May 14, 2023 • 32 mins
Amanda Keller discusses her truly terrible childhood Christmas gifts, the importance of cookbooks and what to do when your children move out of home.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Many believe that we are the sum of our parts.
But could it be that our stuff, the things, the items,
the ones that we choose to buy and keep, they
actually contain meaning and they contain these hidden stories about us.
I'm Christian O'Connell and this is the stuff of legends.
I ask interestant people to come on the show and
(00:22):
share the stories of three of the most treasured objects.
You get these stories you've never heard before, ones you
might not expect. And what you do is, although they're
sharing a story about something which is very personal to them,
I always find and I hope you do as well,
that actually it always opens up something in you. Our
guest today really is a powerhouse of Australian television and
(00:43):
radio and it's been on for the last thirty years.
It's a joy. Whenever I do anything with her, I
actually get nervous because she makes me feel like I'm
a white belt. I'm a beginner and she is a
black belt. She's also a LOGI winner. Let's find out
who's joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
My name is Amanda Keller. I do a breakfast show
on WSFM. I am one of the hosts of the
living Room. How much detail do you need star sign Pisces,
lover of jewelry, lover of cups of tea.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
When you say jewelry is bling, you look like a
Mayre ass you love to wear a lot of bleak.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I've just taken off my bracelets because there'll be too noisy.
Like mister t I make him look understated.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Amanda Keller, I'm dying to know what is the first
item then you've got for stuff of legends.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I'm trying to look out what order I'll tell these in.
I'll start with Snoopy. Snoopy is a bean bag toy,
probably what half the size of a loaf of bread,
and it's Snoopy from the Peanuts comics. And this was
given to me by my grandmother, probably on my fourteenth birthday,
I think. And I was in love with Barry Manilow.
(01:58):
So anything that was like a beagle, oh how amazing.
But Snoopy became my confidant. I'd never had a pet,
desperate for a pet, so this bean bag would sit
on my shoulder when I did my homework. I'd whisper
my secrets into Snoopy's ears. And I was desperate to
And my diary is full of all this talk my
teenage diary about who will I be and what will
(02:19):
happen and what will my life be? And I was
growing up in the midst of suburbia with nothing aspirational
in front of me.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Did you keep your teenage diaries?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I've still got my teenage diary because you're so lucky.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
What's it like reading those?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
You know what's fascinating. When I first found it under
the house, probably twenty five years ago.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
That's like a scene from a movie. What do you
mean you found them under the house? What were they
doing there?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I had written it and we'd moved house and I
was married, and I opened it up and out came
a photograph of a friend of mine who'd passed away
at the age of sixteen, and I just it was
a visceral kick because I'd forgotten that. That's why I'd
started my diary, because my friend died, and that's where
(03:02):
my diary started, the first entry. And yet in my
mind my diary, and when I went on to read
it is all about my love of Barry Manilow. I
had my wisdom teeth out, and my brother's friend came
over and I was in a dressing gown and with big,
chubby cheeks. All of the emotion of those teenage years
all sat in the same strata.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
It's so intense, it's so big.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I had no concept of what was big and what wasn't.
It was all the same.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
But that's the right of being a teenager. We have
no perspective and we shouldn't have.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And I just felt sorry for my I felt sorry
for the girl I read about, and I felt embarrassed
about the girl I read about those tortured teen dreams
and how I was going to go and win an
oscar and thank Barry, and I was going to marry Barry, obviously, And.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
It's all about Barry. It sounds like some sort of.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Stalker because you know why, because Barry wrote sensitive songs
and he was relatively unattractive, and that hit renote that.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Was relatively attractive. He felt more gettable, like that could happen.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
He felt more gettable. A friend of mine was into
The Monkeys, but she liked Peter talk because he was
the ugly one. You know, you knew your level.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
You knew should have spoken. At his funeral service, best
known as the ugly one in the Monkeys.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Many eulogies. Yes, so I think that's why I loved Barry.
But that's what My diary is, filled with the tortured stuff,
and it's it's sphincter tightening to read it. It's excruciating.
But knowing the diary and the kind of person I was,
Snoopy held all the secrets. And years later, just when
(04:44):
my son was about eight years old and he was
holding Snoopy, Snoopy's next to my bed still now, yep.
I use Snoopy as a touchstone for gratitude, for history,
for the modest start to my life. My brother got
a pillow one year for Christmas. You know, we he
didn't have.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
A That is a show off. It's trouble now. It's
all those things that people our age makeup. It's tough
to walk nine hundred miles to school. I was beaten
with sticks. He did not get a pio.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Mum just didn't get it. And the girl next door.
Christmas Day was such a double edged sword because Carol
next door would say, let's come and see what you
got for Christmas, And it was excruciating. And one year
on Christmas night, Dad said come on, we'll go and
we went through the trading post and he bought me
a second hand record player because he knew that whatever
it was that day was had been a little mortifying.
(05:33):
So I told Jack this story that I was given Snoopy,
and Snoopy held all my secrets and Snoopy is still
the keeper of the flame. And at the end of
the story, and I was crying as I told Jack.
He listened all the way through, and he said, is
that all you'd got for your birthday? That was the
only part of the entire story that he.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Honesty of our kids.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, that's right. And he was mortified on my behalf
that I would get this at fourteen and think it
was great.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
But Mane, I love that you still got it, and
I love how it represents your journey, doesn't it. I
guess from your innocence. You know, I've been a teenager
when Snoopy was your bestie. He was a confident on everything,
and he's still in your life now and he's still
playing a role.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, and my naivety about Barry, there were many things
I didn't understand in those days. No, no, no, I
don't think Barry even knew.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
No, I don't think he did. He didn't have a
Snoopy well, maybe he did.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
He had a real life Snoopy. He had a real beagle.
You using a euphemism. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
No, I've met Barry, and half the interview was some yeah,
and half the interview was him getting phone calls from
his I don't know his dog handler in l A
and Barry talking to his dogs. He does love his beagles. Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Because I was to ride in my diary about my
it was New Year's Eve. Imagine being in New York
with Barry. And because I was pre sexual as was Barry,
I'm assuming then my diary was filled with all the cliches.
It'd be a big flaccati rug, there'd be a big
open fire, and that we'd be drinking hot chocolate. It
had all the teen dreams.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
So was there only part of you that thought about
giving Snoopy to your son Jack Nod.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
You know Jacket three sets of khakes in the last week.
I would not risk Snoopy.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
So Snoopy lives on the bed and always will not
on the bed.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I'm not a freak to the bed next to the bed,
and the diary is in a shelf near the bed
as well.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Snoopy a beautiful choice. Amanda, And what is your second
thing to share with us.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Let's go to a pair of scissors, which is a
weird item. And I only found these probably five years ago,
but my mum gave these to me when I was
in my teens. It's a pair of left handed scissors
that would have been incredibly expensive. I'm left handed and
Mum gave me this, and I'm sure I would have
(08:01):
pulled a face of oh, you know, what a dreadful
thing to be given.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
This was a record of pillows now, it was, it
was on form, it really was. I'm brand for mum,
I'm brand.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I'm sure I sneered and went what an old lady
thing to be given. And yet when I found them
again recently, it brought up a whole lot of stuff
about my relationship with my mum, who was no longer here.
