how it is in january

At the beginning of the month we had a lovely visit from my good friend Marita who lives in Sydney. I got to meet her husband and gorgeous baby girl for the first time. We walked down through our bush to the beach, and then back up and along the bush walk that follows the cliff at the edge of the beach. I still pinch myself sometimes. I can't believe that we live so close to all of this.

I've been taking the dog for a quick walk along that bush walk most mornings. I can leave the kids watching TV for twenty minutes, (which doesn't seem too much like neglect when there's usually at least one other adult somewhere in the building!) and get a brisk walk in the bush.We walk along a winding path and then up a steep set of stairs to get to the view you see in the third photograph. That's a stand of young kauri trees right on the edge of the cliff. They are so small, they really look like they've only just begun and yet they could be one hundred, two hundred years old. Then we walk back down the stairs again and as we descend it's like entering a vast room, with the green canopy above us, and the morning sunlight streaming in, the gaps in the trees our windows.

It's really only just started feeling like summer. It rained for the first half of the month. We are going away to Mum's bach on the Manukau heads today, our first holiday. If we had a boat, we could boat over there in about twenty minutes. Instead we will drive back into town and all the way around this enormous harbour, and get to the other side in about an hour an a half. It seems funny to live on one side of the harbour, and holiday on the other, but would it matter if we spent our lives exploring and knowing only one small part of the world? Would that be any less fulfilling than knowing many places superficially? Actually, I want both. I want to know my corner of the world so well that I can read the land, the water, the trees like a book. And then I want to go everywhere else at least once.

I wrote last time about the madness of cleaning this huge house with the girls home on holiday, but mostly it's been anything but mad around here. The girls have got into this lovely groove of playing together and exploring and making things. They are more content and happy with themselves than I've seen for ages. I know most other mums will be saying that their kids can't wait to get back to school, and that they can't wait for them to go either, but I'm just not like that. The girls are are supposed to start school next week but to be honest, I'm having trouble drumming up any enthusiasm for it. The holidays have left me wistful and wondering, and that's all I have to say about that, for now.

monday

I had a bit of a melt down on Monday. Monday is the day I try to get most of the cleaning done. As a teenager and young adult I resisted my mother's weekly cleaning schedule kicking and screaming all the way, but as the years have gone by and I've added on a husband and children, weekly cleaning has seemed more and more reasonable. Now that we are out here in this enormous house in the bush, it's a necessity. By the time a week rolls around you can see the dust piled up in the corners, and the dog hair and the sand, and the mud and the dead insects. So Monday is cleaning day, and that's just how it is.

It's still holidays of course, so getting the house cleaned with three tag-alongs is an undertaking, even in the best of circumstances. I decided to turn it into challenge for the two big girls, with manageable tasks, and plenty of rewards. We started off really well. They tidied the floors of their bedrooms, cleaned the vanities in the two bathrooms, and had a go at cleaning the toilets too, after I'd done most of the job . They were pretty happy, but I hadn't even started the vacuuming, because I had to manage them all the way, and we were more than half-way through the morning. I started vacuuming while they carried on in the bedrooms and unloaded the dishwasher, and then it all fell apart. Abigail had turned the dishwasher on while we weren't looking, and it had run long enough to make all the clean dishes wet again. So Greer, very gallantly at first, had to dry everything before she could put it away. Ella was supposed to be carrying on tidying up the piles of chaos in her room where she'd cleared the floor by just picking stuff up and dumping it somewhere else, but, as usual, her tidying kept turning into playing or reading. Greer was slowly getting the dishwasher unloaded, but she had Abigail as a very keen helper, and by the time I went to check on them a bit later, unloading the dishwasher had become a vast picnic game, with every single dish from the dishwasher laid out  in an arc on the floor. The floor that hadn't been vacuumed yet, let alone washed. I think you can imagine.

I stayed calm, at least I thought I stayed calm, and left them to undo their playing, because all I really wanted to do was get on with the vacuuming. I like vacumming, as long as I don't get too many interruptions, but here it takes hours, so I really had to get on with it. A few minutes later Greer was standing in front of me, telling me that she had been carrying some plates and one of them had tipped onto the floor and broken. My heart sank. I followed her to the kitchen. Sure enough, one of my favourite plates was lying in pieces on the floor. I walked out with tears in my eyes. I didn't want to talk to them, and I couldn't face cleaning it up. I walked down to the hall, shut the doors behind me, sat by the bookcase and started putting the books that were on the floor carefully back on the shelves. The tears kept rolling.

I wasn't sad, and I wasn't stressed, but my brain felt like it was full of exploding fireworks, and I was exhausted. Micro-managing three children while trying to clean the whole house had done me in. I sat on the floor crying over the books for ages. The girls kept coming to see how I was and to ask when they could have their next marshmallow. All they wanted was ticks and rewards and a prize-giving and it just made me feel small and tired and taken for granted.

I managed to pull myself together, but I was quiet and slow for the rest of the day. I told the girls I wasn't ready to do ticks on the chart or marshmallows, and so they eventually stopped asking and went off to play. I sat and ate lunch by myself with a good book, and then I read something that was a revelation.

I'm reading "Intimacy and Solitude: balancing closeness and independence" by Stephanie Dowrick. I'm reading it with a pencil for a book mark and I'm underlining and scribbling notes everywhere, because it's that good. The part I was reading was was about the development of "inner security" through a child's early relationships. This was what jumped out at me;

"When things are going well for an infant, the mother stands in for the parts of the infant which are helplessly immature, and comforts the infant through the stages of learning which teach the child that although need is felt within, it must be met from without."

