Ode to Winter

Guardian


It's been a while.

Again.

I've been resisting come here to be honest. Mostly because I'm still struggling with the same shit and nothing much has changed. I'm doing my best to address my 'ishews', but it seems to be taking an awfully long time for things to change. In the meantime, I keep making the same mistakes and feeling the same way about making the same mistakes. It's the very definition of madness. I just don't want to go on and on ad nauseum about it all. So there you go.

I am deeply embedded in the Winter and that brings me some solace. I am an Autumn/Winter girl and long for the snow the way a chocoholic longs for an oversized bar of Cadbury's and an uninterrupted half hour to demolish it in. I want to wake up and see the Earth dressed in her full winter splendour, glimmering in her best diamond white. I want to crump endlessly through thick snow. I want to upturn my face during a snowfall and catch the snowflakes on my tongue. I want to fling myself backwards and make snow angels. I want to watch the full moon rise over a vast expanse of ice white, making it so light that you can see clearly even in the darkest hours of the night. I want to bathe in that glowing silence and feel it creep inside and still my soul. That is what I want.

I truly love this time of year. It's beautiful up here in the Hills. It's misty and quiet and so cold you can see your breath. I love pretending it's so cold that I have to wear my beanie and my gloves. I take a perverse sort of joy in the fact that I hate getting out of bed in the mornings because it's frickin' freezing. I hide under my duvet, (yes, duvet - not bloody doona. This baby is 13.5 tog and filled with hollow-fibre fresh from hides of the Hollow-Backed Fibre beasts of Glen Coe. Me mum sent it over ), and nary a toe do I show until the heating has been on a good 20 minutes. Bless my man for having to get up early to go to work. Heh. Heh. Heh. Still, as beautiful as it is here, I'm a Northerner at heart. I like my cold days to lead up to the fun that is Christmas. I miss the brutish English Winters. I do. The crusty frosts, the bare trees, the icy streets, the way the cold sticks its frozen hands up your jumpers and down your jeans and makes your bones hurt. Winter means duffle coats, scarves, hats and gloves that you actually need to wear, because if you don't you could quite possibly get frostbite and lose a digit. All right - perhaps it just feels like that, but that's what I miss! You actually NEED a mulled wine whilst traversing Camden Market. And that hot chocolate is ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE to replenish your fat stores lest you not make it through until Spring.

I guess I am just a sparkling Winter Witch searching for a snowy night to glitter in.

Bear Woman

And so, the days slow down and take me with them. I enjoy the early dark. I feel myself quieten slightly, even though the madness of every day life with my child continues unabated. I am at home here in this dark wizened season of quiet contemplation. Like the She Bear in her cave, sleeping, dreaming, waiting for that first touch of Spring. I am in no hurry for it. Even though I can see that life is quickening in the Magnolia trees and buds are appearing, I am not yet ready for rebirth. I want to savour this season. I want to enjoy the fresh mornings and the chill evenings. I want to light my fire, cook stews and soups and bake gingerbread men. I want to mellow, to shed my skin, to grow into myself and replenish before Spring demands more life from me. I am happy here in this frozen moment and want nothing more. Except snow.

Paradoxically, out of this quietness rises my constant restlessness. I guess the slowing down stimulates it to pop up to get my attention. It is always accompanied by a frustrating need to be elsewhere. Possibly because I feel overwhelmed with my struggles here. ut I do realise that you don't leave your troubles behind when you move and I definitely have to take mine with me - she's only two! The Gypsy is alive and well and ready to hitch her caravan to the next wandering star. I've always had a bit of a yen to go and live in another country for a year or two. Maine, Canada, Italy, France - just to shake things up a bit. I've been in Australia for five years now and, though I love our house and I've made such good friends here, I'm looking for something that I haven't found here. Right now I can't imagine living out my days here. Some part of me is not fed here and I don't know if it ever will be. I miss the green rolling hills of home but I know, from experience, that when I am back, it's just the same as it was before I left. A bit grim unless you live somewhere beautiful. I have lived in many beautiful places because of this fact. No point in being there otherwise. My Soul needs beauty and the green of the earth and the sun and the sea and it needs them like my body needs oxygen and water. So the restlessness rises until it rattles my teeth and I feel ruffled and unsure of myself. Then I pick at the pieces of my life until they develop sores and I feel even more unsettled. The trouble is, of course, that whereever I go, there I am. I will be with me no matter what country I spend time in, no matter what house I live in, no matter what occupies my days. Whatever it is that sets this restless spirit a-wandering, is inside of me. So what use is there in going elsewhere? It will simply be 'same, same but different' won't it? I'll still be 'angry woman in charge of child' won't I, because that's who I apparently am. At least right now. What is that saying? If that for which you search you do not find within yourself, you will never find it without. The trouble is of course is in finding it within. It often feels as if I have looked forever and am still not any closer to the truth of who I am. I mean just how deeply can this stuff be buried? Why, when you are looking for something, does it appear to hide under ever-deeper layers of yourself? That's just plain rude. And so, I flit from one thing to another. Never satisfied. Never quite there. Restless even in this cocoon of winter. I just wish I knew what my seed was trying to grow into. Perhaps then I could help it poke up through the frozen soil of my heart and germinate. *Sigh*


Sleeping

And then there is my 40th. I want to do something really nourishing and spiritually significant for this transition. My other transitional birthdays have been dreadful. To give you some idea - my 18th was spent getting so appallingly drunk (because my best friend now hated me and her sister was sleeping with my boyfriend in the flat we all shared) that I fell into a glass table. My 21st was spent at a Driving School dinner with a whole bunch of complete strangers while a man in chequered golfing slacks and a lemon v-neck serenaded me with songs I was too young to remember. My 30th was spent with another bunch of complete strangers at some weird Asian food/karaoke bar. I drank too much and sang, rather appropriately, 'It's my party and I'll cry if I want to.' I had just broken up with my partner of 9 years, moved to another city and started drama school. I went home and did exactly that.

So, you can see why I would want to make this one a bit special. And not as in 'special needs'.

Trouble is, I simply don't know what to do with myself. I have harbored secret desires to go away to Hawaii for 8 days to do a Tantric Teachers course but it is simply too extravagant an expense right now and I feel guilty enough for not contributing financially to our lives. I was originally going to have a party but that feels flat now and I can't come up with a theme for it anyway. I have been looking at a Writers Retreat in Western Australia for a week and that feels pretty good but I'm not sure. Again, I flit from one thing to another, looking for an answer to what ails me. I want this transition to mark a change for the better, financially, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Obviously, I'm not looking for one event to do all of that for me. I simply want it to be something nourishing that will give me time and space to work out what I want to d and how to go about it. I want it to be memorable and beautiful and I want it to feed my hungry soul in some small way. I want it to give me enough juice to replenish my sorely depleted stores because I just don't have anything else to give right now. And I resent what I am already giving.

And so, before I start walking in those oh so familiar circles again, I'll leave you. If you have any ideas on what a creative gal might do for her 40th, then do please chime in. I'm all ears. Well, not literally. That would be gross and impractical. I will be having a sort of 'coming of age' celebration in the red tent of which I am the fond but slightly over it, owner. So that will kind of be taken care of. I want ideas out of the box really.

Oh and if anyone has a really good idea of a birthday surprise for my hubby who turns 33 in two weeks. That would be good also. I paid for him to have a hang-gliding lesson last year. I was hoping that there was some kind of weekend retreat for screenwriters here but alas no. So again, I ask for ideas out of the box. Something fun and nourishing for him that's a little bit interesting or different. I'm a bit stumped.

