Rebecca Handler

o n e w o m a n p a r t y

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The Spirit Of The Cacao

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There were many kinds of girls in middle school. There were the tough girls who had hickeys and lip liner and pierced their own ears, the “grown-up” ones who wore stockings and slingbacks, and the tomboys who played in band and wrote in permanent marker on their K-Swiss.

And then there were the girls I envied the most, the ones who seemed to be made of incense and linen. I’m sure, like most preteens, these festival girls, with their leather sandals and messy hair, meticulously cultivated their Virgin Suicides-meets-Woodstock look. But to me, they appeared absolutely effortless, like they were born wearing belly-dancing scarves around their waists. I imagine their homes were filled with beads hanging from the doorways, Indian silk throw pillows and the smell of chai.

I thought of these girls recently when I attended an event called Shamanic Cacao Ceremony & Sacred Ecstatic Dance.

As it turns out, Perth is not just home to Olympic athletes and sports therapy clinics. It also boasts an impressive number of white people with dreadlocks who dance like no one’s watching, except there is someone watching and her name is Rebecca.

My friend Druimé wrote on Facebook that she had an extra ticket to this event, and before you can say electronic didgeridoo, I was making plans for her to pick me up at 6:30 that night.

I spent the afternoon reviewing the event details and googling shamanic cacao ceremony. Cacao promotes focus and insight. Prior to ingesting cacao, five hours of fasting is recommended. I read the event description aloud to Dave and he asked, “Are you sure nothing else is added to the cacao?” I assured him no, we will not be deported because I overdosed on spiked Guatemalan cocoa beans and was found wearing silver ear cuffs, wandering the streets of North Perth.

Curiously, I was not leery of the Sacred Ecstatic Dance part of the invitation. Although I had never personally attended this sort of event, I understood the basics thanks to my friend Alex, an ecstatic dance enthusiast. I understood that there would be candles and a DJ, but, unlike a nightclub, it would be silent and alcohol-free.

On the way over, I asked Druimé if anyone would try to touch me. She giggled and promised I’d be left alone. She then added that if I felt that way, I should never attend a tantric cacao ceremony. I confessed to her that I just ate a ton of cheese and crackers, which doesn’t technically count as fasting. She said she just had some cake and I shouldn’t worry about it.

When we entered the North Perth Town Hall, we removed our shoes, dropped our bags in the corner, and squeezed ourselves into a large circle of twenty-somethings, all sitting cross-legged with their eyes closed. I’m old, I thought, as my knee joints cracked and I plopped on a pillow.

Khaleesi was walking around the circle beating a drum. Blond hair piled atop her head, she wore a long backless white dress and gold bracelets (post-event internet-stalking would reveal she speaks to trees and looks amazing in eyeliner). Her assistant, also gorgeous and also in white, handed out Dixie cups of room temperature hot chocolate.

“Take the first sip of the sacred cacao.” Khaleesi led us through the ceremony, which involved drinking this bitter brown liquid that no amount of whipped cream and marshmallows would have rescued. “Imagine the crown of your head is covered with one thousand petals from a lotus flower.”

I wanted to shoot back the cacao as quickly as possible but followed the instructions to sip slowly, holding out hope that soon I would be super high.

No such luck. The only sacred cacao high I experienced was the high of dehydration, which I quickly cured by chugging my Chevron water bottle. This was around the time Khaleesi used the phrase “inter-dimensional midwife” and I unintentionally let out a little snort.

After chanting exactly 108 oms, we stood up and the DJ, also in white, started playing something I swear I heard in a Volkswagon commercial ten years ago.

Then came the good part. Man, I love dancing. I got to dance with the cool girls, the girls in halter tops and prairie skirts, and some beautiful delicate men too, the likes I haven’t seen since San Francisco. Swinging my arms around, I accidentally bumped into a skinny man with pigtails who looked like Alan Cumming in Anniversary Party. I mouthed “Sorry,” and he put his hands in prayer position and then darted across the room like Tinkerbell.

After some “find someone you connect with and bow to each other” business that I could have done without, the evening ended with chai. Of course it did. Because I am beautiful and effortless and drink chai.

The Trip Of All Trips

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In case you are wondering, if you deposit an Australian 10-cent coin into a San Francisco parking meter, you get one minute.

The 10-cent coin features the Queen on one side and on the other, a male lyrebird, tail feathers on display. Lyrebirds mimic other birds, and also things like crying babies and car alarms. What fun that must be.

