good-bye for now

There are parts of Phnom Penh that remind me of Buenos Aires. The wrought iron gates with their ornamental details, the iron lattice bars over the windows, the tree-lined streets. There is enough of the air of L'Indochine left in the best parts of town to make me feel like I was sitting down to tea with a grand old dame. Well past her prime, but still with good taste, and fairly good manners for her age. That the city has any beauty at all is incredible, givZen that it was completely cleared out when it fell. Apparently, before the troubles, the city was one of the most beautiful in Indo-China. 

We went to Siem Reap this week and on the way up I saw houses on stilts, cows on the road. It was subsistence living in full colour. Siem Reap, however, has become a tourist mecca. The kids weren't begging (much) but they were peddling their wares with the same desperation. The prostitutes have gone underground in most places, but the girls who were offering massages and beauty therapy, a career that's used to get them out of the sex trade, looked tired and blank.

We went out to the Killing Fields by tuk-tuk this afternoon and life was hard where ever I looked. Don't ask me about the Killing Fields. There are plenty of complicated places around the world but this has to be up there near the top of the list. I can't explain how life here has evolved since the Khmer Rouge destroyed the very fabric of the Cambodian culture. Evolved probably isn't even the word. If Cambodia was a patient, a victim of some horrific act, they would be barely recovered, hardly even standing on their feet. Beneath the bustling streets and the commerce springing up around the tourist dollar and the floods of ex-pats in Phnom Penh, there is a vulnerability that is chilling. 

I'm getting my head around going home tomorrow. I'm more than ready for the ordinariness of family life, and I've got some things I just need to get on with. Like write that book. Mels has been my tour guide, co-adventurer, and confidante. She has put up with my absent-mindedness and my naive dreaming. I couldn't have done this, wouldn't have done this, if it wasn't for her. She has made a home for herself in the craziest of places, and she lives this complicated life day in and day out. We'll say good-bye to each other at the airport in the morning and she'll jump on a moto and drive back into the thick of it, while I fly right on out.

adding to the family

Did you think that was all I was going to write about the wedding? People, I've only just begun! I couldn't wait to introduce you to the new members of my family. Can you believe that in one day I've gained a new step-dad, two step-sisters and three step-brothers, two more brothers-in-law, two more sisters-in-law, plus another niece and four more nephews? Do you think I'm happy about that? I'm telling you, happy is an understatement.

Right at the front of the photo, sitting next to Isobella, are Jack and Nevaeh, and up behind them next to Greer and Joy's son Isaac are Dominic, Liam and James. These boys got up to the cutest shenanigans during the ceremony, stealing flower petals from the girls and throwing them at each other in a manner that was just quiet and cute enough to get away with. Liam is the most stoic gluten-free kid I've met. Nevaeh is a sweetheart who has impressed my girls no end because she could ride a two-wheeler when she was three! (The girls on the other side next to Bill are Joy's Anna and my Abigail.) These kids love each other. They've got on like a house on fire ever since they all met, even the out-of-towners we only just met at the wedding.

Behind the boys are Bill's son Des and his wife Emily, and up behind them are Tim and his wife Casey, and Bill's daughters Aimee and Cathy, and their husbands Oliver and Dan, respectively. Then right at the back next to Paddy is Bill's son Caleb. The loveliest seventeen year old I know. I've always wanted brothers. Now I've got three of them! And you can never have enough sisters, as far as I'm concerned. Now I've got five altogether!

The girls have been talking about their "new cousins" since well before Mum and Bill got engaged. But I haven't breathed the word "step-dad" or "step-sister" or "step-brother" to a soul. It seemed a bit too forward, and a little weird given that Mum and Bill had only actually been dating since Valentine's Day. But I was quietly very thrilled. Then on Sunday night wedding photos were flying around on facebook, and we all got busy friending each other. I saw a photo that Bill's daughter Cathy had put up of Joy and I walking Mum down the aisle which she'd entitled "my new stepsisters and stepmum." I was chuffed, and that's when it really hit home. My family has grown.

I happened to be talking to a friend this week about families. She relayed a conversation she had with her mother at a time when she was finding her mother-in-law frustrating. She had started to complain mildly about her mother-in-law, who she loves, and her mother cut her off instantly. "Don't ever speak ill of her" her mother said. "She loves you and she is your ally."  I thought that was priceless. And so true. Our family is, or should be, by and large, our safe place, filled with allies.

