This is what you don’t do

Thursday, 16 May, 2013 22:26

If you work at a major national supermarket chain and you’ve been assigned to the 15 items or less checkout, you don’t beckon to a customer who clearly has more than fifteen – heck, more than 30, let’s face it – items in the trolley.

You don’t lure them from their spot in the 3-trolleys-deep checkout they’re waiting at if you’re not going to take them on your lane.

You don’t nod when they point to themselves – “who… Me??” – and use hand gestures to entice them over to your tantalisingly clear rubber belt unless you’re going to follow through.

You don’t reassure their doubts of “but I have so many more items than that prescribed by your green sign of authority overhead” if you are not going to be supportive.

You don’t counter their cries of “but I shouldn’t be here, I feel bad” with retorts of “It’s okay, I’ll scan these through quickly”, only to take your sweet. Effing. Time. Making it obviously, blatantly, not okay to those in a hurry for whom the lane was designed.

For, certainly, when your previously empty lane begins to fill – as is the Law of Murphy – as soon as the shopper unloads her wares, you need to back her up. She’s going to apologise to the shopper behind her. The shopper who has three items. A tin of cat food, a bag of sugar and some Tic Tacs. You know…. the essentials. The emergency things (Tic Tacs… are so an emergency, especially the orange flavoured ones, shuddup) are what this aisle was designed for. In, out, thank you, if you please.

But no.

You did all those things. You broke protocol.

Did you have an ounce of remorse that you had led the hapless shopper astray when you beckoned? Did you appeal to the shoppers quickly piling up under that Murphy’s Law paradigm that states: “The moment the first item of the 30+ in the trolley is placed before the till that goes *ping*, a shopper following the sign’s rules shall appear. Then another. And another. One rule-abiding customer per 5 items placed on the belt” by telling them this had been all YOUR idea?

No. You did not.

Furthermore, you ended the transaction that had been largely fraught with flushed, apologetic glances by the etiquette-breaker (the one you had lured) in the direction of the customers piling up behind her by announcing loudly, “Next time, I’m going to have to ask you to line up at a regular register.”

Image from here (goodbye, 30 Rock, I'll miss you so)

BAM!

Consider my backside KICKED! Checkout Lady, you are one cool….. er, smooth operator.

Do you break the rules of polite societal etiquette? When/if you do, do you break into a cold sweat? Me neither. Much. Okay, maybe every time.

What maketh the mother

Friday, 10 May, 2013 13:26

22 Comments

The only photo I have of me as a baby with my mum, seen here with Lolly Jnr. (aka Me) – 1975

To be perfectly frank, I had deep personal issues with Mothers Day a long time before giving birth to my own firstborn in 2004. It’s something I’ve been practicing and trying to embrace in recent years (in my family’s own way) and now, I can do it with my child with free abandon. It’s taken years.

People have begun to share their first ever Mothers Day photos. And their first photos as new mothers.

So here is mine:

Me and my girl – Jan. 13th 2004

I had never seen anyone more exquisite and delicate before seeing Ellanor. She was wrapped in the feather-soft cloud of Somewhere Else. She never lost the magic of where we come from, in the In-between. She was born with it, and she died with it. But she showed it to me and forever impressed upon me the importance of relishing Life and embracing Death. It is all a part of all of us. We know this. I’m not afraid of it. I just wish it didn’t have to happen to so many of us before we’re ready! Impossible…

My next “brand new mother” photo captures a look on my face that is full of pain, confusion and terror. So I won’t show it. We weren’t sure what was happening to our little Lolly, only that we didn’t hear her cry and that she looked pasty grey upon delivery – worse than her premie sister, in fact. I’m not so sure I’m all too excited that Steve got the photo of my face. But it does tell a story.

So here’s a more pleasant one from a few hours later instead:

"Oh, it's YOU!" – 2006

I’m of the firm belief that mothers are not made from the act of giving birth. I was technically a mother at the point of giving birth to Ellanor. And yet, I know I was a mother before she made an appearance. I considered myself a “real” mother – in the eyes of society, that is – the moment she reached beyond the medically-termed point of “viability”. How cold and harsh; you’re a mother only once your baby (or babies) has passed the gestational age where they give you a birth certificate. That’s 20 weeks to you and me (in this country, at present). I didn’t need either of those photos to tell me I was already mother. I was born a mother. I came out nurturing, for Pete’s sake. Over the years, I’ve just learned to reserve it for the truly needy.

I ponder the animal kingdom quite a bit when I think about “mothers”. Look at how the sea turtle comes up to the beach, lays her eggs and then leaves them to the elements of the sun, the moon, the sea. She does her part and returns to the water to ensure her own chance at longevity, nature takes care of the rest. Instinctively, those little hatchlings know how to make it and where to head. Some will fall prey to hungry predators. Others will be too sick to survive. But each one of them knows how to get back to what will nurture them.

