Eclectic mix

Last night I went to a friend of a friends poetry reading at the Brunswick Hotel. The friend I was meeting there was late and I was uncomfortable.  I knew no one and it was not the kind of place I would ordinarily choose to stay at if I stumbled across it.

The support acts started and my friend still had not arrived.  I felt like the most insignificant person in the room - there was someone drawing portraits of patrons, hipsters sitting cross legged on the floor, lesbians holding hands, a lady mumbling prayers with her rosary beads, a gypsy with her bike helmet attached to her backpack and a bar tender shedding a tear as the leading poetry act sang a soul mantra.

The establishment was similarly special with fake turf on the ceiling strung with butterflies,fish, dinosaurs and

a flamingo which strongly contrasted a gorgeous bouquet of pink and white lilies.  The guitar light and origami cranes blu tacked to the bar clashed with the martini-imprinted red glass splashback.  The print of cupid drinking Schnitzer Brau (a gluten free beer) was happily displayed alongside state of the art audio equipment.

I did not fit in at all.  Yet I was greeted kindly by those at the bar; a Jewish man offered to pour my water and I was hugged wholeheartedly by the most inappropriately named man I have ever met, Meena, when I left at the end of the night.  As I sat on the world's most uncomfortable couch listening to the stunning voice of a woman I had just met while an old friend played guitar, I felt at peace.  It mattered not that I was exhausted after a long day, without makeup because I had rushed to attend after making an unscheduled trip back to work after gym and dressed down from how I would normally go out. It mattered not that I did not fit in with the crowd of people that were there.

I did not embarrass anyone when I made a 500m dash to 7eleven to get milk so the barmaid could make me a hot chocolate at midnight.  I was not mocked or shamed for not singing (for I have a terrible voice, especially compared to the talent that was present).  I was accepted for my quirkiness without question and it was just what I needed.

So, thank you to the sixty plus year old bikie for telling me that life is short and that a woman like me should not settle for something that makes me "look like I have been run over by a thousand road trains".  Thank you to the lesbian who turned around to me while holding onto her girlfriend's dreadlocks, smiled and told me I was kind of pretty when I smiled.  Thank you to the Jewish man who poured my water and thank you to Meena for showing warmth and kindness.  For me, it is the encounters with randoms that matter most on the days when I am struggling to get through.  Randoms have no back story on me.  They know not what I have been through nor what I currently face.  They have no idea the pain I carry.  They don't know my hobbies, interests or occupation.  Randoms take what they see and judge, as everyone does.  Randoms make me realise that although I feel about as beautiful as the contents of an ashtray; despite the fact that my heart has a thousand punctures and that I don't know which way is up in my tattered and torn existence, there is peace in anonymity.  There is a sense of release in being where no one knows anything about you for then it is okay to be truly who you are - the uncomfortable, self-conscious, ugly duckling who is unworthy of being loved.