Spring . Can't think of witty or clever title.

I’ve been away. Sort of. Actually, I’ve been utterly immersed in my ‘physical’ life, and so have had no time or energy for a virtual one. This year continues to stretch me so that I keep finding that I CAN, after all, fit more into my day, if only I try a little harder. Recently I began to unravel a little, then I got a little note from the FlyingMum, and thought I should maybe have a bit of a peek at some Blogs to see what I’d missed. Obviously I’ve missed plenty. I’ve been thinking about everyone, but knew that once I logged in to Blogger and started reading, it would be the end of at least one evening. Probably many more.

So at least I should try to post something to my own blog – because I haven’t spoken for myself in too long, and I miss my usual self-absorption, even if no-one else does.

I am killing time here –waiting and praying that the huge winds blowing over our house will clear the thick cloud from the night sky, so that I can go out and watch the Full Moon being eclipsed by the earth. Apparently the earth’s shadow turns it a sort of reddish colour. The moon was out earlier when I went for my evening walk – huge and white and sailing through the gaps in the cloud like something from a fairytale.
I’m having a bit of a moon theme at the moment. Half way through a painting which is trying to contain moonishness, though at the moment it looks like a sort of giant mouldy butterball. It is supposed to be symbolic – but I keep finding myself in the grip of the literal, because it just seems to be in my nature to state the obvious. Sigh.

I don’t know about you (though I would if I read some Blogs once in while), but this year has been… unexpected. Partly, I am getting to ‘that age’ where endings begin to become more common than beginnings – so that I have probably done my share of ‘coming of age’ parties, and the mass of engagements and weddings and new babies is past for most of the people in my age group and circle.
I met a woman in the supermarket carpark a few weeks ago – someone who I was at High School with (13 to 17 – not clear on U.S or Canadian equivalent?) and hadn’t seen for a good patch of my life since – but then I moved to this town – a long way from the town we went to school in, and here she is. And she tells me her 3 boys have grown, and ‘I have 15 yr old’ she wails, ‘and he’s horrible’ and we discuss teenagers and hormones and the hope that it all passes and one must grit ones teeth and just pray, and I realized that I had a connection with her now I never could have had when WE were teenagers ( I suggest to her we were similarly horrid to our parents at that age and she says ‘Never! We were never That Bad!’ and I secretly think that her own son will say the same thing in 20 years in conversation with someone in a carpark somewhere…. It cheers me up to imagine it), because now we are adults and though we have nothing more in common than our both being Mums, we have history, and I can still see the youth she was in who she is now, and can see that though she isn’t perhaps entirely my cup-of-tea, she is perfect at being herself.

My BIL (I am speaking Blog… or text… I am becoming ‘modern’) is doing ok. He’s got through his first big hit of Radiotherapy and chemo in much better shape than people ‘usually do’. He’s had a month off, and felt pretty rotten as his body tries desperately to heal itself – we await results from tests to see how much ‘success’ they think they have had. I am using all my ‘writing’ energy in sending him emails and photos of the girls to help him feel …. normal?

Small battles have erupted in my usually peaceful extended family.
My husband’s job went all nasty on him, and he became fairly unhappy (understatement warning). He has decided he wants to move south to be near my family(his are in the UK and he doesn’t want to live there again) and find a whole new job.
People who were not speaking to me suddenly are, and it is making me nervous. My four year old is developing odd phobias about the world – she suspects it’s a bit of a dangerous place and really, it is, but my parenting duty demands that I help her feel secure, because she needs that to be able to grow and learn and function. I’m a bit phobic myself, but then, at the same time, quietly longing for a bit more actual chaos, because pure domesticity is driving me insane.
Tonight I am playing Kate Rusby through the house in the hopes it will soothe her to sleep – old style English folk singing and some of the lyrics are a bit macabre and sad, but the music is lilting, and I always feel quietly uplifted by it.