Two weeks ago I learned that an old friend of mine, and by old I mean 98, had become ill. My husband told me to get on a plane, he’s got this, so I packed a carry-on and flew to San Francisco in a magical time-changing machine with cold dinner rolls and tiny bottles of wine. The next day, I was in Beate’s living room.

She opened her eyes and said, “What are you doing here?” I trimmed her nails and asked if she was thirsty.

Beate has wonderful care at home, and is surrounded by her plants and many knick-knacks, including an impressive assortment of schnauzer figurines and a solar-powered dancing sunflower still in its packaging. She sips tea from her glass mug, and has an occasional bite of soft-boiled egg. Most of the time she sleeps.

For as long as I can remember, Beate has owned a collection of wind-up toys that she keeps in a round Chinese hat with long fringe braids. There’s a frog with jazz hands that moves from side to side, a cowboy hat that darts around spastically, and a monkey that does somersaults. My brother and I spent a good chunk of our childhood on the floor with these toys, and my daughters know where to look for them when we drop by for tea.

I asked my brother if he’d mind if I took the wind-up toys back to Perth. “Just leave me the pear that sticks out its tongue,” he said. Fair enough.

So I took her toys and said goodbye. When I adjusted her hospital gown and told her I needed to go home, she squeezed my hand and said, “I am on the trip of all trips.” Then she requested a glass of water and shooed me away.

Beate is a Holocaust survivor. After 9-11, she didn’t like all the American flags popping up all over the place. “That’s how it starts,” she’d say, dishing up a rich chocolate cake from Schubert’s. I was hoping she’d live long enough to see Hillary beat Trump.

My family was waiting for me at the airport. Willa had new shoes and Simone won her hockey game. Soon after we got home and rolled around on the floor, I whispered to the girls, “I have something for you.” I zipped open my bag and handed them the Chinese hat filled with wind-up toys. “The monkey!” Willa exclaimed.

We lined up books on the carpet so the toys could dance. “Let’s pretend they’re at school,” Simone said. It’s hard to keep twenty wind-up toys all in motion. We laughed as the birds outside chirped and sang. I don’t think there are lyrebirds in Perth. But would I know if there were?

The Truth Is Out There

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I can’t help it, I have to ask. “Has anyone ever told you that you look like David Duchovny?”

The man smiles. “My nickname is Fox.”

It makes perfect sense that Agent Fox Mulder, a specialist in solving paranormal mysteries, is sitting across from me at a picnic table in Cape Range National Park, 800 miles north of Perth, the epitome of boonies. This place is ripe with supernatural potential.

I like this doppelganger from Queensland. For one, he has used the word “gobsmacked” three times in the past hour, which I find charming. He used to play pro soccer and now takes privileged teenagers to Europe to meet professional coaches. His wife is from a tiny fishing island in Japan and has glamour-length, rhinestone-encrusted, pastel pink nails and a contagious laugh.

My family and I are on a road trip. We are peeing in the dirt and playing Would You Rather. Beef jerky? Check. Gatorade? Check. Audio book? Goblet of Fire, Chapter 13. We drove to Cape Range today from Monkey Mia (pronounced “maya” because the toilets flush backwards).

I could tell you more about the soccer player and his exquisitely manicured wife, or kvetch about the mouse who ate right through the sunhat I’ve owned for eleven years – the only sunhat that fits my watermelon head and now it has a hole in it – or describe the sheer glee I felt snorkeling with my kids, but this is about the getting there part, the in-between, the road.

The North West Coastal Highway runs down the side of Western Australia like a jellyfish scar. Its two lanes go on forever. We spent eight hours on this road today and that’s the just the tip of the termite mound.

With the exception of the occasional dune, the outback is flat. And mostly quiet. An approaching vehicle (a south-going Zax) passed every two minutes or so – usually a camper van, a bus, or, god forbid, a road train. I had never heard the term “road train” before seeing the words in big capital letters on the front of one, but I recognized these massive rigs with multiple trailers from cross-country trips in the U.S. It is terrifying to see one of these beasts barreling towards you on a narrow two-lane road. As it passed, our car would shake from fear.

The color palette of the landscape is very Anthropologie catalog – various shades of brown and red, army greens and blue-grays. I kept expecting to see a beautiful, ethnically ambiguous woman wrapped in a monogrammed poncho clutching a ceramic mug, but then I decided this poor lady would either die from heat exhaustion or a dingo would chew through her braided rope anklet (Spring 2016).