When I was in my years of striving for a child with Steve, I knew that I had the heart of a mother in me already. There were many years of healing to go through, to soothe my heart and gather my strength, and it has taken to the eve of the LGBB’s seventh birthday before I’ve been ready.

I was so confused when child bearing eluded us, for I knew in my depths that I was supposed to have children all around me. Even before we had Lolly, we discussed foster care. It was too hard. We shelved it. Losing Ella had muddied the waters too much. But I still wondered if my future was meant to involve children. Somehow.

The survival instinct is strong in me, thanks to a childhood that had to be survived more than enjoyed. The passion and determination to ensure a child feels heard and counted and loved… that is my utmost drive. I’ve been waiting patiently, often not even thinking about it for months on end, to feel strong enough to take on the task – knowing that when I give, I give my all. Even the passionate need to balance their approach; our history makes me a good candidate but I’ve had to put a lot of time into learning how to carefully cauterize my own wounds now that they have cleared so that they are not reopened (or hardened). The decade of practice and study into ways of self-nurturing and being in service to the All of this Earth led me to realise that what the world needs from me and Steve is not more of our own biological children. Anyway, I gave away that notion several years ago, saying goodbye to the fourteenth tiny life to leave my body in 2010.

Besides, there are so many other children the world needs, right now – for they are already here – it’s just that sometimes, the way each child’s unique story unfolds, the care and nurture falls away for many and varied reasons. Like the turtle returning to the water for its own survival.

There is so much hope, and such brave and exciting, beautiful potential in these young people. They have to deal with things, huge things, that most of our children have no concept of. I am well familiar with the pull of the impossible on the heart and all the ways life seems to show no mercy.

We are ready to do this. I, personally, HAVE to do this. The papers are signed.

20, 14, couple-selfie… HUT!

Tuesday, 07 May, 2013 13:20

27 Comments

Fourteen years ago today, it seems hard to believe, I donned an unseasonable halter-neck dress and sat uncharacteristically still with my mouth shut while I had my makeup done. If it was cold I had no idea for I was high as a kite on the anticipation of formalising my already six years-long commitment to the kindest, gentlest, funniest… er, and tallest… man I have still ever met. Hands down. I figure, anyone who has put up with me all this time has got to be a freak of nature. And he’s, like, rool intelligent too. I sure hit the jackpot. And I commend my 17 year-old former self for seeing what she did in that lanky, dorky teenage boy all that time ago in 1992.

To commemorate the momentous occasion of our 20th year of committed bliss (there’s an oxymoron if ever I heard it), I am going to make you endure a slideshow of honeymoon (and a few other) photos. But don’t go! It’s a slideshow with a difference. Let me explain….

I thought the first half dozen years before we got married, of taking stupid selfies (the sharpness of which were reliant on the distance Steve could get the camera from our faces) before selfies even became a “thing” on the internet… and actually, before the internet even became a thing, would continue.

But in putting together some photos for this post today, I went through our entire digital collection that started in 1997 and am ashamed to say that there are hardly any photos of us in them. Together. It appears evident that we have been hopelessly remiss in taking photos with both of us in them – the couple-selfie, if you will. Therefore, the sum total of our on-camera “togetherness” in these past twenty years is thus:

Hello, young people? 1994 called. It wants its long hair back. All of it.

In '99, we scrubbed up ok

Ok so far, right? Well, here is where it starts to go pear-shaped… We went to Europe for two months for our honeymoon. You’d think we would get some pretty awesome romantic couple-y shots on our honeymoon, yes? Yes. You would. We may well be the only people who have been to Paris, on their honeymoon no less, and didn’t think to get our photo taken in front of the Eiffel Tower. On a spot of ground that has been worn bare by millions who have come from around the world to do exactly that.

Is that an incredibly tall romantic erection? Or are you just happy to see me?

Wait! I think I see in this next shot… oh. No. It’s not us. It’s just me. And him. Alone. But if you look closely, you might even see Lady Grantham.

At the Colosseum. Looking suitably impressed by the authentic 72AD construction fencing.

Steve. Dwarfed by an abbey. I forget its name. Let's just call it Downton.

Lots of beautiful Austrian, Swiss, Italian sunsets. We’re not in a one of ‘em.

Somewhere in or around Innsbruck. Can't be sure. Schnapps was involved.

It was around this time that I (somewhat awkwardly) became fixated with photographing old men around England.
I won’t even bore you with them all, suffice to say there are more of them than there are shots of my newlywed and me together. Such as…:

A car being driven by a … bowling ball? With ears? Come ON, it's adorable!

