Quilt of posts.

I lie when i say i haven't written.

I write but sometimes a thought drifts off at the sound of a cry, the call of my new name, the defeat at the hands of exhaustion.

And these writings are saved as 'drafts'- i always mean to get back to them but if i am honest to myself - i know i never will. So in the interests of really pushing, for a commitment to Commitment. To a real exploration of writing, to a project that should be honest and unscripted, these are my unfinished works.

You'll have to excuse the grammar and the spellin in parts- it's often late and i am delirious at these moments.

April 21- La lu, la choos and i lar yoos.
There's that old saying- 'If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.' - this is partly the explanation for my lack of writing. This space was created to give thanks. To be reminded of all things happy. Sometimes in the craziness of life and such things, i'm neither here nor there.


Some weeks are more tiring than others these days and at the end of it - i just quit. I could lay in a cold dark room, gathering dust and parasitic mites and be happy. I could wait for decay to come take me. I just don't want to move anymore or Be anything at all. It's a sort of meditaion ritual. I'm sure it'll catch on.


Alas though, giving up and giving in isn't what i do. Well its not what i do well. Despite what it may LOOK like to those around me- when i drop something i'm usually just considering a different way around it. Sometimes you start off down a path to find it doesnt suit your mood, your style or your choice of footwear. In these moments i'm liable to veer off on tracks that don't seem headed in the right direction- but then i never had a good sense of direction. Someone wise and noncommital told me its all in the journey anyway...


But before this does the same and heads down a contemplation that leads to nowhere- i'll attempt to rescue my project by refocussing my mind to things i've always wanted to write down - some of the thousands of narrations in my head..


First though- Today i was angry. I yelled like a demented person. I banged things and for a moment i lost it completely, the pressure inside my head erupted in a noise that filled the air and hit its target, then fell like shrapnel onto horrified little faces that dissolved into tears... 'Feel better?' He says- and there are a thousand replies shooting fire arrows out of my skull... but i hold the noises in and swallow the words so close to escaping.


I've never done anger well. Because i've never done 'keep your thoughts and feelings to yourself' well. Anger has always been a shower of noise and flying objects, frustration personified and given force. I scream the things i've tried so hard to hold back and once its gone, it's gone. And on we move.


Sometimes the hardest part of having children is having to stop and think and control what i say- there have been times when in the company of more conservative parents, my minds ponderings have caused head shakes and gasps and looks that pass as judgements.


Those that know me well, know i mean no malice that when i offer my children up for sale, or wake up declaring 'I don't want to be your mother today!' it's all just a passing thought in a moment where passing thoughts may be actual truths. Everyone knows you dont get out of it that easily. So as many times as i've resigned. Here i still am.


Back to the anger issues. I'm not by nature an angry person. But i'm frustrated lately by a myriad of different variables. The biggest part of which is i'm unused to being unable to express my thoughts to an audience that responds with more than an eye roll and a MUmMMM... or just blank stares.


I find these days i channel frustration into housework- deadening my mind with mundane labour. SOmetimes the house is spotlessly decluttered and disinfected to the last toy. These days a clean house mirrors a building restlessness.


So after my outburst- i vacummed - i folded laundry- i readied the clothes and the beds  and cleared the couch of the possessions its partial to accumalating over the week gone. Then i sat. And a little boy who claims to be mine- freshly showered and pyjama-ed, trots out - a small smile to go with the dance he does to whereever it is he's going these days.


He comes and sits in my lap- and says 'Mum.' as a fact not a beginning of a sentence. ANd i kiss his head and tell him that i was angry and i needed a hug and a kiss and someone to tell me it was all okay. So he nods and smiles again... he hugs my head and says still smiling 'I'm sorry mum.'
'You're sorry?? What for?'... ' For being silly and not listening at Stellas house.'.
And he makes me laugh. And its gone.


The frustration, the tension, the building preparation for battles late into the night.


He kisses my cheek. And i thank him.


'You're welcome mum.'


And i'm reminded of the remarkable balance these children tread. They wait until you're teetering over an edge, sometimes they push you right to it - and each time they sense the moments where the cracks are shuddering, to reach over oh so gently... with innocent revelations and perspectives wiser than their ages suggest... they pull you back... dust you off - and send you on your way again- a little confused and unsure about what had taken place. But smiling. And okay.


