hard week, happy ending

This shows you how happy a girl can be on the day of the performance of her school show. Don't you remember? Eating dinner early, jumping in the car in the new evening light of spring, being hustled into a room full of other children just as excited as you are. The air so thick with expectation you could stick your tongue out and taste it. Just look at her.

The funny thing is that I'm here at home writing this, while she is right now on stage in her moment of glory. Up until this morning I was the one going, and Paddy staying, because all week he has been the sickest of all of us, but today we were neck and neck, he slightly better, me worse. Isobella fervently prayed last night that Dad would be well enough to go to the show, and this afternoon when I told her he was, she was over the moon. Wasn't bothered much when I told her that that meant I was too sick to go. I love how she loves her Dad.

Anyway, he is there sitting in the school hall now, Greer beside him, video camera in hand, capturing the moment. But I'm capturing the moment too.

I'm weary and sick of being sick.  I don't need to say how exhausting it is when everyone gets sick at the same time, because you know. We've had a week of it. I didn't even know the date until yesterday.

I'm getting picture updates from the show on my phone, and it's wrapping up now with a haka, the whole crew. I can see in the mass of faces up on stage that they are overjoyed. Rugby makes these kids happy, especially at the moment. They love their haka, and they love their country.

I can't think of a better image that expresses the heart of a kiwi than a bunch of kids up on stage doing a haka as their grand finale, and reveling in it.

going bush

I took the dog for a walk yesterday. Once I'd finally finished vacuuming, made lunch, and sat Abigail on the couch to watch Curious George, I grabbed the lead and my trusty dog whistle, and called out to Paddy, "I'm just taking Silas for a quick walk." I walked across our wet lawn, through the gate behind the trampoline, and up the bank to the stand of Macrocarpas that tower over the back of our section.

We walked together up through the trees and then came out at the top of the reserve that borders our property. We sloshed down the muddy slope and around to the edge of the bush, and took the path that travels through the bush between the beach and the bottom of our section.

We walked along the track, through muddy patches, over the stream, gradually going higher. I looked through the trees towards the harbour and I could see the water in distance, now quite a way below us. Suddenly I realised we had gone further than I'd ever gone before. To the right of the path was a fence that was falling towards the ground and covered with gorse bushes and dead leaves.

I knew Mum had managed to walk from the house through the bush to the track one day, and that she had tied strips of fabric to the trees as she walked. I thought the fence must be the edge of our property, and wondered if I could make my way through the bush back to the house, hopefully finding her path.

At the same time as I was pondering the wisdom of this action, a girl came walking up the path behind me with her dog, a fat pit bull terrier. It looked like an over-sized stuffed toy, only menacing. I looked at the girl and then the dog, and in an instant found myself walking off the path and straight into the bush.

In that moment I knew I had no idea whether I was going to regret my decision. I knew I didn't know exactly where I was, and I knew I had no idea if I was going to be able to get back home safetly. I also knew I had left my phone at home. I was wearing gumboots, I had the dog, his lead, and the dog whistle.

I have a default position when it comes to challenge and adventure. Something like an unwritten rule that I don't ever turn back. It's related to tenacity, which is good, but it's also a kind of stubborn refusal to turn around even if that would be the sensible thing to do. On a superficial level it's simply that I don't like being bored, that I hate going back the same way as I've come. I thrive on the new.

When my sister and I were teenagers we went on a family holiday up north. We took my step-dad's little dinghy with us, and one day we putted out to a small island just out from the beach. We built a fire and cooked damper, played around by the shore. Then my sister and I got bored and wanted to go exploring. I took the lead. "Don't do anything silly" Mum warned me as we left.

The island was pretty small. It probably only took us about 15 minutes to get to the farthest point. We had been clambering along big boulders and along rocky slopes and it was easy, but this was the obvious place to turn around and go back. My sister Joy, who was probably only eleven or twelve, wasn't so enthralled with the adventure, and would have been quite happy to do that. But going back was the boring option. I persuaded her to keep going. We ventured around the tip of the island, to the opposite side that we had started from. The boulders gradually turned into rocky cliffs that jutted out with just enough of a ledge that we could clamber along. It was thrilling, but Joy was starting to struggle, and Mum's parting words were ringing loudly. At one point we were three or four metres up from the beach, creeping along a thin mossy ledge. Joy slipped and only just stopped herself from falling all the way down. I can still remember it vividly, more than twenty years later.

We got back eventually, and said nothing of what had happened. It was a secret I held to tightly, a sobering reminder of the trouble I was capable of getting myself into.

