Haven Space

The Last Post

2011-11-20T20:00:00.000+13:00

You may have noticed that this is a place I don't stop by as much these days.

When havenspace was born, I was in a very different place,

geographically and mentally.

It was time for a change.

Feel free to join me.

♥

Four Play

2011-09-28T03:28:00.001+13:00

As promised, the birthday photos:

The Birthday Girl

I seldom post pictures of other children without consent,

but as Johnny Depp seriously did not show up,

I felt justified.

After all, he sent some amazing replacements.

Party game time.

Bonus: there was a party host who did the shrieking and negotiating with 13 preschoolers,

while the adults stood around and guffawed politely into plastic cups of Ribena.

She finally settled on a Castle Cake,

which was fortunately, a doddle to decorate.

I understand I was let off lightly this time.

I have been warned she has more extravagent themes in mind for her 5th.

Gulp.

A forced family shot by the staff,

I particularly like the turret placement of the cake

to maximise the birthday girl's features,

and the freakishly weird boy on the wall

who looks like he is about to attack me.

And yes.

I am brunette again.

We arrived back home from the sugar pit

and watched the child open her presents.

It boggled me to lay them all out for inspection.

It appears that the colour Pink unlocks the universal secret of joy for 4 year old girls.

I kept wincing in materialistic overload at the toy explosion each time I walked past

and tried not to visualise that picture on Pinterest of a small starving African child, with a vulture hovering in the background waiting to begin its meal.

Imagined I could put the starving orphan on the bench

and feed the plastic to the vultures.

Not sure M3 would find that as stimulating as I would.

Anyhow 4 is done and she was as pleased as punch.

Here is her Now I Am Four list:

She is tall for her age,

loves helping herself to my makeup,

particularly the white and lilac Clinique eyeshadow,

and still sleeps with Bubba.

She likes to eat sugar from the sugar bowl,

also a fan of (still) frozen peas,

dry cereal, warm milo and chippies.

She is a gentle soul,

and has a very unique expression when she is excited.

Her eyes literally lighten and she raises her eyebrows

and I am sucked into a vortex of pleasure each time I see her do it.

Sometimes I rachet up her enthusiasm just to see her eyes 'get it'.

She still loves clambering into our bed in the night and first thing every morning.

She hates thunder.

And being lonely.

She is one of my very best friends,

possessing some of the best ideas a girl could imagine.

She gives incredible hugs with dimpled arms,

her hair is thick, glossy and tangle free

and she lies in the crook of my arm every night while we read stories.

She loves Amelia Bedelia, Milly Molly Mandy and My Naughty Little Sister.

I watched her run about on a patch of grass today,

in her loping, head down, arm pumping kind of way

and felt drunk with the kind of love

that only children at their very best can make you taste.

It was very fun

and I can tell you with great authority,

that being four IS good.

Persia and Parties

2011-09-16T19:49:00.000+12:00

I am thrilled to report that my ~~other half~~ camera is back in my hot little hands

after sightseeing around Persia.

Greg went to Turkey to attend his cousin's wedding,

- more a brother than a cousin really,

since they are both 'only children'

who grew up thrashing the living daylights out of each other.

They are like chalk and cheese to look at,

one light, one dark

but both possess a similar natural grace with people

and are two of the most gentle and creative men I know.

Greg did a fabulous job with the camera,

and these images were a joy to explore.

They were a gift to edit for him

and were almost as good as the shopping

he did for us at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.

The vibrant ceramics and embossed silver bowl were a hit,

but the vintage candle lantern catapulted him into my good books.

He also bought M2 a soft, soft woven blanket

which nearly made her pass out with sheer tactile delight.

She has said I can borrow it while she is at school.

I am now recovered from the weekend on my own

and am back to living through my lens and being a busy mum,

and today a family shoot for my friend,

which was so rewarding as her children were a source of light themselves.

I won't give any secrets away as I want Melinda to see the images first,

but here is a wee sneak peek...

The weekend holds birthday fever ahead,

and M3 is nearly exploding with excitement

as we plan her party.

She has been collecting ideas for cakes and decor for months,

but was a surprised to learn that Johnny Depp will not be making an appearance at her birthday party after all. She was expecting that he be there, since she is fascinated by the Mad Hatter and it was quite a job to convince her not to have a freakishly weird Alice in Wonderland cake. I think she thought by compromising on the cake, surely we would organise him to pop in for a little visit.

She hung her head as she heard my words.

I held her hand as she digested the news.

She asked again just to be really sure that I had

understood the seriousness of the situation.

I explained how much I knew Johnny Depp meant to her,

but that he was busy on Sunday and

just would not be able to join her and the

14 other little people attending her party.

It was a sad, sad moment.

Then she shrugged and said that perhaps her party would still be okay.

I said I hoped so too.

Tomorrow I will take her for a wee date to get her a 'Baby Angel' mani/pedi and buy her a milkshake and then on Sunday we will celebrate in true Singaporean style.

Not a garden party like we are used to,

but a huge indoor playground.

This is what she chose 5 months ago,

so as much as I have suggested other options,

with less screaming children,

she has remained concrete in her decision.

If I can't give her Johnny Depp,

I can gulp down my repulsion of germ factories

and the noise of a million sugar highs

and give her the party of her dreams.

Have a lovely weekend all.

Wilderness

2011-09-13T01:40:00.000+12:00

Another week gone.

I think I snap the calendar into chapters on my camera,

but with my 50D swanning around one of the oldest regions of the world,

I had to turn to my phone to capture life instead.

Without The Guy here it was eerily quiet,

unless you count the trip to A&E with M3

for a fractured arm. Not as quiet there.

Other than that it was your average solo parenting weekend,

where your own voice in your head is the only other adult company

for hours and hours and hours.

It is like survival of the fittest,

alone in the wilderness.

M2 baked her favourite cake

which made a fabulous mess.

This needed superior cleaning efforts to restore

to ant-free order.

The floors were dusted in icing sugar and cocoa powder.

Egg white dripped off the side of the counter.

There was enough washing up stacked in the sink to swamp an army

and the dog padded through it all and went all

hairy and sticky through to repose on the couch.

I made M2 clean with me.

Never, ever, ever give a 9 year old a mop and bucket.

It is like making cocoa and icing sugar soup on the floor.

However, to her credit,

she did a good job and enjoyed the results of her labour

(the edible ones at least).

The smallest unit of the team enjoyed helping with the licking of the spatula.

You may notice, despite having a wee fracture,

this child is cast-free?

Well, yes.

That is because she wriggled out of it and has hidden it somewhere,

for the second time in two days.

Since she is showing no signs of favouring the arm

and says she is not sore,

I have shrugged my protective shoulders

and let her potter off into her little world of two arms and no casts.

Honestly,

butter wouldn't melt.

The oldest child did hours of homework

and then headed off for a birthday party

which bought the wilderness headcount down.

And then a certain honey coloured hound

needed a thorough wash after cavorting through the fields of cake.

Her dog shampoo is Cherry Blossom scented

and smells better than any human stuff.

This tends to tickle my fancy.

But not for long,

since she was quick to thank me for washing her by

pruning my garden

Bailey-style.

Weekends without parenting support are like shark infested treacle,

slow moving and very dangerous.

The relentlessness, the children looming larger than life,

always hungry no matter what you throw at them.

It just made me feel like hiding myself away in a dark cupboard.

But we were able to find some cool little moments;

we sniffed our way through Charlie St Cloud,

went for a lovely walk,

with me disguised as a skateboard and scooter porter,

and haggled repeatedly over whose turn it was to empty the dishwasher,

pick up the swimming towels

and tidy the toys.

Today Monday,

you may certainly come in and whisk away the

bootcamp of my weekend.

Routine wins hands down.

I think I need a busy week in order to recover!

Silence and the Missing

2011-09-08T22:11:00.000+12:00

I chest-squeezingly love them, these four.

At 7.30 in the morning, a bus arrives and takes three pieces of my heart away until 4 in the afternoon. Then the remaining one leaves in a taxi for a desk I have never seen, in a office on the other side of town.
Except on Mondays and Tuesdays,
when M3 is home with me,
in my pocket practically.
We are never far apart on those days.

There is a weighty hush on the days they are all gone.

Their absence is a silence so profound that I can hardly think.

And yet without which,

I cannot breathe.

It is another light and shadow mix,
where you cannot have one without the other.

In addition, The Guy leaves tonight to fly to Turkey for a family wedding.
How I wish we were going together, but I am so delighted that he is able to be present at this celebration. He is taking my 50D and is under strict instructions to come back with some heart stopping images.
No pressure Babe,
but weddings are kinda my thing,
and in a gorgeous old city?
No pressure...

We will miss you.

Travel safe.

x

Newly hatched

2011-09-06T19:07:00.000+12:00

Today our little group of expat mummies

met an exquisite new member of the ranks.

Hello Stella Pearl.

She is still a comma of warm baked newborn,

incredibly tiny and delicate

and warmly welcomed with love

by her doting family,
and us, her friends.

Softly Softly

2011-09-05T15:14:00.002+12:00

I may be falling for tropical hues,

but still have a special attachment to

the milk and charcoal

of monochrome.

M3 'pins' birthday cake ideas, in my bed,

expressing what weekends mean for us.

In quiet moments of un-demand,

inspiration unfolds

its wings and settles

on my crumpled eiderdown.

♥

White Noise

2011-08-31T15:30:00.001+12:00

Weeks go by with a faintly static silence.

