how I got married on friday

I am an eye. I open, and I see everything. I close, and I am safe. My eyelashes are angels wings, they cover me.

I went away, I went up high. I looked out through the black sky and saw the tiny lights of another whole country. I looked out and saw myself. I was myself.

I came back, and I saw all the dust that had fallen into my eye, blocked my light, caused me pain. The dust was from another time. It was not part of this one. I said good-bye to it, I made my needs clear.

Then Paddy and I stood before each other in the same place we exchanged rings eleven years ago. We left those rings behind, traded old vows for new, and marked ourselves, in pain, with a ring that can never be taken off. Our new vows were etched into our skin, in a band of belonging. We belong to each other.

And how we will treat each other in this new now is quite different to how we treated each other before.

There will be no taking for granted, no leaning on each other for things we can do for ourselves, no more suffocating each other with our insecurities, no more silence that only makes temporary peace.  No, we are speaking for ourselves now, standing on our own two feet, side by side to face the world. We will be each other’s greatest champion, we will watch each other soar.

Those rings we wore the first time, they were easy to attain. We booked the church, got dressed in our finest. We paraded each other around like we had won a great prize, thinking finally I must be worth something. But the finery was only skin deep. Underneath our wounds were gushing. No ring could bandage them.

The marks we wear now were not so easy. They are spoils of war, the treasures hidden in darkness. They are not pretty, they do not shine. But they are our most valuable possession, worth more than all the gold and silver in the world.

life at home

I've been writing to you in my head for a week now, ever since I got off that plane last Sunday and spent the day relishing the family and feeling miserably cold. I was going to tell you about how we live under a flight path, and that when I left Auckland I saw our beach from the plane as it banked at the edge of the harbour and then took off. I wanted to tell you how I wasn't in a window seat but I managed to look out just at the right time and there below me I saw the estuary and the row of houses at its edge, the bush with our house somewhere in it, and the beach, our beach. A second later I saw the rolling surf of Whatipu beach at the mouth of the harbour,  that wild place that makes me dream novels. I carried those images tucked inside me as the plane sped upwards. I don't know how I could have left without them.

I was going to write to you about the flights, there and back. Listening to Josh Garrels and sensing a new story being uncovered. Watching the other passengers, the couples leaning in to each other, the children itchy for freedom. I wanted to tell you about the roar of the engines and the way my stomach flipped as we left Bangkok, next stop Phnom Penh. I would have written to you about the lights on the tarmac at dusk on the return trip and listening to Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto as we flew above Australia at night and the tiny outposts of light I saw as we crossed the outback. And the knowing that was becoming so clear, about myself, about my life and the journey my life has taken.

But then I came home to my people. They'd been more than fine without me, but still it took a week to get clean sheets on all the beds and clean towels on the towel rails. There were benches and corners to clear, and washing to fold. I walked through the flotsam and jetsam of a week that had happened without me. I was living my life again.

And then my dear friend's father passed away suddenly, unexpectedly, and threw us completely. Her heart is now an aching wound, and her mother's life has been ripped in half. How does that wife fill the space that was so warm with his presence? How can she even count the millions of ways he filled her days and made sense of them? He was sixty-two and healthy, so treasured by his family and friends. How do they go on now? They go on limping, looking upwards. There's nothing else.

I know about this. I know about grief that acid ache.I stood at the washing machine five years ago, on the morning after my Step-Dad Don died. We washed his clothes for the last time and I cried at the smell of him on his blue vest. My chest was tight and hollow, my stomach sour. It was the worst day I'd known, and there hasn't been one like it since. Losing someone is being handed a loaf of stale mouldy bread and being told to eat the whole thing, one dry scratching bite at a time. We have no appetite for grief. And yet it is work that must be done, a job that cannot be left unfinished, or else it will take our lives too.

My friend Marita rang from Sydney last night with news that a mutual friend of ours had died. My friend Corin, who got back in touch with me through this blog, was a writer I've known since I was at school. He died a long way from home, somewhere in the States where he'd made a new life with a wife who sang in a choir. We had a brief email conversation a few months ago. It was a tiny, momentary glimpse, like seeing him out of the window of a plane as I sped past. I hold that image close now. He was wild and beautiful and found.

lines and light

 

I'm not sure what to tell you about Tuol Sleng, or S-21 as it was called by the Khmer Rouge. This is the school which the Khmer Rouge turned into a detention centre and used to torture and kill about 20,000 of the two million or more people that were killed all together.

