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

I have a kid who loves musicals. The schadenfreude that my friends have over this is something just short of proper evil. I fell asleep at Phantom of the Opera. I read a book during Jesus Christ Superstar, and I created an entire study/life timetable during The Boyfriend. The only musical that has ever really captured my full attention is Rocky Horror, and I guess that probably says more about me than the show.

Having a kid who loves musicals means that instead of spending our evenings seeing cool bands, shocking comedians and important movies, we see people prancing about the stage and singing things that they could easily just say, with songs that always end with a big ‘bomp’ (just in was you didn’t know that the song was ended).

Having a kid who loves musicals means that she is IN musicals as well. I have written before about the surprising magic that happens when you watch a group of actors bring a show to life- the frizty energy backstage before the curtain raise, the almost rapturous delight as they take their final bows. Humans humaning towards a common goal is always an honour to experience, and acting is no exception.

Having a kid who loves musicals of course means that we are going to see Hamilton. On paper it sounds strange and yes, I had to initially watch it with an IMBD blow by blow explanation of the plot and the history, but once you understand what the heck is going on, and that there are double castings (so actors can get killed off and come back as someone else), it is strangely compelling. We are going in August, so as is my wont, I’m learning the songs. And they are earworms.

Slogans, song lyrics and advertising jingles have always been my crack. I have a brain that is constantly talking to itself, arguing, defining and rejecting ideas it doesn’t like, so to penetrate the membrane and get inside, things often have to find the back way in. Which is what song lyrics do. I don’t take much notice of the music, but I suspect it has a Trojan horse effect for me, hiding the punch of the pop, until it explodes into my limbic system- that place where emotions all hang out together.

Hamilton has weasled its way in. Lin-Manuel Miranda, that clever, clever writer has woven riffs of songs from my early twenties with new lyrics, making old music and even older stories into a fresh new fabric. The familiar snippets of tunes just outside my conscious reach means that I allow the next layer to be implanted. Its entirely tricksy and almost the G-word. If not genius, it’s definitely inspired.

Three phrases have wormed my ear most significantly: The world turned upside down. I’m not throwing away my shot. You will never be satisfied, I will never be satisfied.

The world turned upside down: over and over again, in this post-2020 year, I’ve found reason after reason to sing these three lines.

I’m not throwing away my shot: I’ve used that more times than I care to admit, noticing moments of joy that I would usually rush past. Taking opportunities I might usually squander. Living more. Being more. Taking chances. Adding richness. Not throwing away any shots I have for being present.

You will never be satisfied, I will never be satisfied: this one’s the kicker. Of all the lyrics in all the songs (and there’s more than twenty of them) this one is the one that gets me every time. When is it ever going to be enough? Is there ever enough? Will I ever be enough? It’s the question that keeps me awake at night, enveloped in the love and warmth of an amazing family, home and life, and yet still wondering: is there more? Is there something else that I could be doing? Have I done enough?

So just as I suspected: musicals suck. They make you think all the thoughts and question all the things, getting in and under your skin until they end, or you end: BOMP.

Someone* once said, “Things have no inherent meaning, just the meaning we bring to them.”

It’s a statement that comes to me time and time again, because it’s so simple and true. I use essential oils a lot, and I like them for the ‘properties’ they have. You know, how Rose Oil needs the massacre of fifty bazillion rose petals to make 5ml of the stuff, and it has a vibration of 325mHz and is the oil of Divine Love. Now it may or may not be those things. And it may or may not bring me divine love when I inhale it, but it’s the meaning I bring to it that gives it at least some of its power. You might smell it and say, “That shit stinks, it reminds me of the 80s” (potpourri was a thing) and bring a completely different meaning to it.

And so it goes.

For all of the things. Whether it be the transformative or mundane experience of birthing a child, bringing home a new cat, or that first sip of silent coffee. It’s the meaning we bring that gives our life meaning.

The cool part is: we get to choose. We get to choose if that fancy champers is a story of female empowerment, success and innovation, or an expensive way to get pissed. We can choose if putting on some lipstick is a sign of gender-based oppression, ridiculous vanity, gorgeous nurturing of our feminine (or masculine- get on it fellas) beauty or a reminder to speak our truth. Très exciting. (Or boring- yet again, you get to choose).

My life motto is “choose your own adventure”… a variation of “You do you, Boo” because I believe it’s the source of true freedom. From FOMO and JOMO and growing a Mo. (Shut up, I’ve got The Menopause okay).

This week Coco did a hard thing, and, as it is with many hard things, there were opporfuckingtunities galore. Some of the biggies were her expanding belief that she can do hard things, along with an ability to control her own state. Often in life it is alluring to believe we are the victim- of crappy circumstances, mutated genetics (sorry Coco) or financial flukes that are outside our control. And although it might be kinda easy to go along with that flow, we’re going to end up in the crappy creek if we keep the story running. And the converse is so cool. We already know it, don’t we? When we jump in (not to shit creek, into the pool of potential) and accept the reality of the sitch, and wonder, “What can I do with this clusterfuck?” the real fun can begin.