Winter Caravan

*Illustrations by Jackie Morris

For Shits 'N' Giggles

I wanted to post these clips because they made me laugh so hard that I cracked two ribs and ended up in hospital on a respirator. No. Really. They're THAT funny.

First one is a bit rude. Don't watch if you are easily offended by purile boy humour.



It is swiftly followed by the follow up to Dick in a Box which I will post again here so that you can follow the sequence and potential die laughing. (How many times did I use the word 'follow' in that sentence. Sheesh!)



The Sequel is here.

And finally - this is from the genius who bought us the literal version of Bonnie Tylers Total Eclipse. Check it out two posts back if you haven't yet seen it. It's not quite as funny but then what could beat that?



Enjoy!

Inner Child - Free To Good Home...

Pic from here

So - I've been AWOL for a bit. I've been feeling a bit Eurgh! and definitely a bit Gah! and so I've been trying to flow gently through each day without needing my usual Cafe-Mocha-Vodka-Valium Latte. It's been fine and challenging in equal measure. The PND Fairy is getting a bit blase about all the mood enhancing, calming, balancing herbs I've been on, but I have at least been able to avoid the anti-depressants, which has pleased me muchly, even it makes things a bit hard sometimes.

I've been having a bit of counselling and it has mainly focused on a lot of inner child work. I am strangely resistant to it. I guess I feel that I left my childhood behind a long (looong) time ago and I don't particularly want to revisit it. I'm also not at all convinced that revisiting it and 'rescuing little Kat' is going to help my present situation all that much. Of course I don't know that for sure but it just feels a bit weird, even by my hippy dippy witchy-poo standards. So yes, bit unsure about this one. I've been instructed to 'play' with my inner child, both with and without Lily. That's an interesting instruction. Don't get me wrong - I'm totally the sort of parent who will willingly fling herself onto a jumpy castle the moment the attendant isn't paying attention. I will happily squeeze myself through squashy rollers at the indoor play centre and I climb ladders and whizz down slides with the best of them. The problem with all this 'playing' is that I have no idea how to do it 'with' my inner child. Little Kat has been suffering, one would suppose, from a lack of attention from me, just as Beanie sometimes does. I guess just as I detach from Beanie when emotional overwhelm threatens or when I simply need a 'time out', I have detached from the inner Kat too. But how do you then encourage the inner you to show up and 'have some fun dammit!' I'm not sure. I am sort of combining it with my Artists Date from the Artists Way by Julia Cameron. (This is a wonderful book on creative recovery. It asks some wonderful questions that really allow you to expand out of your narrow world view and re-enter the world of fun and of possibilities. I highly recommend it to anyone even a tiny bit creative and for people who want to grab fun by the balls again.) It seems logical to me that when I take my fun dates, I take the little Kat out for a spin too. I'm planning on going ice skating next week and I'm also planning a trip to Lake Mountain for some toboganning. I managed to score a padded suit for $5 from a charity shop. It's from the 1970's but then so am I so, you know...

Anyway, part of the counselling involved me taking myself off to see the wonderful Jane Hardwicke Collins, a wonderful shamanic midwife and wise woman, for a spot of Birth Trauma work. It was very interesting and I found it very helpful overall. Whilst I don't want to bang on about my childhood or my birth (which, as it resulted in an 'alive and well' status for both myself and my beanie-girl, i'm relatively happy with), it was good to have some time to sit with the disappointments and the grief that comes with any kind of trauma. It also helped me to see where I just have not been willing to take the necessary steps to get well. I know. Eek! It's behind you and it smells of burning flesh! Moi - not stepping up to the plate - surely not! Well, yes. Actually, I have rather been ignoring the totally sound advice regarding my appalling eating habits and have been continuing my total abstinence from any kind of exercise. I also have not meditated. Not once. So - when I say to myself (as I sometimes do) that I am trying very hard and not getting anywhere - its not strictly true. In fact, it's not true at all. I am not trying the three things that would have the most impact on my mood. Now, I am totally dedicated to getting better yet I have been unable, or unwilling, to get stuck in to the very things which everyone recommends for women (or men) suffering from PND. Why is that? Is it the same reason I have trouble connecting with my mini-me? And if so, what is all this resistance in aid of? What am I trying to protect myself from? Is it simply laziness and apathy?

My work with Jane really made me realise that I have to actually take control of this thing. To take the keys, open the door and walk through. If I am truly committed to being the best mum I can be, however uniquely that displays itself, then I need to stop moaning and get on with it. To that end, I have joined a gym (ARGH!). I know. It's a bit hideous but they have a creche and I know from experience that home exercise and Beanie don't mix. They also have a pool - and I like swimming. No doubt I will look like this...

Oh the deep, deep joy of sweating in a room full of other equally sweaty people. And I have mentioned before that exercise makes me angry haven't I?

I know that I also need to find exercise that I do enjoy doing. I have realised that I have censored myself around dance for instance. I LOVE dance. I cry at 'So You Think You Can Dance?' I am entirely moved by great dancers and there is a spiritual quality to movement that I cannot fully express, except to say that when I am in that zone, I am free and I am happy. However, I have not been allowing myself to dance. I realised that this was because I used to be very good at it. Medals and Examinations good. I had actual talent and everything. And now? Well, now I look like the Venus of Willendorf . And strangely this does not make me feel like dancing. It makes me feel heavy and tired and lumpish. Somewhere deep inside of me there is a tiny thought that has latched on like a slimy leech and it tells me that I cannot dance now because I have neither the body nor the talent that I once had. In my mind I may be graceful and light, but in the living room I am like a dancing Jabba The Hutt.


Still, I have to get over myself eventually. It is entirely ridiculous to censor myself in this way. I cannot do anything about the body I have created for myself until I start to enjoy the way it moves. Dance may well bring this comatose body back to life. So I will be attempting to shake my groove thang in the coming weeks.


So it continues to be an interesting journey. It comes in waves and is undone in layers. I feel as if I am in a labyrinth, slowly working my way to the centre of myself. I am becoming increasingly more aware of the areas where I feel I lack something and find myself trying to simply let go. Allowing the stuck places to unwind a little and tell me what they are all about. It's not easy, or particularly pleasant. And then there's all the Inner Child stuff to deal with. But I guess I will continue to unravel slowly and eventually there will be nothing left but me. The authentic self butt nekked for all to see. Perhaps it will be beautiful. Perhaps it IS all beautiful and my struggles with it are merely my distorted perceptions of the what is. We all come from the Divine Mystery and so really, we are a piece of that, no matter how mangled we allow that piece to become. Perfectly imperfect - myself entirely. Now that's a state I can aspire to. A place I'd be happy to stay.

So tune in next time folks for the latest episode of 'Where'd I Put My Mind? I know I left it around here somewhere...'

P.S. Rather than some dirty, snot nosed little whinger in ragged clothes - I'm rather hoping that my inner child looks more like this!

Yours Literally...

I have nothing of note to say, but I really wanted to post this clip. It made me laugh and laugh and laugh until milk would have snorted down my nose, had I been drinking any.

Just for shits and giggles (and to break up the more sombre stuff) here is my clip of the week!

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).