The ordinary crackles on and I am pushing a shopping trolley,
being a parent taxi,
supervising the Sprogs in the pool,
fixing them dinner,
and trying not to pass out on a Pilates mat
while a toned Thai instructor turns herself inside out with gentle ease.

There are Pooh bear puzzles on the floor,
trash that needs emptying
and a dog that needs walks, feeding and scolding.
The sprogs' hair is tacky, their hands and faces sticky.
Crayola Window markers adorn the french doors with underwater themes.
The sewing room is scattered with pins and tiny threads.
There is Parmesan cheese on the floor of the oven.

You know. Normal stuff.

Little mosaics of ordinary that consume and dictate the hours
and how my head and hands fill them.

And somewhere, I think bloggy thoughts that fall and rise like the stock market,
but are hushed under a blanket of interference.

I travel in the car to get the kids from school,
sometimes pressing the radio tuning buttons in quick succession
in the hopes of stumbling across a sound I might recognise.
But instead, Indonesian tumbles into Malay, Mandarin into Hindi.
The sitar bounces off the gong which rolls into Japanese technopop.

It is vibrant and completely foreign to me.

I lean towards a nest of predictability.

Missing pruning my daphne and white roses.
Cooking crockpot lamb while its cold outside or
picking a bunch of my own fresh mint
from a pot under the dripping garden tap.
I miss the smell of sunshine on my washing.

And then I whack the back of a pomegranate
with all the frustrations I carry of just being me.

The ruby seeds fly out and I stand paralyzed,
amazed and wide eyed at their audacious light
against the milky feta on my salad.

I pick up the girls from ballet,
and am mute when I see poetry in their bone structure
as they walk towards me,
exhausted.

When reaching for ingredients in the pantry,
I am utterly sidetracked by the pattern on the poppadom packet.

It is a strange and peculiar turning,
but I am trying to tune in
and tell the yearning for predictability
that it is just a layer of me,
not the whole.

I can hear uncertainty in the way my old habits
try to order the new, young ones into line.
The way to do things is not going unchallenged.
My dislikes are being dangled out for a re-think.

Are you sure, my questioning creative asks,
that you don't like blue and orange together?
Are You Sure?

For some reason this becomes crucial to answer.
I flash back uncomfortably to not having a security blanket
while away from home and having to borrow
a flannel baby wrap to sleep with when I was 9.
It was pilled and coarse and smelled of carbolic soap.
It was also blue and orange paisley.
A wave of homesickness bleakly rushed into the colours and ruined them.
After that those colours together made me feel ill.

I am now in my mid thirties and I am suffering a colour crush.
I dawdle helplessly,
dizzy with the love of a coral wall or a teal leather book,
the ruffles of a jungle leaf and
I poke at the chickpeas in my curry
peering at them changing from mustard to aubergine.

My grown up matronly voice is bewildered and falters.

The creative voice speaks clearer and is more demanding.

Says, remember those glass bangles in teal and gold
when you were 9, a gift from India?
They all broke didn't they?
But their chime and hue made a part of who you are.

Those glass turquoise tiles from Paradise Island
that you pressed into the mud to make tiny villages?
Childhood play made adult thoughts.

Remember reading the works of Amy Carmichael
all those years ago?
How you wished for a sari?

Those colours were there all along,
just hidden under the layers
of who you chose to be.

Ah, so perhaps this radio station is not so unfamiliar after all.

It was just tuned out
under a blanket of muffling white,
to ensure the dyes of the past
did not stain the safety of the future.

Mad dogs & Mondays

2011-08-15T13:58:00.004+12:00

In the interest of being frank,
transparent and assure you that
I do not literally live in a snow-globe of
fairy dust in the tropics,
I thought I might just report a few of the
happenings of the last 24 hours.
We are a normal chaotic family.

As I type this, M3 is watching cartoons
while licking icing sugar from the lid of the shaker,
which she nicked from the kitchen.

The dog has eaten a new pair of shoes,
yet to be worn and awaiting the growth
of a little foot.
B-r-a-n-d new.

She also had a chat with her friend Lucy in NZ.

True.

We have run out of milk
and the bread has sprouted green spots.

The construction work outside our living room
is piercing, a shrieking machine and hammers going.
Sawdust coats our floors.
Soon all will be revealed. :)

M3 stomped a dinnerplate size lump of
peacock blue playdough into an oatmeal toned rug.

M1 cut her finger while opening a can.

Ants have invaded the house,
every room.
They can keep the geckos company.

Someone has tipped nail polish down the loo.
Another loo has jelly beans resting in it, and dead ants.
I know. Don't ask.

The kitchen floor is an olive oil slick.
Again, best not to ask.

-=-

I am brewing a bit of a change,
so keep an eye on this space.

In the meantime,
fall laughing into your Monday Madness.

It will get better.
In the immortal words of Strawberry Shortcake,
It's never silly to believe.
I hope you find something to giggle at today.

Shaking the Globe

2011-08-12T18:12:00.012+12:00

For me, the last few months have been like falling unexpectedly in love.

I knelt with a dear one,

caught sun flare over a barley field,
felt rounded cobblestones under my converse soles
that have been there 'since God was a lad'
as my MIL would say;

caught up on friendships that have stood still
- paused -
for over a decade, and some nearly double that.

I lurched forwards into feeling again after a long time of

sitting
perfectly
still
in
case
i
fell.

But one sunny evening as I walked alone down a street in Chelsea
I knew something was about to unfold.
I stood outside a flower-shop,
bending to breathe the air above an ironstone jug
of sweet-peas and suddenly,
a snow-globe was shaking inside me,
filled with the peculiar and fascinating glitter
that dreams make when they stir.

There is a bizarre intersection
of faith and reality
that I am really mesmerized by this week.

It is the unexplained, traumatic and less than golden moments
that are being unwrapped in lives all around me

despite of and in the midst of
inspiration that abounds -
the contrast catches my breath away
as I contemplate the mis-match of gloom and joy.

I shake my dream-globe carefully,
lest I am tempted to fall out of love with life again.

'Keep feeling', I say to me.
'Be a witness to pain
but let not dreams be quenched by it.'

For unless you shake a snow globe
you will see no sparkle.

If your world is being shaken this week,
I pray you see the light lurking
behind the shadows.

Soon.

Rx

2011-08-08T10:50:00.009+12:00

Singapore is unrelenting in its equatorial heat.

This calls for a regular dose of an endless summer prescription:

a close ex-pat circle of friends (the mummy below blogs here)

a black and white house belonging to one of our group

children and babies in various states of undress

a cranking bbq

Cooled off kids

Successfully treated and rehydrated

with easy companionship and laughter over lime sodas.

PS. Please don't forget about Virginia.

I have been so touched by those of you who have given cash and donated online.

Thankyou.

But we urgently need more.

Please.

Can you see Virginia?

2011-08-01T15:21:00.010+12:00

Are you reading this curled up comfortably?

Hot cup of coffee or earl grey in hand?

Or are you busy checking emails and FB at a desk

between appointments?

Or are you a mum planning the week's menu?

Thinking hmmm, maybe spinach and feta lasagne this week,

or lamb chops and mashed sweet potatoes

mini pizzas with chicken and brie and plum sauce

or pumpkin soup and toasted cheese,

fun pasta shapes and cheese sauce.

Working out the kid's routines?

Jazz, ballet, drama, swimming, soccer,

school interviews, playdates, birthday presents, babysitters,

making a note to return overdue dvds, library books and fix a hemline,

buy a missing school hat, send money for a zoo trip.

You booking flights? Choosing accommodation?

Buying plants for the garden?

New car seat covers?

An etsy necklace?

A pretty new handbag?

None of that is wrong by the way.

Are you wondering where on earth I am going with this?

I'm taking you to Virginia.

She lives in the Northern Philippines and two little children aged 8 & 6.

They live below the poverty line in this house.

She does not live in the bracket of society that can check FB,

pinterest or plan weekly menus,

have playdates with cupcakes and popcorn,

complain about the pile of Monday morning washing,

and make purple glittery playdoh while singing along to The Wiggles,

wave over an air steward, or try out a new lens or pair of heels.

Oh, and one more thing.

She has very advanced and terminal cancer.

There is no funded health care.

Unless she has the money,

several thousand in fact,

she cannot be treated.

I want to do more than just zone out at how common this is.

I want to be more than just overwhelmed at how hard life is for so many millions like her and feel weirdly uncomfortable with my privileged life.

I could quietly just send her some money

and maybe that is just what will transpire.

But it is my prayer that you will join me

so that we can become Real Difference Makers.

If this kind of thing is up your street

and as you are reading, your heart skips a beat and you want to touch an unexpectant but desperately needy life,

please visit this page I have made for Virginia.

I won't lie to you or expose her personal details -

here is what I know to be true.

She spends every single moment in agony on a bed

watched by a helpless community

and two little ones who in a very short space of time

are going to find themselves separated from each other

and farmed out to extended family as they learn to live without their mother.

We can't really change all that, realistically.

But we can make a difference to how it unfolds

and get her the surgery she needs to live comfortably.

Please, do me a favour?

She needs someone on this planet to see her.

To place value on her life

and to let her end it with dignity.

Will you see her with me?

Wonder-sauce

2011-07-30T17:06:00.003+12:00

Kids are like nuggets dipped in wonder-sauce.

