I get the hint - I shall write you a report of tonight.
The reception was in the main front hall at Old Parliament House. It was all about
women's history - you can find the official announcement somewhere on the linked page.
The hall was very pretty and felt quite small. It's not that I haven't been there before, it's just that I haven't been there recently, and my horizons have obviously changed. It was small and friendly and full of half-familiar faces. The half-familiar faces resolved themselves into some very familiar old friends and colleagues after a bit. After a bit more, I caught up with a bunch of people I have been missing and I handed across cards with my details on saying "We have to have coffee!" No business to be done - just some old friendships to catch up on.
Alex Sloan was the MC and (with a little encouragement from a friend) I tried to confuse her by saying 'hi.' She remembered me perfectly from the interview the other week and had no trouble with me all smart and dressed-up and in an entirely different context. This was somewhat reassuring.
Who else did I see? There was Veronica Wensing, and there were the Ryans, of course. Christina and I have known each other for well over a decade, and her mother and I for a bit less. Her mother has excellent taste in books.
Christina is the best kind of bad influence. We were talking about who we knew and why they were there and she pointed out that she had grown up with most of us. From that moment on I kept looking around to engrave the scene on my memory (as is my wont when I forget a camera) and I kept on seeing everyone as Christina Ryan and her aunties (one of whom was her mother). I don't know if this applies to Australian feminists as a whole, or only the WEL-centred mob, but it was a comforting and friendly thought to carry with me.
I spent a little time with Mary and Morrie Sexton. Not so much time with Mary as I would have liked, because she was undoubtedly one of the stars of the show, but enough to reassure myself. She is now one of the two Patrons of Women's History Month, which is a sobering thought. I was there in its earliest days, and leaving the committee was part of the major life reconfiguration I had to do a few years back. Mary took on the leadership, and has gone great guns. She's relinquishing it now.
Meeting the new committee was funny. "Gillian Polack?" one said, "I've heard your name somewhere." I was my more-wicked self and suggested it might be because of the evening courses at the ANU.
The new convenor worked out who I was almost instantly. I suspect that she (as an historian) has played around in the archives. I know I would have done so, myself, in her position.
This is the sort of thing she might have found, and why she instantly knew who I was. She wants to meet up with me sometime. I kept wanting to warn her to run and hide while she had the chance.
What was very funny was that I was introduced to some people as an eminence grise of WHM. Technically, this is true. I was one of the first three people involved. The age thing, though, meant that women at least my mother's age started referring to me as senior. I asked two of them, quite innocently, how well I had aged. They said I was holding up well. I said "I only look about forty-seven, don't I?" Someone actually did examine me closely to check out that yes, I did only look forty seven. Everyone else got the joke.
For everyone else, you see, Women's History Month has been around for ages, but me, I know we started it in 1999, with the first Month in 2000. I know the prehistory - they only know when it hit their awareness. I had a lot of fun nutting out that early chronology with various folks tonight.
I missed meeting Maxine McKew. I missed meeting her about four times. So many people I knew there knew her and she stopped and chatted to three different people alongside me, but before I could be introduced she had moved on. She's small and vivacious and and articulate and superbright and a lot of fun.
I guess I really should meet her, one day. But that would mean moving back into those circles. I love the people, but the workload is deadly, especially for someone like me, who likes being able to say 'yes' when folks ask for help. I'm learning to say 'no' when things aren't life and death, but so many of the matters I used to work on were so crucial to the wellbeing of others, that it became seriously bad for my health. Anyway, that's old hat. I love the people, and I love the work they do - but I don't have the physical robustness to do it and write. I need to remind myself of that once a day until I stop feeling guilty.
Let me give you my two favourite quotes of the night, both from Maxine McKew. They should keep me from getting maudlin. The quotes are out of order, because the first is serious and the second merely funny.
She said "Australia - never an easy country for women - is still too hard."
The other was a story about a recent trip Maxine had made to somewhere outback. She was introduced to a bunch of schoolkids in a indigenous community. As she was leaving, one of them came up to her and said "I know all about you."
"What do you know about me?"
"You beat John Howard."
"What do you think of that?"
"Hot shit!"
PS I have four bookmarks for Women's History Month 2009. They feature a picture of Edith Cowan, who was an MLA in Western Australia from 1921-1924. Four bookmarks, and each and every one of them needs a home...
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