In moments where i am lost for explanations as to how or why i am here, they appear and climb on my lap- always reminding me that for years and years i searched for a way out of the darkness of my head, the stifling inability to move beyond a million choices on how to live just a single life- and in the least expected way... i have been given that very wish.


There is no self center, when the parts of yourself have grown arms, legs and minds of their own... and of their own will- come and go as they please. I can't sit and dwell anymore - because they will not let me.. and on days where i'm prone to drift away, they hold me grounded... tied to their little wrists like balloons at a fair. Pulled to whereever they are.


When i remember Tivi and the first moments with her, in all the confusion and haze of a newborn, the days of mechanical movements powered by nights of helpless sleep deprivation... it is tempered, diluted with droplets of light. The memories of holding her in the darkness, when all of the world was silent- a tiny miracle of perfection. And the unbelievable knowledge that for all intents and purposes, she was Mine... the incredible fear that is bourne from that... and the immensity of knowing whether i wanted to or not- for the first time in my life- i had made a choice i could not change.


Tivianh, was given to me. A distraction, an anchor, a guide in days that might have been my undoing, but instead became the beginning of so much more.

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May 5th- YO Mumma!!

I've been meaning to do a tribute to all the mothers- and i'm really tired tonight and brain dead- but Mothers Day is upon us so i'll do a small one now.


I've said before that i'm not a natural mother.... i enjoyed my first time pregnancy- because i enjoy big round Bellies and the kindness of strangers when you're with child (one that is tucked in your belly, quiet and wellmannered, just growing its little limbs and innocent of all things).


I enjoyed motherhood right up until the rude shock that was Child BIRTH- Since then everything has been a physical, emotional and mental challenge.


When supportive friends and family tell me i'm a great mother - hahaha yes they do, out of pity, encouragement or otherwise... i think yeah i'm friggen awesome.


Haha my awesomeness as a mother comes from possessing the gift of education by observation.

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May 31st - Untitled

I'm writing tonight because i dont know what to do with myself... because part of me wants to sit on the ground and weep.


And it reminds me of poetry - of Les Murrays Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow. A memory tied to a person who is no longer in view.


But the poem- the man- the wanting for tears. The inexplicable way i hold it. Afraid that once they begin i will not no how to stop them, afraid too of how sometimes i cover my mouth before sounds escape and i dont even realise i'm doing it- and the last couple of days sometimes - i find it hard to breathe.


This page is a place of nice things so i came to find a way out. And i'm sitting here and all i can think of are- how scary it is sometimes to be an adult. To be a parent. How the responsibility of it is so incredibly huge and i baulk constantly - and everytime i got it semi-figured out i'm hit with something that makes me question my capabilities all over again.


I think in almost every post- i've mentioned how exhausting kids are- they are- exhausting and amazing and hilarious and frustrating. And in between all those things- they are SACRED.


I can threaten all day long, smacks and deprivation of toys and treats, i can yell and scream and carry on- but the moment there is any real pain- my insides seize with a sense of panic i can't quite explain.
The thought of bad things happening to little people is just wrong. That suffering should even be known to them is something i find greatly discomforting. They tell me this is natural, a biological programming. Mothers are conditioned to protect and nurture. I am terrified daily by the fear that some

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June 14 - Open Letters
Dear Mum,


I miss you. In odd moments of our day. I wish i could have seen you with them. I wish you could have known them. They would have been even more amazing with you around. I miss you for them, for a memory they will never know.


I don't really talk about you much. Sometimes i think i keep my happiest thoughts to myself and hope that the quiet could have beens are more possibilities than regrets. Sometimes i just laugh that now i know you better than i ever have before. I see the world through eyes i know you've had some sort of hand in gifting to me.


Anyway, the other week... Out of no where i remembered- when i told you i quit Uni, i was terrified... of i don't know what- dissapointing you? not really- just terrified of disobeying. Of hurting people who expected things from me. I suppose that is dissapointment. I didn't want to make you sad.


And you laid down next to me on my bed, sighed and said 'You need a new matress, this one is uncomfortable.' and went quiet... and i thought of fear and the spaces we hold fragile, that really when we need them to will bend rather than break.


If you could see us all now. I wonder if you would be happier- if you would worry any less, if you would trust me when i tell you - that we will be okay.


Somedays i panic that we won't. And 'Now i know how you feel'- is a cliche.  I hope one day i will laugh with my kids- and at them, for all the mistakes, the revelations and doubts they hold as unique, that in retrospect they will recognise etched in the generations past.