I knew a smattering of Cambodian history before I came here but it did nothing to prepare me for this. I walked into the first room I came to and nearly walked straight out again. The room was filled with tiny cubicles, the partitions hastily built out of brick. On the floor of each cubicle was fixed a set of chains, and in some of them what looked like a petrol can and a long tin box. They were instruments of torture, left right where they were last used. I felt like I'd just walked into hell.

The rooms kept on going and going. I couldn't face them all. The last rooms we went into were the ones where hundreds of photographs of the deceased were on display . Every single person brought here was photographed. Their faces, blank with fear, shouted at me. They were all somebody's son, somebody's daughter. So many of them were children. One of the photographs showed a woman cradling her sleeping baby in her arms. She was sitting in an execution chair so horrific and depraved that I can't bring myself to describe it. The photo was taken a moment before she was killed. What happened to her baby?

These photos of mine don't tell you anything, except that taking photos was my therapy at Tuol Sleng. When I felt like the horror was going to eat me up I looked for the lines and the light. In the end I would have walked away before I'd even gone into the rooms with the photographs, if it wasn't for the holding cross I'd bought earlier that day. We'd been to the Peace cafe, a beautiful cafe and shop run to support Banteay Prieb (Centre of the Dove), a vocational training centre for Cambodians with physical disabilities run by the Jesuit Service. I unpacked that cross when I didn't think I could take any more, and walked through the last rooms holding it and turning it anxiously.

Tuol Sleng was left pretty much as it was when the Vietnamese Army finally overthrew the Khmer Rouge in 1979. You can see it gets swept occasionally, but that's about it. There was a chair sitting facing a wall in one of the upstairs rooms, and one of the blackboards still had the faint chalk marks of a french lesson. The floors are filthy, covered with years of dust and grime and blood turned rusty brown.

owning my dissent

Today I wrote about my experience of toxic church culture over at re-inventing eve.

giving Mum away

I've never seen her so happy. She was giddy with joy. I've never seen her so beautiful. The most elegant bride, of any age, that I've witnessed. And Bill, well he looked like the cat that got the cream.

They stood at the front of the church surrounded by their gorgeous grandchilden. The kids fidgeted and  made faces at each other, but the Bride and Groom wouldn't have had it any other way. Then they danced out of the church to that old hit by The Crystals, I met him on a Monday and my heart stood still, da do ron-ron-ron, da do ron-ron, somebody told me that his name was Bill, da do ron-ron-ron, da do ron-ron. The children followed them like they were the pied-piper, and together, in a glorious bunch of kids and beauty they did two laps of the church aisles while the wedding guests clapped in time to the music. Da do ron-ron-ron, da do ron-ron. It was pure celebration.

Five years ago Mum walked out of a church following my darling Step-Dad Don's casket. How could she have possibly known that even as she mourned her beloved Don she was being prepared for Bill. In a way, if you think of time like water, like a deep river we swim through, she walked out of that funeral and straight into her own dream wedding.

You won't have noticed it but she was wearing the same outfit that she wore when she married Don twenty-three years ago. We updated it a little, but the skirt and top were the same. Mum knew almost as soon as she and Bill got engaged that she didn't want to wear anything else. Some how it just made sense.

I understood this after I had a dream in which Don met Bill. In the dream we were all standing in a hallway, Bill on one side, Don on the other, and Mum in the middle. I turned to Don and asked him, "what do you think?" Meaning, "What do you think about Mum and  Bill?" He shrugged and looked cagey at first, as he was known to do, and so I tickled him in the ribs. "Go on!" I said, teasing him. And then he broke out in the widest grin. He smiled from ear to ear.

My sister and I walked Mum down the aisle. She didn't need bridesmaids, she had her gorgeous grandaughters for that, but she needed someone to give her away. It was the highlight of the day for me, made all the more special by the fact that the three of us knew, deep down, that my sister and I were doing it on behalf of Don.

something like normal

We're in countdown to wedding day mode and this is how our place looked a few days ago. The wedding is a big event. There's an afternoon tea for just about everybody straight after the ceremony, followed by a sit-down dinner here for family and a few friends. It was decided that a fresh coat of paint was needed in preparation for decorating the dining room for the dinner.Our walls were a very tired and grubby green. Now they are clean, fresh and light.I can't believe what a difference it's made to this room. I wish we'd done it as soon as we moved in. But back then we didn't know whether we were coming or going. We were overwhelmed by all the work that needed doing and painting seemed frivolous. 