She died about seventeen years ago. And because I used
these all the time now, and isn't that the nature
of your relationship with a parent. And I want to
say a thousand times to Mum every day. I get
(08:38):
it now, I get it now, And I'm talking. I'm
always emotional. I talk about my mum because I felt
a little unseen by Mum that when I went to UNI,
she made all my clothes and I wanted to dress
like I was in the tops and twins. I wanted
to buy army disposal coats and things, and Mum knitted
me cardigans with bat wings and and homemade dresses, and
(08:59):
I I didn't wear any of it, and I didn't
hide the fact from her. I didn't wear any of it.
So I was so casual in my hurtfulness, and even
when talking about dropping my son at UNI. He's the
second son who's now left home, and it hit me
like a ton of bricks when my first son did,
because I just thought, I just want to say, I'm
so sorry. How casual I was about all the stuff,
(09:23):
about all the stuff, all of it, all of it.
And I felt that my life started when I went
to Union left home, and the thought that for my children,
their lives are starting now is kind of horrifying.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
It's heartbreaking, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
It's heartbreaking. I went to see an energy worker recently.
I'm not even really into that, but a friend of
mine said, won't you go and see her? And she
was amazing and I lay do I closed my eyes
and she said, because I was dealing with my son
leaving the youngest son just a few weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Really really traumatic, It really is.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
And even just the nag I was before he went
to get his form's done, to get this done. Every
time I spoke to him, it's something I was saying,
have you done this? Have you done this?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Have you done this?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
And I didn't want that to be how it was.
And she said to me, and I laid my eyes closed.
I probably cried the certain She said, put him in
a boat next to you.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Oh my god, you have set me off, and put.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Everything in that boat that he needs, every emotional thing
You've given him, every spiritual support, every single thing he
needs to have a wonderful, emotionally comfortable, strong life. And
then she said, let the boat go. And I started
to solve. I said, I can't let the boat go.
And she said, all right, you can get in the boat,
(10:36):
but you sit behind him, and you're the passive support
in his boat, and his light shines and guides him,
and you're only there if needed. And I thought, oh,
you know what, I can deal with that, but I
can't let the boat go without me.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Oh my god. It's a beautiful image. It's just a
beautiful scene. I'm entering that. You know, my eldest daughter,
she turns eighteen in three months time. We went to
look at a university last weekend, and yeah, it's you
don't want to let go? You actually don't it kind of.
I suddenly felt very reluctant about the whole journey. I
(11:13):
suddenly reached this point where it was like, oh, this
is heartbreaking. I didn't know it would end like this.
We always know they're going to leave. We left. I
went to uni like you did. But when you start
feeling it and you're a parent, it's nothing but heartbreaking.
You don't actually want to let them go. You don't
accept the passage of time, do you. You want to
stop the train, stop the train.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
And though your rational brain says I want all these
things for you, I've hopefully reared you in a way
that all these things now are your journey. Off you go.
I've written the first chapter. The rest of the book
is yours. But when you said there you don't want
it to end, I think we have to not see
(11:57):
it as an ending. Yeah, it's just it's shifting and
it's morphing. But that doesn't make it any better, does it.
And that's why things like the scissors, I just I
didn't look back. I was so cavalier. And if Mum
was still here, that's what I would say to her
is I'm so sorry if I made it look like
I didn't give a rat because I didn't. It was
all about me, and I'm trying to remember that about
(12:17):
my son. I have to take myself out of this.
My neediness can't come into this, and some days I'm
better at that than others.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Ah, that is just I can't stop thinking about the boat.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I'm going to make you cry about the boat. You
did keep that boat tied up, don't let that book.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I'm going to burn that boat. She's not getting that boat.
I'm burning the escape boats. You going nowhere? It is
it's so hard, and no one really talks about it.
I hadn't really realized. Of course she's going to leave.
You know I left, and you're right, I remembering at
that age, I couldn't wait to leave. And it wasn't
even about my mum and dad being bad. It was
just I was desperate to get out in the world
(12:56):
and find out who I was, to start living my
life you know and live independently, and you just want
it's all about you. Your world is just literally about
an inch in front of your face. You've got zero
empathy for anybody else. You're right, you don't. There's no
rearview mirror, and there shouldn't be you're only eighteen. But
now experience the other side of it it is. I
(13:17):
hadn't realized what a big deal it was, and it
just doesn't.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
When you drop your son or your daughter at these
places and you see all the shiny faces, and I
see everyone carrying their bedding in with their parents and
their bags. I think every parent's feeling what I'm feeling today.
But all of these kids, this is the lifelong friends,
this is where it's all happening, and the big university
campus and the things he's going to study. And I
(13:42):
felt as jealous as hell. I felt a huge hit
of nostalgia and a huge hit of jealousy, and I
wanted it all again. But at the time it was
also I don't know if you remember, as you say,
off we went on our adventure, but it was filled
with angst and broken hearts, so.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Much fair, so much anxiety.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I don't remember any of that, do we We don't
remember the fear.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
No, and you weren't actually ready. I remember thinking I
was a man at eighteen. I look back now, when
you're a boy, you were years off, years away from
being an actual, you know, a man. You were just
still a boy. You're not quite ready for it, you know.
And it's just like we still have to sort of
clean up after them, you know, and do so much
of their day to day. I'm thinking, you ain't ready
(14:24):
to run your life independently, but you've got to let
them go, and it is, it's so hard. But what
a lovely reminder of your relationship with your mom. I
know you said she sort of died seventeen years ago,
but she feels very very alive in your life and
in your heart.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
To me, oh, look, she absolutely is. And I just
get that relationship so much more now and in the kids' lives.
Whenever they did well at school, I said, oh, Grandma
would be so proud of you.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
That.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
She's a rich scene in our lives. But occasionally it's
something like the scissors, or it's a phrase that Mum used.
She's to say, go to university, get your piece of paper,
and the wall is your oyster because she'd never had
a chance to do any of that. And it's all
reason I didn't even like oysters. And so that was
a laughing stop in my family, that phrase. And now
(15:11):
I feel it so keenly for the kids. All that
stuff that I thought was mum and not me, it's
a rich scene in me too.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Would you say that now? Strangely right, because I've speaking
to a friend of mine who lost his dad about
five years ago, and he was saying how he actually
has a better relationship with his dad now he's not around,
but he is, He has these He just has so
much more love and understanding for his dad. He's actually
having this second wave, the second relationship, but a deeper relationship.
(15:43):
Maybe not a better one, but a deeper one with him.
Is that you and your mum now? Oh?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Absolutely? And as I said last few weeks, was just
nagging Jack about have you done this? Weetne that? And
I think Mum did this and it drove me crazy,
but it's necessary because he doesn't know anything. I'm sure
Mum thought the same. Also when my mum did pass away,
a friend of mine brought me a plant called bad
hair Day and that has been propagated in various parts
(16:09):
around the garden, and once a year it flowers around
the time she passed away.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Oh you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
And I thought, at what an amazing thing. And ironically
I can remember everyone's birthdays and the versaries blah blah none.
