When I was a child I adored Marcel Marceau. He was magical to me. His cracked white face, his pointy red lips, his jaunty hat when he was playing at Bip. He was mesmerising. I always thought he had kind, sad eyes. He seemed to smile with his mouth, but never his eyes.

Marcel as Bip

*****

One cold and wondrous Melbourne evening, I had a steamy bath, and instead of donning my fleecy PJs, I put on my matching quilted brown skirt and vest, with my floral and flowing shirt underneath, and my best brown knee-high boots. (Don’t all the best adventures start with a shit-hot pair of boots?) I brushed and brushed my long hair until it was buffed to a brassy sheen, and Mum let me have a tiny spray of her Arpege. It made me sneeze, but I pretended I liked it, because: adult.

I think I must have been ten years old, going out, after dark, with Peter, my superior Dad. And without my pesky little brothers. I felt like a princess, except better, as I was pretty sure that tiaras would be uncomfortable after a time.

Many of the details of the evening are foggy around the edges these days: I don’t know how I came to know about Marcel Marceau, I don’t know why I was given this gift of tickets to see him. I don’t even know the year, although I assume it was around 1981, when he toured Australia.

My Mum kissed me off, and Peter and I disappeared into the dark night with a roar of the V8 engine: my silver Holden carriage.

I feel like we parked in Market Lane, although that can’t be quite right, but I remember that the shiny cobblestones were slippery under my booted toes, and I had to skip lightly over them to keep up with Peter’s long, languid stride.

Just like in a play, the next scene found us seated in plush red velvet seats, high above the stage, looking down at Marcel’s white lunar face, as he tried to find his way out of what must have been a maze of mirrors. As he felt his way around the walls, I willed and willed him to get out safely, and not remain stuck in the labyrinth forevermore. Just as it seemed that he would gaily trot his way out, he smashed into one final mirror, with a bang that almost made my heart stop.

The most surreal thing about the show was the complete absence of sound. Marcel wore soft black slippers, which made barely a whisper as he flowed over the stage, and he held the entire audience in complete and utter rapt silence.

I was no stranger to quiet, my grandparents were deaf, and it was common to visit their home without a word being uttered, but this was different. There was none of the gentle slapping of winged fingers making shapes in the air, no grunting laughs, no clapping of hands to get your attention. It was as though noise had been cancelled for the evening. It was enchanting.

Cut to the next scene with Marcel performing the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’. The references were mostly lost on me, but I loved watching him hold up an ornate, furled parchment at the beginning of each sin, and I tasted the new words on my tongue: Gluttony, Envy, Sloth, Covetousness, Anger, Pride. They sounded exciting and mischievous. I thought I would use those words in my diary very soon. And then came the last: Lust. Lusssst. I whispered it in my head. Peter shifted almost imperceptibly in his seat, and my child-antennae that was precisely tuned to signs of weakness and discomfort, whirled around to face him.

“What’s Lust?” I whispered, loud enough for ladies three rows behind to titter.

I have no idea what the poor man said, but I know I was fascinated by the word for months afterwards, and would use it as often as possible in the schoolyard, “I lust after Paul Stanley,” I would proclaim to my friends, “Shandi is such a lusty song,” and they would nod along wisely. We were ten. We knew all about lust. (And what we didn’t know we pieced together from surreptitious glances at “Where Did I Come From?” or “Forever” by Judy Blume.

Finally, one night at the dinner table, one of my little brothers let out an astonishingly loud belch, and I said, “Oh, that was an amazing sign of gluttony, you must be very proud. I lust after a burp such as that.”

Mum threw her serviette into her gravy, told me that enough was enough, and I was to stop using the word lust, in fact I was to stop with all of the deadly sins, immediately. They were after all, deadly. And sinful.

I hung my head a little, to show I was suitably shamed, and went off to my room to listen to the latest cassette they had given me. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s called Welcome to my Nightmare by Alice Cooper, and I was intent on learning the lyrics to Cold Ethyl. They seemed quite lusty, in a strange cold, dead necrophiliac kind of way.

