I'm seven!

"The moment a child is born, a mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new." Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Seven years ago yesterday I was born. At the end of a long weekend of on-and-off labour my first daughter arrived by emergency caesarean at 8:30 in the morning on Sunday 28th March, 2004. In that moment she made a mother of me. Since then that date has been etched in my memory, at first representing the shock and disappointment I felt at the circumstances of her birth, and then as time and other birth-days healed that memory, as a wonderful, joyful day of celebration.

So yesterday was a good day. We had done all the big celebrating over the weekend (museum trip on Saturday minus the picnic, and a family dinner on Sunday night) and I breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed. Paddy took Isobella and Greer out to a climbing wall centre. I had a quiet morning cleaning up after the night before and we had our violin lesson in the afternoon. A lovely day, but still full enough that by the time I got to bed I hadn't had a moment to write. I lay down to sleep tired, but with my mind full of words. I told myself that I'd write in the morning, but I really wanted to write. I wanted to write while it was still the 28th of March.  I wanted to write that date at the top of the page of my journal. So I did. 

Seven years is not long. I'm a newbie, only just beginning my life as a mother, and yet I can hardly remember what my life was like previously. On the 28th of March 2004 I was changed forever.

Motherhood is both a gift and a burden. Preparing to give birth for the first time is like preparing for a journey to a country you've never been to before, without knowing the climate, customs, or language, and without a guidebook or even so much as a map. Oh you may think you have a guidebook. Good advice and a book or two can seem like adequate preparation, but when you finally land on foreign soil you realise that anyone who ever told you they had been there themselves was actually talking about a completely different country. Neighbouring perhaps, but different nonetheless. Seven years ago I stood alone on the tarmac of motherhood. Everything around me was strange and unfamiliar. In panic I tried to run back to the plane. Too late, it was gone.  

Mothering is a lonely, unknown journey. I spent the first weeks of Isobella's life wishing I could be pregnant again. My life as I had known it had disappeared before my eyes and I couldn't do anything to get it back. It didn't help that the depression which had been an unwelcome guest in the past was knocking at the door again, demanding to be let in. I was in that fragile post-surgery stage after my caesarean, and exhausted. I felt like a stranger in my own life.

But now I wouldn't have it any other way. I wouldn't exchange those anguished moments for anything. I watch that big girl of mine, all seven years of her, as she explores the world with bright eyes. She's never still, she never stops asking questions, her imagination is nothing short of bizarre, and she's caring, affectionate and thoughtful. I live each day hoping to God that I do her justice. I've learnt so much from her and from mothering her. It has been the same with all three of my girls. Those girls are one of the biggest reasons I'm who I am today. They've been the making of me.

I look at babies now in wonder. Right there, in that tiny squirming bundle, is a person. A whole life's worth of dreams and talents and personality. Mothering is such a privilege. We get to grow alongside these small people and watch them emerge.  Like a child longs to see that moment when the butterfly finally emerges from its chrysalis, we see it. Every day, moment by moment, mothers get to see the butterfly.

A good friend of mine is about to give birth to her first child. I'm excited for her. I can't wait to hear about this brand new life which is about to burst out. The baby is due any day now. She's in that limbo land mothers know all too well. She's a writer and this is her poem.

Waiting

Each night I go to sleep expecting you might wake me.

But last night it was rain,

torrential, sheeting past an open window.

Then the fan switching itself on and off,

tending an invisible guest.

Later, what sounded like a bird, but was probably

a moth, flew laps the length of our hall.

Nothing to do but lie in the dark, the two

of us on either side of the same door,

ears pricked, waiting for a knock.

Marita Hastings

wednesday things

1. We had sports with our home school group this afternoon. Instead of being inside the gym as it normally is, the girls got to play t-ball and run around outside in the park near the gym and swimming complex that we go to. As they were finishing up I noticed that the trees nearby were pear trees, and that the ground was littered with rotten fruit. We walked down through the pear trees looking for fruit that was decent enough to eat. The pile on top of the buggy quickly grew into a huge pile underneath the buggy. We came home with a huge bag full, maybe even 5 kilos worth! Free! I peeled and cooked them this afternoon. Now we are all looking forward to breakfast. Porridge and pears, I'm thinking.

2. Last night was such a bad night with Abigail that I can hardly bear thinking about it. She's been gradually showing signs of growing out of her daytime sleep. Even when she only sleeps for half an hour she's not ready for bed until at least 8:30pm. So we thought we'd try keeping her up all day. Hah, the fools we were. She fell asleep eating at the dinner table at 6pm, and I put her to bed. We were lulled into a false sense of security and celebrated the freedom. Then at 8:30pm she woke up and cried. We thought she'd go back to sleep, so we left her for a while, and then went in and checked on her a few times. A couple of hours later, she still hadn't gone to sleep. I got ready for bed and took her with me. She was so awake she just kept on sitting up and talking. I was so tired I was worried she'd roll of the bed. So I gave up and sent her out to Pat. Long story short, several hours later, after he'd tried everything from sitting in her room super-nanny style, to feeding her, and then rocking her, he brought her in to me again (I'd kept waking up hearing it all) and she finally conked out. He's got a video of her that he took on his phone, at midnight, sitting up at the table eating pears. Cute. Not.

