A little Of Course

Lately I’ve been making the time (no, not finding the time- when I try to find it, it is endlessly elusive, I have to MAKE it) to do some simple things. Breathing (don’t laugh, I’m doing breathwork- it’s a thing), coaxing and stretching out my wound-up muscles, taking fifteen minutes to sit quietly in the sun, designing my day so that I can have twinkling candles lit and dinner on the way in time for sunset, so that I can sneak away for a moment and drink in the last moments of the day.

To my Nan and the generations before I suppose this sounds like nonsense. Of course we would do these things. Of course you need to breathe with your whole lungs to keep the recesses fresh and clean. Of course your body works better if it actually works a little. Of course sunshine helps you to grow in more ways than just making your legs tanned. Of course the best time of day is when the light is low, delicious food smells engulf you and your nest is full of people you love most. Of course.

Yet somehow, some days, in the bustle of the hustle it’s easy to forget and forgo these little of courses, in search of a new course. Perhaps it might be something as fabulous as a new book, a new bar, a new job, or a new restaurant. Or it could be something more benign- just the rushing about in the minutiae of life- taking kids hither and popping to the supermarket thither, grabbing this or that or the other in order to tick all the boxes and have all the things.

Don’t get me wrong- these comings and goings are what makes up a life. They are the things that give meaning to our years, so long as we actually take the time to make the meaning and the memory by accepting the present of the present. With our presence. So many opportunities to receive. It’s often said that our true power lies in our ability to receive, and so that is the lesson of the simple of courses that I’ve been indulging in.

They feel so deliciously indulgent, which tells me they are something that my mind and body craves- so much so that I wonder how I ever let them slide. Yesterday I went down the slide- we have one in our own backyard, so I can’t tell you one reasonable reason for NOT sliding more often. As I slid, my scalp remembered pigtails flying behind me as I hurtled down a slide as a four year old. My skin remembered the sweet burn, as bare legs touched hot metal of slides that had baked in the sun all day. My eyes remembered looking to the sweet line of the horizon as I flew high in the air at the end, and wondered if I would ever touch the ground again. But most of all, my heart remembered the thrill of all of the slides: fast ones, slow ones, twisty ones. Ones where I crashed into some kid who had stopped at the bottom, or fell off the end, tumbling on grass or sand. Ones where I hurt myself a little, and then ran back to the ladder for another turn anyway. And best of all, it remembered the ones with the heavy-vulnerable weight of my own children in my lap. Feeling them press their backs against my chest, feeling for my safe heartbeat as they learnt to love exhilaration.

Those slides were the best ones of all.

Of course.

…From The Ashers

Cool as a cucumber

That’s the name of a book. I have it in my bookcase but I don’t remember reading it. There are no underlined pages, so I don’t know what I thought of it at the time. I turn pages and write in margins of books almost as note to future me. I take them down and dust them off and see how the book read me last time, often marvelling at what past me was like, sometimes wondering what was so significant about a sentence or a sense. Waiting to Exhale is a book about relationships and I think it was even a movie, and I’m stealing the title because that’s what life feels like a bit right now.

I have a seventeen year old who is getting his driver’s licence and his pilot’s licence and has his boating licence, so every time he takes to the road or the sky or the water I take a big deep breath in and hold and hold and hold it until he steps out of those adrenaline filled worlds and back into the nest. Yes, I know I have to allow this stretching to occur. Yes I know it’s good for us (I assume the broccoli rule holds true: something that feels so yuck MUST be good) but that doesn’t mean I like it. I spend my professional days helping people to understand the difference between something that hurts and something that harms, so it’s not a new concept, but it doesn’t mean I like it.

I have a fourteen your old who is learning to act and sing and go out all day without me, so every times she leaves to hang with her people I take a big deep breath in and hold and hold and hold until she steps out from those magical worlds and back into the nest. Yes I know I have to allow the flexibility to bend and flow, but that doesn’t mean I like it. I go to yoga classes where I learn the difference between stretch and strain in my own body, so the concept is familiar and maybe even comforting, but that still doesn’t mean I embrace it.

I stole the title of Waiting to Exhale, because for in life as it is in art, our lives are really all about relationships. It’s probably a big part of why we are here: striving to tribe, collecting connections. We spend a good part of our days trying to find ways to connect more dots and see what is hidden in plain sight- what bigger picture will be revealed. We breathe in to prepare ourselves, to fill our brains with oxygen and to get activated. And once the anticipation and the excitement is over, we exhale to calm down and be at peace. To lick our wounds, or lips or each others faces as we settle into our nests to rejuvenate.

