Category Archives: Uncategorized

Head Full of Elsewhere…

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RB1

Oh, that Grey Cat…if I actually had a cat like this one, I would have to call it Cillian (for obvious reasons).

Restlessness.

The untamable bane of my existence.

I’m not talking about physical restlessness.

Generally speaking, I’m not the fidgety, twitchy, can’t-sit-still type — unless I’m having a Squirrel Week, of course, and then I’m virtually incapable of staying put for two seconds together.

No, my Restlessness (and it definitely has a capital letter) is the mental kind.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a day dreamer and a night thinker…a girl with a head full of Elsewhere.

It’s not that my life is boring, or incomplete, or something from which I am constantly seeking to escape.  And I am not always away with the pixies.

But it does creep in, my Restlessness, like a sleek grey cat prowling after its prey, sharp-clawed and stealthy, yet as insubstantial as smoke. And try as I might to capture this evasive creature, or to pinpoint the source from which it springs, it forever eludes me: just as I reach out to snatch its silken ruff it will suddenly vanish —  leaving me, at best, with a wisp of a glimpse of its silvery tailtip disappearing from the corner of my eye.

RB3

The Grey Cat appears when you least expect it, on paws as silent as smoke.

In the past I fought that Grey Cat, seeking to stem the restlessness by studying (literature, history, remedial massage, law — anything), because I was not comfortable with how unsettled it made me feel. But I found that filling my head with knowledge does not take away the all-pervading sense of Elsewhere, when its steps with soft paws into your mind — nor does it diminish its allure.

So I travelled, following in the footsteps of my veritable gypsy of a grandmother whose wanderings criss-crossed the globe as she flitted from this country to that continent, living one endless summer after another. But I discovered that I was as easy with that lifestyle as she was, as happy a traveller, as content with my own company, and as ready to roll with the rhythms of life on the road. Elsewhere, it seemed, was still Elsewhere.

And I also found that no matter where I went, the Grey Cat came too.

Ah, Restlessness.

How I wrestled with it, struggled to make sense of it. I tried to tame it by writing it out, knowing and longing for the clarity of thought I possessed when it wasn’t taunting me:

My mind is unfettered, my thoughts unchained,
springing fully formed from my head
like Pallas Athena,
soaring skyward into the boundless blue,
blessed and bountiful,
arrows searing, sure and true.

 

But the Grey Cat — like many things made of shadows — is a wild creature, and it won’t be tamed by words or wishes.

RB2

It’s all a matter of perspective, really…

So I learned to live with my Restlessness. And, over time, I made peace with that mysterious Grey Cat and all its slippery ways.

I learned that having a head full of Elsewhere is a valuable thing when you need to consider something from a wide variety of perspectives.

I learned that all that day dreaming and night thinking can be a veritable gift when it inspires you to create an entire fictional world, fill it with characters, and bring them to life on the page.

And the Grey Cat?

Yes, it still stalks me, and pounces when I least expect it. But lately I have found that when it does, that elusive creature sometimes let me sit with it, in silvery silence, and allows me to meet its luminous, blue-eyed gaze.

 

Scenes from Suburbia

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I stand in the supermarket, staring at the shelves in front of me, searching for a single pen. Beneath the bright lights are rows of gaudy plastic packages — pencils, pens, permanent markers — but none of them are what I seek.  How is it, I wonder, that an entire brand of felt-tipped pens, the pens of choice in my childhood, could have disappeared, replaced by the apparently ubiquitously popular Sharpie? How is it that my decisions, as a consumer, are being dictated by a duopoly of chain stores that stock only what is trendy or what is cheap?

Fuelled by a combination of nostalgia and disgust, I stalk out of the store to a newsagency around the corner that carries the brand I am looking for. I survey the shelves once again, shelves in desperate need of re-stocking, and select a pen. It costs $4.80 — nearly double the price of a ten-pack of pens at the supermarket — but I buy it anyway.

It’s not even the colour I want.

*****

I sit in a cafe, lured in by the breakfast special (a toastie, a coffee), somewhat dejected by my newsagency experience until I take out my new pen and begin to write. The smooth slip of the felt tip across the paper is soothing, satisfying, and I stop only when a woman sits down beside me and I have to heave my shopping out of her way. “Don’t worry,” she says, “I’m sitting by myself at a table for four.” We smile, complicitly, staring out into the cafe, silently sipping our coffee, savouring moments of stolen time.