They expect mouth watering flavour at every turn - in fact I have observed for my offspring, it is a pre-requisite for survival.
I have never heard my kids say, oh cool. Boring. I can roll with that.
In fact, they are the opposite.
They would rather eat brussel sprouts than do BORING.
They would rather be eaten by a brussel sprout than do boring.

For a year this wee nugget has been biting down on boredom while waiting for her turn to go her sisters' big school.

She had this whole get outta my way, I am so ready to dip into this vibe happening.

She is happily ensconced in a new class,
enjoying the change in dynamics and bringing home some lovely (and unlovely) behaviour and verbal choices.
Cue transition parenting as we adjust to the new flavours and menus.

She has been very clear in her resolve to do ballet.
It was a no-brainer as far as she was concerned.
She has said to us in every action and word
Guys, c'mon! I am not a baby anymore.
Let me run with the big dogs
and pee in the long grass.
Adventure awaits,
Let me at the wonder-sauce!

Yeah, but I still see your baby puku, and dimples in your knees and elbows.
I still want you to eat mashed pumpkin
and fit in the crook of my arm.

In my mind, I still see you crawl and clap and crow,
and giggle and wobble and do what babies do best -
stun their parents with sheer deliciousness.
Learning now to do the splits
and being measured for new ballet shoes
and having an attitude
is not quite what this mummy was ready to embrace.

There is a small pet store across from the ballet studio.
The owner raises the roller door a fraction to let himself in at the same time as the class finishes.
Before he knows it, a gang of little pink ladies have shot through the gap to say hello to the turtles.
The parents all stand awkwardly watching from outside -
because when it comes to reigning in a wonder-seeker,
you need more than two pairs of hands and a taser gun of bribery.

I am finding myself caught again in that weird place
where I get lost in the midst of strategies and memories.
The job of mothering changes DAILY.
I have to keep adjusting backwards and forwards,
with each child,
with each age,
with each delicate or disgusting challenge.

Sometimes I get lost.
Not sure which year, child or nutritional need I am figuring out.

And then I get found.

By them,
those nuggets.

And they spray me with wonder-sauce and none of it matters very much anymore.

Window shopping

2011-07-19T05:38:00.004+12:00

Reading the Signs

2011-07-17T13:45:00.010+12:00

In the space of a few short days we have gone
from reading road signs like this

in places like this

to somewhere the road signs said this

on streets like this.

And then we woke up where street signs have squiggles on them.

I don't think they say anything about baby ducks or concordes.

It was as different as you could imagine,
a hazy heat that defies words
and architecture and people that
were beautiful to my unfamiliar eye.

And then very late that night in Dubai,
a fountain light show to bring our crazy week of
geographical contrast to a surreal and stunning end.

And then home.

To our own haven space,
where we are pausing and blinking to remember
where in the world we are.

Bonjour

2011-07-15T00:03:00.009+12:00

After a day, Paris appeared before my lens.

The texture of this city had a thousand stories to tell my camera,
on each street corner, a new tale.

There was the woman wearing a red beret and carrying a ferret, and the old men who played accordions on the bridges over the Seine. There were book toting students with strawberry blonde hair, orange red lips, clad in black and white striped tops with skinny jeans and ballet flats.

There were street vendors selling magnets, posters and old books.

Corners were grouped with young men, slim hipped and chain smoking, with careless dark eyes. There were pigeons and cigarette butts on the pavements and shoulder bags of baguettes and poodles in the crowds. There were stooped beggars, jaunty Caribbeans and French school children in a line, Madeline-style. The police crawled thick through the streets like ants, and sped in wailing cars to mysterious disasters.

It was a serving of humanity, tossed together like a salad, and served in an old pottery bowl, spritzed with a language dressing that was sharp and piquant.

The children took it all in stride, as children tend to do. They insisted they were doing a world tour of French Fries and it would be rude to discontinue their survey in the origin of the name. With each consequent junk meal, I have darkly commented on the mountain of broccoli and brown rice that I intend to force feed them on our return home.

They walked for miles, held an open and curious mindset to both the social and historical aspects of the cities we have seen. This was the closest they have come to seeing poverty, as we walked down a street after dark on the way home from an evening at the funfair. The homeless were bedding down for the night, some in sleeping bags in shop doorways and some on cardboard over the subway air-vents for warmth. One had a tiny kitten leashed with a string around its neck. M2 found this confrontation of the Unfortunate rather hard to take in and needed rapid distraction to prevent herself from nightmares (her words).

It was an interesting glimpse into another world for our kids, and I am very glad we made the effort, experiencing a thought provoking, unsettling and ragged beauty.

Paris was an old man smiling through his tears.

It is the wicked, distinguished fox to England's Jemima Puddleduck.

The city is culinary, rakish and very seriously stylish
(read here, very seriously expensive).

It was lovers in arms winding their way under the eaves of Baroque and Rococo architecture,

brushing past goths, gangsters and grannies in twinsets and pearls.

Only...only,
in Paris.

Merci beaucoup.

Je t'aime

2011-07-12T03:33:00.004+12:00

This is why I love photography.

It is a butterfly net to the wings of love.

Above, my two youngest daughters in Paris.

Nursery Rhyme

2011-06-26T22:05:00.003+12:00

Bubbles on rosy skin.

The time of day where we become the water-colour illustration of a nursery book come alive,
and this mother - child moment where nurture is a towel on the radiator,
is teasing out tangled locks and wrapping up a clean little body in soft jarmies fresh with laundry love.

Oh, how I love these chapters.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-06-25T22:45:00.002+12:00

Cottage Pie

2011-06-23T20:40:00.004+12:00

Our lane and the cottage that we call home for the next few weeks.

The hedgerows are full of birds that chirrup and chorus in the long late sunlight.

Village life, church bells and stone walls surround me as I drink a pot of Earl Grey in a pocket of morning sunshine at a cafe table.

I try to remember if life exists beyond this,

beyond cobwebby window glass, flagstone floors,

oak leaves, a jug on my kitchen sill of freesias and rambling roses.

Beyond the faint smell of woodsmoke,

of an owl hoot at evening,

of creaking water pipes and claw footed bathing.

Of the honeyed light and soft voices,

of hanging over a mossy fence gazing at minnows threading in a brook.

And I can't explain it but to say that a part of me was waiting for me here.

Double ended candles

2011-06-15T19:36:00.006+12:00

It's been a 'burn that candle at both ends' kinda few weeks.

Blogger has been desperately annoying,
refusing to upload each post I have attempted to blog.

However, today it allowed me to post these snippets from my world.

Sun likes to come and play in our toyroom,

my origami hearts, a mother's day surprise, spin in my study window,

new (preloved) bedroom furniture that says
havenspace to me each time I walk into the room,
sits elegant, all ebony teak wood, british india white linen
and duck egg blue damask drapes.

hours have been spent at my desk working all hours to complete my assignments,

drawing, sketching, colour rendering.

And we are squarely back in duffel bag land,
as we pack for tomorrow's flight to the UK.

Adventure awaits in London, Paris and with family in the Midlands.

Soft blankies to travel and nap with (zoobies)
colouring books, stickers, friendship bracelets, snacks,
puzzles, bubbles, backpacks, gum, cameras, journals...
and that's just the kids' handluggage!

We will be away for a month
but then return to this wee angel...

...going off to the International School with her big sisters!

It's still preschool, but no longer at the local montessori round the corner,
instead will be a 30 minute bus trip,
in her dear little uniform, clutching lunch and library bags.

My baby is getting ready to become even more independent
and will be heading off 3 days a week from 7.30 to 4.

I am not sure how much I will cry.

Especially as I am still recovering from a brutal case of cluckiness after having dear friends to stay. They came from Zimbabwe and I grew up on a neighbouring farm to Leigh, and she was my maid of honour.
They bought with them this long-awaited little guy, who was a massive hit, especially with M2.

They bonded instantly.

and I blinked away tears frequently :)

We have fought off colds with apple cider and honey,

spent hours doing puppy training
and rescuing the latest victims of canine destruction

and ping - ponged from orthodontists, to enrolment appointments,
to uniform shops, to acrobatics class, to Pilates, to birthday parties, back to studies, to the doctor, to emails up the wazzoo, and just peddled madly to keep up with life.

Life.

That 50D will be close to hand on my travels so I can catch the drops as life shakes past,
but right now,
I'm back to burning that candle :)

Surreality

2011-06-01T02:03:00.003+12:00

Would you like to peek through a window into a world of glass and grace in a converted convent?

Or trawl down aisles crammed with spools and spools of every imaginable ribbon on Arab Street?

Or sip Moroccan tea outside a row of vibrant shophouse shutters?

Me too.

And then I remember.

oh yeah.

Surreal does not mean not real.

I am here.

*blink blink*

Wordless Wednesday

2011-05-25T13:16:00.005+12:00

Home to Home

2011-05-12T00:20:00.006+12:00

I landed back home last night from a whirlwind trip back home.

Make sense?

No, I don't get it either.

I read a quote last week.
It made me stop trying to fit it all in,
all those contrasting thoughts and feelings
into one manageable lump.

Instead as we flew through a glory of a South East Asian dusk,
I saw with new eyes that it is the mix of everything that makes it all real.
I grabbed my sister's camera
and told myself to see.
Made myself really look.

I've written before about the tension in life that everything we've been through in the past year or so has made so evident -- how life is not in fact black or white, good or bad, joyous or painful. It is all these things almost all the time. And sometimes holding both feels like a push toward the edge of sanity.

Kirsten Petermann

Ah yes.

I concur.

