Finding My Self

“That’s me in the corner,
That’s me in the spotlight,
I’m losing my religion”
- REM-

All the preparation in the world never really readies you for the real thing. Like preparing for a play, all the practise, rehearsals, mental run-throughs, watching, waiting, listening and anticipating never really allow you to get the lived experience of opening night. Anything can and probably will happen, and it’s often beyond any expectation harboured – good or bad. As a Mum-to-be I did all the preparation I thought possible and I got it at an intellectual level. Living it was a whole different kettle of fish.

Around six months into my pregnancy I had a shattering insight that left me cold – this was for life! There was no opting out of motherhood if it got tough, if I didn’t like it or if I believed that it wasn’t working. It wasn’t like a job, a love relationship, a friendship or a place of residence. If it didn’t meet my expectations or wasn’t how I wanted it to be – tough! I couldn’t break it off, ask for a transfer, or negotiate for my bond back if it wasn’t working. I was in this for keeps.

As a bit of a commitment-phobe this was a huge wake up call, and it took me a few weeks to come to terms with it. The child I was carrying was one that I had dearly wanted, subconsciously yearned for, even though the actual conception was completely unplanned. At that six month mark of pregnancy the romance of being a Mum was starting to wear off and the stark reality of what awaited me loomed large.

I read Kate Fige’s ‘Life After Birth: what even your friends won’t tell you about motherhood’ and was taken aback by the dark side of motherhood she presented – there was no sugar coated, rose coloured glass representations of motherhood in the 230 plus pages. So I steeled myself for endless hours of breastfeeding (and all the associated issues), of broken sleep, non stop nappy changes and the ensuing piles of washing, for the feelings of exhaustion, disillusionment, confusion and loss of confidence. I prepared for the fact that my body would never be the same again, my relationship with my partner would be altered forever and that I may possibly feel very alone in our small apartment – shut away from the world and living in my PJ’s for days at a time. I also understood that I was at risk of suffering postnatal depression.

Knowing what I was facing I made a survival plan. I made peace with the 24 hour a day responsibility that was motherhood; not only the care of a small helpless human being at the start, but in the long term for another person, the rest of my life. I made a real effort in the last few months of pregnancy to connect and bond with other women, who would be travelling the same road as me. Attending support group fortnightly in Brisbane made this easy for me. I knew that even if I was unable to leave the house, there was always the telephone. There would always be someone that I could find to talk to and confide in.

I trusted this would be the case, even though Fige’s warned about the competitiveness between new mothers that put her off sharing her difficulties and early motherhood experiences. I bought four pairs of PJ’s so I could at least have a clean pair every day, before I had to do washing, and enough nappies to last three days. I also talked at length about my fears. First to my caring and empathetic midwife (who continually reassured me that I ‘could’ and ‘would’ mother well) and secondly to my partner.

As the case always seems to be with me, the imagined never lives up to real life. The worst case scenario I had carried around in my head and steeled myself for didn’t transpire. I never had to implement my survival program. I learnt early on about the need for flexibility and became very thankful that I had never been a rigid or dogmatic person in the every day running of life. Dylan was a very easy going baby, who slept lots during the day, had his awake period between 5:00pm and 1:00am most days (which suited perfectly my own night owl predisposition), and had no problems with breastfeeding. He was generally content and happy. All the aspects of mothering I had been warned of didn’t come to bite me as a new Mum. I seemed to adjust well to motherhood. Then January 2005 came and my world was turned upside down.

Nothing I read or heard shared the danger of ‘losing your Self’. I understood at numerous levels, that you change and grow as a person and in doing so you leave many elements of your BC (Before Children) life behind you. Fige describes it as crossing ‘a one way bridge … (from which) you can look back to where you have been, but can never return’. I loved and held tight to the image and legend of the Phoenix – of surrendering to a fiery end and being resurrected from the ashes - it seemed to be to a pretty fitting analogy for motherhood. But what I expected was for it to all happen to me as a new mother, in those early months. I didn’t expect to cruise and then for the wheels to suddenly fall of the Happy-Coping-Well Adjusted–Mumma-Wagon. And the wheels were never going to go back on exactly the way they were.

Seven months into motherhood life changed. It took me weeks to work out why I was no longer coping – because nothing seemed to have altered. When it first hit my Mum was staying and I couldn’t work out how suddenly I was so frustrated and angry with Dylan and with life in general. Dave and I had reorganised the fridge and the food, especially the condiments, were constantly falling out each time I opened the door. Looking back now the fridge was echoing what was going on with me – the contents had been moved around, into what seemed to be a better fitting arrangement, but in actual fact it wasn’t working, and the contents were trying to find their way back to their original homes. The fridge had lost its space and so had I.

