Curiously Intense....

New post over yonder...

2011-10-27T20:07:00.000+13:00

Hey to anyone watching... I have posted on this new blog, because I had to create it to comment on someone elses blog, and so I thought 'what the hell, lets start afresh'. I'm not sure what I intend all these blogs to be FOR at this point, so they just are.
Wishing you all joY !!

Resurrection. So to Speak.

2011-03-29T14:11:00.000+13:00

Well..... I have been busy with life.
Everything has Changed. Nothing has stayed the Same.

For various reasons, it seems time for me to get 'out there' on the internet again. My Intention is to update this regularly - to work on my writing skills and share something of what I am learning about life as I stumble along. Just to see what happens really.
So that I don't bang on in total self absorption, I will try and 'randomly generate' a topic or focus for each post. I am open to having a go at most things.

I hope for some interaction I suppose, but it is not the purpose of this visit to Blog land. I have some challenges to answer, and this is my first attempt at a reply.

Wishing us all well, happy and at ease. C4

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

2007-08-29T21:51:00.000+12:00

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.

2007-06-21T11:57:00.000+12:00

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.

2007-05-19T10:04:00.000+12:00

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

Loss, Grief and dying.

2007-05-08T08:58:00.000+12:00

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.

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

2007-04-24T20:12:00.000+12:00

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.

Testing testing.

2007-04-09T21:59:00.000+12:00

So, I've avoided.
Last time I ventured here, my Aunt had just died. Two other family members died in the following 3 weeks. Other stuff happened and happened and happened,

and I'm just not feeling very witty, or open right now.

Still. It's time I got off my arse and did something. I haven't painted or drawn. I have immersed myself in daily life. In tending my family, meeting appointments and getting lost in daydreams and sleep. I have helped my friends with their troubles, and practised being patient when all I want to do is tear every page from the book of my life and walk away.

Of course I am still melodramatic.

And I can still uncover a bright corner if I want to. Things appear uncommonly beautiful at the moment. I wish I could regain the power to DO something with all of it, but I feel mute, numb and my hands hang useless from my shoulders. More melodrama. Sigh.

Hello world. I'm doing the small voice into the big void thing. I'm declaring myself..... somewhat upright. I have no idea why, and I have no intention of promising myself anything right now. It's just reflex action communication.
I am out of all the loops.
I feel strangely at home out here.

Life is stranger than fiction...

2007-03-07T20:59:00.001+13:00

Slice of my life.
Last night, I sat in hospital at my child's bedside watching her toss and turn, waiting for someone to come and 'tube' her so she could get some fluid into her little body. Earlier in the day, she tripped and banged her head on a step at school, and my day turned into one of the more dramatic scenes from ER.
Apparently, while I watched her and willed her to be alright, my Aunt finally slipped away.

There is no apparent connection between these two moments, except in my heart.
I cannot describe how I feel, because there are too many feelings mixed together and what is the point of analyzing them....

Isn't suffering numbingly commonplace?

I saw so much of it yesterday in the hospital, and I am temporarily suspended by it.

My child is fine. She woke this morning renewed and ready to get back to everything she left behind the day before when she fell. She is annoyed that she must wait with me at home for 2 days when there is swimming to attend, friends to play with, and even a little education to be had, and all I can do is watch her and marvel at her health and her regenerative powers.

I'm too tired. I can't even approach this other grief.

Lots of stuff I love

2007-02-25T20:57:00.000+13:00

This is a cheer up post.
I admire the thinking posts, but I'm just not able to do those yet.
I love the 'life with kids' posts, and you all do so well at wording the trials and joys of motherhood, I feel I should leave it to you. You know who you are.

Something I am good at is cheering up, searching for the happy side of anything, being horribly and painfully optimistic. Now I'm feelin a little challenged today, so I thought I'd do this as an antidote.

30 things I LOVE in no particular order.