I am working on the house moving. I am pretty good at moving – in the ‘throw-away- everything-that-isn’t-nailed-down, pack-the-rest, and-just-go’ kind of way I perfected in my younger days. Unfortunately, children and husbands appear to find this approach a little traumatic, so I am having to TAKE MY TIME and wait for things to occur OVER TIME!! I hate that!! I am the LEAST patient person when it comes to change. Once it’s decided, I want it done and dusted. Over. No pissing about.
I suspect I am fairly alarming to others, but it’s how I cope. When something discomforts me, I put my head down and run at it. It works just fine in my own individual world. But, no longer, because I am no longer just me, myself and I. I am ‘family’. I am part of the unit.
I’m also mildly annoyed that we are now making our house pleasant to live in – getting on with sorting all those annoying little things you plan to get to ‘one day’, but never quite seem to.(Thankyou Sage for the shots of your bathroom – I intend to borrow your ideas in sprucing up my own, in which the upper walls are covered in soot stains from where my husband burned cheap candles to create romantic baths for the 2 of us 9 years ago when we were courting). Like, holes in the front lawn that my darling man dug 2 years ago to fix a leaky drainage pipe – pipe duly fixed, he left the hole open ‘just in case’ – 2 years on and small trees have grown out of it and yesterday he decides it’s probably safe enough to fill it in. Or my desk in the study, which I have not been able to put my legs under for 5 years because my beloved father gave his spare computer bits to my husband and he stored them there so that ‘one day’ he could build another computer out of them, and last week, he consented to give them away, and then sulked about it because he hates giving up anything – poor man. Meanwhile I can FINALLY sit at my own desk as God Intended, but will likely only get to enjoy it for a few months before this becomes someone else’s favourite room in the universe. And then, I put up odd bits of my art from the last few years, in spots where I thought I might, and it looks great and feels nice to have these things on walls, rather than in corners in the study.
I am extremely attached to my house. It was built entirely of brick – inner and outer walls – in 1918 or thereabouts – and it has a veranda, and little leadlight windows (which I never clean because I am a shameless hussy) and a big quarter acre section with lovely old trees and beautiful songbirds, and real old fashioned friendly neighbours. Unfortunately, I’m not so fond of the city it sits near, and so it is likely a good thing we move on, but OH I WISH we could take this house with us.

If wishes were horses ….

Ok. There’s a long and meandering blather from me. I am cheerfully mad, and madly cheerful. I have a horrible feeling everything will turn out ‘fine in the end’, I just have to keep hold of myself in the meantime, so I don’t do anything rash and foolish.
I hope this full moon brings great things to all your lives.
I shall attempt to post again soon!!

xx

PS – I saw the eclipse and it was as described and magical.

The Blogging Meme - Finally and with apologies.

Sorry Sage.
You tagged me ages ago for this, and I have been utterly hibernating.
Winter is settling upon us here, and we’ve had the compulsory family virus and half my family have come by to enjoy my little girls, and here it is. Mid June.

I am alone in the house for the first time in a LONG time. (Ok, drama queen translation – I’ve had an hour here and there, but usually had some other thing to do. Today I have 4 hours and although it is cold, I am feeling very fortunate).
So, time to answer the Meme. And it’s good to do this, because I have been wondering about the whole Blog thing, and why it is I dance in and out of it like a nelly.

1. Go back to first or early post. How would you describe your voice back in those early days?Who were you writing to? What was your sense of audience (if any) back then?

I started this thing because of a recommendation from a tutor at the school I attend. Many students were finding Blogs an easy and effective way of getting their art seen ‘out there’ in the real world. Back story to this is that I’m a bit phobic about this ‘out there’ thing. And then again I’m not. It’s that thing of mine of being many people at once. Anyway, I started the blog, and flung a recent painting (of a skull – bound to attract the great thinkers of the virtual world with that one) into the first post. And nothing happened. Which was what I’d expected and secretly hoped, so having proved it hadn’t ‘worked’ I left it. I actually really liked that sense of a void – big echoing nothingness – to talk to. It felt safe. I did feel a little small and lonesome at the same time, and wondered fleetingly what one did to attract ‘readers’, but the next few posts I put up were really journals – my intended audience the great ear of everything – Impersonal, non judging, uncaring. It was kind of fun, but seemed pointless, because I have a daily journal already. So I stopped.

Meanwhile, I was a Mother. And motherhood was a bit lonely for me. I had been having real trouble connecting with actual people in my life, had suffered some setbacks in my attempts to address this and was looking for alternatives. All through my Mummy life I had read Catherine Newman’s weekly column over at Baby center (just like many of you) and when she moved and started her Blog, I read it, and followed the links on the comments and, thinking ‘what the hell’ left some comments on the pages of those who I felt moved to respond to. Which brings me to….

2. Do you remember when you received your first comment? What was it like?

Maodileo. I’d left a comment on her entry about the lonely parts of Motherhood. Because it was something I identified with, and so felt I could safely comment on. She came to visit my Blog after that and ‘Voila’ my first comment. I was a bit startled, and yes, felt a bit special.