A woman at another table is speaking — clearly, distinctly — to an older man sitting opposite her.  Not her father — an uncle, perhaps, or an old family friend.  She tells him that her mother has remarried, has moved away, has moved on. She does not know the people of whom her mother now speaks; new in-laws, new neighbours. She glances around frantically, speaks more loudly, but her words do not reach her companion. He is burdened by his own flailing, failing romance: his lover wants a ring, but not marriage. He says he will buy the ring anyway.

Outside the cafe, a grandfather rides up and down the escalators with his granddaughter. The child squeals and kicks joyfully as he tips her stroller back so she can see the blue sky above, secure in the knowledge that he will never let her fall. Inside, the woman falls suddenly silent as she recognises the table before her is a chasm.

And then a small bird, a starling, alights on the back of the chair in the space between us, bringing with it nature’s blessing in the midst of this consumerist temple of concrete, steel and glass.

*****

I drive home in my husband’s car.  My car is with the mechanic, being serviced. This car, an old blue station wagon strewn with tubes of sunscreen, CDs and smears of surfboard wax, feels so different from mine. The steering wheel is broader, yet the grip is thinner than what I am used to. The accelerator feels twitchy beneath my foot.  Unfamiliar plasticky rattles fill my ears.

Stopped at a traffic light, I turn towards the back seat, trying to see what could be making so much noise, and catch a glimpse of a fine, golden hair — my younger daughter’s — snagged on the upholstery, and feel the comforting rush of the familiar in that single strand.

Always hope

Dirt Music

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Dirt Music 3

Dancing spotlit in a bodystocking? Not me…I’ll leave that to the likes of Misty Copeland.

So the other night, after a few “light beers” (which may or may not have been entire bottles of wine), a mate of mine asked me whether I had a Favourite Book.

As in, a Favourite Book OF ALL TIME.

And I said…Yes.

Or perhaps I just whispered it.

I definitely held my breath for a split second before I answered, not sure of how my response would be received, or whether it would be treated with the reverence I reserve for Favourite Books.

Because let’s face it — owning up to having a Favourite Book (of All Time, no less) is to to reveal your self, to expose your self as completely and unapologetically as a dancer in a flesh-coloured bodysuit on a spotlit stage.  Which is fine, completely fine, if you’ve spent the requisite years honing your body and your skills to the point that a body-stocking, or a distinct lack of on-stage hiding places, or (God forbid) an audience no longer fazes you, but…clearly, that’s not me.

I write. I read.

I cook. I most definitely eat. And while my kitchen is well-known as a place where dancing is heartily encouraged, I would sooner eat a body-stocking rather than wear one.

Even so, despite my many misgivings (or maybe because I, too, had consumed several glasses of wine), the other night I actually confessed to loving one book above all others.

Now, any literature lover will tell you that the idea of narrowing down the books you couldn’t bear to part with to a Top Ten is an utterly absurd exercise. If you truly love books, whittling down your list to a Top Fifty is a difficult proposition.

But if you have a Favourite Book, you know what it is. If, unlike me, you’re the sort of person who likes to proclaim your Favourite Book far and wide and to encourage every last being in the known universe to read it, you know what it is. If, like me, you’re a little more circumspect about revealing the identity of your Favourite Book, you know what it is. Even if you have trouble admitting to yourself that one particular volume is your Favourite Book, you still know what it is.

And mine is Tim Winton’s Dirt Music.

Dirt Music

So here it is — my Favourite Book. OF ALL TIME.

(Oh dear Lord! Did I just type that for the world to see?!)

Yep, Dirt Music is my Favourite Book of All Time.

And I have decided that I will own up to it, and expose myself to whatever judgements you may make about me as a result of that admission, because it is my Favourite Book.

I could have dodged the issue entirely, perhaps, and said it was impossible to decide between Dirt Music and any number of other books, such as Pride and Prejudice or Anna Karenina or The Lord of the Rings or The Great Gatsby or Hamlet, to name just a handful of others.  No authors’ names necessary, of course — they’re all tomes that are regularly cited as being Favourite Books. I could even have wrong-footed my friend by pointing him in the direction of Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea books, or Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, or Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy or  Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

But I didn’t.