3. Abigail did make up for the grief she caused us by producing her first poo in the potty this afternoon! I know, I know, you don't really want to hear about poo and potties, but I'm sure you'll understand that it was a very exciting moment around here. She's been talking about "ca ca" and "wee wee" for a while, and seems to be aware of what she's doing. She's been happy to sit on the potty for a while, but this is the first time there's been any result. I think she was pretty impressed.

4. Isobella lost a tooth tonight eating dinner, the second this week. The first was on Sunday. She announced that teeth were worth $2 on Sundays and promptly wrote a note to the tooth fairy to tell her so. Of course, the tooth fairy obliged. She's good like that.

5. Speaking of that big girl of mine, it's her birthday next Monday and I've only just organised her party. It's a picnic at the domain outside the museum, followed by a visit to the museum. Mum just informed me that it's supposed to rain all day Saturday. So much for the picnic. I suppose I'll have a brainwave about it at some time. Hopefully before Saturday!
                                                                               

broken city, broken people

I farewelled my sister back home to Christchurch this morning and my heart is still heavy. She heads home to a city that remains broken and to a house that is still recovering from chaos; a constant reminder of the earthquake.  She and her partner are lucky enough, their house was not seriously damaged and they both have jobs. But the earthquake has changed everything.  The way they drive to work, the atmosphere they work in, and what they do with their spare time. Their electricity is back on, but for essentials only. Through a miscommunication it turns out they didn't have contents insurance after all, so three or four hundred dollars' worth of food is lost, as well as some expensive tools. It's not money they can just pull out of thin air. She's been up here for a break, and was happy to be going back to her own bed, but she wasn't looking forward to returning to a disaster zone. Who would?

Christchurch has seen a range of responses to the earthquake. Many families have temporarily relocated to other parts of the country, plenty more have simply packed up and left. Some have gone to Wellington and Auckland, some even to Australia. Whole suburbs have been abandoned; empty houses stand beside roads covered in pot holes, silt and flooding. But community spirit still abounds. Churches all over Christchurch have stepped up to supply free meals, food banks and temporary accommodation. A memorial service was held in Hagley Park on Friday, attended by Prince William and thousands of Cantabrians. Mayor Bob Parker looked tired but resolute. Everyone promised that Christchurch will be rebuilt.

But buildings can be rebuilt. Given the necessary time, money and expertise, re-building will happen. Not so for people. Damaged emotions aren't so easily healed. Time helps, yes, but the other ingredients necessary for healing are not always clear. What will it take for my sister to feel at "home" in her own home? What will it take for those who have fled Christchurch to find home in the places they have fled to? What about those who struggle to sleep? Those for whom fear has manifested as anxiety and depression? And what about those who suffer most of all, those who grieve the loss of their dearest? How will their lives be rebuilt?

When the first earthquake hit last September it was easy to write about angels. We all said it was a miracle that nobody was lost. This time around we are hard pushed to find miracles. No survivors have been discovered since the day after the quake. But there are miracles. Every survivor will tell you there are. The beloved Christchurch Cathedral has been completely cleared with no bodies found, when we were expecting twenty. When rebuilt it will become a place of hope, without any shadow of death. Perhaps they're small miracles, but they're miracles nonetheless.

Still, some will refuse to see miracles at all. For many it is just too difficult to bring God into the equation. A talk back caller was asked how the earthquake had changed his life, and his answer was bitter. "I'm now convinced there is no God," he said. I expect that for him Japan's earthquake and tsunami have been the final nail. Who can believe in a God who allows such things to happen? Yet earthquakes and other natural disasters have occurred relentlessly over the ages, and there have always been believers.

For the first week after the earthquake I found prayer was as automatic as breathing. I couldn't not pray. But at the same time I was keeping my distance from God. Deep down I felt abandoned. I could see God in the earthquake of September 4th, but not on February 22nd. It was too awful. I found within me an endless, anguished "why?" I heard it repeated by others as the days went on. Even the Mayor voiced it, wondering if there was anyone he could ask why these things happen. Then he answered it himself. "I don't think so."

No one would begrudge that talk back callers' denial of God. On a rational and intellectual level it's completely understandable.  Why would we place our hope in a God who appears to have failed us? Historically we have been seen as a Christian nation.  Missionaries were some of our first European settlers. But who would question us now if we completely turned our backs on any faith at all?

I haven't heard an answer to my guttural "why?" and I can't see anything in what I know of the bible or the Christian faith that gives me a solid answer to that question. All I know is that my instinct tells me something which goes beyond any head knowledge. My instinct tells me that this world as it is, with its earthquakes, floods and famines, is not how it was meant to be.

 There's a mental and emotional leap required to keep faith in God. Those unable to make it often count those who can as lucky. They stand as if on one side of a divide watching the rest of us as we size up and then make the leap. They don't feel capable or even necessarily desirous of making the same jump, so they shrug their shoulders and get on with their lives. Often it's as if we humans live our lives separated by this divide, believers on one side, non-believers on the other. But in times of inexplicable tragedy such as this, the divide is erased. We all suffer the same grief, we all ask the same questions, and for believers and non-believers alike, the answers are few.