Confetti Heart

“Eternally, woman spills herself away in driblets to the thirsty, seldom being allowed the time, the quiet, the peace, to let the pitcher fill up to the brim.”
Anne Morrow Lindbergh – Gift From The Sea

I read these words and recognise within them my own self, as it is perpetually dribbled away into a million different needs and deeds. I feel sharply the sliver of resentment belonging to my wild gypsy self, who longs to give herself fully to the dance, to the work of art, to the concerto, to life. And is instead taught to be happy with creating only small wonders who may go on to become great masters in time. Is this all a mother is? A spinner of the threads of a future miracle? If so, that’s not a bad thing to be. And yet, surely beyond the sculpting and tender nurturance of these warm and splendid mini-selves, there must be something that belongs only to us? Something deeper and more profound than spilling ourselves away, droplet by droplet into others?

As I ponder my hubble’s suggestion to take a sabbatical, to retreat in the face of current difficulties in order to find my equilibrium again, I wonder if I know what peace is. Would I know peace if it came up and greeted me with flowers? Hell would I know it if it bit me on the ass? Probably not. I know what peace is not. It is not waking up with a tight jaw and aching eyes after a night of restless sleep. It is not this knot in my stomach or the nausea that comes from living with my shoulders as ear- muffs. It is not hearing myself laugh and being shocked at how alien it sounds. No. That is not peace. Peace slips in under the coat of solitude, holding quiet by the hand.

The Attraction of Distraction
Many of us spend a good deal of our time disappearing into different distractions so as not to find ourselves alone in a room with silence. Or worse - ourselves. There is tv, movies, books and music and all of these are noble and enjoyable distractions. We can pick up the phone, get online, text or message each other in an instant. If we don’t have someone actually with us, we have something in our ears or our hands or our mouths. We are contactable at every moment and we are available to each other instantly. And therein lies the problem. There are so many opportunities to be busy, to be distracted, to be involved but there are few opportunities to be quiet. Few opportunities for stillness. In fact, given half an hour of quiet we will fill it with a hundred necessary and important things and never even notice the glass of ourselves slowly emptying until it reaches the bottom and we are still required to give.

I love a good distraction as much as the next girl. I can easily lose myself in books or movies or even music. And yet, despite the almost constant thread of resentment at the level of sacrifice required of me as a mother, I spend my time looking at yet more ways that I can give to this little being. It’s as if I am searching for any hole in my psyche through which the ‘perfect mother’ can slip out. Surely, if I can bake the bread, or offer the milk or cookies, or make the doll, then I am one step closer to digging out this recalcitrant mother within. If only I can become the nurturer, the creative playmate, the laughing, relaxed mamma I know I can be, this depleted, worn out soul will be renewed. And so I continue to seek avenues of nourishment for this little soul I love so much. Is it martyrdom? It certainly can be. But it can also be simply what mothering requires. A slow disintegration of the self in order to have room to birth and hold and shelter these precious little beings. No wonder many new mothers are shell shocked in those first few months. Or, if you are me, few years.

I realise that I am not a natural nurturer. I have resisted domestication like a feral cat. I have chaffed at the bit of commitment until my mouth is bloody. Yet all the answers I seek, all the avenues I am currently exploring to find wellness again, are not for myself primarily. They are for her. For my beautiful, golden-haired Beanie girl. So that I may give freely and not feel poorer for it. So that I may lose myself and not care so very much about what is gone. So that I will stop trying to find and stick together all the little coloured pieces of my beautiful confetti heart.

I know she will be a masterpiece. I know, on all the levels that truly matter, she is my greatest work.

Yet I still hold dark dreams of a self that lives only for itself. That creates purely for the joy of creation. That follows the wind with a glad heart and a radiant smile. And who knows peace as a good friend.

Who’s with me?




*Photos from here
and here.

To Be Or Not To Be

Photo from here.

It feels like it’s been a looong week. Usually Wednesday is mummy’s day and Beanie goes to Nanna’s for some quality time in the garden. The first week of the month though is different, Nanna has her on a Friday and it makes for a long week. I have been more tired than normal (and I’m pretty tired anyway as a general rule) and the delight of my moon-time has been much enhanced this month with PMT that, had I not already been busy, could have seen me lopping the heads off passers-by with gay abandon. Guess St John’s Wort is too much of a wussy herb to deal with ‘women’s problems’ and, let’s face it, I have a spectacular array of those right now.

So, here I am. Pondering choices. The trouble with choices is that there are usually too many of them and they fill the head like a band of annoying Peruvian pan-pipe players (try saying that fast three times) until you just want to find a cave somewhere high in the Himalayas and stay there. And not even ‘until’ - just stay there. Period. So, what are these choices? Well, given the recent diagnosis of PND and my struggles with the whole motherhood thing, the choice I am faced with making is around whether or not to have another child. Its always been pretty much a given that I would have another baby. I have assumed that this is what would happen eventually but wanted to wait until I ‘felt better’ or less angry or less overwhelmed, which I don’t. Obviously. There is also the issue of my ‘advanced’ age in baby making terms. I am turning 40 this year and obviously fertility is an issue even if I don’t entirely believe that once you hit 35 all your eggs head speedily for the exit as if the ovaries are on fire. So now I’m not really wondering about how hard it’s going to be on my body and on my energy. I’m wondering if my assumptions about having another child are wrong. I’m wondering if I’m cut out to be a mother of one, let alone two. I’m wondering if I really will ever get to experience pregnancy and birth again. I’m wondering if my husband will get the second child he really wants but would sacrifice (how very biblical) for my wellbeing.

It’s a really hard decision for me. I have lived with the expectation that another child was a given. I have been preparing the groundwork for a long time despite much resistance, both conscious and unconscious. I have been chipping away at said resistance and now, with the PND Fairy taking up residence, I am having a good hard look at what I really want, what I think I want, what hubby wants and what is good for us as a family. I’m also allowing myself to think about the possibility of NOT having another baby and how that makes me feel. Actually, I know how it makes me feel. Sad. I have honestly been looking forward to the creation of another life, to another pregnancy and yes, despite my very natural fears, another ‘go’ at having that longed for water birth. I want another sibling for Lily. I grew up feeling very much like an only child despite having 3 (much older) siblings and it was rather lonely. I want Lily to have a confidante, a friend, a playmate and I want to see her become a ‘big sister’. If I choose not to have another baby, I lose all of that. I miss the opportunity to grow round and heavy with new life. To feel the little life moving around inside of me, pushing against the walls of its little home, letting me know that all is well and that he or she is there. I lose watching another soul come into being. I lose the opportunity to marvel at tiny fingers, tiny toes, feet so small you want to take them gently into your mouth, big navy blue eyes looking up at me. I will miss the tiny growsuits, the weeny nappies, and the hungry little mouth fixed on my breast And the milky sleepy smiling that comes after feeding. I will make a choice that forever limits my experience of pregnancy and birth to what I have already experienced and, to be honest, not all of what I experienced was good. I know its foolish to think such things but I still have the urge to ‘make it right’ – to have the birth that I so wanted for Lily, rather than the shock of the birth that we had. I know that these things cannot be mapped out. I am living proof of that. Yet, the yearning remains.

I remember when I had my termination all those years ago. I felt such loss and such a sense of yearning. I knew that I had begun a journey that my body longed to finish. I had started to call into being my mothering self and then had to abandon her because of the restrictions and difficulties of the time. I remember that body ache so well and I feel it now. The unfinished, unwritten chapters of my life are tugging at my hand and at my heart. Sometimes I think that I can feel also, the little being that still wants me, despite my failings, to bring him into being. I feel him with something other than my normal senses or awareness. He is waiting to see which way the dice will fall for him. And I don’t honestly know.

