If you want to write, read often and widely. So it is said.
So I did. But I think somewhere along the way I got lost.
All that great writing in other people’s voices. Throwing me for a loop.
I’m not sure when I last wrote something I was really happy with. Really proud of. All those other voices seemingly speaking louder than my own.
If you want to write, just do it. Write everyday. Write even when you don’t want to.
But the words they are empty that way.
My head aches. My neck is constantly tense. One of the globes in the lounge room light fitting has blown. The room is dim. I feel like I’m squinting. Trying to make things out in the half dark.
I will stop at the shops tomorrow. Buy a brighter than needed globe. I will write. Even if I don’t want to. And there will be light.
So, Mothers’ Day. I had a cup of tea in bed, enough bacon for at least three people and was given a cup the size of my head as a gift. I may sip tea out of it forever.
I also went grocery shopping with Hubby and went out for a run. We had cheeses to nibble on for lunch. I opened a bottle of wine. Just like we do each Sunday we are home. Happy and warm in our house.
In the afternoon I watched a movie while the kids were on youtube and Hubby was off bike riding with a mate.
It was the perfectly simple day I wanted.
You see, in the past there have been some less than pleasant Mothers’ Days. No blame, just too much pressure. On me, on the kids, on Hubby. Too much. High expectations. So, this year I said I wanted it to be a perfectly ordinary day. No muss, no fuss.
When asked what I would like for the day I replied nothing, just a normal day. And I meant it.
The pressure to be perfect on a certain day is great. My kids feel it, I feel it, Hubby feels it. Some of my most memorable Mothers’ Days have been the ones where the day has been about other things. Like the year we spent the day cutting down trees with family. When I have taken part in the Mothers Day Classic. This one.
Yesterday Hubby checked in just to be sure I meant what I’d said. Yep. I’d love a cup of tea in bed, but that was it. Besides, I get a cuppa in bed most Sundays. I love weekends at home.
The gift was a surprise. I’d made a throw away line about wanting a huger than huge tea cup. Luckily we have a tea shop a short walk into the village. The saucer is just the right size for two rounds of buttery vegemite toast, which was my Mothers’ Day tea of choice.
I don’t begrudge any other family their Mothers Day. Everyone is different. I am just happy with mine. With my choice.
The day was spent as many other Sundays are. Quietly, with time alone and time together. Because we are family. I won’t say all Mothers’ Days will be like this from now on. Because every year is different. Children grow, circumstances change. Time moves on. But this year, for this family, for this mum, it was the perfectly ordinary day. And that’s how I like it.
This post is a promotion for the Sacred Heart Mission Concert.
Long time readers if this blog will know I am a somewhat keen observer of life. Of people. There have been times when my observation skills have been less than great. Like when it I missed noticing a family I worked with were living in a car. There was the time I saw something new in my neighbourhood. Sometimes we see things we perhaps would rather not.
I believe we should always do what we can to help. Always. Help may be money, donations of good quality used clothes. It could be offering up your change to someone who asks, it could be looking someone in the eye and smiling.
This week, I will be taking my boy into St Kilda for a concert. He is a lover of comedy, and this will be right up his alley.
The Sacred Heart Mission Concert. Held at The Palais Theatre. One of my favourite theatres.
Sacred Heart Mission assists people who are homeless or living in poverty. Every day of the year they provide shelter, food, care and support. All profits from the night go to Sacred Heart Mission, with an aim of funding 30,000 meals.
Included in the lineup are Kate Ceberano, Dave Callan, Hannah Gadsby and Frank Woodley.
If you can’t make the concert you can still donate here.
Disclaimer: I work with Cavnanagh PR on a number of performances and events. Reviewing, previewing and promoting via social media. I am compensated for my time.
Today I am having one of those days. The one where washing is piled, carpet waits to be vacuumed, surfaces need dusting. Instead I have been pinning, reading, and applying nail polish.
Today is an it’ll wait day.
Because it will.
The washing is done. It’s dry. It’s not folded or put away. It’ll wait.
The floor is not beyond dirty. On the weekend a child, or an adult will vacuum.
The dust is a fine layer. No one will write their name in it. There is no white glove test. On the weekend someone will grab a cloth, dampen it with water, dab some essential oil on it and dust. It’ll wait.
I am tired. Monday was a long day.
The weekend was full.
My legs ache and my head does too.
There is homework and work. Sunlight hours are precious as we edge towards winter.
It’ll wait. The non-essential things.
Today is a have another cup of tea day. The rest, it’ll wait.
Turns out I am perhaps the world’s worst dance mom. I have an accomplice though in the Husband, he’s not all that great a dance mom either.
Recently The Green Eyed Girl was part of a school dance troupe for a local competition. This was our first foray into the dance world. We have up until now escaped. There may have been a reason for this. A very good one.
