Ganeida's Knots

Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable. ~ Plato

They will tell you that boys are different. Not like girls at all. The older mums with a gaggle of kids wag their heads sagely over your adorable button in his blue bunny rug. "Just you wait," they say. Wait till he's walking & talking. Wait till it's fast girls & faster cars. Wait...

It's true. Boys are different. Not like girls at all. I was sharply reminded of this while reading Time Bandit this week. Time Bandit is the name of a crabbing boat that crabs the Bering Sea ~ that wild & half frozen devil's playground up Alaska way.

I have 3 boys & I admit, there were days I wondered if we'd survive each other. I'm for non~violence so we didn't have guns...correction; I never bought any of my kids toy guns & no way would they ever own a working gun of any description. Guns we had aplenty. All it took was two fingers & a balled fist, two bits of wood hammered together, an obliging bit of driftwood. I would have traded for a gun any day after my clever & inventive war band discovered they could make working bows & arrows from a length of fishing line & a she~oak sapling. Naturally the first thing they did was shoot their sister! That the child still has two working eyes is by the grace of God alone.

I was chagrined the day I learnt the island referred to my lads as "those wild potato boys". Like boys since the beginning of time they took a diabolical joy in pushing the envelope to the limit. It's a boy thing. My uncles sat my father up a tree. His job was to swing the can so his brothers could practice shooting at a moving target with their .22s. I believe my Nanna protested. "John," she informed my grandfather, " You need to speak to your sons!" And my grandfather, who was a sweet natured & gentle soul, replied, "And what would you like me to say to them, Dorothy?"

Being short my boys waded out up to their armpits to caste a line when they went fishing. They were a tourist attraction off the point. The passing boats would slow & point them out, afraid the wash would sweep them away. Until they learnt to swim they weren't allowed to take the boat out ~ which didn't stop them from tying ropes together to form the longest possible painter... which got tied to the furthest mangrove...& there they sat halfway to sea having honourably kept the letter of the law if not the spirit.

They had sharp knives because they fished & crabbed & I do neither. They had matches because I can't stand seafood & the only place they were allowed to cook their catch was in the fire pit outside. They battled the seas in the bay & learnt their basic seamanship in full view of my nervous constitution. It was inevitable that one of them would go to sea. He chose the hardest, the most difficult, fishing grounds in Australia, of Carnarvon in Western Australia. His first trip he got caught between two cyclones & saw the sort of seas that give me nightmares. He did not come whimpering home. He rang from sea & said, "Guess what, I'm doing, mum?" I said I thought he was at sea so wasn't he fishing? Apparently not. No indeed. He was scurfing behind the trawler. In big white territory. In the full knowledge that sharks follow the trawlers, just like dolphins do ~ & gulls ~ & terns.

My boys are pussies compared to the Hillstrand brothers. They had trucks & bikes & guns & a multitude of other ways they could kill themselves & each other. They spent a lot of time at the local hospital & their book reads like a rip roaring tale straight out of the wild, wild west. I'm reading it bug~eyed but I'm not male. I have no desire whatever to risk life & limb in any of the multitude of ways these men do. And yet I do get it.

When the seas get up & start rolling down the passage in a thunderous roar trailing a long trail of froth & spume something in me responds to the sea's savage nature. The air prickles. The skin tingles. There are no atheists at sea. Every sailor is superstitious. Every sailor is spiritual. Miles from land, in the elemental grip of nature, they are witness to both the beauty & the terror of sights few men ever see. The only way to live in the midst of certain death is immediately, with all of yourself because there may not be a tomorrow.

Girls are different. Fundamentally. I had boys first so the day I lost Liddy I was frantic. I had every house within cooee out looking for her. She was two. Tiny. Fearless. She couldn't swim & I knew she knew how to find her way to the water by any one of a multitude of routes. As the minutes dragged by I went upstairs for a jacket & there was Liddy, curled up under my doona, sound asleep & so well hidden I had missed her when I searched the house. It's not that Liddy is timid or more sensible, or braver. She simply views life differently. The boys say, "Don't worry, mum, nothing's going to happen!" Liddy says, "I'll ring to let you know I'm safe." Completely different mind set. If you want a glimpse into how the other half thinks try Time Bandit.