When Coco did her hard thing this week, we chose to make some meaning from it. And because I am nothing if not good at shopping, of course I chose meaning in a little blue box. We trotted off to Tiff, and once our eyes grew accustomed to the opulence, we found just the thing. A little bracelet with silver balls, that she can use like Mala Beads to calm her state when things get freaky. A little bracelet as shiny as the moon, that she can use to know that the power of nature is within her, and she is a force of her own. A little bracelet with a blue heart to remind her that she has “cor” or courage waiting within her, any time she wants it.

So is a Tiffany bracelet a silly present for a thirteen year old? Probably. Is it indulgent to buy a kid something like this for ‘no reason’? Maybe.

Or maybe it’s just the meaning we bring.

*If you know who that someone is, please tell me. I use the quote a lot and I would like to attribute it. Guy Riekeman perhaps?

Yesterday I had an afternoon where lots of things were time dependant. I don’t like time to rule me- I prefer to let it roll along close by me, sometimes leading, sometimes following and sometimes, in those sweet moments of flow we even hold hands, time and I. Yesterday time was boss.

I had to pick up some cool presents for our Chicks Who Click private coaching group, then bust into the corona-free zone of the school to get Coco’s case left over from camp (yes, the two day old poo-water marinating in the Queensland sun smelt DIVINE for those of you following along), then be back to get the kids to work and singing lessons. Time-frames. And none of them mine. Which doesn’t sound like much, until I decided to believe the voice in my car “Do a u-turn and return to the route” instead of the voice in my head saying, “I don’t think that’s right.”

It wasn’t.

So I ended up sitting near Gibsons (which is the other side of town if you aren’t from Newsa), blinking like a mogwai, and wondering why on earth I didn’t listen to my brain instead of Siri. When you organise yourself to the nth degree, any deviation can throw the whole space-time-continuum thingy awry, and the earth shifts on its axis. Or perhaps I’m being a little dramatic. Blogging can do that to a person you know.

So I did what any self respecting loon would do: I breathed out, I smiled, and then I described (out loud) how the next hour would play out. How I would do all.of.the.things with ease and grace. Which of course made me laugh, as grace isn’t really my thang. (Have I ever told you about my “grace”-or fall from- on the escalator in Paris? Comment below if you must know more.)

The dude hosing the path out front of Gibsons gave me a smile- as you do when you encounter an unhinged Mum in a pretend 4WD near school pickup time- which I interpreted as him thinking, “Wow, she’s hot for an old bird, and I do like ’em with a bit of cray-cray.” Winky emoji. (Or maybe it’s the eggplant?)

Back to the narrative:

Guess what?

I got it all done. In fact, I got it done with time to spare. Time and I were mates again. Sorry for being mean, forgive me Time?

Which leads me to the point, and the thing that Coco and I were discussing this morning. Sometimes we think we can’t. Maybe we think we can’t get it all done. Or we can’t take the leap. Or we don’t have the skills. Or maybe we think we are too small, too weak, too dumb, too lazy, too incapable. But the funny thing is, when we set our intentions clearly, when we profess what we want, when we put in our specific order (I’ll have the steak medium-rare and put the gravy on the side please) and make sure it is received, then we can do more than we think we are capable of.

We aren’t incapable. We are IN CAPE ABLE.

We can all be super heroes in our own lives. In capes (obvs).

My cape says ‘The Fabulous Popping Nacho,” Liam’s says, “The Mighty Lightening Bolt,” and Coco’s says, “The Amazing Little Bee”. (Yes, we all have our talents, and yes, if I could choose again I’d now be The Chick of Truth, but sometimes you have to work with what you’ve been given, don’t you?). Point being: we all have capes. It’s just that sometimes they get chucked to the back of the cupboard with all the unmatched socks and the now dusty Apple box with the receipts from last Christmas. And we forget we have them.

Here’s some homework: Dust off your cape. (You’re more than able.)

Dr. Seuss knew didn’t he? In Oh The Places You’ll Go he describes how the waiting place is the worst. How nothing happens and nothing happens and nothing will ever happen. Or at least that’s how it feels when you park your wagon out front of the waiting place. You can’t go in and get a refreshing ale- no that’s not for the waiters. And you can’t leave, because one of the conditions of the waiting place is that once you agree to the wait, you have to wait it out. Sounds a bit like Hotel California.

Earworm right there for you Boomers and Xers. #sorrynotsorry

Moving on.

We are currently in a waiting place. Surgery has been sort of scheduled for Coco, but there are still many little moving parts that need to line up, so nothing is quite set yet. We don’t know precisely where to go, or when, but we do know a general direction and an approximate day. Plus or minus.

The funny part is: this is the same as it ever was. Because that is what life is like. We run our circus with apps for productivity and calendars to show where we will be at any given time, but it’s really all just a promise on the wisp of a dandelion. All of the appointments and work meetings and party acceptances are just a semblance of a life well organised. Which can change on a dime.