Being the weekend we were having a slow kind of day. So, it was no surprise that when it was time to leave, there had been no thoughts about food. Not to worry, how long could this thing go for? That right there? That was the first inkling we were novices.
The second inkling was when all the other performers turned up with bags. Because they’d need somewhere for their regular clothes to go while they were in costume. Luckily someone had a spare supermarket bag for our child.
There had been some forethought into the evening. We had one bag of fantails. For three people. For four hours. We managed to purchase a bottle of water and 2 bags of salt and vinegar chips while there. I managed to pass our daughter 3 fantails, as she had to sit in the performers area. So, she was well sustained for her dance.
By the time the dancing started my thoughts had turned to gin. The fantails were all but gone and Hubby and I were calculating how long each dance on the programme would go for; how long between each dance and added ten minutes for interval. The horror when we realised how long the evening would be was written all over our faces.
Turns out interval was twenty minutes. Plus an extra five for good luck.
Audience members treated the event like some kind of über competitive sport in its own right. Yelling out, cheering and clapping with such ferocity I needed to hold Hubby’s hand. The MC even had to remind the crowd to only cheer before the dances, but not during. Tennis crowds had nothing on this lot.
As for recording the evening, we had a camera. On my phone. So we have some blurry shots and think we can make out our child. Kind of hard among a troupe of children, identically dressed, at least half of which have brunette hair in high ponytails.
You’d think that having been parents for 14 years now we’d have things sorted. We’d be organised. We’d have water bottles from home. Spare jumpers. Tissues. That kind of thing. But we don’t.
Turns out we were not alone. We saw at least two other families in the nearest burger joint at 10.30pm having their post dance fair evening meal.
As for the dancing itself, the troupe our daughter was part of won, also receiving a special award for most entertaining. Celebrating with a giant burger and fries late at night may have been less than stellar, but that’s just how this family rolls.
Are you organised? Or like me, just roll with the burgers and late night fries?
There has been a shift. Another one to be exact. As is the way with parenting, with family life, as soon as you get used to something, change rears its head.
Where do you draw the line between privacy and a personal blog when children keep on growing? When they are less wanting to be in the posts. When their lives are less centred around myself and their father. Friends, school, becoming who they are – all things that I see, am part of, but have no right to share on the pages of a blog.
What to write when a large part of life is not for the sharing. How to write without giving away details of other people? Vague blogging. There is a trick to it. An art to the writing of words that say so much, while not giving away specifics. For now though I am at a loss. There seems to be much to say, with no clear way to say it.
Some days it is not so much what is written as the spaces in between the words. In what is not said more than what is. In the lack of posts. Or, sometimes in the flurry of them, all saying very little other than here I am to fill the empty space.
Autumn has come to the hills. Our road is covered with leaves that soften the black tar edges. Perhaps I should write about that. Or how I love the ritual of cleaning and polishing school shoes for the kids of a morning. Something I remember my own Dad doing for my sisters and me. Or how I miss running with a less than cooperative knee prohibiting it for now.
Perhaps I should just say nothing.
There is an art to vague blogging. A trick to it. Perhaps I will learn it. Or perhaps I’ll keep writing about the leaves on the road, and my love of clean shoes in the morning.
The photo above is one I took during winter at our old house. Planted at the base of Mount Wellington, Hobart. The photo has meant many things to me over the years.
In my facebook feed recently I saw an image of a house with a perennial border. It was beautiful. If you had asked me eight years ago where I’d be now, I’d have answered easily. Living in the house Hubby and I bought. Renovations would be completed. I would have tamed the garden beds into something resembling the image I saw on facebook.
My kids would be in the school of our choice, with friends they had made in kindergarten, if not earlier. Life would be grand.
Life is grand. Just not in the way I pictured it. And that is ok. I often think about what would have happened if Hubby had not accepted that job interstate. If we had not sold up and moved. Who knows is the only answer.
What I do know though, is that while I don’t have a well loved perennial border, I do have a life of my own making. One that I am not all that sure would have happened if I’d stayed inside the comfort zone of a well known town and friends.
I doubt this blog would have started. I doubt I’d be on twitter. Or instagram. I certainly would not have made the friends I value so much now.
Even a few years ago I wished for that house, that garden. But not that life. It’s not that I don’t miss family and friends. I do. But I also know that if I’d stayed, I would not be who I am today.
The twists and turns. The deviations along the way. That’s what life is about. And I for one am glad to still be on the path unknown.
Some days things get the better of me. Usually just about the time I take a moment to stop and think, well isn’t everything going well. Murphy’s Law 101. There have been times when my answer to anything remotely hard is an overwhelming urge to bury my head in the sand.
As life would have it, this is never really the wisest of solutions. As much as hiding away would be the quickest and easiest solution, it’s not going to get anything sorted. So, onwards it is.
This is why I was up at a somewhat early hour yesterday morning tackling an issue. It is why I made a flurry of notes, researched, found old notes and texted some people with an SOS. It is why by 10am I had six hand written pages, about as many tabs open and a cold cup of tea.
