Lesson of Essence

Last week was a stretching episode of internal rearranging following on from Essence conference. There were so many different things that impacted me and initiated change of mindset, but at the root of them all was my 'one word'. Identity.

The days that followed the shift of transformation were fraught with the opposite of what I thought should occur. Everything went wrong. I just could not make sense of the fact that just when I thought I had grasped the edge of something new and incredible that my silly mental snow globe would be shaken to a blurry whirling mess. My ability to reason and analyse were completely dis-engaged. I could not make sense of a single thing. Relationships, home stuff and photography work all went crazy. I paced up and down. Tried to form words around the spinning headspace.
Eventually I got an extension on the photography deadline and snapped my laptop shut. Stepping over mounting piles of housework, ignoring stacked dishes and messy beds I bundled up Mishal and we headed out. I found myself driving to the Plant Barn. Grabbing a trolley I walked around selecting a few pots and plants that caught my eye, trying to breathe deeply and not think. Later that day, I set about potting and planting my new green friends.
As my hands moved over the plants, things began to quieten down in my brain. I pruned, re-potted, planted and watered. Without much conscious choice I had chosen simply what caught my attention. Strawberries, ornamental kale, sweet peas, alyssum and geraniums.

Hardly exotic. But later that night as I lay in the dark and the gentle process of my mini-gardening replayed realised I had chosen only red and white plants. A fruit, a vegetable and simple blossoms signifiying nourishment, life and purity.

Those seeds and seedlings are quietly growing where they are planted.
They don't struggle to be better.
They just are incredibly beautiful through no action of their own.

I find them amazing. Each scultured leaf, vibrant petal and fragile set of root feet makes me smile. Grow I tell them. Just be yourselves. I am your gardener. I want to see you come to sprout and fruit and full fragrance.

I will water you, shelter you and have paid for you. You belong to me alone. I don't see my ornamental kale wracking its leaves to work things out. It just IS. The geranium is face up to the warmth and underneath the soil, my sweet peas are unfurling in secret. To my knowledge, the strawberries haven't thrown a tantrum because they want to be blueberries.

Lesson understood. Loud and clear.

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.
Jer 1:5

O Best Beloved

My sweet sick child has been lying on the couch for two days, shaking with fever and chills. The lounge looks like a clinic. In between adminstering pamol, iceblocks and swilling out sick bowls, I have had the pleasure of reading out loud to her as she lay with head in my lap. It was quiet as the others had gone off to church and she finally drifted off to sleep to the song of Kipling's words, her daddy's favourite, read from her granny's own childhood book. Comfort.

Not always 8 things

My fellow trim-Mocha-loving friend Sammy has tagged me. Anyone else find these questions brain-wracking?

8 THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO:

Finding my missing slipper
Finally handing over the completed cd's of my latest photography job
Seeing my newly planted sweet pea seeds turn into my favourite flowers
Spring arriving
Watching the Hannah Montana movie with my girls
My sick children getting better
Getting up to date on the washing
Getting at least one of my current five art projects finished

8 THINGS I DID (DAY BEFORE) YESTERDAY: (took me two days to get this done..sick kids...)

Cried
Made laksa for dinner
Sewed a present for a little sick friend in oncolgy in Aussie
Found a Wiggles book for Mish for $2
Bought said child a fluffy
Poured oil over troubled sibling relations
Sorted through clothes too small for one child and too big for another
Wrote a card

8 THINGS I WISH I COULD DO:

Get myself back to the gym on a regular basis
Have more 'create' time
Play golf
Find some second-hand aged terracotta plant pots to whitewash
Indulge my yearning for white waffle weave and basketware without a shred of guilt
Learn to hold my tongue
Get back into horse riding
Stop being so selfish (I mean would you look at those answers!)

8 SHOWS I WATCH:

Flashpoint
NCIS
Burn Notice

Don't get to watch much else.... unless I declare undying love for the Wiggles (impossible) or Aesop's Theatre (possible)

8 FAVORITE FOODS:

Very Crunchy Vogel's toast
Anything Thai, especially Green Curry
Muesli slice
Cheesecake
An amazing apple cake I still dream about from a month ago
Bobotie
Rib eye steak on mashed kumara at Orbit Restaurant (be still my heart)
Praline pecan icecream, or Movenpick Maple Walnut

8 PLACES I'VE TRAVELLED:

Zimbabwe (grew up there)
South Africa (family holidays in Durban)
4o something of the United States of America (homeschooled while in the back of a van driving around nearly the entire country for 9 months)
Mozambique (disaster honeymoon - think tent, cyclone and well, enough said really)
England & Wales (lots of lovely family there)
Singapore and Malaysia (ex-pat assignment)
Australia
Rarotonga

PLACES I'D LIKE TO TRAVEL:

Back to Zim/Singapore/UK
France
A Greek isle
Oh, lots of places...

