Nourish Me:: Week Ten:: Putting Myself First

I found this beautiful artwork here

I've been thinking about this post for a while now. I had lots of different nourishing things I wanted to talk about and to share with you. I have been busy doing all sorts of things and thought I could write about some of those but then I realised that I had been putting this subject off. *Sigh*

It's really hard for me to write about attachment parenting without coming up against all of my wants and needs and hopes and dreams for my children. It's hard for me to contemplate letting some of my hopes go but it's harder still to be here struggling, as I so often do, to do the right thing, but ever at my own expense. Does that sound selfish? Then I'll explain.

Right now, I am sitting in my bed at home choking my way through my fifth bout of bronchitis since last Winter. I have asthma so bad that I can't take an in or an out breath without rattling which leads to more coughing, coughing so hard it makes me gag. Coughing so hard I can't sleep. And so finally, at my husband's insistence, I started taking the cortisone that I have resisted taking in all the other episodes I've enjoyed. I started taking the damn cortisone because antibiotics were having no effect. I started taking them even though it meant abruptly interrupting my breastfeeding relationship with my wee Bear. It was not an easy decision to make but I hope that it was the right one.

The house is empty. As in, without the balls of funny, furiously active and beloved energy that are my babes. It is empty because I am worn out, completely run down (despite vitamin supplements and immunity tonics up the yin yang) and struggling to look after my babes with no voice (literally - I have laryngitis too), no energy and no patience . So my ever practical husband called in the reinforcements and his parents stepped up (as they always do - I am amazingly lucky to have the second family that I do) and the wee ones were whisked away to stay with his mum and dad for three, yes THREE, days. So that I can sleep, rest, get well, stop spreading these godawful germs around and find health, if it indeed still resides in this house of lurgy.

My little Finnamon Bun

The children and I have been consistently sick for a year now - since Finn was 2 weeks old and he got his first cold, followed swiftly by his first chest infection and his first dose of antibiotics. As each cold/infection/chesty episode went, within a week a new one was arriving. The children and I have spent more time at the doctors this year than I have at any other time in my life. I even joked to my GP that I should just camp out in his waiting room. Har bloody har.

So the house is empty and it feels... well barren actually. Devoid of life and energy. I can feel how alone I am in this big house that is normally so warm and full of them. I miss them terribly, particularly my wee bear because I keep feeling like he is so small and must not understand what is going on. Part of it is, of course, my ever present anxiety/PND/neuroses, but the other part is the loss of my connection to my babies. No little greedy face smiling up at me between drinks from his beloved boobie. No needs having to be met. No-one trotting in in the night for 'a quick snuggle' before being tucked back into her own bed. No sleepy, pink-cheeked, grumpy little face surrounded by fluffy bedhair, crying softly with eyes still closed, for cuddles, comfort and a return to sleep. Nothing. Just me and my man (even though that is always comforting) and the quiet of an empty house. And in the night I dreamt that I could hear Beanie calling out for me. "Mamma, mamma, no - I want mamma." I woke thinking that she was in the next room and was then stricken because I realised she was far away and I could not comfort her. Could not fold my tousled, long limbed, thumb-sucking, still so young, Beanie, into my arms and give her a mamma's sleepy late night kisses that let her know all is well. All is well.

Yes, she is asleep.

This is why I struggle. I struggle with the need to sometimes put myself and my needs first without feeling horrible guilt. I struggle with being with my kids and being without them. I struggle with wanting needing space and time and rest, and feeling resentful when I don't get it, the need to be there for my children when they need me to. Something has to give, doesn't it? And I've come to the, somewhat obvious, conclusion that it just doesn't always work out the way you want it to. Someone occasionally has to lose, if only for a little while, and up until now that has been me. I have consistently put myself second and have dragged myself through the days bone weary and tired beyond belief. I have done it when I have wanted to and when I would have given anything to be in a galaxy far, far away. And it has taken it's toll on me mentally and physically.