Parenting gold, amirite?

https://youtu.be/KOGw0IXFnSQ

…From The Ashers 

By all reports, things have officially gone nuts “out there”, so I have retired to what I like to call THE COMPOUND. I do it every year around this time. All you extraverts can have the shops to yourselves. I’m IN for the Season.

Once school breaks up I try not to go out in the world if I can at all help it. To get to the beach I go out my back gate and cross the road, so I include that as my compound. I may occasionally be spotted in public places when the lure of fancy champagne gets too great, but I keep my appearances fleeting.

Working from home has compounded my compound lifestyle, and one holiday season I only drove the car twice in three weeks, (which is my personal record). It was an amazing feeling once I jumped back behind the wheel- I felt like a P-Plater again, and if it wasn’t for the babyseats in the back, I reckon Nath might have found out the full benefits of the modern split-seat configurations.

It appears the children have inherited the hermit gene, as they have not asked once to go out into the world. I suggested we pop to the shops today, for I am in desperate need of some Pearl Cous Cous, and they wrinkled up their freckled little noses and said, “Can’t Dad get it on the way home?”

Yes, my little troglodytes, he can. Rest easy, you can stay in your pjs this day.

So, as I have no news from the outside world, I thought I would share with you some of the Christmassy things from The Compound. It turns out, that not only am I a recluse, I am a crazy one. No, it’s not cats I collect (One #shitcat is enough thanks). My collectables are all things Christmas. (Oh, and Pez dispensers, but that’s a story for another day).

So here are a couple of things from my collection of christmascrap:

The “Elf Truck”.
My biggest festive success and failure in one handy truck.
Success: the kids go NUTS over the fact that the elves deliver two tiny presents into the corresponding drawer every.single.night.
Failure: See ‘success’ above. EVERY.SINGLE.FRIGGING.NIGHT!

This is the “non-crap” corner of the house.
A clever craftmaster friend made these cushions. Coupled with DH’s ridiculous standards of Christmas styling… This is the daydream area of The Compound.

And yes, I can crapify even a lovely Chrissy sanctuary (above) with this shit christmas mug. I drink the brown life-elixir from it every day from the 1st of December….

We try this every year. The results are always craptacular, and nothing like the DH version above.

The kids call these the NutNut animals (I know: weird) they are from Bali, and all I can assume is that the Balinese have no idea what Christmas is, but they do know that idiots from Australia really will buy anything if it’s cheap enough. QED.

Necessary to set the mood, no? This is a small selection of my stuff. (Yes, there is MORE on the ipod… Happy Days)

A few years back I was the fundraising organiser for kindy, so I needed to boost the numbers. Hence: my very own stylish picture plate.

Of course there’s napery. SO MUCH NAPERY. For, who can resist it??

Test tubes. With red Christmas lights. Made in our initials by the talented Ben from Infinity Eco Furniture. I suppose you can guess what kinds of “experiments” occur when these babies come out to play… Let’s just say that what happens on the iDeck, stays on the iDeck (I’m looking at YOU Christmas 2013)

Oh yes, I will be subjecting people to Christmas games…

My Christmas earrings. There is more (oh so much more) where this came from, but I thought I’d just show you the classy shit.

Christmas crockery.
There is SO much more than this, including (of course) an entire set of gold-rimmed crockery and glassware (minus one, as smashed by someone who WAS smashed back in the great Christmas debacle of ’09.)

An assortment of crappy christmas tableware. A must for every tragic family..

NOT crap!
My gorgeous chrissy handbag. It’s hand-crafted from a kimono, and was given to me a few years ago by the owner of “Kimono Collections” who understands and encourages my addictions.
I LOVE THIS BAG.

So there you have it, the tip of the Asher Christmas iceberg. Whew, I think I need a good lie down now….

What about you? Any Chrissy Crap to share?

…From The Ashers

Golden

Sometimes kids can be annoying. They can be silly, they can make annoying noises, laugh at inappropriate things, get ALL of the toys out, not eat their dinner, have to be reminded to do basic, basic stuff, and, you know, just be kids. So annoying.