3. Can you point to a stage where you began to feel that your blog might be part of a conversation? Where you might be part of a larger community of interacting writers?

I found Notsosage’s Blog around the same time, and she left some comments and I kept reading because she was interesting and funny and kind. ‘The Wedding’ thing came up, and I decided to have a go at it. Sometime around then more people began visiting and leaving comments. I felt like part of the ‘Mommy blogger’ thing.

4. Do you think that this sense of audience or community might have affected the way you began to write?

Definitely. I started to feel more conscious of ‘an audience’. I had specific people I read and enjoyed and who had begun to visit my Blog. I started writing ‘for them’. It made me nervous and I think I got a bit self conscious. And I did start to have the thing where I would post and no-one would come and I would feel sad.
Which is why, I think I have withdrawn a little lately. I didn’t want to be so hooked up in approval all over again, as I was just getting over it in my ‘non-virtual’ life. I’ve had some real-life challenges to address, and sitting and reading blogs and fretting about how my comments sounded or how I hadn’t posted in ages, or I had and nothing had happened was eating up energy I needed to do my life.
Unfortunately, I do really value the people I have met through this platform, and miss regular contact with them. You are an amazing group of intelligent, compassionate women who have made me laugh and got me thinking about the world outside my own. This is a great gift. And I still read. Just not enough to stay really 'part of things'. Sorry.

It seems to me that to really have a successful interactive Blog, one needs to update it regularly and also visit the pages of ones friends regularly and comment on their posts, because it’s like any conversation – it needs involvement to give it momentum. Once it has that momentum, it can be an amazing thing – a powerful thing, but all it seems to take is small break in attention, and the momentum is lost, and people drift off in search of other involvement. It’s like that in ‘Real life’ as well. And is the same thing that has caused me trouble in my ‘Real life’ relationships. The arrival of my babies was wonderful, and terrifying, and I lost much of my confidence and energy for dealing with ‘the outer world’. And because I was no longer ‘putting out’ I was no longer receiving, and so I became isolated and slightly mad. There is nothing worse than having too much of ones own reality. I need other people to give me a ‘reality’ check. Real people work best for this particular function, because they can actually see me – the body language, the tone of voice and the weird facial expressions, and so respond to what I am Actually communicating. And then I can respond to that, and sometimes get valuable information about my life that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

At the art school I attend they say this is a vital part of the Creative Process. Putting ones work ‘out there’ so that other people can respond to it – observing that response and then responding to that. Has the work elicited the response you wanted? If not, how could you change it? The presentation? The venue? Or the work itself. And you need to test your work like this constantly so that it evolves and you learn how to communicate accurately with your audience.

I am deeply afraid to embark on this process, both in the art world, and here in Blog land. It is something I may need to do, just so that I learn how, but at the moment, my own self-conciousness irritates me and makes me feel like a small dog begging for treats.

So I hope I can do better at this, but am determined to try and keep myself from getting immersed in popularity stuff. My whole life could get wasted there. It’s a new world this one, and I hope I can find a way to make it part of my life.

A Postscript For those who are interested.

My Bother In Law is doing ok. The Medical persons are not particularly optimistic about the ‘long term’ as it is an ‘aggressive’ cancer, but are working to give him as much time as possible and let him enjoy his life. We are probably going over in a couple of months to see him. It’s quite possible he may go on for years. We pray for that.


That’s it! Thanks Sage for tagging me for this. I won’t tag anyone else because you have all been tagged haven’t you, and I’m not ‘up-with-the-play’ enough so don’t know who has done it or not.
Hoping you are enjoying your summer.

Onwards and Upwards.

Well. In the midst of a bout of asthma - a bad one, which means I am poisoning myself with a short dose of steroids. Reading about side effects on one website, they list 'inappropriate happiness' among them. Which makes me laugh, which is such a good thing at the moment, though I must then wonder if this is a sign of said inappropriate happiness. *grin*.

The results are in from the medical experts and they say all the worst things. Tumor is "aggressive and malignant" and treatment will likely only "delay the inevitable". I don't know if I'm willing to believe them, as I'm stubborn in my hopefulness. And then, I'm not there with them, so there's so much I don't know.
Patience. I'm really, really bad at patience. Ask my children or my husband.