Small shrubs are scattered about like discarded pom-poms in a cheerleader’s ghost town. Most of the bushes are green or gray. Some look charred, the unfortunate consequence of a spaceship landing. The occasional gum tree pokes out of the ground as a modest shade offering. Staring out the window, I wondered how anything could possibly grow in this hot red sand, but then I remembered the storms in this region are famous. We passed hundreds of Floodway signs. The six-feet-tall termite mounds (some more than 800 years old) are another indicator of occasional rain. A storm is approaching! Let’s all work together to build a sand igloo! Faster, Floyd, faster!

Of all the animals in the outback, the flies are the mightiest. They swarm and invade. I have never squat-peed with such haste and aggression. I curse you flies. May this acid waterfall drown you all. You’d think with their marsupial road kill buffet, the flies would be all pooped out, but they followed us like tiny paparazzi.

Signs announce the possibility of animal encounters. Most of the silhouettes were recognizable but we’d see an occasional warning for weird rat creatures with big ears or vague furry things. Crashing into an animal is a very real possibility on the North West Coastal Highway, and the evidence was bloody and everywhere. The kids were tasked with being spotters, which meant a lot of “goats on right,” or “freaky thing on left” coming from the backseat. We saw kangaroos, wild horses, wallabies, wallaroos, and countless lackadaisical goats. So many oddities of every shape and size. Did you know that goats and sheep are now having sex with each other? In Australia, their offspring are referred to as “halfsies.” What’s next? Equal pay for women? Crikey!

There are few places to fill the tank and buy more Arnott’s biscuits, and every stop felt like the scary bit before the opening credits – creaky screen door, flickering light bulb, an unusually warm and welcoming employee (alien in human form).

We made it to the national park without killing a single goatsheep blend. Now, the sun is setting over the Ningaloo Reef and we’re sipping Shiraz from Margaret River. The man who looks like David Duchovny is telling me about his recent kayaking adventure. I’d like to see an X-Files episode filmed out here. What do I know, maybe it was all filmed here as a docuseries. The truth is out there.

Doctor Hoo-Ha

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“Remove your clothes from the waist down and hop up on the table. Let me know when you’re ready, sound good?” She smiles reassuringly and pulls the modesty curtain between us.

This is a doctor I can get behind. Or sprawl in front of. I am at a local clinic in Perth for a routine physical which, because I have a vagina, includes a pap smear. Now, in socks and a tank top, paper napkin across my lap, I tentatively say, “Ready,” as one might announce to an opponent in a face-slapping contest.

My doctor is dressed for a cocktail party. Full make up, tight floral dress, gold necklace. Strappy black platforms reveal a glossy red pedicure. “Your shoes are amazing,” I couldn’t help but remark when I walked into her office. In classic Aussie style, she shrugged off the compliment and told me they’re just for work because the rest of the time she’s in trainers running after her kids.

I know this will be quick. Appointments at this clinic are 15 minutes long – five minutes to express concerns about your health, and nine minutes for the doctor to investigate, suggest, and prescribe. The remaining seconds are for getting dressed and discussing payment, which, in a universal health care system, means cheers see ya. There’s no whinging. Australian GPs are mechanics, not therapists.

The doctor joins me on my side of the curtain. She’s in the same outfit but with new accessories – white latex gloves. “Pop your knees up. Scoot closer. Here we go.” As she’s inserting the speculum, I say a little prayer of gratitude. Thank you for not having a creepy moustache.

Ten years ago, I spent four months living in France in the former art studio of Anna Klumpke, a portraitist in the 1800’s who was known primarily as the lover of Rosa Bonheur, an animal painter who received a special dispensation from Napoleon III to wear pants. But I digress.

During that time, I had to look up “le gynécologue” in the phone book. I made an appointment with a doctor in the next town over. My French is ok but I’m no Charlotte Rampling, so to reduce my odds of telling a doctor there’s a croissant in my pantry, I brought along my Canadian friend Natalie who could help translate.

The doctor’s office was on a residential street in Fontainebleau, in a simple house with a wooden sign out front. I rang the bell. “Une minute. J’arrive.” His voice was low and stern. When he opened the door, I discovered the world’s best-kept secret.

Salvador Dali is not dead. He is working as a gynecologist in a picturesque town south of Paris. The moustache, the slicked back hair, crazy eyes, the whole thing. Natalie and I had a conversation with our eyes: “You’re going to let Salvador Dali touch your lady parts?” “Yes in fact I am going to let the famous surrealist painter examine me. I’m tired and I hurt.”

