Every morning at around 7am, there is a kid, somewhere in our neighbourhood that yells out, “Bye Dad, I love you, have a great day.”

And then, silence.

We don’t know if there is a beaming dad in his ute who goes to work with something extra in his heart because TILYK yelled out, or if there’s a guy in a suit and tie who is scowling at what the neighbours think. We never hear from Dad. Does he wait patiently and whilst TILYK runs out to the balcony for his shout out, or has he already driven off, heavy as the tasks of the day drag the corners of his mouth down? Is there a Mum who pushes TILYK outside, hissing, “Say goodbye to Dad, quickquick.” (Mums are always saying things like quickquick and don’tdawdle), or is TILYK one of those helium children who wake up close to the ceiling and bounce through the mornings?

Some days we smile right along with The I Love You Kid. Those are the days where we’ve had coffee and cooked eggs and the dogs have been walked and the shirts are ironed and no one spilt cereal on the floor. Those days are where we too brim with good cheer and the intention is set for a great day. TILYK is another part of our affirmation.

And some days we don’t smile. Those are the days when uniforms are crumpled and there’s not enough butter and Shitcat peed on the floor instead of the litter and all I can think of is all.of.the.things that I should do. Shoulding all over myself. It’s a crappy mess. (Worse that cat wee). And those days TILYK also gives me the shits.

This year corona happened, and for a time our windows were shut against the morning breeze and each other. We pulled our loved ones close and thought the enemy was a teensy microorganism that was so powerful it could take away the free things: the salty air, smiles, handshakes, dancing, the sound of the waves, the DOM.

And it stole The I Love You Kid from us. Either his Dad didn’t go to work, or he was a little deflated, or our ears were deaf to his lilt. For months we didn’t hear TILYK and we missed him like certainty, especially on the days when the whelm threatened to over us.

So now that the corona life has morphed into something else, we can hear him again.

And on the days that aren’t as glittery we breathe out, and remember that The I Love You Kid is speaking to us all. He doesn’t know it, but all of the houses that snake along this road hear his fierce cry and our cells hark back to a time when we were brave of heart. He reminds us that we have a choice of how free our hearts are, and what pulse we choose to hear.

The best days are when we know that the cry of, “I love you” is meant for all of us, and our corpuscles respond with, “Have a great day,” and we know that we will and we know that we choose and we know that our minds are free.

Thanks Mel, over to you.

When you make the choice to fully immerse yourself in something, there is a shift within your cells that is terrifying and exciting in equal measure.

In the moment that you decide to go all in, to play full on, there is terror in the knowing that you will lose something of yourself in the process, and that you will gain something too. The fear is in the stepping off. In that free-falling moment when you don’t know quite where you will land, or even how. Will you spring as light as a gymnast on the lush grass, or will it be more like the first time you bring your Christmas-drone in for landing, shaky and off centre, with the no-rain-for three-weeks crispy weeds spraying out in all directions?

A fledgling project, an expensive purchase, a shiny new relationship. They all create the nervicitement of: new me/old me. And right there in the moment between the two, is where the juice is. And that juice is the sweetest and most luscious of all.

In a dusty box at the back of  my mind there is a creature called the Push Me Pull You. I think it could be from Sesame Street, or maybe it lives with Dr.Doolittle, but in my memory it has one body and two heads, facing in opposite directions. So if one head wants to move forward, the other must go backwards.

Jumping in feels a lot like what the poor Push Me Pull You must always have a sense of. In order to move at all, the backward facing head has to trust, and step into the vulnerability of not quite knowing where it’s going, or what the ground is like. It can only feel the irregularity once it carefully places its tiny cloven hoof on the uneven ground. And the forward head has to be sure to lead in the best direction, dealing with whatever comes up in each moment, and making decisions the backward head can’t help with.

Today I sat on the stairs and watched my little girl grow up before my eyes. She went into her bedroom in a flurry of iridescent flamingo pink, and emerged with only a blush of subtle rose on her shoes-a nod to the the days of childhood that she inhabited only moments before.

I sat on the stairs and watched her gather her bag, count her money and smooth her hair. I saw the confident step of the woman she will become, going out into the world without me by her side, her only compass the words we have shared over the years, and the direction she chooses to steer on her own.

I sat on the stairs leaning on my sandy summer-knees, pulled by the heaviness in my heart, as I thought of the way the world looks at her, both real and imagined, and the judgements she will face. I remembered all the times she has cried about how people stare at her, or ask her why she is yellow. And I guessed at all the times she didn’t cry, but pushed the dark feelings deep down into her gall bladder, and smiled the sunshine of defiance.

I sat on the stairs, and the stairs stretched out in front of me like a dark Dr.Suess movie, a conveyor belt of the endless nights and days where I will watch her take that ebullient step over the threshold, without looking back, out, out into her life.

As it should be.

I sat on the stairs and I knew in that moment that my little girl needs very little from me these days. She knows her own heart and her mind is stronger than a nine year old mind ever should be, and that is how this world turns. My little girl is no longer little.