But this room, and the kitchen behind me, are my workspace. This is where I spend most of my time. The kids work, eat and play at our enormous dining table. I watch them from the kitchen through the servery you see above, and look out to the windows overlooking the bush and water. I've perfected the art of looking past the grubby walls to the view beyond. I'd become numb even, to the dissatisfaction I felt with that tired old green. And I'm not high maintenance. It doesn't take much for me to decide that there are bigger things going on in the world than the state of our walls.

I underestimated how good this fresh clean space would make me feel.

I'm going to make a jump here, so stay with me. Besides re-arranging furniture and hiring table linen for the wedding, I've been doing a lot of thinking. It all started when I moved the boxes still to be unpacked (nearly a year later) into a room that was originally a bedroom but was too full of that revolting asthma-inducing mould to be slept in. It has been a work in progress for months, a room without a name (we have to name our rooms around here or we don't know which one we're talking about!) and without any real purpose, as yet. The mouldy gib was pulled off ages ago, leaving a nice wee window at the end of the room where you can see through to the toilet next door, which the cat likes to sneak through when no one's looking.

But we did a bit more room shifting recently. What was the library is now an office fit with plywood tables made by Paddy, with space for two or three people to work at the same time, now that we have some part-time staff working with us on the business. My desk where I used to sit and write by the window needed to go somewhere, and I decided that the room with no name could become, albeit temporarily, my study. In went my desk, followed by all the boxes yet to be unpacked, all mine. The first box I unpacked contained my journals. Some of the thirty plus journals I've filled with words since I was a girl. 

I started reading and I couldn't stop. This room which gave me space to unpack boxes was also helping me unpack myself metaphorically. I realised things I've never realised before about myself, about our relationship, and about what I want for my future. There were moments when I was absolutely gobsmacked by what I read. First shocked at how insecure I was before I met Paddy, and then amazed at the insights I had for myself despite my insecurities. There were things I wrote that echoed, ironically and prophetically, the troubles that were to come. I wondered whether it would have made any difference If I'd re-read them later on, or remembered the weight of them.

And the more I un-packed, the more I thought, and suddenly I found myself deconstructing whole worlds of belief. The tired and grubby walls of ideas I had inherited by virtue of my family and church upbringing were dismantled at lightning speed.  I'd grown up with these tired ideas, as tired as the green walls of this room were. They were familiar. I'd never really questioned them, although I had, very occasionally, wondered if it would be possible for those walls to be a different colour. But my questioning never went anywhere, because I was convinced there were more important things to devote myself to. 

Then suddenly I found myself with newly painted walls. The tired old ideas were gone, and in their place was something new, fresh, and clean. And I couldn't believe how good it felt.

The real walls I'm looking at now have only been painted with undercoat. That's why it's amazing they look so good! It's a flat stark white, an on the way colour, and even still, it's wonderful. The colour we will paint over it once the renovations are done will probably be another version of white. Simple and fresh to frame the gorgeous green we see out these windows everyday.

And in the same way, the fresh new ideas that have changed everything inside my head are a work in progress too. They're an on the way colour. Which is why I've hardly breathed a word of them to anyone but Paddy, and why I'm not going to be writing about them here until I'm ready. But I couldn't not tell you something. It just feels too good to keep to myself. It doesn't feel scary, and it's not at all unsettling. It feels like we're on our way to something like our version of normal.

who wants a baby?

I wrote about feminism, sex and abortion today over on my other blog, re-inventing eve.

restraint and freedom

Meet our sink. Two stainless steel bowls in a stainless steel bench. Possibly circa 1960. The bowls are wide and deep, and they do a great job. I can't remember if I've told you but this house used to be a camp, and this kitchen is totally a camp kitchen. I love it.

This is the third week I've been washing the dishes by hand, with help. I'm saying it's for Lent, but I kind of like it. I can't even remember exactly what I was thinking when I decided to abandon the dishwasher, but abandon it I did. The girls have been taking turns washing and drying when they can, and even on the days when I've faced a mountain of dishes, I haven't been tempted to use the dishwasher. Some how washing the dishes has become meditative for me. A slowing down.

Lent is not lying low around here at all. Since I decided to give up sugar, Paddy has followed suit. It's the closest thing to a family revolution we've had since he came home from his last ever overnight shift. I can feel in my bones that this is going to be good for us. It's been a week for me with no sugar, and as the days go on I feel better and better. I've got more energy, I'm feeling healthier, and I'm more in control of what I eat. The cravings are gone. I own my body and I'm over the moon about it.

