time as a whole

It will shock nobody who knows me that I am not very good at time management. I struggle to get my shit together unless there's a deadline fast approaching, breathing down my neck or even pinning me to the ground. This could be seen as a good thing in some ways, as it so clearly illustrates my grasp of the whole "live in the now" mantra. I am so mindful of what I'm doing right now (starving) that what I should have been doing three hours ago (ie preparing dinner) has clearly passed me by. Embrace the moment or plan ahead? Is it really possible to do both?

The minutiae of time, the regular tick-tock, is often my worst enemy. It's in the big picture that old father time and I seem to see eye to eye. Just lately I've had cause to compare and contrast this time with this time last year. Is it really twelve whole months since I suspended self-doubt and spent two nights alone in the big smoke as part of the Happiness and Its Causes conference? Since I joined in a group meditation with Tibetan monks without knowing the tiny little seed I carried with me would be a sleeping Rosa just one year down the track?

As winter approaches, I remember feeling cold and nauseous last winter as I sat on the lounge in my hideous but delightfully warm flanno jarmies, cursing my inability to stomach milky tea, relishing every moment of Around the World in 80 Gardens and dreaming about sweet babies and warmer climes. I hung on every word Monty Don uttered, imagined myself having a little boy named Sol and a magnificent garden in the Spanish style. Before bed I'd use my Natio skin toner, still in Monty mode, thinking about growing and travelling and babies, and I'd read the key ingredient on the front of the bottle: Palmarosa. Something about that word. Turns out I was growing and travelling the whole time.

wish you were here

This is Maisie Sladen. I knew her, many years after this photo was taken, as Grandma. I had never seen this photo until today, when my mum brought it and several others to show me. They came from the home of a great aunt who is selling up to move into a unit and is trying to clear out old belongings before the move. I wasn’t prepared for the impact these photos would have on me - the incredible emotions I felt when I looked at this beautiful young woman and recognised in her Grandma’s dazzling blue eyes.

It was only a matter of months after this photo was taken that Maisie got the news her husband Roy, a taxi driver, had been killed in a road accident not far from home. She was left to raise a three-year-old daughter and a one-year-old son (my dad) on her own, and to forge her own life through unbearable sorrow, in turn creating a defining chapter in our family history.

I stared at this photo for so long, trying to absorb every tiny detail, as though that might recreate the tiny missing bits of history. I wanted so much for Grandma to be here, so that I might ask her about Roy and about this photo - Who took it? What were you doing that day? What was your life like? Were you happy?

I couldn’t ask any of it, of course, so I just made myself a cup of tea and sat down at the kitchen table with the album open, staring at the grainy images and remembering. It was the closest I could get to having a cuppa with Grandma, who made me my very first cup of tea (and roused at me for making gulping noises when I drank it) and whose cupboards were always full of Lan Choo tokens.

When I look at her as a young mother, immaculately dressed and with her perfect complexion, before the well-earned wrinkles I knew, I understand why she was always wearing jewellery, buying Avon and painting her fingernails with three coats of rock-hard Cutex. I see why her bedroom always smelt of perfume, why she had a dressing table with not one but three mirrors, and I know that even when she was up at daybreak milking cows at the age of 65, the beautiful Maisie Sladen was still inside her, holding on to happier times.

shelter from the shit storm

Last week I took Rosa on an outing, one of our first, that was not entirely without potential for stress but which went quite swimmingly, as it turned out. I walked back to my car with my six-week-old baby in my arms, feeling happy to have completed my task without incident, when I was suddenly confronted by a person who was craving an incident and entirely surrounded by stress. He marched across the road and shouted at me (and I remember this word for word, though I'm not sure why): "Excuse me, I know you have a child and all, but could you not park someone in? I've been waiting here for over half an hour and now I have to go to work.'' And before he had even finished his sentence, he turned on his heel and marched back across the road to where (I'm assuming) his parents were waiting for him in their conspiratorial huddle. "Sorry" was all I could manage in reply, though I assume it didn't make it through his suffocating air of self-importance. I put Rosa in her car seat, as slowly as possible, remarking to her how some people are just not very nice. Then I got into my car and waved at Mr ME-ME-ME as I passed.
This man does not deserve to be mentioned here, and maybe this story shouldn't be either, but the point is that two years ago, had this happened to me, I would still be sitting in the gutter crying. I would have fallen apart. And I think that most women with a six-week-old baby would struggle with such an aggressive confrontation. But oh what a corner I have turned. My reaction was purely one of disbelief. That any person could choose to heap such ill-meaning aggression on anyone, without any consideration of the effect that might have, is beyond me. But I looked at that big black cloud intended for me and I turned the sucker around, back from whence it came. I like to call my new mindset: IMMUNE TO OTHER PEOPLE'S SHIT.

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

monday's child

And now she is here. How did the earth ever turn without her? She arrived at 10.06pm on Monday, January 11, 2010 in the most perfect way, into arms that were made to hold her. I cannot believe my good fortune, though I owe many thanks to Kate, Kim, Jacqui, Marlene, Josephine, Harriet and all the other good women who were watching over me and Rosa as she made her way into the world.
Today there are wonderful people enduring terrible sadness and the injustice of it is almost unbearable. All I can do is look around me and see my many blessings, count them, savour them, and be eternally, overwhelmingly grateful. Every one of them is so precious.

and nine became ten

I guess it would be remiss of me not to properly farewell what's been a pretty momentous year, so on this last day of 2009 I'm taking a moment to remember how very far I've come, and my family with me. Elsa has lost teeth, grown inches (sometimes it seems like a whole foot!) and rarely lost her beautiful smile. Freya has embraced playgroup and grown inches too, but her real growth has been on the inside and I'm so proud of her for that. Randal and I have devoted most of the year to a very special project that will soon bear fruit, as it were, and I can't quite believe how close we are to meeting the new person who's going to live at our house and share it all with us. I'm torn between wanting to meet her and wanting her to stay put just for a few more days. Hoping very much for the latter, and feeling confident it will come to be.
I feel older, wiser and happier today than ever in my life. How lucky I am to be able to say that. I don't have any desire to stay up until midnight to see out this year, although it's been so good to me. I will be blissfully happy to have my comfortable bed, my children sleeping soundly in theirs and the knowledge that tomorrow is another day, another year, and anything is possible. Happy 2010.

actually it is quite a big deal

Why yes, I am most definitely pregnant. No doubts about that, even among complete strangers. Some of whom seem mildly alarmed when I tell them I'm not due until late January - the raised eyebrows are a dead giveaway. But then there are the women at the school gate who tell me how lovely I look - one even used the expression "absolutely beautiful" - and bless their hearts doesn't it make my day. I find it amazing that (some) women have this innate understanding that a pregnant woman, no matter how well her day is going, could always use a little compliment. And when she's feeling huge, tired, faint, hot, ungainly and irritable that compliment is like a bear hug for the soul. I love that there are these kinds of women in the world, and that some of them can't resist rubbing your belly and smiling. It's a source of aggravation for a lot of pregnant women but for me it's just nice to know someone appreciates what you're going through and can see beyond the sometimes mundane nature of being pregnant to the miraculous.