Because, deep down, I know that Dirt Music is my Favourite Book.

I’m not saying that it’s best book in the universe — that’s a whole other discussion. And I’m definitely not going to weigh into the whole debate about the Great Australian Novel, either, and whether that accolade goes to Winton’s Cloudstreet or not.  I’m not even saying that you should rush out, buy Dirt Music, and devour it cover to cover — it may not be your thing at all. (I mean, if you want to, of course — go ahead; it might end up being your Favourite Book too).

Nup. I’m not doing any of that.

But what I am saying is pretty simple, really.

For me, Dirt Music, Winton’s tale of Georgie Jutland losing and finding herself in the wilds and waters of Western Australia is special. In the true blue, Bruce McAvaney sense of the word.

I love — no, I utterly adore — Tim Winton’s prose.  I love the tangible physicality of his descriptions of people and place. I love the accuracy with which he captures his characters’ vernacular. I love the overarching presence of the Australian landscape, particularly of the ocean and the coast. I love the way he describes Georgie’s father as Himself, QC — and I love the sheer volume of information and resonance and impact those two words impart.

Dirt Music 2

My super-power: escaping into books…

Reading is such a great privilige, and literacy such an inordinately important gift. And, as Alain de Botton points out, “Of all the addictions, bibliophilia is the noblest and most dangerous.” Where else, but between the pages of books, can we embark on great quests, fight revolutions, ride dragons, or sail further west than west?

I will, I know, continue to read, and always — always — to write. Like Rudyard Kipling, “I am by nature a dealer in words, and words are the most powerful drug known to humanity.”

And it is beyond comforting to know that I can return time and again to the happy places that lie between the dog-eared volumes that line my shelves, to wend my way along hidden paths towards Rivendell, to walk with Elizabeth from Netherfield back to Longbourn, even to hold my breath as Anna waits for the oncoming train…

But I will always come back, time and again, to Dirt Music, if only to discover, like Luther Fox, just one last time:

She’s real…she’s real…

The Quirks of Squirrel Weeks

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Squirrel 3

Whadya mean you never heard of a Squirrel Week?

I’m having a Squirrel Week.

I know, I know: only last week I was explaining that in my professional capacity I am like a chameleon, adapting my writing to suit my clients with all the clarity and precision I can muster, and now I’ve apparently switched my allegiance to an entirely different animal species. But if you read on, it will all make sense. Possibly.

For some obscure (and obviously unknown to me) reason, clarity and precision have gone completely out the window this week, and I am feeling so scattered that my decision making abilities resemble those of a squirrel attempting to cross the street.

I’m having a Squirrel Week.

Oh wait — I already said that. My apologies. That’s one of the quirks of having a Squirrel Week: externally, you keep repeating what you’ve already said, while internally, your head is reverberating with hundreds of random thoughts that are interfering with your ability to remember where you put your To Do List…or did you even make one today?

Squirrel 2

This never happened…you never saw me…just gonna sneak on outta here…

Is it just me? Does anyone out there have Squirrel Weeks too? I know some of you, like me, have Gotham Days, but does anyone else have whole weeks when you stride purposefully into rooms and then have absolutely no recollection of the reason why you were going there, when you go to get your car keys out of your handbag and discover a paper bag containing a half-eaten sushi roll (ewwww…) that you firmly intended to put into the refrigerator after yoga yesterday, or when you finally get yourself to the supermarket and proceed to zigzag aimlessly through the aisles and subsequently wonder how your shopping trolley ended up filled with cheese, chocolate and bottles of red wine?

What makes Squirrel Weeks worse for me is that most of the time I pride myself (oh yes, that deadliest of sins) on being a focused and organised person. Most days I have — and complete — a To Do List. Most days I use my time super-effectively. Most days I stay on task and do it in style, like a prima ballerina en pointe, pirouetting effortlessly across the stage.

And then a Squirrel Week comes along.

Squirrel 5

Because interpretive dance will ALWAYS seem like a good option during a Squirrel Week…

I’m no prima ballerina during a Squirrel Week — oh, no. During Squirrel Weeks, you’re better off imagining me as an off-my-head raver dancing spasmodically to The Prodigy (…breathe the pressure, come play my game, I’ll test ya — psycho-somatic addict-insane…) within the confines of a small windowless room. Or perhaps that’s a bit much. Maybe I just look a bit like…like a squirrel.