A big part of parenting is spent waiting to exhale, and for me that’s a big part of the world right now. We have taken the big breath in and now we wait to see what will happen next, what the next rule will be or what the next stats will show us. So much of the lives that we are playing in are dependent on external things, whilst we hold, hold, hold our breath like big wave surfers running underwater to increase their lung capacity. Like parents in the small hours- half in slumber, yet still waiting for the headlights in the driveway and the key in the front door heralding the arrival of the chick back to nest, and to exhale.

This week my girl has spent hours rehearsing all sorts of musical wonders that I will never fully understand, and my boy has spent hours up near the clouds, tickling his brain with dreams of what will be. I remember once telling him to take his GoPro on one of his adventures. He asked why. I said so you can remember it. He said I remember it here and here, pointing to his head and his heart.

So on my week goes. She sings. He flies. And I sit here, quietly, waiting to exhale.

Do (or did) your kids stretch you like the marks on your stomach? Did you ever bounce back?

…From The Ashers

This is a bit weird:

It’s been so many years since I heard your laugh, yet I still know exactly how it sounds. And your voice. I know your exact inflexions. They were so unique that I guess they are like your signature. It might also be that I used to call your mobile like some kind of otherworld stalker for a bit after you died. I liked listening to your voice mail message. Hey, I said it was a bit weird.

This is also a bit weird:

Maybe it’s because you died, and I’ve captured your words in amber, preserving them forever, or maybe it’s because you taught me so many cool things about raising kids, right when I was ready to listen, that I often hear your words. That happens less these days, because so much of your wisdom was about little dudes. Your kids were only young when you died, weren’t they? They seemed older, but they were tiny little wise souls. You taught them so much. And yet, after all this time, still you are present. Not only in the echo of Meil’s laugh or in the cheeky side-edge of a grin from Kam, but in the energy you brought to the world.

There was always something restless, something new to conquer, something to do, when you were in the room. And always something to laugh at. The way your laugh would burst out of your throat always made me light up. So many of the things you found funny were irreverent or inappropriate, but that just made your laugh even funnier. Bloody hell it was hard to work with you sometimes- I’d be trying to be all professional and composed and you’d be running a circus performance over in the corner, making everyone giggle and have MORE FUN. All caps.

This is not a bit weird:

That over the years I have added your slightly wrong, slightly naughty, slightly messy but absolutely more FUN ways to my life, my work and my parenting. I’ve added a pinch when Coco is being poked and prodded with stainless steel hurty-things, and I’ve added a dash when I have to hang on to the Jesus-Bar in the car when Liam is driving (Yes, he’s driving now- can you imagine? I want to remind you of when you came to his birthday when we had the farm animals and you were blind from the growth in your skull and had to be lead by Greg- I saw the way you clutched onto his arm- but I can’t even write it without tears. Remember your cowboy boots? I do. You stomped right ’til the end my friend. We all remember the way you never let death take you- you took it. And I will always add a big dollop of that gutsy sass to my days.)

This is a bit weird:

I wonder what you would think of the world now. Would you be sitting back and taking it, or would you be out there making a difference, making everyone look up, and see the big picture? I think I know the answer to that, and I promise that we are doing our best to honour you, and keep hold of the world as you would have liked to see it.

Remember near the end when you were seeing flashes of light and you thought that maybe your sight was coming back. I remember, and those flashes are the things that remind me that no matter what, there is always some light. Even if we have to make them up a little from a pathway in our brain.

You were always a bit weird, Rick, in the nicest of ways. And you shone your light bright so all the other weirdos could find you. I like your brand of weird.

Thanks for the light.

Happy Birthday Rick. Miss ya. Love ya.

…From The Ashers

Somedays you can rule the world, make new content, slay the day, hustle and flow and GSD. Other days you don’t. On the days that are other, it can feel like you’re wading through softened butter- too soft to slide over, and too sludgey to swim through. So you trudge along, with slips and falls and easier bits and then the dogged trudging again. You know that forward momentum is what you need, in fact it’s the only thing that will get you through the mire, but sometimes you just want to lay down and rest. The butter would probably feel nice, wouldn’t it?