How is that you can shed tears for what is not yet in being? How is it that I can feel such sadness, such loss for things I shall never experience if I make the decision I am contemplating? Perhaps I have simply filled my head with too many ‘perfect birth’ scenarios, watched too many beautiful DVD’s about what birth could be like, if only we trusted ourselves enough. Maybe I have simply attached myself to this outcome too deeply and now that the time has come to pull out the hook, I am finding it painful.

And so. And so I sit here thinking impossibly difficult thoughts and asking myself impossibly difficult questions, (just for a change). Allowing myself the space to sit with it. Allowing the possibility that 'this is it for me' to be a fact and see how that feels. (Still sad). I know I don’t have to make a definitive decision tonight. But I do have to make a decision soon because neither my apparently absconding ovum nor me have the luxury of too much time. Most especially with our current fertility challenges to overcome. The question of course is, can I cope with the results of my decision either way? With second child or without second child, my life is difficult. The question becomes then, would it be more unbearably difficult with an additional child to manage? Would the joys of motherhood be overshadowed by the struggles? Would the PND fairy give up her rental and just move in? Am I simply giving in to the drama of it all and, on some bizarre level, enjoying the misery and all attention that struggling brings? I’m almost certain there is an element of that in there. I’m not saying that I’m enjoying my current difficulties but there is something in me that knows and loves drama. I come from a family of drama queens and I think that sometimes I don’t know how to live a peaceful, non-adrenalised life. I think that this little glitch in my programming leads to horrible incidents like last night, where we were nearly in a very bad car accident because I got stuck on the wrong side of the road with a car coming towards me that wasn’t slowing down. That was pretty dramatic. And I was the one that put us in that situation, albeit accidentally. I mean, what better metaphor for my internal life right now than a head on collision!

I jest. Well mostly anyway. I am just curious about myself in these places. I have been practicing mindfulness recently, (mainly in the car when I feel like I’m about to lose it with beanie), and keeping a questioning mind about my life. It’s sometimes liberating to think that I won’t have to do the whole toddler thing again or the severe sleep deprivation thing. But then I look in my cupboard at the tiny socks and shoes and run my hands over the tiny soft baby clothes, or I hold a newborn and feel that soft heaviness in my arms and that wonderful newborn smell, and I am lost. That mothering ache begins in my womb and I am full of sighs and deep longings once again.

What complex creatures we women are. How full of wanting. How full of light and warmth and life. And yet, how easily we walk with darkness. How calmly we hold hands with the devils of our own unexpressed longing. How willingly we sacrifice ourselves and quietly mourn the death of our wild gypsy selves.

Yes. To Be or Not To Be - that really is the question.
But what will be the answer?

Zen-ing Out

I am holed up in bed. It’s two in the afternoon and it feels peaceful if slightly decadent. After the dark shakiness of this week and the rather long nights talking things through with the hubble, it feels like the best place for me to be. It’s actually the only place I want to be. Safe and secure in an oasis of snuggly white warmth. It’s raining heavily and the air smells metallic and dirty - wet earth and rain, a smell I love - and its peaceful. I'm listening to this album. It's lovely.

This morning I took the cat, who seems to spend most of her time annoying the shit out of me, to the vet for her yearly jabs. I do feel for her, having a thermostat shoved up her bum at every visit, then being poked and prodded and jabbed with needles. She has a lump on her back that needs to be kept an eye on but apart from that, she’s healthy and a good weight for a big furbag. She’s happily sleeping on a huge pile of my Indian imported floor cushions like the princess and the pea. After I dropped her off at home (yes, I came all the way back to the house to drop the cat off home), I did what I always do when I’m down, I went shopping. I bought the Beanie some new PJ’s, soft and fleecy and a book called The Owl Babies, because she’s my little owl. Did I mention she can count? Yup. My two year old can tell you how many lady bugs or bees are pressed into a piece of play dough – she can do up to four. I’m pretty amazed by that I have to say. And then I took solace in my local bookshop coming home with Zen tomes (one called 'There is nothing wrong with you.' which made me chuckle) and a little book called 'Lessons of a Lakota' by Billy Mills because I have an interest in Native American everything.

I’m currently listening to The Painted Drum on audio by Louise Erdrich and it has been quite entertaining. I’ve also just picked up Buddhism for Mothers by Sarah Napthali on audio. I have read the book but I thought it would be good to have this in the car. I love listening to stuff in the car – it’s where I do most of my learning I think. I most often have Wayne Dyer with me or Louise Hay or, my favourite, Oriah Mountain Dreamer. I love her combination of spirit and honesty and her earthy yet lofty blend of Native wisdom and Buddhism. It speaks very deeply to me. She makes me feel peaceful just listening to her. Yesterday, when I was deep in the tremors, I opened ‘The Dance’ and from a chapter called Choosing a Joyful Dance, this is what I read,

‘Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be…someday,
Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
truly okay with the way things are right now in this moment, and again in the next and the next and the next…’

Are you willing to be completely at peace with how things are right now in your life? Are you willing for just one moment to let go of all your dissatisfaction, all of your suffering about how things are? Are you willing to let go of all the worry and tension in your body and simply breathe?

Am I? The thing that I struggle with (among many others) is the feeling that to accept myself as I truly am, in this moment, in this day of motherhood, is to accept something intrinsically wrong. My mothering is wrong. My discipline is wrong. My anger is wrong. How, I could ask, could one ask a murderer to accept how he is in the moment? I’m not really comparing myself to a murderer but I think that it’s somehow flawed to ask of myself, feeling as I do about motherhood, to simply accept that this is how it is. How I am. I don’t want to accept that this is how I am. I don’t want to be this. I want to be something different. Something better. How do I come to a place of acceptance about something which feels wrong in my heart? That is what I am struggling with today. I want to sit with my discomfort but I don’t. I chew over the fact that I fail every day to be the mother I wish to be, the mother my daughter deserves. I know that she chose me and on some level what I offer her is necessary for her journey, as well as mine, but I also believe that my desperate desire to do better, to be better, is also part of this journey.

When I look at my anxious, frustrated, impatient type of mothering, I am struck by how much like my mother I am. I grew up nurtured by a woman who would rather walk for 5 miles than wait 10 minutes for a bus. She pushed me, like a real stage mother, to win, to be better than every other person I could be pitted against, especially if it was in an area that she believed I would do well in, or an area where she herself wished she could have played. I was a smart and capable kid. I could do anything pretty well. I was adaptable and gifted in many areas (though not maths!) and so I did pretty well all round. This led to many difficult and stressful times for me, all brought about through my mother’s love for me and her desire for me to do well. I understand now that this was perhaps not the way to handle things but she didn’t know any different. She was motivated by many things, guilt and fear among them. She was by nature, a highly stressed individual, probably from living through the war and evacuation and poverty and then with my violent father for 26 years. I know that living with him would put anyone under severe stress and so its not really surprising that I have inherited, from pregnancy probably, the same traits of anxiousness and fear. I was born into fear and have lived most of my life with its shadow snapping closely at my heels. It’s not that it stops me from doing most things – it doesn’t. I am both fearful and stubborn. But I suspect that it stops me from doing many things that I don’t realize. Probably because I am unable to truly let myself break apart. Like last night. I cried but could not let go, not truly. I was worried that I would wake my baby girl. I hate crying. I both felt and wanted to break through the door that separates me from my true emotions and could not. I pulled back because it seemed less painful to remain where I am than to push through into that empty darkness that waits for me in the room beyond. I couldn’t move through that doorway because I don’t honestly know how to. How do you let yourself break apart? How do you give yourself over to the sorrow – to anything without holding just a little of yourself back?

