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!

sixes and sevens

I'm all at sixes and sevens this week. Still tired, although not as people-weary as I was. This week everything felt difficult. I lost energy rather than gained it, and the house descended into more and more chaos as the days went on. Everything I did was undone as soon as I did it. The smell in the kids' toilet wouldn't go away, even after I cleaned it. Yesterday the kitchen floor was covered in crumbs five minutes after I'd swept it. There was no point.

It didn't help that Paddy and I had slipped back into our old pattern of confrontation, our bugbear. I sat on the toilet crying and realised, for the first time, that I don't have to wear it any longer. That I can fight this thing that brings out the worst in both of us. That I can say "no" with as much freedom as I say "yes."And at the same time, in such a funny contradictory way, I realised that I can wear it, I can take it, that I would lay myself down again and again for this marriage and this family of mine.

This morning I read a quote from Richard Rohr at Heather King's Shirt of Flame and cried.

Christians indeed have a strange image of God: a naked, bleeding man, dying on a cross. It's not what you would think the image of God could be or should be. Is God eccentric here, or is it we who have not diagnosed the human situation correctly?
Jesus receives our hatred and does not return it. He suffers and does not make the other suffer. He does not first look at changing others, but pays the price of change within himself. He absorbs the mystery of human sin rather than passing it on. He does not use his suffering and death as power over others to punish them, but as power for others to transform them.

I read Luke 6 while I was crying on the toilet this week. You know, turn the other cheek, give your coat to the one who steals your shirt. This is how Eugene Peterson paraphrases it in The Message:

To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person. If someone slaps you in the face, stand there and take it. If someone grabs your shirt, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously. Here is a simple rule of thumb for behaviour: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them!

This is possibly the hardest, most misunderstood thing that Jesus ever taught. If we think it's describing a passive, gutless life, then we should think again. Jesus was not a victim. He could have walked away from the cross. Instead he was steadfast and unflinching, and what he accomplished was possible because he took his fate willingly. Giving is always a choice.


Luke 6 in The Message goes on like this;

Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticise their faults - unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don't condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you'll find life a lot easier. Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back - given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity.


I realise now, right now, that there are things in our marriage and in the daily grind of motherhood that I have subconsciously felt victim to, that I have felt I had no choice but to accept. That invisible victim-hood was a quiet, small fire that fueled on-going resentment. Resentment doesn't stay hidden, and it brings along its sister bitterness with it. Those two are a no-fail recipe for a hard heart.

I washed Abigail's feet this morning in the bathroom basin. She had run around in bare feet all day yesterday and I had forgotten to do it before I tucked her in last night. I was about to put socks on her this morning when I saw how filthy they were. I couldn't bring myself to put clean socks on all that dirt. She was happy as I gently rubbed her feet in the warm water. Even happier when I let her put some soap on her own hands and join in. Then I sat on the toilet with her on my knee and dried those two small feet. And I realised that service is the embodiment of my love for her, and the best way (along with physical affection) that I can assure her of that love.

I could walk away from it all. I could walk away from the battles, the impossible effort it seems to truly know and understand another person. I could walk away from the smelly toilet, the crumbs on the floor, and the weariness that chases me whichever way I turn. I could say no to all of it. But I won't.

tired

I know I've written this before, but I'm very tired. We are at the end of two weeks' school holidays, and it has been lovely having the girls at home, but a bit too busy for my liking. Somehow the days turned into a blur of social visits and errands. And added to that, I've developed a bad habit of staying up too late. It's not a winning combination!

Tomorrow we are heading off to our church camp for the long weekend. The girls are beside themselves with excitement, and we'll have a great time. But I have to say that the thought of spending all weekend with large numbers of people just makes me feel even more tired.

It's taken me nearly all of my life to admit that I really am an introvert. I used to think I was an extrovert. I'm pretty outgoing and I love people. I remember at one point a long time ago thinking "why would I ever want to sit in a room by myself and write?" Now I'm in no doubt at all. All I want to do is sit in a room by myself and write!

I read this post at Conversion Diary about being overwhelmed and it made me think back to the days when I couldn't even recognise let alone understand my emotional state. I've experienced exhaustion and burnout more than once. For me, they have always triggered depression. But even though I had helpful counselling each time, I never recognised that part of my exhaustion was related to my introverted-ness. I was an introvert living like an extrovert and it was almost killing me.

Now I get it. I'm tired right now, not just because I've been staying up too late, but because I just haven't had much time to myself over the last two weeks. In the past this feeling would have had me worried that I was doing too much, and the feeling of wanting everyone else to go away and stop talking to me would have made me think I was on the road towards burnout again. But now I understand, that feeling is simple. It just means I need everyone else to go away and stop talking to me!