1 . My Children. Nuff said.
2. My husband.
3. The cherry blossom tree outside my studio window.
4. The smell of toast cooking and coffee brewing in the morning.
5. Spectacular sunrises and sunsets.
6. Big lumps of dark chocolate, especially at 'that time' of the month.
7. Paintbrushes. I have a ridiculous number of them, and I love them just for themselves.
8. Being on the beach with my kids and some buckets and wandering and poking about.
9. Unravelling REALLY complicated, seemingly impenetrable knots. (I once saved a pregnant friend I worked with who had tied one of these knots in her apron strings UNDER her belly and she desperately needed the toilet and couldn't get out of the apron and... whew... just in time. Maybe this can be my superpower?)
10. Friday afternoons. Even though I'm a 'stay-at-home-mother' and weekends are no longer the relaxed and self indulgent affairs they once were, I still feel a strange sense of 'expectation' on a Friday afternoon.
11. My HUGE Oxford (Shorter) English Dictionaries which my husband bought me for my birthday the first year we were together and I'd WANTED these books for so long.
12. People watching. Especially now I've learned to draw. I wish I was brave enough to take photos.
13. Rainer Maria Rilke poetry.
14. The National Gallery in London. Any large European art gallery. I could live in these places and never come out.
15. Music. I don't listen to 'new' stuff so much now as I don't have the time to hunt it down, but my old favourites are tiding me over. I'm pretty fond of this ipod thingy as it lets me carry all my music around with me. I'd welcome any suggestions for different and challenging things to listen to. I listen to music to both stir and drown out my emotions. Or focus me, or calm me down or lift me up etc.
16. Being completely, utterly alone.
17. Conversely, I love a big gathering of people as long as it's a happy one. Parties, busy cafes and bars, markets...
18. Being cuddled to sleep by my Husband every night, and cuddled awake by my little girls every morning.
19. My kid's morning breath... I love it.
20. A good shot of tequila at the beginning of a LONG night.
21. My Best friend Sue, because she has the best mind ever and she forgives me repeatedly. Shame she lives in the Netherlands...
22. Stained glass windows. Magical things.
23. Places of worship. Old Churches, shrines, synagogs, mosques, woodland groves, whatever. If people have been visiting their versions of 'the great unknown' for a long time in a place, it feels so wonderful.
24. The colour red. I am a bit obsessed with it at the moment. I use tubes of red up in a flash, but I'm not entirely sure where they end up?
25. Books. I love them as objects and I love what they contain. I don't read enough now.
26. Creative People.
27. Hamocks. I've had some tragic mishaps getting in and out of the bloody things, but a well positioned hamock with a drink and a good book can wile away big chunks of time very happily.
28. Live Theatre. Haven't been to any for YEARS.
29. Cats. Love em. They crack me up with their wonderful self confidence and their detached loyalty. I like how they'll tell you where to get off if you overstep their boundries, where a dog, poor creature, seems to forgive far too much. I love dogs as well, I just prefer cats. I was probably cats in a past life.
30. The smell of the back of my husbands neck.

to be continued another day! ........

What do you love? 5 or 10 random things that spring to mind? I'd love to know.

Erratica...

2007-02-17T09:11:00.000+13:00

I am confessing to being an erratic blogger. Actually I'm erratic at almost everything. I read Gwen's post about wandering thoughts and circling the point and so identified with it.
And I lurk around 'out there' in blog land feeling a bit cheap and lesser, because all the Blogs I visit are lovely, comfy, well cared for and interesting.
But, if I am honest, this is how I am. I love these things passionately, but I also love my kids, my art, my reading, my writing, and all the other bits and pieces I cram into my life.
Thing is, I don't really 'do justice' to any of them. And I KNOW that if I cut down on things and focus, I'll achieve way more and I just can't do it. It's not how I'm put together.
You should see my house. It's mostly clean - clean enough to ensure there is no health risk to my robust young family, but it always looks as if it's just teetering on the brink of turning into a recycling depot, before the sorters have been through it.

