The first Freya

When I was about 15 there was an Australian film I saw, I can’t even remember where or with whom. It was called The Year My Voice Broke.

There was a girl in this film and her name was Freya. I had never heard the name before but it stayed with me for many years, and I remembered this Freya as being a bit wild and almost otherworldly. I remembered her cotton dresses and her wanderings around the barren but beautiful landscape in which the film was set. My second child was born 18 years after the film was released, and she was never going to have any other name but Freya.

In the time between seeing my first Freya and holding my very own, I had learned more about the name – the Norse goddess of love and beauty, who rode in a chariot drawn by two cats, whose day was Friday (the day my Freya was born) and whose animals were cats and stallions. I did not watch The Year My Voice Broke again, although I found it on DVD at a discount store a couple of years ago and bought it.

Last night I decided on a whim to finally watch it again, this time with my husband who had never seen it before. I watched my first Freya with eyes almost 20 years older and saw what it must have been that drew me to her, although I couldn’t honestly recall most of the storyline. I saw her wildness, her connection to spirit, her barely contained beauty and her wild yellow hair that matched the hills around her home town.

I had not expected the story to be one of birth and loss, of ghosts and the heavy, unavoidable burden of history. As a 15-year-old I had not seen any of these things, or at least had not found them memorable. How lovely it was to know that even though my life now carries so much more and sometimes weighs so heavily, that my first Freya has not changed at all. She is still wandering the windswept hills, wearing her cotton dresses and windswept hair, being beautiful and wild.

time waits for no mum

The past seven weeks have been pretty special, to say the least, and I have been floating on a cloud that's an equal mix of hormones, a happy baby and - in keeping with the letter of the day - a husband on holidays. I'm pretty sure my own frame of mind made all these things even better, and I'm about to find out how strong that frame really is. All good things, including husband's holidays, must come to an end, and today I flew solo in the morning school run with no reported turbulence. Lunches were made, breakfasts eaten, clothes dutifully worn, hair brushed, teeth brushed, shoes .. check, check, check .. car keys .. check .. baby .. check. There were no tears at school (not even from me) and as I drove home with my one remaining pre-school child, it seemed all eventualities had been accounted for. Then came the surprise. I was expecting noise to come from inside the car, and not from me or the radio. I wanted, and for a split second fully expected, to hear "Where are we going now Mum?". My seven-week-old bundle, oblivious to all but the most basic of earthly needs, did not oblige. And for a moment I was left longing for the passenger I had just left behind, at a stop called kindergarten, on the first leg of her journey.
Time, you must cry farewell, take up the track. And leave this lovely moment at your back. - Kenneth Slessor

the raw ingredients

I have several issues with food, the most pressing of which just lately has been that none of it is at all appetising (except maybe Kraft deluxe macaroni cheese, but whether that can technically be called food is debatable). I blame the pregnancy hormones for this latest issue, but there are many more that go way deeper than that. My biggest problem with food, however, is that I despise having to prepare it. The stress I feel taking over my body as dinner time approaches every night is akin only to that I feel when I'm sitting in a dentist's waiting room and drilling can be heard. My children are both incredibly fussy eaters and Freya has her own issues including the texture and appearance of food. She would probably be happy to eat sausages every night of her life. I probably need not mention what the smell of sausages cooking does to my nausea-addled stomach at the moment, so her sausage intake has fallen considerably in recent weeks. Another few notches added to the mother guilt.

I have tried cooking flavoursome, minimally adventurous meals for the younger set, all met with incredulous stares and point-blank refusal to eat. Frustrating doesn't even begin to cover it. So I have chosen to go the easy, conflict-free route and largely give them what they want to eat. I want them to be relaxed about food. I want them to enjoy eating, not feel like their dragon of a mother is breathing down their neck forcing them to eat. I connect food with nurturing, so my shortcomings in the cooking department weigh heavily on my perceived worth as a mother. I don't think I'm alone there. I wish I loved cooking. I wish they loved eating. But wishing doesn't help.

What has helped, surprisingly, has been a little reality TV show called MasterChef. If you haven't been living under a rock, you may have heard of it. I haven't been watching it all, but in the past few weeks have been incredibly inspired by one of the contestants, Julie. She's actually in the final two as of last night. Julie is a mother and her reason for cooking is always clear - she does it for her sons and husband, as a display of her love, and what they get out of it is nothing compared to the joy she feels in doing it for them. I so envy her that ability to cook, and to have such a healthy emotional connection with the process. It's been such an eye opener to hear her speak so passionately about cooking. And it makes me think maybe I can be like that one day. I normally hate ''foodies'' but something about MasterChef is so real, and so fascinating, that the egos fade into the background and it's really just about the skill of cooking, creating sustenance for other people to enjoy. I haven't been able to eat much in the way of appetising food lately, but I've loved watching other people make it.

I had a glimpse of Julie's motivation just the other day, when I was icing a cake I'd baked for Elsa's seventh birthday. I make one every year, and every year I want it to be special. Not in a three-tiered, elaborately decorated way but in a real way. I want it to look lovely, to be delicious, and to let her know that I love her so much and I want her birthday to be as fantastic as she is. It was that feeling that I put into every spatula stroke of the pale pink icing as I finished her seventh birthday cake, and I was so grateful for it. Small steps, admittedly, but maybe one day I'll be feeling that same way as I serve up a creamy risotto or a rustic vegetable lasagne for my girls and they say "Thanks Mum, that looks delicious!"

Happy birthday my darling girl.

PS: If you'd like to talk to me, you can now comment without needing a blogger sign-on. It's open slather. Please be nice.

for fox sake

I love foxes, which causes some dismay for my more 'country' friends, who see them as beastly killers, chicken blood dripping from their murderous fangs. Me, I'm not so big on chickens.

Last week I went hunting, Ikea-style, and I wasn't on horseback but this handsome devil just had to come home with me. I bought one for each of the girls but Freya, having spent just one night with hers, informed me she did not care for him. Maybe because he is not wearing pink and he is not a cat, but I'm only guessing.

So I claimed him for my own, what else was I to do? And now he sits beside my computer, his sly eyes following my every move. I throw him a live chicken every now and then. He seems happy.

new beginnings

There are very few things that will get me out of bed, with my eyes open, at 3.30am. In fact there are only two I can think of. One is a crying baby that needs to be fed. The other is Barack Obama.

I set my alarm, crawled onto the lounge and watched one man bring 2million people to a freezing city so they might bask in the warmth of his glow. And I'm not ashamed to say I was basking right along with them.

Four years earlier, almost to the minute, I was bringing my new baby girl into the world. I had been waiting a long time to meet her, but it was her patience that had been most tested. When the opportunity came she was here in an instant, and there were moments of fear and chaos before that tiny body was finally mine to hold.

She is still fighting to do things on her terms, and sometimes I can literally see the fear and chaos that the world represents to her. I want to protect her from it all, of course, but ideally I want to teach her that she can handle it. Better than she knows.

Today I received my first lesson in an anthroposophy course. It feels good to be learning again at a time when the whole world seems ready to change and flourish.

It seems to me there is no such thing as false hope. There is only hope.

Happy birthday, my darling Freya.