In her post about being overwhelmed, Jenn at Conversion Diary describes the emergency "burnout gas mask" steps she takes as soon as she starts feeling overwhelmed. I like the idea of having steps that I have already thought through and default to automatically as soon as I start to feel really tired or overwhelmed. These would be mine. As in, I should be following them right now.

1. Quiet.

2. Sleep.

3. Write.

4. Time alone.

Unfortunately not all of these things are completely within my control. I'll have to ask for help. But I know that if I don't, I'll only feel worse. It's a no-brainer really.

meet my enemy

Meet our stove. It looks pretty innocuous, right, a very ordinary stove. But don't be deceived. This stove is a menace. I've been cooking on this stove for nearly four months now, since we moved here in June, and I can tell you, this stove is nasty!

Let me tell you why. Only one element can actually be turned down. The other three just burn and burn. The largest one in particular gets so hot that I'm scared I'll hurt myself. And it's only got one setting. Burning hot. It turns off, but it will not turn down. 

In the first weeks after we moved here I swore a lot in the kitchen. I even cried a couple of times. Every pot we own now has black on the bottom. I've burnt everything from rice to potatoes, eggs and even the onion and carrot I was trying to sweat to make soup. Tell me how am I supposed to cook something on a low heat when none of the elements produce a low heat? 

I can tell you I've tried everything. I've had two elements on at the same time, one being small and therefore slightly (slightly!) cooler than the other, and I've moved the pot from one to the other. I've tried every element and every setting on every element, going through all the options in case I'd missed the magic combination. I've even resorted to standing in front of the stove and lifting the pan about fifteen centimetres off the element and cooking that way. (It still cooks!) Everything boils over at some point, so the trays under the element are covered in black and often with a little pool of old cooking water that burns up the next time I use that element and stinks the house out.

So after the first two months we realised the stove had to go, and we started making plans to buy a new one. Now, sitting in the kitchen next to the said stove, is a second hand but shiny and beautiful stove. It's gas top and electric oven, it's big, and it's getting installed today. We won't know ourselves! 

When I finally got to show mum how bad our stove was she couldn't believe we'd put up with it so long. I told another friend about it and her reaction was the same. "It must drive you mad!" was her reaction, or something along those lines. 

The funny thing is that after I admitted how bad that stove was, and once we'd decided to eventually get a new one, the stove stopped making me mad. I even stopped swearing about it (mostly!) The food was still burning, and the pots were still turning black, but it didn't get to me anymore. I just expected it.

I was thinking about this one day this week, on a day when Abigail was being particularly trying. It was one of those days where she was climbing on the tables, opening the fridge and helping herself to a glass of milk, getting the bread out and trying to make her own lunch, and throwing the girls' best coloured pencils all over the floor. It was the kind of day that when Paddy wakes up from his day's sleeping and comes out to see us the first thing he hears from my mouth is "that baby is driving me nuts!"

But somehow, in the midst of cleaning the honey off the floor, and picking up the coloured pencils for the umpteenth time, my frazzled brain managed to make the connection between my frustration with Abigail and my frustration with the stove. And I realised I'd started to feel like Abigail, that sweet two year old of mine, was my enemy.

Now I was smart enough to know, once I'd figured that much out, that there was no point in going down that track. If I continued to see that two year old as the source of all my problems and frustration I would only end up more frustrated, and she would probably end up on the unfortunate end of a fair bit of venting. And that wouldn't be fair on her. 

So I'm adjusting my expectations. I'm no longer surprised when she chucks the girls' pencils all over the floor. I hardly blink when she grabs a glass and helps herself to water out of the water dispenser. I merely make a murmur of disapproval when she helps herself to the milk and pours it, half into the cup and half on the floor. And I now know that she's capable of getting herself a slice of bread from the fridge and helping herself to the pourable honey from the pantry. These things no longer take me by surprise. And I'm reminding myself that she won't be two forever.

Frustration can be blinding. We rarely think straight when we are frustrated. And frustration leads to resentment and resentment becomes a weight that's very hard to shift. It makes us desperate for a scape goat, desperate to lay the blame somewhere, because if we are going to feel this bad we might as well have a good reason for it. 