I was talking to my brother about this recently. Neither
of us can remember the date of mum's death, and
yet those flowers remind me, Oh, it's October. That is beautiful, amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
I took about the presence of reminding you of a
soul stall being around in your life.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
How lovely to have that, And isn't it I think
you've spoken about this before too, that when you think
about family heirlooms, it's not the silverware, it's the spature life.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
It's not Antiqu's road show.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
It's not Antique's road show. It's the scissors, or it's
the stuff that gets used in your household every day
that you can picture your mum's hand pouring from the
water joke, whatever it is, that's the heritage. And it's
the cookbooks. Gave me Mum's old cookbooks and there's a
handwriting and everything in the cookbook.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
I love.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
This is Geraldine's scones, Auntie Marguerite's minnestrone. Everything has a name,
and many of them from the back of packets, so
as wik bis that get turned into chicken Kiev or
something like that. Everything was thickened with corn flour. It
was so much of its time. But these are the
families and I don't want to play our war medals,
(17:26):
but we honor our male ancestors in a different way
and this stuff should be honored as well.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I think, yeah, you're right. Actually it is really important,
isn't it. It's how history and family story is kept alive.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
It's the folklore and it's often the women's true and
without Mum used to know to the half hour what
all my cousins all around Australia were doing, what mum's
brother and the sisters were doing, I've lost I've lost
that link because Mum was the gatekeeper of all the information.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
There should be a museum, an international museum and national
museums of mums where there's like archives and databases for
all our family histories. Because you're right. Even even my
wife does it more than I do, you know, and
her mum did it as well. You're right. They are
like the central sort of prison for everything, aren't you.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, yes, and maybe you're right, Like a giant Arthur
Murray dance charts, big fam we need to say, Okay,
who's who's the cousins, that's who's married who, That's where
they are they live at Bowler or have all of
that and maybe you know all the letters, the notes,
the handwritten recipes, all that stuff needs to be archived
(18:36):
and given this wonderful reverence that maybe we haven't in
the past.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah, there's a I'm going back to see my mum
in a couple months time. I haven't seen it for
three years because obviously COVID lockdown all that. And the
first thing I'm going to do is smell the top
of her head. She has a very distinct conditioner she's
been using since I was a kid. She's never changed it,
and I always do it. The last thing when I
saw her, I just let her head forward. It went,
you know. And as soon as we have a very
(19:02):
very emotional reunion the first year, I'll do it. Oh
my god, you're back. I'm back there. It's that sense
I need to bottle it. I need to somehow I
needed to permanently be around in my life. You know,
like your scissors. I that the smell of mum's humber conditioner.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, and that's the stuff that's far more important than
a silverware jug that's been passed down from your great grandparents.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
One hundred percent so far, Amanda, Then you've chosen snoopy
a pair of left handed scissors as two of your
most treasured items. What is your last one?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
It's a stone that I have had mounted in a frame.
And I found this stone when I was in my
mid twenties in Mudgie in New South Wales. I have
a weekend away with friends and I think I was heartbroken.
I think my boyfriend and I had broken up. We'd
broken up a number of times, but this one was
(20:02):
the big breakup and I was heartbroken and went for
a walk and on the shore of the river I
found this rock and it looked to me like a
face nuzzling into a hip. And there was just something
about the shape of it that made me think, that's
(20:24):
what I want in a relationship. I want that intimacy,
that closeness, that just something just felt immersive about what
that stone said to me about a relationship and not
long after that, I met Harley, who I've now been
married to for thirty two years. This stone for me
(20:48):
was the portent of the weight of a potential of
a relationship, and relationships, as we all know, ups and
downs and you're in love and then there's months where
you don't care too much. And a friend of mine
once said, I think this famous psychology is that the
opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Oh my god, what a great word.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, isn't it incredible? It is and it's so true,
And you can go through fits of that in a
marriage and it's always a relief then to come out
the other side of that again. But I have this
on my shelf at home just because I'm very proud
of the longevity of our relationship and the stuff we've weathered,
years of IVF, all of the stuff that comes with that,
(21:31):
ups and downs, with careers, two fabulous sons who are
now leaving us, and once again trying to work out
Now it's only been two weeks. Who are we?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
What do we do?
Speaker 2 (21:43):
I've overcooked for two weeks. We've had leftovers again and
again the friend and the laundry shoots empty and there's
not stuff on the floor. The stuff that I have
railed against suddenly go oh, I want that. So we
now have to reassess who we are. And so it's
very timely looking again at this stone to remind me
of the essence of us.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
You're forming new ground, aren't you a new identity now?
Because the other ones it's not needed anymore, it doesn't exist.
It's sort of gone with them.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
And it's so weird, Like we'll sit down. I say,
let's sit at the table to have dinner so we
don't end up sitting in front of the television every night.
But then as we're eating, I say, hurry up, because
we're going to sit in front of the television.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
This is so weird. It's too weird, just with the
two of us, and I bet the table suddenly feels
just a bit too big, like this is made for
a family.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
It's just us now, and the end of the tables
just filled with junk because we don't to clear it
anymore because only two of us sitting there.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I love that you still got the stone because in
relationship we use that a lot. Don't mean the rock.
She's my rock, he's my rock. That stone and that
sense of wanting to find someone out there for me
that only fits me. And that's what a great relationship is.
You slot in, don't you. And I've been married almost
twenty four years, and so I feel like I think
(22:58):
I've had probably several marriages within that one with my wife,
because you do. You have these different seasons, don't you.
You go through some really tough times and love us
to show up in very unusual places and experiences you
never thought you'd have when you started out, you know,
getting married and what your life would be and the
plans you had and kids and houses and holidays and
then all this other stuff that goes with life comes
(23:19):
along and changes, doesn't it, and evolve, so and you're
going through another big evolution, you know, together and separately
as well. But going back to the stone and still
seeing what's the most important thing is like it's just
us two in the world. Actually, that's all we need
and then we can go from there.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah, it's interesting that you know, this has been very
timely to talk about the stone because it sits in
the lounge room there, but along with a whole lot
of other stuff. But to look at it again now,
how timely this week to be reminded of the essence
of who we are and they you know, they say
loves are doing word where you go through different permutations
in a relationship. Making a cup of tea is love.
(24:00):
Looking a meal is.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Love, Amanda, That's so true. That can be like a
really intimate experience. I'm sure that if people at the
start of relationship in their twenties ago, No, it's not.
It's on the bedroom as you let a relationship unfold,
You're in us actually sometimes just to simply put the
kettle on when you haven't been asked to, and just
taking a cup of tea to someone who you know
is having a tough time without even words being said.
(24:24):
Everything everything is in that moment, isn't it. That's what
intimacy is.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
It is, and that's the I know you moment, I
feel you. That's where you're seen. Yes, you're really seen.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, I think that's what we all want. I love
the stone and I love you. Still got it and
I bet it still means something now again, doesn't it.
