Rita Bova - The Year My Birthday Was in Summer

Turquoise, turquoise, turquoise, and white-again my eyes are filled with the brilliant light and ocean of Australia! Twenty years after I first came to Australia, I am more in love with the land, people, and the sea than ever before. This time I am honoring my beloved Aussie sister Lorna Little and her recently published Aboriginal legendary book for children, The Mark of the Wargal. In 2007 I am producing and directing an educational video conference interview with Lorna, who is reading her book to American children back at Columbus State Community College in Columbus, Ohio. Laughing and rushing into the arms of Lorna Little, Vivienne Sahanna, and Jennie Keogh-Johnston, my beloved Aussie sisters, I return to Perth again.

B irthdays in Toledo, Ohio, in the 1950s and 1960s were almost constantly with my family of eight children, mother and father. As a result, most of these yearly events passed without fanfare except for my mothers ice cream cake made from the favorite ice cream of the birthday child, along with the angel food cake and a few candles.

My birthdays usually didnt even have the luscious cake, since it occurred during Lent and as such was during the dullest, greyest, and most tedious part of the year. In fact, my parents often escaped to Florida for two weeks during the beginning of March because the world outside was cold, clammy, and colorless.

Lucky for me in the Lucky Country (Australia), all of this was about to change.

T urquoise, turquoise, and shimmering white, the sea and land shine like mirrors as we land in Sydney. After a grueling 19-hour flight, I am dazed as we come into the airport and we skip over Sunday into Monday. Missing my plane connection to Perth because of the race ahead of time, I am stressed, trying to decide what to do. The next fight isnt until Wednesday morning, and this is Monday. I hurry over to the airlines clerk and ask about going stand-by some time that day. His glare at me looks like a person closing his car window, raising it quickly, as he says, There are no flights until Wednesday, period. I am worried since I know my Rotary counselor will be waiting for me while I am still in Sydney!

So, here I was in a new and glittering land, looking like the sorriest person on the planet. Australia seemed like a mixed-up and frightening prospect then compared to my mundane and predictable world back in Columbus, Ohio. I soldiered on mainly because what else was there to do? I had little inkling of the dramatic and poetic days ahead; of a secret and intimate affair lurking just around the corner; and of traveling in the interior with my beloved Aboriginal mates Vivienne and Lorna. A new and brighter me would emerge from this wonderful world.

Heaven exists. I know. Ive been there. Spending 14 months in Australia was glorious for me, but it was a real struggle when I first arrived. The dream down under was a nightmare that July of 1983 when I traveled to Oz as a Rotary International Scholar.

Remembering those days today is a bittersweet experience for me. I became a new PH.D. Entering academia at a community college in Ohio when I realized how much I had alienated my boss during my obsessive career process. Besides teaching non-stop, I was also a writer at an interactive television station, the only one then or since that has ever existed. Mesmerized by the glamour of television, I soon started to ignore my real teaching job and had started to let some of my classes slide.

In the early 1980s, I was a 36-year-old woman who was really starting to panic about her future. After a 5-year intense relationship with a brilliant and handsome mathematics professor, I was a lonely and troubled traveler of life still looking for some way of finding meaning. John, my former companion and lover, had seemed like the man for me. We had a witty and intelligent, yet smoldering love affair and even my father thought I had found Professor Right. But, Johns phobia against ever having children even if we had married made my leery and angry. Eventually, I chose to go it alone.

Finishing my doctorate, I was at a crossroads in my life for I needed and wanted to be more; I felt vulnerable, lonely, scared, and reckless. I was obsessed with discovering a new love, a new world, and a new me. Now, all of these new experiences were on the breathtaking horizon.

My boss and I had several bitter confrontations, and soon I realized I had to do SOMETHING. That SOMETHING turned out be a Godsend. I won a Rotary International Scholarship and was off to the West Australian Institute of Technology in Perth, West Australia. Now I had the chance to start over, but was terrified at the prospect. It sounds perfect, but the original experience was almost anything but.

What to do for two whole days while waiting for a plane? I had brought $450.00 with me, but the Sydney Hilton was $200 a night. Homeless, I decided to call friends of a Columbus friend to ask what to do now. Gwenda and Richard, now beloved and treasured Aussie friends, must have thought I was a true Idiot. Generous as they were, they drove right out to the airport and picked me up. I, bleary-eyed and jet-lagged, stayed with them while I tried to pull myself together. At an elegant dinner they took me to overlooking Sydneys scenic harbor, I even vomited.