PEOPLE I'VE TAGGED:

Sezzy
Erin
Dawn

Tend to be a bit of a one-sided blogger...most of my readers do not have blogs of their own.

Wuffie hunt

After a little play in the morning sun, number 3 and I are huge fans of heading out for a fluffy (wuffie) and a trim mochaccino.


It is a cupful of delight each time we go.

Child {free}

Pretending to be a grown up is now something I only try when absolutely necessary and seems to occur mostly in the company of children. When my kind sister holds the fort and I am off duty however, all pretenses are off and the ridiculous in me comes out to play.

Three cheers for my kind of movie, wonderful coffees, hotel deliciousness and a wander through early morning city streets, op shops and design stores.

What wonderful things celebrations are.

Especially ones about love.

And especially when the one you love surprises you.

Room 7

I am back there today.

At boarding school one quiet June afternoon, perched at small wooden desks, doing homework with my best friend in an empty classroom. He found me and quietly walked in, stack of books under one arm. Swinging over another chair to sit backwards over it and leaning over to me, he silently, in green ink, added to the graffiti of other inscriptions and carved initials onto the wood beneath my pages.

Will you go out with me?

I wished I could carry that desk out with me.

Eighteen years ago today and I am reminded that love is a choice that can outlast youth.

Sometimes I look past his suit and laptop bag, serious eyes and the weight of fatherhood and responsibility to see him as he was then. That sun bleached blonde, olive-skinned in his school uniform khakis with sparkling smile and that clowning teen mischief irrepressible in each of his steps. How grateful I am for his solid friendship and company through my awkward years of adolescence and to have that same vein of support and love through my twenties and into my thirties is a gift.

Happy 19th G.

It must be said that I have overcome extreme reluctance to post this picture.
The shoulder pads, giant glasses, mullet and general shrieks from the early nineties should not however be given permission to overwhelm the moment of our first disco memories!

The Dress Rehearsal

Can you tell I have a photographic obsession with sweet little feet?

Of cake and boots...

My week:

the dishwasher has not worked for 21 days, three hours and 6 minutes

i found a sweater on clearance that only slightly makes me look like a womble

i have begun to paint again

mishal can perform at least five nursery songs in pitch with actions although the words get a little garbled

her father taught her to say cappuccino and she had another hair cut

fashionista middle child has a new pair of marshmallow pink leather boots found at the hospice shop for loose change

i had a slice and a half of the best cake i have ever tasted...each mouthful was redemptive

stood in the rain before dawn in the streetlamp light awaiting a lift to an early morning prayer meeting

un-earthed my rainbow scarf which scares some people, but i heart the colours anyway

my beautiful oldest's ugg boots fit me and are verywarmthankyouverymuchandnoyoucan'thavethemback

i haven't been to the gym in weeks due to ligament injury

the washing piles still refuse to fold themselves

i need a haircut, i look like i have a haystack sitting on top of my shoulders

we ate the worst brussel sprouts ever since the history of appalling vegetables

i met a person this week who made me grateful for my life and realise i hardly know the meaning of true grief

very good coffee at a kid-friendly cafe with a nice friend on the spur of the moment

learnt at a course i am doing about the power of a story to speak truth where truth doesn't speak like you think it should

learned i am low in vitamin d

quite sensibly ate a banana at 3.23am one night

Roll on Monday.

Security Blanket

The Giant Season of Winter has loomed with sudden strides and footfalls of frost have frayed the rim of my thoughts. Chill gusts have blown me senseless and grieving into dark corners. I want to wake up and it not be true. Or have slipped into another realm of fluid communication so that this is not so awkward and clumsy and bare. Or have the experience, courage and certainty to avoid shaking in the churn of grey waves of grief.

But the surface of my reality still exists underneath the sorrow. If who I am is formed at all by the journey of our life and experiences, then there is a patch of me that is threadbare. The fluff, warmth and structure has worn thin away, leaving my inner child exposed to the elements and although this is disconcerting, there are frost-free slivers of my mind that know it will not last.