Chapel of Sand

2011-04-27T01:43:00.004+12:00

Predictably, a love fest.

Baby toes were sugar-coated in fine white sand and elbow dimples were smeared with sunscreen. We sat in the pool till our fingertips were crinkly, and laughter splashed like water around us. Six children and four adults meant most of the time was spent on duty, yet the whole weekend was settled and peaceable.

No church service for me this Easter, not like last year's epic event.
This year a different me walked alone along a deserted beach,
and sang a silent song.

This year I stepped down an aisle of remembrance, in a synagogue of nature between the foam and the tidemark. I collected shells like glossy beads, warm from the ocean's hand and noted with sadness the polluted shore. I was stepping through flecks of tar and over torn plastic bags and bottles. It seemed so wrong, the offal of industry strewn over the purity.

To me it spoke of my concept of salvation.

As I stepped over blackened, torn waste pressed into the sand, and got myself a pair of tar-stained feet, I felt a sense of something beyond what this keyboard can translate.

Something of a tender love for a ruined and messed up world.

And it was good.

Restore

2011-04-21T12:11:00.003+12:00

We are leaving this morning for a few days away,
to this...

As I remember Easter on a beach in the South China Sea,
I will stare at the sand and contemplate that
there is One whose loving thoughts towards us
outnumber these grains.

If your soul is dry,
may you find quenching.
If your questions are endless,
may you find peace.
If your longing is deep,
may you find completeness.
If you have little,
may you find much.
If you are lost,
may you be found.
If you are cold,
may you be warmed.
If you are hopeless,
may you be restored.

And if you feel alive and joyous,
may you look for one who needs what you have.

A Beautiful Dozen

2011-04-19T12:40:00.003+12:00

You are an amazing kid M1.

Each year that passes never ceases to surprise us with how much fun you are to have around. Your humour is quick, your quirks are adorable and you are one of the kindest girls I know. Your bedroom is still messy, I don't expect that to change anytime soon. You are a morning person, I expect that to change anytime soon.
You have an unquenchable appetite for junk food but will eat whatever I ask you to, with the exception (still) of sausages, bacon and ham.
You are smart, practical and yet walk with one foot in la-la land.
'Earth to K?' we say.
'Oh, sorry, I fazed out for a while there Mum'
You are responsible, yet get mighty distracted :)
especially by technology.
Thank goodness though, my tech angel,
you have sorted out the stereo, dvd, tv, cameras, phones, thumb drives and computers for me endless times. Sometimes I have no idea what to do and you lie there, twiddle a few wires and fix what isn't working.
You are creative, dynamic, like bold bright colours but nothing fussy.
You have always steered clear of makeup and jewellery.
That hasn't changed, you are frilly-phobic.
You love Snoopy, Cola Mentos, music and art.
Homemade hamburgers for dinner tonight as per your request,
and a family dvd night.
Your party is at an art studio with a pottery firing oven,
then returning home to make pizzas,
watch a dvd and have a sleepover,
complete with midnight feast.
You are careful about your friends and don't get hyped up by much,
and even when concerts are all the rage and there for the taking,
you say, 'nah, maybe next time round. It's not the last world tour so and so will be taking. I'd rather go with the right people.'

Don't worry, I'll stop here and not share all your secrets ;)

Except to say,
Happy Birthday my sweet girl who is taller than me.
Love you xxx

One Five

2011-04-17T00:59:00.004+12:00

It has been nearly twenty years since I was a fifteen year old with acne, glasses and braces.
Twenty years since reading that green felt tip penned on a desk that tilted my world.
"will you go out with me?"

You traced the space you wanted a ring to sit on my wedded finger.
We were in a classroom, cleaners sweeping the concrete floors around us.

I smiled and shrugged.
Inside I knew it couldn't possibly happen.

We were kids.

This was the beginning of learning not to listen to reason.
For fifteen years over we have celebrated reason defied.

We did marry,
on a scorching African morning
in a tiny school chapel.
I carried creamy buds of tuber roses and vivid magnolias,
wore tulle and slipper satin.

We were kids.

That was before we had lived on 3 continents.
Before we had 3 children,
a big waggy dog,
and an impressive collection of suitcases,
hellos and goodbyes.

That was before we came face to face
with the grown up versions of who we have turned out to be.

I didn't write an anniversary post on the real day,
as I wanted to have the words to say
the things I felt.

But the more I know about life,
the more I realise I don't know.

Some things are unutterable.
They refuse to be herded into sentiments.

Somethings just are.

You, my dear, are one of those.
You have slipped beyond my language grasp
to live under the breath of my heart.

You are bone of my bone.
And I am who I am because you are.

Do we always see eye to eye?
Nope.
Do I like that?
Yep.
Am I sorry for the silly stuff?
So much.

Do I love you?

Very. Madly. Deeply.

'Came but for friendship, and took away love.'

Thomas Moore

Hangliding Heart

2011-04-13T22:23:00.003+12:00

This week I have missed my kiwi-land.

I have missed my jeans and leather boots,
fantails, and tuis in the kowhai blossoms,
my soft cherry wool scarf,
my hairdresser,
crisp rose apples
and autumn's brightness.

Probably more than anything,
that easy familiar concept of home,
friends that are family,
family that are friends and
my knitting of belonging just there.

When the missing comes,
and its not too often,
I just let it blow me
on gusts of memory.

And when all the winds have died down,

I paint the barn,
methodically landing my homesick-glider,
bringing myself back to terra-firma,
one tiny action at a time.
Moisturise, prime, foundation, blush.
Words hang around me as my hands are busy,
the printed names of cosmetics:
chocolate shimmer ink,
champagne quartz,nectar,
frosted lily and ginger rose.

I make my bed.
It orders my soul.

Then I head downstairs for a hot cuppa in my best mug,
composed but cradling an tiny weeny pebble of ache,
that to be honest,
I am in no hurry to lose.

I have a favourite chair to curl up in,
and sip my tea slowly,
walking myself down from the lookout.

To the space I find myself in now.
Not ordering wood and stacking it for winter.
Not buying the latest Donna Hay
or making pumpkin soup.
Not blowing on my hands watching kid's soccer.
Not watching the trees turn gold.
No dragon-breath,
no misty hills,
no woodsmoke at dusk.

Yet when I have all of that again, one day,
I will miss this.

I am trying to live without longing.
To live with elastic contentment,
and for the most part,
I can.

It's just that some days the stretch snaps,
the glider flips on the breeze
and I am helpless with the remembering.

Maybe tomorrow, or next week will be better
and I will crow with excitement with the
wonder of the now.

Just not today.

Best Recipe

2011-04-06T16:02:00.000+12:00

How to have the BEST day:

Discover a new friend. Learn new ways of greeting said friend at decibel levels that the put the entire island's defense force on high alert. Try not to feel a little ill all day each time you remember. Try to uncurl toes which seem permanently crunched in horror. Stop yourself from seeing imaginary new friends in every packet, jar and bowl.

Make sure the dog widdles in a child's bedroom and steals and chews and slobbers over her entire soft toy collection. This is an important step. It paves the way for the encore with a steaming pile of number 2's later on that afternoon, on a fluffy bedside rug.
It is a good idea to combine the worst possible I-will-not-get-ready-for-school behaviour from your nine year old. Especially enhanced if you can orchestrate a 5.30am wake-up from both her and the 3 year old. This really adds a unique flavour to the mix I find.
Have an overtired tweenager return from 5 days away in Malaysia on school camp, staying in a tree house. It helps if she comes back with a bagful of soggy gear that smells like it has been buried in a swamp for a week. And a temper on her like an injured water buffalo. And a cold/sore throat rounds things off nicely.
Discover the 3 year old has tipped grated parmesan cheese and chilli powder onto the kitchen bench and mixed it up in great swirling patterns. Scoop her up and head for a bath before she rubs it in her eyes.
Notify dog that now is a good time to stand and lick the kitchen bench.
Find water for the coughing dog.
Dash back upstairs to haul yelling child out of bath and deal to her offering floating in the water. Disinfect.
Clean kitchen floor/bench/dog.
Supervise homework, post-camp strepsils/panadol/clean clothes/food.
Breathe. Laugh, shakily at first but soon you'll get the hang of making sure it sounds more sincere.
Crawl into bed later, much later. Discover someone ate a nutella sandwich and gecko flavoured cookie in your bed. In between your white sheets. Cry just a little. You have to save some tears up for the next day.
Drift off into a jerky sleep, filled with weird dreams and grin with undisguised pleasure when child 3 snuggles in at 5.30am in a few hours time.

Honestly, I have tried this method. It really works. You will have the most fun you could possibly, possibly imagine. Try not to shout "Are you kidding me?" too many times. It spoils the moment.

Play-time

2011-04-04T15:31:00.003+12:00

Sandy, salty, sunblock smeared offspring
are the bees knees.

I mean, what's not to love?

The overheating grumps,
the wish-list for lollies from the beach shop,
the squirming away from firm sun block applications,
the towel squabbles,
the sizzling hot tarmac on bare feet,
the noses turned up at green coloured hot waffles
(which looked weird but tasted great),
the public toilets (enough said),
the walk back to the car with dripping wet hair, knotted with sand,

and the sniffles.

I just love it.

And the two big M's are on school holidays for 2 weeks.

Awesome.

(I promise, I do actually love them to bits.)

Mum's the Word

2011-04-03T00:23:00.003+13:00

Someone special has been in our guest room for a couple of weeks.