And so today, I meander quietly through my life, seeking for something that will make sense of my experiences. Something that will give me hope. A book I picked up today is called, ‘That Which You Are Seeking is Causing You to Seek.’ I liked the title. The author, Cheri Huber, is a teacher of Zen. The explanation on the back of the books says, “What we are looking for is causing us to look. That’s why we need not go anywhere, do anything, learn more, figure anything out or worry about going wrong. We need only to stop, sit down, be still and pay attention.’ Easier said than done for this restless, mangled spirit. But I will try.

I will try.

May your caravan be filled with the music of silence.

These Little Earthquakes

I am here because I don’t know where else to be. Today was a Bad Day. The anger was so close to the surface, the frustration and the impatience all mixed with an incredible lack of grace. A resentment that yet again my time, my space, my soul are all sacrificed to the good of the child. I feel greedy and grasping and want only to escape the (seemingly fraudulent) needs of my demanding little girl. Add to this the many and continuous frustrations with the internet, its temperamental speeds and connection issues which anger me instantly because they have gone on for so long. The strangeness of my new Mac has also fed the furies today. I am such a novice and have no skill with it and that too has been a source of frustration. And don’t even get me started on the reasons why it won’t upload any of my photos or even show most of the pages properly. I am at a loss to explain any of it.

And so, like the earth tremors we have been experiencing recently, these little earthquakes shake me once again. My angry outbursts are, as always, quickly followed by remorse and a gnawing, aching guilt. Today the tears got the better of me. I never know whether to hide my tears from my daughter lest she grow up thinking that she needs to parent her flaky, neurotic mother or whether its ok to let a child know that you are sad and that its ok to cry when you are sad. In the end I went for the latter and explained that mummy was sad but not because of her. She was soothing and empathetic, as only she can be and eventually after much “It’s orrite mummy,” and “You thad?” she suggested that we ‘hold hands’. Well that nearly ended me. Smiling through the tears I suggested that this would be a good remedy for nearly all of my ills and that she suggest it next time mummy goes off on one.

Sadly this wonderful, warm and touching moment was soon followed by more anger, more tears and more frustration as my curious little muppet refused to do as she was bidden, refused to listen and became increasingly difficult to handle.

I stood at the sink entirely enveloped in a feeling of hopelessness and cried. I do not allow myself to cry often, I don’t know why. Perhaps it is because I am embarrassed to be so often this overwhelmed, to feel so powerless to change, to improve what is becoming an intolerable situation for me. The endless conflicts with my two year old cause me great pain at the moment. Mainly because I seem incapable of finding some better way to deal with them. To deal with myself. I cried because it seems that no matter how often I ask for help, it is never given or at least not in a way that I can understand and which is therefore as good as invisible to me. My fear of damaging her tender spirit is a daily shroud. I am terrified that there will come a point when her eyes will dull and she will simply stop reaching out to her emotionally unstable mother and give up, withdraw and leave me heartbroken and bereft. And yet I can see no other outcome if this situation continues. I don’t know what to do. And I can very clearly see that I need to do something to shift things.

I had hoped that the St John’s Wort would help me level out enough to find a clear space to stand in and walk forward from. It appears that this is not to be. Maybe what ails me is not curable by external means. I feel increasingly fragile and unsure of myself. I have never hated myself before. I have hated aspects of my life and my experiences, but never myself. Never like this. I hate myself as a mother and I try not to because I know that the cure does not lie in the misery and the doubt, but in hope of a change. I know too that without focusing on the positives in the situation, I will never truly break free of this horrible emotional and mental affliction that seems to have welded itself to my skin and to my heart. This is not me. At least, I hope to God that it is not me. I am so unhappy. I find myself cursing my life and though I know that it is born of frustration, it does not mean that it is not how I feel on some level. I have counted my blessings, I am more than aware of how much I have to be grateful for and yet there are days when sinking into the ground and disappearing are all I wish for. How can I deserve to be the mother of this beautiful child? Why can I not see a way forward? I am not stupid. I don’t even know how to talk about everything that I feel because I feel that I am letting down those people who rely on me to get my shit together. I am embarrassed to be this down, this incapable of self-mastery and this miserable when all around me is real suffering, real misery. It doesn’t feel right somehow to cry when I have so little to really cry about. I have just finished reading a book called Sorrow Mountain about a Tibetan Warrior Nun who suffered so much at the hands of the Chinese. Next to that, what are my little struggles, my minor sufferings?

I am going to miss the best years of her life if I can’t get myself out of this rut. I know it. And I fear it greatly. Why should she suffer because of me?

I thought about calling friends to talk but didn’t. Most of my friends have more than enough on their plate without me adding to their load. I don’t want to tax anyone else’s adrenals. A friend actually interrupted my crying earlier but I am no good at reaching out. She called at the wrong (right?) time but I felt incapable of talking. What else can I say anyway? What can I say that I have not already expressed a thousand times and more? I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to write about it in my own blog for fear of boring the shit out of you yet again with the same old same old. I did because at the end of the day, it is where I am and I cannot move on without accepting that. It’s my day off tomorrow and apart from a trip to the vets with the cat, I am alone. I know that I will miss her as I always do when we are apart, fearing that we will be forever parted because I do not deserve her and that my last memories of her will be these. I know it sounds stupid but it happens every time. Every time something good comes into my life, I feel as if I am waiting for it to be taken away again. She is the best thing to come out of my life and the most ferociously challenging. I tear myself apart as I try to come to terms with a life so altered, so drastically and forever changed by her. I try to let go and accept and become that which I am now that I have her. But I cannot. I am stretched between my own need to create something of my life, to achieve, to live my music and not die with it still in me and my own inner knowing that she is something wonderful that my life has created and that maybe I should give up any other dreams and accept that. Maybe there is simply a time for mothering unencumbered by loftier missions. Maybe there is only today and today and today and looking into the future simply brings misery. So why then is my spirit still restlessly searching for something intangible, something that hangs just out of reach but releases its perfume into the air every time I walk by it? Why am I so tantalized and so unfulfilled?

I don’t have any answers. I don’t even know where to look for answers. Or maybe I’m simply not asking the right questions. Who the fuck knows.

So I wait for the earth to steady beneath me once again. I wait for the tremors to stop and the earthquakes to subside. I wait for that gentle touch of grace that can take me home again. Home to myself. Pray that it happens soon.

May your caravan be pitched on solid ground.
May all beings be at peace.

On Visits & Strange Offers

*Photo from here.

While my daughter enjoys a little one-on-one time with Charlie & Lola, I thought I'd pop in here to have a quick catch-up. I know, it's a bit naughty, but she's happy and I'm getting some 'me' time. There was precious little of that last night as our little visitor gave me a mere 20 minutes of sleep before joining us in bed and wrestling her way all over me for the next 4 hours before I got up. Tired doesn't even begin to cover it.