I've had a feeling for a week or so that one of our Lenten sacrifices will be renewed post Lent. I'm kind of curious to see which it is. I've got options to choose from. And that's not to say I'm some kind of Lent perfectionist. Not at all. I'm a novice when it comes to following the church calendar. But this year Lent has completely taken me by surprise by offering so much opportunity for growth. Growth I just couldn't pass up on.

At the beginning of Lent I wrote about our new rhythm and the un-learning that I knew was in store for me. At that stage the only thing I had decided to give up was complaining. I may seem like a nice person, but over nearly eleven years of marriage I had developed a very unattractive habit. I understand where it had come from. Disappointment, a mixture of unmet and unspoken expectations, and the idea that grew along the way that I am some how hard done by. Complaining was my right. One of the few ways I really let it all hang out. To the one I love. It was the first shadow I faced.

The moment in darkness was uncomfortable, embarrassing even, but it was short. Like a quick cut with a sharp knife. At first I had to bite my tongue, then there were moments where I covered my mouth with my hand and turned away, and then it became as simple as a smile. A wry smile at the words I knew I couldn't say. Paddy and I know how to fight, and that's not all bad, but as Lent went on it was like we had no energy, no need to be combatant. There was restraint when before there was none.

Restraint has been the word that has resonated with me this Lent. Restraint with words, restraint with foods, restraint with media. Restraint is not a popular concept. We are conditioned by every thing around us to want more, to need more, and to shout it to the rooftops. We are owed. We have rights! We must be heard! But restraint goes against all of that. Restraint says what you have is enough.

I've been honest here at times about this marriage of mine. One day I'll tell you the whole story, and I can assure you, it will be good. I have looked at the end of it with such petrifying clarity it was like looking down the barrel of a gun. I know how things could have gone. As you can imagine, I've developed some strong opinions about marriage along the way. I'm not an advocate of just keeping quiet and "putting up" with average-ness. I believe we should have high expectations of how we are treated and how we treat each other.

And yet in restraint there is a holding back. At the right time, and not if there is abuse involved, but at the right time, restraint is stepping back rather than stepping forward. It is keeping quiet rather than letting words fly like volleys. It is stillness rather than aggression. It is patience, it is peace. It is trusting that I have the resilience within me to resolve the conflict within myself, regardless of the outcome. It is being able to let it go. It is saying to myself what I have is enough.


I'm sitting here writing to you as a person who has less than they had three weeks ago. I've given up a language, the vernacular of complaint. I've given up my favourite category of food. I've given up the labour-saving device I used most often. I'm gluten, dairy, fat and salycilate intolerant, and now I don't eat sugar either. Does that sound unnatural? Insanely restrictive? I promise you, it's my freedom.

about today

This is today. Paddy got home this morning from his last ever overnight shift. I woke up just before he finished and turned all the Christmas lights back on in the lounge and wrote him a sign that read "welcome to your future." Because that's exactly how it felt. 

He's been working overnights for five years. That's five years of living as if he was flying across to the other side of the world every week. Five years of being tired, five years of rejecting his natural body rhythms, five years of living against the grain.

For me it's been five years of only ever getting a sleep in when we're on holiday, five years of being sole charge at night several times a week, five years of being awake when my husband is asleep, alert when he's tired, tired when he's alert. Five years of going to bed at different times, every night. 

Now I'm not saying five years is a long time, but I am saying that any amount of time living like that is long enough. 

Do you remember what the last day of school felt like on your last day of school ever? I do. I remember walking up Howe St to K'Rd with my friend Jenny. The sun was shining, and we talked like we were heading off on the adventure of our lives, life. Like we could go anywhere and do anything, as if anything was possible. That's exactly how a girl should feel at seventeen. But at thirty-seven? Today I felt as close to seventeen as I have since I was seventeen. Today was life beginning all over again.

Except this time I don't need anything to be possible. I just want my life. Our life. The one inside me, the one that's been patiently waiting for me all this time. It never rested on anyone else, but somehow, with life opening up for Paddy like a wide gate to the world, I feel like life is opening up for me too.

Today five years ago my step-dad passed away. I wrote about him last year and those words are still truer than true. He'd be so happy for us today. He'd think it was wonderful. He'd want to hear all about our plans, the businesses we are working on, and the contract in the pipeline that could make next year a lot easier if it happens. He'd be so proud.

spring

I think it's finally spring. These flowers were the sight that greeted me during the weeks when we were all sick. A friend of Mum's had given them to her, and she shared them with me. They gave me hope and something beautiful to look at when the house was in disarray. They made me happy.