She returned home today, and we are feeling the loss,
for there is no-one quite like your mum.

She was an absolute hoot, up for anything and bubbling with energy.

She licked a few things into shape, including the dog, who learned to walk obediently and gained a few well needed pounds under her nurturing eye.
While I was away in Cambodia, she quietly completed the war effort in toilet training M3, which is now fait accompli. THANK GOD.
Plus she babysat the M&M's while Greg and I celebrated our 15 year anniversary,
away for a night in a proper grownups hotel.
Priceless.

We absolutely wrung the most out of each and every day,
and now she can fully picture the world we live in,
just as I can picture hers.

But my world won't be quite the same for a while,
without her here in it.

Miss you Mum xx

To Follow

2011-03-24T16:33:00.005+13:00

It was impossible not to be rearranged.

Words will fail to impart the depth of this experience,
but perhaps my lens will tell a better story.

I visited with dear friends who speak the language and hold the children as their own.

The needs are many.

If you would like to know more about their work,
please visit them online
or contact me to find out more.

Listening

2011-03-18T12:58:00.004+13:00

This is where I awoke and sit this morning, sipping my cup of Kenya tea.

A room on the river in a country that has been calling my name for many years.

Finally, I answered, and simply just came with no agenda, or ambition.

Just a response to a dream that quickened my pulse every time I thought about it, and when an opportunity to come with a couple of other girls arrived, I said yes before I had time to reason it out.

And it feels so unfamiliar
yet known at the same time.

A dear friend wrote to me a while back and this line in her letter struck me to the core:

Your voice is your soul's code.

Not meaning that I needed to talk more.

But that I need to listen,
to me.

So here we are, listening.

♥

Crumpled Wing

2011-03-15T19:58:00.007+13:00

It is unfolding more, this crumpled wing syndrome.

The cocoon of grief that has veiled me is thinning. Shafts of light in the shapes of my dreams are slanting through the fog. I see colours and patterns and textures everywhere I look. I have unharnessed my creativity from the grind of the responsibility to my beliefs and let it flutter loose. Without trying to force my soul colours to stay within the noose of my own rigid expectations, I have instead listlessly let them doodle wherever they wanted to go. It is like being so wasted that you don't care if your child is crayoning all over the walls, and then look up to find they have graffiti-ed a startlingly good rendition of Renoir.

Yes it is still foggy around me, but it is more like an elegant morning mist that is wreath-like and slips away by mid-morning.

I have begun to genuinely study the logistics of my passion as a profession.

An embryonic business is budding and a graphic artist is working on my logo.

I am packing for the first of my design related trips to a neighbouring Asian country.

I am meeting the most fascinating people.

I am discovering the things that make me flare with recognition,
that hammered steel, the beat up old bench from Rajasthani, a bunch of frayed charcoal taffeta, starched bleached linen, a strip of grosgrain ribbon the colour of a thunderstorm, a ruffle of moonwhite tulle, mugs of hand cast porcelain, words of my unspoken dreams stamped.

Sorrow has an outstanding value, for it tempers into a warmth that lies quietly in our hollow spaces during times of peace. It is a wiser joy, aged with a patina that glows secretly, known only by our own familiar seeking. Taste enough grief and you finally know what joy really tastes like too.

It is an unexpected discovery to find land like this after being adrift internally for so long.
After a long time rocking out at sea, I have hit a beach.
And it might just be the most beautiful island I have ever seen.

Now I just need to convince myself to get out of the boat, get out of the boat.

Keep. Getting. Out.

Compass spinning

2011-03-04T16:43:00.007+13:00

The need I seem to have to be grounded firmly in a home

does not diminish with each move around the globe
and the perpetual struggle to find my balance in the shifting and
constant identity establishment gets more intricate with each move,
yet I do not find myself wishing this away.

In order to catch my breath on the internal slopes of tension I find myself slung between,
I sit in a coffee shop and watch the world clip by on corporate heels.

I pad along book store aisles and handle the pages reverently, running my hands over ruffled pages and beautiful imagery on the covers that sends me to
faraway places in my head.

Then I jolt with remembrance that I already live in faraway places.

This sends me in search of dusty antique shops filled with Chinese heritage,
statues of warriors and bronze gongs,
wedding baskets and rice measures,
ming vases and curved table legs,
ornate doors from Rajasthan
and teak kitchen cabinets from dynasties past.

I explore organic shops with potions and lotions
and rug shops stacked with Persian carpets.

Narrow shophouses are smoky with incense
and the aroma of bartering.

I admire a tiny 70 year old Chinese stool and
watch school girls giggle under the precise tip of the henna brush.

And then, after walking through this life I am living,
like the pages of some strange novel,
I return home
and the gates clang loudly behind me.

I walk in barefoot on cool marble,

Open the doors wide and quietly watch drifting reflections in the warm breath of a breeze.

I turn to the familiar,
the spaces that nourish and mend.
I whisk, melt and beat,
from the pages of historically splattered recipes.

I am standing mentally in my childhood kitchens when I do this.
I am making my aunt's cakes and grandmother's cookies,
my mother's desserts, my father's curries, my friend's dough.

And as I mix my present into the past,
folding the whipped whites
through the heavy batter,
I realise both are needed to make it rise.
To allow it to be soft and edible.

And in order to live
the nourishing way I intend,
I am convinced I need to stand softly and
relish the ordinary
in order to create a home from it.

Yet, I have noticed that
the extra-ordinary begs an audience too.

My word for the year is embrace.
I want to embrace with two arms,
one from west, one from east.
Past and present.
Light and shadow.
Salt and oil.
Rain and sun.

There is much for me to learn.

========================================

But now it is my pleasure to do something I have been looking forward to for years.

One of my friends has begun to blog - whispering to the keyboard some of the insights and depth she possesses. This woman is not only extremely intelligent and articulate, she has inspired me in real life on numerous occasions, with her gift of analysis and perception. She has structured her life intentionally, and although is in that challenging flux of motherhood, she has not stopped learning and making this role one that deserves the best of her planning and energy.

One of her most valuable assets is that she is steady and strong. Her laughter comes quickly and her heart and home are open to those who need anything. I am profoundly blessed to know her as a friend that speaks into my life, but even more than this, she is family - married to my brother.

Please, make her welcome.

Choosing to run

2011-02-28T15:29:00.002+13:00

M2 made me so proud last week.

Not because she won a race (or two).

Not because she broke a school record doing it.

But because she fought fear and and won.

Before the race she broke down, clutching us and begging we took her home.

She was so afraid to run - not sure how she would place.

Scared of failing.

Scared of falling.

This is her 4th school in 4 consecutive years.

The 4th time she has lined up against kids she doesn't know,
no idea of whether she will have what it takes to be a winner.

"Take me home Daddy"

Needless to say we did not make her run.

We believe that choosing to participate is entirely her choice,
and if she chooses to quit,
she will have to live with the regret... not us.

If she had decided to quit,
we would have been proud of her anyway.

We left the decision to her.

She quietly walked away and joined her age group.

She chewed her nails and surreptitiously wiped her tears.

Greg and I looked at each other and smiled ruefully.

This was her moment,
and winning was in the decision she chose to stand when her name was called,
and take her place in the designated lane.

Naturally she ran like the wind,
it is in her blood and she knows no other way.

I love life lessons like this.
When you can't help but see instant results for brave decisions.

She shone.

And then quietly asked us to leave, as she no longer needed us to watch.

She said it would be more fun to surprise us with more first place ribbons.

Which she did.

I have a lot to learn from my kids.

If I had half the courage they display,
I would be a different person.

Shockwaves

2011-02-23T19:56:00.004+13:00

In my sorrow for the darling of New Zealand, these images out of them all, brought it keenly home for me. I felt my arms go heavy with the weight of remembrance, and was pierced with the hollow fear of being helpless in the wait for certainty.

This pair of beautiful children with quietly exhausted faces, fingers clutching sleeves, hood up, tousled hair and reddened eyes were waiting on the grass, near the rubble, for news of their trapped mother.

Here is just after they were told that there was no hope.

The mother in me is grieving. The child in me mourns too.

God defend New Zealand.

images

Puppy Love

2011-02-21T15:00:00.006+13:00

Meet Bailey,
the new princess in our family
(like we needed any more).

She is mighty loved.

And yes, that is a baby's pacifier.

Wet Market Wednesday

2011-02-19T12:46:00.006+13:00

There are plenty of gorgeous supermarkets in Asia,
where you can buy just about everything your heart could desire...for a price.

We live very close to one that is probably one of the most upmarket
and I must confess, occasionally I enjoy popping down to choose a chunk of melty brie to serve with Maggie Beer Plum Paste and Crackerthins.

Knowing I can buy Easter chocolate,
or Christmas advent calendars,
or gluten-free bread,
Waitrose Kenya tea or Jaffa Orange curd is nice.

But there's the everyday kind of stuff still to get.

I usually get it delivered to my home by a grocery supply company.
The owners ring each morning and ask if I have any orders.
They are great for fresh fruit and vegetables and always stock vegemite,
that life essential.
They deliver the bulky stuff, like cereal boxes and milk,
bread and toilet paper.

But I run up against a problem with meat.
It is so expensive that I can barely justify looking at it.

Beef and Lamb can cost between $45 and $80 a kilo.

So I went from this

to this.

The Tekka Market on Buffalo Road in Little India is a riot of colour and sounds.
My neighbour and I dodged the crowds, stepped over puddles of who knows what,
haggled and picked and came away with a rather heavy trundler full of meat and vegetables.