But sometimes, those kind old gentlemen took the camera from us and made us pose. Like this one bloke in York. We think he offered to take our photo. Perhaps he actually wanted to steal the camera. Well, we posed anyway. Who knew when we’d get another chance to have a photo taken together while we were still young and at our wedding weight? We thought he was trying to tell us he was travelling too. We weren’t sure. His accent was so strong we couldn’t even be certain he was speaking English. Until I managed to translate that he was visiting from Newcastle. Our first (of several) encounter with an unrecognisable English dialect in their own country. Just… wow.

'Did you understand what he said?' 'No. Not sure he's even speaking English. Or wanting to take our photo. Just smile, ok?'

As an aside, let me veer you over to this photo that I just had to take. To remind me that THIS was why I vowed from that day never to eat meat again. Unfortunately, due to anaemia contraints that crop up each year or two, I have had to phase back in some of the white meat. Still, red meat has been off the menu ever since I discovered they bend down on their knees to eat (I wondered for weeks touring around Britain why all the sheep had dirty front knees). Gorgeous little things.

The pose that single-handedly turned me into a vegetarian. On the spot.

But I digress. Look! An accidental selfie!

Somewhere in Wales. Baffled while listening to some more indecipherable English on the radio. Because it was actually Welsh. D'oh.

Okay, so that’s about it. The sum total of our couple-photos from our honeymoon. Underwhelming, right?

Well, what if I told you we inadvertently continued trying for that elusive well-posed, non-duck-mouth, in-focus, flattering couple-selfie? The following are, in order, the only photos of the two of us in our collection between the years 2002 to 2013. Abysmal. But in its own way, a really poignant snapshot (in fast-forward) of our lives over the next few years.

Our second wedding anniversary, somewhere on a Fremantle Beach

There *may* have been quite a bit of alcohol involved in this one, for I felt far less in-focus than I appear – Diabetes Ball, 2002

With baby Ellanor on board, she would be born just three weeks later, forever changing the nature of all our future photos – Christmas, 2003

The very next photo of us was by her side

I posted the link recently to the very first photo of me after Ella died. There was, obviously, a pause on all photos and not just the couple selfies.
By September that same year, I wanted to capture how I felt, alone every day without our daughter. So one day in the fading September sunlight, I took my very first own “selfie”:

September 2005 – gazing at the sunset and marvelling how stunningly beautiful and clear everything looked "nowadays". Death is beauty. Losing my child helped me to honour my own life, not just hers.

He’s getting the hang of cutting off his face if it has to be that close to the camera – Sep. 2005

This time with a little Lolly on board and hoping she'd stay, remembering Ella's 2nd birthday at the place where we held her memorial – Jan. 2006

Get yer hand off it, Daryl – on the eve of Lolly's birth, July 2006

And then all of a sudden, there she was. The child who would capture and captivate us so that the dwindling couple-selfie would become all but obsolete. We were now a tri-selfie… And it would remain that way until Lolly was old enough to master the camera herself and start taking photos of us. With some considerable practice. We’re actually still waiting for a shot with all of both our heads in frame… But it’s sure fun trying.

Our first proper photo of the three of us, 8 months later… What? So we got distracted easily!

Teaching the art of the hand-held selfie. We still had a ways to go. Because *somebody* didn't quite get it.

A fluke great "tri-selfie" that went out on our first Christmas card as a family

Finally opting for the timer photo, what does he do? Hams up the shot. Daddy… frowny face.

But then, progress! Finally we had a little photographer. Now, maybe, just maybe, we would get a decent photo of the two of us…. Maybe.

Her very own first selfie! With the DSLR, no less! Perfect! She'll be great at this photo-taking thing.

Ah.

Ummm…

Hmmm.

Our family. So proud.

So there you have it. You’re free to go. “Slideshow” over.

Suffice to say, we’ve never quite mastered it. But who cares? We’ve got enough headless, half faced, dopey-eyed shots that kind of show where we were and what we were doing. Not to mention I’m living with two ham-artistes. Lolly and Steve can barely keep their faces straight at the best of times, let alone for a serious group pose. One of them is always doing something slapstick. I am thankfully outnumbered.

Case in point: Like the time I attempted to get an unposed photo of our daughter…

Yeh, thanks. Thanks a lot for that, Steve. Withered sigh.

Sometimes, it’s in the doing and not in the taking. And Steve and I both know, despite the lack of proof that we were both here, we’ve both remained present. The fact that our child has been front and centre in our relationship is a small and willing sacrifice of our “us time”. We have come to agree that seven years out of all 20 (and counting, blessedly) is more than we could ever dared hope for.

Love is…

Back to it

Saturday, 27 April, 2013 13:42

17 Comments

You know how you go on holidays and as soon as you open the front door, the feelings of relaxation and languid days and nights drop off you faster than a Labrador can catch a flying crumb? For the first time in my life, it didn’t happen to me when we came back from our latest adventure.