I realised in a flash that what had worn me down wasn't the cleaning, or trying to do it with three children tagging along; it wasn't the broken plate, or the fact that the day was more than half over and I still had so much to do, although it all contributed, it was Isobella's room. Isobella is a whirlwind, her brain is like a whirlwind, and her room mirrors this exactly. For her, tidying up is torture. It is nigh on impossible for her to sort through her chaos and create even a modicum of order. I have been her chief tidy up-er for nearly eight years. I never expect her to tidy up completely on her own. I always have to make her tidy up, and always micro-managing. "Put that there, move those over here, throw those things out."  And I always carry on where she gives up. I have been "standing in" for her need for order her whole life. And for the first time I admitted to myself that this causes me to feel a constant low-level, often unnoticed, stress. It was time to stop "standing in."

I know I am making this out to be simpler than it is. There are all sorts of questions that arise, such as, does Isobella really have a need for order, or am I projecting my own need for order onto her? But the fact of the matter is that I need her floor to be clear so that I can vacuum it, and she needs to be able to clear her surfaces so that we can dust, mostly because Greer is allergic to dust, but also because I think it's important for her to have use-able space in her room and for her to learn take care of her possessions.

The back-story here is that a couple of months ago I figured out I am pretty dyspraxic. That's another story for another post, but I'll tell you this much. It means that I have enough trouble keeping my own stuff ordered and organised, let alone anyone else's. So my daughter's chief tidy up-er is, by nature, an average tidy up-er herself. And Paddy is no more skilled in this area than I am. I tell you, it's the blind leading the blind.

I've written about my struggles with chaos before, and order was my word for 2011. I wrote about chaos and order, and sought to find my own version of order, well before I even knew what Dyspraxia was. I was searching for some kind of ordered nirvana, and yet, instinctively, I knew my order was never going to look like any one else's.

If tidiness is just not on your radar, or you're happy with whatever level of tidiness is achievable on any given day, then you might have come to my house as a visitor and thought it looked pretty tidy. If you are a sworn and proud tidy person (like my sister and Mum are) then you'll have come to my house and seen that there is always something that needs doing. Always a basket of washing sitting somewhere, dishes on the bench, a cupboard in disarray, or a bedroom down the hall that hasn't been tidied for a week. And this is my reality; I actually like a certain amount of order and cleanliness. Clutter and mess for me are like visual white noise. So whatever tidiness and order you see on any day, it will be the best that I could do, and was probably hard-won.

This is quite an admission. I spent the first part of my life trying to rebel against my mother's strict sense of order. I was labelled the "messy one" in the family. As I grew older I realised I wasn't that messy at all, and decided that I had been unfairly labelled. Nevertheless, chaos was always my default setting. I never could quite understand why no matter how hard I tried to be organised, chaos was only a scratch under the surface. I partly came to terms with this last year, when I wrote a post about having grown up living in two worlds. That was really a breakthrough. As soon as I admitted I had my father's relaxed and anti-establishment home-making genes, as well as my mother's, I somehow gave myself permission to be tidy, as contradictory as that sounds. I gave up my rebellion against order once and for all, or so I thought. The house was definitely tidier.

Then we moved here, where it takes half an hour just to vacuum the lounge and dining room, and where dirt, in every form, is a daily part of our lives. The girls spread out from one bedroom to three, and for the first time Isobella had her own desk, her own bedside table, her own dresser, and her own wardrobe. You might think that would make it easier for her to keep her room tidy, but it's actually had the opposite effect. She now has three or four times as much surface area to spread out her creations and clutter, piles and treasures.

Right now I'm writing at the dining table while the girls play around me. I'm not ignoring them, but I am getting the words out while I can, because this story is good for me to write. They have taken out pretty much every puzzle we own, and have spread the pieces around on baking trays and tins as "biscuits" and put them all in the oven. They are happy, and they are occupied. Right now I don't care about the inevitable chaos. The puzzle pieces that will be strewn from the kitchen and down the hall to the lounge. I don't care that the puzzles will be all mixed up, and I don't care that someone, probably me, hopefully with helping hands, will have to sit down and re-order it all. I'm happy because they are happy, and I'm happy because I'm getting these words out.

You see, I can handle chaos. I've grown up with it close, either from within or without. I've learnt to control it, and when I need to I can. But my brain is like a tight rubber band that has to let go with a ping and unravel regularly, and that's exactly what my environment is like too. Chaos and order come and go like the tide. It's the two worlds of my upbringing, it's my wild brain, and it's the dyspraxia. It's just the way I am.

I can't expect any more of my eldest daughter than I expect of myself. Her brain is even wilder and harder to control than my own. But I don't need to take responsibility for something she's old enough to take responsibility for herself, even though she may seem to be less than capable in that area. So I am resigning as her chief tidy up-er. I'm not saying I don't care how messy her room gets, not at all. But the micro-managing is over. I am making peace with her precious chaos.

a for app, b for book

I went book shopping last weekend. It's funny how that doesn't have a ring to it in the way that clothes shopping does. Book shopping. But that's what we did. I got a few Whitcoulls book vouchers for Christmas, one from my little sister Esme, and the others from the girls. I didn't want to go to just any branch, partly because I wanted to have a good selection, and partly because I spent three years working at the big store in Queen St what seems like a lifetime ago, back when I wondered what on earth I was going to do with my life.