It's got like a again. It's like like you described,
it's got this power to it. I can feel like
it's going it's calling you back to just YouTube, and
I do.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Need to be called back to it to be reminded
as we're in this flux state of kids have gone,
what is it now to be reminded of of that?
And we were together for ten years before we had
children for the IVFU together a long time. Yeah, We've
had a thousand incarnations of us and so it wasn't
(25:11):
like we got married and had children and didn't have
a have together time. But it's been so long now
and Harley's seventy one. I'm sixty, he's seventy one. So
these new years really we have to embrace them because
these will be These are the salad years before salad?
Is that the house in years before before the decline
(25:35):
is not the right word, But this is the bit
we have to pay attention to. It's so right, I
feel that, And we can't drift here because this is
the bit we need to pay attention to.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, you do need to come back to each other
in a really important way. It's like I read this
line the other day and I literally wrote it down
what would be like to grow younger towards the end?
And I thought, oh, I'm going to spend the rest
of my life thinking about that.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Do you want to do? You want to?
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Though, I think it's you know what, I want to
hang on too. I don't want to become cynical. I
don't want to look back and think all the good
stuff's happened. I still want to have. I still want
that innocence, that curiosity, that being awed by life every day.
You know, I'm fifteen next year, so you know you're
you're into overtime, You're into the second half of your life.
You know you're lucky to have got this far and
(26:23):
found someone I love, and raised daughters and had the
life I've got. But yeah, I think I still want
to hang on. I don't want to calcify. You know,
some people as get older, we've met, we know people
like this where they've kind of hardened a bit. They're
like weather to life. I don't want to. I don't
want that. I still want to hang on to sort
of an innocence to it all every day.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Well, they say, don't that. Aging is when you when
you feel your best user behind you. And I've never
felt that, And it sounds like you don't either. And
I've got a number of friends my age, our mother's
At this age, your cycle was wrapping up. And yet
I've got friends, ones just gone into local politics, one
has working full time as an hour It's what's my
(27:01):
third act? Yeah, young and working and building your life,
raising a family. What's the third bit?
Speaker 1 (27:07):
You've got all these things to share and say, I'm
really interested to find out what is your third act.
I was in a coffee shop the other day and
I got chatless woman and she was She told me
she was seventy two, and I said, and what are
you up to today? She goes, oh, I'm just on
my way to therapy. And I said, oh wow, have
you been obviously doing that year? She went no, this
is only my second dumb session. And we had a
(27:28):
laugh because I was like, I said, good on you.
I said, you're seventy two. You just don't mind you're
just starting therapy. And she was like, oh, yes, I
just want to make sure that you know I'm clearing
up the stuff I should have done years ago so
I can enjoy the next few years. However I'm blessed with.
And I was like, that made my whole week. That
chats that stranger, the fact that this seventy two old
(27:50):
was just about to start therapy, saying that, do you
know what, I've been carrying this around too much? Now
I don't want this anymore. I want to be lighter
for the next couple of years. Wow.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Yeah, I was talking about with some girlfriends yesterday. I
had my sixtieth birthday last weekend, and think what the
image of what sixties in your head? Which I thought
was Whistler's mother in a rocking chair. I pictured that's
what sixty was when you were younger. We did, we did,
And that's am I riding saying that's what sixty year
olds looked like. I might be might area.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
And all the movies you and I saw in the
eighties when someone was like sixty, they were like literally
half dead, weren't they. They were portrayed that way. And
you know we were aging and death phobic in our world,
aren't we we are? It's sort of just seen somebody
ridiculed or thrown away in the shadows and not thought about,
like you were defunct, you passed your sal by day,
(28:38):
even if you're still alive. Whereas now you realize, actually sixties.
You see people doing triathlons now, and there's seventies and
stuff like that. You can still have a really great
connection to your own vitalitany in joy in life.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
There was interesting recently a number of women were discussing
this that the Golden Girls are the same age. They're
in their mid fifties, same age as the girls in
the boot of Sex in the City.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
They were not in their mid fifties.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah they were.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
They were ninety.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
And they weren't in a retirement village. They were in
just a condo. We assumed gray hair equals retirement village.
It's just cranky, old mold. Yes, And they're the same
women on screen as a woman in the reboot of
Sex and the s.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
No, that is what that's depressed.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
That's that's how we perceived fifty sixty then, as opposed
to how we do now.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Yeah, so what do you want for the rest of
your life? What do you want more of? Because we
know what we're losing, What do you want more of?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
It's hard to know, isn't it. I've got some people
to say, why are you still working so hard?
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I just love it. I wouldn't be working this hard
if I didn't love It's like saying to meet Jagguway
still singing you know eighty seven and whatever he is.
You don't need to, but I don't do it because
I need to. I get energy from it. So I
don't know. I don't necessarily want to slow down. It'd
be nice to have a sabbatical where you're going to
take three months off and come back again, but I
(30:07):
want to keep going. I don't know what I want
more of. I'm getting a lot better at taking time out,
I think for a holiday house recently, and I'm being
quite strict with my boundaries because I used to just
say yes, I can do that. Now I'm saying I
won't be here and I had to buy a house
to do it. So I'm learning the lessons of I've
(30:28):
earn't the right to say no to things, and I'm
choosing that. But I don't fantasize about having a quieter life.
So I really don't know. And in a way, I
like the fact it's still up for grabs. Who knows,
who knows what's around the corner.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Amanda Keller, You're a treat, You're a treasure. You really
hear and I generally want to thank you for my
heart to yours. Thank you for being so open hearted
in this chat as well. You shared a lot. It
meant a lot to me. You opened up my heart
with this chat as well, So thank you so much.
I love chatting to you.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I've loved it. I've loved and also I want to
thank you because I'd forgotten about the stone until i'd
gone to look for an item, and this could not
be more timely in my life to remind myself of
that stone. So thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Oh man, this chat with Amanda will stay with me
for a very very long time. Yeah, it really touched
something which is really in live with me, with my
eldest daughter literally flying the nest, my first daughter to
leave home. As I speak to you, I didn't know
that we were going to get into that. It was
(31:37):
like part therapy, part the breaking open of my heart.
I hope you enjoyed it as well. She's actually my
daughter will really moving to a different city and about
to start university. So Amanda's chat, someone who's a little
bit further down the line than me, has reminded me
it's actually not about what I'm losing, which I think
I've been focusing on that lot. It's actually about what
I'm going to be adding to my life. I hope
(31:58):
you've got something special from Amanda's chat. She's amazing, isn't she.
We're always evolving and as I turned fifty this year,
aging is a gift and it is better than the alternative.
What are you going to do with your next chapter?
Thank you very much from the wisdom of Amanda Keller.
You can follow Stuff of Legends on the iHeartRadio app
(32:18):
to find out new episodes and listen to the ones
we've already done. Some brilliant conversations, all kinds of brilliant people,
Russell Brown, Ricky Gervais, Matthew McConaughey, great one with CELESE.