And this is where I find attachment parenting a little unyielding (and I am prepared to admit that the unyielding part may be just my interpretation of its ethos. I do set my own parenting bar very high). The co-sleeping I love right up until the part where I can't turn over because I have about a square inch of bed to myself and nowhere to put my arms, or I'm getting kicked in the back or boobs, or hit in the face by small arms and legs. Or, God forbid, there is a delicious warm sensation underneath me which suddenly and inexplicably goes cold and wet. The breastfeeding I love except where I get bitten and pinched and where I worry that I am going to affect Bear's health long term by giving him boobie milk tainted, no matter how minimally, with anti-depressants or the fact that he needs to stay attached to the boobie long, long, long after he has fallen asleep and immediately wakes up if I try to disconnect him. The carrying I love (and do a lot of ) right up to the part where my scoliosis plays up and the hip displacement joins in, just for funsies. The gentle discipline I love right up until the part where I want to tear my hair out and scream because trying to get my girl to do ANYTHING without a major meltdown is seemingly impossible, to the point where even my hubble is losing his cool and this man is second only to the Dalai Lama in terms of being peace. I love it all right up until the part where I am worn out, run down and in need of sleep and rest and peace.

Photo by eikei

Don't get me wrong. I don't intend to give any of these things up entirely. I love carrying the wee man for the most part. I love having him in bed with me and have done up until recently when I realised how much I missed being able to stretch out and not worry about accidentally walloping the wee man in the head. I sleep so lightly that its become almost impossible to have the bubs in the bed for any length of time. And you know, I want to be able to put him down in his cot and have fall into a much needed sleep, without me having to stand over him for 45 minutes. And I've noticed something interesting about this. Sometimes he'll be in my bed and restless, grizzling and turning over and over, so I scoop him up, pop him down in his cot and he goes straight to sleep. Perhaps even he needs a little space to himself now.

I guess what I'm trying to say, and what it has taken me over 4.5 years to learn, is that I have to take what works for me and leave the rest. Even if that does make me feel like a 'fake' attachment parent (and honestly, what parent isn't attached to their child?). I have to accept that in order to give them the best of me, I need to put myself and my needs first when I can. Mamma needs her body, her mind, her sleep, to herself sometimes. I need to trust that I am enough even in those areas I fail seemingly every day. Who gets it totally right? Even attachment parents who do everything by the book get things wrong. We are fallible human beings and it has taken me a lot of time and sadness to realise this. I won't be the 'perfect' mamma no matter how hard I try. I can only be me - a woman who stumbles and falls all the time, but still gets back up and tries again, tries harder. I have spent a lot of time wanting to be other people. It's probably why I studied acting. Yet, comparing myself to others never made me feel any better about being myself. It just gave me a whole other box of reasons to dislike myself and to question hate myself as a parent. I do want to get my issues under control. Of course i do. But I want to do without beating myself up all the time. I DO hold myself accountable. I DO take responsibility for myself and my actions but I don't need to exacerbate the problem with unkindness and a lack of compassion for myself. In some ways, I am still a child too. I need to put aside the fear based thoughts of what will become of my children in the future because what I have 'done to them' in the past, and trust, really trust, that their innate goodness, their own unique light, will shine no matter what. And that loving them, as deeply and as overwhelmingly as I do, will be enough. That I will be enough.

So my nest is empty and I am trying to drop into this new space and take care of myself without my thoughts consistently swinging towards my Beanie and Bear, wondering how they are, if they want to come home, if they are needing me... and concentrate on getting well. I'm not used to it. Normally I relish my time alone simply because it is so fleeting. Now I have three days of it and I don't know what to do with myself. My hubble insists that I sleep. He has told me, in no uncertain terms, that 'resting is not the same as sleeping'. I guess he doesn't get how restful crafting is for me but he's also got a point. Sleep is the one thing that has been consistently missing from my life for 4.5 years. Nourishing, deep, deep, restorative, dreamless sleep. Is that possible for me I wonder? I am so attuned to my babies sleep rhythms that I suspect that this kind of sleep may still elude me.

In my immediate future I forsee lots of expressing (not quite ready to give up feeding the wee boy yet, just while I am on nasty cortisone), knitting, sewing, napping, eating maltesers, reading, napping, watching movies, napping and then some of the aforementioned sleep.

I will leave with my sweet nourishy bites because everyone needs something cheerful at the end of a long rant.

:: watching :: Game of Thrones. If you haven't, you must. MUST.

:: loving :: crafts, crafts, crafts. Oh I have discovered dry needle felting and I cannot be stopped! Show and tell next post.

:: longing for:: this illness to be gone and to feel truly well again. Punching the air and leaping into the air kind of well.