Last school holidays, we went on possibly one of our best family holidays yet. It was a brainwave of Steve’s to hire a campervan. So as well as our campsite, set up with tent, table and chairs and a bit of space for storing clothes and food, we had a ready-made living room on wheels. With the days still long but nights too cool for us wannabe hard-core campers to sleep inside canvas walls, we were set. It was brilliant. We toured half the Great Ocean Road in the week we were down that way, took in the Otway Fly, ate fresh fish and chips for tea and pulled off to the side of the road wherever the view took our breath away (we were spoiled for choice, let’s face it) to have lunch or play board games with an ever-changing panorama for a backdrop.

So what was different this time? Simple.

I’ve decided not to enter back into it since coming home. “It” being, of course, the drudgery of life. By keeping out of various things that eventually weigh me down, I’ve noticed I can avoid getting caught – slurped up – back in the circumstances that typically become boggy after a short while; those things I do where I interact with others, with places, with perceived duties and ideals. Of course it can’t all be avoided (well… it can, but I’m not ready just yet to go contemplate my navel on a mountain, never to return). But it’s amazing just how much of the unnecessary we allow ourselves to get immersed in. I know that I need to keep giving myself space, to allow space of time around me, in order to function in a healthy way within my family and those things that are important. It takes time. I blame technology for the associated feelings of guilt that typically creep back in, disallowing me to stay in my backyard long enough to let the heaviness of being “public” wash off.

I’m not talking of the heaviness of grief or depression. This is more a spiritual presence feeling, a density; gravity, put simply!

How do you like your beach? I'll take mine long and solitary, thanks!

This feeling, of simply being human with my feet firmly planted on the ground, is something I first noticed when I was stepping through the days and months after losing Ellanor. I felt it again when I experienced a profound journey through near death with a friend some years after that. My sensation of jolting back into my own body after visiting with her was undeniable. The most recent experience I had with this feeling was watching my stepmother drift further from her own physicality – she was so good at explaining and sharing the exhilaration as her journey towards death drew to a close – and I could feel again the immense amounts of unnecessary we are all weighed down with.

We really are heavy (no matter what the scales say!)…. if we weren’t, I guess we wouldn’t be physical matter. There are ways of remaining buoyant, of course, and this will be unique to everyone. For me, it involves providing my soul experiences to feed from. It sounds so trite – I know – but they are simple things, so simple that I often overlook or avoid doing them, believing (wrongly) that they won’t make any difference to me. Walks in nature (with no other sound but footsteps and birdsong and wind through leaves), rolling hills or stretches of sand – vistas that allow my creativity to expand, getting my hands busy in the dirt in my garden, planting new things.

When I lose this balance, I go grey. I go back to stepping day to day. Then I say, “We need a holiday!” and the family agrees. So we go, we holiday, we enjoy it and then we return. Step and repeat.

Breathtakingly tall

Something happened this time while we were away, though. We have made a promise as a family, a plan, a way to box and shelve (but keep) this feeling. We decided that a permanent place to take time out as a family with no distractions was a perfect way to truly unwind. I find now, after several weeks at home, that I am still expanding my thoughts into this space (wherever it is) and it is allowing me to look ahead to a new life. A creative fulfilling life, living off the land (if we plan properly) and living more simply.

The vision of the home away from home I have in my mind is one that is beckoning and getting stronger, so much so that I am almost yearning for it now.

Moggs Creek…. aaaaaaah

Do you have a permanent place to holiday every year or do you go somewhere new every time you get a chance to go away? Which do you prefer?

The times, they are a-changing

Friday, 19 April, 2013 14:35

9 Comments

Since my last blog post, about a quarter of a century ago (has it been that long?), there has been a noticeable shift in my outlook. A necessary change, if you will, to match both my life circumstances and my apparently dwindling physical capabilities. In short, I appear to have become fuddy to match my usual duddy.

All outward appearances would indicate I’m with it. Hip to the times. Right up there with the modern conveniences of the day. Up until about a week ago, when I received just one Google+ notification too many about someone’s latest addition to their Pinterest board, I was quite happy to go along.

And then it happened.

Faced with the horrifying realisation that the auto-correct on my iPhone thinks my misspelling of “day” is a real word, I decided that perhaps it was time to just go with it and get old. After all, a world in which “dat” is recognised as a word is not a world I want to align myself with fully. I want a world that upholds chivalry, chair pusher-inners at restaurants, tipping caps and smiling nods at strangers on the street.

It doesn’t stop there.

My doctor told me last week that my days of carefree abandon with coffee are over. OVER, people! I’ve reached that age *cries*. Then, in just one (particularly long, early-morning, sun-glarey) car ride, I noticed that I had decided carpeted dashboards really might be a rather clever idea to protect my car’s interior (and wondered if they still sold those contoured pieces of blue rug), and had muttered to myself as I turned in to my father’s driveway over two hours from home for the eightieth time this year* that I was “getting too old for this.”

Getting too old for long drives. There it was. I had turned into my mother in-law.