Something else is making me happy at the moment, and it's very good news. But there's a story to tell first, of course. Last Friday after I wrote the previous post Paddy and I went to see our therapist/counsellor who we'd managed to get an appointment with at short notice. I went out in a short-sleeved t-shirt for the first time, and the sun on my arms was warm. We've been seeing this woman on and off for about five years, and she's extremely smart. She works us out (or even better, gets us to work ourselves out) in an hour, every time. That's good value!

I told her a version of what I told you last week, how I'd realised that I'd had this sub-conscious victim thing going on, and that I could see now where my communication had been laced with resentment. The words I was using in our communication that week may have been innocent, but the tone was not. I apologised to Paddy, I told him I would have got on my knees if I needed to, I was that sorry. There's something safe about feeling sorry, when I'm really sorry I know I've got to the end of myself, I've uncovered everything that can be uncovered, gone where I need to go. Something is finished.

Our counselor then pulled out a set of cards with words on them, representing a range of human needs. She gave us a pile each, and asked us to choose three. "What were your needs at that time?" she asked us. "At the time of the conflict, what did you really need?" We each went through our set of cards and pulled out the words that resonated. There were plenty of words and phrases I liked, but only a handful that I knew were right for that moment.
Authenticity, consideration, mutuality.
Paddy chose his three easily, and I understood them straight away.
Respect, appreciation, acknowledgement. 
It's not rocket science really, is it?

We got to buy a set of cards and bring them home, and this is where the story gets good. I had a great time the next morning writing in my journal and reading through the cards. I laid the cards out around my laptop, up at our big dining table where I'm sitting now. They were breathtaking in their sheer number, and in the kaleidoscope they represented. I was looking at words that stood for almost every possible need an adult could have. I found myself asking some really good questions, and answering them with the cards.

The first question I asked myself was this. "What needs am I meeting when I write?" This is what I came up with;
meaning and purpose, clarity, creativity, time alone. 
Then I asked myself the opposite question. "What needs am I meeting when I choose to do other things, rather than write?" (By other things I mean the things I would normally choose to do in the evenings rather than write, like clean up the kitchen, tidy and clean the house, or do washing.) And I came up with;
order, beauty and aesthetics, efficiency, time alone. 


In effect, the needs I meet by writing are very similar to the needs I meet when choose not to write. If that sounds Irish, bear with me. I'm talking about the time I have most control over, which is the evenings, after the girls are in bed. That's the time I'm most likely to write. But usually once the kids are in bed you'll find me pottering around, re-ordering after the day's activity. I'll be tired, but usually happy enough, and certainly satisfied once I'm finished. I will have met some of the same needs that I could have met by writing. Time alone, order, beauty and aesthetics, creativity. And usually if I've been pottering around in my own space I will have been thinking away and created some sort of clarity in my head as well. Unfortunately though, I'll usually still want to write, here or in my journal, or at least do emails and read a few blogs. Which is how I end up going to bed way too late, and getting way too tired.

But isn't it a funny thought. Who would have thought I could meet some of my deepest needs by folding washing?!

Now here's the good news. I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month, affectionately known as Nanowrimo. It's never really grabbed me before, but somehow, mysteriously, this time I just wanted to do it. My friend Marita is doing it too, so we are keeping each other honest. I've written 3053 words since Tuesday. I'm way behind on the Nanowrimo target of 50,000 words by the end of November, but I'm way ahead of any hopes I ever had of actually writing this thing before the kids leave home. Let me put it this way, this idea, which I've mentioned a few times here, has been on the back burner for seven years. As of the 1st of November, it is officially on the front burner! That, my friends, doesn't just make my day, or my week, or my month, it basically makes my whole life! This is an astounding, near-miraculous thing! Worthy of many exclamation marks!!!

So this is what I asked myself last weekend as I sat right here with that pile of cards. I asked myself "what are my needs for this month, being the month I will be attempting to write 50,000 words?" And this is what I came up with.
 - time alone
 - order
 - efficiency
 - power in my world.

Is that surprising? It was to me. I would have thought I'd come up with some of the other words from the pack, like creativity, peace, and beauty. But no. To give myself a good shot at writing 50,000 words this month I need power, order, and efficiency. Who would have guessed.