Anyway, the real reason why I'm here, is to share with you the delightful news that the PND Fairy is visiting again. Well apparently, she never actually left. This revelation is however not as dark and woeful as it may sound. My visit to the naturopath yesterday was surprisingly helpful despite the rather depressing prognosis and I have been given at least a little useful information on ridding myself of my most unwelcome visitor. It's sort of ironic that I went along for some advice on dealing with some long standing health issues and to talk about preparing the way for another baby and ended up being diagnosed as still suffering from Post Natal Depression caused by the first little ankle-biters arrival. I wasn't diagnosed with PND until Lily was 16-months old and a lovely friend suggested, quite gently and with much love, that my struggles with motherhood might be due to me suffering from post-natal depression and recommended that I read 'The Masks of Motherhood' by Sarah Maushart. I did and I found it very helpful but I honestly believed that the worst was behind me and that I was out of the thick of it. How did I not pick up that something this obvious was wrong? And not just me, the maternal health nurses, the doctors, the people who were supposedly supporting me after childbirth? I guess there are such subtle degrees of it, it can be tricky to detect. I mean, I filled out all the forms that are supposed to detect PND sufferers. Are you crying uncontrollably - no; Are you overwhelmed and unable to cope - no; Are you having thoughts of harm to yourself or your child - definitely no. So why would I think that I had PND? I was coping. Yes, I was emotional and slightly overwhelmed, but so are a lot of new mothers and I had so much more support than many others. Of course, I also set the bar so high for my mothering that I could not help but fall short in my efforts, so that didn't help.

* My idea of the PND Fairy. Image from here.

So fast forward to now. I'm sitting in my naturopath's office talking about health issues and pregnancy and getting a bit emotional, as I do when someone gives me the opportunity to talk about stuff that I normally keep so well compressed in my psyche, when buggar me if she doesn't drop the PND bombshell on me again. She states, with a great deal of surety, that I have, in fact, been continuing to live with and trying to raise a child through, some more undiagnosed PND. Great. Just. Great.

Actually, it was rather great. You see, the diagnosis of PND means that I am not the entirely crap mother that I often feel myself to be. No. I am actually suffering from an acute form of anxiety which presents as hypervigilance and an over-reactive response to any form of stress. As she said, it should really be called Post Natal Anxiety because that's what it really is. And let me tell you, life with a toddler can be very stressful. Hence, the Shouty Banshee is in fact simply a mother coping with PND. I feel sort of vindicated. A bit. I mean as I've said before, it doesn't give me carte blanche to be a crap mother but it does at least enable me to see how some of the difficulties of the past two and half years could be attributed to this undiagnosed and therefore undealt with condition. I have been trudging under the weight of so much weariness, mental sluggishness and a real lack of enthusiasm for life and mothering. And it has been harder than I ever could have imagined despite the end result being so beautiful and radiant a spirit as my Beanie.

And so, I am now taking copious amounts of St John's Wort to help get my emotions under control, am on a new low GI diet to help keep my blood sugar stable and thus handle the endocrine system imbalance I suffer from and am under strict instruction to do 45 minutes of exercise daily in order to lose a few kilos. My naturopath also told me that if I didn't feel better in two weeks, to call her as she would be frankly shocked if I didn't feel much improved in that time. So - the baby-making is on hold temporarily - we don't want to go into all the hormonal upheaval of another pregnancy when I'm still hormonally upheaved from the last one! - and we are working towards a calmer, more emotionally stable Kitty. Bring it on, I say!

I also enjoyed a much more enjoyable visit yesterday and a welcome squidgy shoulder to cry on. The delicious sol-y-luna came a'callin' and we hatched up numerous plans for our newly formed (with gorgeous DocWitchy) Cackle Club. Much mischief and red wine guzzling will no doubt ensue. Lovely sol-y - what a great couple of days we had. We laughed our asses off during a spot of fat burning belly dancing with bollywood moves thrown in for good measure. We talked about things past, present and future and we shared a good few glasses of red. We even went outside and serenaded the beautiful Lady Luna, who was in full and beautious flight across the blackberry blue and star-studded night sky. It was dee-lightful. And the best part is, I get to do it all over again on Saturday with the added bonus of Doc. Yes, the first official meeting of the Cackle Club is happening this Saturday and, hold on to your hats, it includes a Pyjama Party. Whoo hooo! I cannot wait for a whole day and night with my girls. We are planning on visiting the wonderful Stitches & Craft Show at the Melbourne Show Grounds, during the day but apparently, Sol-y and Doc have some surprises up their sleeves for lil old me. Hopefully it doesn't involve me, naked in a classroom, without my homework. I'm sure it will be 'moste excellent' as Doc would say.

Talking of strange offers - I have, oddly enough, been approached by The State Library of Victoria because they are 'committed to preserving electronic publications of lasting cultural value' and they felt that my blog would offer a valuable addition to their collection. In particular they are interested in my blogs regarding the recent bush fires. I am frankly a bit stunned to have been chosen by anybody as a good example of anything (unless the 'Whinge and Waffle' Society is offering me their much coveted 'Whingeffler of the Year' Award) but I'm also obviously quite flatered that they think my blog worthy of preserving. I'm going to say yes, obviously, because its nice to think that something I have written may be of value to someone else, but also because its simply so lovely to be asked. Hopefully, this doesn't turn out to be some giant mistake/misunderstanding/punk'd experience. But because I'm kinda paranoid, I will just say here, in BIG LETTERS and for the absolute record that THE CONTENT OF THIS BLOG remains MY copywrited property and may not be used for defending the planet from Evil (or anything) without my WRITTEN CONSENT. Yes, my ego really is that fragile people.


Picture from here.

So - PND Fairy - Begone Foul Hag. Begone I say!

Until next time, may your caravan be peaceful and (evil) fairy free.

Small Beautiful Choices

My new teacups. Red 'n' spotty because I am suddenly very drawn to rich fun colours like red, yellow and orange for my kitchen. They make me smile every morning.


My very special teacup. Buttercup yellow and gold. I bought special teacups for all of my very special friends this Christmas. I wanted beauty to be the first thring that greeted them in the morning.


The first fruits of our passionfruit vine which grows abundantly (despite the drought and recent hot weather) on the outside of our veggie garden. I was so excited to see these I actually squealed prompting my daughter to ask, "What was that noise mummy?"


Beanie and our second (I will not ever, never eat a) tomato. We have absolutely loads of them ripening on the vines. I'm guessing I'll be knee deep in chutney and passatta come April. Now if I only knew how to make chutney and passatta I'd be laughing.

* Autumn Crow

Well, Autumn has well and truly arrived for us in the hills. We went from a stagnant, hot and sticky summer to the full blown wet and cold of Autumn in one day. Guess that's Melbourne for you. Monday had us off the mountain and taking comfort in the air conditioned goodness of the in-laws house and Monday night had us soaked to our skin trying to remove our 'fire danger' sand bags from our spouting as we enjoyed a torrential downpour for several hours. As I waded in ankledeep water in our sunrooms, I reminded myself that I have been praying for just such rain for the past month. We have had since had the heating on every day and the jumpers, tights and boots have all been dug out. The weather sure doesn't muck about in this hemisphere.

I for one am very glad of the change. I have so longed for autumn that it feels almost too good to be true that its finally here. It's my favourite and my best. I love the cold dark nights and the cold dark mornings and rugging up in furry blankies and drinking hot choccy in front of the coonara stove. I love the mist and the chill and the green. It's just so divine and peaceful. I'm sure I'm not the only one in this area that has breathed a sigh of relief with the onset of the more wintery weather. With the horror of the fires fresh in our psyches, there will now be time for people to being the slow process of rebuilding their houses and their hearts knowing they have at least got nine months grace before the weather causes concern again. I think for the first time I have fully realised that this is what people up here live with year after year. I guess its the price for enjoying the beauty and the peace for the rest of the time. I certainly won't be taking it for granted any time soon.