:: looking forward to :: being rid of the old man 60-a-day phlegmy smokers cough, to finishing Finn's sheepy pants and starting on my 'Tea Leaves' cardigans for me and the Beanster (thanks DocWitchy!). Oh and starting on a little project for my lovely lady Sol-Y-Luna - she of the big heart and healing hands. She gave me a massage and now I am giving her something soft and warm and knitted, just for her own self.

:: heading towards :: adventure. Maine being the focus of that adventure. We are seriously looking into moving to Maine for a few years, just so that I can enjoy some snow and some time in the Northern Hemisphere, where everything makes sense to this northern girl again.

:: enjoying :: the cold, the mist, the bare trees, the occasional hail, the spare simplicity of Winter in the southern hemisphere. Audio books - fiction mainly because I have overdosed on non-fiction in recent years. It feels good to just sit back and enjoy a different kind of yarn (often with my yarn!). My creativity being stimulated by the lovely Goddess Leonie's e-courses and Goddess circle group. Don't be put off by the hippy look of the site, the woman is sharp as a tack and gives an amazing package for those creative ladies who want to delve further into their creativity or start up a new business. There is even a Goddess Circle which gives you access to support from other women and a chance to make connections. It's awesomeness. Chai, mocca lattes, Kate Bush and her wonderful album The Hounds of Love. Now that's winter in an album. The link takes you to my absolute favourite track from the album. Listen to it and you'll understand why I love it so much.

::making:: more wool roving summer fairies but this time with embellishments (piccies to come), sewing little birds for summer swaps, winter things for winter swaps and the beginnings of a daily rhythm chart for Lily, so she has some idea of what is happening next. It makes our days more peaceful if we have our path illuminated somewhat.

:: surprising myself ::  not at all.

:: feeling :: weak and tired but at least I'm resting.

:: hoping for :: good health, energy and some time with good friends.

:: grateful for :: my supportive hubble and his amazing family.

And I've added a new nourishy bite - 

:: just for funsies :: Funniest video on YouTube - I'm afraid that this is why people of the pagan persuasion are not often taken seriously. And where are they running to?

A Staggering Work of Heart-Breaking Genius

Godiva by Collier


The realisation is finally dawning on me that I may never live anything but an ordinary life. There may be no extraordinary events or extraordinary talents to discover and to share with the world. This may very well be it. And for some strange reason I find that discovery to be as uncomfortable as a pair of this seasons’ Alexander McQueen shoes.

I am restless again. Always when I feel this restlessness upon me I want to move – house, state, country, and I want change – myself, my environment, and my life – as if this will ultimately change everything for the better. As if in change there lies salvation for this ordinary girl and her ordinary life. And for a while it probably will, despite the obvious realisation that while the external things may change, I – the central character in this middle-aged movie that is my life, will remain exactly the same.
Yet always the feeling is of a need to escape the now – the ‘what is’ in order to find myself in a better tomorrow. I’ve never been very good with the now. Being present is so supremely uncomfortable to me that I simply do not know what to do with myself when I am here. And so I distract myself with activity, with food, with reading (and writing – ahem) and thinking. The problem is of course that as soon as I go to bed, my jaw clenches, wakefulness descends and the weight of my unlived life slinks into the once-comforting darkness like a malevolent spectre.

I used to think I was a woman of some potential. It never seemed too important to pursue it unduly, I just knew it would happen eventually. Now I seem to just watch my life happening like it’s being lived by someone else and I wonder just what the fuck happened. I think it’s called a mid-life crisis (and according to Jung, it is a normal part of the maturation process) but I do think that these utterly miserable episodic attacks of ‘what the fuck happened to my life’ do serve an important purpose. They are a wake up call. They offer an opportunity to re-direct, re-evaluate, redress and, hopefully, they lead the way into a life less ordinary.

Now I know that there is nothing wrong with an ordinary life. (Indeed there may not even be such a thing. Surely every life has something extraordinary in it?) I guess what I mean is that I fear that I will disappear into this life I am creating and that all ambition, all desire to make a difference, will simply melt away. That I will become someone whose days achieve nothing tangible and the highlight of which will be sitting in front of the TV with a take-away, a spare tyre and a slack jaw. I fear the unlived life. I fear MY unlived life.