Life is being wonderfully contrary. Today is the latest in a string of fabulous autumn days - cold and crisp and bathed in warm sun, the leaves on all our trees red and golden and the garden alive with creatures collecting food and doing their thing. My children are brimming with expectation and cheerfulness. Older child wants me to teach her to sew, younger would like to run through the rules of chess. And she has just appeared at my elbow to ask to have a listen to the ipod I am wearing, playing 'Song to the Siren' which sends goose bumps up my spine.
Other pains I have been nursing for the last 6 months - social disasters and isolation and general self doubt - they are easing. Passing naturally into a sort of emotional scar tissue.

I am working fairly happily on my drawing and painting. I even consider posting some of it.
My hair IS now bright red, and I love it.
It's so typical of life isn't it, to turn on all this wonder right now.
Or more accurately, it is typical of me to appreciate things and become more positive and therefore attract rather than repel....

I wish you all a little inappropriate happiness in your days. (Preferably without chemical interference) xx

Orientation. *Pointless waffle alert*.

It's been a difficult year so far.

Just lately I feel almost uncomfortable with how normal my life is. How I can still become obsessed with an possible slighting from someone I barely care about, when really, I have better things to do with my time, right?
Perhaps this is distraction. Perhaps I am simply out of touch with my real feelings.
But this seems unlikely.
Raw emoting is my thing. And yet, there is so little happening in my emotion place. It's suspiciously quiet.

The tumor is removed - apparently the size of a tennis ball, and I cannot look at a tennis ball without shuddering, but that is a physical reaction. They have used that word - that most dreadful word - malignant. I repeat that word to myself all day, but I don't feel much.

What happens is I become unreasonably angry with my children and my husband over small things. I go from speaking calmly to screeching in a breath, and I am so ashamed of myself.
There is no simple path through here.

I came here, today, to try and find something solid to pin myself to. To remind myself of what I live for and what I love. I've been trying to do this in my own private journal, but seem unable to concentrate - I am avoiding my own self.
The world seems a sad place and my mind is selecting the sad stories from the news to reinforce it's current take on life.
I want to combat that.

My 'higher' self recognises this as an opportunity to re-assess life, and refocus on the things that really ARE priorities - an antidote to the backsliding into pettiness that seems to happen so easily.
But there's this other self - I'll call her the pouting 13 year old in me - And she is all stamping feet and kicking cans and volatile as all hell. She seems to have got into an enormous snit with life. She's got her nose in the air, and she's holding her breath till things come right again.

I have a fortunate life. It's not that I don't get to be hurt and sad about the stuff that happens, but I do have this enormous 'fortunateness' (not a word I know) to offset it.
My husband is lovely and endlessly tolerant (which seems SO annoying to me now).
My children are wonderful and robust and forgiving. They are healthy, and perfect. I'm generally well liked and have many awesome friends who love me, and yet, when I feel low, how is it that I forget them all?

I live in a lovely home, resplendent with native bids and hedgehogs and huge trees and my family. We have what we need. Our neighbours are lovely.
I have a big bucket full of LOTS of tubes of paint - many colours - and I love them all.
I have too many paintbrushes - although I don't think there can be any such thing as too many paintbrushes.
I can type fairly well - Computers do not frighten me.
Change and death do not frighten me - staying the same and being stuck terrify me.
I have found a really great Bright Red to dye my hair.
There's all this wealth of heart and honesty out there in Blog land. And out here in 'realtime'.
I get way more than my share of that.

I apologise for my meandering. I am afraid to post this, because it's so nothing, but I will in defiance of myself.
Which of the 7 stages is this? I guess I should go and look it up.....

Loss, Grief and dying.

I'm pondering. Partly, because this year has been the CANCER year for me and my family - 4 and counting, and partly because I am finding so many people out there are going through similar periods of loss and major upheaval. Or have done.
Now I'm a great believer in 'attraction', which I think boils down to 'you tend to be more sensitive to things you are actively concious of' Eg, when you buy a new car, you suddenly see other cars just like it, or when I was pregnant, and I noticed there were SO many pregnant woman everywhere, and was sure there were never so many before. Or now, when I tell people my uncomfortable news, and they either shy away, or tell me theirs.

Conclusions.
1. My powers of observation are a little wafty.
2. Just like having babies brings you into a whole new world of 'Being a Parent', and you discover realities and codes and rules you'd never dreamed of before,
so, losing someone to death, disease, accident or whatever has it's own world.
And those on the outside are NOT keen to come in. *grin*.