Somedays you wake up with energy and verve, and other days you would rather just hide under the doona and wait for the day to pass without it asking anything of you. Which is fine if that other day is a Sunday with no commitments, but if it’s a work day, and a school day and a you have to be a Mum day, then someone is going to pull the doona back and find you at some stage, no matter how stealthily and silently you hide away.

If this is the someday that you feel inspired to do all of the things: yippee. Go do them.

If this is an other day for you, then this is your reminder that you don’t have to butter up or hide from the world: you are allowed to take the day. You don’t have to be productive and perfectly put together every day. You just have to be true to you. And the only way to know what you wants, and maybe even needs, is to take some time to ask yourself. To sit quietly and listen to the beat of your heart and see what song plays today. It might be different to the one you were secretly hoping to dance to, but just like when the Wedding DJ plays True Colours when you were hoping for She Bop (and who doesn’t love a good She Bop? *leery winky face*) you can still swing it if you let the rhythm flow.

So this is your permission to do whatever day you want. Dance if you like, sing if you’re in the mood, or just quietly enjoy the music.

Tomorrow’s song will be different.

…From The Ashers

PS Sorry if you just found out that your twelve year old self used to dance around the loungeroom to a song about solo female pleasure. But if you did: go you good thing. Bop on.

Tiffany knows what I love

I guess I’m guilty: I’m in love with love.

Love hearts are my favourite symbol- I have them all around me- I love finding hearts in nature (leaves, rocks, markings from the exiting tide on the sand) and I love the word love. I even have a biz with a friend where there’s a love heart in our logo and our website is lovecwc.

Most of my favourite songs are about falling in love, being in love, unrequited love or even lost love.

Movies that hit my heart the hardest are the ones where a love is harmed.

Lately I’ve been finding the world is harder than it used to be. Mostly because I feel like there is a loss of love. Maybe not everyone is as in love with love as me. I see people being mean to each other about things that don’t really matter in the big scheme of things. I notice a shortness in some of the interactions that people have with each other based on whether someone is wearing a mask, getting a stab or standing far enough away. I don’t like it when our hearts harden, or when we choose to see the differences between us rather than the things that bind us together.

When we offer up our heart to another person we are at our most vulnerable and our most trusting. With each quivering beat we are at the mercy of another- it is our most thrilling, exciting and terrifying time. It is also our most powerful. For if we can offer up the essence of our deepest selves for scrutiny and sanctuary we can do anything. We are free.

Hearts are sensitive and soft and need to be held gently. They are also strong and courageous and true.

We have to keep our hearts well, to listen to them and respond to their wants, lest they stiffen or become sharp. The vicious edges of a heart that has been neglected can cut as clean as a shard of glass drawn along the length of a finger, throbbing to death as the life and love pulses out of it.

One day a long time ago my boy and I were talking about war. It was ANZAC Day and I was trying to explain to him why the emotion of the day always overwhelms me. Why my usually stoic lacrimal glands seep with tears for people I’ve never known in places I’ve never been. Why the Last Post causes my arm hairs to stand up like so many soldiers. He couldn’t understand it, my gentle boy, and I watched his brain tick over the thoughts one by one, trying to make sense where there is none. Finally he looked at me and said, “No one would ever go to war if everybody just remembered that everybody else has a mummy. The mummies love them. And the mummies will be really, really sad.”

My boy was right.

These days when I get dressed in the morning, my finishing touch and my fortress is my necklace. It was bought for me by my family and it whispers my favourite word, from my favourite shop. I look in the mirror as I put it on, and say quietly, “I’m just adding a little bit more love.” And then I breathe out, and think of ways that I can make my necklace come true.

I think it’s okay to be in love with love.

..From The Ashers..

Carla

So what do you think? Did I get a Carla?

First I’ll tell you the story.

The weekend had been set aside for a girls’ weekend with Jen, Jools and Nic, my uni girlfriends, for which over twenty five years and who knows how many kilometres are wiped away like our anatomy lecturer’s overhead projector scratchings (Hi Dr.Chandaraj if you are still around. You were amazing, but I never was able to read your writing.) whenever we get in a room together. Corona and border closures had other ideas, so we added a dash of hope and postponed it ’til later in the year, crossing our fingers more tightly than our pelvic floors when the first bars of ‘Holiday’ blast out. Please let dance floors and karaoke bars and dancing around handbags still be a thing when the virus slopes off to become merely endemic. We can hope.