Here is the really good news of it all. I've been setting my alarm and getting up at 5:30am every morning to write. To do this I've set my alarm (on my phone) to go to bed by 9:30pm every night. I've had to leave the dishes in the sink, ignore baskets full of washing and toys strewn across the floor. I have to walk past the TV, past emails and the internet, past long chats late at night. It's made me grab efficiency by the scruff of the neck and make it mine so that I can get the bare minimum done. It's made me leave jobs for Paddy to do the next day (when he's working  nights) even though I'd rather do it then, and do it my way. The result has been a messier house, three thousand words, and a happy me. There are some details I'll still have to thrash out. I do still want to spend time with that husband of mine, that goes without saying. And I know that when there's sickness in the family there will be days when I have to give up on the early mornings. But I think I've more or less found the way I want to spend the rest of my life.

If you've read this far, thank-you. That tells me that you are interested, and that you might even care. You might be my sister, or a treasured friend, or an old friend, or a new friend, or someone I haven't met yet, but if you read this far  then you've put yourself on my team. If I ever complain about tiredness or busyness or feeling lost in life, please remind me of the words I've written today. You are my witness!

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?

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.

beautiful

The sky out this window is growing light now. A faint pink at the horizon fades up to blue.  We have come away for two nights to celebrate our tenth anniversary. We are giddy with freedom!

I look out at the early morning sky from the anonymity of this hotel room, and I could be anywhere. I love that feeling. As if I am disengaged from my life, floating above the world, watching. That’s where the stories are.

Yesterday was my birthday and I spent the first moments of it in the kitchen after midnight, cleaning up from the day before. I was thinking about it being my birthday, and suddenly my heart bubbled with joy and I found myself singing.

Something beautiful, something good,

all my confusion, he understood.

All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife,

but he made something, beautiful, out of my life.

As you know, I had a fairly complicated childhood, and I’ve spent a lot of my life so far trying to figure myself out. I haven’t always understood or even liked myself. But through it all I've had a sense of being made, of something being made out of the raw material of my life. The gratefulness for that was what welled up within me in the early hours of Sunday morning. That song came straight from my heart, and it stayed with me as I slept and then began the day again.

After the excitement and exertion of the girls' party, my birthday was an after thought. We didn’t really do anything special, (other than come away to celebrate our anniversary!) But before we shifted house I found a beautiful second-hand dresser online and we bought it as a birthday present for me. Paddy went and picked it up two weekends before moving day, and, with a lot of effort, transported it to our new house, where the previous owners let us store it in the garage. On the way to the new house the top of the dresser completely came away as Paddy went around a corner, and it shattered on the ground. I got a phone call with the bad news. It was just furniture, but it was beautiful, and it was my birthday present. I cried.

I couldn’t bear to look at it for the first few weeks in the new house. I would go down to the garage and turn away as I walked past it. It sat, neglected. At one point water was leaking onto it from the ceiling and there it continued to sit, getting wet, until someone moved it. I went down to the garage to see how wet it had got and it was then that I actually stood in front of the dresser and looked at it. Even broken it was still very beautiful.

And then I saw myself, in that furniture. That sweet Rimu dresser which unbeknownst to us was only held together by three screws. Three screws which, no matter how carefully the dresser had been tied down, could not hold through nearly an hour’s driving and plenty of corners. I looked at it and in a flash I knew I was looking at myself.  

I’ve always felt as though I had a few design faults. Whether they developed as a result of  a complicated childhood, or whether they were just the quirks of my personality, I can’t be sure. I’ve been haunted by a feeling of different–ness, of being separate to the rest of the world. As if everybody else except me lived easily, made and kept friends, felt beautiful.

 Janet Frame’s fictional persona in “Faces in the Water” describes this as “a great gap… in the ice floe between myself and the other people whom I watched…with their world, drifting away… I was alone on the ice… a prisoner.” I don’t think you need to be suffering from severe mental illness, as Janet Frame was, to feel this. Probably most of us feel this way at some point in our lives.

So when I sing something beautiful, something good... I really mean what I’m singing. I’m familiar with brokenness and confusion, and if I am beautiful, if there is anything beautiful to come out of my life, I owe it all to God.

I realise this might make you uncomfortable, but I wouldn’t be writing those words here if I didn’t mean them. My whole life has been lived against the backdrop of an unshakable conviction that I am created and that my creator is merciful and loving. My ideas about God have changed enormously over the years. But one thing has never changed, and that is the sense that somehow, something beautiful is being made out of my life. I’m broken but beautiful.

birthdays and babies

She's two now, that baby of mine. She turned two on Thursday. She was pretty happy about it, she knew what was going on. We gave her some playdough tools and a puzzle. We'll do a joint party with Greer when we get to the new house.