That stove wasn't my enemy, it was just a malfunctioning stove, and Abigail's not my enemy either, of course. She's just a very determined two year old, who will only be two for eight more months. Right now I should be giving her breakfast, but she wouldn't let me put her in the high chair. She wanted to join in the with the big girls' game of school. So she sat down on a little chair in front of them and turned the pages of an old biology text book, and talked to herself about "buzzy bees." Then while I was writing this she came over to the servery behind me, reached up and grabbed Isobella's bowl of half-eaten cereal, and pulled up a chair. She's sitting next to me eating it now with an adult size spoon, and the milk is going all the way down her front and onto the chair. At least I'm not surprised!

Poetry Friday : Instructions for how to get ahead of yourself while the light still shines

If you have a bike, get on it at night
and go to the top of the Brooklyn Hill.

When you reach the top
start smiling - this is Happy Valley Road.

Pedal at first, then let the road take you down
into the dark as black as underground
broken by circles of yellow lowered by the street lights.

As you come to each light
you will notice a figure
racing up behind.
Don't be scared
this is you creeping up on yourself.
As you pass under the light
you will sail past yourself into the night.

Jenny Borhholdt, Miss New Zealand: selected poems
(Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1997)

Because this poem has always made me smile!

More Poetry Friday once it's Friday at Great Kid Books.

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.

wild places

We're back. We started packing and cleaning last night, carried on packing and cleaning this morning, got in the car at about eleven, got home this afternoon, and then started unpacking and doing washing. I'm sitting here surrounded by drying racks covered in washing, with more waiting in the laundry to hang out tomorrow. Where does it all come from? How much energy is wasted over the globe with our modern (and privileged) obsession with clean clothing? With clothing, for that matter. But that's another story...

We had a great holiday. We had down time, family time, fun and adventure. It's not everywhere in the world that you can jump in your car and drive to see scenes like this.

The steaming ground in this geothermal area was punctuated with craters and blow holes. In a couple of places the craters were filled with mud that bubbled and blew steam out of large holes. The noise was amazing, it was like the ground was alive. I'd hardly given a thought to what was beneath me while we had been back in town, in our safe and tidy suburban house. And yet only a short drive away the ground was roaring, wild and inhospitable.

We saw water roaring, too. We visited a dam yesterday and watched the gates open. The water poured out in torrents and steadily filled the first pool immediately beneath the gates of the dam. Then all of a sudden it burst through the narrow rocky gap below, churning and bubbling.

This:

Became this:

The noise alone was breathtaking. It was the like the thunder of a hundred waterfalls. I thought about Psalm 42:7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and billows  have swept over me. 
This roar was man made, but we'd seen the same force of water rushing at Huka Falls the day before. There the water rushed through a narrow gap in the rocks and poured out in a torrent over the lip of the falls. It's waterfalls and boiling ground, earthquakes and hurricanes that remind us how fragile and momentary our lives are.

As we drove down the motorway into the city today I felt myself sigh, a kind of resigned sigh. The holiday was over too quickly. But as we got nearer to home and the roads wound down through the bush and out to the harbour, my spirits lifted. I can't tell you how surreal it was, to have been on holiday in suburbia, where trucks roared past on the main road behind us, and then to have come home to this quiet paradise.

Packing the kitchen

We are packing to go away again. This time to Taupo, where there is a chance of snow! We are going away with Paddy's family to celebrate his mother's seventieth birthday.

The kitchen bench is covered with food from the pantry, waiting to be packed into bags. I want to take as much food as possible, partly to save money, but mostly because we have some interesting dietary requirements in this family and it's easier to have the ingredients so we can still do all our normal cooking and baking at home. And we can't do baking without baking equipment! A sieve, the scales, a large round cake tin so we can make a birthday cake for Gran, the slice tin I use for the oaty slice I make all the time, and two muffin tins. (I'm so excited about this gluten-free whole grain muffin recipe.) When Paddy sees the enormous pile he's going to have a fit. It's not like we have a big car.

I'm not much of a chef, I'm useless at chopping, and I can never get the timing of things right, but I like cooking. I especially like cooking when I'm not rushed. Baking in particular can be calming and grounding. Collecting and then measuring ingredients, mixing and pouring. Even better if no one is talking to me while I do  it.

When I clicked over to Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef just now to find that muffin recipe, Shauna was writing about a fellow food writer who has just very sadly and unexpectedly lost her husband. This friend, who has been supported amazingly through this funny thing we call the internet, had to decide whether to keep the summer holiday plans that had been made before her husband passed away. A holiday to a cottage they go to, or had gone to, every year. She decided to go for the sake of her girls, and told Shauna that three whole bags out of their luggage were for the kitchen. The kitchen is a good place to do grieving.