Now, it seems everything is pushing me towards actually embracing my choice. Perhaps it is coming from spending more time with my elderly Dad, but I find that increasingly I’m far more comfortable going to bed early with a good book (have any of you read “Hamlet’s Blackberry” yet? More about that another time) or to watch something on telly that has Judy Dench in it. I emailed Steve not more than an hour ago to remind him we had to look out for Scott & Bailey on the ABC. I know that if I eat spicy food now I’ll be up half the night with indigestion. So I don’t do it. Much.

But then there’s the clincher. My physical health. I know I’m being light in this post, but my health lately has been no laughing matter. Outwardly, I might display an air of carrying it all off and very well too. But internally, I’m moving through shades of leftover grief and trauma faster than my physical body has time to process it. It’s really another post’s worth to explain – for the process itself has been cathartic, releasing and quite amazing – suffice to say, I have been carefully undertaking Trauma Release Exercises which have allowed my body to begin resolving and letting go the impact it has suffered over the past ten years. Severe emotional impacts are damaging on a more subtle, intimate level and shouldn’t be taken lightly. I’m a tough one, made of solid Welsh-Irish-Scottish stock. We can take a lot!

Except… when we can’t.

When we turn around and acknowledge, in turn, all those things that have impacted on us, is it any wonder that the body absorbs all that grief and shock and holds it until we find a way to release it?

Physical blows are not the only way a body can get knocked around. And right now, with my health complaints and a growing arsenal of pharmaceuticals to prove it (which I’m trying gallantly to eradicate with the aid of my trusty holistic therapy team of peeps), I am living proof of it.

Forgive me, please, for not responding to Facebook friend requests or Tweets that go unanswered for days or hours. I’m finding the need for less, not more, new ways to connect. It’s seriously not you, it’s me. It’s head above water time for me here. And with my spare spaces of time, I think I might just don some bed socks, grab a soothing chamomile and ginger tea and sod off to bed with it.

*only mildly exaggerating

Insensitive infertiles: When online sharing can trip us up

Tuesday, 09 April, 2013 17:48

12 Comments

I am one.

This one time (just the other week), I realised even I am a bone-head about infertility. Put my foot right in it and did not come up smelling of roses. Blurred the online version of myself – the sharing, open, critical thinking one – with the real-life one when I applied the former in an area where they’re not nearly so used to being so public. Not even when that’s just an audience of one or two over a shared cuppa in a kitchen.

I walked right into the situation. Again. For the second time in as many years. And it struck me how you can have a more closed-down conversation face to face with someone you’ve known for thirty years, yet have a soul-enriching heart to heart over Twitter or Facebook or on a blog with someone you’ve never even met in the flesh.

What a wondrous new world this is! It makes me strive harder, not want to shut down and cringe away. I’ll own this mistake and move forward. But I do want to think out loud on it a little further, in case it strikes a chord with any other similarly line-blurred challenged amongst my blog’s readers.

Despite my internal protests that the pre-emptive strike I received was overdone and in itself insensitive towards me and my own history, I had to concede that I was not the aggrieved one here. There is a funny thing that’s happened as my LGBB has grown older. And as the months have dragged into years since my last (let’s call it my 14th, for that’s what it was) pregnancy. I thought I knew a thing or two about the trials of conceiving. But I forgot to have humility and sensitivity about it, because it’s been so long since I have been hopeful, for we are no longer trying to grow our family. So I went in with all the questions, the ones that are the norm for me and those in my circles online. For my loved ones, they weren’t so appropriate.

The hole feels like it’s closed over. I’m not carrying my armour around any more. I no longer feel like a torch bearer for infertility because I’m not “classically”, actively trying to conceive. Whilst still in my child-bearing years, my days of being in the sphere of “might have another one” are apparently over, if somewhat prematurely.

The issue is, because I’m moving past the window (here comes the freight train with my 40th birthday on it), I am myself becoming desensitised to the feelings of couples going through the various trials of infertility. It feels so normal to me to sit and discuss IUI and ICSI and catheters and the holding stalls of IVF backrooms. I’ll have a cup of tea with you and be quite at home asking how many rounds you’ve gone. I find IVF fascinating. The concept of a baby orchestrating the path of their creation in this way just blows my mind.

But then there are those who aren’t even completely open with each other about what the other wants to divulge to those around them. I never encountered that. Steve and I have always been “here it is, this is what it is, come take a look, peer into our lives, learn, consider, go away hopefully enriched by the sharing of our experiences with you.” And I have tripped up recently – twice, I think?? not that I’m counting, but I’m apparently being closely monitored – by asking explorative, interested, concerned questions. Where one individual is happy to impart information, I completely overlooked the fact that it might also be a sensitive topic to the other in the infertile partnership.

My bad. My very ignorant bad.