Anyway I'm off to snuggle up under a blanky and watch a dramatisation of the Roman Empire called, unsurprisingly, Rome! Love those recreations of ancient civilisation.

Until next time, may your caravan be warm and cosy.

Idealism, Motherhood and Being a Rooster

Well. As often happens when I am gnawing on a particularly meaty problem, wisdom pops up and bites me on the ass whilst I'm driving. In this case, the biter was the lovely Wayne Dyer, of whom I am a big fan. I know he's not everyone's cuppa but I like him because he's very Zen about everything. Being present is so not a skill I possess yet and I therefore admire it greatly in others. Like my darling hubble.

Anyway, as also often happens, I digress. So there I was - daughter sleeping gently in the car seat, on my way home with a Mocca and a sarnie, when it hits me (a realisation, not a car), I have been idealising motherhood. (Was that a resounding 'Duh!' I hear?). This is an interesting revelation because for a lot of my life I saw only the drudgery of motherhood. My mum was a slave to a demanding, violent bully of a husband and four kids and she had to try and fit a job in around all this chaos. Not my idea of happiness I have to say. Not many people's I would think. So the sudden realisation that I had idealised motherhood to the extent that I was now driving myself completely insane with trying to achieve impossible dreams, was nothing short of shocking. Yet it makes sense of so many things that I've had trouble understanding recently.

Firstly - I don't idealise ALL motherhood - just the type of motherhood in which i believe. Hence the ability to both loathe it (because of the drudgery and demands) and idealise it (because of what is possible) at the same time. It's not that on an intellectual level I honestly think that motherhood is all roses, kittens and sunny days spent cooing at a smiling, impossibly good natured baby. I don't. I'm nuts but I'm not that nuts. It's more that I have this idea of myself as a mother and I am falling miserably short of it. This ideal can do all of the things that I have often talked about on this blog. She can cook wonderful nurturing wholefoods for her family, she can play for hours without boredom or a stiff gin, she can raise a happy, well- adjusted little camper without Ritalin and she can make stuff by hand. Well, that's all fine and dandy but it's not me. At least, not right now.


Idealism is one of those strange things. It seems like a good idea at the time, to imagine a wonderful, better future for ourselves (and it is - but within certain parameters). But it is also a constant source of frustration and misery because we put off everything waiting for those idealised 'magical moments'. It doesn't matter if it's a new job, a promotion, achieving a certain level of financial security, a new house, a bigger car, a family, a relationship or whatever, if you are always waiting to reach that goal then you are simply not 'living' now. You are quietly existing and waiting for that moment to arrive and THEN you can be happy, be content, be relaxed. It never comes. I'll repeat that in big letters for emphasis, IT NEVER COMES. There is no magical day when everything will be better, there are just more days like today. The trick is to make the absolute best of these days, in the here and now, living them fully even if not always happily. Otherwise, you are stuck in a constant cycle of Idealism followed by Frustration/Anger (as you fail to meet your own ideals), followed by Depression/Inertia (as in, 'what's the frigging point anyway') followed by Apathy ('I give up!') followed by a new idea of what is right, what will makes things all better again, which leads to Idealism again and so on...

A beautiful and wise woman wrote me an email in response to my last posts and she said basically the same thing to me. I know. It takes me a while to 'realise' things as opposed to understanding them intellectually. She reminded me that who I am is enough. Even when it feels like anything but. Even when I'm crazy and resentful and bored and disinterested and reluctant. Even though I am the very definition of a messy mother (psychologically at least), it's still ok that this is who I am. And, more to the point, it's ok that this is who I am for Lily. On some level she chose me precisely because I would make a hack of these early years, (more or less), and she would get to learn about anger and how to make rude suggestions to motorists who drive up one's bottom on swervy bendy roads. That is who I am. I'm a mess sometimes. I'm a control freak at others, (which is interesting because I have been gifted with the world's grubbiest little girl. I kid you not, there are boys who are more fastidious about their clothing and person than my little grubnut - Ah, the letting go. The letting go.).

This wonderful woman, who has so often been an inspiration to me because she is such a kind and gentle and amazing mother, reminded me that I don't have to be something else. If I can't nurture, if I can't play, if I am angry sometimes and wildly happy at others, if I'm inappropriately humorous, it's all the same. I am the mother I am and that has to be enough. Has to be because to try to squeeze myself into even my own wide definitions of motherhood, is to try and fit myself into a shape that is not my own. Of course, I can want to be better. I can want to find better avenues for my aggression and my anger. I can want to nurture and to play. But it's ok if I don't. Maybe, despite my beliefs to the contrary, what my daughter needs from me is not excessive amounts of play-time or country soups, but the drama, the poetry, the love of literature of reading and dance and magic and imagination. That I can give to her in spades. I can give her an opportunity to be herself only if I am truly myself around her. Myself around everyone. It doesn't give me cart blanche to be a crap mother but it does give me room to make mistakes and not give myself blunt force trauma when I fuck up. Which I will.


It reminds me, strangely, of my primary school nativity. I was a pretty precocious little kid (I was the kid who wrote and staged and acted in a play at the age of 10. You know, the annoying one) and i was good at two things English and Acting. I longed for the part of Mary in the nativity - not because she was cool but because she was the LEAD. I so wanted that part. Anyway, I didn't get it. Nope. I didn't even get to be one of the Angels or the Shepherds or anything. No. I got to be...The Rooster. Yes, I know. It's like that moment in 'Love Actually' when Emma Thompsons' (love her SO much), daughter proudly reveals that she is the 'Second Lobster' in her school nativity and Emma incredulously replies, 'There were TWO lobsters at the birth of Baby Jesus?'. Well, yes. I was the Rooster whose gift to Baby Jesus was not to crow on his first morning and wake him up. However, I did get to sing a song which, from memory, had the lines 'Cockadoodle do' repeated a lot. My mum made me a stunning jumper full of crepe paper feathers and I donned my red tights and sang with all my heart. And I stole the show. Everybody remembered my part. Partly because it was so bloody ridiculous and partly because I was doing what I do best - being me. Annoying, precocious and pretty bloody interesting for the most part.

And so, this well warm groove slides around me again. It's not the first time I have realised this little message, but it is the first time that I have gotten it so fully. I expect I will be back here again. Wisdom is a bit like an onion, it has many layers and as you peel back each one it is likely to make you cry. There are evidently levels of understanding about the same situations, the same processes, that we come back to again and again until they are fully realised and we are healed of the need to tread that little groove again. We then move on to the next and the next. Is there a place of no groove? Possibly. (I think its called 'middle-aged white people dancing - particularly men'). But I'm don't think I'm anywhere near ready to go there yet. In fact, I think I'm like that Goldfish that Billy Connolly sings about, going 'Round and round and round. And round. And round.'

So this is where I'm at right now. Not bouncing off the walls with happiness but not drowning in a pool of my own anxiety either. I'm sort of quiet, if that's possible for me. And listening. And learning to be okay with the accepting and the not accepting, the struggle and the ease. I expect that it will take me quite some time to really stop the striving to be something different, to let go of the idea of perfection in motherhood. More importantly, it will take time to let go of the idea that if I am less than perfect my daughter can still turn out to be a strong, confident and amazing woman. I mean, half of my friends had less than perfect starts in life and have continued to have interesting dynamics within their families and they are some of the most amazing women I've ever met. I'm proud to know them.