Now I'm being flippant, and I know that will seem odd to some people.

I took the title for my post from a university paper I was studying when I was pregnant with my first child. I gave up half way through because I was exhausted and found all the case studies of kids dying and losing their parents too traumatic at the time.
But I do remember one thing which seemed important to me at the time. In 'those' conversations you have when you meet people or are socialising casually, where someone asks you 'what do you DO' in that way, and when I would reply 'I'm studying psychology' and they would lean in all interested and ask 'what papers?'.
And I would tell them 'Loss grief and dying' many would veer away into weather talk like their lives were in danger. And then many more would look openly relieved and pour out some story of loss so excruciating I could only listen with my mouth open.
People have always shared their stories with me. I regard this as a priviledge and suspect that may be why they do, but I was struck by how many would say 'I've just SO wanted to be able to TALK about this stuff to someone. It's like I have this whole other life that no-one else will acknowledge and it's bad enough LIVING with this loss and grief, without feeling like some sort of outcast because of it'.

And it makes sense. I gave up studying this damned paper because I couldn't sleep and became frightened of silly things. We seem easily traumatised at some times in our lives. It's best not to expose yourself to things that will traumatise you, especially if you are vulnerable in some way. But I got to wondering. In this paper, they discussed our Western culture and it's unhealthy response to loss and death. That we tended to have death as distant entertainment (bad action movies which my husband loves) or hidden from us altogether. Just like, as someone said in their blog recently (and I don't remember who sorry, I owe you) we present children as acsessories in our TV shows, we show ourselves death as a distant inconvenience, and focus instead on the horrors of looking older.

I'm not a cheerful bunny at the moment. Like Gwen, I have watched people I love die of cancer. I have been faced with the possible loss of one of my children. Now I wait helplessly on the wrong side of the world while someone else I love waits for surgery, and we wonder, what will happen, will he live? What will his life be like, and what will ours be like?
My husband isn't sure what to do and holds this potential loss in the back of his mind.
I am constantly concious of it, and try to weave it into my everyday life. Make it part of my day, so that perhaps my Brother In law will get the energy of my thinking of him, and perhaps I will discover a quiet platform of understanding and comfort while I go about my day.
Life doesn't stop, and no-one else necessarily gives a damn about my losses, but it seems natural to me to have them be part of me.

And because this is part of my life at the moment, I am newly aware of our death taboo/ fetish, and wonder, how can we make it different for ourselves? Death isnt a personal insult. It's part of the great game of life. It's a whole journey we living people can't really understand. It's loss, it's monumental change. I would feel so much more comfortable if it wasn't so distasteful to so many. I intend to keep telling people 'how I am' when they ask - and I apologise in advance to those who would rather not know, but, for me, it's something that needs to be said. Some information about my state-of-mind that it is best to share. Less misunderstandings then.

What do you think? What are your losses? Do you hide them, and if so, why? I know there are no simple answers here, but I wonder what you think.

Quest for enlightenment - the impatient persons version.

So, I mentioned my jaunt to Thailand in the last post, and have said I will elaborate.
And it's 'existential' night here in my study, because I just found out my lovely brother-in-law has a brain tumor and after the previous few months, I get to wondering if there's a 'reason' for all this. Not that it could ever be so simple.