Barber that I loved. I'm Christian O'Connell and hopefully chatter
you next time on the Stuff of Legends.
Many believe that we are the sum of our parts.
But could it be that our stuff, the things, the items,
the ones that we choose to buy and keep, they
actually contain meaning and they contain these hidden stories about us.
I'm Christian O'Connell and this is the stuff of legends.
I ask interestant people to come on the show and
(00:22):
share the stories of three of the most treasured objects.
You get these stories you've never heard before, ones you
might not expect. And what you do is, although they're
sharing a story about something which is very personal to them,
I always find and I hope you do as well,
that actually it always opens up something in you. Our
guest today really is a powerhouse of Australian television and
(00:43):
radio and it's been on for the last thirty years.
It's a joy. Whenever I do anything with her, I
actually get nervous because she makes me feel like I'm
a white belt. I'm a beginner and she is a
black belt. She's also a LOGI winner. Let's find out
who's joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
My name is Amanda Keller. I do a breakfast show
on WSFM. I am one of the hosts of the
living Room. How much detail do you need star sign Pisces,
lover of jewelry, lover of cups of tea.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
When you say jewelry is bling, you look like a
Mayre ass you love to wear a lot of bleak.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I've just taken off my bracelets because there'll be too noisy.
Like mister t I make him look understated.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Amanda Keller, I'm dying to know what is the first
item then you've got for stuff of legends.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I'm trying to look out what order I'll tell these in.
I'll start with Snoopy. Snoopy is a bean bag toy,
probably what half the size of a loaf of bread,
and it's Snoopy from the Peanuts comics. And this was
given to me by my grandmother, probably on my fourteenth birthday,
I think. And I was in love with Barry Manilow.
(01:58):
So anything that was like a beagle, oh how amazing.
But Snoopy became my confidant. I'd never had a pet,
desperate for a pet, so this bean bag would sit
on my shoulder when I did my homework. I'd whisper
my secrets into Snoopy's ears. And I was desperate to
And my diary is full of all this talk my
teenage diary about who will I be and what will
(02:19):
happen and what will my life be? And I was
growing up in the midst of suburbia with nothing aspirational
in front of me.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Did you keep your teenage diaries?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I've still got my teenage diary because you're so lucky.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
What's it like reading those?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
You know what's fascinating. When I first found it under
the house, probably twenty five years ago.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
That's like a scene from a movie. What do you
mean you found them under the house? What were they
doing there?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I had written it and we'd moved house and I
was married, and I opened it up and out came
a photograph of a friend of mine who'd passed away
at the age of sixteen, and I just it was
a visceral kick because I'd forgotten that. That's why I'd
started my diary, because my friend died, and that's where
(03:02):
my diary started, the first entry. And yet in my
mind my diary, and when I went on to read
it is all about my love of Barry Manilow. I
had my wisdom teeth out, and my brother's friend came
over and I was in a dressing gown and with big,
chubby cheeks. All of the emotion of those teenage years
all sat in the same strata.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
It's so intense, it's so big.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I had no concept of what was big and what wasn't.
It was all the same.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
But that's the right of being a teenager. We have
no perspective and we shouldn't have.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And I just felt sorry for my I felt sorry
for the girl I read about, and I felt embarrassed
about the girl I read about those tortured teen dreams
and how I was going to go and win an
oscar and thank Barry, and I was going to marry Barry, obviously, And.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
It's all about Barry. It sounds like some sort of.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Stalker because you know why, because Barry wrote sensitive songs
and he was relatively unattractive, and that hit renote that.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Was relatively attractive. He felt more gettable, like that could happen.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
He felt more gettable. A friend of mine was into
The Monkeys, but she liked Peter talk because he was
the ugly one. You know, you knew your level.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
You knew should have spoken. At his funeral service, best
known as the ugly one in the Monkeys.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Many eulogies. Yes, so I think that's why I loved Barry.
But that's what My diary is, filled with the tortured stuff,
and it's it's sphincter tightening to read it. It's excruciating.
But knowing the diary and the kind of person I was,
Snoopy held all the secrets. And years later, just when
(04:44):
my son was about eight years old and he was
holding Snoopy, Snoopy's next to my bed still now, yep.
I use Snoopy as a touchstone for gratitude, for history,
for the modest start to my life. My brother got
a pillow one year for Christmas. You know, we he
didn't have.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
A That is a show off. It's trouble now. It's
all those things that people our age makeup. It's tough
to walk nine hundred miles to school. I was beaten
with sticks. He did not get a pio.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Mum just didn't get it. And the girl next door.
Christmas Day was such a double edged sword because Carol
next door would say, let's come and see what you
got for Christmas, And it was excruciating. And one year
on Christmas night, Dad said come on, we'll go and
we went through the trading post and he bought me
a second hand record player because he knew that whatever
it was that day was had been a little mortifying.
(05:33):
So I told Jack this story that I was given Snoopy,
and Snoopy held all my secrets and Snoopy is still
the keeper of the flame. And at the end of
the story, and I was crying as I told Jack.
He listened all the way through, and he said, is
that all you'd got for your birthday? That was the
only part of the entire story that he.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Honesty of our kids.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, that's right. And he was mortified on my behalf
that I would get this at fourteen and think it
was great.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
But Mane, I love that you still got it, and
I love how it represents your journey, doesn't it. I
guess from your innocence. You know, I've been a teenager
when Snoopy was your bestie. He was a confident on everything,
and he's still in your life now and he's still
playing a role.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, and my naivety about Barry, there were many things
I didn't understand in those days. No, no, no, I
don't think Barry even knew.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
No, I don't think he did. He didn't have a
Snoopy well, maybe he did.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
He had a real life Snoopy. He had a real beagle.
You using a euphemism. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
No, I've met Barry, and half the interview was some yeah,
and half the interview was him getting phone calls from
his I don't know his dog handler in l A
and Barry talking to his dogs. He does love his beagles. Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Because I was to ride in my diary about my
it was New Year's Eve. Imagine being in New York
with Barry. And because I was pre sexual as was Barry,
I'm assuming then my diary was filled with all the cliches.
It'd be a big flaccati rug, there'd be a big
open fire, and that we'd be drinking hot chocolate. It
had all the teen dreams.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
So was there only part of you that thought about
giving Snoopy to your son Jack Nod.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
You know Jacket three sets of khakes in the last week.
I would not risk Snoopy.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
So Snoopy lives on the bed and always will not
on the bed.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I'm not a freak to the bed next to the bed,
and the diary is in a shelf near the bed
as well.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Snoopy a beautiful choice. Amanda, And what is your second
thing to share with us.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Let's go to a pair of scissors, which is a
weird item. And I only found these probably five years ago,
but my mum gave these to me when I was
in my teens. It's a pair of left handed scissors
that would have been incredibly expensive. I'm left handed and
Mum gave me this, and I'm sure I would have
(08:01):
pulled a face of oh, you know, what a dreadful
thing to be given.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
This was a record of pillows now, it was, it
was on form, it really was. I'm brand for mum,
I'm brand.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I'm sure I sneered and went what an old lady
thing to be given. And yet when I found them
again recently, it brought up a whole lot of stuff
about my relationship with my mum, who was no longer here.