My own threadbare patch is only a smidgen of the story, for there are others far more bruised, cracked and weary than me. The big tapestry we all are woven into in the netting of family has come apart and frayed torn places remain. The happenings of the present tend to distort my perception of the contours of the past, like seeing previously unnoticed and invisible rips and holes suddenly illuminated by the current flash of events.

I close my eyes and picture the Great Mender having us laid over His knee like a quilt and tenderly moving his fingers over the threads, re-stitching, adjusting, unravelling, straightening and firmly knotting back the loose threads, so that despite the structure of society that sets the words and phrases according to the circumstances, we are knitted back into wholeness of heart again. My thoughts are not deep like those of the Great Mender's. Only He sees the big design.

I have nothing but respect and honour for my parents. I do not question the choices or decisions they have made regarding their separation, knowing that their own walk is exactly that, their own. I admire their courage, humility and transparency and despite the tearing of the fabric of identity that I took from birth for granted and blissfully wrapped about myself, I understand that in order for freedom and healing to come to pass, pruning, snipping and painful mending needs to happen. Seeing that my security should not come from my earthly parents anyway, this has been a timely reminder for me to focus my eyes of who I am in light of my creator and not look with expectation towards others. Marriage is partly about owning the responsibilty to keep yourself whole in order to offer the other one hundred percent partnership and it is worth them pursuing this individual desire for inner restoration regardless of the outcome.

My tear-filled, wintery, threadbare season is merely that, and a comfortable fairytale existance having never been promised to me, I am no longer as desperate with lament in these cooler darker times. Instead I am settling the fluttery part of myself down to reside in this place under shelter of wing, allowing hope to rise and surrendering to the season with a quietness of heart knowing in due time, spring will come calling.

Coruscation in cataclysm

"The LORD is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear?"
Psalm 27:1

Swept

The wild west coast beach of Piha is a winter wonderland - monsoons of milky breakers crest to rushing creamy lines of froth along the chilled black sand between the arms of jagged rock. We joined a gaggle of shivering anorak-clad, beanie-topped friends, inhaling the steam from paper cups of coffee, eating gritty hot chips and keeping a sharp eye on a dozen red-cheeked children scampering around on the dunes. It was bracing, bright and scoured cobwebs from the cabin-fever that has personified the last few weeks.

Autumn leaves it's mark

Leaves and I go back a long way.

In the autumn of my eleventh year, my parents and sister went missing in a neighbouring African country at war. The heart-collision of my childhood security splintering into the interruptive terror of abandonment was powerful. Vividly I can recall standing outdoors clutching the strong hand of my grandmother, and tipping my head back to look at the leaves above my head. The unexpected tumble of my naiive expectations to a level of such sinister grief somehow blanched my brain quite blank and all I could focus on were the blurry outlines of the leaves as they twitched and swam across the sky of my tears.

Throughout the rest of my childhood I can remember collecting leaves and pressing them, or rubbing them with vasoline and making them glossy treasures. I used to stack them, crumble them and rub over them with a pencil. And now even as a grown up, I sometimes keep the leaves the cat catches for me at night.

My life doesn't quite follow the dependable, reassuring route I expect it to. Sure, everyone knows that there are traffic jams, road blocks and speed humps - inconveniences that we navigate around with flexibility, a little re-negotiating, tears and we are back on track. But a few times in a life span, there are montrous dead ends, collisions and the journey suddenly halts in a way it has never done before. Sometimes these heart-stopping moments throw us so far off track that it is unthinkable to imagine continuing on like we had before. Sometimes the bleakness of where we find ourselves stranded in is terrifying.

Whatever the abrupt smash of where our unconcious routine meets the rough edge of unexpected reality, something ends. We are hanging by a thread, competely disoriented for a moment. It feels like the rhythm has ceased, that the journey has evaporated and that we are frozen in time.

But the journey never misses a beat and although we are too stunned to see it yet, we have just begun to travel in a new direction, down the trail of the interruption; mapless, clueless and at a loss as to where we are.

It is no accident that around me the leaves around me are crisping up and drifting down. In the autumn season, I see sunlight turning the leaves to pure gold and in the face of the interruption of heart chaos, I can see how for this season, the cycle is still simply turning. Each dying bronze leaf is blown away and there will be stark winter arms raised to the cold sky before spring breathes easy warmth once more.

The journey continues on.

Despite the twists of defining direction changers.

The LORD will surely comfort Zion & will look with compassion on all her ruins;
he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD.
Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.
Isaiah 51:3

{Pre-edited autumn images above courtesy of my sister Abby}

VIP

Mother's day is not so much for me as it is for the little people I mother.