So into town we went. It rained all weekend, it was raining when we left. The drive right into town takes about forty minutes, and we drove in with the tires hissing on wet road all the way. I was really looking forward to having a nice time browsing and then coming out with a handful of treasures. I have good memories of working there all those years ago, and I remember clearly the layout of the fiction section where I spent most of the three years I worked there. It had a wall of fantasy and sci-fi, half a wall of classics, three stands of what we called "contemporary fiction" and a long wall filled with bestselling, money-making paperbacks. I spent my days dusting and tidying shelves, bringing armfuls of books down from upstairs and re-stocking, helping customers find or choose books, and serving at the counter when it was busy. The fiction section was tucked in behind at the back of the store, and it was a quiet oasis.

But I knew something was up as soon as we walked into the store. I could see cards where there used to be books, and cook books where there should have been NZ fiction. I walked around to where the fiction section should have been and my heart sank. It was a funny mix of business, craft and reference which melded around the corner into fiction. The entire fiction section fitted into the same floor space that the greeting cards used to take up. I found a few books I was happy with, but I didn't want to browse. It just felt wrong. We went upstairs and my unease grew. Stationery was spread out unevenly over the top floor, and sidled up to it were rows and rows of a complete mix-up of books, all with coloured stickers, most of them blue-stickered, meaning 75% off. I felt like I was at the bedside of a terminally sick relative.

Then we went up to Borders (now owned by the same company as Whitcoulls.) It was the last day of their closing down sale. If being in Whitcoulls had been like being in a hospice, then being in Borders was like standing in the desert and watching vultures consume the remains of a carcass. The once grand three level store had been reduced to one small level, and what books there were scattered on tables and stands there were random and dog-eared. I found a few things, but everyone was hungry and Abigail was starting to lose it, so we left.

I remember being horrified when I first heard about e-readers and the prediction that one day real books would be a thing of the past. I couldn't think of anything worse than no real books. How could you be truly reading without holding a book in your hands and feeling the weight of it? What was a book without pages, spine, cover?

Just before Christmas I read this post at Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef. It's about a recipe and the gorgeous Holiday Food app that the recipe came from. And it's about iPads and the creative potential that exists with apps. I was completely taken. I've got an iphone but I never used a reader on it, and I've never been interested in having an e-reader. But something in my brain came alive when I read that post. I spent the day with this bubbling going on inside, this incredible sudden alive-ness in my brain. I couldn't stop dreaming about apps.

So when Paddy came home with a surprise Christmas present for the both of us, I was petrified and desperately hopeful that he'd gone out and bought an iPad. And when my hopeful fears were fulfilled, there was no way I could tell him off for spending so much money because I was too happy. We bought the Holiday food app that introduced me to iPads, and it was even better than I imagined. It is luscious. Beautifully designed, easy to use, and full of recipes and how-to's. It has crisp, vivid photographs, and video too. I would never have thought that anything could be more beautiful than a beautiful book. But this app is even more beautiful than a book.

I can't believe I just wrote that.

At the end of our book shopping expedition I didn't feel sad any more. By the time I'd made my way round two stores, one trying to re-make itself to survive, the other already dead, I'd worked through my grief. E-books are here to stay. Within twenty years I expect that most of us will read more books in electronic form than we'll read printed on paper. But that doesn't mean it's the end of books, and it certainly doesn't mean it's the end of writers. Digital publishing means that more books will get to more people more easily. And writers will still get paid. But I don't have the same confidence for the publishing industry as we know it. Publishing survives on paper and ink and mass production and will have to re-invent itself several times over to avoid becoming a relic.

I'll tell you what I do have confidence for, and that is for small publishing houses who specialise in very special books, treasures that will be works of art in themselves, and the small but clever book stores who will sell them. I don't believe we will see the demise of all booksellers, but I do think the bell has tolled for supermarket-style booksellers, the ones who think they can sell lots of everything without really knowing the books they sell or the customers who come to buy them. The kind of stores who have no idea about range other than to make sure that they have a good stack of bestsellers and a handful of whatever has been recently published.

I hope I get more book vouchers next Christmas, but this time I'll ask for vouchers for Time Out or The Women's Bookshop, both veritable institutions who have weathered the rise and demise of the supermarket bookstore. They both have a loyal following of customers, and both have a genuine online presence. In the future stores like these will become treasuries and precious links to the past. Books will be collectors items, and families will pass them down like heirlooms. And writers? We'll keep on writing.

black sand dreaming

We came out here for a picnic tea twice this week. This is Whatipu, the beach right at the entrance of the harbour. It's not that far from our place, but most of the way there the road is narrow and windy and unsealed, so it takes a while. The road leaves Little Huia, a handful of houses at the edge of the water, and winds up the hills through thick bush. Occasionally you can see through the bush to the mouth of the harbour below. The sun was setting on the cliffs on the other side of the harbour each time we came, and they towered bright white above the blue sea. I've written to you before about wild places, but this is as wild as it gets.  This is why we live where we do.

It's the kind of place that makes me feel like anything is possible. As if every idea is waiting for me there hidden in the black sand, or carried by the sea gulls as they glide above us from the huge sand dunes to the enormous rock that sits on the edge of the water, guarding the entrance to the harbour. I was lying on the sand listening to the rhythmic crash of the waves on the beach and watching Paddy and the girls splashing in the shallows, when a novel idea came to me. That is, an idea for a novel. Which really only means one thing. That I have to hurry up and finish the one I started, so I can get on to the next one.