I sat on the stairs and thought of a mother I know very little of, who made a choice this very day to jump off into the abyss of blissful anaesthesia. A mother who knew that no matter how long she sat on the stairs, her little girl was not coming back. I thought of Debbie and her broken heart and I had a tinkling of what that rancid loss might be like.

Can you die of a broken heart?

Can you choose when you step out of this world?

I think you can.

I hope for that mother, as she let the griefs lay all over her like a heavy and cool blanket, it was more exciting than terrifying. I hope she felt the relief.

I hope she got to taste the juice. And I hope it was sweet.

Vale Debbie. Vale Carrie. Travel well ladies.

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?

Sometimes the beauty is in the spaces, isn’t it?

The pause between when you tell him you love him for the very first time, and you wait, one beat, another, and there is that delicious-scary anticipation, before you hear what he will say back.

The gap between the notes in your favourite song. You know precisely how long to hold the silence. You take your breath, before the lyric unfurls the next layer of story.

The very first moment when you become aware of yourself in the morning, when for a second or two you are no-one and nowhere, your brain is furry and unfocussed, and there is no cancer or death or pain that cannot be taken away.

The beauty of the space.

This week two more of my people died.

I know this is inevitable. That with every moment that passes, every beautiful space that passes me by, I draw closer to another death. A bigger space. Another one that can never be filled.

Those deaths take my breath away, every single time.

This week two more of my people died, and there is a space in my heart that can’t be filled, and nor would I want it to be.

What do you say when someone dies? Do you say: passed away, passed over, left this earth, deceased? I don’t like any of those. I say they have left a space.

And so I mark it.

In my appointment book, which is the thing that runs my days, I write their name, where the time for their check up would normally be. My Dad comes in most Saturday afternoons. Hayley comes in every second Tuesday night. Geoff comes in once a month on a Saturday morning, and Bob has 9.15am on a Tuesday, every fourth week. Don’t worry about my tenuous grip on reality, I know they aren’t actually coming in, but I can’t bear to erase them, to take away the space they held in my life.

In the beginning, the space is almost unbearable. The allotted time stretches out from my toes to eternity, and I think I will never endure the tock-tock-tocking of the moments passing. After the passing of months, that if joined together would wrap around the equator eleventy-million times, the space takes on a new form. The time morphs and passes faster, or perhaps it just has less barbs to be ripped out of the gentle skin of my forearms. The space holds itself, it never de-ceases, but I find that I have a fortitude, a fort, that I never knew I’d built, and I can sit in the space, and put the jigsaw pieces of my heart back together.

Some of the pieces are missing.

There are spaces where there once was a picture.

But there is beauty in the parts that are now missing. They are the memories of my very own. Invisible to another, but clear to me.

And they are wondrous.

…From The Ashers

Always with us

When we first met you you were sprightly and jumpy and full of a cheeky, playful energy, that just couldn’t be stilled. We descended on your home like a noisy, chittering storm of crickets, and you just smiled and smiled. You took it in your stride as we took over your couch and your floor with our bums and our beds, and still you just grinned and wagged your strange little curled tail.

Stanley ruling The Pit

You were named after The Stanley Cup, a trophy based on a gentleman’s agreement between the two professional ice hockey organisations, and you personified that spirit: a regal gent, a pug among pugs.

Remember your Henry the VIII costume, with the turkey leg? We do.

We would stumble home after an evening of refreshments, and you’d be up waiting for us, twerking that tail for all you were worth. You’d sit with us as we sang and laughed into the small hours, making fun of your grin and your snuffling snores.

Twins

Eventually giggles would make way to groans, and we would fall into slumber, and that’s when you would come alive, taking every.single.toy out of your basket, placing them carefully in piles, and then back to the basket again, and then again, your clickety-clack toenails marking out the placement pattern for hours on end. We wanted to be cross with you, and make a fuss over our lost sleep, but you were too funny to grump at.

You had a way of bringing out a sweeter side in people, Stanley.

When we next met you, your muzzle had gone grey and some of your fur had been loved off, but you captured Liam and Coco’s hearts in a beat. With your tongue hanging out and your failing eyesight, they wanted to cuddle and love you to bits. They wiped your nose and scratched your belly, and you taught them what it is like to love a pet.

When we left, they waved to you as we reversed down the drive, and they said they’d be back in the summer to see you do a “Stanley Float” in the pool.

They won’t get to do that now.

Today when I told them about the peaceful end of your days, they stared at me with big eyes, two brown, two blue, but both with the same shocked pupils, not wanting to believe me, waiting for the punchline.

Unfortunately there was only a punch in the belly.

I saw Liam swallow and then swallow again, then he popped on his helmet and scootered up and down the path for a while, preferring to be in his own thoughts.

Coco’s eyes grew as wide as finger-bowls, then the tears started dripping and dripping as she let her emotions fall onto the pavers at her feet, forming a tiny rivulet between the weeds.

I was surprised at the emotion, but not of the depth.

You had a way with people Stanley. You opened them up and made careful etches on their hearts, Lord Stanley III.

Thanks for all the laughs, and for the joy and softening you brought to people I love.

You’ll be missed S.Gup.

Vale Stanley

…From The Ashers

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