I'm not grieving, but I can't imagine going on holiday and not cooking. If it means taking less clothes to make space, then so be it. Cooking brings people together, it makes us more mindful about what we eat, and it is one of the simple yet so meaningful ways we can love each other. A friend from church recently had a new baby and a few of us made some meals for the family. Now sitting in the bottom of the church freezer are a random collection of plastic containers, all labelled with the handwriting of the person who made the meal. A vegetable pasta bake, sultana cake, shepherd's pie. The scrawled writing on the top a clear reminder to my friend that someone was thinking of her when they were in the kitchen.

I watched this emotional short film this week. I found it, bumped into it, on Pentimiento. It may make you cry, but I promise you it is worth it.


This was grace - short film from Andrew Laparra on Vimeo.

This is the story of a family, of a mother and father who have a special needs child. One of the first scenes is of the mother feeding her son. It's a simple, probably exhausting task, that happens many times a day, day in and day out. Yet it connects her to him. By feeding him she is loving him, sustaining him, serving him.

The pre-dinner rush on a normal week is often one of the most stressful times of the day. I hope that while we are on holiday we get the chance to appreciate the wonderful thing that it is, to have each other and to feed each other.

home

It's two months yesterday since we moved, and it has taken nearly that long for me to call this place home. Even just a week or so ago I inadvertently referred to our old place as "home" and found myself choking back the tears. The context was a conversation about the horrific power bill we received for our first month here. Even when we divided up the bill between us and Mum, we were left with an amount that was almost twice what it would have been at our old place.

We knew our old place. It was dry and easy to heat. We had gas hot water and a shiny gas fireplace that we could turn on any time with no effort. We'd knocked down a wall, put in a new kitchen and bathroom, painted the walls and polished the floors. It wasn't perfect but it was lovely.

This place is the opposite of that one in every way. Where the old place was small, this place is gigantic. Where the old place was dry, this place has leaks and drainage problems. The old place was shiny and easy, and this place, well, it isn't shiny or easy.

But I wouldn't go back. When I wrote to you just before we moved I told you that this move was like "pushing open an enormous and heavy door with all of our weight, and then slamming it shut behind us."
And that is exactly how it has felt.

I visited our old place a few weeks ago. It's the same house, but it's not ours any more. It is lovely and shiny, but it's also very small, and there's no bush or beach. Just a street of ordinary houses in suburbia.

I was happy to live in suburbia, once. Suburbia has conveniences which should not be sniffed at. My sister and her family lived over the road, and we were friends with our neighbours. We had shops in both directions and several beaches and parks within a ten minute drive. Our backyard was tidy and fenced, and just big enough for the kids to play out there for hours.

But then in November last year we found a property for sale (not this one) on two acres of bush. You could stand on the deck and look out over a valley of green, and in the distance, when the wind was in the right direction, the low rumble of faraway surf rolled in. I felt like I was looking into my own heart.

We missed out on that house, and decided just to stay put and enjoy our finished renovations for a while. Then one day in February Mum and I drove past the For Sale sign for this place. I knew straight away we needed to see it. We rang the agent and made an appointment for that week, and we put in an offer the very night after we saw it. It wasn't a difficult decision.

This place is everything we were longing for. We can walk through our bush to get to the beach you see in those photos above. I can see the water from where I'm sitting at the dining table.The tide is in and the water is green. The bush above it on the other side of the estuary is glowing in the sun. Other than the birds, the hum of this laptop, and the occasional scratch from the dog lying at the front door, it is silent.

But it's not just this place that's so good, it's all the places we are close to. Last week I went for a drive with Abigail and found a deserted beach at the end of a gravel road. The water was high and clear, and I stood at the edge and looked out to the wide, wild harbour entrance. It was that same view, eight years ago, from a different spot, that had brought sudden tears to my eyes. It was before we owned houses or had children, and we were exploring, wondering where we might like to live one day. We happened to go out to Huia, a little settlement on a quiet bay near the mouth of the harbour. Standing on the deck of a house that was for sale I looked out at that harbour entrance and suddenly began crying. I think that was the first time I felt like I was looking into my own heart.

We live ten minutes down the road from Huia now. We drove out there with the dog on Sunday afternoon. It was wet and windy and we were wrapped up in jackets and hats. We drove to Huia and went to the sole store, which also does takeaways and coffees. We sat by the window beside an old tea trolley covered with magazines and picture books and ate hot chips. Afterwards we walked along the beach towards the playground and dusk fell. We were cold and very happy.