The journey for us started in 2000. It’s all but over now. The fact that most of my adult life has been overshadowed by our own infertility doom, gloom and others’ baby booms around us should not crowd out the awareness in me that it takes TWO people (and sometimes more, if you count those ART professionals – the ones who guide you through, tell you when your period’s coming, take your bloods, extract things from you [both] and insert things back in as required) and that BOTH of those people need to be considered when undertaking a conversation with only 50% of that coupling.

Regardless of the fact that I now carry this unacknowledged (even by me) black hole of hurt around, still smart at baby bellies, still become nauseous with stomach flips at being inflicted with pregnancy announcements, my role when I’m being given information has to be to receive it and then say no more. If I feel compelled to enter into a conversation, I need to first ask if it’s appropriate. Assess the boundaries. That might not always protect me and give me immunity from being accused of insensitivity (because, if I’m being frank, I think I’ve got a pretty good and experienced ear to lend in the direction of anyone in this area), as in this instance where I’ve been privy to some very personal and private information but had always gathered that they had had “The Discussion” about what was up for discussion with others. Seems it’s not always so clearly defined.

Call me the scapegoat. Whatever.

Mistakes are there to be made and learnt from. I can be indignant all I like and claim that I have been unfairly framed as a culprit of insensitivity. But at the end of the day, it’s not my story. It’s their story. I dropped my lantern of lighting the way good and proper on this one.

I will take my cap in hand and leave it at that.

Before Because

Monday, 25 March, 2013 10:37

10 Comments

Do you see even the most seemingly insignificant things in your day as spiritually significant? I never did. Before “because”.

Before “Because if I take the chance to go out today instead of stay by her side, it could be the day she first opens her eyes”

Before “Because I will never see her face again, I must do this”

Before “Because if I stay in bed, I might just never get up today/again”

Before “Because this next pregnancy could be The One, it’s got to be worth the heartache and physical pain of each miscarriage to try”

Before “Because now I see past the belly and appreciate that All life is precious”

Before “Because if I don’t, I will miss out on every precious moment of her and she may just be the only one who stays here”

Before “Because I must find the balance between my desperate fears and letting her live her life”

Before “Because she will be fine just as she is, I can’t control her”

…there was less of me. Not more. I may have been happier. Life certainly felt uncomplicated, more carefree and far less cruel. The world was warmer. But I was also oblivious. Asleep. I was by no stretch of the imagination as well-rounded or complete. Did not fully consider mercy. Or worth. Or wealth. I was not as compassionate and far more judgemental. Perceived perfection has a lot to answer for.

“Anyone who wants to appear to be perfect is struggling with something, and usually something pretty major,” a good friend once told me, years ago. Well, I wouldn’t know about that. That sort of outward striving for perfection (whether it be image, body size, hair-do, home, car…) has eluded me, always. I’m happy to remain blissfully unaffected. And this far in to my journey, it’s like an entirely different language for me now.

I am full today. A life made richer through the longest enduring struggles I never would have wished upon myself. But if it’s true – and we all sign up to our lives (and the challenges and choices we make in that lifetime) in a contract before we become mortal – then I would say, by and large, I am satisfied with the choices I have made. Am making. And the contract I signed up for is by no means finished (I hope, anyway!), which is good news because I have a way to go yet before many of my attitudes and beliefs are reprogrammed. Still… it’s a start, as they say.

Free-will and choice.
Do you let moments pass you by without recognising their significance? As mundane as they at first appear? By choosing to seeing each moment in a day as spiritually significant (note this is nothing to do with religion, but spirituality… the spirit that is within everyone), we can actually spin the driest, most apparently insignificant “straw” into gold.

True story.

I remember taking this photo, us holding hands and me in tears at feeling the reality of her warm little hand in mine. This was… Before "Because she has survived. I don't need to document any more. She's here."

A natural flea / floor / all-purpose cleaning spray recipe

Friday, 15 March, 2013 10:49

6 Comments

Warning: I’m about to go into what might at first sound like a {gasp} sponsored post. But it’s not. Unless you think my lemon tree is paying me. Well, it is, I suppose. In lemons. So, ok. Perhaps this is a sponsored post.

That aside, I have a question for you…

Have you been trying to find a natural household cleaning spray that (a) doesn’t cost the earth, (b) doesn’t cost… the Earth, and (c) actually bloody works?

Want to clean your floors without the chemical film build-up?
Want to not only clean your countertops without much elbow grease but disinfect them as well?
Want to ~~spray your fleas~~ use an effective toner on your pets that prevents fleas?

You have to try this recipe, then. And I’d give credit where it’s due but for the life of me, I don’t know where online I got it. I’ve been using this for about two years now. At the height of Flea-Jumpin’ Central – otherwise known as my old dog Pepper’s back and bedding – I was at my wits’ end. My only saving grace was that we only have three rooms with carpet (and that’s three too many when you’re trying to keep fleas at bay).