And other times they aren’t like that at all. They are amazing, and you get a little sideways glimpse of the adults they may become.

We had a weekend like that here.

On Saturday Liam went to a coding workshop at the library. It’s something that he has wanted to do all year, but the course fills up quickly and he has been on a waiting list. It finally began this week. I can’t tell you how excited he was to go, and how bubbly and light he was when he came home. At ten years of age he was one of the younger kids there, yet still he put his hand up to present his coding results at the end of the course, in front of everyone. Who does that willingly? I suspect he is not of our making. He has somehow, in the ten years he has been under our care, made himself.

At times I forget to parent the kids that I have, and try to parent the kids that I think I should have. I try to stop them from reading and writing stories and playing make-believe games with sound effects and mess. I tell them to “get outside”, to kick the footy, ride a bike, run around. And of course they do do those things at times, but that is not what comes naturally to them, or at least, not always. Today is a day off and I asked them what they would like to do, open slather, anything you want. Answer: a resounding chorus of “Pajama day”. So, in trying to parent some other mythical children, I said, “How about a bike ride instead?” They both just looked at me blankly, and Coco said, “Why did you ask us what we wanted, if you were just going to make us do something else?” Fair question. And why would I want my little dudes to be anything other than who they truly are?

For those little dudes did something pretty cool on Sunday.

They planned out an event called ‘The Golden Garage Sale’. They culled their cupboards and collected bits from other people to sell. The made signs, they dressed in gold, and they sorted things into themes. (Coco is still gutted that the goods in her “Pinkatorium” didn’t sell out.). When customers were scarce, they went out onto the main road and danced around with their signs, to drum up business. Liam did some busking, and Coco jumped up and down.

Ready for business

And they did all this for charity.

For gold coin donations.

This was all without direction from us- Liam chose to do it and how it would go. He explained what was going on to all of the customers, and managed to get quite a few donations, as well as sales. Several times during the planning I tried to add things, change the charity, or just generally make it how I thought it should be, and he would quietly say, “It’s my garage sale, Mum.”

And he was right.

This life is theirs for the taking.

They should be allowed to play this game however they like. It’s their game. Their days are just how they should be, the most perfect way for them. Not me, not Nath, not some other kid up the road. Them. And these days are just fine.

In fact, they are golden.

…From The Ashers

By the time you read this, it will be exactly one decade since we welcomed this dude into The Ashers.

10!

But of course we weren’t really The Ashers then, we were just Al and Nath. This little fella made us into something bigger than ourselves. He popped into my uterus as a bit of a surprise, what with all the androgyny of me (It’s okay to say it, I know I might not be the most voluptuous, oestrogenic looking chick on the planet) and the cancer of him and his boy bits. I think it’s safe to say I thought that we would be pretty safe from being Offspring Infected. I didn’t even have my fingers crossed in ‘Barleys’ like we used to at primary school. (Yes, I know, it was my legs that should have been crossed)

So he buried himself deep into the warm folds of my womb and stayed there until he was nice and ripe and he was fit to burst right out of my skin.

He birthed himself just like a text book, and followed our every plan to the letter. So many times we would look at each other and say, “Is this for real? Is this kid Baby of the Year or what?”

Because he was.

Still is.

He is funny, quirky, clever, challenging, straightforward, just, logical and about seven steps ahead of us most of the time. He has a blog over here  if you want to see how he rolls. He has a strong sense of self, and so far, I think that is what I am the most proud of (other than the fact that I pushed his 9lbs7oz out of my very own vagina).

This morning he said to me with a sigh, “Today is the last day of single digits, the last day of my first decade. It gets tough from here.”

I thought he was talking about footy, “What do you mean, the competition?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot, “No, life, it gets rough from here on.”

Now it was my turn to look at someone like they were dopey, “I’m forty-three mate, my life isn’t rough. It doesn’t have to be rough.”