I never knew I needed to live so close to this harbour. I couldn't have imagined how much I was longing for wild places, to live in wild places. But now it seems obvious. And it feels like I can get on with my life.  If there are any words, any stories for me to write, they are here. All my dreams, every hopeful imagining. Here where wild tides meet and sea birds soar over wind currents. Where the eye can see for miles without obstruction, over oceans and back again.

Ma blew out the lamp

I finished reading Little House in the Big Woods to the girls on Friday night. We sat on the couch all three of us in our pyjamas and we read eagerly, because it was the final chapter. I never read this as a child, others in the series yes, but not the first. I've really enjoyed it, and the girls have too. I wondered what they'd make of it, with its stories of hunting and harvesting and snow, a world so foreign to them. But they've loved it as much as I have.

As we read the last scene I found tears rolling down my face! There was something so perfect and peaceful about it. Laura and Mary are tucked up in bed at the end of another busy day, with Ma and Pa sitting by the fire.


When Laura and Mary had said their prayers and were tucked snugly under the trundle bed's covers, Pa was sitting in the firelight with the fiddle. Ma had blown out the lamp because she did not need its light. On the other side of the hearth she was swaying gently in her rocking chair and her knitting needles flashed in and out above the sock she was knitting.

It was when I read that Ma blew out the lamp that I started crying. I looked up from the book at the fully-lit room around us, the computer screen on the TV glowing, the lights blazing in the dining room and kitchen. I couldn't imagine turning out the lights. There was too much work still to do. I kept on crying, because something in me was yearning for the simplicity of a life where the day's work is all but finished at sundown.

I constantly feel like I am surrounded by unfinished work. I've been going to bed so late because there is always something else to do. My life feels complicated. Until the girls started school last week I would often go for days feeling like I could hardly hear myself think.

Ma's days were busy. Her responsibilities were huge. She provided for her family without a fridge or freezer, without so much as a corner shop. Almost everything they used and ate was made, grown or caught by them. Life was hard. Yet after dinner, with a fire flickering, Ma rocked gently and knitted.

What did she have that I am missing?

My spiritual director went on Sabbatical a couple of years ago. I remember talking to her about it before she left. She talked about the plans she had for the three months she was going to be away and she was quietly thrilled. I shared the anticipation with her, and then, not able to avoid wishing I was going on a sabbatical of my own, I found myself crying. (Yes, more tears, I know.) Tears of jealousy? No, longing.

And she said to me, I'll never forget it, she said to me so kindly, "Oh Idoya, there's heaven you know." I knew exactly what she meant.

I know that for many of you heaven is the stuff of fairy tales, and I didn't actually plan on writing about it today. Yet I can't help believing that there is a longing for it in all of us. A longing for a life free of heavy responsibility and never-ending work, free of grief that would bury us, and regrets that haunt us. A simple, joyful and fulfilling life. Somewhere deep down I know I was made for it.

still re-modelling the dream

It's two o'clock in the afternoon and I'm sitting at the dining table eating lunch. Abigail is in bed and my two big girls are nearly at the end of their first day at school. I almost can't believe what I've just written. The decision to send them to school has happened so quickly, I'm still in shock.

Homeschooling was never something I planned on doing. As I've told you before, I once swore I would "never" homeschool.  Ha. Those words came back to haunt me when, as Isobella was about to turn five, the dream of a homeschooling life crept into my heart. At that stage Isobella had petit-mal epilepsy that was not yet controlled by medication, and it seemed cruel and counter-productive to send her to school.

I started reading and thinking about homeschooling. Through books such as Teach Your Own by John Holt, and through the internet and blogs I found along the way, a whole world opened up to me. Not a small, sheltered and narrow world, as I had assumed, but a wide and fascinating world, full of intelligent parents who were passionate about giving their children a holistic and broad education, while still giving them plenty of time and space to play. This blog, and this blog were the first blogs I ever read, and those families enchanted me with their other-worldy life of books and nature and freedom.

 Just before Isobella turned six, we had to decide whether we were going to continue homeschooling. To my surprise I found that school seemed like a good option, and Isobella agreed wholeheartedly. Isobella was happy at school, she made friends and had a great teacher, but she didn't thrive the way I'd expected her to. When people asked how school was going I'd say "school's fine." Then after six months I realised that it was okay for me to want more than just "fine" for my daughter.

So over a year ago now, we decided to go back homeschooling.  It was an answer to the cry of my heart. I realised that not only had school not been good for her, it hadn't been good for me either. I had turned myself inside out to find a morning routine that got us to school on time, and I found the after-school pick-up almost as stressful. The decision to go back to homeschooling felt like us deciding to be us. It felt like I was saying, to myself and to the world, we're a little different, and we need to do things a little differently.