And I expect it will take me longer still to really understand who and what I am as a mother. In the meantime, I guess I'll just stay here until something moves me in a different direction. Sitting with the 'what is' instead of trying to get to the 'what may be'.

This is me, signing out.

Cockadoodle Doo!

"There is no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one” Jill Churchill

The Challenge of Acceptance, The Art of Nourishing

Storms

Have this playing as you read this.

I would love to come to you healed and say that all of your words had made a difference. They did. They do. But they do not undo, unknot, unravel the many shields of my self. I am deeply grateful for such kindness as has been shown to me and ever humbled that people whom I will most likely never meet, have taken the time to share their experiences, offer wisdom and advice (all of it good, sound advice) or to simply 'be' with me for a moment. It has been unexpected.

I am feeling a little less 'Noir'. There are moments of light, laughter and happiness - of course there are. It's just impossible at this point to tell what is going to happen next. I am, for once, not anxious to 'fix it'. I am allowing the 'what is' to visit and not feel like I have to escape from it. I know that I have been touched by some sort of sadness that goes very deep and that will not let me loose just yet. No matter how much I struggle against its silky grip.

I'm so tired and so weary to my bones of trying and getting nowhere. I'm so tired of never living up to my own expectations. So tired of always falling short and getting up and trying all over again. And so I have decided to stop. Not stop living obviously, that would be stupid. Just stop striving all the time. Stop trying to sit on my anger at the expense of my passion, my joi de vivre, my soul's yearning to be heard, to be free. Of course, it is easy to say and not so easy to do. Not so easy to 'surrender' when one does not know how to bend to the prevailing winds. How do you describe the act of surrender? What does letting go look like? Feel like? How do you know when you have achieved it? And what of anger? My anger is a part of it all too. I have yet to learn how to express my anger in more appropriate and manageable ways. I have sat on it for so long, all of my life really, and now it wells up at the slightest provocation and is destructive to the one person I want to protect from it more than any other. And yet. I don’t know how to let go and it’s not something anyone else can tell me how to do. How do you explain the process, the art, of surrender to someone who does not know what surrender feels like, what being empty feels like?

I have always known what I have to do. (Have to?) I have been searching for a way but seem incapable of actually doing it. Incapable of finding that middle pathway between self-loathing and self-love, between anger and passion, between nurturing others and nurturing myself. It was quite the revelation to discover that I don't trust myself. I don't think that I know how to.

My acupuncturist, Aisla, is an amazing and intuitive woman. Today, as I dissolved into tears in her office (yet again), grateful for just a moment when I could be 'me' and let the overwhelm come and not pretend to be on top of it all, to be coping, I realised that this is who I really am. This tear streaked, overwhelmed, oh so tired mummy who wants so desperately to be a good mummy and not a bad mummy all the time, who wants so much to be all that she hoped she would be as a parent, but isn't. This is it. This is as good as it gets. At least for now. And in her office, for those few moments, it's ok. Or at least, if not ok, ok that its not ok.

She sits her needles into my skin and they crawl or throb or itch and then she asks me what I think that I do well. I am quiet for a long time. Then I realise that I can offer her nothing. I can say nothing good about myself. Find nothing good to bring forward for us to talk about. 'That's very telling.' She says in her quiet way. 'Your inner critic is dominating. You need to bring out your inner encourager.' Yes. I'm sure I do. But what I need most of all is to let it go. Let go of the striving for constant perfection (especially when I don't know that this is what I am doing). I was moulded for the challenge, for the winning of battles, for being the best at stuff and honestly, it pretty much came easily to me. I didn't fail that much. But I did get scared of making mistakes. I don't know how else to play. So now I sit with the knowledge that this parenting, nurturing thing may be one battle that I cannot win. And why is it a battle anyway? Surely these things should be soft edged and soft focused and easy, not iron and unyeilding and frosty. If the way is hard, if the road you are on constantly brings you back to the same stiff, cold place of hatred and angst, then you are on the wrong frigging road. You'd think that would be obvious wouldn't you?

But its not. It never is. We can never see the beauty that stares us in the face or the courage we have in the face of adversity, when we are the ones doing the looking. I am well aware that this applies to me, of course I'm too busy looking at you.

It's not that I want to be someone else. I don't. I do sometimes entertain wild fantasies about being somewhere else, but I don't actually want to be someone else. Unless that someone is Cate Blanchett perhaps or Kate Bush. I'd trade lives with them for a day. But then I'd want to come back here and be me again and cuddle my girl and hug my man. So no. It's not about that. It's about not knowing who I am. It's about not being able to find something lovable, something bright and good and inspiring about myself to offer up to this life. It's about truly not understanding what about me makes this path so bloody hard when I have so much love to give to it.

If I abandon everthing to a single moment,
then I reach you.
O light-hearted beautiful of the world,
give me that heavy cup.

Give it,
and then I'll be saved
from sorrow and helplessness both.
I'm so tired of feeling oppressed by anxiety
and all of anxiety's troublesome friends.

give it to me,
for then I'll be drunk with God's glass
and be annihilated completely.
I'll open my wings in absence and fly away to the placeless place.
RUMI

I have spoken before about the process of 'becoming'. And it is to this that I want to surrender. I have no choice really because what I am doing is breaking me into a million tiny little pieces. But how? How do I reach into the deepest still beating part of my heart and bring it forth into the light? How do we touch that little part of ourselves that is Divine and allow it to lead? I am so used to putting my intellect before my heart. My mind over my body. But thinking has brought me to here. Again and again. There is no thinking my way out of this.

Nurturing
And what is nurturing?
I can tell you what it is not. It is not driving yourself daily to accomplish the impossible. It is not running like a greyhound around the same well worn track after the same scabby rabbit who is always out of the reach of your snapping jaws. It is not trying to make yourself something that you aren't and never were. But I cannot tell you what it is. I could reel off some trite magazine worthy observations about 'time for you' like having a long soak in a hot bath (my bath isn't long enough to lie down in - why do they not build them with a sodding head rest for Gods sake?), or taking a mini-break (not when you are mini-broke), eating well and getting enough rest. But then what if you don't cook well or just simply don't enjoy cooking? What if your rest is held entirely in two chubby little hands over which your deepest desire to get a full 8 hours have no dominion? What if you truly don't know what nourishes your deepest self? What then?

Nurturing does not come naturally to me. I've said this before. I can't tell if its because I'm lazy (as I sometimes am) or because I am just lacking in energy and inclination (does that class as lazyness?). Right now, with so little time and energy and freedom, it feels like I have nothing left to give. I am having to learn about nurturing myself and my family one day at a time when I thought that it would all come so easily to me. I realise now that I simply don’t trust myself to be a good parent. I believe in instincts, just not mine.

* Sadness & Light

Acceptance.
So in this place of 'no trust' I sit. In this place of 'self-loathing' I wait. Inbetween these moments of sadness and light, I open. I wait to accept myself and this and it. And I know that nothing can truly change until acceptance seeps as deeply into my skin as the striving I wear like a tribal tattoo. I am unravelling and it feels raw and frightening and my skin feels blistered with all my shattered hopes and dreams. What comes out of this blistering darkness I wonder? I guess there's only one way to find out.

'Some hearts are ghosts and they drown in dark waters,
just as silt grows heavy and drowns with the stone.'