My team just got larger this weekend. I've got more allies. More people who, if push came to shove, would stick up for me, look out for me, and speak well of me.  And it goes both ways.

alive

There's only one of these every year, a Resurrection Sunday. Just one chance to really let our joy ring out unabashed. All around the planet there are Christians meeting. Some in magnificent cathedrals, some in tiny wooden churches, some in school halls or sitting rooms. Some meet with candles and incense, following ancient patterns; others raise their hands to loud anthems. Where ever they meet, and however they do it, their focus is the same; Jesus.

Our congregation always manages to find a nice groove somewhere between ancient and loud, and this morning we sang the classic hymn "Thine be the Glory";

Thine be the glory, risen conquering son,
Endless is the victory, thou o'er death, has won.
Angels in bright raiment, rolled the stone away,
Kept the folded grave clothes, where thy body lay.


Lo, Jesus meets us, risen from the tomb,
Lovingly he greets us, scatters fear and doom.
Let the church with gladness, hymns of triumph sing,
For her Lord now liveth, death hath lost it's sting.


Thine be the glory, risen conquering son,
Endless is the victory, thou o'er death, has won.


There really aren't any other words better than those for today. It puzzles me that some would say you can have Christian faith without the resurrection. I can't agree. The resurrection, that other-worldly, incomprehensible battle against death is the crux, literally, of everything we believe. If it didn't happen, then we Christians, wanna-be's that we are half of the time, should just pack up and go home.

My good friend Heidi shared her story today in church. She's had her own other-worldly battle against death. A few years ago she became very sick. Mis-diagnosed pneumonia turned into multiple organ failure with frightening speed, and within hours she was in a coma. The coma lasted three weeks, and during that time she died nine times.

She stood in front of us today, her face bright and her smile wide. Heidi walks, talks, works, sings, loves her husband, gardens, cooks, eats and dances. She dresses with spunk and has a great sense of humour. She is infectiously alive.

There was a period of time where Heidi's husband and family were being repeatedly told to expect her to die. They were told this by doctors in such a resigned way that her husband, a normally reticent man, couldn't take it any more. "Stop talking about Heidi as if she's already dead!" he said to them as his frustration exploded. "You are robbing us of the dignity of hope."

The dignity of hope.


We can't live without hope. It's a tangible thing. We feel it, like a light or a flame inside of us. It comforts us and feeds us. It enables us to endure.

Heidi breathed through a tracheotomy while she was in a coma, and even when she woke up, that tube kept her alive. She said today that it's really lonely having a "trachy", because you can't speak, you effectively have no voice.

I think I know how that feels. When it comes to putting words to this faith of mine I've felt silenced. Like I've had no voice. There have been plenty of voices around me and in the public sphere, but I haven't always liked the words they used. They haven't spoken my language. And I didn't realise I needed to find a language of my own.

My faith is nothing more, and nothing less than persistent hope. It's a persistent hope that has never really gone away since the moment I prayed as a four year old asking God to be with me "for all the days of my life." That hope stuck around through a less than perfect childhood and through angst-ridden teenage years. It never left when depression lurked in the shadows of exhaustion, and it wrote itself over my heart while I took an eternity to figure myself out. It never left me through those shocking first years of motherhood, nor through the highs and lows of marriage. My hope remains.

Today, Resurrection Sunday, is my hope. The easily misunderstood, often mocked and barely explainable death and resurrection of Christ is the source of my hope. He lives, and so do I.

our Little Prince gets married

I'm sitting here watching the royal wedding. There are plenty of other things I should be doing. The kitchen is in a state, and I'm surrounded by piles of the girls' summer clothes waiting to be put away. And we have an open home tomorrow! Still, there is probably nothing more important in the world right now than this wedding.

Thirty years ago on that other, more fateful wedding day, I was six and Mum had got me out of bed late in the evening to watch the live telecast. Tonight, when I saw footage of Diana and her little flower girls I felt a shiver run through me. I remember that night. How she looked more like a princess than I ever could have imagined. How much I wanted to touch her ruffles, that impossible expanse of silk. How I dreamed of being one of her flower girls. She was wonderful.

My girls are asleep right now, I didn't even think of getting them up. Technology has moved on, of course, and the images I'm watching will sit in that little black box by the TV for them to watch in the morning. I didn't tell them about the wedding. Someone else did. They've never heard me talk about the Royal Family.  I didn't know where to start. The story of this little Prince is sad.

 But once they heard about the wedding, they were keen fans. They found some old magazines from the time of Diana. They've seen her wedding dress, the flower girls, and photos of William when he was a baby on the front lawn of Government House. They've been carrying those magazines around nearly everywhere. They will wake up tomorrow morning early and excited.