Afterwards we chose a local Indian Muslim shophouse restaurant and despite the suspiciously dingy interior, enjoyed skewers of spicy meat and lukewarm water served in metal cups.

Then home to roast that leg of lamb and eat it around a family table lit by candles :)

Life constantly surprises me with its contrasts. I am learning to blend.

Lover's Day

2011-02-14T19:30:00.005+13:00

We don't do roses, hearts or chocolates for valentines,

no particular reason,

except that they just don't encapsulate any meaning of love for us personally.

We tend to just look without words and slip gently below the surface of the others' soul,

and it feels like I've arrived home
when these eyes and this quiet smile is fixed on me.

Happy Lover's Day my dear one,
thanks for knowing and for grace.

恭喜发财

2011-02-08T00:22:00.005+13:00

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

It is the start of a new lunar year, the year of the Rabbit.

Around town there are red lanterns, swathes of red cloth and hanging paper ornaments, like concertinaed pineapples.
Little gold rabbit statues sit on shop counters,
and bunny designs are stamped on door mats, slippers, and clothes.

Dancers can be hired to perform in houses or office spaces,
arriving in a truck festooned with big flags,
and banging cymbals and drums.

On Friday, we went to family friends for lunch,
and after we had eaten, we heard the sound of the drums approaching.
One of their neighbours had the dancers in their home
so we went over for a little look.

From my observations, they perform an ornate dance and do interesting things with kumquats, which they peel and arrange under cover of their dragon costumes and then reveal for auspicious prosperity.

Quite the cultural experience for our girls to watch from the side of the swimming pool,

although frighteningly loud for the baby!

Happy New Year!

Embrace

2011-02-01T20:58:00.005+13:00

It has been raining cats and dogs in Singapore,

literally hours and hours of torrential showers,

the footpaths have become even more treacherously slippery -
I buy another umbrella
and new havaianas with fresh grip

and say hello again to routine, friends and expat life.

I eat properly, exercise,
breathe calmly and try to embrace what engulfs me.

My M2 baby has been very poorly with tonsillitis.

Embrace.

Quiet time is few and far between -

But extra special when it happens.

Embrace.

It is dark outdoors at midday -

I light a candle, switch on a lamp.

Embrace.

It's actually really lovely, you know?

There is a softness in it,

the Embrace.

To Home, from Home

2011-01-27T02:35:00.000+13:00

Adventurous blood can be a dangerous thing.

It spirals through my veins like threads of scarlet ink and makes me seek the high seas, pirating any sense of belonging. Down comes my Home Sweet Home sign, my sentimental touchstones are shoved into tombs of memory and only the bare essentials are packed for the trip. I cheerfully stand in the bow of a metaphorical lurching vessel, face to the wind and stare down the Great Unknown.

Lack of adventurous blood can be a dangerous thing.

It glides through me like treacle - sweet lavish ribbons of melting softness. I can smell honeysuckle and gardenias while I sip tea from china passed down from my great-grandmother. The house gleams with scented polish and the silver is buffed. Linen is starched and sprayed with lavender and my bed's comforter is a field of waffle white where the sunlight dapples through the apple tree leaves outside the white wooden shutters of my window. Pear and ginger cake cools on the bench and the grandfather clock ticks rhythmically, peacefully. Candles glow, old books are lovingly faded and life tells a graciously quiet story here.

I have recently begun the journey of mingling the vastly differing essences of what make me who I am. It is an epic discovery of intentional exploration which can be a little bewildering at times. Trailing Corporate Spouse meets Anne of Green Gables Wannabe.

I have not posted for a long long time I know. We went back to New Zealand for Christmas and my heart was as skittish as a colt. But I was surprised to feel myself gentle and settle under those dear folded hills. The place felt like it chose me, rather than I it. I let my internal compass swing unheeded and it told me I was home. I sat under white roses with my cafe order and let my pen tip the mystery in my journal. Embrace it wrote. Embrace. My dear ones pulled me towards them - allowing me to find a new sense of gravity in their arms, their words and eyes.

The time away was an overflowing vessel of rose-oil, love-drop moments that nourished the cynical cracks in me. Even the hues of the land - sage and almond, bone and blue, embossed themselves into the grain of my soul. I slipped into them like exquisite silk slippers and let the trying cease. I gave myself permission to love the land, to bond myself to it in order to have strength enough to leave again, knowing there was an umbilical cord that secures me to a source of rest and joy.

There were nuptials under a sky that was brimmed with brightness, starred with jacarandah blossoms, and we danced like wild things into the soft summer night. I saw generations holding hands and laughing with genuine delight as we enjoyed being together.

There was coffee, copious cups of tea, quiet time; fantails and dog walks; a night in the city with girlfriends; there were tears at friend's tables and laughter with marshmallows round a blazing brazier; picnics and bbq's, sundowners and giggles. Family and friendship blurring the lines of both and each becoming part of one and the same.

At the end of it all, I slowly donned on my travelling hat, gathered my brood and we bid our farewells. I drove through blinding sheets of emotion with a towel around my neck as mere tissues were not nearly adequate, away from home.

To home.

Ballerina Lollipop

2010-12-13T18:57:00.006+13:00

This little girl is like a delicious gobstopper lolly.

Layers of jaw-aching sweetness.

One of my highlights is spending one-on-one time with her at a cafe over a baby-chino.

Although trying to scrub her artwork off the floors has to come a close second.

I am just so blessed by her creativity.

Now that I think of it, her refusal to eat dinner and disobedient jumping on the couch, flinging her head back and shattering the glass of this picture does also compete for the Fab Time awards.

But I must confess, it was Tuesday's little dash to the ER to get her stomach pumped that really took the cake I think. Her rebellious over-indulgence in a bottle of chewable multi-vitamin tablets took our relationship to enchanting new heights. That was an excellent day.

However, finding her cheerfully entangled in irreplaceable cassette tapes from my childhood was another shot of sheer love that took care of the following day.

Ah, this child.

She is beauty, and mischief

in one dynamic package.

Her end of year preschool show, held at the auspicious Raffles Hotel, complete with ballroom and chocolate fountain, chefs in white hats and acrobatics
was a completely necessary and breath-taking event on Friday.

For it allowed us to sit back and be reminded

to keep licking a sense of humour
and holding the disasters up to the light
to watch the sparkles

as we are drenched in joyful delight

from her latest creative antics.

Clearly, Santa is not to be trusted when you are 3.

She edged close enough to snaffle the gift and gap it.

She dropped her marshmallow on the grubby passageway floor and then ate it gleefully.

But I didn't mind.

I kept looking through my lens and snapping,

gathering up the memories,

and smiling as I slept.

For I know I will miss this when she is lanky, grumpy and cranking her i-pod to distressingly high decibel levels, chewing gum and leaving her impossibly hard maths homework to the last minute. I adore my other offspring too, please don't get me wrong.

They just don't stop me mid-sentence when all I hear is silence.
I don't rush to find them as soon as they leave the room
and they don't DARE touch my makeup.

I am writing this post for myself to read in the future weeks/month/years of parental adrenalin fatigue to distract myself from repeatedly banging my head against the wall, or rocking back and forth deliriously in a corner.

Glow

2010-12-03T21:29:00.005+13:00

Little things I am unwrapping today:

A sunny space in my bedroom to curl up with my tea

Advent calendars

Christmas carols

Fairy lights

Freshly baked cinnamon buns

Pretty new luggage tags

A wicker star on my front door

French tips

Thunderstorms

Well stocked biscuit tins

Sage green satin ribbon

Date night

Crisp white bedlinen

M2's pure voice singing in Latin

A jaunty red lantern

Chamomile and lavender tea

The bird that whistles outside in a way I just have to whistle back

Scented furniture polish

Coconut milk and coriander curry

Magnolia hand soap and cream in kitchen

The Book Depository

Jaffa Orange Curd on crunchy gluten-free toast

Wooden pegs that keep M3 quiet for an hour

Letting dough rise outside instead of in a hot-water cupboard

Butterscotch baking drops

Discovering new candy and pretending it's fruit

I am cradling the tiny pleasures with luminous delight,
like tiny fireflies that glow in the dark,
one gratitude fluttering to another.

-- ♥ --

Unwrapping

2010-11-29T16:51:00.004+13:00

Loving in my weekend reflections:

these three fat angels bought at $2 a piece,

my handsome hands-on hubby, to whom no task is beyond
and who is a happy accident in the kitchen colour coordination dept :)

this sweet kid making dinner with confident aplomb,

stumbling on this cheese from my own little NZ hometown
quite by chance in a local supermarket,
which made for delicious chicken, camembert and red onion pizzas.

sprinkled with pickled chillies,
and chased down with chilled Pink Moscato.

Kilometers of beautiful street decorations that made my babies oooooh and aaaaaah.

Soaking wet night time fun on the street corner outside our local mall
under a huge Christmas tree made of cd's,
a foam machine churned out imitation snow.

I am taking the time to unwrap the present.

In thanks

2010-11-27T03:50:00.004+13:00

This is our table.

Last night as many around the world,
and especially in NZ,
light candles in remembrance of those who were lost
we lit the white candles that sit on every table in our lounge.

It is a kind and gentle time, my evening ritual of the soft butter-warm flicker.
Last night thunder rolled outdoors with the scent of rain mingling with apple cider and cinnamon tealights and the voile drapes fluttered in the night air.
Bocelli's voice came softly too
and I sat still,
and remembered.