Anyway.Way back then, I got divorced (My first marriage) and moved in with a friend who was a massage therapist. I moped. I sighed. I felt sorry for myself. My friend became impatient with my ennui, and enrolled me in a night class in massage therapy. I got hooked on massage.
She went off on a big trip to India, and left me her clients to look after. One day I got a phone call from a bloke who was looking for people who might be interested in learning Thai massage from a German Bhuddist Monk who would be in town in a couple of weeks.
I had one of those 'what-the-hell' moments, and signed up.
During the 2 weeks of the course the tutor talked about Buddism, and the Vipassna meditation retreats he held in the Thai jungle every year - 30 days of walking/sitting/eating meditation. No talking, no contact, no reading, listening to music, writing etc. Living for the 30 days on the jungle floor with nothing but a mosquito net between you and the night air.
I laughed. "Who would DO such a stupid thing?" I said merrily. He smiled indulgently at me.
2 months later, I was there.
At first, I lived in a village on a mountainside with the Lahu Hill Tribe people. This village was the Monk's home base. He taught more Thai massage to tourists and enlightenment seekers, and then off we went, into the deep jungle, right at the edge of their winter, just before Monsoon season.
There were about 10 of us? The Lahu people were our 'guides', and we were a pack of soft Europeans - most of us anyway.
It was amazing. Unfortunately, I did not emerge fully enlightened and freed from the drudgery of life. Instead I contracted a lively case of Amoebic dysentry (a week after the reteat ended)and was laid out for 3 weeks. I became charmingly thin, so that NZ customs, on my return to this country, identified me as a potential drug fiend/carrier and searched me thoroughly. More fools them. *grin*.
I was surprised that during my 30 day retreat, I did NOT miss talking ONE little bit (and I AM a talker. Really.) I did not feel afraid or concerned about the jungle or its many critters. I had several physically challenging moments (falling down a 15 foot drop, which was covered with the sticking up bases of freshly cut bamboo, and yet sitting up at the bottom with nothing but a scratch; meeting a friendly little waving irridescent leechy critter on the sleeve of my t-shirt, which was apparently rather poisonous, but failed to harm me; ) and some amazingly lovely moments (waking to the sound of the Lahu women up-river, singing as they fished and collected rocks; being taught, most patiently, how to use a machete, by a very wordly 4 yr old Lahu boy, after he had first confiscated it from me;) I really enjoyed my daily yoga sessions, and not having to concern myself with social niceties or ANYTHING for a month. My mind did really interesting things, and I slowed down properly, for maybe the first time in my life.
Monsoon came a little early so we got completely drenched and walked down the mountain - it was surreal - everything GREENER than green and alive and wet.

I came away from the experience with great respect for the Bhuddist philosophy, and have taken bits of it into my own life. I met some extraordinary people and felt humbled by how helpless I was when I arrived, and how willing people were to help me learn. By the time I left, I walked everywhere barefoot, shaved my head, carried loads of fruit up and down the mud tracks, drank vile Mekong whiskey, and rescued silly teenage tourists who turned up to get opium, then lost themselves in the jungle.
I had real culture shock coming back to 'normal' society, and it took me a couple of years to feel comfortable here again. But, as if to demonstrate my human fallibility was still firmly in tact, I then hooked up with 'Mr Wrong' and went to live in Hungary. Ha!

Still, all irreverance aside, it was one of the best things I ever did for myself. And it was all about following a whim.

I Like answering Questions. They always said I was a Know-it-all!

Where to start?
I asked Notsosage to create me some questions for this interview meme that some have been doing. I’ve really enjoyed reading the others I’ve seen, and thought this might give me a good starting place for another Post.
And it gives me another excuse to talk about myself, under the guise of answering questions. (grin).

This might take me a few days to complete, because I have just started a new term at art school and am in class all week. A bit tireder than usual at the end of the day… It’s fun though, something outside my routine and spending all day with like-minded grown-ups.

So, here goes.

1. How did you meet your husband? How did you know he was the one?

Lets try for the concise version here.
Picture this. It’s 10 ish years ago. I am a most often single stroppy chick, and spend most of my time with my friends and work collegues. In particular my very BEST friend who is a lot like me, but without the cranky bits. She hails from the UK, and has lived in my home country for some years. She rings me one Friday evening to request my ‘help’. She has a visitor, in the form of an ‘old school friend’ from the UK who now lives in NZ, in another city, and is down for the weekend. He’s a fairly ‘straight’ and conservative sort, so she supposes I won’t like him much, but I have been holed up at home too long and she wants my company.
I sigh, I grump, I wander to her house.
Where I am confronted with this male person who is occupied with ironing CREAM trousers in her lounge (as an ex-goth I find cream trousers are a crime of incalculable horror), and who launches into ‘funny’ stories about my Best Friend as a younger person.
I feel inexplicably irritated by his familiarity with us, and spend most of the evening sat close beside my friend (who is tall and Amazonian to my small curviness). He later tells me he has concluded we are Lesbians by this point, but somehow, despite our mutual irritation with each other, we are arguing and talking closely and intensely by the time the night concludes in a bar at 4:00am.
He asks me to join them again and again over the weekend, and I go, not sure exactly why, and noticing an almost physical compulsion to watch him and be near him.
He flies home to the city he lives in. I tell my best friend “weird thing dude, I have a crush on your friend Mike”. I email him to this effect (I’m a brazen witch) and he replies in kind.
He comes back a few weeks later for an extended weekend break, and we are …. inseperable.

