Tickety-Boo

I keep starting blog posts that decide that they want to be about very big important topics that demand much explaining and context and several flashbacks as well as an earnest paragraph on my hopes for the future and then the entire story retold from the spoodle's point of view. I quickly come to realise that the post I'm working on is going to take FOREVER to obsessively craft, check, check again, check once more in preview mode, post, see a typo immediately after doing so, correct and post again, then check once more, just to make sure and then get a comment and have to immediately re-read the post to contextualise it, because it comes from a perspective I hadn't considered. So then I decide to avoid all that and come back to that post when it's not 11pm and start something else, a little lighter, that after a whimsical paragraph of introduction decides (much to my annoyance, I might add) that it too wants to be about a very big important topic and then I repeat the whole saga.


So I've been writing; just not posting, which I don't think counts. It might, however, depend how you answer that question about trees falling in the forest and nobody hearing. I've also been writing long posts and then deleting them without publishing them, which is also annoying since I'm really not so prolific that I can afford to be deleting my earnest outpourings. Mostly I've just been trying to write a simple little family update and you wouldn't think that it would be that difficult since things are really rather tickety-boo for us right now, but it is and I've already abandoned a post attempting to explain why tonight, so I'm steering well away from that. Instead, prepare to be shocked and amazed as I post "Three Things Too Boring to be in Posts by Themselves".


I wrote that post about G the other day, because I had been asking myself all day how I felt about his suicide. The answer was, 'Not much at all really, just a little odd.' But your comments really spoke to me. I know that I'm loving that shower curtain a little more every day. The following afternoon, I was hanging washing out, my mind jumping from thought to thought, when I felt the quiet around me telling me to slow down for just a moment and take a deep breathe and right then I felt something return to me, some little beloved part of myself that I didn't even realise I'd lost when I burned the bridge that led back in time to my unhappy life with G. Another circle closing.

Ni was working on her own drawings one day last week, so I took a few minutes to join her for the week's drawing session. She set me the assignment of drawing her little mascot, Cassie. Wawa participated by adding some colour to the finished artwork.

If this next item were interesting enough to warrant a post of its own, it would be called, 'How I Killed Christmas', but technically, it was just our sweet little Christmas tree that I murdered and the how isn't much of a mystery. I just forgot to water the poor thing the whole time it was inside being festive. Oops. Sorry little tree.

Hmmm... And now it's nearly 1am anyway. So much for avoiding a time-consuming post.

Not My Burden to Bear

They say the best revenge is living well. Theoretically speaking then, I've enjoyed tenfold any revenge I might ever have been destined to inflict.

When I was eighteen and nineteen, I lived with a man, G, who was twice my age. He was, in fact, the age that I am now. It's a perspective that offers me the opportunity to laugh wryly and shake my head. He was a very stunted man in more ways than one. He was also a fairly textbook abuser. He would say things like, "No one has ever made me this angry before," while pinning me to the bed. I really don't know if I believed him, even then. After all, he'd been through a divorce only a year or two before I met him. The fact that I was even with him is every bit of evidence you or I will ever need that I was a very damaged young woman when I turned my back on childhood.

G lived for sex and drugs and he would do just about anything to get them. From anyone. Anywhere. Any time. He lied and cheated everyone from strangers to his dearest friends. I believe he couldn't help it. He lied to get what he wanted and he lied when the truth would have served equally well. He would tell outright lies to people's faces and assume that I wouldn't out him. And I didn't. He would take mad risks constantly. For the most part, he made friends easily. It wasn't that he was particularly likeable, he just had a way of making you feel as if you'd always been mates. A stalwart of G's social circle once confided to me that he didn't trust G. He told me that before I'd met him, G had just turned up at the pub one day and blustered in as if he'd always been there. He became a more or less instant fixture in that little bar with its comorbid community of misfits. He was undeniably charming in his bullshit and bluster and people were always bizarrely reluctant to call him on it, even when it was utterly blatant. I was certainly no exception.

Obviously, I eventually left him, which is a story in itself, for another day perhaps - or perhaps not, since it's not a very pretty one. I don't remember ever seeing him again. It took me a long time to stop feeling vengeful towards G. Eventually, deeper hurts eclipsed him and though I will admit that I have kept scars as souvenirs from our time together, I really haven't given him more than a passing thought for several years.