And was thankful.

--- --- ---

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.

It turns what we have into enough, and more.
It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.
It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.

Gratitude makes sense of our past,
brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
Melody Beatti

The Light

2010-11-22T00:09:00.004+13:00

I have been wanting to post about the reality of living in our new home. Explain the intricacies and little routines, and different things we do now. But each time I start, the words falter and I simply stop and seem unable to go on.

These are still early days, we have been here for 3 and a half months and the sensation of peering through layers of glass still trips me up.

Summing up the first quarter of our first year living as ex-pats in Asia, I can wholeheartedly confirm that it really is an amazing place to live. On the other side of the glass I am trying to peer through, I can see the family as a whole are happy and settled. That in itself is triumph right there. Any mother would agree with me that if your kids are distressed and sad, that you'd give your right arm to make things okay for them again. I am so blessed that my girls have found the move bearable. Sure, we have motored through many a box of tissues for the homesick sniffles, but we can cope with that. On the whole, they are bright eyed and laughing. Nice firm thank you God on that score.

There is so much more to be grateful for. Our home is large, bright and airy. It is a townhouse on a curving little street in the heart of Singapore's best known shopping area. I can walk to Orchard Road in about 7 minutes, and frequently do, often at night as the shops only close at 10pm. Singapore's exquisite botanical gardens are a 10 minute walk in the other direction - and they have the kind of space that I can breathe in after leaving my beloved Cornwall Park behind in Auckland. Okay, so I am not walking under oak trees in frosty air, and watching pheasants and sheep. But I am strolling under banyan trees in a singlet and sunscreen, watching monkeys, lizards and turtles.

I have new friends and old ones. A church that is welcoming.

My littlest is at a Montessori preschool a little walk away, for five mornings a week. She tells me she is most unwilling each morning to attend, but waves me away with a grin at each drop off.My big girls catch buses to and from their international school, leaving at 7.30am and arriving home at 4pm. It is a long day and they have homework to attend to as soon as they are settled but they do not complain. They have made class friends and bus friends, and daily negotiate the terrors of the Bus Amahs who by all accounts, sound ferocious in their efforts to control the bus-loads of ex-pat brats.

I have access to the most amazing home help, and comprehensive supermarkets that sell most things that we miss. I am getting the gist of driving around this new city, at first a treacherous confusion of guessing which lane I was meant to take, without the help of signs, but now Annie (my GPS) has been relegated to the cubbyhole unless we are going somewhere new, so that's a sure sign I am getting my bearings.

We have gone on a break for a long weekend to white beaches. Greg went to the Formula 1 and we joined a club where we can swim on the weekends. We have been out to the movies, to dinner and explored some fun spots. I have discovered a blond Australian hairdresser who understood me. I have a studio space to paint in, a huge kitchen to cook in, gorgeous rainshowers to open the doors onto and an en suite off every bedroom. We drive a family wagon and I am completely over the sense of shame this brings :) Ikea is a four minute drive away, and so are other stores that are full of eye candy. I am still looking for dining room chairs but we have hunted down outdoor furniture. I have begun to replace my plants left behind with simple palms and collect white candles to burn at night in hurricane lamps along with mosquito coils for when we sit outdoors.

Geckos scurry silently along the ceiling and we sport hefty collections of insect bites, but we have seen no snakes yet, for which I am rather profoundly relieved. The girls nearly stood on one while away in Bintan, but fortunately I was down by the beach and missed the drama, or else I might have had to be coaxed down, dignity in shreds, from the nearest tree. We have squirrels that scamper along the wall between us and the neighbours, who are not our greatest allies at present, as their 4 dachshund dogs yap incessantly during the week and make me mutter.

There are too many wonderful things to adequately capture and if I were to heap all this goodness into a bucket and stand it on the scale of reality - it would overflow.

There is another bucket though, heavy on the other side of the scales. My brain ran and hid in the corner like a naughty child once we were here and unpacked. I have struggled through feeling detached and numb, and have been astonished at this unexpected and persisting phenomenon. I can honestly say that there is nothing at all wrong with anything, except the way my feelings have rearranged themselves into a chronic pattern of unfamiliarity. I have been bewildered at this, and really frustrated by such a surprising and debilitating turn of events. The sensation of having no sensations is incredibly disconcerting. It is like I am on one side of a fish bowl, and everyone and everything is on the other. In fact, the old me is on the other side. The me I have found myself with now is like walking in on a stranger.

Um...hello, do I know you and what the heck are you doing in my house, wearing my hair and pretending to be me?

I stare back at myself, shrug and sit unresponsively. And the stand off continues.

Life swirls on in vibrant eddies around us, and I have half a foot in mechanical responsibility, and the other foot remains quietly still, waiting for feelings to return. Perhaps a part of my brain got too tired to function any more and shorted. I am told that in time, clarity will return and I will not feel like I have been invaded by my emotionally paralysed twin.

It is uncomfortable to be this honest. But it is worse not to be.

Bare truth is a stepping stone towards the light.

Restless

2010-11-16T13:25:00.003+13:00

For those in my world who know well the longest nights,
and who are walking through the shadowy places
and beating off the fear.

Take heart today.

♥

I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

Psalm 4:8

The Breather

2010-11-15T16:33:00.007+13:00

Bintan, Indonesia.

Retreat

2010-11-03T00:35:00.002+13:00

The end of this week marks the Indian festival of lights - Deepavali (called Diwali in some countries).

We are taking advantage of the long weekend and heading away for a few days tomorrow, not far away but where there is sun, sand, seas...and tee boxes.

And, as always, you come too.
Through my lens you help me see more than I would notice if havenspace did not exist.

So, go pack your sunscreen and swimmers
and I'll see you there :)

Celebrations

2010-10-31T13:36:00.004+13:00

3 months ago today

we flew out of the old
and into the new.

So much significant has happened in that short time
not the least being that we have met some extraordinary people.

Last night we were invited to an Expataversary
by this lovely family, to celebrate their first year in Singapore.

It was a beautiful outdoor dining experience
table under lamplit trees
with exquisite food and merry company.

How we laughed.

And it was so good to be a part of other people's lives and raise a glass to their journey.
It has to be said that kiwis cop a bit of flak here, as we are such a minority and the larger ranks of Aussies (esp armed with rugby results) take chortling delight in rubbing in our proud heritage.

Good to peel off tight heels and tiptoe down puddly pavements
to share a taxi to retrieve sleepy babes from friend's beds and couches
and drive quiet warm streets home...
I said home....
Yes.
It is becoming.

Thanks Barronskis for a great night, and congrats.
And thanks to the Bozzies for being heart friends and letting our girls crash at theirs.
And thanks to Jojo & Pipsqueak who infect us all with their fizzing humour.

Saturday is latin for...

2010-10-30T14:27:00.003+13:00

...a generous supply of very good coffee,
home-made choc chip pancakes,
pajamas till noon,
and chilling out in liquid light.

Have a restful weekend.

Cheeky Monkey...

2010-10-28T14:56:00.001+13:00

...tries to do bunny ears on her father

but her arms are too short

and her father has not consumed enough coffee to

respond with much humour.

I (sometimes) love how children are so unsullied by sensibility.

Wednesday Wonder

2010-10-27T15:40:00.001+13:00

I am in a state of stupendous parental bewilderment.

They didn't tell me that a mere 4000 days into being a new mother
that my baby would look like this.

They say, enjoy it dearie, it goes so fast.

They don't say you won't feel it passing until it's too late
and has already long happened.

And that you become thick witted as a parent of smart, young people
not necessarily because you are stupid,
but because you are still still gobsmacked and reeling
in a delighted and despairing way.

The Ballet Boat

2010-10-25T15:50:00.015+13:00

Yes, it was still hazy, smoky, muffled.

But breakfast out was definately in order,
due to cabin-fever and the fact that it was
Saturday and that hallowed event always brings
a quirky so what? to our plans.

This riverside cafe is not far from our home
and we took our seats overlooking the misty air above the water.
Sipped melt in the mouth coffee,

fed our children iced tea, eggs, toast soldiers,

pink lemonade and pancakes doused with syrup,

which is clearly best licked directly off the knife, as M2 would no doubt inform you.

Then, because we had already been so deliciously reckless that we might as well continue,
we went for a stroll.

Just as it was beginning to rain we hopped onto a passing bumboat,

and made our slow, grand way up the shiny green canal.

And then the sky tipped.

Dramatic sheets of water bucketed around us.

But which did nothing to dull the sight of this finery.

An air of expectation unfolded,

as a surreal sense of the unreal dawned.
We were seated under the brim of an eerily close sky
which drew the curtains on this city stage
to a quietly soft and faded version of itself.

If Singapore's usual show is a vibrant tango
of light and colour and sound,

then Saturday's shrouded harbour show unfolded like a ballet scene
of grey tulle and satin ribbon.
The children sat hushed and serene,
content to stare at the sun's vanished reality,
at shadows of rain-speckled skin,
and be lulled by the tuktuktuktuk of the barge applause.

After our humble little journey had docked and I had shaken the poet juice off me,
we took refuge in a nearby mall until the rain had eased.

And then home again, to watch instead of dvd's,
our children curl up on the sofa each under a snuggly throw,
clutching a crisp, new purchase from Kinokuniya Books,
plate of vegemite sandwiches
and sliced watermelon balanced on their knees.

