scared

We live alone, in a house that has no other houses close by... I love our little home, but I am growing increasingly nervous.  I hear sounds at night and I am afraid.  I turn all the inside lights off and the outside lights on and I pace silently around the house with the police number on speed dial.  I don't like living like this.  I realise that this is part of why I stay up so late at night - I feel safer when I am awake in case something happens.  I have a precious fragile child here and I need to protect her.  I pace the house holding piece of pipe, god knows what I would do with it.  I love our home, our vegie garden, our chicken house... but at night I am afraid and I don't like it.

cheerful trike...

Guess who has a big girl trike?  She is doing really well at learning to steer...but still needs some encouragement to actually break a sweat of her own by putting some muscle into the peddles :-)  After a rough day of police reports and confronting thieves and letting go of missing jewellery and feeling a bit down over-all...a walk to the local shop for dinner stuff resulted in a lovely new set of wine glasses for mummy, and a trike for the little one.  And now mummy feels much better :-)

mother's love

I love my daughter like an ache.... I love her in a way that almost hurts, that is almost painful.  I watch her, see her move in the world, exploring new sensations, swimming in new knowledge... I watch her and she is at once more familiar than my own body - and at the same time totally strange, alien, unfathomable.  I cannot wrap my mind around how her perfect imperfect little self came to be in the world.  She looks at me with eyes that own me, consume me, rely on me... and I cannot understand how this miracle came to be.  How is she my child?  How did that perfect upturned nose come into existence? How was I a part of that?  Most of the time I feel like she somehow came through me.  I cannot imagine that I made something so exquisite myself - made of my cells, my blood, my wishing... Instead I feel that she entered this world through me, as though I am merely a grateful witness.  I watch her jumping in muddy puddles - full of joy, full of the experience of life - and my heart is filled with inexplicable inexpressible joy.  I need only look at her to smile and to ache a little inside.  I feel like a school girl with a crush, I have a huge lifelong crush on this little person.  I see her faults, I see her determination to be frustrating sometimes, her annoying streak of rebelliousness.  I see her messy hair, curling every which way and a bit thin for true beauty.  I see her little face - pretty not classically beautiful.  And yet to me she is everything - and utterly adorable.  I spend my days gazing at her like a fool - filling my eyes with her, needing to kiss her and cuddle her every second moment.  I miss her when she is in the next room and I love to just be near her, lay by her while she sleeps, listen to her breathe, watch her play when she doesn't realise I am watching, see her interact with life in her own special and unique way.  I see her grow and change - bittersweet because I have to let go of all the past wonders of her baby days at the same time as I am thrilled to see each new level of newness, each blossoming of her personality and mind, the birth of each new ability and understanding.  I have never seen her as part of me - she is totally and completely her own person - but I feel whole when I am holding her.  I feel honoured, privileged, in awe of her love for me.  I have to pinch myself when I realise that I am the one she turns to when she is hurt, scared, happy, unsure... sometimes the honour feels so great it threatens to burst out of my chest in bubbles of pride.  Its like a miracle gift that is a constant surprise - like winning the lottery at the point when all was lost - and each day, each moment, you have to touch the cheque again to be sure its real.  Every night I go and stand by her bed while she sleeps and just breathe in the completely mind blowing reality of her existence.  My heart feels too human to contain the wonder of it.  Her little fingers, in mine, seem like a dream - like the yummiest gooiest chocolatey-est desert in the world - like a morsel of the best tasting treat ever melting into your taste buds.... and you are filled with the pleasure and the sense of wanting to savour every precious passing moment.   I love her in a wordless, all consuming, every cell of my body kind of way.  I know that for the rest of my existence, my world will orientate around her existence.  I touch her nose, her little lips, stroke her hair or rub her back and feel those little fragile bones and the thin soft skin over them... and its like falling in love anew with each passing moment.  So perfect, so fragile, so adorable.... I cannot believe that I am lucky enough to experience this gift.  I would die for her, kill for her, lift a car for her... I would lay in the mud to make her happy, and give her my last piece of chocolate without hesitation.  I cannot imagine how any moments could be happier than being with her, and I don't long her time away from her - I long for more time with her.   I delay putting her to bed at night just so that I can spend more time just being quietly in her presence, talking, experiencing.  Imperfectly perfect, utterly loveable, completely loved... my angel daughter.  I would give her the world knowing that every moment gives me so much more in return.  The words feel way too small but all I know, with all of me, is that I love her... beyond words.

vegetarian's delight...