He sighed again, speaking slowly, as if I was a little feeble minded, and counted on his fingers, “Your Dad died, you have to make the lunches every day and then there’s taxes.”

I laughed and told him he didn’t need to worry about those things for a long time.

He looked doubtful and said, “It’ll be here before you know it. And the lunches: every.single.day.”

I left the room, shaking my head at this little grandfather-child we were raising, a little sad that he knew all of those things so early: the repetitive nature of life, and of death, and of course taxes.  I worried that some of his attitude was from having a sister with a thing, from spending too many of his days in hospital waiting rooms, seeing things beyond his years.  Or perhaps it was from his precocious reading, devouring stories meant for more mature minds. Or maybe it was just that he had seen too much of death and The Cancer. I vowed to bring more frivolity to his next decade. To encourage silliness and nonsense and time-wasting. To create space for daydreaming and giggling.

And then I heard some stifled laughter coming from the wizened one’s room, so I popped my head around to see these two idiots:

Very mature

goggles on, and taking pot-shots at each other’s heads with Nerf guns.

My heart lifted a little.

Maybe there is hope after all. Maybe the next decade will be just fine.

Happy Birthday Liam. You rock. And not just on the drums or the guitar or on the…erm…clarinet

…From The Ashers xx

I have an embarrassing confession to make. But I think you might like it, so I’m gonna spill the beans.

Over here at The Asher’s we like to work as a team, and a little while ago I thought a team should have a team song. A theme song to sing on long car trips and to get us psyched up before big shopping trips. Or something.

We consulted the kids, without consensus. Liam wanted Thunderstruck, and Coco wanted some shite Minecraft song that isn’t really fit for humanoids to listen to.

So I made the decision, and I chose the most uplifting song in the world.

Here it is.

Don’t tell me you don’t love it.

Do you have a family song? What is it?

…From The Ashers xx

They used to be in a box. (Sigh) Progress.

I saved and saved up all my pocket money to get my Dad something special for Father’s Day. Mum took me to the shops and I went directly to Darrell Lea, running off before she could offer advice involving socks or cheap whisky. Darrell Lea in those days was an absolute mind bender. Tiny glass bottles filled with striped tooth-cracking sweets. Rows of glistening caramel fudge. Straps of liquorice in vivid black and, get this: red.  Shelves and shelves of cellophane wrapped delicacies to make taste buds zing.

I walked round and round, breathing in the sugar infused air and forgetting why I was there, until my eyes lit upon the tiny eggs of excellence, known as scorched almonds. I knew I must have them. I counted out my silver and copper and secreted them away, ready for the big day.

My Dad looked at my face when he opened his present, and so he knew how special I thought it was. He looked at my eyes, and not at the wrapping, and so when he carefully tore it open, he saw a way to build me up and create another blanketing of self confidence, his mouth turning up a little at the corners as he told me scorched almonds were his favourite things ever.

I will never know if that was true, or if it became true with time, as the years added up, every time I remembered. And every time he pretended to be surprised that the familiar box, with the comforting clunks inside, were his scorched almonds. “You remembered my favourites,” he would say, and my chest would puff up, prouder than an airbag, and I knew I could arm-wrestle the world right there, and I would win.

It has been a few years since I have been able to give my Dad his scorched almonds. A few years since we have been able to sit together in silence, eating our almonds in our own ways. Him: crunching through the thick chocolate to get to the nut quickly and eat it all as one. Me: slowly sucking the weird, shiny layer off first, then allowing the chocolate to dissolve and dissolve until finally chomping the almond, with tiny traces of chocolate remaining in the grooves.

It has been a few years, and still, every year I buy the almonds, and every year I eat them alone. Alternating between his way and mine. Remembering all the times he built me up a little bit and then a little bit more. Until the layers of confidence, resilience, tenacity, strength were as thick as the bitter-sweet chocolate, buffering, protecting the nut inside.

Vale Peter Cartney McShane, and Happy Father’s Day.

It still hurts like a bitch.

…From The Ashers xx