She died about seventeen years ago. And because I used
these all the time now, and isn't that the nature
of your relationship with a parent. And I want to
say a thousand times to Mum every day. I get
(08:38):
it now, I get it now, And I'm talking. I'm
always emotional. I talk about my mum because I felt
a little unseen by Mum that when I went to UNI,
she made all my clothes and I wanted to dress
like I was in the tops and twins. I wanted
to buy army disposal coats and things, and Mum knitted
me cardigans with bat wings and and homemade dresses, and
(08:59):
I I didn't wear any of it, and I didn't
hide the fact from her. I didn't wear any of it.
So I was so casual in my hurtfulness, and even
when talking about dropping my son at UNI. He's the
second son who's now left home, and it hit me
like a ton of bricks when my first son did,
because I just thought, I just want to say, I'm
so sorry. How casual I was about all the stuff,
(09:23):
about all the stuff, all of it, all of it.
And I felt that my life started when I went
to Union left home, and the thought that for my children,
their lives are starting now is kind of horrifying.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
It's heartbreaking, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
It's heartbreaking. I went to see an energy worker recently.
I'm not even really into that, but a friend of
mine said, won't you go and see her? And she
was amazing and I lay do I closed my eyes
and she said, because I was dealing with my son
leaving the youngest son just a few weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Really really traumatic, It really is.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
And even just the nag I was before he went
to get his form's done, to get this done. Every
time I spoke to him, it's something I was saying,
have you done this? Have you done this?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Have you done this?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
And I didn't want that to be how it was.
And she said to me, and I laid my eyes closed.
I probably cried the certain She said, put him in
a boat next to you.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Oh my god, you have set me off, and put.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Everything in that boat that he needs, every emotional thing
You've given him, every spiritual support, every single thing he
needs to have a wonderful, emotionally comfortable, strong life. And
then she said, let the boat go. And I started
to solve. I said, I can't let the boat go.
And she said, all right, you can get in the boat,
(10:36):
but you sit behind him, and you're the passive support
in his boat, and his light shines and guides him,
and you're only there if needed. And I thought, oh,
you know what, I can deal with that, but I
can't let the boat go without me.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Oh my god. It's a beautiful image. It's just a
beautiful scene. I'm entering that. You know, my eldest daughter,
she turns eighteen in three months time. We went to
look at a university last weekend, and yeah, it's you
don't want to let go? You actually don't it kind of.
I suddenly felt very reluctant about the whole journey. I
(11:13):
suddenly reached this point where it was like, oh, this
is heartbreaking. I didn't know it would end like this.
We always know they're going to leave. We left. I
went to uni like you did. But when you start
feeling it and you're a parent, it's nothing but heartbreaking.
You don't actually want to let them go. You don't
accept the passage of time, do you. You want to
stop the train, stop the train.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
And though your rational brain says I want all these
things for you, I've hopefully reared you in a way
that all these things now are your journey. Off you go.
I've written the first chapter. The rest of the book
is yours. But when you said there you don't want
it to end, I think we have to not see
(11:57):
it as an ending. Yeah, it's just it's shifting and
it's morphing. But that doesn't make it any better, does it.
And that's why things like the scissors, I just I
didn't look back. I was so cavalier. And if Mum
was still here, that's what I would say to her
is I'm so sorry if I made it look like
I didn't give a rat because I didn't. It was
all about me, and I'm trying to remember that about
(12:17):
my son. I have to take myself out of this.
My neediness can't come into this, and some days I'm
better at that than others.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Ah, that is just I can't stop thinking about the boat.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I'm going to make you cry about the boat. You
did keep that boat tied up, don't let that book.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I'm going to burn that boat. She's not getting that boat.
I'm burning the escape boats. You going nowhere? It is
it's so hard, and no one really talks about it.
I hadn't really realized. Of course she's going to leave.
You know I left, and you're right, I remembering at
that age, I couldn't wait to leave. And it wasn't
even about my mum and dad being bad. It was
just I was desperate to get out in the world
(12:56):
and find out who I was, to start living my
life you know and live independently, and you just want
it's all about you. Your world is just literally about
an inch in front of your face. You've got zero
empathy for anybody else. You're right, you don't. There's no
rearview mirror, and there shouldn't be you're only eighteen. But
now experience the other side of it it is. I
(13:17):
hadn't realized what a big deal it was, and it
just doesn't.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
When you drop your son or your daughter at these
places and you see all the shiny faces, and I
see everyone carrying their bedding in with their parents and
their bags. I think every parent's feeling what I'm feeling today.
But all of these kids, this is the lifelong friends,
this is where it's all happening, and the big university
campus and the things he's going to study. And I
(13:42):
felt as jealous as hell. I felt a huge hit
of nostalgia and a huge hit of jealousy, and I
wanted it all again. But at the time it was
also I don't know if you remember, as you say,
off we went on our adventure, but it was filled
with angst and broken hearts, so.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Much fair, so much anxiety.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I don't remember any of that, do we We don't
remember the fear.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
No, and you weren't actually ready. I remember thinking I
was a man at eighteen. I look back now, when
you're a boy, you were years off, years away from
being an actual, you know, a man. You were just
still a boy. You're not quite ready for it, you know.
And it's just like we still have to sort of
clean up after them, you know, and do so much
of their day to day. I'm thinking, you ain't ready
(14:24):
to run your life independently, but you've got to let
them go, and it is, it's so hard. But what
a lovely reminder of your relationship with your mom. I
know you said she sort of died seventeen years ago,
but she feels very very alive in your life and
in your heart.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
To me, oh, look, she absolutely is. And I just
get that relationship so much more now and in the kids' lives.
Whenever they did well at school, I said, oh, Grandma
would be so proud of you.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
That.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
She's a rich scene in our lives. But occasionally it's
something like the scissors, or it's a phrase that Mum used.
She's to say, go to university, get your piece of paper,
and the wall is your oyster because she'd never had
a chance to do any of that. And it's all
reason I didn't even like oysters. And so that was
a laughing stop in my family, that phrase. And now
(15:11):
I feel it so keenly for the kids. All that
stuff that I thought was mum and not me, it's
a rich scene in me too.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Would you say that now? Strangely right, because I've speaking
to a friend of mine who lost his dad about
five years ago, and he was saying how he actually
has a better relationship with his dad now he's not around,
but he is, He has these He just has so
much more love and understanding for his dad. He's actually
having this second wave, the second relationship, but a deeper relationship.
(15:43):
Maybe not a better one, but a deeper one with him.
Is that you and your mum now? Oh?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Absolutely? And as I said last few weeks, was just
nagging Jack about have you done this? Weetne that? And
I think Mum did this and it drove me crazy,
but it's necessary because he doesn't know anything. I'm sure
Mum thought the same. Also when my mum did pass away,
a friend of mine brought me a plant called bad
hair Day and that has been propagated in various parts
(16:09):
around the garden, and once a year it flowers around
the time she passed away.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Oh you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
And I thought, at what an amazing thing. And ironically
I can remember everyone's birthdays and the versaries blah blah none.