I have to come at the things I do obliquely, because if I try to focus on anything too long, it slips from my mind, or dissolves in a puddle of associations.
Thus, today, I think I have been skirting around the subject of death.
I found out yesterday that one of my Aunts is dying. She is in the final stages of a terminal illness, and may only be around for a few more weeks. Circumstances mean that I will not see her or speak to her before she leaves. I have a weird relationaship with death. I have no fear of my own death, but I've had almost no experience of death 'close' to me. This Aunt isn't particularly close, but she was an important figure in my childhood, and thus, the child in me is stricken. I don't feel enormously of anything, just stunned and tense. And helpless.
Idealism says I would love to rush to her at the other end of the country and offer her comfort, but I know I am unlikely to be welcomed (family drama means our 'branches' of the family have not spoken in several years, and we were only informed of her plight 3 days ago - we didn't even know she was sick. And while I was not directly involved in the drama, motherhood and prioritising meant I have kept away and there is no easy way to re-approach now, at such an utterly intimate time).

There is no point to this. Just a venting of this odd ache, this thing I can't place neatly anywhere in my life. And maybe here I can say, "I loved you, and thankyou for your warmth when I was small. Here on the ether, I offer you my energy, and hope you will take whatever you want of it for your comfort."

It seems funny to say this when I haven't seen you for 6 years, but I will miss you, the idea, the energy of you...

The Next list.

2007-02-03T22:51:00.000+13:00

Things I have discovered since being on holiday.

1. Family holidays can be bloody awesome! I've always loathed them. Having kids up'ed the stress considerably, especially the travelling bit, BUT we have reached the magic stage where where we don't need anything except 'basic supplies'. That is - no nappies, potties, arcane food preparations, medications, and other numerous baby supplies and attachments. And the kids are bigger and more adaptable and have fun in more varied places, can eat in public reasonably politely and don't need a nap in the middle of the afternoon. It was awesome. I might even consider doing it again. ....

2. Losing both front teeth can be a good thing! Really! My 6 year old lost her 2 top front teeth, and looks wonderful! Hilarious, and gummy like she did as a baby (and much more attractive than when the 2 teeth in question were hanging ghoulishly from her gums). She has developed a lisp and dribbles all over herself when drinking from a cup. She's not keen on the tooth fairy, as she decided to hang on to her teeth, and was afraid the little blighter would commando into her room in the night and steal them. I had to promise to go on fairy repellant duty - something, incidentally, for which I am eminently qualified...

3. I'm not good at 'full day' spa experiences. My wonderful sister-in-law took me for one as a belated birthday present. I felt twitchy and phobic after a few hours... Might be different if it was someone I knew well and could relax with? Being trapped in small room with a complete stranger for that long is a bit much for me. My skin looked temporarily more youthful afterwards (my kids were impressed) but I'm not really a physical appearance person - that is, I'm too lazy to care. (and this whole eyebrow waxing thing - though interesting in a 'things I never did before' way, is NOT something I will be pursuing as a hobby....)

4. I am a BAAAD mother sometimes, most especially when I'm trying my hardest to be a wonderful one. After 2 solid months of having my girls at home and various other family members come and go, just this last 2 days I have suddenly become INTENSELY crazy with needing some time to myself. Bang, I am nutso woman. But my little lovelies do not cower and 'be afraid' of this mad woman they see before them, NO, they complain, they give her cheek and go out of their way to let it be known that the service levels have slipped, and they are not above complaining to the management. Ha!

5. I am newly allergic to 'real life', whatever that is. Actually for me it means taking my biggest (newly toothless) daughter back to school, getting back into all those weird social things I'm so useless at, starting my studies again (and despite all my good intentions I did NOTHING in the last 6 weeks) and all that other 'being a mother' stuff which mounts up like kids birthday parties to attend and throw (for a 3 yr old, about to turn 4, who thinks she should be turning 5 and her mothers maths is just faulty), playdates, health issues, etc etc. It all seemed ok back before the holidays? Perhaps holidays aren't so good for me after all?