I've loved teaching my girls. I found that I'd rather be teaching my own kids than anyone else's. And as I've written before, homeschooling "made me the mother I'd always wanted to be." It taught me to just be. It gave me permission to step out of the busy world of pre-school activities and be mostly at home. It taught me that there were no commitments in my life that were more important than my children, and it forced me regularly to be completely present with them.

Most importantly, homeschooling gave Isobella the space and freedom to be herself at a time when her self-concept as a learner was most vulnerable. She told me after we took her out of school that the boys had teased her for her "scribbly" writing and drawing.  She had often been on the list of kids who had to finish their stories at lunchtime. And sometimes she would bring readers home that completely bored her. It was so good for her to be able to do her own thing at home.

Then in May this year I took Greer out of kindy a term early and started homeschooling her as well, because I knew she was ready for it. I couldn't see it at the time, but actually, that changed nearly everything. Greer quickly flourished, and one day during her first week of "official" homeschooling, I looked at the two of them working up at the table and the thought came to me in a flash, those girls are going to love school when they get there.

One night a couple of months ago I had a dream. In the dream Isobella was at school, and she was happy. When I woke up the next morning the dream sat in my heart like a half-open door. I tried to pretend it didn't mean anything, but the dream wouldn't go away. It scared and thrilled me at the same time. And so we started thinking about school again.

I found myself admitting things I hadn't admitted to myself before. I did find it a challenge teaching both girls. Their needs were very different, and I often felt like I had to be constantly on point to keep Isobella on task and to keep up with Greer. And then there was Abigail, whose daily mission was to climb up onto the table as many times as possible! I realised that I had been unconsciously withdrawing from the girls at breakfast time, in preparation for a morning of school work, and then withdrawing from them again at lunch time because my brain had just had enough. Afternoons had to be outside play or rest time, because by then I had simply run out of words. I don't know how other introverts do homeschooling, but I think if we had carried on I would have got very worn out.

I've shed more than a few tears over this decision. I felt like sending the girls to school was giving up on the dream that was so precious to me. I wondered how Isobella would cope, and I feared the return to a family life lived according to an institutional timetable. But since we first started talking about it the girls have not changed their minds. To say they were keen to start school would be an understatement.

It's taken me three days to write this post and it's now Wednesday. The girls have settled into school easily. They are in love with the library, have both joined the group that helps with the worm farm, caught the school bus home yesterday, and will be catching it again in about half an hour. I'll put Abigail in the buggy soon after three, put the dog on his leash, and walk up the road in the sun to meet them.

But I don't think I'll ever be a typical school mum. I don't feel any different this week, with the girls in school, to last week, when they were at home. I don't see school as the perfect answer to their education, and we didn't stop homeschooling because it wasn't working. After three days at school Greer is already saying she is bored with maths. She wants to count to one hundred, not to ten.

And that's the thing, see. We can do that. We can count to one hundred all afternoon and all weekend if she wants. I won't completely pack up our homeschool things, and if Isobella still wants to write stories with me I'll be in heaven.

Reading over the other posts I've written about homeschooling has been hard. I've felt tears pricking as I read. And it's been surprising to see how similar each stage of the journey has been. None of the decisions along the way were easy. Each of them was accompanied by tears and deliberation. And each time I felt pulled, as I do now, in both directions. School, good. Home, good.

I'm seeing something now that I never saw before. We really don't fit neatly into either the school or the homeschool box. My girls crave the stimulation and company that school gives them, and yet, for various reasons, they don't naturally slip into their place in the system that is a public school. I know that school will not meet all of their needs. And yet I have a gut feeling that somehow, despite that, they will thrive.

And then there's me. It's not like I'll be sitting around twiddling my thumbs. There's no question that this house is a job in itself, and there is plenty of work to be done on our business projects. And what about all those words I haven't had the time or head space to write? We had a big chat about school with the girls one night before we shifted.  They were so keen on the idea that I was taken aback. "If you girls go to school, what will I do at home all day?" I asked, half teasing, half choking back the tears. "Write, Mama," Isobella piped up immediately. "Write!"

where I've been

I spent last week in Raglan, one of my two favourite places. It's the small seaside town my mother grew up in, where I went to for holidays and where I lived for a while as a child. It's where my mother's sister and brother still live, and it gave me the story I've been working on for a while. The one I'm ever hopeful might (magically?) turn into a book one day.