It is also why that afternoon I had time to bake. Anzac biscuits and another batch of bread. The problem had not gone away. Rarely, if ever are things so easy to solve. But I am underway. I have information, resources and a way forward.
I have some space in my head for other things. My shoulders are not as high and tense. My neck, not so achey. There is a way to go, but for now, there is a plan. So while I mull over ideas, think on what has been planned and where to go now, I medicate with the simple movements of mixing and stirring, forming and baking.
Things are rarely all going well, but there is always time for baking.
Confession. Sometimes I’m not so sure about the whole going grey.
Partly it is me being impatient. I’d prefer a whole head of silver than salt and pepper. Mostly it is me realising I am fast approaching 42 and am afraid of becoming invisible.
Confession number two – I am vain.
I have always obsessed over clothes and how I look in them. I will climb on a bench in a bathroom to see what my bum looks like in jeans. I spend time and effort on makeup and what to wear. I like that there have been times I have turned heads. I spend more than a reasonable amount of time in front of mirrors. Self confidence is tied to feeling good about ourselves. I work hard at that. Often, but not always, feeling good for me is tied to how I look. This is me, in all my vain honesty.
I know there are exceptions to the rule of ageing and invisibility. I wonder though how much people such as Dame Judy Dench like being referred to as amazing or brave because of their natural ageing. I am not an exception, but I still do not want to fade to invisibility. Nor do I want to be told I am brave for my choices.
Recently while in one of those retail stores with too loud music, the young girl behind the counter over enthusiastically told me she LOVED my hair. I know she meant well, but the tone was condescending in a way that assumed I needed a young person’s validation for being older with an undercut. Good on YOU! she exclaimed. I smiled, paid and left, wondering if being invisible would maybe be preferable to being spoken to in that way.
I am more than happy to not be in my twenties or thirties anymore. So why then am I so unsure at times about the grey hair?
Partly I think it is word association. I read this post on The Rhythm Method recently by Gillian Harrison. A reference was made to Sarah Harris, director of fashion features at British Vogue. Sarah Harris makes a distinction between grey and silver, saying grey has negative connotations. I agree. Silver seems a much better word. I think I may claim it as well.
Part of my feeling unsure is tied to ageing. No doubt. But I know too that for me, colouring of my hair was just as much about ageing. It was also ageing me. With age comes not only a change in hair colour, but skin tone too. As a dark brunette, even so called natural hair colours have an affect on the way my skin looked.
Perhaps though being vain could be good. Admittedly not all the time. But I am not all the time. (Google hard enough and you may find photos of me in running events. There is nothing glamorous about a photo 19 kilometres into a half marathon let me tell you.)
For me, having silver hair is not about letting go. I think that is part of the problem with the way having grey hair is perceived. The misconception that the owner of the locks has decided to let go of vanity. I have not. I doubt I ever will. Iris Apfel I am not, but I do think there is something to be said for maintaining personal style.
I know if I wanted I could colour my hair again. But then what? Endless trips to the hair salon, time and a fair whack of my pay going to the upkeep. I do not want to colour it again. I just need a little time to get used to looking in the mirror and seeing silver being reflected back.
I will get there. It will take time. Like all things do.
Going grey, or, as it will now be referred to, the getting of silver, is something we all face. For some it is sooner than others. For me it is about vanity. The keeping of it. My hair colour is changing, I am ageing, but I am still here. I shall have to learn to wait. Perhaps that’s the thing about silver hair. It comes with patience. Maybe I shall learn about that along the way.
Sometimes I think about what I have achieved with my 41 and a bit years on this earth. Most days I think I’ve done alright. There is the all slippery first draft manuscript I wrestle with. But really, I don’t have all that much to complain about.
As I get older there are some things I am a complete grump about. Rudeness. People taking up the whole footpath and not giving way to anyone coming from the opposite direction. Drivers who don’t apply the zipper rule when merging. Those who think they are more important than any other commuter, refusing to merge when lanes ahead are closed. Super loud (and usually really bad) music in certain clothing stores. Being called love, doll, hun, by anyone in retail.
There are other things though that I remain stubbornly (cough) young about. Like music.
It’s not so much that I refuse to grow up, the grey hair, a lined face and teenage children make sure of that. It’s just that as much as I love music from my youth, that of my parent’s and their parent’s before them, I also love the new.
There are days when the banter of twenty-somethings on radio is too much for me, but the music keeps me coming back. Sometimes a song catches my attention and makes me go into an almost craze of I must have it.
Recently that song has been Royals by Lorde. The singer/song writer behind it is 16. I am a little in awe of someone forging her own way at such a young age.
Her EP is on high rotation here, and helping me get home on the increasingly dark evening commutes.
Lorde can be found here. Tell me, musically speaking, do you like the old stuff, the new stuff, or all sorts of stuff?