I was standing in the laundry at the beginning of this week putting a load of washing on. The Laundry is tacked on to the back of the house, with a separate entrance, and it's where we dump our dirty shoes and gumboots, rubbish bags waiting to go out, recycling, and anything else we need to keep out of the house. It's filthy. The corners of the windows are filled with spider webs and the window sills are littered with dead insects. I was looking down at the dried mud on the floor as I loaded in the clothes, and wondering when I was ever going to find the time to get in there and clean, when suddenly, completely out of nowhere, came a word, and I knew as soon as I thought it that it was my word for this year. Industry.

You see the other thing I've been doing this week, besides walking on wild beaches, is planning. Somehow I've got this year by the scruff of the neck, like a small dog with a large bone, and I'm not letting go. This year will conform to our requirements, we will wring it out like a wet towel, trample on it like a load of grapes in a barrel, eek out of it every bit of fruitfulness and success we possibly can. I'm going to take a day a week to sit in the office and make sure we do. I will be the managing juggler, doing my best to keep all our balls in the air.

So how will I write that novel in a year which will be as busy as a city? I'll tell you how. I will start every morning in the country. I will start every day at this desk, in the dark silence of dawn. How exactly I will manage this I'm not sure. Over Christmas it was impossible to get to bed as early as I wanted to. But I kept trying. Every day I've said to myself, I will go to bed early. And on the mornings where I haven't gone to bed early enough to get up and write, I've taken the dog and walked down to the beach while the sun is new and cool, and discovered that walking is almost as good as writing. But even when I haven't written or walked I've gone often to the little desk in the corner of my mind, the one where the words pile up like snowdrifts, where they come in without any one to stop them or any guard to keep them out, where they congregate in clumps and huddles, where they feel already written, even before they are.

the gift of a story - for you

I'm re-posting this from last year because this is still exactly how I feel, and I couldn't say it any better. Hope you all had a lovely Christmas!

The year I turned eight was a complicated year. There were conflicts and ructions and strange goings-on in my family, and underneath the surface I wasn't a happy girl. There's a photo of me on my birthday, kneeling beside the coffee table laid out with my birthday presents. I was wearing one of them, a new flannelet nightie, but the best present of all was a small, burgundy book, a collection of Grimm's Fairy Tales.

In a year of complications and unhappiness, that book was one of the best gifts I could have been given. I read those stories over and over. My favourite was "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," and in reading that story I dreamt I was one of them. I dreamt of escaping to another world, a world where I was beautiful and free. I still love that story. It speaks to me of a world beyond what I know, of possibilities yet-to-be-imagined. It satisfies the longing still in me to be beautiful and free.

Stories have been doing that very thing since the beginning. Stories teach us, comfort us, prepare us for the future, explain the past, and hold the threads of family and society together. Stories leave a legacy long after government policy has been phased out and scientific research is disproved. Stories live lives of their own, far beyond the lives of the story-tellers. A good story can comfort grief, facilitate healing, and soften tragedy. Every culture and age has its own stories. Every family and community has them. We live off stories.

And yet when it comes to the Christmas Story, we say "oh it's just a story." Somehow the insistence from Christians that we read this story as gospel makes us recoil in distaste. We reject the facts, and in doing so, reject the story. I'm a Christian who reads this story as more truth than fable, yet I read it with an open mind. In my reading I'm aware that some of the details may have been lost or changed in its two thousand years of re-telling, but for me, this story is not in the details.

I hate the commercialism of Christmas. I tried really hard this month to keep the Christmas Story at the forefront of our minds. For us, celebrating Advent was the perfect way to take our focus off presents and shopping and stuff and keep our hearts turned towards the baby at the centre of it all. I've written a fair bit about Advent in the last few weeks, and if you didn't get it then, now you know why. Advent was our panacea for greed and consumption. It saved me from despairing over plastic and shopping malls.

Advent gave us our most special moment of all, on Christmas Eve, when Mary and Joseph finally reached the end of their long journey and arrived at the stable. Baby Jesus was brought out of his hiding place and the Holy Family was united. We lit five candles. We danced and sang to"O Come all ye Faithful". Our hearts were bursting. The Christmas Story was a gift to us this Christmas, far better than all the gifts, as lovely as they were, that came on Christmas Day.

You don't have to be a card-carrying Christian to enjoy the gift of the Christmas Story.  You might be uncomfortable with a literal reading but that doesn't mean you need to reject any reading at all. This is a story that has been celebrated, remembered, and re-told for two thousand years. It's a story that gives us hope, inspires us to give, and connects us with the divine. In this age where the gap between the haves and the have-nots is only widening, and when we face news of tragedy and disaster on a daily basis, we need all the hope we can get.

In light of this, Santa just doesn't cut it. I'm not anti-Santa, and Santa is not banished from our house, but if our narrative-diet at Christmas was Santa and only Santa, we would be desperately lacking. Santa is the sweets and chocolate of Christmas. Treats taste good and are lots of fun, and for children who are fortunate enough to receive them they are anticipated with excitement. But they don't last. The same goes for many of the presents unwrapped on Christmas Day.

I'm sitting here writing this on the day after Boxing Day and by now the excitement of Christmas and new things has waned. Adults everywhere are regretting their over-indulgences and avoiding their bank statements, and children are in that tired, irritable post-Christmas funk, disappointed with broken toys and whining for more chocolate. That one anticipated day went all too quickly.

But the story remains. The story doesn't get boring and it can't be broken. It doesn't plunder our bank accounts, require weeks of late-night shopping, or cause stress and traffic jams. It doesn't trigger family bickering, engender competition, or result in inevitable disappointment.

