Sunday, June 27, 2010

YPTD

So I went to a concert.. the opening of the new "go-between" bridge concert... The experience showed me that I am really really old...
First - OK its winter... I expect it to be cold... perhaps I am paranoid, perhaps I am simply now deeply entrenched in the "take a cardie" age group... so I rugged up, a couple of layers on top, stockings under my jeans, knee high boots, scarf and wool jacket.  The concert was out-doors - on the bridge over the water... and I knew a fair amount of walking there and back would be involved... it made sense to me!  Of course, I sweltered, stripped off layers that I ended up lugging around with me, and was surrounded by young things who clearly did not feel compelled to bring a cardie, let alone any pants.
Secondly - I was surrounded by young things... young things wearing bugger all... it was highly distracting!  and not in a good way... no, I was not perving, instead of listening to the music and soaking up the vibe, man, I was thinking about how cold they must be and why on earth anyone could come out in a summer frock to a winter night time open air concert, on a bridge.
Thirdly - it took me until the end of the night to realise that the band I was listening to featured some guy from the band "The Go-Betweens" ... and then another hour or so to realise that this was connected to it being on the "go-between" bridge... duh!
Fourthly... only the really old can be so very very uncool as to take the micky out of the young by mimicking their lingo so badly that no-one got it... Someone I was with commented on the number of young people jostling to get to the front of the audience, in front of all the people who had stood uncomfortably in one spot, forsaking food and toilets, for four hours to secure a view of the top-line act.... "YPTD" I answered... nodding knowingly... "Huh??" was the collective response...   "Young People These Days?"  I explained...  insert sound of crickets chirping... well, there would have been if the damn music wasn't so loud!

Monday, June 21, 2010

Comforting moments

So I am known to quip the line "parenting is merely a very poorly paid cleaning job"... as I de-clutter, de-toy, de-food scrap, de-mountain-of-laundry, de-puke my home AGAIN (several times a day...).  Today however I will qualify that statement... parenting is indeed a very poorly paid cleaning job, but this job comes with interspersed fleeting moments of extreme beauty... moments which take your breath away and make all the cleaning somehow worth it.  Its a package deal, and I accept whole-heartedly.
Every day my angel does new things... changes, grows up.  Its mind-blowing to watch her start to think like a real person... not simply an inanimate eating pooing puking machine (as she has seemed at times)... Today I awoke, as usual, to the screeching alarm clock of the child who somehow knows, despite the fact that it is pitch dark and freezing cold, that it is now exactly 5:30am.  I dragged my sorry butt out of my toasty warm doona, and stumbled blearily into her room.  I had been up to the same screech almost hourly through the night each time she distressed herself coughing her little head cold out.  If I said I was not feeling perky I am sure you would understand the degree of understatement - especially when I add that I have had the night coughing routine every night for the last oh, I don't know, four weeks or so?   Give or take a week...it all goes blurry after a while... But where was I?  Oh yes, escaping from the bleakness into a moment of radiant sunshine.  As I swayed sadly by the side of the cot, arms out-stretched to lift the angel from her cot-of-entrapment (as she describes it so vocally)... A moment... she sat back, looked around her bed, found her pink bunny comforter... picked it up and hugged it, patted the bunny on the head... cuddled it again and put it down...before smiling and stretching out to me to be picked up.   Suddenly the fatigue and the cold and the darkness were irrelevant.  How did she learn to comfort her comforter to say good bye?  Was she thanking bunny for supporting her through the night?  Was she reassuring bunny that she would be back and all would be ok?  Was she getting one last cuddle in before the day began?
I'll never know... but I do know that she thought about something, acted on it, believed it, felt good about it...
Moments of pure untainted beauty...

Monday, June 14, 2010

reconnecting

So recently I had a big falling out with a dear friend... in the way of the multi-decker sandwich of life, there were more than a few flavours in the mix... some new, some old, some borrowed, some sold (well perhaps not sold, but it did rhyme so nicely :-)
Along the way of the conflict path I passed through confusion, took a dog-leg turn at infuriated, dawdled through devastated, parked in resigned for a while, and finally took a deep breath and a running jump at resolution. 
This weekend my friend and I worked out our issues and took the first happy steps to rebuilding our friendship.  I am so glad, so glad to have my friend back, so glad that I did not walk away when it would have been easier to do that, so glad that she also wanted to work it out, so glad that we were both big brave girls in tackling the miscommunications head first, so glad that this journey has come around the jogging track and back to the starting line.
And a wonderful part of the outcome is that I have had a novel and quite delightful experience - I have experienced having someone consciously and overtly choose to be my friend.  So often I have found friendships to be something that you quietly drift into, through circumstances, and can drift out of, or not - but they are non-verbal states of being.  When we date there is generally some point at which someone says something along the lines of "hey - wanna like, you know, be like boy/girl friends or what?" or perhaps something more articulate and romantic if you are lucky.  But rarely do we, out loud, name our choice to be friends. So this weekend my friend told me clearly that she wanted to be my friend... and I told her, succinctly, that I chose to be her friend...
And the experience felt a little odd...but really really nice.