If it were not for them, I would not be on this journey.

If not for my husband, and our desire for children, it would be an unknown to me.

And the weird thing that tends to strike me is that I have no desire to be the victim of commercial accolade on this day. I didn't do anything amazing.

God did.

I only walked in the purpose He had for me. I did not sit and doodle a human being from design to 3-D. I merely unwittingly took my part in the enormous production of life. If there is one thing that sticks strongly in my mind about bearing children, is how helpless I actually felt.
When trying to conceive. When feeling ill.
When counting kicks and breathing through the contractions.
It all went on in a divine way far above my own puny joystick.

None-the-less, I enjoyed the girl's handmade creations gifted to me on sunday;
little artworks of their footprints pressed into my hands with smiles and squeezes.
Just because I didn't actually physically model them, doesn't mean I don't adore being with them and watching that amazing unfurling of their design detailing.
What a creative manufacturer we have.
And to think He allows mothers a unique first row seat to handle and constructively influence the creation before it is released upon the general public.
What tremendous VIPs we must be to have that honour.

Happy Mother's Day.

Ode

It was a week of love.

Notes etched in tender remembrance,
Wobbly smiles with welling eyes,
Flowers, family, friends,
Hot soup and hugs,
Rainbows.

C, it was a priviledge to share the moments as they unfolded
and find magnitude in the miniscule as well as the monumental.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
we will remember them.
L. Binyon

Travelling Light

I am flying back to Wellington tonight to hang out with my best friend.

And go to her dad's funeral on Wednesday before flying back home that night to the six little arms and two big ones that I look forward to feeling wrapped around me.

It will be very weird to be heading off alone, I usually always have my entourage. To this end, I have even unpacked the nappies from my handbag. And the emergency cracker supply. And the pouch of Wiggles Flushable Wipes. And the lollipops. And the baby panadol. It figures I should be travelling light without all that stuff. So tell me how is it that the zip on my overnight bag is struggling to make ends meet?

And I have yet to pack some serious essentials like my camera.

And the baby panadol because you never know when you might need to dole that out.

And a couple of lollipops for any kids I meet who have sore ears on the flight or need to be kept quiet in important hushed places.

And a pouch of wipes is always very handy no matter who you are.

Also, crackers might be clever to have, you know, incase food is suddenly in extremely short supply and hot demand.

And maybe a nappy.

Because I cannot bear to take it out and you never know when one will come in handy. Like that time we were out at a corporate show and the woman next to me accidentally tipped over her glass of red wine...and it ran everywhere including down into the lap of her boss. A nappy was a VERY handy addition to the contents of my bag that night.

To a diva, it is shameful. But I fear being a mother is now part of my dna - my double helix is now a triple. That extra strand must have come in when those babies grew under my heart and shared my life blood. What they don't tell you is that the change is permanent. That you cannot shake the motherhood gene off more than you could change your blood type from A to B. That you will never ever ever again travel solo, despite being alone.

Instead you will find yourself standing in another world of grief and black heels clutching your mommy bag of just-in-case must haves because it now simply a part of who you are and you would be lost without it.

Miracle

Another beautiful dawn. I am a fortunate soul to be able to sit up in bed and look out at the plum blush of the morning, and as the heavens colour up with warmth, I am somehow renewed again in that light. Yesterday was my birthday, and it was one of my favourite kinds of days. A simple one. It involved the mundane routines of caring for my littlies, folding and washing, meal making and working out. There was no sense during the day at all of missing something, of waiting for something to happen because it struck me quite early on, as I sat up and watched the dawn over the rim of my tea mug, that this was exactly the sort of day that I would miss if for some reason I could no longer do what I usually do. I'm quick to wriggle against the demands of being a stay at home mum but the sensation washed over me so strongly, that if I could not be who I am to my little family, my heart would be broken. If my hands could not smooth and fold their clothes and roll their little socks into balls; if I could not make hot chocolates, afternoon tea and nourishing dinners; if I could not keep the floors clean of crumbs and dirt; if I could not bath them and comb the tangles from their hair; if I could not push a trolley of good food out of a store and into a waiting pantry; if I could not tell stories, download their music, hear their chatter; if I could not wipe their faces, dry their tears, or kiss them at night; if I was frozen somehow and my arms could not lift them, my lap could not hold them, nor my voice not respond to them, I would be sorrowful to the deepest part of my soul. This ritual of motherhood holds more comfort, value and worth than anything I could possibly imagine doing and of that, yesterday bought much clarity. Throughout the whole ordinary day, I felt extra-ordinary. My normal blessings no longer felt so normal, they felt extravagant. The lifestyle I was tempted to feel weary of began to glow like the sky - dawn happens over and over and over and over again - yet still it is each time a miracle of monstrous proportions. Each rising sun brings newness and order and my eyes are open and watching it. Each rising sun holds warmth, colour and life, predictability and certainty and the essence of beauty without which all would stay dark. How great is this gift of life?