How did I know he was the one? I found it so EASY to front up and tell him ‘Mate, I’m smitten with you!’ and he replied so easily to me that he was too. We had no real ‘front’ with each other. No subterfuge or trying to impress. We just shrugged at each other and fell together (I have traditionally been loathe to admit feeling attracted to male persons – even to myself). We are people who are logically incompatible (he is a very handsome, practical, conservative man from a small English village. I am deliberately weird, rebellious, flaky and proudly unstable) but we are absolutely ‘ourselves’ with each other. I just love him. I could no sooner be without him, than my own body. He is part of me. He had a powerful effect on me from the moment I laid eyes on him. He still does. He settles the choppy waters of my outer self. I coax him out in the sun on bad days.
He feels stronger if I am nearby. Even when I’m being cranky and picky with him ( like for a WHOLE 9 months when pregnant – snarling psycho woman… man oh man).
Not really very concise in the end. But this IS an abridged version. Honest!! You can wake up now, I’ve finished. Don’t think I didn’t hear you snoring… grin.


2. Name one of your traits that you'd love to see your girls share. Name one that you wouldn't.

Hmmmm… That’s a curly one.
I’d like them to have my love of life. I’d like them to find something wonderful in small things, in painful things, in the sheer, mind blowing instability of this world. It’s terrifying. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.
I hope they avoid my inadvertent harshness and awkwardness. I hope they fit in better than I do, and that they are gentler than I have been able to be.

Mostly I hope they are themselves. I know I will leave traces on them, but I want them to be the lightest touches – to remind them of my love for them.

3. If you were to paint an honest portrait of yourself and a second one that was idealised? How would the two paintings differ in terms of their colour? The style? You don't have to name specifics about what you don't like about your physical appearance, but just give us a sense of how the paintings would be different.

The Honest painting? It would be darker. I would call it honest, in that it would resemble that which I am aware I show to those around me. It would have edges for my impatience, my wariness with people, my opinionated exterior. It would be semi-realistic, but cartoonish. It would have great contrast, and be perhaps a little unsettling. Colours – Largely black and white, with a hint of purple and red in the shadows.

The ideal… It would be abstract. Perhaps an eye or an ear vaguely recognisable, and it would be brightly colourful. Chaotic, expansive, falling out the edges of the support. Free. I would be formless.


4. Have you ever had another calling? If so, what was it? If not, have you ever wished that you were good at something you're not?

I have had many callings. Overlaying them is an ongoing sense that I’m supposed to get somewhere – to achieve something, before I move on, but I’ve never had a clear picture of exactly what that was. When I was young, I was going to be an intellectual, a writer, a philosopher. I had opportunities to pursue these things, and had the first of many incidences of ‘chickening out’. I got lots of approval and attention – I loved it, and I freaked and I found an excuse to back away.
My next obsession was with general spirituality. I discovered a few spiritual souls I admired and tried to understand (with my ‘understanders’ brain) what made them tick. As a nervy twitchy person, I was attracted to their deep calm and faith. I studied many many spiritual traditions, partly because curiosity drove me on, and partly because I began to detect that there was a similar heart beating in all of them. I wanted to become some sort of shaman – an enlightened soul. I gave away everything and ran off to study massage and study Vipassna meditation in Thailand. After a time, I chickened out again. I was annoyed by my lack of enlightenment.
I came back, practiced massage, and took up my next period as vaguely cynical woman of the world.
Then I met my husband. Now I am a bit of everything.
My calling now is to do what I said I would do – Raise my girls, despite feeling woefully inadequate, and knowing there’s no chickening out now.
The art thing. Not really a calling – More another thing I have become fascinated by. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever ‘studied’ – I have less natural talent at this than the other things. I am making myself stick at it, just to prove to myself I can.
If I was to pick a theme to all this, it would have to ‘Communication’… Now what do I DO with it all??
Wish I was better at something I’m not? Stillness. How I wish I could just be still……

5. What 5 words would your husband use to describe how he imagines you will be in 20 years?

He’s considered this one for two days now, and tonight I issued a deadline, so he came up with
'Loved, Calmer, Driven, Unique and Confident'.
Bless him.
He considered 'eccentric', but decided it was too extreme. Doesn’t want anyone to think I’m odd or anything… grin…

So, there it is then! I’m sorry it took so long. I enjoyed doing this thanks Sage darling, and would be happy to devise ‘interviews’ for anyone else who is interested.