6. I have not been transformed into somebody more windswept and interesting over the holiday break. I am still me... possibly more so. I wonder about the idea of taking a holiday from being oneself for a week or so. Having a go at being someone else... It could give you interesting insight into another person (would I be interested in being my kids for a week? yeah, I reckon I'd kick arse in the playground. My lovely husband? Don't know. Don't think I'd enjoy his job. Would love to experience his laid back-ness though.) and probably make you enjoy being yourself again - you know - abscence making the heart a bit less bored with itself....

I think that will do. My mind is wandering into disturbing territory here, and I have other things I should be doing (isn't this just the most frustrating set of words ever!? 'I have other things I should be doing', perhaps I'll put that on my funeral urn...).

I'm looking for inspiration. Let me know if you find any!

Sage, Here's one those self portraits you asked about. Some likeness, in a cartoony, completely the wrong colour kinda way. It's the inner me! Or me if you turned me inside out? Nah, that would be much messier... *grin*.

List making - what the hell, it helps me think straight.

2007-01-14T09:56:00.000+13:00

I saw this on someone elses Blog a while ago, but don't remember who it was. I thought I'd have a go at it just to see what it came out like. I can always delete it if it is mind-numbingly boring!

20 things you probably didn't know about me.

1. I have monkey feet. My toes stretch and grasp things very much like my fingers. It creeps some people out, but I have always been very proud of it...
2. I am an optimist. I feel like 'everything always turns out ok in the end' and in my life it has always been true. It's all a trick of perception, but one that I cannot seem to help.
3. I feel secretly guilty for having self confidence.
4. When I was a child, I really really wanted to be a vet.
5. I prefer not to think about money, which I suspect is a bit irresponsible. Since I became the 'housewife' I have dealt with my lack of financial contribution to this family by hiding from it, because it seems to say something about 'being dependent' which I don't really like.
6. My favourite things to paint are self-portraits, because I feel free to do what I like with my own image - It seems I need to be more careful to 'get it right' with other people.
7. I have been married 3 times now. I am well practised.
8. Although I can come up with an opinion at short notice, I am never entirely clear on where I stand on many things. My favourite colour for example, or my favourite food. I find these sorts of things really difficult, because it really depends on context and mood and.... My super power is to take simple things and complicate them immeasurably... Stay away, I warn you!
9. One of my most loved quotes comes from Lucy from the 'Peanuts' cartoon (Charlie Brown and Snoopy). 'I love mankind, it's people I can't stand'.. *grin*.
10. I do too many things at once. Always have. Am noticing recently however, that I am somehow managing to keep up with them all for a change! Does this mean I am exploring efficiency? Motherhood is a wondrous country.
11. My Husband is my True Love. I am sure of this.
12. I don't like going to the movies much - it's too passive for me, and involves sitting still for WAY too long. I prefer a good book or a conversation.
13. I think the number 13 is an auspicious number. I'm probably just being contrary, but then I also believe that what you believe manifests for you in some form, so it's kinda protective as well.
14. Being a mother IS the hardest thing I ever did in my life. And still, the process of learning to nuture someone else to the exclusion of yourself has been a really good thing for me. It's just relaxing to have others to focus on. I am way less self concious when I'm with my children, but probably more self concious when I'm alone. It's a 2 edged sword really.
15. I love being alone, but am really really afraid of other people 'not liking me'. It's a wierd phobia thing and I am at a loss to explain it.
16. I often do not ry things, because I am afraid of failure. Everytime I confront this issue it makes me wildly impatient with myself. As I get older, I have found ways to push myself off the starting blocks, but it's SO exasperating.
17. I didn't enjoy very much about being pergnant. I got monumentally cranky and ballooned. I resented everyone else having an opinion about my body shape and what I should eat. It really pushed all my 'inner rebel' buttons.
18. Which brings me to - I am a bit rebellious. Not necessarily in any helpful way. I find, if I look back, that I have taken contrary lines of action in opposition to what I was supposed to do. So I didn't go to university, because that was what I was supposed to do. I get real difficult if anyone tries to boss me around, which has caused some trouble in my employment situations. I take the 'other side' of any argument, just because it doesn't seem right that people haven't explored ALL the options before they get so fixed in their opinions. It would be good, I think, if I could get the 'knee jerk' part of this dealt with. I might have a bit less conflict in my life. I think I have proved to myself by now, that no-one is the boss of me. I can move ON now! *grin*.
19. I am a poor cook. I am struggling to improve and care more about food as it occurs to me I am responsible for the relationship my kids will have with food - at least in part.
20. I have a tattoo of a cat on my hip. Did it when I was 21. It looks a little altered now that I have had 2 pregnancies and discovered my skin is the stretchy kind, but I'm still pleased it is there. It's something about me I chose for myself. I do have fun explaining to my wee girls however. "Why do you have a picture on your skin mummy?" followed by "when can I get one?",.... "When you are grown up" I say unhelpfully...