So I made plans with the girls I am allowed to play with (Mum and daughter) to shop and eat and shop some more in the little smoke known as Brisvegas by mostly no-one other than old people like Nath and I who like to 1. Annoy our kids 2. Think we are a bit funny.

First stop was supposed to be Zara, followed by H&M, Seed and then lunch, but somehow we ended up at Carla Zampatti. Shock. We went for a ‘quick look’ which ended up with me being suitably fawned on by the excellent ladies there, helping with sizing, squeezing, and little squees as they fussed and fluffed and just generally made an old bird feel like her time for a Carla had finally come.

I narrowed it down to two: one much too hot for October in Queensland, but comfortable AF and extremely flattering, and one a bit more directional (and cleverly called “Homage to Carla” talk about tugging the story-strings), and not quite as sexy..but with POCKETS. What to do? Caught between fashion and function, yet again, and with price tags that didn’t allow for both. I decided to ‘eat on it’, and the lovlies said they would hold both of them for me. They were seasoned enough to know what, “I’m now picturing myself with make-up and proper shoes and my husband’s eyes on the night,” looks like- they knew I’d be back.

Over lunch and reflecting on the pros and cons of buying something that looks great, but will wind up being a velvet version of a sous vide* or, something less sassy sweaty and more classy, I got a call from Carla’s Angels: someone else wanted the second one. Did I want it? The seconds passed. Did I?

I’ve secretly wanted a Carla for years. I know this one looks good and I finally have somewhere to wear it, in fact once outfit the cards were on the table, I quickly invented three more places to wear it. Did I want it? Did I mention it’s called Homage to Carla?

Of course I did. I told them I’d be there shortly, but I understood if they wanted to sell it to the decisive lady in front of them. They declined. Carla was mine.

Of course when we got to the store the ladies were as lovely as ever, and I thanked them for keeping their promise to hold (what was soon to be) MY Carla. But it all felt a bit off. Some of the shine was taken off the purchase, in knowing that me getting this piece meant someone else missed out. You’ve probably seen the videos; the ones where the marathon runner is about to cross the line in second place and the person in front of them collapses, and rather than running on by, they pick them up so they can cross the line together. I love those videos and I bloody love a good win-win. It’s unlikely that I’m ever running a marathon, so this was my chance. I got the ladies to put the search out for another Carla, just like ‘mine’. Yes there was another, they said, but it wouldn’t work for the other lady, as she needed to have alterations done, and the times wouldn’t match up. She would have to miss out.

What to do, what to do? Should I give up what was fast becoming my beloved third child to bring another woman joy? Should I just shelve my Carla-owning dreams and buy something more sensible? Should I get the velvet sauna after all?

In my endorphin-fuelled almost-purchasing inner monologue I’d forgotten one thing: I didn’t need the damn thing for months. I could just drive back to Briso and pick it up another day. Facepalm. I told this to the Angels, and they quickly agreed to an even better plan: through the magic of Australia Post they would simply ship it to me. Amazing. Technology, ‘eh? I was laughing to myself as we completed my purchase and they called the other lady (who I’m pretty sure did a little squeal when they said she could come and get HER Carla), at how when we open our minds to the win-win we can almost always find a way. Sure it felt a bit weird and kind of sad to spend a whole bunch of bucks on an outfit that I couldn’t immediately go back home and try on (which is what I always do with new clothes), and sure it gave me waaaay more time to have buyer’s remorse, but there was something fun about how it all turned out. A kind of fashion solidarity that could be vapid or bullshit or nothing at all, depending on your view. But I like to think that story is important.

I know the brand of Carla Zampatti was forged through passion and tenacity and a desire to make women feel beautiful. I also know that things don’t have any inherent meaning, it’s just the meaning we bring to them. My Carla will arrive soon, and I will have some material with a meaning. Something that reminds me of what strong women can do when they put their heart into a project. Something that reminds me that finding ways to support each other rather than compete will always feel better. And I will be glad that even though I might look not-quite-as-hot as I could have, I will for once have chosen something that fits the function required.

I can’t promise the same thing for my shoes though.

* The process of vacuum-sealing food in a bag, then cooking it to a very precise temperature in a water bath. I hear it’s delicious. Not sure if it is recommended for fifty year old women.

Do you care about brands? Do you have a timeless item with a story? Do you have a Carla yet?

…From The Ashers…