I had one other special moment this Christmas. It was last week as I was madly trying to get our Christmas shopping done. As a result of a seemingly random series of events I ended up in the middle of a busy mall, standing outside The Warehouse, face to face with a ChildFund table laid out with packs advertising children who needed sponsoring.

It was such a contrast to the crazy bustle of the store I'd come out of, and took me so completely by surprise, that I started crying! The girl managing the table was surprised and concerned. I tried to wipe back the tears, embarrassed, but really I just wanted to cry. I wanted to cry for all the people so busy in their Christmas shopping that they walked past this stand without even seeing it. I wanted to cry for all the children whose faces were in front of me, desperate to be noticed. I wanted to cry for myself, that I so often let overwhelming need paralyse me from doing anything.

Then my dear sister turned up unexpectedly beside me, again by a seemingly random series of events. I was so relieved to see her that I wrapped my arms around her.  I explained myself tearfully, and we laughed. Then between the two of us we sponsored three children. Three girls who live so far from the greed and excess I've witnessed in the last few weeks, and for whom life from now on will be just that little bit easier.

Santa has got nothing for those girls. Those girls and millions of other children like them are outsiders to the world of Santa. But the Christmas Story is different. The Christmas Story is about a baby who grew up to be a man who noticed the needy and made friends with outsiders. The Christmas Story, however you read it, inspires compassion and charity. It celebrates the wonder of life and the hope of redemption. This is what we need, more than new things and over-full stomachs. We need a gift that satisfies our inner longings, a gift that won't wear out or be easily forgotten. We need a story.

who needs you?

This afternoon there was a 5.8 magnitude aftershock in Christchurch, followed later by a 6.0 quake, and further smaller ones as well. Dust rose into the sky from the already severely damaged Cathedral. Luckily there was no major damage in the city, but there was plenty of damage all the same. I watched footage filmed in a supermarket. The shelves shaking, the signage swinging, sirens going off, and people screaming. I cried - I couldn't help it. It was too much. Humans can't suffer that level of panic and stress for as long as the people of Christchurch have without it becoming debilitating. The Mayor, who is cutting short a holiday to return to the city, described people sitting on the ground and crying.

Cantabrians have left the city in droves. They've left temporarily and they've left permanently. More would leave, I'm sure, if they weren't stuck with a house that's impossible to sell, or weren't in the middle of negotiations and arrangements regarding insurance and re-building. The aftermath, which must seem now like it will be unending, is complicated and heartbreaking.

There are people who are choosing to go to Christchurch. There are builders and plumbers and engineers who are filling the gaps in the pivotal building industry. The re-build is far from smooth, it's not even a work in progress in many places. And then there are the people, like a friend of mine, who feel that this needy city is exactly where they need to be. I take my hat off to them.

But leaving is one of the sanest options available to Cantabrians right now. It goes against all instinct for survival to stay. We should be doing whatever we can to make it possible for those who need to leave to leave as quickly as possible. Could landlords in other cities offer a month's free rent to those re-locating? Could people offer their homes and holiday homes to those in need of a holiday somewhere where the ground is firm, as happened so generously after the February quake? Could employers make an effort to interview prospective employees from Christchurch? Could the government create a short term transitional unemployment benefit specifically for people wanting to move out of Christchurch to other parts of the country? Could the government set up a task force that would go about the business of re-building people's lives, not just their houses? Why not?

I read "The Little Engine that Could" to Abigail tonight at bedtime. It's an old Golden Book that was on the bookshelf at home when I was a child. The story was too long for her to keep up with, so I was skipping bits, but it brought back so many memories. The little engine with it's carriages filled with treasures is stuck. It can't go any further. A shiny, haughty engine drives past and refuses to help; a big, self-important engine refuses to help. An old tired and rusty engine is sure he can't help. Eventually the Little Blue Engine, who thinks so little of himself, saves the day. He chugs to himself  "I think I can I think I can I think I can" and makes it over the hill.


It occurred to me for the first time that this is a re-telling of Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan. In that story, a man has been robbed and beaten and lies dying on the side of the road. Several people see him but walk to the other side of the road to avoid him. We all understand this. Sometimes it's just easier not to get involved. Finally a Samaritan, an outcast, takes the man to an inn and pays for his full recovery. The story comes from a question asked of Jesus by a lawyer, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"

Jesus answers the lawyer's question straight from the Torah, the Jewish book of Law. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. And your neighbour as yourself." Which means, in a nutshell, love and look after others in the same way as you love and look after yourself. But the lawyer, obviously on the look-out for a loophole, asks "Who is my neighbour?" And so the story of the Good Samaritan is born. Jesus' message is clear; your neighbour is the one who needs you.

There was another desperately sad story in the news today. A five year old girl was viciously attacked in a camping ground near Taupo on Wednesday night. The Mayor of the Taupo District has reacted strongly, demanding to know why "our forbears got rid of the death penalty."  He clearly thinks the offender is scum and doesn't deserve to live. That precious five-year old whose life has been changed forever is my neighbour, no question. But the offender? Who is his neighbour?

We don't want to think we are like the shiny self-important engine, too important and shiny to help, but sometimes we are. It's easy to be like the big busy engine, with other, better things to do. And we let ourselves off the hook too easily when we think like the tired engine,  I really can't.  But we can all be the little blue engine. If we think we can.


