marieclaire.com.au (^) | 61
EMOTIONAL
I
’m perched on a couch in an
incense-tinged side room of a yoga
studio. My eyes are closed and I’m
nodding as a hypnotherapist softly
speaks, encouraging me to cast
my mind back to the past. So far, I
haven’t been made to dance like a chicken
or remove any clothing, like I’ve seen
TV hypnotists persuade people to do.
The session is actually quite relaxing.
An ad on a deals site has led me
down the path of hypnotherapy after
a looming book deadline has given
me an anxious stomach.
The hypnotherapist asks me to
think back to a time when I first felt
anxious. Apparently, it’ll help my un-
conscious mind release past hurts.
“Was it before, during or after birth?”
she prods. “I was 11,” I blurt, surprised
to find my fists clenching.
A memory, long buried, has popped
into my mind. Of sitting across from a
fair-haired boy in year 7 and hearing him
loudly remark on my Italian appearance,
on repeat. He would call me names like
“Moustache” and “The Sun” (the latter
due to my olive complexion). Names that
sound harmless now but then stung so
much that I’d pretend not to hear him
and never say anything back.
He was also the kid
who snickered that I
should have been the one
in my group nicknamed
“Black Cat”. (My three best
mates and I had a club
called “The Cats” and each
had feline-sounding mon-
ikers, which we rather
dorkily painted on T-shirts
in glitter paint. My name
was “Tiger Eyes”.)
The hypnotherapist now urges me
to recall a similar experience, even
earlier on. My mind reels to two blondes
cornering me in the playground and
asking what country I’m from. (I went
to a very Anglo school in Adelaide’s
southern suburbs.) When I answer that
I’m from Australia, the girls tell me I’m
wrong, to try again. But it’s true; only
my mum was born overseas, in Italy.
I should have known that hypno-
therapy would catapult me down
memory lane, but I’m still taken aback
by the recollections that have surfaced.
I’m 40 this year, now a school mum not
a kid, and being Italian is no longer
a big deal. (I even wed a true-
blue Aussie.)
Not that racial bullying has gone
away. As the decades roll on, it just
changes its focus to other ethnicities.
But at least awareness of schoolyard
taunting has improved. My twin boys
regularly come home with anti-bullying
paraphernalia, including colourful
wristbands they proudly wear.
Anyway, following my hypnother-
apy I’m pleased to find the anxious
pangs in my stomach have dissipated.
However, that night, when I’m in bed,
the anxiety is replaced by something
else. A burning anger. I toss and turn,
reminded of the barrage of racist
remarks I once put up with and even
felt I somehow deserved for being “dif-
ferent”. I’m fuming for my inner child
who was too shy to stand up for herself.
Days later, I receive a message via
my author page on Facebook. It’s from
an old primary school teacher, asking if
I’d be interested in speaking about my
time there at the school’s 50th anniver-
sary fete. I can’t think of anything
worse. I click on the Facebook page
that’s been created to celebrate the
anniversary. It’s a horror show of old
class photos and memories.
I pause mid-scroll on one washed-
out ’80s photo, depicting four blonde
girls standing on a wooden log.
The quartet symbolised everything I
wasn’t, with their flaxen
hair, blue (or green) eyes,
loud personas, and name-
brand fashion.
Aside from my clothes
(made by my sew ing-
enthusiast mamma), my
difference mostly boiled
down to everything about
me being darker. My hair
(on my head and body), my
eyes, my skin. My two
sisters and even my migrant mum don’t
remember copping much racism.
Although my mum did say an aunt once
told my second-generation dad, “You’ll
never get a girlfriend because you’re too
dark.” I’m his spitting image.
I remember a younger kid once
yelling “Aboriginal Cher” at me across
the playground, though we’d never even
spoken before. I even named my black
Barbie doll after myself because I
thought she was just as ugly and differ-
ent as I was.
As I stare at the picture of the four
blondes, I feel something swell inside of
me. Could kids like them have known
how much their words hurt? The effects
that have lingered? Suddenly I know I
need to delve into my school past and
confront my former bullies.
“I EVEN NAMED
MY BLACK
BARBIE DOLL
AFTER MYSELF
... I THOUGHT
SHE WAS JUST
AS UGLY AND
DIFFERENT”
wallpaper
(WallPaper)
#1