Cheers everyone. I am off on holiday with extended family for a couple of weeks, so may not be around as such. Hope you all stay happy .

Ah Meme!

2007-01-09T22:01:00.000+13:00

How cool! I have been tagged! I have a Meme! And what a Meme... This looks like it could be fun, and as I LOVE music, it could be called 'perfect for me'... Hugely Thanks Sage , you have given me a/ some fascinating reading from your own responses and b/ a really good way to wile away the evening avoiding my 'work' (13 collages I should be making for an exchange ... Clearing my study for the arrival of my lovely sister-in-law in 6 days... Doing some study... blah blah blahh).

The rules of this Meme are,
Go to your music player of choice and put it on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question. NO CHEATING.

Now, as I do love music, I have a huge collection and have forgotten half of what I have. My ipod trick is to select the whole library on shuffle, and surprise myself with what turns up ("where the hell did THAT come from" kinda thing...) Ok, I'm stalling..

1/ How does the world see you?(or me...).
Song = Why Should I cry For You by Sting...Which, now I listen properly to the lyrics is about someone in denial, of sorts, about a grief.
Am Not! I've just got something in my eye, tis all...

2/ Will I have a happy life? (Ha, this should be a goody!)
Song = What's going on performed by Perfect Circle (this is a cover of the Marvin Gaye hit, done in a very somber fashion by this group of Metallers... My sisters fave)
Lyrics "Mother, Mother, there's too many of you crying, Brother, Brother, There's too many of you dying..." etc...Doesn't sound very promising does it? *grin*.. Bring it on!

3/ What do my friends really think of me?
Song = How Beautiful are the Feet of Them from Handel's Messiah...
Now there's a wierd song title, and I don't really know what to make of it. Everyone suspects I lust after their feet? My life is strange, but hopefully not THAT strange...
Which brings us to...

4/ Do people secretly lust after me? (wierdos.... )
Song = The Three of Us by Holly Palmer... Hmmm... The implications... I think I'll just leave that one 'open to interpretation'... *grin*..

5/ How can I make myself happy? (I'm already happy dammit! I told you, there's something in my eye!!)
Song = No Self Control by whacky old Peter Gabriel... Sigh. God I love this guy, he's utterly mad... I feel right at home with him.
"I don't know how to stop....".. So, does this mean I should run about headless chickenly, OR that I should chill man.. Because I do my best to chill, and manage, at best, a sort of casual seething...

6/ What should I DO with my life (my emphasis there... such a GOOD question... )
Song = Fare Thee Well by Kate Rusby - Fabulous woman.
"With this song, I'll be gone, Fare Thee Well."... What, I should hurry up and die already?
Any Other clues?
"The old man's here and he's fine,
He has come here from years down the line,
He has come to bring peace to all times for the few,
He has come to bring life to the new...." ....... ??
This is beyond my meagre deductive powers... Opinions welcomed!