I always used to think that I would become ‘someone’. Someone that was known, a someone who helped people live better lives in some way, a someone who earned great money, lived in a great house and enjoyed a life that was the envy of most people she met. A small amount of fame would be expected and enjoyed. Now I realise that they will probably never happen. Sure. It could. But it probably won’t and I have to figure out how I feel about that and what I am going to do should that probability become reality.

I am fat, nearly forty, pregnant with my second child and stuck. The restlessness that is nearly shaking me to pieces is also making me want to cry. I know, I know - I’m hormonal. Some of it at least can be blamed on that, but it doesn’t really matter why it’s happening, only that it is. It’s been brewing for months and despite my acute awareness of what needs to be done – meditate, breathe, let go and be still, I have never been less able to do any of it. Laziness and lack of discipline are certainly factors here. I make no bones about that fact but I genuinely feel panicked at the idea of being still. As if what lies in that stillness will shatter me more surely than a heavy set man with a big baseball bat.

What music lives inside me yet? Why does mediocrity hold such utter terror for me? Why do I think I’m mediocre even? This wonderful life that I live with a beautiful child and a man that loves me deserves more than a title of mediocre and yet that’s how I feel about myself. Not about them. I love my family. I love living here and yet I know this is not where I want to be right now. Maybe it simply is this desire to escape when things get tough. I know a lot about that and I am, and have always been a gypsy at heart. I love to ramble on. But still. As absurdly grateful as I am for this life (even when I forget or take it all for granted), I am searching for something more. I am afraid of where this path will lead me and what it may take from me in the walking of it.

I know myself to be someone that has an unfortunate ‘grass is always greener’ mentality. Not always you understand, but too much of the time. I am, conversely, someone who can, every now and wonderful then, be so completely present in the moment that I experience genuine moments of heartbreaking joy simply looking at a garden or an apple tree or sunlight on a meadow. I feel things to a ridiculous degree yet am unable to express how much love I feel or even let people close enough in to feel it. I keep people always at arms length when what I desperately want is to hug them close enough to me to melt the ice around my heart.

If I died tomorrow what legacy would I leave? How would my child remember me? As an angry, unengaged, uninterested mother who never had time to play with her? Probably. How would my husband remember me? As a once pretty slender woman who knew her own mind but who slowly became a fat, bored housewife with PND and a reluctant mother. Someone for whom intimacy means sharing a snickers.

God, I sound so utterly self-absorbed. (Is this what a blog is? And when does self-exploration become self-absorption? Where is that line between something that is positive and life affirming and something that is obnoxious and indulgent?) And maybe that’s the problem. Maybe the antidote to this is to focus on those less fortunate than myself. Maybe for someone else my life is positively magical and I’m just a spoilt little bitch who can’t see it for myself any more. I’m sure there is more than a grain of truth in that.

Still, it doesn’t change the fact that there is something inside of me that is in an absolute panic at the moment. Outward focus will help, I know it, but I also need to acknowledge how I am feeling right now. Acknowledge that there is a grieving process beginning for all that I once was or could have been and will be no more. Just as a mother must grieve for the person she loses when she steps into the mantle of motherhood, so the 30-something must accept the loss of youth and all the dreams that may have clung to it. There is a rich cloth of myth that we cleave to ourselves as we wander aimlessly through our 20’s and early 30’s. Eventually those myths become such a part of us that we think that they ARE us. They are not. They are simply the stories we have told ourselves, about who we are and may become. The dreams we have held dear and which we must now hold out over an inky ocean until our grip loosens and they hit the cold waters of our reality below. It’s time to see what floats and what sinks. Whether I like it or not, whether I agree and co-operate or not, it will happen anyway. I may as well be willing to go along with this stripping of my skin, my soul and all that I know as myself. It doesn’t mean I like it, it means I understand why it must be. Maybe it will be liberating. Maybe it will be heartbreaking. Probably it will be both and, with any luck, it will lead me into a place of balance (and potential genius) again.

Feck.

And just for a moment, I am fully present…

I feel the soft sweet warmth of my daughters’ breath, the slow swell of her breathing, her thumb slipping out of her tiny mouth as she soothes herself to sleep. I feel her tiny perfect fingers with mine – they are warm and long and tapered, like mine. I kiss her clammy brow and her hair and cuddle her small, hot body against my cooler, heavier one and I breathe. I breathe her in.