Then in the wee hours of this morning, when I should have been sleeping, I unexpectedly stumbled upon his obituary online - two days before it expires and tumbles into the misty ether of whatever it is that bits of the Internet become once they cease to be. And there, between the scant lines of the obituary and the funeral notice and a few notices from mates, are those all too familiar hints; an effort to protect, belying a need to protect. And I'm not at all sad, because as harsh as I'm sure it sounds, I impassively believe that the world is a very slightly better place today, but I am a little shocked. I genuinely would have thought that his narcissism ran too deep for suicide. I guess there was more to him than I could parse at nineteen. It's been a long time and the way he lived his life cannot help but inflict damage, not just in a circle radiating outward, but in a spiral inward and downward.

So there's the flip side of my living well. The day that I was out with three people that I adore, paying too much for a shower curtain with butterflies on it, G was ending his life. It feels neither bitter nor sweet. It's simply not my burden to bear.

{this moment} - Play

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want pause, savor and remember. - Soulemama

Life's Heart

"I can't sing," Doot says when I ask if he'd like to join in our circle for Wawa. He sees me move to interject. I don't even need to say, "Everyone can sing." We've rehearsed this one. "You're right, I should clarify," he adds quickly, "I can't sing WELL." "You're missing the point," I tell him. He's not convinced. 


Make a joyful noise, I say. Write, sing, play an instrument or two or three, draw, paint, cook, sew, knit. Create. Laugh. Love. It's all the stuff of life. The molecules that form life's heart are full of chaotic noise and dropped stitches and a green crayon cat whose whiskers are so long they flow off the sides of the page. As a society, we are very good at letting children know, as they stand vulnerable on the cusp of adulthood, that if they don't show conventional talent in an area, they should desist or open themselves up to ridicule. You might just as well tell them to eat only foods that please their palates, those that offer instant gratification, at the expense of others that they need to nourish them.


My children and I belong to a homeschool choir. There are no very confident singers amongst the adults (all women), but my goodness we can make a beautiful noise when we all join our faltering voices together and sing from our hearts. 


All this is my way of telling you that number 24 on my list of 52 habits is "Draw with Ni once a week." Both of my children are passionate artists. Wawa seemed born to it. Ni has grown into it a little more with every passing year. I, of course, am far too busy with important adult things like laundry and cutting up cardboard with a utility knife so that it will fit nicely in the recycling bin, except once a week, when I aim to draw with my children. Not because I am good at it, but because it is good for me.


Having admired traditional and modern Aboriginal artworks and artifacts at Bunjilaka at the Melbourne Museum, we searched online and found images of a diverse range of works identifying as Aboriginal art. We discussed what we saw; the colours, techniques that might have been used, what we liked about our favourites and what inspiration we might draw from them. The idea was not to emulate what we saw, but to see what response the works elicited in us.


Ni tried pointillism for this dibby (truck) that she drew for Wawa. 

She developed her technique for this beautiful tree.

Wawa, influenced by her favourite artist (Ni) used the same technique for this drawing, along with some artfully rendered squiggles. 

Mine is a rather flat-looking, but likeable echidna.

Doot politely declined to participate. :)

Found Poetry

I like the idea of found art. It's all about stripping an object of its context and assigning it a new arbitrary value and thus a fresh context. It doesn't matter if an object was rubbish lying in the street an hour ago; look at it in a different light (from a different perspective) and who knows what you will see? That's one of the reasons I like shopping in second hand stores. There's less bias on my part; an item is more likely to stand on its own merits rather than brand, price or the store it's sold in. 'Cool' becomes a product of my own mind rather than marketing.

Dust Bunny With Grass - January 2012

Sorting out my very cluttered, disorganised data is on my 52 habits in 52 weeks list. I'm working away at it a little every day (habitually, you might say). I'm making progress (or so I keep telling myself). On my new phone, filed under the category of 'Weird Stuff I Keep', I have an SMS message synced from my old phone that I received mistakenly from a complete stranger in late 2009. It reads like beat poetry. It is so beautiful and poignant and strong and tells an old old tale. I know I've been there. I present it for you today as a guest post of sorts. Superbly practical syntax and spelling is preserved from the original, but I'm going to insert some spaces to make it easier to read.