7/ Will I ever have children?
Song = Wandering Soul, once again by Kate Rusby...
And this is true, I am the wanderingest of souls, much to the exasperation of those I love, which could suggest that I will not have children, but then how do you explain these 2 lovely creatures I have here in my home... Ha Ipod! What do you know!!

8/ What is some good advice for me? (Go on then, lets have it!)
Song = Consider me Gone Sting again... I detect a theme! Get thee hence woman. Go away! Away with ye... etc... 'After Today, Consider Me Gone...'

9/ How will I be remembered? (who are you again?)
Song = You've Changed sung by George Michael doing old crooners..
Probably fairly accurate. I change alot. It is said that I look like a completely different person every few years... No doubt I'll look a bit different again after I die...

10/ What do I think my current theme song is? (I vote for anything by Madness).
Song = Sacred Cow by Crowded House.. LOL!!
Ooooh, that's just mean that is.... Score one to the ipod!

11/ What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
Song = Fumbling Towards Ecstacy By Sarah McLachlan..
Well isn't that the truest thing! Aren't we all?
"I won't fear love"... Worthy sentiments...

12/ What song will play at my funeral? (I think I'll let everyone else decide.)
Song = Dont Fade by Toad The Wet Sprocket... Well said... I shall go out with a Bang then!

13/ What Type of Men/Women do I like? (for what purposes exactly?)
Man song = Climb On a Back that's strong by Shawn Colvin..
I guess I like a man to be supportive, but jeez, not like THAT!
Woman song = This Pill by Pete Murray... Nope - this ones got me beat. Angstful?

14/ What is my day going to be like? (long....)
The song says Stucco by Calexico... Textured then. Short and sweet (this bit of music lasts for 20 whole seconds...)

Well, thats me then... I'm quite exhausted and looking forward to my sleeps..This took me nearly 2 hours! I'm such a slow arse...Thankyou Sage for this ... Now, who shall I tag with this.... Denise, Are you up for this?

Time is an illusion sure but...

2007-01-01T13:38:00.000+13:00

I sure am pleased to see the beginning of this year and get free of that other one. Way too much inner turmoil for my liking. I prefer all my turmoil to be good and external, where everyone can see it. And then I can point at it and say 'see, look at that, it's not my fault I'm a whack job at the moment, look at all that turmoil', and others usually nod understandingly and leave me to it.
When it's 'internal' you are left in the postion of looking weird, with no visible explanation, and, in my case, attempts to explain said 'inner turmoil' leaving people even more perplexed and impatient than before.
I tend to do complicated inner turmoil. It's hard enough for me to follow - My friends and family mutter 'God she's SO intense' and try to escape. *grin*...

So, enough of that already. I'd like some good oldfashioned, straight forward LIVING this year. Things to do, and people to see and me enjoying it all and putting energy out there again.
I'd like to learn more and apply what I learn.
I'd like to spend more time laughing and less time fretting and doubting.
I'm lucky, I have always found it fairly easy to take pleasure in living - but this last year I seemed to loose that knack - I'd like it back again now please.

Joy to you all and your loved ones.

I suddenly have a life again!

2006-12-12T11:06:00.000+13:00

That is to say, I have had no time to be signing on here to complain and sigh.
How awesome!
*grin*.
Last 2 weeks have been a blur of busy happy stuff. I've been doing all the stuff I love and enjoying it. The rest of the year is suddenly a bad memory.

So - we westerners are gearing up for the Xmas.
It's a good thing in my family. It took me a while to get coherent about it after I had my girls, but it really is something I love. I love all the decorations and lights and over the top good cheer. I love my little girls growing anticipation, and the fact that my youngest - 3 yrs - shouts 'I saw Santa!' everytime we walk past a shop with one of those freaky stuffed animatronic Santas in it.
I love the conversation with my 6 yr old where she theorises that Santa might not be real, and it might just be mums and dads 'sneaking around', but then decides, in a moment of wonderful fluid thinking 'but no, he must be real, because when we leave food out for the Reindeer, thats always all eaten, and Papa couldn't eat that, could he!'.... 'Why no!' I intone seriously.
I love this stuff.