We trick our brains to believe that those colour-coded blocks of betrothed time will anchor us to something real and solid. It’s how we make sense of the world. Which is what makes the waiting place such a challenge to sit within. Whether it’s waiting for surgery or waiting to get out of lockdown or waiting for the phone call from the oncologist, the waiting can be worse than the actuality.

Part of the discombobulation of the waiting place is the the tickle of activity that goes on all around. People go and come and go as you sit and watch. They make dinner plans and break arrangements. They buy shoes and groceries. They live. They play as if all of the things they are doing have meaning, and all things will come to pass.

The most interesting thing about the waiting place is coming to the understanding that we live much of our lives by a pact. We agree that we can exchange a pineapple (fifty dollars) for about twelve actual juicy pineapples (giving us about six times our RDA of Vitamin C into the bargain), even though no one can eat a plastic promise. We tell the bank we’ll pay back the loan no matter how often they change the rules and bend us over. We tell the kids to get the parchment to get a job, to earn more pineapples.

The pact sounds a bit like the theme song to Trainspotting if you let your mind get all PF Project.

Which is why the waiting place is no place for anyone to stay too long. Sanity darts away as we look at the farce of pineapple collection, where people are born and pass away, and no pineapples were harmed in the making of this movie.

The waiting place. Just stay for a moment.

Do you remember that show? With Norm and the other guy sitting at the bar? I can’t remember the other guy’s name right now, and I know that’s not right, because Cheers was all about having a place where “everybody knows your name”. Anyway, if you know Cheers, then you are screaming the Other Guy’s name out right now. (I’m pretty sure he was in Toy Story as well. Just call me IMBD.)

Moving on. I have had a couple of places like that in my life. And like my list of friends, I guard them closely. I don’t have too many (I don’t like to spread myself thin), and I choose them carefully. The Morning Star Hotel in Willi was one. Taco Bill’s in Clifton Hill another. I’d like to say Cocktails and Dreams on The Goldy as well, but I think that was more about NOT welcoming me in (another bar, another life). These days it’s Village Bicycle and Bistro C. And here.

The first two are by choice. The third, not so much.

And yet when we arrived here today, at a place that I don’t want to come to, to do a thing that I don’t like doing, I realised that this place is a part of me and I am a part of it. I have a favourite room (27), a favourite carpark area (mezzanine, part e, because: Me… I can always remember where I’ve parked), and even a favourite mug in the parents’ room.

Fave mug. Insta worthy hospital flat lay. Yes I used Mayfair.

Smiling nurses greeted us by name and made a fuss of the kid as if she was Suri Cruise. Doctors who I’m now on patient advocate boards with, popped in for a chat. Other trainee doctors came in to feel the kid’s excellent hepatosplenomegaly and marvel and the lowness of her haemoglobin (everyone’s gotta have a talent, right?). We feel comfortable enough to put our faces right in close to the camera at the entry, and make stupid faces to make Margie on the front desk laugh. We know the order of things, and we are close enough with the guy at Merlo to raise our eyebrows in conciliation when the idiots don’t understand the discount system for bringing their own cup. We never say a word to each other, Merlo Guy and I, our wiggling brows say it all. Today he was almost a seagull, as he step-by-excruciating-step explained the difference between cup sizes (why are they in ounces?) and the store pricing policy to an irate lady dressed in KT-26ers and leggings-as-pants, who was arguing over 30cents and her card being declined. Usually I would’ve just said to pop it on my order, but it would’ve felt like a betrayal to Merlo Guy, and us stalwarts have to stick together in here.

In here.

A funny thing happens to the kid when we get in here. I try to speak in the language of hospitality instead of hospitals. I call it “checking in”, and we run to the bathroom to see if we are getting L-Occitane toiletries (we aren’t). We look at the “room service” menu, and talk about how yummy the Mango Chicken will be (it isn’t). And yet, still, she becomes a ‘patient’. She lays in the bed all day, even though she could easily sit on the couch with me, and is as quiet and compliant as a lamb. It’s like the institution does something to her, as it does to me. She goes docile, I go to war.

Today I decided to play it a little different. I made a decision to treat this funny, mushy-pea walled place as my Cheers. I chose to see Margie as Sam Malone, and Penny as Diane Chambers. Kevin was Norm, and Stu was the Other Guy. (I tried not to call anyone Carla, but my brain accidentally might have. I told it to hush now, we don’t have to be that mean.)

In some weird way, after so much stretched-out time together, this soft, speckled lino and the sweet-prickly smell of chlorhexidine has gotten into my nostrils and into my being. I didn’t choose it, wouldn’t have chosen it in a million years, and yet here we are. If I love my life (and I do) and I love my kid (and I mostly do, can I be “barley” during tantrums?) then I must also love the experiences and the laughcries and the learning I have done in this place. It has tested me more than any other location (yes, even more than the Cricketer’s Arms in 1992, may I never get a stomach bug like that again), and it has shown me more about myself than I ever thought I wanted to know. I’ve had some of my biggest moments here, both fair and foul.

And so now, just like the blankets. A part of me is the property of Queensland Health.

Cheers.