While writing this I’ve been trying to work out what the Australian equivalent of a squirrel is but, this being a Squirrel Week, I’ve got nothing. I’ve also been trying to find a way of describing the frenetic, slightly unhinged, sort of squirrelish behaviour I’m prone to at such times, but I’ve drawn a blank there too. I’ve considered consulting a professional, but were I to describe Squirrel Weeks to my doctor I suspect he would simply say that there is nothing about my condition that a prescription for Ritalin or a reduction in my caffeine intake wouldn’t fix.

Squirrel 4

Just gonna sit here looking like I know what I’m doing…

Coffee! A cup of coffee! That’s a great idea…it’s kinda cold today and it’s probably time for a snack anyway…

Wait, what?

Why did I come into the kitchen?

Ummm…

Oh! Look at this bright shiny catalogue — there’s a toy sale at Target. I must get a present for…for…ummm…where’s that birthday invitation again? Must be on the door of the fridge…

Hey — where did all this cheese come from?

 

Yep, I’m having a Squirrel Week.

 

 

 

Chameleon for Hire

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BJC Cham 1

The Chameleon: the freelance writer’s spirit animal.

A large part of my work at Blue Jai Creative is freelance writing: I’m a wordsmith for hire, and in that guise my spirit animal is the chameleon.

Maybe it’s a mission statement you’re after, or you need assistance with standardising letter templates for your business, or for someone to revamp the copy on website because you’ve had that on your To Do List since 2014.

Perhaps you want to document your office procedures, or to inject some life into your corporate newsletter, or maybe you need a little help with tweaking a single, significant document for your most important client.

It doesn’t matter to me what it is that you need: if it involves words, I’m your…chameleon.

Let me show you what I mean.

The word chameleon derives from a compound of the Ancient Greek words khamaí and léōn. The Greek word is itself a calque taken from the Akkadian language, meaning the Greeks appropriated a phrase spoken in ancient Mesopotamia meaning “lion of the ground”, translated it word-for-word, and incorporated it into their own vocabulary. Later, the Romans borrowed the word from the Greeks, and modern English usage of the word has emerged from simplifying the spelling of the Latin word chamaeleōn.

BJC Cham3

Adaptation at its most beautiful: when a chameleon (or wordsmith) can match what they have to offer with what you want to present.

See? There you go — you’ve just learned how the word chameleon came to be part of the English language. But you may also have just learned that a ‘calque’ is a word-for-word translation from one language to another, or that the Akkadians lived in ancient Mesopotamia. Because that’s what I do as a wordsmith: I take a whole pile of complicated information and put it together in such a way that it is easy to read and understand.

More significantly, however, I can adapt my writing style to suit whatever your needs are — just like a chameleon changes its colour. For example, I don’t mind if it’s technical or scientific writing: if you want me to explain the importance of chameleons evolving zygodactylous feet, extrudable tongues and prehensile tails, I’ll do it. (Don’t worry, I won’t do it here, even though I could make it sound far more interesting than you may think it is.)

Or if you’d prefer me to take on far more traditional business lexicon, I can do that too:

Chameleon Enterprises distributes more than 200 separate product lines throughout Africa, southern Europe and southern Asia, and has well-established regional offices in Madagascar and Sri Lanka. Our range has been successfully introduced to the United States, with significant uptake already occurring in the household pet sector in Hawaii, California and Florida. Given the suitability of our products for both wild and domestic use across a diverse range of habitats, future trends indicate that Chameleon Enterprises will be the global leader in small lizard goods and merchandise by 2020.

BJC CHam 4

At Blue Jai Creative, I make sure we’re singing the same song.

See what I mean? I know — in this instance I made it all up. I don’t really believe that there is an as yet untapped market for designer lizard wear for the discerning chameleon, but I can certainly make it sound like I do. And I can make your business sound even better — because your business is real.

Essentially — and yes, I used that particular word deliberately — my job is to make sure that what I write accurately reflects what you and your business are all about. My words need to capture the essence of what you want to say to the world, and to do so with clarity and precision.

