draft

By On · Add Comment · In blog, creative writing

watch your step
“That’s interesting,” my partner said, peering over my shoulder at my blog dashboard.

“What is?”
“You have more drafts that published posts.”

Well, of course. I have plenty of ideas for blog posts, stories, and sometimes (although, admittedly not lately) plays. But ideas, or drafts, is what they remain because heaven forbid I make a fool of myself by posting something that’s not up to scratch. Not perfect. Wrong.

If you know me well then you know I have plenty of opinions. Plennnty. Sometimes I run through something I’ve been thinking about over dinner with my friends, or I tell my partner or my mum, or even my son. And by tell I mean rant about it for at least half an hour.

But I rarely express my ideas about stuff on the tubes because… I’m afraid.

Here’s something:

When I was in high school I was an oversharer. Before the term oversharer existed, I was sharing all over the place. It’s one of the ways I try to make other people feel more comfortable around me; I tell them goofy things about myself. There are plenty so it’s easy. (See what I did there?)

But I suppose it also came from a place of trust. I trusted that if I confided in someone they wouldn’t use it against me; wouldn’t talk shit about me.

Friends, I was wrong.

I was gossiped about hurtfully. It stings to this day. And I am nearly 35 years old.

Here’s something interesting:

A couple of years ago, someone from high school sent me a message on Facebook apologising for how they treated me back then. That was nice, wasn’t it?

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quiet

By On · 1 Comment · In blog, children

Tonight I don’t leave the house until twilight is falling.

I am never out at this time; when we walk home from school the mid-afternoon sun shines in our eyes and later dinner preparations render me housebound. When all those tasks are complete and the baby has been put down, it is night.

But on this evening the smaller children are having a sleepover, the teenager is with his friends, Mark is surfing. When I return home with my bit of newspaper and bag of chocolate the house is still.

Why, this is what it will be like when the small ones are teenagers and the big one is grown, I think.  All this quiet for me to fix my own dinner and do my own work. No rushing around to feed small mouths before they cry, no sports games sounding from iPhones or kids cartoons singing on and on on the TV.

Just me.

And all the time in the world.

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happily ever after

By On · 2 Comments · In blog, children, creative writing, family, mama says, single mamas, writing

Once upon a time there was a woman.

She lived in a town with other women and children and men. She had her own man and child that lived with her, she called them family and loved them with all her might.

One day the man left/she left/she could no longer take the fighting/he could no longer take the fighting/it was hard to live with another person who wanted such different things/it was hard to see themselves through the eyes of the other/it was hard to see themselves.

And so it came to pass that she lived by herself, with the child.

And it was lonely.

And when the wolf howled in the night or the sound of feet echoed too close to the little hut where her child slept in the darkness she was scared.

And she thought, how can I do this all alone. Just me in this world. With this child that needs everything — so much more than I can give. And she cried.

Yet the child grew.

She taught the child everything she could think of to teach and hugged the child every time she remembered. She told  the child the truth about the world; about the good that exists in all people at the beginning and about the rules that their kind made to keep themselves dancing and singing and loving and feeling.

One day when the child was nearly grown the woman woke in the middle of the night to find the hut empty. Fear gripped her heart as beasts and predators pranced in her head.

When the light returned so did the child. Why have you done this? the woman asked. The child could not answer and for a time every night was a time to be afraid; a time when all her love was not enough.

Then one day the child turned to her and said, ‘What I believe in is you. What I am thankful for is you. And everything that you are I try to be and for everything that you have done for me I am grateful. I am a good person. And so are you.’

Once upon a time there was a woman.

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thinking + motherhood = blue milk

By On · 5 Comments · In mama says

“There was something so valuable about what happened when one became a mother. For me it was the most liberating thing that ever happened to me. . . . Liberating because the demands that children make are not the demands of a normal ‘other.’ The children’s demands on me were things that nobody ever asked me to do. To be a good manager. To have a sense of humor. To deliver something that somebody could use. And they were not interested in all the things that other people were interested in, like what I was wearing or if I were sensual. . . . Somehow all of the baggage that I had accumulated as a person about what was valuable just fell away. I could not only be me -– whatever that was -– but somebody actually needed me to be that. . . . If you listen to [your children], somehow you are able to free yourself from baggage and vanity and all sorts of things, and deliver a better self, one that you like. The person that was in me that I liked best was the one my children seemed to want.”

Toni Morrison.

I have a new blog crush and it sounds like this.

Start with the ‘about’ …especially if you think the F word is not for you.  I’d love to know what you think.

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why, there’s a bridge

By On · Add Comment · In writing

“We’re existentially alone on the planet. I can’t know what you’re thinking and feeling and you can’t know what I’m thinking and feeling… the very best works construct a bridge across that abyss of human loneliness.”

David Foster Wallace

fuck it, let’s do it

By On · Add Comment · In writing

I have been meaning to post this video ever since it first came out earlier this year. I don’t want to look too closely at the irony that lies within the delay — but let’s just say it’s never too late. Besides my newborn(ish) baby this might be the best thing I’ve seen all year. Watch it. You won’t regret it.

That Ze Frank.

Pencil poster from the ze frank store. 

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mother of a man child

By On · 8 Comments · In babies, birth, blog, children, family, mama says, personal

Once upon a time, on a chilly winter’s day in July, I gave birth. And I became a mother.

Raindrops formed delicate grey dashes on the high glass window of my hospital room. I stared at an obscure Monet print and screamed.  The goldfish I’d bizarrely brought into the delivery suite to ‘focus on’, swam in circles, forgotten.

This little boy that I brought into the world was like no child I had ever imagined,  but from that very first moment, indeed  even before that first moment, I loved him with a purity of heart that promised to keep me on the better side of humane for the rest of my days.

That moment when eternity smiles at you and your heart cracks wide open.

And the little boy grew, as little boys do.

Fifteen years past.

On his birthday I woke him up in his den still of boyness. He had cake and presents and wore the gold paper crown I placed on his head. When he went over to his dad’s house in the afternoon, I drove him. It was his birthday. It was our birth day.

I drove into the driveway, the same driveway, the same house I had brought him home to  all those years ago. But this time I would drive away and he wouldn’t follow until he was ready.

When I turned to hug him goodbye he squeezed me tight in a way he never, ever does and picked me up. He picked me up! Off the ground. And I wanted to cry. Because how did he get so big? And how did this all come to pass? These fifteen years, gone like that, this man child — my son?

All grown.

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controlled crying

By On · 9 Comments · In babies, blog, personal, sydney

This morning I was feeling that ordinary kind of malaise that comes when the winter days are short and the rain has poured down more hours than not.

When I finally left the house with my unwashed hair and cheap ugg boots, Adrian at the coffee place asked, “Nothing’s changed?” and I had to convince myself that he only meant my order. I wondered if I should go back to Uni early. I wondered if I should get another job.

I fed the baby her lunch – a new development. She rolled the mashed avocado and banana around in her mouth in a decidedly bovine manner and stared at me.

In every corner of the house messes lay in wait; Max’s never-ending drawings, my old maternity clothes (eBay? Vinnies?), dust, piles of shoes, wet washing that hung limp on the drying rack.

I laid my phone on the table, bundled the baby into her carrier and got my keys.

Above the street a faraway sun glimmered through spindly black branches. I stopped to admire a flower sprouting over a backyard lattice, it’s papery orange petals craning towards the glow.

Someone called my name, I turned and said hello.

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