Fast forward to yesterday, and I'm forging my way through thick bush, my gumboots slipping in the wet mud. I'm holding tightly to the dog's lead like my life depends on it. I can't see more than a few metres ahead, and I really can't tell which direction I should be going in. I see another fence in the distance and I'm relieved. I try to head up the slope alongside it but the gorse and bushes right beside the fence are too thick for me to walk through, so I head in the same direction as the fence, hoping I don't lose it.

The dog's struggling too. The lead keeps getting caught up, and we are trampling over dead branches and gorse. At least I've got gumboots. We get to the top of one ridge and I'm hopeful I'll be able to see where  I'm going, but I can't see anything other than what I've been seeing for the last fifteen minutes. Nikau Palms with their fronds like dancer's arms reaching upwards, the skinny charcoal branches of Ti trees filling in the gaps. And the muddy ground littered with dead palm leaves and branches. I was clambering, nearly on my hands and knees in places. I slipped twice, landing squarely in the mud.

I was starting to have visions of me breaking an ankle and landing incapacitated in the mud with nothing but a dog whistle. I knew the dog would eventually find his way home, but it would take Paddy hours to find me. I didn't even know where I was. If there had been a point where I should have turned back I had completely missed it.

By the time I finally got to the top of the highest ridge and could see clear sky ahead, I had completely overshot our property and had come out on the top side of the neighbours directly above us. I was covered in mud, leaves and gorse prickles, and had been gone more than an hour. I was exhausted and slightly shaken, but enthralled. "Have I got a story for you!" I said to Paddy and the girls when got in.

I made a mistake in going out without my phone, I know that. But I've thought about it a lot and I don't think there was a point where I should have turned back. If I had turned back any time after the first five minutes or so I would have got even more lost. I think back to that moment when I decided to leave the path, and I now see it as almost inevitable. I love a good adventure.

I did something else rash this week. I started a new blog. I wasn't going to tell you about it. I was going to keep it almost-secret until I had figured out where I was going with it. I went to a lot of trouble yesterday to email and message a few people privately. I wasn't going to tell everybody, because I know not everybody is going to be interested.

But then I went and got lost in the bush, and that got me thinking about me and adventure and how sometimes it's the right thing to forge on anyway, even when the going is tough. I know this new thing I've started could get me in a bit of trouble occasionally. I'm pretty sure I'll end up with mud on my backside. And I know that I've really got no idea where I'm headed. But is that really so scary?

how it is

This is how it is. I am very, very tired. The girls have all had colds made worse by asthma, in varying degrees. On Tuesday night Greer was awake coughing for literally two hours. It's a hacking, gasping cough that I hate. Last night I sat praying beside her on the bed as she was going to sleep. What else could I do? I sat there thinking of the verse from Psalm 127 which comes up in the afternoon prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours; to those he loves, the Lord gives sleep. I took it as a promise for her, and I reminded God of it desperately. I sat there until the coughing seemed to slow down, and she went to sleep. She did cough later on in the night, but nothing like the night before, and she managed to sleep through it. I'm so grateful.

I went to the supermarket today and did nearly a whole month's worth of shopping. I ended up with two overloaded trolleys and a fed-up two year old who just couldn't see why she should stay sitting down. I was weary and slightly overwhelmed by the amount of food I was about to purchase. The checkout lady smiled as I shifted Abigail into the trolley our groceries were going into and finally strapped her in successfully. "I think you are very patient" she said out of nowhere. I smiled and chucked inwardly. Too tired to be anything else, I thought. "Do you think so?" I laughed, "that's very nice of you to say." And we had a great conversation about meditation and being kind to your soul, about how stressed people can be when they come to the supermarket, and mothers who have nine children and how sometimes more is actually easier. It was a conversation that made us both happy. And then I went to the chemist, popped into Isobella's class to drop something off for their show next week, and once we got home, finally, I'd been out all day.

It's Friday tomorrow, and there's the week gone. With sick children and broken nights and grocery shopping. One of those weeks where I take the treasures where ever I can find them.

Tonight as I was tucking her in Greer told me she thinks God is going to help her get all the way along the monkey bars at school. I smiled and felt compelled to add a note of caution, even just going one more bar than yesterday Greer, even that is good. Trying not to envision a trip to the emergency clinic. Then her face lit up and she said "imagine if there was a monkey bar that went all the way around the world. Imagine that you could go all the way round the world!" And then I got it. Going all the way to the other end of the monkey bars is like travelling to the other side of the world, it's that far, and that amazing. And what a thought, what a dream, to swing across the bars and land somewhere completely else.