My closest neighbour tonight is Abigail. She came out in chicken pox yesterday, two days before Christmas. She is covered in spots and pretty miserable, and she's sitting on the table next to me right now scratching her head and looking at photos on my phone. I'll take her to bed with me soon and we'll try to sleep. I don't really have any other option, I'm her mother. But the thing is that we usually meet the needs that are closest to us. It's the needs that aren't so close that we often ignore.

If there was one thing that Jesus understood, and he wasn't the only great teacher to get this, it is that we are all connected. When you hurt, I hurt, somewhere along the way. We think we can live our own separate lives, keeping those close who we choose to keep close, and excluding those we choose to exclude, but it's simply not true. We will sit at our tables on Christmas day and we will all eat well and starve, in the same breath.

how it is in december

It rained nearly all of last week. We started wondering whether summer was really coming. But it did. It's been mostly sunny and warm since Monday. The rain hasn't really bothered us that much, but it was funny having to hang out washing inside the week before Christmas. 

We had our Christmas service at church and the kids all got up and did a kiwi rendition of the Twelve Days of Christmas. It was pretty cute and they had a lot of fun. Back at home we finally got our Christmas tree up. And then came the lights. According to my husband, you can't get lights that don't flash anymore. The Christmas tree flashes red and green, and the lights around the french doors do a rolling medley of flashing so fast it should have a health warning for epileptics. It's lucky we found our old fairy lights which are strung up around some of the windows. They are small and still, just how I like them. I actually got a bit grumpy about all the flashing lights, as my family will tell you readily. It wasn't just that they were flashing, it was that they outshone my advent candles. I got beeswax tea light candles especially, but next time I'll find the biggest candles I can. Christmas is not the season for subtlety, obviously. 

It's not just the lights I've been grumpy about either. During the last week of school the girls couldn't stop talking about Santa. We've never been anti-Santa, but neither of us has ever had the energy or enthusiasm to support the fantasy either. So the girls figured things out pretty quickly, and up until this year have never shown much interest in Santa at all. This year was different. Greer's been singing Christmas songs about Santa at the top of her voice, and under the christmas tree is a creation made of blocks and wooden trees which is apparently "Santa's Grotto." Sure, whatever. But the last straw was when I heard Isobella tell Greer she wasn't going to make her a Christmas present because she "hadn't been nice." Just in the same way we hear everywhere that Santa only brings presents to children who have been good. At that point I told the girls that I was grumpy with Santa and that I didn't want to hear any more about him! For a few days afterwards they'd ask me every so often if I'd "stopped being grumpy with Santa." Eventually they stopped asking!

I know I probably sound like the Grinch. If you know me, you'll know I really am not like the Grinch at all. But I hate the "you'll get presents if you're good" thing.  It's manipulative, untrue, and quite frankly a bit low. I love my kids, we all do, and that's why we give them gifts. Our love is not conditional, so why would our gift giving be? And Santa? Does he actually love anyone?

Anyway, I am actually really happy about Christmas. I love looking at my diary for this week. Every day is covered with lists and scribbles, except for Sunday. Sunday is completely blank. Sunday will be lovely. Mum will probably take the kids to church while I stay home and cook the turkey. Then we'll sit at our enormous table, us, Mum, and my sister and her family, and we'll eat and talk and enjoy each other's company. Later my Dad and step-mum and sister will probably come around, and we'll eat and talk some more. We're pretty traditional around here, as far as Christmas goes, so it won't matter if it rains. We've never had any urges to go to the beach or have a BBQ; turkey and pavlova make us all very happy.

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.

St Nicholas and everything else

  

We started a new tradition this week. I invited my friend Liz and her kids around after school on Tuesday and we celebrated St Nicholas Day. We made this cake, I printed out some colour-in pages from here, and I got a picture book from the library called "Saint Nicholas: The story of the real Santa Claus" by Mary Joslin and read it to the kids. We even tucked a small present into their shoes when they weren't looking. "Saint Nicholas has come! Saint Nicholas has come!" they yelled at the top of their voices when they found the gifts.

I didn't know very much about Saint Nicholas myself until this week. I didn't know the story about the gold coins being thrown down the chimney to the family in need, and the coins landing in the shoes and stockings that were drying by the fire. I didn't know that in Holland, where the children all put their shoes out ready for a present to be delivered by St Nick on the night of the fifth, the Dutch word for Saint Nicholas is "Sinter Klaas." It's not that I didn't know all of this... in a vague sort of way... but I'd never actually put it all together.

So it made me very happy to have another story to layer over the Santa story and the piped christmas music. Especially this week, when Greer had a lovely carol singing morning at school, accompanied by flashing lights, reindeer, a gingerbread house, no sign of a manger anywhere, and no "real" christmas carols.  And especially when this is the time I start to get a bit grumpy and overwhelmed by all the money and activity that the Christmas season seems to require.

But I'm not here to complain. The fact of the matter is that this week was actually very complicated, for all sorts of reasons. As I wrote to you last time, I am trying to achieve a kind of "zen" purposefulness about our Christmas preparations. But I keep being thwarted. I keep crying for children without families, and getting emails from World Vision in my inbox warning me in no uncertain terms that a "hunger crisis is looming" in West Africa.

And so what do I do? I buy more Christmas decorations.

celebrating Advent as myself

Today is Annunciation Sunday, the first Sunday in Advent. Yesterday the girls and their cousins went treasure-hunting for leaves and flowers to use as the backdrop for our nativity scene. I found the closest thing I could to a purple or blue piece of fabric, laid it over the top of the writing desk that sits in our dining room, and then created a backdrop for the figures that will be added as the weeks go by. It's looking lovely and simple now, but it won't stay that way for ever. By the time Christmas comes it will most likely have plenty more greenery, plus a full menagerie of animals and figures from our nativity set. This will all lead up to the arrival of baby Jesus on Christmas Eve, who will be very comfy and warm on that manger Isobella created over a cut stone.