We looked after my Auntie's house while she was away. We ate fish and chips on the beach, we went for a drive with my Uncle, we walked everywhere. To the beach, to the shops, to the library, back home again.  We had friends come to visit, we drove out to the surf beach and the kids ran wild through the wind. 

I didn't really want to come home. I've been saying that by moving house it feels like we've moved into a job, and it's true. We really have moved into a job. One with incredible rewards, and one that brings us great joy, but a job nonetheless. So it was nice to run away for a bit, to have a few days where there wasn't much I had to do or worry about.

I know Raglan well. My girls know it too. I've been going down with them at least once a year since Isobella was born. They love it. They know the beach, the park, the string of shops, the library.

It's a gift, in this complicated and time-poor life we live, to know somewhere as well as we know Raglan. I sat in the little Union church my grandmother attended, and remembered all the times I'd sat in those pews as a child. Church has always been fairly quiet there, unlike the churches I grew up in, and it was quiet on Sunday morning. I felt peace well up within me, that feeling of being somewhere I belonged. The pastors' voice was gentle, the small congregation were silent, and every now and then I'd hear the sound of a car driving past on the main road behind me. The same sounds I'd sat listening to as a child. I remembered.

here's why I love the internet

A few months ago I was looking around here and there and I found this blog.

Now before you start thinking I'm flash and click away I'm not. I have no idea how to make that image into a link. If you do, please tell me. Until someone does, you're going to have to keep reading until you get to the actual link. It's coming.

This blog is pure genius. An agnostic and an atheist are spending 2011 going to church every Sunday. And they really are. They are going to church on Sundays and blogging about it.

The reviews of the churches they've been visiting make good reading. They're occasionally cutting, often irreverent, but always genuine. The pair have even found a church called The Bridge they actually like and want to go back to. Amanda, in particular, is witty and insightful. I like her honest and intelligent perspective. Her stories of visiting everything from The Bridge, a rough bunch of people who meet in a warehouse, to a rainbow church on Gay pride day, are fascinating and sometimes even inspiring.

Take this post, for example. Amanda writes about how on basically the crappiest day of her life, she got a message from Donna, one of the pastors at The Bridge, inviting her out for drinks. The message left her complaining that Donna was "making it really hard for me not to believe in God anymore." She goes on to write "because no matter how ugly it gets... I haven't lost the ability to see beauty everywhere... In the church pews, in my children's faces...in amazing conversations..." She even says "because of the heathenous things we write on this blog, Joel and I are probably the two most prayed-for souls in all of Portland, Oregon, but this was the first time I ever really FELT those prayers, welcomed them even."

Amanda promises us she's not on the road to "accepting Jesus Christ as my personal saviour" but she has decided to start reading the bible, along with The Bridges' booze and bible study group "Red Letter Pub". She's been won over by that Pastor Donna, and says " I don’t have to believe in Jesus to want to surround myself with people doing their damnedest to live like him"

And there you have, in one sentence, why I love the internet. Out of the mouth of a self-confessed "heathen", on one of the most random blogs I've found, were words that impacted me more than any song, book or sermon.  "People doing their damnedst to live like Jesus" is the best description of a Christian I've found. It cuts me to the core.

But before you think I"m going to get all serious on you, here's the other reason why I love the internet.

Yeah I know, this guy has been around for years, but last week he made my day. It's been pretty crazy here, finishing off the mammoth drainage operation we have undertaken, and rushing to get the downstairs flat habitable before our tenant moves in next weekend. We've reached that uncomfortable stage of starting to run out of both money and time... So there's plenty of potential for stress. But this guy was just what we needed.

Now as you probably know, this is Gary. He's become rather famous since he posted himself on you tube lip-synching to this song by the band O-Zone. (I think those Bros boys must have some secret Romanian love children!) The band themselves never made it even half as big as Gary did, as he's the second most watched video on the internet, and I think I know why. Gary knows how to have a good time without even trying. His unabashed silliness reminds us all how much fun we can have when we give up worrying about what other people think.

Thanks to Gary we've all been dancing and singing to our heart's content, and laughing like we haven't laughed since the night a couple of weeks ago we all got high on carpet glue! Even the baby sings it. "Maia - hii, Maia haa, Maia hoo, Maia ha ha!!!" 

And me, well, the truth is I've been singing it the most. So much so that even the kids have started getting sick of it! But I'm not ashamed. Because when I sing it my heart lifts and I remember that there is more to life than drains and mud and walls that need painting. In fact, strange as it is, that song makes me think of heaven.  About that unimaginable after where everything will make sense. It might be a tacky love song made famous by a random guy sitting in front of his computer, but it reminds me that one day the complicated and heavy weight that this life often is will one day be lifted.