Basil, long beans, cucumbers, capsicums, zucchini, parsley, tomatoes, oregano, chilli, watermelon, pumpkin, bananas, lettuces, chinese greens, guava, mango, mint.... no its not a fancy new detox recipe.... its the contents of my garden ... joy joy....

on a simple life

So I came here with a number of personal goals.  I feel good about starting to tackle them, and to start making progress.
One of my life goals is to have a simple life - although even that is not entirely a simple concept.  Its partly about not being enslaved by the need for possessions and clutter.  Its partly about not inviting drama into my life.  Its partly about not filling my life with busy-ness.  Its partly about my struggle to find a sense of connectedness with others without running around endlessly engaging in other's lives and their journeys and life dramas.  Its also about eating simply, being in touch with nature and the dirt of the earth, about patience and going with the flow of the world around me instead of seeking to control it.
Growing vegies symbolises much of this.  In every different part of my life journey I have had a vegie garden at some point - and the health of it is often symbolic in its mirroring of the level of "complication" in my life.   Growing food is a simple routine, hands in the dirt, nature and growth following its own patient process.  It is  about breathing, watching, appreciating, taking a moment and being present.
I have had a half neglected vegetable garden since the time I went back to Australia, but this week it found its place in my life again, and we created its sister!  I am so excited to witness its growth...and of course I am thrilled to have my own little dirt girl so loving the new adventure...

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on aloneness

So I look back through previous posts and I see that each passing year, at some point, I write about aloneness.  In August 2011 I identified "aloneness" as my life theme.  I find this fascinating.  I sat down tonight thinking about writing a sorry-for-myself blurb about feeling so alone in the world.  I was planning to moan about the sense of family some people find in their life long friendship groups - and how alone in the world, how lacking in family, I often feel. 
Now that I see this pattern however, and as I reflect on my own self indulgent self pity, I realise that I need to start taking responsibility for the choices that I make which lead to feeling alone.  I crave closeness and yet I push it away at the same time.  I yearn for connectedness yet I find it hard to maintain consistently. 
I have the sense that as I grow older I become harder to engage with, more self contained... and it does concern me.  And as I make the life choices I am making - to work overseas, to be a single mum, to take on multiple interests and leave little physical space in my life for free socialising, to spread myself thinly amongst many connections rather than focusing on deepening a few... these choices are what leads me to the place I am in. 
I crave connectedness, but struggle to find people who are inspirational to connect with.  I crave social interaction, yet I fill my time with tasks and busy-ness.  I crave closeness yet I am surprised to admit that I am shy, and am often hobbled by my own social awkwardness and shyness. 
Is this my path?  Am I to wander alone, forming a few connections and leaving them behind?  Is my love of freedom and solitude winning out over my love of connection and closeness?  Is it possible to have both?  That is the question I would really like to answer...
I feel like I have spent my life searching for the place where I will feel at home and interconnected with those around me.  Sometimes I feel like I have found it, but so far that feeling has not lasted and eventually I end up feeling lost, like an alien, held at arms length from the rest of the world that is merrily toasting best friends and being brides maids for each other.
I make new connections easily, but I find it so hard to go past the immediate interaction to a deeper level of committed friendship.  I crave this - I want it - but I don't know how to do it.  I make mistakes and people get upset with me and it breaks my heart into smaller pieces each time. 
Perhaps one day I will wander into a corner of the world where people get me, where I am able to find the love I crave, where I feel at home and where I know that these are the people who will be there for me, and I will be there for them, no matter what.  Will I find this in familiar spaces or new horizons?  I don't know.  I will keep looking....

perfect moments

My daughter plays happily on the sand, picking up shells, frollicking, giggling... gentle waves glisten behind her, lapping softly...hammocks are suspended invitingly from laden palms around us... green fronds contrast with blue sky, pale sand, turquoise ocean and the soft greyish green rise of mountains in the distance...an acoustic couple sing hallelujah with chilling beauty... brunch is served, light, tasty, cheap, perfectly poached eggs with luscious smoked fish and hollandaise... fruit smoothies wash the salts away and coffee is refilled from pots on the table... family and new friends chatter about the countries they have lived in, the books they have read and the art they have seen... the sun warms without burning and the pool prompts thoughts of floaties and bathing costumes...sand is between my toes, my belly is full, my eyes  thrilled, my ears enchanted and my heart smiles.  These are the moments.

brrring brring

So... naively I placed an ad in the local paper for a part time nanny, with my phone number... 120 phone calls later I think :
a) unemployment may be a bit of an issue here
b) many many people do not know how to string a sentence together on the phone
c) being a mother does not make you a good nanny
d) 10:30pm and 6:45 am are stupid times to call about a job and I feel justified in hanging up on you if you do
e) not turning up, or turning up an hour late, when you are one of the lucky few who got through and got an interview is just plain rude
f) one should always always put a postal address not a phone number for job ads.
g) I will not be turning on the sound on my phone for some time... til I am sure that the coast is clear... 

and then in she walked... her smile lit the room... she is young, radiant, sweet, playful, educated and exactly the image of the nanny I imagined my daughter loving.... She trials tomorrow and I may be more nervous than she is!