I ask myself to really be here – to be fully present to this moment, resting in the big family bed with my sleeping daughter curled in tightly to me. I ask myself – no thinking – what do you feel? And at once I feel both a staggering passionate love for my child and a huge sadness. I feel a terrifying fear of loss. And a realisation comes to me. Could I fear bringing another child into this world because I fear I would not survive the loss of them?
And from a deep, dark well inside of me, a small, frantic voice says ‘Yes!’ And I weep.

I weep for the child within me that was abandoned – is still abandoned and alone, down there in the deep dark. I weep that my anger is caused by a fear so sharp that I refuse to be present in case it is realised. A fear that my love for my child is so fierce, so all consuming that I would not survive if I were to lose her. I weep because that very fear prevents me from fully feeling the immensity of that love I have for her. And it is a colossal, fiery, passionate, angry, joyful, heart-breaking love that, when fully held within me, threatens to split me open like a ripe bruised fruit and spill the seeds of my very soul onto the ground. I am only present for a moment and I am undone.


I know that with great love comes the possibility of great loss and if we are not willing to lose it all, we are not able to love it all. We do not really hold love as much as we are held by it – love as much as love loves through us. I do not know if I can surrender myself to such a possibility but I know that I will stop trying to create safety in this primal love I have for my child because there is none. She is a gift to me for as long as she chooses to stay and I am not the one in control of that. She is.

I realise, strangely, that I am afraid of love more than I am afraid of being alone. I have been sitting with little fears that I will lose my husband to another woman, or death. I fear serious illness in my child and whisper, ‘Please don’t take her away from me. Take me but not her. Never her.” And mean it. I bargain for the healthy baby I have so that I may never have to experience the excruciating pain of losing her. Yet I use my fear as a shield to prevent that love from ever overwhelming me, which prevents me from fully feeling it, which prevents me from loving her the way I long to. Loving my husband the way I long to. With passion and ardour and complete submission to the Divine Mystery of each other and that breathes through us into one another when we open the doorway of love even a little. Instead, I prefer to live down in the deep dark well of sadness that exists inside of me, where loss cannot touch me because I am not near enough to be seen by it. Or love.

She moves heavily in her sleep – little dreaming grunts and tiny snores – an arm flung above her head, which ducks in towards her mother’s warm lap. She nestles and sighs, snoring into the safety she finds there. I am present again, for a few seconds at least.


There is no mother I know that does not understand that fierce, primal love for her children. That certain knowledge that you would lay down your life for them. That they are precious in a way that nothing else on earth is precious. I wonder if there are any who, like me, fear to love because they live in fear of a greater pain and loss than they could possibly bear. Where does that fear come from? Is it born in us before we are ever mothers? Does it arrive with the ovum when we are mere cells being knitted together by our own mother’s love? Or is the result of the fear DNA felt by my mother when I was a little bunch of cells marking the very surprise arrival of an unexpected and unwanted pregnancy. A pregnancy in a marriage that was volatile and violent and a pregnancy that did not belong to that marriage or to the man that made that marriage such a living hell.

When I look back, fear is there from the very beginning. I see it land in me and I see it play out in my life in a million different ways. Even in my pregnancy with Beanie and then the huge, uncontrollable fear based pain of my labour and birth. Followed by the utter fear that this tiny child, who was now my responsibility - for the rest of my life, would wake up and need something I was completely sure I did not know how to give. And so, this wild, animal love I have for my child and which overwhelms me with it’s ferocity and strength – is stuffed down, at no small cost to my emotional wellbeing ironically, by the fear that if I let it take over, if I surrender to it entirely, it will be the end of me. The ‘me’ that I am entirely in control of at least. The ‘me’ that I know and feel safe being.

Then I am here, in this moment, and the love rises again like a tidal wave and threatens to drown me and so mind kicks in reducing the impact, increasing the distance, keeping me ‘safe’. Safe from love? Safe in fear? Safe in the deep, deep dark? No. I am not safe there. Have never been safe there. There is only one safety and that is in unconditional surrender. To stop this fighting with myself that causes my own mind to drown within me. I cannot mother her well if I am not letting myself feel all of what this mothering journey brings. I am not being true to myself if I do not let this sweet fire of love spread through me and come bursting out of me like a bushfire. I will not be renewed and made whole until I have let it consume me and am reborn from the smouldering ashes. I need to let go and that is the one thing I have not, until now, been truly willing or able to do.