It was one of those weekends
that surprises you.
Like meeting someone you weren't quite sure about
and realising you had known them your whole life long.

Smoky Lion City

2010-10-22T15:33:00.006+13:00

Unaccustomed as yet, to living in smoggy Asia, I am finding myself missing NZ's impressive air quality. Singapore has been, for a few days, shrouded in a thick layer of smoke pollution, (referred to as the haze), caused by illegal burn-off in Sumatra's farmland. Nearby Peninsula Malaysia has had to close some schools and issue face masks. The Singapore Pollutants Standard Index has spiked over 100 for the first time since 2006, breaching the unhealthy threshold. Their national website which records and releases the levels 3 hourly, has crashed due to overwhelming traffic. The airports remain open but the impact on health and tourism is fairly significant.

And in my little pocket of home, it is acrid and foggy beyond the windows. Our eyes sting and stream and throats ache. Everyone I talk to is sniffing or coughing or has a bad headache and a health advisory has been issued to the general public to reduce activity outdoors. When it first rolled over the island, I wondered if there was a huge fire in the neighbourhood, the reek of burning was so strong. Days later, a prevailing wind persists, and clouds of this ashy air continue to puff over us, so our weekend is planned indoors.

So grateful for air conditioners, windows that close tightly, a stack of dvds, wii championships, popcorn, good books, grocery home delivery and a tumble dryer.

Click on the image for today's article in the Straits Times.

God's Knees

2010-10-20T17:38:00.010+13:00

Weekly coffee-group yesterday, a lift, secured with coded access, glided me up to a typically gorgeous apartment. There are always captivating views of another angle of the island through floor to ceiling glass, and the company is wonderful. I feel so privileged to have encountered a group of generous, kind-hearted women who identify with my dislocation and are humorous and down to earth. No fake here baby, just gentle friendship and respect.

I felt a part of me shift forward. Like the vehicle had finally just slipped out of painful first gear and moved to second. Still a long way to go till it is old hat, but not as s-l-o-w a process as it has been.
And in that surge of familiarity and ease, a memory fell off the shelf and landed in my lap, as tangible as if it had just been freshly baked. In my mind I was standing at the window of a dear friend's house, overlooking this range of hills that I always imagine as an olive chenille blanket draped over the knees of God. Watching fat farm animals ponderous in puddled green quilt squares and a sky, bleak and tumbled with steel wool.

The clink of mugs turns me as the water boils for tea (our special blend), and I take in the smell of homemade pizza set out amongst flax baskets, red biscuit tins and comfort-food recipe books like Apples for Jam. Our offspring clamour underfoot and my friend smiles easily with an unfathomable grace as teenagers and preschoolers fill their plates, giggle and tell tales on each other.

We live very different lives now, continents apart, but share a love of all things family and vintage, and the fact that we cry when we part. The doorways of our homes lie open to each other and I have the feeling, if the last 12 years has been anything to go by, that old age will still see us fond.

She is a bowl of organic plums and a batch of homemade baby food, she is a stack of muslin wraps for my babies, and we have shared many a fairy sprinkled cupcake party with our girls and our other close friends. She was sunlit comfort to the lonely me that needed her friendship all those years ago, in my preparation for parenting and adjustment into motherhood. And a homeschooling support when I floundered between the lines.

There are just a handful of them, like her, that are like the bookends to my flimsy adventures and uncertainty. A few solid, exquisite, timeless friends who, even though they are not seen in my everyday and might not be for a very long time, are unspoken parts of my existence. They will never know the times they walk into my awareness, when a tiny action sparks a memory.

Another heart friend who loves red, has called and sent me words of love. She is the very best kind of thoughtful and leads through her exceptional gift of communicating with others. Another very bestie is like a delicate rose-printed teacup, her loyalty as enduring and precious as bone china. We finish each other's sentences and also cry to be apart. There is an ease with each other that has no need for words. Another treasured stalwart in the heart friend collection is lilac and cream, black coffee and silver retro and soft yet deeply strong. Others are family.

But I got to thinking that some girls are out there right now, going through the agony of the loss of a friend. And it is a desperate grief, when those we emboss into our heart-skin, slip into a place where only memory can press them back.

Although in the Northern Hemisphere it is crisping towards the cooler months, below the Equator, the winter is fading. I know in our home town there will be streets lined with these blossoms and for those who are losing and having to let go - I dedicate these.

And a vaseful for your tables too, my friends at God's knees, you know who you are.

October brings her 9th

2010-10-19T18:33:00.005+13:00

I am not sure what they call children of the heart, like you.

But it is like you were carved from my bone. We see into each other's eyes and know.

You are still sensitive, acutely so. Self-conscious, with high levels of awareness but you have let us into your world and have entertained us with your sharp wit lately. You are still pocket-sized, nibble like a mouse at your food and seek comfort in the things around you. A woolly rug or blanket is still wrapped around you, even under the line of the equator.

You are still girlie meets tomboy.

Nail-polish and Heelys. Soft toys and soccer balls.

You are the real deal. No shades of grey to be seen.

And we are not proud of you, because saying that would mean that you have to do something clever to make us happy. But rather we are just so Yay! to have you on our team regardless of the cool things you do, and getting to watch you unfold and give us the gift of yourself is just a blast.

Sometimes it can get a bit fiery as you learn to handle disappointment. But you have never been unkind or rude to us.

You add such seasoning to the dish of our family MG.

For your birthday you only chose 3 friends to invite. You were relaxed and completely yourself. No putting on airs and graces for you. No shrill show-off action. You wanted to go to the club, where you swam with your buddies, enjoyed junk food for dinner and then went bowling, followed by a sleepover with just one friend. PJ's, a dvd and the next morning, waffles and chocolate dipped strawberries for breakfast.

Here Daddy is saying you need to get out of the pool and get showered for dinner. You are not so happy about that.

But you perked up a bit when you remembered you had presents to open!

And a pool cake ablaze with candles that refused to go out.

Happy Birthday Baby!

For privacy reasons, I have tried to choose pics that do not reveal the identity of others, which can be quite limiting. You will notice on my blog that I am very particular on maintaining the privacy of others unless I have permission.

The Missing See-Saw

2010-10-18T15:23:00.003+13:00

Who said it was alright for you to go ahead and grow up?

As much as it was hard being a full time mum at home with no break from kids, leaving you at your first morning of daily preschool today has made me feel like I just cut my left arm off.

I have missed me-time.

But right now, I just miss you.

And when you come home in a few hours, I know I will go back to missing me-time.

And it never ceases to amaze me, this perplexing motherhood gig - where we are happy and whole to be mothers, yet crave time for ourselves. But then, when we get it, we miss being with our kids. Well, I know I do. It's like I can't be fully happy either way.

And therein lies one of the catches of being a mom.

Matters of the heart will never be simple again.

Walking with the Dusk

2010-10-14T19:40:00.006+13:00

One of the things I love most about living in Singapore is nightfall.

I can hardly explain it
but every night as dusk falls in the tropics
I am transported
back to many, many idyllic childhood memories
of feeling safe, of returning home.

And when dusk walks quietly
past my Asian home,
the African in me
opens all the doors, lights the candles
and pours a sundowner.

Then I try to sit and just listen.

But usually I am kid-wrangling a child in the shower with my jeans rolled up and splashes all over me, tea-towel over a shoulder and facecloth in one hand, stirrer in the other
as dinner is bubbling with the microwave binging,
homework help is being issued in a stacatto fashion over one shoulder
yes, that's how you spell Hobbit
and the phone is chiming with texts from all over the globe,
grocery delivery time also occurs,
and the delivery driver frequently sees my toddler wrapped in a towel fresh from her shower,
I am calling and re-calling the eldest from the pages of Ga'hoole,
to unpack the dishwasher and narrowing my eyes at her Facebook page from my steps past the family computer.
My husband walks in then too.
And sometimes I know he's home but haven't even seen him,
from the blur of juggling,

and somehow
somehow

somehow, I miss the moment.

By the time I stop to look for my old friend Dusk,
there is nothing left but my fatigue reflected in the inky window panes.

One beautiful evening last week as soon as my husband stepped into the door after work,
we escaped zoo hour and headed instead to the Botanical Gardens.
In the quiet of the cool of the evening
down the halls of towering branch giants,
I walked very, very slowly.

The kids shot off ahead on their scooters
screeching with unbridled ~~hunger~~ joy,

and Greg wandered off with the stroller
while I pressed one sandalled foot behind the other,
deliberate steps on the face of the world.

Just breathing.

And listening.

But mostly just watching.

And in the all beauty about me,
of water and sparkling reflections,
petals and leaf shadows,
gliding fish, hungry turtles and swans,
my lens was unceasingly seeking these three.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-10-13T08:05:00.001+13:00

Summer Scarf

2010-10-11T20:36:00.011+13:00

In Kiwi-land, I used to hang with my mommy-friends at the park in boots and scarves,
in my wear-every-day Glassons cardigans,
and sip hot coffee at a cafe and watch the steam huff against cold windows.

Here it is so different.

Here it is no different.

Perhaps not at a park to frolic and cavort in the autumn leaves
and no boots, tights or thermals,

but we meet all the same,

and spill life.

And although I am still being a mole at heart,
there is a part of me that is out in the sunshine,
filling my head and hands with the splendor of brightness.

I wrap myself in the light,
like it's this season's new scarf,
cashmere cerise and kelly stripes.

and if the light was liquid
I would become a cookie and not care about anything
but being dunked in it.