I’ve been reading a lot about ‘callings’ lately. I’m at an age and stage of life where I think that I should have it all sorted out, and be living the dream.

Which I am.

But I’m not.

I’m living a lucky, beautiful life, in a place I adore and with people that I would do anything for. I can count my blessings like so many sheep and then never fall asleep. I have ticked all of the boxes that ever existed for me, and then ticked some more. Most mornings I lie in bed, in that delicious moment of waking, as the blur of my dreams fall out of my ear and onto the pillow to dissolve like sugar crystals, and I wonder if I am actually awake. Is this life real and true? Do I really get to have all of this? Am I worthy?

And then an annoying, corkscrew of a notion makes three clockwise turns into my right cerebellum and I’m almost dizzy at the knowledge that I’m not telling the whole truth. There is secret that I’m keeping from myself, and it takes everything I am to cover it up with tasks and thoughts and things that must be done RIGHT NOW. Until it collapses and suffocates under the weight of responsibility and action for another day.

It was a full moon this week, and in the fitful sleep of the liar, the rotation of the the corkscrew has been relentless and exhausting, trying with its twists and excruciating turns to force me to notice it. I’ve noticed. And I have resisted. Stress-resist-stress-resist in an endless dance of the shambling 3am drunk who cannot stop for fear that they don’t know where home is any more.

I have a calling.

And I’m ignoring it.

I think I’m afraid that if I bring it out into the light it might not be a shiny as it is in my mind. Or perhaps I won’t know what to do with it once it hits the air. Oxygen might destroy it, or give it wings that can’t be clipped, and I’ll be careening out of control and out of breath, trying desperately to keep up, yet falling behind, falling behind, crawling along with no skin on my knees and the sting of dust it in my eyes where I once held my precious thing.

It’s safer to bury things in the dense flesh of your liver. The darkness keeps it safe.

Doesn’t it?

Do you have a calling?

Are you hiding it too?

…From The Ashers 

Post Script: The top of my blog draft page has little tags. Something Anna put in when she designed this page. I think it’s called the Hello Dolly plugin or something. Maybe it’s the words to the song. Anyway, I’ve never taken much notice of it. I just looked at it now, and it said, “It’s so nice to have you back where you belong.” Interesting.

Last week our kids were in a school play. When they initially put their names down last year, I groaned inwardly, all the while secretly hoping they would lose enthusiasm for the idea, and decide it wasn’t for them.

I could already guess what would be involved: after hours rehearsals, costume preparation (no, no, you cannot make me CRAFT), makeup on show days, parental attendance to the actual thing. For FOUR nights. And then the aftermath of exhausted kids who “are NOT tired” for a week. Probably resulting in an earlier than usual transfusion, for the one with the blood thing.

So possibly not my preference, truth be told. (Can you tell?)

I’d like to say that I’m a better Mum. That I’m the type that embraces everything that my children love, but I’m just not. I’m a bit shit, and I like best it when they like things that I like. Going to cafes, reading on the couch in my trakkies, rollerskating, sitting quietly on the beach looking at the waves and daydreaming. (Which is basically never. Of course the little weirdos don’t like any of those things.)

So, as they say, the show must go on, and the entity that is “The Primary School Musical” gathered its own momentum, and dragged me along with it. I purchased craft-like objects on Etsy and got a glue gun. I took kids to rehearsals on holidays. I bought a shade of foundation that I will shortly return to the Oompa Loompas. I learnt how to tease hair without screaming in the child’s face, “I am trying my best not to hurt you, but this must be done, the piece of paper says so, and I hate it too. Stupid play. Stupid costumes.” *

I personally grew up doing sport, and as such, kept a wide berth of the drama-nerds. You know who I mean. The kids who got called Butterfingers and Mamma’s Boy. The kids who couldn’t play softball or cricket, and always looked like they were someplace else when I signalled to the pitcher that it was ON and that we all needed to be a team. The kids who were in some nonsense thing called ‘the play’. The only play I was interested in was what was going on at home-plate. I didn’t get the drama kids. Nor they me.

I now had drama kids.

And believe me, there were dramas. Between hair and makeup and late nights and a very cold theatre, there were dramas. And that’s just for the adults. (Did I mention it went for FOUR NIGHTS?). But in the spirit of all things social media-y, I only posted the smiling pics of us all sharing beautiful times. I did not post my contorted maw, yelling at children to sit still whilst I brushed the knots out of stage-hair at 10pm. I did not post children crying from being accused of being tired and unreasonable, when they “clearly” were not. I did not post the stringy hot glue getting all over my hands and bench tops when I tried to glue the stupid felt leaves to the costume. I did not post the kid crying with nerves and excitement on opening night, saying they didn’t want to be in the play any more, and me saying “Don’t you dare drop a tear on your cheek, and ruin that make-up.”