On the screen in front of me the final hymn is being sung. The lucky couple are about to walk together out of the Abbey, happy. And they look happy. Unlike that ill-fated couple. I saw Diana and Prince Charles walk back down the aisle in footage replayed tonight. In the moment they turned towards the congregation their faces were drawn and tight. I listened to tonight's vows and thought of Prince Charles making the same vows to Diana. At the time we were happy for them. It was every body's fairytale wedding. Well, nearly every body's.

But this time we've got it right, surely. This one's the real fairy tale. Or maybe not. Maybe these young royals are too sensible and worldly for that. Kate studied PR, she's not naive. She doesn't dip her head shyly when the cameras are out. William and Kate have known each other long enough to know each other, weaknesses, quirks, and all. 

The carriage is making its way through the gates of Buckingham Palace. The pair will soon stand on that balcony and kiss while the world watches. Then we'll go back to our normal lives, dirty dishes and bits of food on the table. We will brush our teeth, turn out the lights, and sleep, completely anonymously. Their day has only just begun. They will wave, kiss, live and love while the world watches. Will we be kind to them this time?

Four

She's four and the world is her oyster.   Amazing things are almost within her grasp, like words, like numbers.   "What is one plus three?" is an incredible question.  Her eyes light up and her fingers start counting each other.   The smile of satisfaction says "I know things!" She was given two colouring in books by her cousin, one a girl's one, so "girlish" and one a boy's one, so "boylish." Ofcourse. She is figuring out about the world.  She has discovered that her sister is her friend, her ally, that things are better when they're done together.  (Like going to to the toilet!)  She says "I don't feel four, I feel three!" but everything about her says four.  Everything about the way she walks and talks says "watch this space."

The night before last I was up until 2am making soup and the birthday cake.   It was a ridiculous chain of events, a comedy of errors, one of those nights where you have to laugh or you'll cry.   Isobella was sick, and up six or seven times in the night, and I had a one year old friend for about two hours from 11pm while the soup was cooking and I hadn't even made the icing yet!  When Paddy came home from work he got Abigail to sleep, but no sooner had he done that than I woke her up turning the beater on to make butter icing!  But it had to be done, the cake must go on...

Her birthday was lovely.  No actual party, but lots of fun and family...  I asked her at the end of it what her favourite thing about the day was, and she replied "my cake!" without hesitation.  This is exactly the kind of thing a mother knows instinctively, even at 2am.  

Happy birthday Greer-bear.   We love being your family.

ps.  It really helps to have an auntie who can make balloon dogs!!
pps. It also really really helps to have a husband who can rescue the decoration of said cake when it's 2am and the eyes are blurring...  all props go to him :)

Want to smile?

Follow this link here and play the youtube clip to see something very lovely.

The "Let's Colour" project is a worldwide initiative to transform grey spaces with colour.  I could be cynical about the marketing aspect but I don't want to spoil it for you. ;)

and the baby ate cake!

I always knew this was going to happen.  I've been thinking it and we've been saying it ever since that incredible day a year ago yesterday.  We knew she was going to be one in a flash.  And she is.   And it has been in a flash.  Knowing that time is going to go quickly doesn't really help you savour it though. Time just keeps on going, whether we stop to notice it or not.  And so I have a one year old.

She had a great day.  Dancing and friends at Mainly Music, then lunch with Abuela and Auntie Esme and cousin Jacob, then afternoon tea with Grannie and Auntie Joy and Uncle Dan and cousins, followed by dinner with Gran and Poppa.  Whew!  That's what you call sharing the love!

How does it feel to be one?  I used to think I could remember.  There's a photo of me at my first birthday with a bowl of ice-cream in front of me, my tongue stuck out as far as it can go.  As a child I knew all about that photo.  I remembered being that one year old, sticking my tongue out because I'd never had ice-cream before and I didn't know what to do with it. Well that was my story, anyway.  This one year old here, this darling Abigail of mine, she'd never had a whole piece of cake stuck in front of her either, but she sure knew what to do with it! 

Cutting the Cake of Life

I'm not quite sure where this story starts. Maybe it starts on June 30th, 2001, at our wedding. Maybe it starts in January on Great Barrier Island, when Paddy and I found ourselves waist-deep in the cool clear water of Karaka Bay, fully-clothed, and the words "will you marry me?" came out of my mouth. Or maybe it starts on a grey, tumultuous day some time last year,  one of many when we faced each other with angry words, full of misunderstandings.  Or maybe it starts even earlier than all of that.  In the moments when our younger selves began to imagine what our older selves would look like.  When we started forming our expectations, our hopes, and our dreams.