I was talking to my brother about this recently. Neither
of us can remember the date of mum's death, and
yet those flowers remind me, Oh, it's October. That is beautiful, amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
I took about the presence of reminding you of a
soul stall being around in your life.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
How lovely to have that, And isn't it I think
you've spoken about this before too, that when you think
about family heirlooms, it's not the silverware, it's the spature life.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
It's not Antiqu's road show.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
It's not Antique's road show. It's the scissors, or it's
the stuff that gets used in your household every day
that you can picture your mum's hand pouring from the
water joke, whatever it is, that's the heritage. And it's
the cookbooks. Gave me Mum's old cookbooks and there's a
handwriting and everything in the cookbook.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
I love.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
This is Geraldine's scones, Auntie Marguerite's minnestrone. Everything has a name,
and many of them from the back of packets, so
as wik bis that get turned into chicken Kiev or
something like that. Everything was thickened with corn flour. It
was so much of its time. But these are the
families and I don't want to play our war medals,
(17:26):
but we honor our male ancestors in a different way
and this stuff should be honored as well.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I think, yeah, you're right. Actually it is really important,
isn't it. It's how history and family story is kept alive.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
It's the folklore and it's often the women's true and
without Mum used to know to the half hour what
all my cousins all around Australia were doing, what mum's
brother and the sisters were doing, I've lost I've lost
that link because Mum was the gatekeeper of all the information.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
There should be a museum, an international museum and national
museums of mums where there's like archives and databases for
all our family histories. Because you're right. Even even my
wife does it more than I do, you know, and
her mum did it as well. You're right. They are
like the central sort of prison for everything, aren't you.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, yes, and maybe you're right, Like a giant Arthur
Murray dance charts, big fam we need to say, Okay,
who's who's the cousins, that's who's married who, That's where
they are they live at Bowler or have all of
that and maybe you know all the letters, the notes,
the handwritten recipes, all that stuff needs to be archived
(18:36):
and given this wonderful reverence that maybe we haven't in
the past.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah, there's a I'm going back to see my mum
in a couple months time. I haven't seen it for
three years because obviously COVID lockdown all that. And the
first thing I'm going to do is smell the top
of her head. She has a very distinct conditioner she's
been using since I was a kid. She's never changed it,
and I always do it. The last thing when I
saw her, I just let her head forward. It went,
you know. And as soon as we have a very
(19:02):
very emotional reunion the first year, I'll do it. Oh
my god, you're back. I'm back there. It's that sense
I need to bottle it. I need to somehow I
needed to permanently be around in my life. You know,
like your scissors. I that the smell of mum's humber conditioner.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, and that's the stuff that's far more important than
a silverware jug that's been passed down from your great grandparents.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
One hundred percent so far, Amanda, Then you've chosen snoopy
a pair of left handed scissors as two of your
most treasured items. What is your last one?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
It's a stone that I have had mounted in a frame.
And I found this stone when I was in my
mid twenties in Mudgie in New South Wales. I have
a weekend away with friends and I think I was heartbroken.
I think my boyfriend and I had broken up. We'd
broken up a number of times, but this one was
(20:02):
the big breakup and I was heartbroken and went for
a walk and on the shore of the river I
found this rock and it looked to me like a
face nuzzling into a hip. And there was just something
about the shape of it that made me think, that's
(20:24):
what I want in a relationship. I want that intimacy,
that closeness, that just something just felt immersive about what
that stone said to me about a relationship and not
long after that, I met Harley, who I've now been
married to for thirty two years. This stone for me
(20:48):
was the portent of the weight of a potential of
a relationship, and relationships, as we all know, ups and
downs and you're in love and then there's months where
you don't care too much. And a friend of mine
once said, I think this famous psychology is that the
opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Oh my god, what a great word.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, isn't it incredible? It is and it's so true,
And you can go through fits of that in a
marriage and it's always a relief then to come out
the other side of that again. But I have this
on my shelf at home just because I'm very proud
of the longevity of our relationship and the stuff we've weathered,
years of IVF, all of the stuff that comes with that,
(21:31):
ups and downs, with careers, two fabulous sons who are
now leaving us, and once again trying to work out
Now it's only been two weeks. Who are we?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
What do we do?
Speaker 2 (21:43):
I've overcooked for two weeks. We've had leftovers again and
again the friend and the laundry shoots empty and there's
not stuff on the floor. The stuff that I have
railed against suddenly go oh, I want that. So we
now have to reassess who we are. And so it's
very timely looking again at this stone to remind me
of the essence of us.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
You're forming new ground, aren't you a new identity now?
Because the other ones it's not needed anymore, it doesn't exist.
It's sort of gone with them.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
And it's so weird, Like we'll sit down. I say,
let's sit at the table to have dinner so we
don't end up sitting in front of the television every night.
But then as we're eating, I say, hurry up, because
we're going to sit in front of the television.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
This is so weird. It's too weird, just with the
two of us, and I bet the table suddenly feels
just a bit too big, like this is made for
a family.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
It's just us now, and the end of the tables
just filled with junk because we don't to clear it
anymore because only two of us sitting there.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I love that you still got the stone because in
relationship we use that a lot. Don't mean the rock.
She's my rock, he's my rock. That stone and that
sense of wanting to find someone out there for me
that only fits me. And that's what a great relationship is.
You slot in, don't you. And I've been married almost
twenty four years, and so I feel like I think
(22:58):
I've had probably several marriages within that one with my wife,
because you do. You have these different seasons, don't you.
You go through some really tough times and love us
to show up in very unusual places and experiences you
never thought you'd have when you started out, you know,
getting married and what your life would be and the
plans you had and kids and houses and holidays and
then all this other stuff that goes with life comes
(23:19):
along and changes, doesn't it, and evolve, so and you're
going through another big evolution, you know, together and separately
as well. But going back to the stone and still
seeing what's the most important thing is like it's just
us two in the world. Actually, that's all we need
and then we can go from there.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah, it's interesting that you know, this has been very
timely to talk about the stone because it sits in
the lounge room there, but along with a whole lot
of other stuff. But to look at it again now,
how timely this week to be reminded of the essence
of who we are and they you know, they say
loves are doing word where you go through different permutations
in a relationship. Making a cup of tea is love.
(24:00):
Looking a meal is.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Love, Amanda, That's so true. That can be like a
really intimate experience. I'm sure that if people at the
start of relationship in their twenties ago, No, it's not.
It's on the bedroom as you let a relationship unfold,
You're in us actually sometimes just to simply put the
kettle on when you haven't been asked to, and just
taking a cup of tea to someone who you know
is having a tough time without even words being said.
(24:24):
Everything everything is in that moment, isn't it. That's what
intimacy is.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
It is, and that's the I know you moment, I
feel you. That's where you're seen. Yes, you're really seen.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, I think that's what we all want. I love
the stone and I love you. Still got it and
I bet it still means something now again, doesn't it.