Today at church our Pastor spoke about the Annunciation. The moment right at the beginning of the Christmas Story where the angel Gabriel visits Mary and tells her she is going to give birth to Jesus. This story has always been meaningful to me. I am in awe of Mary's willingness. Her initial incredulity at the angel's words melts into obedience. Be it unto me according to your word, she says. There is no passivity here, her vow must have come from a steely resolve she somehow found within her. I want that. A selection of paintings of the Annunciation were shown, and some of them were beautiful. But none of them moved me like this one I found tonight in this post about preparing for Advent.

The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1859-1937

Here there is no hiding from the reality; Mary was so young and vulnerable. There she is, having been woken from sleep, disheveled, unsure, amazed. It's easy to read the story without really considering what this moment must have been like for her. Was she afraid? At first, yes. In shock? Probably. Completely taken by surprise? Absolutely. And yet something within her must have understood. Something within her must have been ready to be willing. Just a girl. Yet so ready.

Last year I bumbled my way through Advent, thrilled to have found an antidote to the commercialism of Christmas, but a complete novice. This year I'm still making it up as I go along, but I feel like I'm being re-united with an old friend, one who I liked the instant we met, and who I'm chuffed to be seeing again. I'm having fun discovering and creating traditions that are uniquely "us." The girls are so excited about Advent. We lit our first candle tonight, read the story of the Annunciation from Luke, and wrote some prayers together. It took us to way past a reasonable bedtime, which meant that it was growing dark. I walked into the dining room after tucking the girls in and the glow of one small candle changed everything.

But I've found myself not just thinking of our family traditions, but myself, and what I want to get out of this season. Karen Edmisten, in the post I linked to above, writes, As Advent unfolds, you're savouring the liturgical season, you're teaching your children about watching, waiting, and preparing for the Lord. But what are you doing for yourself? Her words challenged me to ask myself the same question. What do I want to ponder on as I wait? How will I contemplate what is to come? What will my priorities be in this potentially crazy season?

I don't think this kind of reflection is only for the religiously-minded. Anyone that wants to avoid a Christmas that's filled with stress and exhaustion would do well to pause and consider what lies ahead. Or else, as my pastor said today, you end up with another "Groundhog Christmas." I've had enough of those.

I've been writing nearly every morning since I told you I was doing NaNoWriMo and trying to write 50,000 words. I've been getting up at 5am, or as close to that as I can manage, and I've never been more content. I feel like I'm finally doing what I was made to do. I've been working on the novel that's been hanging around for almost forever, and I'm making writing a feature of my day. I feel like I've found the life I searched for desperately, knowing it was out there, but never quite found. I won't get to 50,000 words by Tuesday, but I've written 9,000. That's 9,000 more than zero.

What I'm trying to say is that I feel like myself. I'm living my life, not a version of it. Writing, in the active sense, influences my decisions, my priorities, and how I spend my time. It's the thing that makes me me. This all causes me wonder what shape Advent and Christmas will take now that I'm writing. I have a feeling that if I can keep this living-as-myself thing up, everything else will fall into place.

New Zealand: what future?

Yesterday I went to a special assembly at the girls' school. There was a powhiri (welcome ceremony) for all new students and their families. We who were the manuhiri (visitors) met in a classroom to practise a waiata and to have the protocol explained to us, and then we walked around to the school hall and gathered at the door. Inside the entire school was lined up facing us, with the Kapa Haka group in full costume at the front. One of the eldest girls called us, "karanga mai, karanga mai, karanga mai" and then the whole school welcomed us in with a haka.

Isobella has been in the Kapa Haka group since the first week she started at this school. I went along as parent help last week when the group performed at a multi-cultural concert in West Auckland. The kids were beside themselves with excitement. We negotiated crowds, ate lunch, got ready and had a quick practice, and in the end we were left with only a few minutes to get all thirty-something of the kids down through the hall and onto the stage. They did really well, considering there was no adult in the background to coach them. It's a pretty white group, and they didn't have the same volume or feistiness as some of the other groups, but they did their very best, and you could tell they loved every minute of it.

One of the other schools performing that day was one of the local schools in our old neighbourhood. This was a small school, one of those schools that some how along the way becomes the second-choice school for families who have the resources to choose something other than their local school. The roll at this school is tiny compared to the school up the road with the "excellent reputation", and has a high percentage of Maori and Pasifika kids. Is this the cause or the effect of the "white flight" that has gone on around it, who can say, but the result is undeniable. Still, it's a big-hearted school doing its best with limited resources and support. And the school's presence at the festival was hard to miss. They had just about the whole school involved, the kids were brimming with pride, and very happy.

We were able to watch this school performing on stage just before we went off to get our kids ready. It was their Kapa Haka group, a big group of kids in full costume, with piupiu skirts and the girls with moko face- painted on. They looked fantastic, they were loud and proficient. Then just behind me a man who seemed to be one of the dads of the group stood up and started a haka of his own from the audience. He was loud and passionate too. By standing and doing this he was offering the highest honour he could give the kids in that moment, and giving them his sincere and tangible support. I looked at the man, a wild looking Maori guy with a woolly grey beard and tats down his arms, and I could see that he was bursting with pride for those kids up on stage. In a moment I realised how incredible it was for him to see his child up on stage, belonging and succeeding at school by celebrating being Maori. I cried. I couldn't stop the tears rolling down.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, Maori kids got the strap for speaking Maori in class. Not so long ago, Maori children were likely to grow up ashamed of their Maoriness.  Whole generations have passed without having seen their culture and traditions valued. Who is crying for that now?