It wasn't long ago that I was lamenting the fact that she was turning one. Well a year, that's not very long, at least it doesn't seem long any more. Back then I was joking about finding a recipe for a bonsai baby. And now she's two.

I didn't think I wanted a third baby. After Greer was born I spent months angst-ing over whether we were "done" or not. Oh I talked and wondered and talked and wondered and cried. It was such a difficult decision. Most people I knew seemed happy with two. Two was such a normal number. And as much as I loved my babies I hadn't overly enjoyed that immediate post-partum period. So, out of desperation to make up my mind, I decided I was done. We sold the cot. Then one day I was sitting behind a woman breastfeeding her newborn. I could hear the baby snuffling quietly as it fed, and suddenly it hit me. I wanted to hear that sound again. I wanted another baby!

I sat behind that woman with tears rolling down my face for an hour. All I could think about was her baby and the baby I had only just realised I wanted. I rang Paddy. "I want another baby" I told him, crying. He laughed and promised me we'd talk about it when I got home. It didn't take much to persuade him. And so we got our precious Abigail Hope.

We have enjoyed her so much I can't believe I ever thought we were done without her. She's such a treasure, and third time around everything was so much easier. She wasn't an easy baby, but I had the hindsight of knowing that the worst times with a baby never last forever.  And now that she's well past the baby stage, we still enjoy her. She makes us smile and laugh all the time. She's the most fascinating combination of sweet and feisty. And she makes me want another baby. She confirms to me, every day, that I am not done.

There is a slight technical issue though. You might remember I had my tubes tied at the same time as Abigail's c-section. Hers was my third caesarean, and I just presumed that was what was expected of me. As I told people who asked, "three is the magic number for caesareans." I hardly gave it any thought. It seemed the sensible, practical thing to do. And I was so blown away to be having a third baby at all, that three seemed like a huge family. I never imagined wanting more.

Then I met someone who had been told by her specialist she could have "as many c-sections as she wanted." Soon after that I found out that the writer of one of my favourite blogs had had three c-sections and was pregnant with her fourth child. I started feeling jealous. Then I read one bloggers' answer to "do you want more children?" and her post about the Catholic teaching on contraception, and I cried. I couldn't believe I had given up the ability to bear children so easily. I couldn't believe I'd done it with barely a thought.

Now I look at pregnant women wistfully and newborn babies longingly. Hardly a day has gone by in the last six months that I haven't wished I could get pregnant. I've had a tiny taste of the longing ache to have a child. And did you know there is such a thing as post-tubal ligation syndrome? I didn't, but it turns out I've got at least half of the symptoms. Sex hasn't been the same either. I've just felt, well, sterile. There's no other word for it.

Last week Paddy and I watched "The Blind Side," a movie based on a true story. If you haven't seen it it's the one with Sandra Bullock as the feisty Southern Mom who along with her family, takes in and eventually adopts "Big Mike." Michael is a boy they find wandering the streets and who ends up becoming a very successful football player. I started crying in the opening scenes, and kept crying, until it got to the point, about halfway through the movie, where I turned to Paddy and said, sobbing, "I can't watch this any more unless you say we can adopt!" He was teary-eyed himself, and he smiled and nodded. 

I don't know what this means for us exactly. All we know is that we are not done! Our hearts are open to the possibility of growing our family. I can't tell you how much this means to me. I don't know whether it means we will definitely adopt one day, or perhaps foster, or maybe even somehow, miraculously, get pregnant ourselves. All I know is I don't feel sterile any more, and that is a very good feeling.

Me and Gill Greer

We're still sick, but don't worry, that's not what I'm going to write about. Being sick has meant that there hasn't been much going on around here, except for a bit more time to read and think than normal. Plenty of time, actually, to get completely caught up in this post, the one that followed it, and the debate that ensued. When I say caught up, I don't mean I actually took part in the discussion, but I do mean I read avidly from the safety of my sick-bed on the other side of the world. It was one to watch, I tell you.

Abortion is something I never thought I'd be writing about here. I've been planning on writing about it, one day, when I'm grown up and all, but on a new blog I've had in the pipeline for a while, a blog that will explore some ideas around Christian feminism. So abortion, right, that was going to come up. Just not here.