And so. I surrender to you, my precious Lily-Bean and all that love that you bring. May the Divine Mystery burn the fear right out of me until I am only love and can see and hear and give only that. Split me open and let the seeds fall where they may. I am not afraid any more.

(And to think, I was going to write about trees. I took pictures and everything.

Maybe next time).

How Brown (& Flammable) is My Valley

* Drayton Valley in Canada

This is going to be a 'thinky' post, so brace yourselves with a comfortable chair and a cuppa. It may take a while. NB: I will just warn you that I have a slightly inappropriate sense of humour. The way my family has dealt with tragedy and strife in our lives (and we have seen a fair bit of it) is to laugh and make light of the situation. That is not to say that we don't feel and that we don't care, it's just a way to relieve the tension without imploding or just dissolving into snot and tears. It offends some people.

We have spent the entire weekend preparing ourselves for possible tragedy. I know. Terribly dramatic isn't it? But certainly no less true for that. With all the horror of the Victorian Bushfires fresh in everybody's minds and hearts, it has been all systems go for us getting our home 'Bushfire Ready'. (Hopefully this will not be interpreted as an invitation for a bushfire to come and raze our property to the ground any time soon).

This past week or two have been a truly sobering experience for me. Not that I was giddy with naivety about the needfulness of such plans but still I was naive to think that it was something to be only marginally aware of. I am still wearing so many people's suffering on my heart and to be so close to the (very hot) action, has been both frightening and intensely motivating. We were, thankfully, not near enough to any of the danger for it to be a direct threat but there was a fire just down the hill from us and our suburb and the one next to us was put on evacuation alert in case they couldn't put it out. Thankfully the brave people of the CFA managed to put it out before it caused too much damage but seeing the damage it did cause was quite shocking. It was all around the train station my hubble catches his train from and it was quite extensive for a 'small' fire.

And so, this weekend was dedicated to preparing and putting into action our 'fire plan' as we live pretty much surrounded by and on top of gorgeous trees in every single direction. Plus, we live at the bottom of a hill with no-where to run to should things get dicey. We have spent time and energy figuring out what we would do if we got 'caught out' by a fire that we had no idea was coming or that started suddenly. We have planned our escapes and safety zones, borrowed the correct fire gear from relatives (anything longsleeved and made of natural fibres - cotton flannel shirts and jeans are good teamed with a solid pair of leather boots to prevent your feet from burning, gloves to protect your hands and a wide-brimmed hat (which I've still to get). Our shopping list this week consisted of: Goggles, 7 smoke alarms plus batteries, indoor sprinkler misting system for under the house (because embers can blow in and start burning the house from the basement up), proper masks (to deal with smoke), blankets (for wetting and wearing if we have to hide or run), metal buckets with wooden handles (because we read an account of a man trying to use his plastic bin in the fire and the handles melted off in his hands), oven gloves (because we may be handling things that feel like they've just come out of the oven), several hoses for both indoor and outdoor use (to combat embers and to put our fires), torches and batteries (for if we can't see because of smoke and we're trying to hide or run), pump driven water pistol, wide brimmed hats (to protect our heads and necks) and batteries for our radio so that we can hear it if the power goes out.

We then proceeded to clear the gutters (which we had already done once since moving in a mere 8 weeks ago) and the roof of all leaves and tree debris, fill the downpipes with little sandbags and then go and savage our beautiful garden in order to remove all brown, dry and tinderlike plant life so that our garden doesn't just incinerate in minutes the moment an ember lands in it. With a 12-year drought on our hands and a week of unseasonably hot weather over the 43 degree mark, there was a lot of that to remove. My mother-in-law generously donated all of her weekend to help us in the endeavour and even sowed little pillow shapes for the sand to go into for our pipes. She's a mighty useful in-law that one! I think I've raked up a squillion dead leaves, cut the brown useless branches and fronds off a million trees and ferns and picked up my bodyweight in firewood. And I know that in just a few short weeks, when Autumn is welcomed to Victoria with body and soul, the ground will be littered with enough leaves from our oaks alone to create a magnificent floor length cape and train for the Green Man himself.

