My Archille's tendon

I wasn’t ready to leave TI, but it has been a great move for the kids and it’s wonderful to be nearer to both Tony’s and my families.  If I find myself missing TI and the lifestyle, I imagine I have been given a special power by the gods; the power to focus on something positive about life in the big smoke.

     Say the sheer volume of traffic depresses me, I think about doing my bit for the environment by riding my bike.  I can ride longer distances without getting dizzy as I did on TI, going round and round like a TI taxi driver.  

     When the rush of getting up, going to work and racing to the shops frustrates me, I appreciate the amazing job Tony is doing as the house-husband.  The house is spotless (except for my mess), the fridge is not overflowing with science experiments involving mould or yeast and he cooks every night.  He spends heaps of time with the kids, quality time at the library, riding bikes or going to visit Grandma and Aunty Ann-Maree.

     When I miss the easy life on TI I think about how wonderful it is to go walking and riding without being attached by dogs. Of course, when I go shopping, I marvel that checkouts can actually scan prices correctly.

     If I am overwhelmed by all the strange faces, I remember how important it is to get out of my comfort zone and meet new and interesting people.

     But I have a weakness and like Archilles, it is my bloody heel tendon, that gristly bit that connects the calf muscle to the heel bone.  Except Archilles had only one heel tendon to worry about.  I have two.

      Why? After 20 years of wearing thongs, rubber or leather, my poor feet simply cannot cope with covered shoes which I need when I am teaching.

     In 2012 in Brisbane for the Queensland Literary Awards I walked a squillion miles in covered shoes. The skin on my Archille’s heels and little toes bust open and blood poured forth.  Worse, my toe nails, under pressure, turned a fetching lavender after a few days and by the end of the week were a dull purple.  Two months later they peeled off. 

     In 2013 I was back in Brisbane for the launch of My Island Homicide and again I walked a squillion miles in real shoes. The same thing happened.  The skin of my heel tendons and little toes were shredded and my toenails turned necrotic and fell off.

     I don’t want to meet Archille’s fate and perish.  I have to make this move to The Great Southern Land (of the Covered Shoe) work.  Of course, I am keen to avoid losing my toenails again and so I am breaking-in my feet by wearing a pair of covered shoes once each week. 

     My theory is simple and quite rational.  Each time I spend six hours in covered shoes, the skin is traumatised to the point of breaking or bleeding and scar tissue should form in the subsequent six days.  The scarred skin should, with time, become impenetrable by the shoe material.  It’s similar to the waters of the River Styx conferring immortality on Archilles.   

     But it’s the pain of the process that is proving to be my poisonous arrow, the one that pierced Archilles in his tendon which hadn't been touched by the waters of the river and so killed him.  After four weeks, all I have to show is great scabs.

     Last Wednesday I enlisted the help of Superhero Band-Aids.  By golly they worked … until the afternoon anyway.  By then it was almost time to don my cycling gear and pedal homewards, past the shopping centre, along the cane fields, through Kamerunga, beside the Barron River and over the Stony Creek bridge (always checking for crocodiles), past the great Caravonica swamp to Smithfield Shopping Centre and home to Rainy Mountain Place … where I dressed my battle wounds with another round of Superhero Band-Aids.  Captain America isn’t what I had in mind as a panacea for my mainland maladjustment melancholy, but for the moment, it’s all I’ve got to stick with.