the scent of water

It makes sense to me.

 

"Self-esteem...is a positive way of experiencing yourself when you are fully engaged and are using your abilities to the utmost in the pursuit of something you value."   ~ Carol Dweck, Self-theories.

Doormat.

I can't be bothered getting any don't have any batteries for the girls' cameras, so am reusing old photos.  In case you were wondering.  In case you noticed. 

Too much stuff coming at me these days. Great stuff, bad stuff, bewildering stuff.  It feels like I am spinning from one piece of information to another until I can't be sure anymore where I am and which way is up.  Stop world, I tell it,  just for one minute, so I can get my bearings. 

It never does.

There are two things I am coming to understand.  One is my increasing, almost physical, need for turangawaewae.  A place to stand.  An internal foundation.  So that no matter where I am in the world and what is happening, I can say: these are my people and here is where I belong.

The other is more difficult to explain in so many words (come over for a coffee, let me tell you all about it) but comes down to the fact that spending my adult life trying not to rocks boats and make waves, to keep myself small and unnoticed,  has been an enormous mistake.  Huge.  For myself,  yes, but more so for my children.  I have always suspected that one of these beautiful kids of mine was outside society's norm, and I have recently been told that this is even more true than I had imagined.  They need me to stop feeling it is somehow my moral obligation to keep other people from being upset (because the world will fall apart if somebody doesn't like me - pathetic, I know, and more true than I can say), otherwise they might not get the chance to grow into the person they were created to be.  We need to forge a new path, this kid and I, with no certainty of a safe destination, and it terrifies me.

But okay.  So be it. 

Poem for a Tuesday Morning

 

 

LOOK HERE

It is morning because the sun has risen.

It is morning because the darkness is

packed off to Europe and because the

clock says so and the radio and the

wet clothes sinking down from the

line begin to be responsible again,

try to shake themselves and face up to

drying and it is morning because the

jug quivers and bubbles and switches itself

off and my fingers force the skin off my

orange, and the blue and white teapot

holds fresh tea, and it is morning because

things to be done line up in front of me and

say, look here.

                               

            ~ Rachel Bush, The Hungry Woman (VUP, 1997)

 

 

Maybe this good thing's gonna happen today.

Bic Runga is always the sound of summer for me.  Can't quite think of a reason why, other than that her voice is so light and shiny.   (If you haven't heard of her, try the link.  She's worth a listen.  That video, such as the youtube quality is, was shot in the city I currently live by the way.)

A good thing did happen today.  I contacted Amy Krouse Rosenthal last week to see if I could do something to help out on her Beckoning of Lovely project.  She said, yep, sure you can, only much more eloquently, and today, look, here it is, all official and everything.  (Keep scrolling down, I'm there I swear).

Now I'm on the hunt for lovely things.  How perfect is that?  If you see anything suitable for the film, you be sure to let me know, okay?  I'll let you bask in my reflected glory, I promise.

Another good thing happening was the arrival of The Day to Day Life of Albert Hastings.  Such a great book; I've been wanting it for ages and wasn't disappointed.  The pic of the wind broken daffodil tears at my heart in both good and difficult ways. I know I'll be looking through this book, on and off, for many years.

Wishing you all sorts of good things today.

I do try to hold off on the quotes, honestly.

It's just that other people say it so much better than I can:

Often I am overcome with passion for all things, yet this yields an odd loneliness, as few people have such excessive feelings. But if I put them into words, somebody, somewhere, may find them familiar. Knowing this, I am no longer alone. Nor, I expect, are they.   – Stevie Long

Double Digits

 

Eilidh's ten, and her stomach's hurting from all the food.  Sign of a great birthday if you ask me.

Pretty

I painted my nails pink today, and put a diamante bobby pin in my hair.  Almostly certainly an absurd look for someone a lot closer to 40 than 30, (!?!), but this is what I tell myself: aging and prettiness are not mutually exclusive ideas.  And when I am 92 and sitting  in a rest home still sticking diamante clips in my hair, I hope my visiting grandchildren will looks past the silly old lady to the silly young girl lurking beneath.  Because, just sometimes, that little girl wants to break out from the woman, you know?

 PS - With the left over salad from tonight's dinner, Warren taught the girls how to throw food in the air and catch it in their mouth. Lettuce isn't much good for this trick, and feta cheese smears a little when it lands on your face.  Even this amount of fun wasn't enough to tempt Nathan into eating salad.

We were in our pyjamas until lunchtime today.

 

It's been a while since I did any portraits of the kids. Not sure why. They don't seem to change from one day to the next anymore, and before I know it half a year has gone by and I've missed my chance.

This is Iona, 8 years, 9 months and 5 days. She might be a vet when she grows up, or a zoologist, or a pet shop owner.  Maybe have a farm, and/or work for the SPCA.  People who hurt their animals are bad and she just doesn't (frown and wave arms around) get it.

Half a cup of random.

 1. Four Things I Don't Apologise For:

• My obsessional love for polka dots and tea cups.  Don't care if it's not rock and roll.  I just don't.
• Refusing to read badly written books. Life's too short.
• Calling people I have never met my friends.  Because you are.
• Giving imaginary rock concerts in the shower.  It's fun and my audience love me.

2. Two Things I Used To Apologise For And Am Trying Not To Anymore:

• Spending too much time dreaming and not enough on important things.  Who's the judge of that anyway? And why do I care?
• Loathing spending time with people I am supposed to like but don't.  I should be more gracious.  Or care less.  Have yet to figure it out.

3. The Thing I Like Best About France:

• They speak French.

4. Five People I Might Have Been:

• A character in Annie Proulx's Shipping News, though possibly not one she has actually written.
• Princess Mary of Denmark, only from New Zealand and not married to Frank.  I'm sure he's jolly nice though.
• Any number of contemporary female singer/songwriters.  This one will do, mostly 'cause she's young and Irish and that just seems like a rather nice combination.
• Lord Byron, if only because it makes me snigger like a schoolgirl to be thought of as mad, bad and dangerous to know.  So long as I didn't have to do anything mad, bad, or dangerous.
• Cate Blanchett, because I saw her backside in Queen Elizabeth, and I want one just like that.

5. My Top Three Worries For The Day:

• That this is as good as life gets.
• That the blow-fly buzzing next to me will continue doing so for the whole time I'm writing these lists.
• That I will open my safe and find ashes.  See below.

6. A Little Piece Of Inspiration I Came Across At Morning Tea When I Was Feeling Sad And Frustrated And Opened A Book From The Shelf In My Dining Room At Random: 

• "...the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive.  Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you.  You open your safe and find ashes." - Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

 

A Better Life

 

My desolation does begin to make a better life...   ~William Shakespeare

I enjoy ambiguity, at least today I do.  The death of the seed birthing the plant, that sort of cliche.  Just saying.

I have a gnawing desire to make a book of words and pictures.  Not ethnography, or social commentary, just, I don't know, the story of old pegs hanging on the line.  It's as poignant to me as anything else could be.  Where do you find those kinds of stories?  Don't know what I mean or how to go about it.  Just saying.

These are the uber-talents behind the mosaic: 1. stark fingers, 2. Untitled, 3. clothespin, 4. roots