It's got like a again. It's like like you described,
it's got this power to it. I can feel like
it's going it's calling you back to just YouTube, and
I do.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Need to be called back to it to be reminded
as we're in this flux state of kids have gone,
what is it now to be reminded of of that?
And we were together for ten years before we had
children for the IVFU together a long time. Yeah, We've
had a thousand incarnations of us and so it wasn't
(25:11):
like we got married and had children and didn't have
a have together time. But it's been so long now
and Harley's seventy one. I'm sixty, he's seventy one. So
these new years really we have to embrace them because
these will be These are the salad years before salad?
Is that the house in years before before the decline
(25:35):
is not the right word, But this is the bit
we have to pay attention to. It's so right, I
feel that, And we can't drift here because this is
the bit we need to pay attention to.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, you do need to come back to each other
in a really important way. It's like I read this
line the other day and I literally wrote it down
what would be like to grow younger towards the end?
And I thought, oh, I'm going to spend the rest
of my life thinking about that.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Do you want to do? You want to?
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Though, I think it's you know what, I want to
hang on too. I don't want to become cynical. I
don't want to look back and think all the good
stuff's happened. I still want to have. I still want
that innocence, that curiosity, that being awed by life every day.
You know, I'm fifteen next year, so you know you're
you're into overtime, You're into the second half of your life.
You know you're lucky to have got this far and
(26:23):
found someone I love, and raised daughters and had the
life I've got. But yeah, I think I still want
to hang on. I don't want to calcify. You know,
some people as get older, we've met, we know people
like this where they've kind of hardened a bit. They're
like weather to life. I don't want to. I don't
want that. I still want to hang on to sort
of an innocence to it all every day.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Well, they say, don't that. Aging is when you when
you feel your best user behind you. And I've never
felt that, And it sounds like you don't either. And
I've got a number of friends my age, our mother's
At this age, your cycle was wrapping up. And yet
I've got friends, ones just gone into local politics, one
has working full time as an hour It's what's my
(27:01):
third act? Yeah, young and working and building your life,
raising a family. What's the third bit?
Speaker 1 (27:07):
You've got all these things to share and say, I'm
really interested to find out what is your third act.
I was in a coffee shop the other day and
I got chatless woman and she was She told me
she was seventy two, and I said, and what are
you up to today? She goes, oh, I'm just on
my way to therapy. And I said, oh wow, have
you been obviously doing that year? She went no, this
is only my second dumb session. And we had a
(27:28):
laugh because I was like, I said, good on you.
I said, you're seventy two. You just don't mind you're
just starting therapy. And she was like, oh, yes, I
just want to make sure that you know I'm clearing
up the stuff I should have done years ago so
I can enjoy the next few years. However I'm blessed with.
And I was like, that made my whole week. That
chats that stranger, the fact that this seventy two old
(27:50):
was just about to start therapy, saying that, do you
know what, I've been carrying this around too much? Now
I don't want this anymore. I want to be lighter
for the next couple of years. Wow.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Yeah, I was talking about with some girlfriends yesterday. I
had my sixtieth birthday last weekend, and think what the
image of what sixties in your head? Which I thought
was Whistler's mother in a rocking chair. I pictured that's
what sixty was when you were younger. We did, we did,
And that's am I riding saying that's what sixty year
olds looked like. I might be might area.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
And all the movies you and I saw in the
eighties when someone was like sixty, they were like literally
half dead, weren't they. They were portrayed that way. And
you know we were aging and death phobic in our world,
aren't we we are? It's sort of just seen somebody
ridiculed or thrown away in the shadows and not thought about,
like you were defunct, you passed your sal by day,
(28:38):
even if you're still alive. Whereas now you realize, actually sixties.
You see people doing triathlons now, and there's seventies and
stuff like that. You can still have a really great
connection to your own vitalitany in joy in life.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
There was interesting recently a number of women were discussing
this that the Golden Girls are the same age. They're
in their mid fifties, same age as the girls in
the boot of Sex in the City.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
They were not in their mid fifties.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah they were.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
They were ninety.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
And they weren't in a retirement village. They were in
just a condo. We assumed gray hair equals retirement village.
It's just cranky, old mold. Yes, And they're the same
women on screen as a woman in the reboot of
Sex and the s.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
No, that is what that's depressed.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
That's that's how we perceived fifty sixty then, as opposed
to how we do now.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Yeah, so what do you want for the rest of
your life? What do you want more of? Because we
know what we're losing, What do you want more of?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
It's hard to know, isn't it. I've got some people
to say, why are you still working so hard?
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I just love it. I wouldn't be working this hard
if I didn't love It's like saying to meet Jagguway
still singing you know eighty seven and whatever he is.
You don't need to, but I don't do it because
I need to. I get energy from it. So I
don't know. I don't necessarily want to slow down. It'd
be nice to have a sabbatical where you're going to
take three months off and come back again, but I
(30:07):
want to keep going. I don't know what I want
more of. I'm getting a lot better at taking time out,
I think for a holiday house recently, and I'm being
quite strict with my boundaries because I used to just
say yes, I can do that. Now I'm saying I
won't be here and I had to buy a house
to do it. So I'm learning the lessons of I've
(30:28):
earn't the right to say no to things, and I'm
choosing that. But I don't fantasize about having a quieter life.
So I really don't know. And in a way, I
like the fact it's still up for grabs. Who knows,
who knows what's around the corner.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Amanda Keller, You're a treat, You're a treasure. You really
hear and I generally want to thank you for my
heart to yours. Thank you for being so open hearted
in this chat as well. You shared a lot. It
meant a lot to me. You opened up my heart
with this chat as well, So thank you so much.
I love chatting to you.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I've loved it. I've loved and also I want to
thank you because I'd forgotten about the stone until i'd
gone to look for an item, and this could not
be more timely in my life to remind myself of
that stone. So thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Oh man, this chat with Amanda will stay with me
for a very very long time. Yeah, it really touched
something which is really in live with me, with my
eldest daughter literally flying the nest, my first daughter to
leave home. As I speak to you, I didn't know
that we were going to get into that. It was
(31:37):
like part therapy, part the breaking open of my heart.
I hope you enjoyed it as well. She's actually my
daughter will really moving to a different city and about
to start university. So Amanda's chat, someone who's a little
bit further down the line than me, has reminded me
it's actually not about what I'm losing, which I think
I've been focusing on that lot. It's actually about what
I'm going to be adding to my life. I hope
(31:58):
you've got something special from Amanda's chat. She's amazing, isn't she.
We're always evolving and as I turned fifty this year,
aging is a gift and it is better than the alternative.
What are you going to do with your next chapter?
Thank you very much from the wisdom of Amanda Keller.
You can follow Stuff of Legends on the iHeartRadio app
(32:18):
to find out new episodes and listen to the ones
we've already done. Some brilliant conversations, all kinds of brilliant people,
Russell Brown, Ricky Gervais, Matthew McConaughey, great one with CELESE.
Barber that I loved. I'm Christian O'Connell and hopefully chatter
you next time on the Stuff of Legends.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.