightful Power without Glory once. That’s the squeeze chimney, off width roof thing with a skull and crossbones on it at Black Ian’s. Despite that experience, he still fell in love with me 10 or so years later. Maybe that’s how long it takes to forget what you are getting yourself in for.

Thus at some point in time, we found ourselves on a climbing trip to Flinders Island.  It was very impromptu. Douglas rang me from the island to talk me into flying down in 2 days’ time. And who am I to say no to random adventures? It turned out to be a rare week of idyllic weather in Bass Straight, and well, what do you expect to happen between 2 people skinny dipping on stunning isolated beaches in between dying of terror on rarely repeated routes of mediocre gear and friable rock? Or maybe Douglas was overcome by the undeniable attraction of a future filled with thrutching.

So we went as friends and returned as lovers.  But it wasn’t until a month or 2 later, when I came home to find Douglas washing my dishes attired only in my 1950s style frilly apron that I decided I really was in love with him. Fortunately for you all, I don’t have a photo of that outfit. But I did find this one to fill in the gap. I mean, you can see how irresistible he could be …. Ok , again, I have specialist tastes.

Somewhere in those heady early days, I left a pair of shoes at the top of a route at Barbican Wall. I warned Douglas that it was worst rock you’d ever encounter on a 2 star Grampian route, plus the track in was overgrown with spikey hakeas. Douglas later said in the haze of early love, he’d have eaten cat food if I said it as a good idea. So even though I admitted it was a bad idea, he came to rescue my shoes with me, but declared it was the most scared he’s ever been on second.

The relationship was full of fun and adventures. Buffalo, Moonarie, Frog, Hook Island, Nowra, Blueys, Tasmania. In the years before we got together, Douglas had lost his way a little. Been tempted away from the straight and narrow by the vices of making art and making money. These things were separate, as any artist will know. Douglas’s art was well received despite the lack of financial gain, winning several prizes over the years.

As a result of art and work though, he had done little climbing in the preceding 5 years. I fixed that. Back in those long red headed days, Douglas was a climbing machine.  At least his break from climbing meant I wasn’t being left behind. The adventures continued – Townsville, Kakadu, Red River Gorge, Indian Creek.

But really, it must have been the trenches that did it for Douglas – how else did we end up on The Ogive 

or doing the til then unrepeated Citizen Kane, an overhanging gnarly crack in Townsville? It doesn’t take much to turn a natural climber back into a climbing machine though and this is an incredibly excited Douglas having just sent Citizen Kane, his first 27 about 10 years.

Douglas’s glory in the Ogive was more in his outfit however

One of the things I loved about being with Douglas was the way conversations would just start from something random and escalate into a world of silly. We started one of those just before a day’s climbing with Ben, and by the time Ben was there to pick us up, Douglas was all kitted up, a bag of props and costume changes ready and Ben was thrown unwittingly into some low grade film making.

Douglas started our relationship owning 1 pair of hotpants. I have lost track of how many he owned by the end of it. Hell, there are probably even more now.

Douglas was responsible for my decent into decadence. Fancy wine. Fancy cheese. Fancy beer. Fancy places to stay. Fancy places to eat out. Gradually he wore down my decades of dirtbagging. For my part, I dragged him to off widths and made him bash through the wilderness for weeks on end. 

He made me stay in beachside bed and breakfasts.I  suspect I got the better end of that exchange. He did make me look at birds a lot though.  I spent evenings wistfully staring at the tent roof whilst Douglas was lost in the bird app. Turn around to see where he was on the trail to find he had turned his pack upside down to find the binoculars because there was some small brown bird to identify.

I would spend all my money on climbing gear and survive on scummy old electronic devices. Douglas was the reverse. His rack still looked like the early 90s, whilst he had the latest apple gadgets. I gave Douglas decent climbing gear and he gave me electronic toys and we made each other drink champagne. Actually, Douglas’s rack seemed to miraculously disappear and mine went out even when climbing without me. He was also responsible for my addiction to dishwashers, air conditioners and cleaners. He got me hooked on snorkelling, modern board games and an assortment of trashy computer games.

I don’t have any regrets about any of these addictions really. But despite all his best efforts, he failed to convert me to birdwatching. I doubt he has given up hope though.

Of course, we all know Douglas became incredibly ill in there as well.  Life was pretty bloody hard for both of us in there. There were many times when we’d both just end up on the floor crying. I’m not going to dwell on it, because I’m not the dwelling on shit kinda person. Instead I’m going to dwell over how silly he is. How much laughing we did together. Remember instead sitting on the couch crying with laughter over Bill Wither’s singing “Hot, hot”. The cheesy breathiness of it had us in fits of laughter. I guess you probably had to be there .. but I still laugh everytime I hear it, in the way that many memories of Douglas make me laugh.

I really wanted Douglas’s illness to be psychiatric. It didn’t make it any less hard going, but at least there was hope for a cure. In some ways, I still can’t believe it is a terminal illness, because, well, I don’t want to. I can’t imagine losing an old friend and lover this young. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have a rapidly degenerating illness. I imagine all of us struggle to imagine coming to terms with hearing a diagnosis like that. I want a world where Douglas and I get to finish projecting the Ogive together in outrageous outfits. 

At least Douglas can still wear outrageous outfits, and I will happily push him in his wheelchair in whatever set of hotpants takes his fancy. In fact, I found him the finest hotpants that Horsham could provide.