I was down at mum's last week when she was watching a TV programme that follows families with missing members and helps them find them. An elderly Maori had discovered he had fathered a son without his knowledge, and that son had been adopted. The programme tracked the son down in Australia and I watched the father and son's emotional reunion. It was a grey day, and the family had set up a welcome party underneath the carport at the end of the driveway. I watched as the family welcomed the son, assembled together just as the girls' school had been at our assembly yesterday. The wife of his father, his soon to be step-mother, led the call. "Karanga mai, karanga mai, karanga mai" she called, tears rolling down her face. The son walked towards them, his tears welling up too. The father met him, they shared a hongi, and then held each other in the tightest embrace, sobbing. The father whispered in Maori in his son's ear, over and over. I couldn't understand the words, and neither could the son, but they were like a soft song that washed over him. In that moment, no other language would do.

It's election day next Saturday. Politics was kept back stage while the Rugby World Cup was on, so it's felt like a very short lead-up. I've been more unsure about who I'll vote for than I have been for any election previously. I'm a left-leaning kind of girl, but I wouldn't call myself "left". I have some very "right" tendencies, but I'm definitely not "right", and even "centrist" doesn't describe me either. If I could dial up my ideal government it would be like an icecream cone with several scoops, each made of different flavours. I'd choose a policy from here, a policy from there, an ideology from one end, and another from the other end. Meanwhile, in the real world, a bleak financial outlook combined with some very desparate needs mean that I'm basically stumped. I can't see any one party that has the big picture covered.

I've been reading some sobering facts about our nation. The UN recently released a paper on child welfare entitled "Doing better for Children" and New Zealand doesn't fare too well. We have some of the worst statistics for children's health and well being in the OECD. Overall, our child mortality is higher than the OECD average. Twenty percent of our children are living in poverty. Maori children under 15 are six times as likely to be living in an overcrowded household, and Pasifika children are twelve times more likely. This has led directly to high rates of diseases that have completely disappeared from most developed countries. Margo White in the Listener notes that rheumatic fever is taking its toll amongst some of our children. This disease, which shouldn't exist, can leave children needing immediate heart-valve replacement surgery, and then monthly penicillin injections. Dr Norman Sharpe, the medical director of the NZ Heart Foundation, says that there are a thousand children on the Auckland register having monthly penicillin injections to prevent rheumatic fever re-occurring. Lance O'Sullivan, a Northland-based GP, regularly sees children who are "walking around with the heart of an eighty year old." His stark indictment;  "this is a disease of poverty, and brown kids... this is a race-based problem."

There's been plenty of political rhetoric thrown around recently about race-based policy. There are a few politicians who use it to fear-monger and to get attention. They want us to believe that race-based policy is morally repugnant, that it's a form of racism itself, and that it benefits some, only to leave the rest out in the cold. It's an easy position to hold when your culture is in the majority wherever you look, and when you live in a warm, dry, and comfortable house, and don't need to know where your nearest food bank is. But to believe it you have to be in some measure of denial about the reality of life for those on the other side.

At the end of the welcoming ceremony at the girls' assembly, the group of us who were being welcomed filed across the hall and greeted the front row of adults and children on the other side. Some of us shook hands, but most of us shared a hongi. That beautiful pressing of noses symbolises the oneness of shared breath. For a moment, the visitor and the host are one. Once the greeting was over, we the visitors were given new seats, right next to our hosts. I looked back over to the other side of the hall where the visitors began the ceremony, and the seats were empty. The meaning was clear. There were no more visitors, everyone now belongs.

That oneness is exactly what we need. We could all do with more opportunities to walk in each other's shoes. It's too easy see people as either "them" or "us." But what sort of future is that?

how it is in November

 

We've been here nearly five months. Looking back now I think we were in shock for the first two or three of them. It rained endlessly, and it was cold. It took about four months for us to finish playing musical bedrooms.  The transition from homeschool to school was a big one, and we still haven't quite got our routines sorted yet. But the sun is out. I took that photo this morning when I suddenly realised I could see something new; bright light.

If you look closely you can see a peak of blue between the deck railings. The tide is in and the water is glistening. That's new too. Having spent so much of my childhood by the sea in Raglan, the sparkle of sunlight on water always stirs my heart.  The way the drops of light flicker and dance is magical, and it brings all the hope and emotions associated with summer flooding back. I'm ready for this.

That doesn't mean it's suddenly easy though. Greer's asthma has got so bad that she's been sleeping in Mum's spare room for nearly two weeks. She's allergic to mould, and I'm pretty sure that the bits of mould in places on the ceilings and walls are the culprit. The other two girls are now showing signs of mild asthma too, and that makes me grumpy. We have plenty of work to do.

But I'm happy. My early mornings have become so normal I can't imagine life without them. I'm adjusting to life with only one child in the house, and she's adjusting to being on her own. Right now I'm writing on my laptop which is up on the kitchen servery, and Abigail is behind me feeding playdough to her doll. Just before we came in here we hung a load of washing out on the line, in full sun, and Abi played with the pegs and walked around my feet singing.

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.