There was no waiting room, no secretary. Just a wood-paneled windowless room with a table and leather straps on loan from Frankenstein. Natalie explained my problem to Salvador. He muttered something I didn’t understand. Natalie looked intently at me and said, “He wants you to take off all of your clothes and lie down on this table.”

“All my clothes?”

“Yes. Everything.”

“Why my shirt and bra? Where do I change? Is there a robe?”

Sensing an uncooperative patient, Salvador sighed and grumbled at Natalie. All I could make out was something about “all Americans.” She said, “He says American women are very prudish and this is an insult.”

We left immediately. Natalie held my hand on the train. “I’m Canadian and would not have taken off all of my clothes either.” She suggested I call a hospital and request a female doctor. I did just that and secured an appointment with a kind, female, English-speaking doctor. In her brightly lit office, I asked her if I needed to fully undress. “Why would you need to do that?” she said. “Just your pants. I’ll turn around. Let me know when you’re ready.”

Now, a decade later, I zip up my linen pants and step out of the Perth clinic into a warm afternoon breeze. The wind is famous here, blowing in from the nearby port city of Fremantle and providing relief on hot days. Locals refer to it as the Fremantle Doctor.

The Call Is Coming from Inside the Tent

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I once taught myself to like cottage cheese by eating one spoonful every morning for a month. In the beginning, I would gag. Between the chunky consistency of milk gone bad, the yellowish liquid layer on top, and a smell that manages to be both innocuous and rancid, there is not much to like about cottage cheese. But after a week or so, my taste buds relented. It’s not so bad. At the end of the month, I was dumping half a container into a cereal bowl and topping it off with a splash of canned peach juice. Mission accomplished. I am a person who enjoys a bowl of cottage cheese, I thought to myself, trotting off to middle school in my mint green Converse.

So help me God, I will become a person who enjoys camping.

There are many reasons to dislike camping but here I will present two of them: sleeping in a tent and serial killers.

Tents are annoying and they smell bad. Putting up a tent is like trying to tie a Moby Wrap around your torso while standing on one foot under a waterfall. Tents come with long metal rods that you must shove through skinny plastic sleeves, and when you do this incorrectly, you must remove the long metal rods, throw them on the ground, and whimper as you strive to read the faded instructions in the quickly disappearing daylight. When you want to enter your tent, you have to first unzip the “door” and then step in awkwardly like a toddler learning to walk up stairs, only to find your clothes splayed out before you in various states of disgusting. You find one sock but not the other. You don’t change your underwear for three days. It’s all an embarrassing mess.

Dave strongly disagrees with me on this next point, but serial killers are rampant at campgrounds. I don’t need data to back me up because it’s common sense. If your hobby is, say, flying kites, you are going to spend time in large, open fields with few tall obstacles. If you are more into, say, chopping people up into little pieces, you will seek out a remote location where you will find your victim waiting for you in a poorly assembled tent with limited cell reception. Dave and I once camped in South Dakota and I saw several serial killers.

When our friends Rochelle and Geert learned we had not yet camped in Western Australia after living here over a year, they took it upon themselves to help. Rochelle is originally from Perth and moves through life with a sense of exasperated goodwill. It’s not that she assumes people are stupid, but she knows, with plenty of evidence, she was put on this planet to help people be less dumb. Her husband Geert is Dutch, which is pretty much all you need to know about him. I don’t fully understand what he does for a living, but it involves managing the operations of massive construction vessels. He moves seamlessly between taking an emergency call in the middle of the forest to helping four children navigate white water rapids on kayaks.

Rochelle chose the Collie River as our destination, which is about two hours south of Perth. We drove for miles on a bumpy red dirt road and claimed a campsite right next to the river, a location that felt very covered-wagon-gold-rush and also took care of the grime problem. Majestic jarrah trees surrounded our tents, and the river sounded like wind. At the adjacent campsite was a large family gathering, which made me feel better about my odds in the serial killer scenario.

The weekend had many wondrous moments, including a large black lizard spotting, the starriest of starry skies, and most notably, a kangaroo bouncing through our campsite. I loved watching my daughters dismiss scrapes, splinters and bug bites in favor of sprinting through the forest and jumping in the river with new friends. I am grateful to Rochelle and Geert for not once referring to me as a pussy. Likewise, I am in awe of my nature-loving-happy-camper husband who did not throw me in the river at midnight when, in a tent-induced panic attack, I tried to blame him for my inability to chill out. (“WHY DON’T YOU SAY WHAT I WANT YOU TO SAY?”)

Learning to like cottage cheese was much easier than this business of camping. But I am determined.