No, I posted the best of. Because that is what we do.

The other thing we do, is we surrender to the process. The Primary School Musical has a way of drawing you in, and even if you struggle to stay away from this drama-nerdism, you are engulfed. And if you let yourself, you find out some things.

When you drop the kids to the Green Room, there is an energy that erases all of the previous turmoil. Children are bounding about like big-eyed puppies at the playground and doing the kid version of sniffing each others nether regions. They are full.

Before the show starts, the children do a warm-up song, and if you spy through the crack in the door, you can see them singing as if one, faces as beatific as when they are asleep. It can stop time, and take your breath away.

During the play, they support each other in ways you wouldn’t imagine. They gently help out those who have been overcome by nerves and misplaced lines. They laugh with each other, not at each other at the various foibles, realising that they are all together in this.

After the play, they gather together to smile and congratulate themselves and each other in a completely unselfconscious way. They get changed in the same room, the younger children admire the older ones as deity, and the older ones know the small ones by name, and say things like, “Good job Coco, see you tomorrow.” The small ones then walk a little taller.

On the final night, just before opening, the musical director gives his last address, and it’s similar to a coach on grand final day. He congratulates and thanks them for their endeavours so far, and spurs them on to achieve greatness at this finale. But even more, he reminds them of the beauty of art and song, and encourages them to play big. He tells them a secret that will stay with them forever: that if they give their all, then that effort will be reflected back to them in the faces of the audience. He points to his heart, and tells them that this is what they will touch.

And they do.

And it does.

*This may not be true. Only the walls (and my neighbours) will know for sure.

…From The Ashers

That was then, this is now

When I was eight years old I got my first pair of roller-skates.

I woke up on Christmas morning with anticipation that shimmered in front of me like the gauzy curtain of a boudoir. I ripped it aside with nary a thought of how it may have been thoughtfully placed to create a mood, such was my desire and my need.

I ran to the box that was the size and the shape and the heft of the things I had been wishing for since at least November, which of course was the same as forty-seven years in my eight year old chronoestimation. I held the box in my hands and waited a century-second before hungrily tearing off the slippery-gaudy-cheap paper. Skates. At last. Skates.

The wrong skates.

My heart stopped beating for a moment-year, and I buried my face in the remnants of that gaudy paper, ashamedly scratching away the look of horror, before my parents could see what the face of an ungrateful child looked like.

The skates were white, yes. The wheels were red, yes. They were boots, yes. But they were Hang Ten. I wanted Redstones. More than wanted: I needed Redstones. In that moment of complete and total disappointment, I knew that there was nothing I could do, and that I would never have Redstone skates. The part of my forebrain that somehow knew things that adults knew, was aware that this was probably my one shot. My one chance at owning Redstone roller-skates. And now it was gone. So close / so far.

I forced a smile to my mouth and to my eyes, and carefully laced the hideous wrong-skates. My parents were overfrothing with the happy that comes from seeing their child truly love the carefully-chosen gift so much, that they can’t even speak. I couldn’t speak.

To keep my hands from shaking and my from eyes crying, I began the soothing task of lacing, and once done, I slowly made my way down the slick cement front steps. Each step was heavy with the despair of the wrong-skates. I took a deep breath, bent my knees slightly to get my centre of gravity just so, and pushed off down our driveway.

The skates rolled forward like nothing I’d ever felt before. They had a power of their own. I barely needed to push- I was gliding, gliding, flying, gliding.

“Am I flying? I think I’m flying!” I screamed so the people two streets over, behind the Henwood’s double storey house could hear. “These skates are AMAAAAZING.”

I skate-flew out onto the road, and lifted up to the touch the lowest lying clouds with the three lateral fingers of my left hand. From my place above the world I looked back to see my Mum and Dad below: she leaning into the space at the front of his chest where she fitted like a nesting cup, he with a grin that threatened to split his head open like the watermelon on that weird knife ad.

I think I heard him shout, “I know you wanted Redstones, but the Hang Tens have better bearings. They’ll roll better.”

I didn’t exactly know what that meant, but that day I knew without a doubt what considered, quiet, caring, love meant.

It meant Hang Ten skates.

The very best kind of love. Love that makes you fly.

…From The Ashers

*This was created from a prompt from Liz Gilbert’s creativity challenge: What did you most love to do when you were eight? It was supposed to take 20mins. I failed- this took me 37minutes. Oh well. Close, as they say, but no cigar.

What did YOU love to do when you were eight years old? Do you still do it?

Why not?

I mean that- why the hell not?

For a few years now, I have been rallying people who are clever with their hands to sew some love into Softies for Mirabel. Gorgeous Pip Lincolne of Meet Me At Mikes first made me aware of this initiative, and I was taken.