But last week I read an article in The Listener about Gill Greer, the New Zealander who is Director General of International Planned Parenthood Federation. The article was part of a series which showcases kiwis overseas who are doing good things. Gill Greer was recently named among the "100 most inspiring people who have delivered for girls and women," and by the sounds of it, she's earnt it. She runs one of the world's largest organisations, and is an intelligent, compassionate and vocal advocate for women's health rights. And abortion, did I mention abortion?

Gillian Greer made an impression on me. She is a grandmother, was an English teacher, and seemed personable and interesting, someone I could easily have a coffee with.  So I was thinking of her when I read the arguments that went back and forth over in that corner of the internet. She put a face to the political dispute that's been broiling since the Republicans started pushing for the de-funding of Planned Parenthood in the United States.

Abortion has always been a complicated issue for me. My mother had an abortion, and I was conceived in the nine months succeeding. If she hadn't had that abortion, I wouldn't be here writing to you. To me, that's complicated. But it gets more complicated. When she realised she was pregnant with me, it was suggested that she have another abortion. Somehow she knew that this time she wanted the baby.

Someone else made an impression on me this week, the author of the post that started that enthralling pro-life/pro-choice debate. Calah writes about being a young Catholic mother. She's always honest, and often funny. But what she wrote in that post took my breath away. If there's anyone who is entitled to write about the decision to keep or abort a baby, she is.

"Amidst the debates swirling around about defunding Planned Parenthood, some oft-repeated catch phrases are being tossed around like word grenades. One of these are "women in crisis." I'm sick and tired of hearing about "women in crisis" and how they need access to emergency contraception and abortions. That is a huge, steaming pile of lies, propagated by people who like to murder babies. Women in crisis do not need access to abortions. What they need is love, support, a safe place to live, and people (even strangers!) who will tell them the truth: that they are more than capable of being a mother. That they can do this. That their crisis, no matter how terrible, will be healed in the long, sometimes painful, always joyful process of becoming a mother.
Think this makes me heartless, speaking from my comfortable suburban home, having never known trials in my cushy little life?
Think again.
When I got that positive pregnancy test, the one that changed my life, I was addicted to crystal meth."

While I've always been pro-life, I've never felt comfortable with the rhetoric and actions of most of that camp. Placards and feisty arguments don't seem to have won us any battles so far, and I can't see any evidence that they will in the future. Certainly, if all we do is alienate our opposition and make the women who choose to have abortions feel judged and condemned, then we are missing something, drastically.

Gill Greer is quoted in the Listener article as saying "I probably get less calm when people talk about themselves as pro-life. My response to that is - I'm pro-life, I just happen to be pro the woman's life, and I believe if she has the ability to make a safe legal choice as early as possible in her pregnancy, that's saving her life." If you read those words and all they do is make you angry, then read them again. This is a woman who genuinely cares about women and their families; she's just doing it in a way that I and many others don't agree with.

And yet. And this is where it gets even more complicated for me. I was brushing my teeth last night, thinking all of this over, when a realisation hit me with such force I just about choked on my toothbrush. I realised, for the first time in my life, that I'm grateful that my mother had access to a safe abortion.

Life is exquisite. No one can look at a newborn and deny it. For all of us, no matter what culture or place we live in, whether we are a man or a woman, child or adult, a new birth is a holy moment. It connects us with the wonder of this world we live in, it reminds us of the beauty and preciousness of each individual, and it reminds us, if we let it, that there is a bigger story to our lives, that we are part of something bigger than us.

But life is also very complicated. All of us have survived some measure of hurt and dysfunction in our upbringing, and all of us battle with the disappointment of being let down by others and by our own averageness. We've all made mistakes, and we all suffer the consequences. In the complexity that is my own life this is abundantly clear. And yet I look back and see cause for hope. I see a story being woven out of the random and sometimes ugly threads of my life that is ultimately good.

Abortion is damaging, not only literally for the life within but also for the mother. Gill Greer might not believe it but there are plenty of women who say they suffer from Post-Abortion Stress Syndrome.  We can't be silent about this. The stories of women who regret their abortions should be respected and listened to. But can we do this without completely alienating our opposition? Is there any way a respectful dialogue can happen between the pro-life and pro-choice camps?

I'd have a coffee with Gillian Greer. I'd listen to her stories and her heart-wrenching statistics. Then I'd talk to her about the stories I've heard, some very close to home. I'd ask her to make adoption an easier and more accessible option for women who come to Planned Parenting. I'd ask her to consider the reality that Post-Abortion Stress syndrome is for many women, and suggest that Planned Parenting be more open about the negative effects some women experience following an abortion. Am I nieve? Possibly. But I'm a dreamer, and where would we be without those?