So if you want a hand (or even a zygodactylous foot) with whatever writing projects you need to tackle, contact Blue Jai Creative. I believe that you will notice the difference when you do — and your clients will, too.

Go wild: hire a chameleon.

Blue Jai Creative – freelance writing and administration services for your home and business, servicing Sydney’s Northern Beaches and beyond.

© Blue Jai Creative 2016

 

 

Sunrise

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As you may have heard, Sydney was lashed by storms over the weekend. An East Coast Low brought torrential rain and fierce winds to our part of the world, along with king tides the likes of which we haven’t seen for many long years. Our little house survived unscathed, but only a few minutes’ drive away other dwellings weren’t nearly so fortunate: many near the lakes and lagoons were flooded; others along the beachfront were partially destroyed.

Today, however, the blue sky is striving to make a comeback, the sun is struggling through, and I’ve got some jazz happening on the stereo to blast away the remnants of what has been a very wet weekend. More specifically, I’m listening to one of the greatest jazz vocalists alive today: Kurt Elling.

Last Friday night, just before the downpour began, The Bloke and I were lucky enough to catch Kurt Elling in concert at City Recital Hall in Angel Place. I’ll be honest — I’m an unabashed Elling fan, and it was a bit of a dream come true to see him sing live.

Kurt

Kurt Elling…letting it fly.

And man, can he sing.

I don’t think I wiped the grin off my face from the moment he appeared on stage, singing his take on Joe Jackson’s “Steppin’ Out”, right through to his “Embraceable You” encore. And there were many moments along the way that made me nearly hold me breath, not wanting them to end — as a vocalist, the guy has some serious skills.

But one of the most interesting things about the night was the way Elling engages with his repertoire, reinventing pieces by imposing his own stamp on them — not only via the vocalese for which he is justly famous, but also by inserting his own lyrics into wellknown songs and turning them into something truly unique. Take Elling’s version of Duke Ellington’s “I Like the Sunrise”, for example, where he juxtaposes the original lyrics with ones of his own creation, inspired by the great Persian poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi. It’s creative. It’s clever. And it’s truly captivating.

And so, as storm-damaged Sydney cleans up after a wild weekend, here it is: sunrise, delivered by velvet-voiced virtuoso who really, really knows how to perform.

 

Bittersweet Symphony

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BSS

Still one of the greatest songs ever written…

Winter arrived this week.

We woke one morning — I think it was Thursday — and discovered that Sydney’s seemingly endless summer had disappeared overnight. The world was suddenly a cold and windy place, rain-soaked and grey-stained, where clouds had settled themselves just above the rooftops.

‘Cause it’s a bittersweet symphony, this life…

The change of season often happens suddenly here, though perhaps I have been more aware of it this year because I managed to come down with the dreaded lurgy about ten days ago, when the days were still sunsoaked, and tried (unsuccessfully, as it turns out) to keep working and to soldier on. The day winter arrived was the morning I awoke with the dawning realisation that the wretched thing has grabbed me in its claws again — this time, by the throat.

…try to make ends meet, you’re a slave to money then you die…

Well, maybe not die. Not quite.

BSS 2

Well, maybe not a million — but, like I said, being ill makes me slightly prone to exaggeration.

I will admit, albeit reluctantly, that illness does tend to make me slightly prone to exaggeration. I suspect that the main reason for this is that I, like many mothers, feel as though my family requires a great deal of convincing that when I say I feel unwell, I actually mean it. For example, one night last week, when I had finally stopped coughing long enough to fall asleep in the spare room (to which I had banished myself so as not to inflict the lurgy on The Bloke), I was woken at 2am by the light of a torch being shone directly into my eyes by my younger child, who proceeded to announce that she had a sore ankle.

Seriously?! 

Like the creator of aforementioned the dreaded lurgy, Spike Milligan, I sometimes wonder whether my headstone will end up reading I told you I was sick.

Since the cold snap hit, however, I have stopped trying to convert the non-believers in my house and have simply, and quite uncharacteristically, given into being ill. I have wrapped myself in blankets, drunk endless cups of hot tea, and surrounded myself with fresh lemons, a rather alarming variety of pharmaceuticals, a welcome selection of books, and The Verve’s Urban Hymns album.