The work has been backbreaking but satisfying in some strange way. It has also made me tetchy, nervous and paranoid. I know it makes absolute sense to do what we have done and is very sensible in view of the fact that we have a bit more summer to go and there are (seemingly) an innordinate amount of very troubled people about. It's just that it seems so prophetic somehow. As if on some level I am expecting things to go very badly wrong. Everything that's happened is so vivid to me, so clear and sharp and real that I feel almost like I'm inviting trouble by even beginning to think that I am 'ready' in the case of a real emergency like the one experienced by so many. Some part of me doesn't want to be ready. It just doesn't want to face the possibility of such disaster happening to me, to our little family. Yet here we are - knowing what the options are, knowing what choices we will make should things get dangerous, knowing where our hoses are kept, what clothing to wear and having enough supplies to battle it out if all else fails. Let's hope all else doesn't fail us.

I can't help but compare it to what it must have been like for all those people in the 50's who really lived with the possibility of a nuclear war. Building their backyard bunkers, saving food and staples to 'wait out' the passing of the poisonous gasses, which in all reality would have killed them once they stepped outside the bunker door. I'm not saying that a bushfire is as catastrophic as nuclear war but it is still pretty catastrophic for the people who go through it. We are preparing for that catastrophe in case it happens to us. That's not a good place to be.

Doc's beautiful and thoughtful post on the aftermath of the fires (though aftermath isn't really the right word as there are still fires raging uncontrolled as I write) has added to my thoughfulness today. I agree with her that we cannot simply carry on and pretend that nothing has happened. It is still happening, there are people suffering great losses, there are people trying to get their head around rebuilding their lives, there are people without homes and without hope. I can't just turn my head away from that. There but for the grace of God... Unfortunately, we do have to go on. Whilst we must offer our hands and our hearts and our strength and do what we are able or called upon to do, we must also feed the children, organise lives, attend to businesses and jobs, deal with family shit - life goes on - always. It feels uncomfortable, even wrong, to do it and yet all we can do is help where we can. We can never be sad enough to end someone elses suffering. I think its a Zen proverb that says, before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. Like Doc says, we must hold on to our empathy, to our sense of community, to our desire to let our hearts lead our heads and to help in any way possible, but we must also chop wood and carry water in our own lives. Hopefully, we won't lose the open-heartedness that we have experienced as we have grieved with people who truly know loss and sadness. I think that is honestly the best we can offer.

As I write, we have had news of a fire right opposite our old home - its currently at 5 hectares. The CFA has issued a warning that embers may come this way as it has already entered National Park nearby. We literally lived on the road opposite the spot where the fire is currently burning. The hubble is upstairs packing a bag and we are about to decide whether to evacuate or to stay and potentially fight. I am torn between a desperate desire to have a complete meltdown and let the panic that has been slowly building, explode out of me or laugh hysterically and drive like I imagine Animal from the muppets would if he could drive like he drums.

I think it might be time to climb in our caravan and not spare the horses.

* Psyche's Journey Home

Update:
Between my strong desire to flee and my desire to not panic - we sort of hovered. Indecisive but true. Hubble barely raised an eyebrow, he simply went outside wet the underside of the house, filled up buckets, readied mops and put on a check shirt. (He looked quite dashing). I went into high stress mode. I am, after all, a fully fledged drama queen and postgraduate of the Adrenal Exhaustion Club of coping.

We listened intently to the ABC updates. It was actually quite serious. We are still on the alert for embers or ash blowing this way but we don't appear to be in any real danger.

Can I just say for the record. What the...? Was I not just saying that it seemed vaguely prophetic to be preparing for something on the offchance? Well - it looks as though the PTB (Powers That Be) have once more got their belly laughs at my expense. Har de bloody har.

I am so NOT stay and defend your home material. My greatest fear is that we will go to bed safe in the belief that it is all 'under control' and it will creep up on us in the middle of the night and poof - my short unrealised life will be over. I know I'm being a bit dramatic but still - this is the second time in two weeks that I've have genuinely worried about our safety from fire. It's getting harder to feel safe in my beautiful home.

So, we are still here. Our caravan is primed and ready but we are planning on staying for the moment at least. And this has been, yet another, reasonably stressful weekend. I will be genuinely glad to feel the cool wet kiss of Autumn.


* Valley photo from here
* Psyche's Journey Home by Susan Seddon Boulet