Last  year, one of my big-hearted practice members encouraged the sewing teacher at her school to get the kids to make some softies as part of their assessment. I imagine the project may have been met with initial trepidation: would the kids sew then donate the toys? Would they sew them well enough to be given to these young children? Would the Mirabel kids even want the toys?

Well they did and they did and then they did.

Softies for Mirabel is now it its tenth year, and if you have any sewing nous, then I encourage you to join. Or if you are sartiorially challenged like me, then perhaps you can become the food and bevvy biatch, keeping your crafty friends fed and watered, and then have the priv of posting the toys down to Mirabel.

But that is not what this blog is about.

This blog is about Flopsy.

Because, you see, as the children have become part of the Sofites for Mirabel drive, Mirabel has made softies of them.

Since becoming patrons for the kids who are often without, these Sunshine Coast teens have somehow changed. They now no longer care about keeping the efforts of their labour for themselves: they donate them freely and with all of their hears. They now no longer whinge about sewing class, saying things like, “When are we ever going to use this?” or “I can’t believe you have to get the thread onto the bobbin yourself”* They now run to class, expectant and enthusiastic about knowing precisely where they will use this: to heal the hearts of those who need it most.

This week my big-hearted friend delivered a bag of Easter softies, and before I sent them off, I had a look at the creations. Usually there are some with punter’s eyes** and uneven ears. Limbs askew and mouths agape. I got ready to have a laugh at the messy, imperfect cuteness of them all.

I dug in to the bag of cuddles, and out came Flopsy.

Flopsy

Can you see her?

REALLY see her?

She’s like a young Velveteen Rabbit, with wonky eyes and fur loved half off, except she is possibly even more wonderous. She has been made with pure love. The sign reads:

HI. My name is Flopsy. I’m here to bring you happiness and love. In my apron pocket there is a spell for happiness. I was made with TLC by Sasha. I love you forever. Flopsy

And yes, inside her pouch there is a spell.

Get a handful of bad memories and a pinch of sadness. Mix it together with some love and boil it. Lots of love.

Oh my heart. That spell. It really is the answer.

I don’t know if Mirabel will be able to pass Flopsy on with her label intact. I don’t even know if Flopsy will go to a child who can read. But in this age of disrespectful ‘youths’ and online drama and drug use and horror, the simple joy of Flopsy gives me hope.

Flopsy tells me that it will all be okay.

For if there exists a teenager who can conceive and then create a bunny such as her, if there exists a kid who cares enough to go far beyond the desire for a good grade in sewing to bring joy to another, if there exists a young person who can share such beauty with purity and love, then I know that we are all going to be okay.

Thanks Flopsy.

The world is safe in your paws, and the magic of your apron.

*Maybe that was me

**One each way

…From The Ashers

Do you ever have in impending sense of doom?

I have it often, and I have it right now. It’s 5am, and just like I promised, I have been getting up each morning to blog and to write. The problem with getting up earlier than usual with any intended task beyond a shuffle to the coffee machine is that my brain doesn’t seem to rest properly. It appears that because I haven’t gotten all of my thoughts out of my head before going to bed, they circle and swirl around all night, until I can stand it no more and have to get up.

Unfortunately they don’t just keep to themselves either. Just as I suspected, with my ideas of cells and interconnections yesterday, they weave and thread and tighten themselves into little knots, trying to connect with one another, and making up new patterns where ever they can. So my sleep is fitful and plagued by dreams of exams that I haven’t studied for, and contact lenses that won’t fit into my eyes properly.

I only have a small brain, and despite my claims to the contrary, I can really only concentrate on one thing at a time. That is the reason why people often assume I’m very organised, because to exist in this world I find I have to get one task completed before I can start on another. The passport applications must be handed in before I can start on my CPD hours. CPD must be ticked off before I can do the Christmas shopping. Shopping must be done and wrapped before I can start my BAS. And on and on and on it goes, seemingly forever.

The blog used to be another of those tasks, something to be done to relax and calm my mind of an evening. The 5am Club rescheduled that, and now I am adrift, not really knowing what to do before bedtime, with one part of me (which, as the hours tick over becomes all of me) fiddling away at the topic for the day.

It’s bloody exhausting.

A 5am friend told me to give it a go for a few weeks to get into the swing. She said it will get easier. I hope so, because today I have slightly numb fingers, because I thought it would be a good idea to learn the guitar instead of writing last night. I kind of leant the chords to ‘Hound Dog’ (The first song I could find an easy YouTube on that didn’t contain lots of music words I don’t understand, like tabs and bars.) but of course only I know it’s Hound Dog, the chord changes are too slow for other humans to recognise.

So now I must away, armed with my new understanding of Bryan Adams from “Summer of ’69”. I didn’t play it ’til my fingers bled, but they do feel like they’ve been worn down a bit.

Tell me 5am-ers, how do you turn off your brains?

Can you play guitar? How HARD is it???

…From The Ashers