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.

the party

floors and birthday cakes

It's one-thirty on Saturday morning. There's a pavlova in the oven, nearly ready to come out. One birthday cake is sitting in mum's oven to keep the ants off it, and another birthday cake is sitting beside our oven, waiting for the oven to cool before I tuck it a way for the night. The dishwasher is on, but the bench is covered with dirty dishes. The rest of the house is tidy but filthy. Tomorrow I'll do some cleaning, make another cake and some chocolate crackles, and we'll be almost done. I'm sure I'll be screaming like a banshee at the last minute, yelling orders at anyone within earshot and trying to blow up balloons and brush my teeth at the same time. But it will be worth it.

I could have just flagged the idea of any party at all, given the circumstances. Anyone else with half a brain would have. We've been in this place three weeks today, and since Monday we've spent every hour we can scraping a vile sticky lining off the floor with the help of a wallpaper steamer. It's been one of those jobs that seems like it will never end. Last night I was up until 1am steaming and scraping the last of the disgusting stuff off the floor of the room which will eventually be our bedroom.

I've spent moments all week suppressing the panic that threatened to rise whenever I thought about twenty kids and a party, here. Right here on these floors which are almost completely covered with dust and mud. Right here where we are in the middle of playing musical bedrooms to try and find the rooms that are the least asthma-inducing, and where we're currently sleeping in two out of seven bedrooms, with the kids' clothes, books and toys in one room, and their beds in another!

But I'm not one to pass up a good opportunity for a party, and I couldn't imagine Greer turning five without one. It seemed a sensible idea at the time to combine Abigail's second birthday party with Greer's fifth, although I probably could have just had a quiet family afternoon tea for Abigail, and let Greer have the party all to herself, saving myself from having to make and ice two birthday cakes at once. Why do I do these things?

It wasn't so bad though, doing two cakes at once. I think it might have even cured me of a little birthday cake perfectionism. Now when I say "birthday cake perfectionism" I know what you are thinking. Let me get one thing straight. I am not talking about perfect birthday cakes in the way you are thinking perfect birthday cakes. Oh no! My birthday cakes don't look like the kind of cakes a true "birthday cake perfectionist" makes. But I know my inner perfectionist. She doesn't turn up that often but one of the things she turns up for is birthday cakes. I know because I had a moment when I couldn't find the cake recipe I always use, and went madly looking through several boxes to no avail. I know, because I had to catch my breath and tell myself some home truths when I couldn't find my favourite butter icing recipe and had to use another one, and it just wasn't right. On another night, I might have chucked out a whole batch of icing and started again. But not tonight. Tonight was not the night to be a perfectionist about anything.

So I decided, as I was being ok with things not being completely ok, that when it comes to birthday cakes, I've got the impressionist style down pat. Take Abi's cake for example. Hers is a "2" with light green butter icing, with chocolate finger biscuits arranged around the edges as a fence, and her favourite animal figurines on top. It kind of gives you the idea of a farmyard scene. Abi's not going to notice that the chocolate fingers are all broken at slightly different lengths, or that the butter icing has plenty of brown cake crumbs poking through and is solid, rather than fluffy. And then there's Greer's cake, a kind of whimsical garden with cats wandering through it. Ah yes, of course, you say, that's exactly what I would have imagined on a five year old's birthday cake! It's got spearmint lollies on toothpicks for trees, japanese crackers for a path, and pumpkin seeds for grass. And the icing was a quite lovely egg shell kind of blue, but since I iced it a couple of hours ago it has turned a shade reminiscent of old playdough, as Paddy so kindly pointed out. But the cats look like they are having a great time.

My mum was never into themed and fancy birthday cakes. I don't know whether it was just that she was carefully avoiding the pressure, or because she preferred a cake that was simple and good to eat, or because she genuinely didn't feel confident with those kind of things. I remember seeing birthday cake cookbooks at other people's houses, and gazing longingly at swimming pools made of jelly, and trains with carriages overflowing with sweets and chocolate. Then mum found a recipe for a hedgehog cake with chocolate buttons as spines and we were all delighted. We had "Harriet the Hedgehog" birthday cakes for years in a row, and never suffered birthday cake envy again.

It's funny the things that make the difference in a childhood. The things that still warm us on the inside when we remember them. All I can hope for is that some where in the craziness that tomorrow's party will be, Greer makes herself one of those memories. I think there's a good chance she will. And I'm pretty sure it won't be anything to do with my butter icing.