Well it all went down the drain pritti quik.
All coza drugs.
U neva listened 2 me
its like inside i was screaming
but outside i cudnt speak.
Did u evn care about me at all at the end of it
coz it sure didnt feel like it,
all u cared about was jus takin off n gtn fried
n ditchn me 
n goin 2 da beach witout me.
id hav 2 beg u jus to spend a minute with me
ud make me wait 4 hrs n neva evn show up 2 things we had 2 do
lyk lookn at houses.
U put evryone and evrything b4 me
id had enuff.
way enuff.
Thats y that nyt u fukd off 
and left me at aron n tash's
sed u left 4 wrk wit silvo n paulie at like 4am
n sed ud b bak at like midday latest.
i waited all that afternoon thru to the nite 
til afta midnyt
n thats wen i fukd off took my shit n left
coz u promised me ud b bak 
n u wernt
yet silvo n paul came bak at lyk 11
n u wernt wit em,
sed u wer drinkn wit daz
but i knew tht wuda bin a lie
coz at that point u owed him money.
So yeahh.
And that ws da end of us


So is it just me, or is there raw poetry in that?

I Phone

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, along with curse words muttered a little too audibly under my breath, I seem to have found a workaround for my photo problem and thus I present number seventeen on the 52 in 52 list; 'Get a new iPhone'. We kind of cheated on this one, since we were planning to save up like the clever, responsible creatures we are and buy one outright to use with a pre-paid SIM. Instead, after spending all of our money on boring rent and bills and food month after month after month (yawn), and since I'd been without a phone all that time, we decided to get one on a post-paid contract, which is a little nerve-wracking given that Doot will be studying (and working) again this year, so we know we have another lean year ahead. Thankfully I now have a shiny new iPhone to console me and keep me warm through the dark days. It should also be noted that cheating and the creative revision of goals is encouraged in this endeavour (the one I like to call 'life'). 'Realistic' and 'practical' are like mantras around here (along with 'Don't throw that!' and 'What's that brown thing on the floor?').

Incidentally, I also bought that mirror last week (it was a cheap one from Aldi), which is not the most thrilling news, I know (especially since it doesn't appear on any lists anywhere...sigh...), but that's the first full length mirror I've owned since Ni was a baby and I had one turned on its side for her enjoyment. For years my subtle self talk went along the lines of, 'If you buy a mirror, that means that you want to look at yourself, which in turn implies that you think you're worth looking at and then people will laugh at you and your delusion.' And obviously when you write it out like that and prop it up on a solid frame of words, it seems ridiculous, but when it's just a little grey worm whispering away in your mind, that has been there whispering away forever and ever, it's just one of a seemingly infinite number of things that you have to learn, with some effort, to question. If I did not have a toddler leaving her sweet little baby body behind for a more advanced model and a big girl on the cusp of the amazing process of growing into her womanhood, I'd probably still be squinting at myself in the shaving mirror in the bathroom.

Then, of course, there's the fraught question of what I actually see (or don't see) when I look in that mirror. That's a whole other blog post, I think. And we'd better just skip right over the shame and embarrassment that has to be overcome in order to even take a photo of myself, let alone stick it up on the Internet. Eeep!

I know that most of us have to recover from our childhoods and the failings of the adults in our lives at some point, but I desperately hope that I'm paving an easier road for my daughters.

Here's a photo of Lyra and I playing Extreme Incy Wincy.

I'm not sure what the rules are, but they seem to involve singing the song then attacking your mama with the giant plastic spider you got from the museum (that you like far better than the lovely white and purple agate that mama bought for you).

No doubt you'll be subjected to my burgeoning love affair with the iPhone 4S' wonderful camera (with a little added enhancement for the above photo). I probably shouldn't have clicked over to Photojojo for that link, since I found this and am now wondering how much we could get for the spoodle and the children's toys on eBay.

Very Limited

I crossed two things off my 52 in 52 list yesterday. One of them was fun and one not so much, which is a good way to do things really. 