This spray saved me. And then I discovered, with some delight, that just a dash of it in warm water worked so well on the floors that I’ve stopped buying the expensive floor cleaner for my bamboo floorboards! They have never been cleaner. After that, I tried it on the benches. Worked a treat there as well. Now, I use it everywhere I’d previously been using chemical sprays and cleaners. For serious!

What you’ll need:

Saucepan
1-2 lemons, rinds only (make sure you cut off the fleshy bits)
4-6 cloves
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
Essential oil – something like neem, tea tree, eucalyptus or lavender (these are the most ‘universal’ and also good disinfectants)
Spray bottle (for use and storage)

Here’s what to do:

In a big saucepan (I have an old one I use just for making this now) place 3-4 cups water and the rinds only of 1-2 lemons. Bring to the boil.
Add 4-6 cloves
Add 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar.
Switch off the heat once it’s come to the boil.
For a disinfecting spray, at this point add an essential oil like lavender, tea tree, neem or eucalyptus. I use a generous dash. Eucalyptus is my favourite for a fresh-smelling house.
Cover with lid and let the mixture steep overnight.
Carefully transfer to a spray bottle (if you have a funnel this would be handy).

But wait! There’s more! No, not a set of steak knives….

Things I use this mixture as an all-purpose cleaning spray for*:

kitchen benches
stovetop & oven (exterior)
glass splashbacks
bathroom sinks and tiles
on the dog and cat (as a toner, after bathing is best… and no, I don’t bath the cat)
any surface you want to clean*

As a floor cleaner/disinfectant, add approx. 1/4 cup to bucket of warmest water your floors can handle. Mop as usual. I use this with no concerns on my floorboards and tiled surfaces.

Once you finish cleaning the house with this, it smells so fresh and disinfected you’ll never buy a chemical cleaner again. Promise!

* please use best judgement and test on an inconspicuous area first, the ingredients used should be fine on most, if not all, surfaces. However, I won’t be held accountable for your great aunt Bessie’s tea set losing its shine or any other fragile surface if you try it on something that precious and it proves me wrong. Mmmmkay, thanks.

Brought to you by the Whatman lemon tree.

Tainted love

Tuesday, 12 March, 2013 13:21

18 Comments

Sometimes we just sit and think. But mostly, we just sit.

There was once upon a time a little golden-haired girl who loved nothing more than… doing nothing.

She grew up and moved through various days at occasional care – where she began to accept that personal space was something that could and would be intruded upon, often, by peers who wouldn’t take her determined little hands held at arms’ length (or a simple “No”) for an answer – then kindergarten, where she learnt that to be friends in a group, there was always going to be one… or two… or even three or more… of your friends who wouldn’t, could not possibly, compromise.

Growing up is tough. Watching them grow up is tough too. How can it be that I haven’t tainted her? When I stop and think back to her time in my belly – yes, even all the way back then – I knew I was in for a ride. This kid, this slow, steady, solid old soul, would be a salve. I knew it. Recently, I have forgotten it. If I am not careful, I run the risk of overlaying too much of my own “stuff” on her. It is time to get responsible again. I am going to detox my ‘tude!

As the years have drawn on, I have sat on my hands (by and large) and let the winds dance between her experiences and when (or if) she chooses to tell me about them. To this day, she has the space at home to pause, contemplate and gaze out a window of her safe house. I daren’t interrupt her during those times. I must remember not to see that as her being idle in those times. This is the recharge. This is how it is ordained to happen for her.

I muse from time to time that, even though there is angst and there are tears over the fact that there are no other siblings for her in this house, ultimately, the setup she has right now has untold advantages for her. How am I to know what is in store for this child (how are we to know that for any of our children)? There are times when, as she moves through her days and I try my best to gently guide from the sidelines without inputting or overriding too much of my own instilled insecurities or grievances or agendas on her, I wonder how any of us blossom into who we are truly meant to be. Untainted.

All I know is, as much as it is within my power, I will not burden her with views that are my own, sayings that were my mother’s (and hers, and hers before her), lessons from my father (and his before his), patterns of behaviour that are too weighty for her to take on. I feel sometimes as though I am straddling existences; one is me as a girl my daughter’s age and recalling how I used to react to things that my daughter now sometimes finds herself the recipient of; the other is the adult me, with the knowledge of all those years it took to unburden myself from the layers heaped upon me (not bad, not unworthy, not ever wrong…. but just simply now redundant for me in my new adult life).

How can I knowingly pile similar sayings and lessons upon her, when I can already see her responses to certain things are different to my own (at her age)? I can’t. I can’t go in with my sword held high and give her the script. It would be entirely inappropriate for her to deliver a line that I have fed her. This is her impromptu play. The one, the only version of that play called Life that she will act out.