The Bloke despairs of my love for what he refers to as “whingey Britpop”, but since I am as steadfast as I am eclectic in my musical affections, there are certain things in the life we share that he is forced to roll his eyes and endure. It’s not just that he doesn’t like what he refers to as “that awful music”. The bigger problem, I suspect, is that I have — as some wag once put it — three moods: skip every song on my iPod, let the music play without interruption, or play the same song on repeat for days.

In my defence, I tend to put entire albums on repeat instead of single songs: last week, for example, it was twentyone pilot’s Blurryface — because let’s face it, you need a little dubstep when you’re struggling to put one foot in front of the other. And this week, it was Urban Hymns, which is still think is one of the finest albums ever recorded (even if its moody atmospherics drive my dear and long-suffering husband demented).

…I let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel free now…

BSS 3

It’s amazing how other people respond when you start looking after yourself…

But here’s the thing, the (in my view) really weird thing: regardless of what I’ve been playing on the stereo, since I started treating myself like a person who wasn’t in the best of health, my family started behaving the same way.

To my utter disbelief, Marvel Girl and Miss Malaprop bounced out of bed each morning (while I dragged myself, coughing and spluttering, into the shower) and made their own lunches. And packed their snacks. For recess and for fruit break.

Three days in a row.

Who knew they could do that?!

And then this morning, after I had rewarded them for their helpful behaviour by ordering them both a hot lunch from the school canteen, they offered to make me breakfast.

Who are you, I was tempted to ask, and what have you done with my children?

Upon reflection, though, it’s not all that surprising that my kids stepped up when I needed them to. I am forever telling them to ask for what they want, say what they mean, and throw in a please or thank you and they can’t go too far wrong. What I had forgotten, in my desire to impress upon them just how awfully unwell I was feeling, was that I needed to do the same thing. So when I actually started taking care of myself, they started taking care of me too.

Yeah, it’s a bittersweet symphony, this life. And it’s going by faster and faster with every passing year. But today, I heard that symphony in my kids’ asking me if I wanted them to make me some toast, in my GP taking the time to listen to my symptoms sympathetically instead of treating me as yet another flu case, in a wonderful friend’s text offering to drop my girls at school this morning so I could rest.

It’s bittersweet, but it’s beautiful too.

And as well as being grateful, I’m on the mend.

The Other Side of Silence

Posted on by • Posted in creativity, First Principles, music, Musings, Solitude, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , • 3 Comments
Sh trees

These woods are lovely, dark and deep…

I am — quietly — counting my blessings today.

Here in Sydneytown we are experiencing a gloriously golden run of autumn weather: blue-skied and sun-filled by day, crisp and starlit by night.

This morning I was fortunate enough to spend time with a dear friend, to enjoy quiet conversation, a couple of coffees and good company.

And now, back at home, I am taking time to dive deep into silence that surrounds me, knowing that when I resurface it will be with a sense of renewal.

I have written before about the importance of solitude in my life, of taking time out to make sense of all that is in my head and of separating my self from my mad mental chatter. But lately, I have come to realise (yet again) just how essential it is for me to spend time in quiet contemplation. I have learned that if I don’t permit myself the time and space to be silent and still, I end up feeling a little like the poet Emily Dickinson — “out with Lanterns, looking for myself”.

For me, contemplation is linked, as ever, to my First Principles: words, music and food. There is something akin to healing for me in the act of writing, of making sense of my thoughts by creating something with words on a page. Similarly, I find solace in listening to music and to the timeless rituals of preparing food for my family — in both of these things I rediscover the rhythms that make my life more manageable, more meaningful.

Sh Unplug

Anne Lamott, telling it how it is.

Our lives these days are lived at such a frenetic pace, are filled with so many activities and events that it is easy to forget to unwind. To unplug.

We know that just about any electronic device we possess that suddenly stops working effectively will probably start working again if we reboot it, or let it recharge. But do we allow our selves this simple measure? Are we so focused on the future and driven by fear of missing out that we are forgetting to hit the refresh button on our lives? Do we remember to allocate time in our busy schedules for renewal? For revival?

The philosopher Alain de Botton suggests that “anxiety grows from thoughts we haven’t given ourselves time to have”, and I suspect he is right. He also speaks of “our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window, always described as ‘doing nothing’.”

