Our dark secret

Juxtaposition. Once you teach your English class that word, they want to use it to impress you. Sometimes they do, other times, well...

So when you looked at the photo, you probably wondered what the hell connected a coffee mug and a shower lily from The Body Shop.

A seventeen year old girl, a Year 12 English student, a lovely young woman. They are all Hannah. And today they all connected in a moment of serendipity (another word that the girls loved to learn; did you notice that 'serenity' is buried inside it?)

Hannah is now a lovely young woman, a journalism graduate who loves to write. Shortly she will move to Melbourne to join her partner and to explore the greater opportunities for writing that the city offers. In the meantime, she has given up her boring writing day job and works in The Body Shop. And what a joy it was to walk in this morning and see her, reconnect with her, and to discover our joint obsession: true crime podcasts and books.

But first the mug. Hannah gave me this mug in her last days as a Year 12 student. Mugs are popular choices for teacher presents. Students know that we never actually finish a cup of tea or coffee at work but they know that some of us never sit down to a pile of marking without a hot drink. Or an alcoholic one. It depends on how well the marking is going. (I know of a teacher who used to return work that often bore the tell tale ring from a glass of red wine. And then there was the one who would hand back papers to students and showers of cigarette ash would flutter from the pages. You choose your own poison.)

I love this mug. It holds a lot of tea and is in high rotation, often being rescued from the dirty load in the dishwasher and forced back into service. These days when I no longer teach, it's my favourite mug for the first cuppa of the day.

So this is the Hannah mug. It lives in the cupboard beside the Katie mug, the Yvonne mug, the Cecily mug (now that was a surprise!), the Alison mug, the Issy mug- I could go on. Most of these are years old, but I have never forgotten the giver. When we had a cull before we moved to our apartment at the start of the year, all of the student mugs survived. Call me sentimental, but there is joy to be found in handling them, remembering, and wondering where the girls are and what they are doing now. Sometimes I know, but mostly I don't, and I think the girls would be surprised to know how much I treasure them.

The Hannah mug is a reminder of a bright, enthusiastic girl who stimulated conversations (authorised ones!) in that poky little room in the undercroft. Who always arrived at class with a smile on her face and a happy greeting, regardless of how much pressure she was under, and trust me, the pressure on Year 12 students was relentless when I was last teaching. I'm guessing that things haven't changed.

Grown up Hannah is a bright, enthusiastic young woman who meets me on equal terms, and today we discovered that we shared a dark secret. We are uberfans of crime podcasts. Time stopped in The Body Shop (thankfully there was another assistant to serve customers) as we talked over the top of one another- '...and Real Crime Profile...do you listen to Somebody Knows Something...what about Paul Holes, who solved the Golden State Killer case last month?...and the killer turned out to be a cop! Imagine that interrogation!...' I will spare you any more of the details of our conversation. As we would say in the English classroom, you will feel marginalised if true crime is not your thing. If it is, please leave recommendations in the comments below!

I should add that I went into The Body Shop to buy a shower lily for my sister to use when she visits next week. I'm surprised that I remembered to pick it up from the counter, so intense was our conversation. Hence the photo at the top of this post, and the mystery solved.

What will stay with me and nourish me for time to come is the joy of seeing Hannah and engaging with her in a way that we just never had time for when we were in the classroom. Of seeing this vibrant not-a-girl-any-more, and remembering the seventeen year old she used to be. There is joy to be found in teaching and knowing that you have the privilege of being part of the education of future generations. And there is joy to be found in an old coffee mug and a love of true crime.

Mum, the movies and old Graceville

'That's where Grandma used to play tennis.' I slowed to a halt outside a house in Bank Road, Graceville, not because I wanted to see the house, but because I was trying to picture my Grandmother, born in 1897, playing tennis. She lived to 90, and I was trying to reconcile the elderly lady with a more athletic one in tennis whites, as she surely would have been. Grandma did things properly.


Grandma, middle, at Coolangatta, 1922

Remembering Dad

This handsome young man is my Dad, probably in the late 1940s. I love this photo because it reminds me of the tall, strong man that he was in his prime. When we were little, my sisters and I would climb onto his broad, deeply tanned shoulders and dive into the water at Rainbow Bay. He loved to sing, especially show tunes, and would walk in to wake me up singing 'Oh what a beautiful morning', while I stuck my head under the pillow. He had a dry, ironic sense of humour. When I showed him the wildly up-to-the-minute knitted bikini I'd bought when I was about sixteen, he said, 'And did they give you a match box to store it in?' The poor man: three teenage daughters!

A belated thank you

I walked into my gym recently and saw an elderly man with a familiar face. I checked with Ryan, the staff member behind the counter. 'Is that Dr Stewart*?' 'Oh, you mean John? Yes, John Stewart. He's here with his wife. He had a stroke a while back and is working on his rehab.'

Many years ago I enrolled as an internal student at UQ to finish my Arts degree, after juggling studying from home with a toddler. I had given PE teaching away and had moved into my second subject area, English, and wanted to build up my knowledge base. I enrolled in an American Literature subject, and Dr Stewart was the lecturer, as well as turning out to be my tutor.

What an experience.