Number three on the list was "Have a check up". My attitude towards doctors has de-generated to barely concealed loathing and near-phobia in recent years - not without reason, I hasten to add. I won't bore you with my vast collection of, incompetent, disrespectful, arrogant and/or bullying doctor stories. I generally save those for the hapless people who unwittingly broach medical subjects in my presence. They quickly realise their terrible mistake, but by then it's too late. 


I'll try to control my emotions as I tell you that the last time I consulted a doctor was at a public hospital pre-natal check up when I was pregnant with Wawa (who was two in October). That visit triggered some unpleasant flashbacks to the horrible shitfest that was Ni's birth eight years earlier and that very day, I went home and found my beautiful doula who took me in hand and found midwives for me at rather late notice and worked very hard to help me prepare for Wawa's blessed homebirth.


My last pap smear was in 2007. You can read about it here. Yay! Isn't blogging awesome? Finally, I told myself that my family need me and I absolutely must take better responsibility for my health. Then I told myself to shut the hell up and stop being such an annoying prat. Then I told myself that I'm not being a prat, you are, so you shut up! That went on for a while, but eventually, I looked up a doctor I'd seen before who I didn't like, but didn't hate and got Doot to ring up and make an appointment. 


Shockingly, the doctor was running well behind when I arrived for my appointment. They asked me to come back in 40 minutes. Then I waited for another fifteen. She ultimately explained her tardiness by saying that she tended to attract "a certain type of clientele". I wasn't sure what that meant, but I laughed nervously then pulled out my annotated list of things I needed to discuss. In spite of the fact that I had booked a double appointment, the doctor seemed to visibly slump and mentioned that she would probably have to work through lunch today. Um... Sorry?


During our allotted time, I had a few things checked that she explained slowly and using small words were probably not cancer. She repeatedly referred to my gluten and dairy free lifestyle as "a very limited diet". I asked what tests I could do to find out what foods or food chemicals I'm still reacting to, but when I explained firmly that I would not eat gluten for the sake of "proper testing" since it makes me sick and puts me into a state of overwhelming anxiety that makes my life utterly intolerable, she shook her head and referred me to a gastroenterologist. I'm not sure that's really what I need, but I asked her to order some blood work, so I'll see what insight into my "very limited diet" that might offer first.


The fun thing will have to wait, since it's ridiculously late and I'm having problems with the photos I'm trying to upload and laptops are far too easy to throw at a wall when your frayed temper finally snaps.

The Modern Toddler...

...takes breastfeeding self-portraits with the family iPod.

A Good Feeling

And so here we are. Grand things will come of all this. I've got a good feeling. 


Doot worked last night, so we three ate corn chips and animal biscuits and watched fireworks from our bedroom window to welcome the year; all of us exclaiming in unison and Ni and I smiling at Wawa's commentary - "Booful!" "Nice!" "Cooool!" "Nois-see!" "Piddy!" We'd have done the same if Doot had been home, no doubt, only there'd have been less corn chips and animal biscuits to go around. There was much hugging and kissing and smiling and professions that this will be our "best year ever" and in spite of that little part of me saying "You'll jinx us with all this crazy blog talk.", I can just about believe it.


We followed the fireworks with the traditional sparklers in the backyard, upsetting the already anxious spoodle, watching from the bungalow window, until we invited him out to join the fun. Ni, approached the ritual with her usual mix of un-contained joy and utter terror and Wawa got to hold the very last sparkler, while I hovered nervously, trying to stay close enough to rescue her in case she ignored our instructions not to touch the "hot" and far enough away to avoid being blinded by her wildly flailing arm. The spoodle had the rare good sense to keep his distance.

Here's a photo that nicely summarises this first day of 2012. I call it, "Kitteh is Hot" or maybe "The Toys Come Alive at Night". 

Over time, Kitty slowly migrates about the house, faddishly choosing a new favourite sleeping place every week or so. Some of them seem quite odd to those of us uninitiated in the ways of kitty comfort. Much to everyone's delight, her latest spot seems to be the shelves in Wawa's corner. Wawa is happy to embrace her as just another plaything placed in her corner for the sole purpose of delighting and entertaining her. Kitty for her part is tolerating the added attention quite well, but has since pushed those pesky toys off with a dramatic flourish so that the shelf might better accommodate her. The poor thing is very fluffy and tomorrow is set to be even hotter than today. I don't have the heart to tell her.