But beginnings are never quite as important as endings, and never as long and as challenging as middles.  Paddy and I started our lives together with all the best intentions, and with all the hopeful dreamy longings of two young people in love.  But we were two very opposite people and as time went on we became very good at being average.  It was unnoticeable to many, but it gradually became blindingly obvious to us.  There was an increasing sense of disatisfaction felt by us both, and an unanswered question hung around us in the air; "Was this how it was supposed to be?"

When you are faced with a situation that you are unhappy with, you really only have two options.  One is to change the situation and the other is to get out of the situation.  To sit with the status quo is not a real option, it's stagnation.   It becomes a gradual rotting away of all that was good, of what life there was.  We didn't like the second option, and I was rejecting stagnation, kicking and screaming all the way. So we had no choice but to change. And so, by God's grace, we did.   Are we still changing?  Of course.   Will there still be grey days and angry words?  Of course.  But we have reached a place of understanding and mutual good-will, and you can go along way on that. 

On Saturday we had a Naming Ceremony and Dedication for Abigail.  Our sweet, sweet girl.  We invited our immediate family and a couple of friends.  And we decided, the Monday beforehand, to surprise everyone by renewing our vows.  We had talked about it on and off since that unexpected moment on the Barrier in January.   And so we did it.   We ordered a cake, I went clothes shopping and got my hair cut, we bought flowers and prepared the house.  Nobody knew what we were going to do until the moment when our friend officiating said "and now Pat and doya are going to renew their vows."   Wow.   It was a dream come true, the fulfillment of Hope.

The cake was for all of us.   We put Abigail's name at the top to make up for the fact that we had stolen her thunder a little.  We cut together, one of us holding the baby, the girls holding onto our hands.  It was one of the best moments of my life.   And the cake was chocolate, rich, and very good.  It got eaten quickly!

But we might never have tasted it.  If we'd chosen to remove ourselves from the situation our marriage had become that cake would never have been bought, never eaten.  If we had given up and let status quo reign, there never would have been any change to celebrate, and no cake to celebrate with.  It's also possible that we could have planned the change and the celebration, but never followed through, and that cake could have sat there, metaphorically speaking, untasted, uneaten.

What cake is sitting in front of you in this season of your life?  Have you noticed how it's decorated, or appreciated its flavour?  Have you actually got out a knife and cut into it, taken a huge, greedy bite?  Or is it behind you on the table, ignored.  Maybe it's not the flavour you were expecting.  

But it's cake.  Come on.  It's got to be good.   Turn around and eye-ball it.  Take the knife and cut into it.   It won't be the only cake you eat in your life time.  There will be others, don't lose hope of that.  But taste that one in front of you now.  Relish it.

Allie's Dream

Today I saw a dream come true. Eight years ago my dear friend Allie left a comfortable administration job to re-train as a dance teacher. It wasn't the easiest or most obvious thing to do, but she did it. A dream had captured her heart; to open up the world of dance to young people with special needs. Kids who wouldn't normally get to dance. And that's what she set out to do.

She now teaches dance in special schools and runs after-school dance classes for special needs kids. Today was her first ever end-of-year performance. A real show, in a theatre, on a stage, with lighting, sound, and costumes. A two hour show involving 30 students of various abilities. I wish I'd had my camera, but I didn't, so I'll tell you what I saw.

A little girl who inched her way to the front of the stage and couldn't stop smiling and waving to her family everytime she was on... and it was no ordinary smile... her whole face smiled.

A young man who captured the audience whenever he was on stage, who danced like he was born to dance, as if there was nothing else he'd rather be doing in the world, and who made us forget that every move was done with a huge amount of concentration and effort.

A girl who danced like a firecracker, who fizzed and sparkled and glowed. And never stopped smiling, an infectious smile full of the joy of being her.

Kids who may not have been able to run or climb easily, but who could move instinctively to the music, who could understand the story in the words, and who loved showing us that story with their arms, their hands, their fingers.

But more than anything, kids who in dancing found themselves, who were happy to be themselves, who in that moment were so happy to be in their own skin.

And I saw a friend in her element, living out what was in her heart. A friend whose dream had come true. Who in that moment was so happy to be in her own skin.

I want that moment for myself. I want to live out what's in my heart, I want to see my dreams come true. I want to be completely happy to be in my own skin. Don't you?