In saying all of this, my closest and dearest friend has stood for the last two days in quiet vigil at the bedside of her father as he journeyed out of this life. This morning, at dawn, he was gone.

How great is this gift of life?


As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
Psalm 103.15

Bad Parents

A warning for any of you out there with pre-teen children toying with the idea of taking them along to watch this at the movies. The NZ PG rating on this film is very elastic considering that there are multiple segments of the movie that contain adult themes and the reviews do not hint accurately at the level of content. Interestingly, US censors give this one a PG-13 rating. As parents, taking our own girls plus a gaggle of birthday party friends, we felt acutely remorseful that we had exposed them to such mature content. To the film's credit, the values were worthy, promoting abstinence and defending others by standing up for what is right - however the method of achieving these positives was wrapped in a blisteringly sincere glimpse into the pressures facing today's teenagers.

Number 10

Double digits. Our guinea pig baby is now ten. TEN. As a mother this birthday seems incredibly significant - a decade into parenting.
She is nearly a third as old as I am.

Whoa.

In the space between 9 and 10, this girl has made some serious milage.
She has graciously allowed the process of being uprooted from our home and school to happen around her, grieving but walking quietly into the next phase.
She has been supportive and helpful.
She has gone courage in hand to a new school in a new city - without a fuss - and made more friends than she knows what to do with.
She has tried new things, a challenge for her, and has succeeded in what she has put her hand to. She has danced and sung with uncomplicated generosity of spirit.
She has talked with adults with upheld head and clear eyes.
She has read more books than there were days in her year.
She still reads her dragon allegories over and over and they are becoming tatty and worn, a sure sign of book-love.
She smiles easily.
She does not tear up often.
She is diplomatic and gifted with communication, struggling sometimes to be honest when she knows it might hurt someone else, a great awareness to possess.
She has a respect beyond her years and greatly hesitates to disobey us.
Her legs go on forever. Her feet are growing so fast that she has gone through 4 sizes this year, too big for my shoes now.
Cell phone, mp3 and computer skills means she speaks a whole different language to how we would have spoken at the same age.

And we are caught staring from that weird place where you can catch a glimpse of the person the child you made is becoming. Independant of you. But wholly dependant at the same time.

What a thrill.

Ten is very cool for her.

And a little scary for us.

This sweet girl is growing up...

Snip snip

A cape and piece of lolly cake, plus quick fingers on the scissors was all it took to turn this baby into a tiny toddling doll.
Goodbye curls.
Hello cute neck.
Yum.

A Baker's Dozen

At dawn, you whispered happy anniversary, holding my hands in yours. You then promptly went back to sleep but for me the sky lightened as I flicked through mental images of our wedding day. There are so many things I would do differently - but when I force those reconstructive mind-fingers to rest, I can feel again the sense of who we were and how contented we were to at last offically belong together.
Embellish that with thirteen years of overlay, and I realise our communication is refined to a point where our conversations are so whittled away by distractions that we can nod, grunt, arch an eyebrow or look a certain way and still manage to understand each other perfectly. The volume of words has diminished and the time to use them in is filled with other little voices.

The moccasin of each other's company has become smooth and warm.

We have adapted to each other so much that we like the same sorts of things (except that every now and then an exciting curveball of considered bad taste is tossed in for fun).
We can say and hear honest things without losing our security (depending of course on pms).

We see and smile at the genetic reflections on our children, glimpsing each other in their forms at sleep and play; it is like playing in a hall of mirror-love.

We still know how to have a good disagreement - grinding cleansing grit between the cogs of understanding.

We know how to make each other a good coffee.

We compare baby wrinkles. After all we began tracing each other's features when we were in our mid-teens and have now doubled in age.

We understand better that love is muddy. It does not stay in one place.

And I am beginning to comprehend that the further down this route I go, the less I know my way, but the more I enjoy the ride.

The sun is now up and I will lean over and wake you with a kiss (you will get a fright) followed by a very polite demand for a nice cup of tea (which I don't get of course because there are little people milling around needing breakfast, packed lunches and hair to be tied up).

VMD Babe.