I DO NOT love the shopping horrors and the 'too much stuff', but somehow, get caught up in it anyway, because if I find something perfect for someone I love I just have to buy it. Sigh.

I even love the 'family' aspect of this holiday, because now I have kids (the only ones in both our families) we are transformed from a whole pile of bored people eating too much and trapped in each others company, to an audience - cheerfully enjoying the pleasure of the children and taking turns to play with them and their new toys. No-one seems to get bored and I love seeing the girls get so much diverse energy and attention (and having a rest from being the main attention supplier).

There are so many philosophical takes on all this, and I also enjoy sitting round and discussing those. For me, I love any 'significant' celebration. I love hearing about or experiencing other cultures special occasions. I think life should be celebrated, and I like any excuse to do so - even if it just means having a spontaneous 'toast and jam' picnic on our lawn when the moon is full.
I know there are many who find this time of the year painful, as it highlights the things they lack. And in our increasingly multi-cultural societies, there are people who celebrate their own things at different times, and feel marginalised by all the hype and frenzy.

I am grateful that this is a special time for me and those that I love. I hope it will be for you too.

The Monster under my bed is Self Pity.

2006-11-13T20:11:00.000+13:00

Yep... It's coming up to that time again - the anniversary of my birth... The 40th anniversary. And I sometimes get bummed out on my birthday, because it's so close to xmas and I like a good gathering of people I love on my 'day' and that can be hard to achieve with all the xmas stuff that goes on around now (My Leo moon makes me an unashamed attention seeker I am told).
This year, being a 'significant' number (and coming at the end of a really whacked year) I thought I would get in early and invite everyone before the xmas rush, to make sure I had some sort of party, and to be proactive in the face of my usual sighing and pouting.
However, the world is not on my side (quite fitting given the shape of this year), and most of the people I invited have pulled out. They are all mothers, and I was trying to do a 'mothers night out' sort of thing, but 2 of them have their husbands work functions to go to suddenly, and another has got in a huff with me for reasons she hasn't chosen to share. Another is unlikely to show because she pulls out of everything at the last minute and on it goes.
So I felt sorry for myself, and I begin to wonder how I came to be in this position. I have been trying to be friends with these women for a few years - I assumed that as I became a mother, I would develop a group of close supportive mothering friends in the same way that I did when I was 'working woman' or 'student' or any of my other roles in life. Only it isn't happening for me. I am finding other mothers to be most unsatisfactory friends, and it seems a horrible thing to be saying given the hard job that motherhood can be for so many of us, but they are very reluctant to 'get involved' with anyone not in their immediate family or an existing friend. I am new to this town, and I get that with motherhood, energy becomes a precious thing and you don't want to waste it on anyone you don't completely love. But after 6 years I would think I would have something to show for all my work - in my past lives if I said to my friends ' hey I'm having a special birthday, come celebrate with me' they made an effort and came, unless they had a contagious illness or some pressing engagement like surgery or marriage. It was a given. They were there for me and I was there for them and that was how it was.
So is it something about motherhood that has changed this for me (I have moved around frequently, and always managed to gather wonderful friends in every new place), or is there something wrong with me?
I dont know... And really the point of this is to just have a whinge and get it out of my system, so I can get on with planning something else splendid, and not collapse in a puddle of hormones and melodrama.
Thanks for the suggestion of frivolity Sage - You are quite right and I think it is entirely the way to go. Trying to be rational only makes me all stiff and prissy, and that really is horrible to see.
Thank God for my kids. They are always up for a good party, as long as there is cake and noise makers and musical chairs...

Being 'emotional' and charting inner seas.