Yet there is a difference. Many of the groups serving the practical needs of the people of Christchurch right now are Christian. These are not believers who are providing food and shelter simply because it's what they "should" do. These are people who are moved by genuine compassion, people for whom their faith not only compels them to serve, it gives them the strength to do so.  The bible is not silent when it comes to grief and tragedy. Jesus himself is often described in the gospels as weeping. The words of the Psalms take us as frequently through suffering as they do rejoicing. Think of those words we all know, Psalm 23. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...

I haven't heard an answer to my "why", but that hasn't stopped me asking. My "why" makes my prayers feistier and my tears real. And I've added this "why" to all the "why's" from years gone by which somehow I know I will get to ask in person, one day, on the other side. My "why" finds me here, writing, and as I write I find the heaviness of my heart lifting.

Just as Christchurch is broken, so are we broken. We need hope, peace, and all of us need some measure of healing. We can turn our backs on God if that feels safer, but in doing so we may be rejecting the very thing we need most.

Japan and St Patrick's Day

I was going to write you a lovely post on St Patrick's Day. I was going to tell you about our impromptu St Paddy's dinner with mashed potatoes and just enough green in it to do St Patrick justice. Isobella picked some clover leaves from the garden and put them on a little plate, and then wrote a sign saying "Happy St Patrick's Day" for the table. This was all while I was quite pre-occupied getting dinner ready, and tired because we had just got back from the bach the day before. (We stayed longer because Abigail got chicken pox) Still she ignored my grumpiness and carried on with her sweet plan regardless, including getting her and Greer dressed in green! So we celebrated St Patrick's Day after all, thanks to my quarter-Irish girls.

Then I watched the news. Japan, Japan, a week later and we are still crying for you. I watched a news story about a husband looking for his wife. He looked through list after list, read hundreds and hundreds of names. She wasn't on the list of the dead, and she wasn't on the list of the living. He told the story of how she had driven away from the Tsunami towards her cousin's house with their two children, and jumped out of the car just in time to hand the children over before the wave swept her away. What a mother. Did she have time to feel even a moment of relief? She did what every mother hopes to God they would be able to do in such an awful moment.

So that St Patrick's Day post was overtaken with tears for a country who needs as many St Patricks as it can get. It's not very postmodern of me to say so, and I know most of you don't want me to get all fundamentalist on you, but I can't help it, it's my heart's cry. St Patrick for Japan.

St Patrick wrote a prayer that he apparently prayed every morning. I love this prayer. If I was only ever going to pray one prayer, this would be it.

The Lorica of St Patrick

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.

I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me;
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's hosts to save me
From snares of the devil,
From temptations of vices,
From every one who desires me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone or in a mulitude.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through a confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.

This excerpt is from the Catholic website EWTN.

lent and peace

These are the gluten-free pancakes we had for dessert on Shrove Tuesday. As you can see, we are pretty happy about the pancakes. Actually, I'm pretty happy that it's Lent, although happy is not quite the right word for it. After all the sadness I've felt for Christchurch, when I realised that Lent was approaching I felt my heart lift. It seemed entirely appropriate and almost a relief to be entering a season of soberness and contrition, given the awful event two weeks ago. A little bit of sacrificial suffering on behalf of Christchurch would be the least I could do.

Lent is the season in the church calendar that leads up to Easter. It lasts forty days, mirroring Jesus' forty days in the wilderness. This is a time of sacrificial fasting and of acts of penance. Historically Christians would fast all rich foods, such as meat, eggs, sugar and dairy products. (Remember the movie chocolat?) Many Christians nowdays choose to fast by "giving up" something for lent, such as sweets, alcohol, or television.

We've got some big news. The week that the earthquake struck we had a conditional offer accepted on a property that we will be buying jointly with Mum and my sister and brother-in-law. It happened so quickly it's crazy, but it feels very good. It's a huge house with two self-contained flats. It's on five acres, mostly bush, and it's about 100 metres from the water! Last year we dreamed of owning a house in the bush in a different part of town. It didn't happen but it made us realise how much we'd love a bit of land and bush of our own. We never imagined that dream could be realised this quickly.

So we are putting our house on the market! The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of painting, cleaning, weeding, tidying, sorting, and shifting stuff out to the storage unit we are renting. Thankfully last year we got the floors polished and finished most of the painting, but even without those big jobs I never could have imagined how much work there was to do. It got to the point on Sunday where I was so tired I couldn't stop crying. So I've decided to go to bed early for Lent, among other things.  I often keep going when I'm tired because I think that I'm the only person to do things right, or because I simply think I'm the only person to do things at all. Well neither of those statements are true, and I've realised I need to let go of some self-sufficiency and pride. Going to bed early will be one small way I can do this.

The girls and I are about to leave to go to our family bach with Mum for the weekend while Paddy finishes a bit of painting round the house in time for our first open home next weekend. I am practising some letting go. (You have to believe me that I'd almost rather be here doing it myself!) I'm also going to get some precious peace and rest. Just what we need.