Sh shiny

Ahhh yes…the shiny things…

When did we all become human doings instead of human beings, to the point that appearing to be doing nothing is frowned upon or even scorned? And when will we come to treat quiet contemplation as being essential to our wellbeing?

When will we make space for silence?

Because it is on the other side of silence that I find my place in this world, my moral compass, and — more often than not — I manage to catch a glimpse of whatever shiny thing I might otherwise have missed.

On the other side of silence, I find my self.

 

 

Parental Guidance Recommended

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A Let them Be Little

How much should I tell them?

One of the greatest challenges of being a parent is finding the right way to explain things to your children — or maybe not the right way, but the one that is most age appropriate, or the one that they will actually find some way of correctly interpreting and understanding.

I was reminded of this when Miss Malaprop came home from school yesterday and said her teacher had read her class a story about Moses and the Israelites in Egypt. Ever true to her pseudonym, Miss Malaprop didn’t quite manage to say ‘Israelites’, but she had a pretty good go at it — and I must admit I was too distracted by the sheaf of school notices and permission slips that has somehow managed to materialise in my kitchen since school resumed two days ago to discern the exact word she used as a substitute.

Now, being fully aware that my younger daughter is never one to speak to one so lowly as her mother of the knowledge bestowed upon her in the classroom unless she at least seven questions to ask me about various aspects of what she has learned, I braced myself for the inevitable barrage. I presumed — incorrectly, as it turned out — that she probably wanted to know all about the basket into which Moses had been placed among the bullrushes, its capacity, its relative seaworthiness, that sort of thing. Or perhaps she wished to quiz me about exactly what the Egyptian princess who found Moses might have been wearing that day, and whether her ensemble would have included a crown?

Wrong again.

“Mummy, what are slaves?”

This was the question that came from my smallest child’s lips. It came out so sweetly, so innocently, that I was forced to stop, immediately, and turn away from the tottering pile of lunchboxes I had just plonked onto the kitchen bench.

How do you answer a question like that when the person who has asked it is so young that they have only just started school? And how do you explain something as abhorrent and cruel as slavery to that person when you believe it is your solemn and sacred duty to protect them from all that is evil in this world?

A Dobby

Dobby, the House Elf who started it all…

“Slaves,” I ventured, “well, they’re a bit like the house elves in Harry Potter — the ones who have to do everything their masters tell them to, and don’t get paid.”

Miss Malaprop’s greeny-blue eyes lit up with dawning comprehension — somehow, incredibly, I had managed to hit upon a reference she understood straight away.

“Oh, OK then,” she said, nodded her head, and ran off to play.

Now, in my defence, Harry Potter is Miss Malaprop’s current obsession. It is not unusual for me to hear her yell, “Expelliarmus!” in an attempt to disarm her sister during one of their inevitable fights, and when given an alphabet book to complete for homework over the holidays she decided that drawing a picture of Voldemort was an excellent choice to illustrate the letter V.

Moreover, we are currently half-way through reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which details Hermione’s crusade to improve the lot of house elves at Hogwarts by founding the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare (S.P.E.W.), so the concept of slavery — albeit it in a fictionalised, relatively child-friendly context — is not entirely unknown to her.

But should I have said more? Had I just completely trivialised a serious topic? Should I have checked that Miss Malaprop understood that I meant that slaves are individuals who have been denied that most basic and fundamental of all human rights — freedom — and that they are not tiny creatures with large ears and bulging eyes who toil away in the Hogwarts kitchens?

A Cleanup

This wouldn’t work in my house…I’d have to resort to a whole other fandom to get my laundry hampter sorted properly.

If it was a trivial matter we were discussing, I wouldn’t think twice about making an example of Dobby and his kin, or of shamelessly appropriating whatever other popular culture references I need to make my children understand things. Believe me, I’ve even considered putting pictures of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker above the laundry hamper so that my kids learn to correctly differentiate between the Dark Side and the Light Side. (Honestly, the two of them can rhapsodise for hours over the different types of light sabers or various random skirmishes during the Clone Wars, but heaven help them if they can figure out how to separate whites from colours when it comes to doing the washing.)

But that’s just the small stuff.