And then suddenly the moment comes where my mind soars, because I can do that. Right here on this page, and in my head, that almost boundless place, I can swing over to anywhere. Sickness, tiredness, supermarket shopping, I swing right on over you.

father's day

I’m not confident when it comes to celebrating Father’s Day. I didn’t live with my Dad much past two, and even when I saw him regularly from the age of eight onwards, I don’t remember spending a Father’s Day with him, or ever making him a card. As an adult that’s changed, but my dad’s an old hippy at heart and the commercialism of Father’s Day doesn’t interest him, so I usually just go and visit him to say hi and give him a hug.

I love my dad. He might not have really parented me, but I feel like I intuitively understand him, and there are some uncanny similarities between us. We share the same dry, slightly ironic sense of humour. We love reading, we’re both short sighted, and there’s definitely a family resemblance between us.

During the week I rang him and invited him over for a cup of tea on Sunday afternoon. “It’s Father’s Day” I said, in case he hadn’t realised. He thought that was a lovely idea, and we agreed that he (and my step-mum) would come over some time after two.

We went to church in the morning and when we arrived home the girls got busy finishing off their gifts for Paddy, and I started tidying up and getting some food ready. I hadn’t made elaborate plans. I knew Dad would be happy with a cup of tea and a bite of pretty much anything. But the girls were excited and Isobella said “I’m going to make a Father’s Day party!!”

Her enthusiasm was hard to ignore. I got down a few party things from up in the pantry. We blew up some balloons and set the table with party plates and napkins, blowers and chocolates. Isobella made a card for my dad, and picked a flower from the garden for him. We attached balloons to two chairs at one end of the table, and made two special settings, one for Paddy, and one for my dad. I made pikelets and put out a bowl of chips. It wasn’t a huge effort, but it was special, and the girls were really excited.

Three o’clock came and went, as did four o’clock. My dad and step-mum are usually pretty relaxed about time, so I didn’t worry. I swept the floor, unloaded the dishwasher. At five o’clock I texted Dad. “How far away are you?” I asked him. The pikelets were getting cold, and afternoon tea time was about to morph into dinner time. He texted back “30 minutes” and I realised that they hadn’t even left yet. The disappointment bit hard.

But it was too late. I rang and told him. He would have jumped in the car and come out straight away, but we don’t live ten minutes down the road from them anymore, and by the time they got here the moment would have been gone. They’d had friends pop in and I hadn’t been exact enough when I arranged the time with him.

We have a good friend and her twin boys living downstairs from us. I walked down to find her, blinking away the tears, and invited them up for a party. The boys' eyes lit up when I said the word "party!" and the fact that they were there made up for the girls’ disappointment that my dad wasn’t.

We’d set all the places at our big table, and it seemed ridiculous now that they weren’t coming . But once we were all sitting down there was only one place that was missing a person. Suddenly I realised who that place was for. I got a candle and took my postcard of Rembrandt’s Prodigal son down from the kitchen window sill.  I placed the card and the candle in front of the empty table setting, lit the candle, and had my own quiet moment remembering my perfect, heavenly parent.

If this seems all a bit too raw and personal, then think about it this way. This story isn’t just my story. It’s the story of every person who has ever lost or been let down by a parent, which is pretty much all of humanity.

You were four, and your father left on plane and you haven’t seen him since. You were eight and your father died, and then when you were a teenager, your mother died. You were three or four and you were asked to help at your older sister’s birthday party. You tried, and failed, and the disproval you were shown in that moment has reverberated for nearly sixty years. You weren’t good enough.

I like to think that I’ve figured a few things out about myself, but Sunday reminded me that not very far below the surface I’m just a little girl who wanted her daddy. In that one ordinary moment, a simple lack of communication, the past came flooding back. And I realised that my relationship with my dad is not as straight forward I thought it was.

But nothing’s ever as straight forward as we’d like it to be, and I can live with that. I’m lucky to have a relationship with him at all, and it means the world to me that he loves my girls. When it comes to being a Grandpa, he’s a natural.

And pain is not all bad. I’d rather be someone who feels pain than someone who ignores it. If we let it, pain will teach us empathy and make us soft-hearted.  As much as we try to hide our tears and pretend that everything is fine, pain never really goes away. It has a sneaky way of manifesting itself in surprising ways, and if left completely unacknowledged, can return later in life and suddenly derail us.

This might be raw but it's important. The story of me and my crazy family is a good one. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without it. And the pain that has accompanied it at different times has forced me down a path that has led me, ultimately, to knowing and understanding myself far better than I would otherwise.

And we can all do with more of that.