I want to sit back and enjoy the show, not heckle from the audience. Not taint her with my love. For while it is only through deep love for her that I want her to be her best, and while I am always here, cheering her on and more than happy to guide when she comes to me, it is not my play. It is this knowledge that heals me further. She heals me. For one thing, she shows me daily that there is not an ounce of People Pleaser in her. I’m gobsmacked I have had a hand in creating someone who doesn’t do that, frankly. But it also shows me how far I have come. That you can heal (and change) yourself, that you can raise a child free from the shackles that held you back.

Anything is possible. And if you ever think it’s not… well, then, there is always the option to just sit. The way forward will reveal itself soon enough.

The daily grind, bereaved parent style

Wednesday, 06 March, 2013 22:06

28 Comments

The day looks like any other.

I get up before the sun, pull on shorts and a tee, grab the dog’s lead, tie my laces and we’re away. Half an hour later, I check plants in the front garden. Check for new shoots on the baby gum we planted around Christmas time. Come inside, flick on the kettle and the radio.

After the school dash, I return home. Work a day. Pay some bills, hang some washing. Clean mouse shit out of the pantry from an unexpected visit – for when are rodents expected? Really? – and restack the shelf. Admire my handiwork with those Ikea shelving units I bought a few months back. Collect the LGBB from school again, take her to her after school sport. Come home, give her tea. Say goodnight to Dad via the phone, tuck her into bed and marvel at the skin on her forehead, all rosy-smelling from her bath.

I helped bring that skin to being. This flesh and blood. My own. My only. Her brow furrows. I forgot to read her the story of Little Ella, she reminds me. Ulp. Forgot or conveniently overlooked in the hopes you wouldn’t remember I had promised, I wanted to ask her. [It was the latter, by the way]. So I trudged up and got the story out, brought it back to her bedside and began reading.

Half way through, changing words and skipping some of the harder bits (for her) here and there, she sits up. “Where am I?” she asks. “I want to see my name in there.” I grapple with my maternal instinct that wants to tell her to give her sister a turn…. It’s impossible. I have to try and explain to this kid that sometimes, it’s right for us – her, me and her dad – to give Ellanor some of our conscious attention. Some brain time. A loving thought. A gesture like reading the story about her is one way we do this.

I’m not prepared for nights like these. There have been plenty in Lolly’s young life – but probably not as often as you’d imagine or expect – and they still grip me by the heart. Twist my insides. Keep me close to my fears over Lolly’s own mortality. It reminds me how close underneath the thin surface they lie. Lurking.

Today, I found out about a technique – kinesiology-linked, I believe? – that gets a body in touch with where it is holding its trauma. And helps the inhabitant of that body to actually release it. I’m thinking my current health issues are related to the ongoing post-traumatic stress I have. Most days, months, years, I can walk with it and I’ve learned to walk with it and chip away at it. Sometimes, I even pretend it doesn’t bother me that others in similar shoes to mine seem to be able to “move on” far more quickly and not bring these things to the surface.

Then I slap myself around a bit and remind myself this can’t possibly be true. They just choose to surface it in different (and likely more private than a blog) ways.

“I just want a sister.” My beautiful blonde-haired girl is sobbing deeply into her Scrapsy. His ear gets gently rubbed across her cheek, a comfort move she has done with her little soft dog since she was twelve months old. Thank God for that bit of fur and stuffing. Where would we all be without Scraps, I muse. And how the hell do I reply? So I tell her honestly.

“We tried, darlin’. And you were the only one who stayed. Out of all Mummy and Daddy’s babies, you are the only special one who stayed with us.” And now I’m dripping silent tears I hope she can’t see in the dark.

“I’m sorry, Mummy,” she reaches her hand out and cups my cheek, rubbing it slightly.

“What for?”

“You’re crying,” she says, crying herself. Damn. I assure her my tears are not for her to worry herself over. She goes to sleep knowing she is loved. Holding Scrapsy tight, a smile on her lips.

Each time I think I might turn away from this blog, that it is too morose, that I am not putting enough “fluff and light and funny stuff” here, I am pulled up sharply. By my reality, by my responsibility to actually help to balance out the rest of the privileged world’s crud and fluff and light (and gossip and obsession on material things and image and looks and gains and wins and competitions with each other). There are plenty of places for those things to be found and tapped into.

I’ve got to be real. This is my reality. I can’t say yes all the time, be all the things to all the people. The more peripheral, the more likely they’re the first not to be said yes to, their gaze not going to be met by my eyes. I can’t engage all the time. I’m in constant preparation for the energy it takes to sit by the side of my daughter who hurts in bursts.

I don’t begrudge any of this, regret anything. This is my daily grind. And it is – truly – beautiful.

This is what you don’t do

What maketh the mother

20, 14, couple-selfie… HUT!

Back to it

The times, they are a-changing

Insensitive infertiles: When online sharing can trip us up

Before Because

A natural flea / floor / all-purpose cleaning spray recipe

Tainted love

The daily grind, bereaved parent style

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