Anyone who follows this blog with any regularity knows that when I believe it is called for, I am not afraid to put fingers to keys and speak up for what I believe in, regardless of whether it’s to do with Asylum Seekers, Marriage Equality, the Death Penalty or whatever other injustice I perceive in the world. And I think it practially goes without saying that I want my children to be raised with a strong sense of social justice and an awareness of the things that impact other people — not just themselves.

A Jason

The very lovely Jason Isaacs, resplendent in what he called his “Paris Hilton wig”, letting them be little.

I know that in the years ahead there will be many questions, hard questions, that Miss Malaprop and her sister will ask me to answer. And I hope that I have the courage to face those questions with an open heart and an open mind, and to answer them as best I can without diminishing the facts or distorting the truth.

But I don’t think that my girls — my mostly sweet, still innocent girls — are yet ready to open the book on the grisly lessons of the history of humankind, with all its madness, mayhem, murder and misogyny.

So in the meantime, I’m going to keep answering the difficult questions my kids ask by referring them to things that they already know and understand, even if that knowledge and comprehension is partially drawn from reading Harry Potter.

I would imagine that by the time they’re up to reading the Hunger Games, the conversations will be very, very different.

But for now? I’m with Jason Isaacs on this one.

Dobby is in his trailer.

 

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Breathe…

Posted on by • Posted in First Principles, Musings, Parenting, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , • 2 Comments
T spoon

Just one spoonful…every now and then. You can get a spoon just like this on Esty, here.

I just put a spoonful of sugar into my tea (Earl Grey, black, piping hot).

That might seem like a very ordinary thing to do, but some time ago I banished sugar to the top shelf of my pantry. Nowadays, the sugar jar only really makes an appearance when my Dad comes over (English Breakfast, white with one).

But there are some days — and quite often, for me, they are grey-skied, quiet days — when I prefer to take my tea with a spoonful of sugar. These are the days when I feel the need for that gentle buzz only sugar brings. (And yes, you really do notice it once you’ve gone without it for some time).

If I’m honest, however, it’s not the weather that made me pick up the sugar jar, even though autumn is descending rapidly upon Sydneytown at this time of year. And it’s not the solace of stirring, either, which I’ve written about before.

No, it’s my kids.

Lord knows I love them — dearly, oh so dearly — but by the end of the school term, my kids are driving me crazy. Bonkers. Mad as a box of frogs.

After ten long weeks of school, my children’s behaviour…ummm…deteriorates.

That’s the nicest word I can find to describe the out of control crazytrain ride that confronts me before drop off and after pick up every day at the end of term. I don’t think it’s deliberate or in any way malicious: I suspect my girls are really, truly worn out and that self-regulation is, quite simply, beyond them when they have to front up for six hours each day of being ever-so-good for their teachers.

And, having picked up all the signals that the crazytrain was careening towards me this week (the least of which were tears and tantrums), I have taken steps to look after my own sanity and have managed to keep it — mostly — together. It just so happens that today, one of those steps involved stirring sugar into my tea. But yesterday, for example, I made sure I got to yoga.

T so ham

So…ham…in…out…just…breathe…

My yoga teacher is like a lovely little gypsy fairy (seriously, you can almost see her wings sparkling silvery bluey-green) with a beaming smile that is as warm and open as her beautiful heart. And yesterday, bless her, she introduced our class to a very simple mantra that has helped remind me to take a couple of deep, life-saving and sanity-preserving breaths whenever the kid-filled crazytrain has looked like it was about to derail.

The mantra: SO HAM.

It’s pronounced more like so hum, which resembles the sound of inhaling and exhaling, and allows you to connect the mantra to your breathing.

But what has really helped me this week is what so ham means: the mantra translates, very simply, as I am that. So when you connect the mantra to your breath, and repeat it over and over again, you connect also to the core of your being:

I am that I am that I am that I am that I am that I am that I am that I am…

 And I came to realise, in those moments of stillness, when I connected to myself and my breath, that even though I am a mother and a wife and a daughter and a sister and an aunt and a friend and a freelance writer and a carer and homemaker who cleans and washes and irons and makes lunches and all manner of other meals and snacks and everything else —

T peace— that really, at the centre of it all, I just am.

And no one can take that away.

So ham…so ham…so ham…