2006-11-09T20:44:00.000+13:00

So - I'm wondering to myself, what would it be like to be someone with a cool head. Someone who feels 'rational' and makes their decisions in a measured way, one step at a time. Because this week I have been faced squarely with my tendency to run on my emotions - those critters which swell up or ebb away, sneak around the back, or explode onto the scene without any decent warning.
Mostly, my emotions are pretty positive. I think of myself as an optimistic sort of spirit, but when the internal sky turns grey, why it just gets plain nuts!
Oddly enough, once I let off steam, my decisions are usually just as 'accurate' as the next guys, but it's so bloody exhausting, and I look like a drama queen I'm sure of it, and I'd like to try out the cool, calm and collected thing just once in a while - for a holiday.

Otherwise, I am toying with ideas for 'the future' and reorganising the corners of my life which I have neglected. I have looked at my BOOKSHELF!! I have been a voracious reader, but since making my babies, have lacked time or energy to do it. I have still collected books however, just not read them. So I have 'The Collections' by Jonathan Franzen, some Anthony Burgess, some Aldous Huxley, William James, George Elliot, and Mervyn Peakes 'Gormenghast' waiting for my attention. There are probably others hidden about the place, but thats probably enough to be getting on with. I venture to allow myself to get a little absorbed in something 'frivilous' again.

My daughter (6) remarks that I'm a bit 'messy' one day as I drop her off at school, which prompts me to buy actual female clothes, and get my hair dyed a more eye catching colour. Because my appearance had come to reflect my feelings about myself. I was doing the 'just a mother' thing, and we all know there is no such thing as 'Just a Mother'.

I consider what I will do with myself when my children are both in school. It's only a year away now, and so it's worth some serious thought.

All this reorganising of inner and outer space is stirring up some mighty emotions... Any suggestions for a 'rational' holiday gladly accepted, although I cannot promise I will know how to implement them...
Cheers..

Letting my inner Fruit Bat Run free

2006-10-26T12:08:00.000+13:00

So I'm doing my Blog reading round and have decided it's time I committed myself to the ether yet again. Yes, Serena, OH yes, I am restless.... I have longed, all my life, for a chill out pill (one with no side effects and which enables me to function from the neck up at least).
I'm starting to get inklings that I may not be able to cure this, however, so I'm now trying to 'live with it'...
Anyway, I'm SUPPOSED to be drawing and painting and completing all the projects I have half done, and in 2 hours I need to be back on the road collecting my lovely girls and taking the smallest one to a doctor because her eye is all puffed up and sore,
and once again I am feeling 'reluctant', but in a milder way, so I'm going to do a few frivilous things (like read blogs and write in my own) and see if that settles me.
I'm just tireder than usual this month. Adding a sketch of my little girl..

Moving along

2006-10-19T14:26:00.000+13:00

I'm trying an experiment. It seems I have formed a habit of being 'reluctant' to do almost anything. Some of it seems understandable (who doesn't find housework a drag, at least some of the time), but it has crept into areas of my life where it doesn't belong. Spending time with my family, painting, writing, singing, being curious - alot of the things that make me happy.
I tried concluding it was time to throw it all out and start again, but I have done that before, and after a time, it all becomes pedestrian once again... (and I make a big mess)..
SO, whenever I feel 'reluctant' I am interpreting it as me being a big chicken, and doing it anyway. Actually, I'm using it as the 'guide' to my daily activities. It's very interesting. I'm getting alot more done, and spending less time in angst and melodrama.
It's also keeping my mind off 'the downers' (my particular family of frets, angers and monsters - I give up fighting with them, if I ignore them, maybe they will all starve and vanish!)...
Blessings.

Full Moon rising

2006-10-07T21:25:00.000+13:00

Apparently - though it's pissing down out there so I can't see the little shiny sucker. Still, full moonishness is always an interesting thing. Some months, I get all female and restless and cranky about everything. This month, I'm a little calmer than I have been in some time. Maybe it's that covering of cloud letting me off the hook.

2006-04-04T20:49:00.000+12:00

I Love bones. All bones, from all things. They are lovely and mysterious and such satisfying forms to paint.
I painted this April 2006.