What had changed? Dylan’s sleeping patterns. My darling boy no longer slept for five hours during the day. He had begun to chunk his sleeping patterns in a different order. The three or more hours he cut out of the day had been tacked on to his night sleep. No longer were we sitting watching fantastic, though often bizarre, late night TV until 1:00am (in the days before all the tacky monotonous games shows came on commercial TV after the late news.) While I now understand that sleep is not a luxury, it is a necessity and it was great we were sleeping more at night – time and space to myself were also a necessity. Dave was spending lots of time away from home doing the final throes of the ‘bottom of the rung’ work duties that came with his change of profession. This left me alone and responsible for Dylan days and nights at a time. It gave me a new respect for the world of single Mums. While there were some benefits in being alone at night, there was no down time and after six months of it I was fed up and wanted my partner and Dylan’s Dad back full time.

I was so caught up in moving with, and adapting to the changes that I had no concept of trying to reclaim something that was lost. My moods and emotions should have been a dead give away that something needed to happen. I was frustrated and angry. I felt caged. I dared not think about the way things used to be in case I lost my mind. I’d made peace with the fact that this is what I had wanted and it seemed like I just had to lie in the bed that I’d made. I thought about all the people who were worse off than me, and tried to be grateful for all the things that I had. It never occurred to me that small things could be changed and I could feel better. And it didn’t ease with time, it got worse.

I wanted to eek out a space for myself but I didn’t know how and I failed in that seminal first year of Dylan’s life to understand either the importance or the urgency in establishing time and space for myself. This set the pattern for the years that followed. I felt it was selfish to want time to myself – but it was echoing through my words and the charges that I levelled against Dave. ‘At least you have half an hour on the bus to sit and read a book,’ I remember saying to him. Eventually he told me that he must be the only man on this earth who feels guilt about going to work. But still it didn’t seem a legitimate need, to spend time by myself! We had no family to offer an opportunity for me to do something alone, or time for Dave and I to do something together. ‘Me time and space’ fell from the priority list altogether.

In addition to this, I had set up a scenario for myself where I couldn’t leave Dylan to take time away. I chose to never express milk for Dylan, so adamant was I that breastmilk should only ever come from the breast. In that first year Dylan fed every hour – so there was little room to move or escape. I locked myself into behavioural patterns that pitched me at the bottom of the rung as far as needs and nurturing went. I had martyred my Self for motherhood, believing that the two were unable to co-exist. A no win situation.

I legitimated ‘me time’ by taking on the layout duties of Down to Birth, which grew and expanded to fledgling Editorial duties as well by the time Dylan turned one. What I came to realise three years on was this wasn’t ‘me time’ - it was ‘other time’. Working on the magazine was nurturing and making an investment in the homebirth community. It was time that I gave to the magazine and its readership, not to myself. It took me a long time to understand that it is only ‘Me time’ if it nurtures and supports the Self.

I’d built a succession of cages around myself – my own internal labyrinth of imprisonment. Somewhere in this transition through motherhood I’d dropped the Self off and forgotten to go back and pick Her up. I’d got busy, distracted and forgot that She even existed. I cried and raged on the outside. I felt cheated, desperate and lost, and I had no understanding why I felt like this. When I did try to comprehend it, I wrongly attributed it to being part and parcel of the rigours of motherhood.

Then I began doing some personal development work – which meant reclaiming some time and space for myself (and I didn’t even realise it at the time!) First I did Liz Lotscher’s ‘Healing the Mother Within’ workshop and then the seven week ‘Womens’ Rites of Passage’ course in 2006, which gave me seven Friday nights out of the house in a row. In 2007 I started The Artist Way by Julia Cameron and had twelve weeks of ‘a ha’ moments. While I was reading with a mind towards my reignited love for writing, with every chapter I was struck at how Cameron’s words of wisdom on creativity had striking parallel’s with motherhood (which after all is the highest evolution and most primal form of creativity). I became more and more certain that Cameron’s book was something all mothers should read, with the emphasis on the absolute need for filling up the well within and investing in the Self to live creatively.

I began to dismantle all of the cages I had built. I realised I’d invested all of my self worth into the magazine and into my HMA work. Without it I felt like nothing – there was nothing but a shell of myself remaining. Which left me with a terrible dilemma – did I stay or did I go? I chose to go, feeling like I had just ‘dumped myself’ and in the process cleaved off a functioning limb. I spent days crying and cringing away from the emptiness inside, but it was time to face up to the task of finding my Self and refilling the cup of my Soul.

Three weeks ago I re-read some lines from The Artist Way and had another major epiphany. To be creative, to fill up my cup, to reconnect with my Self I had to make a decisive effort to carve out time and space for myself. This was how my Self had been lost in the first place, and why it did not happen immediately after Dylan was born. In those hours during the day when he slept I had time to read, to write, to cross stitch, to indulge in an hour of Dr Phil (shameful to admit I know!) or to talk to friends. I had space alone, with the autonomy and sovereignty of my body. When all of that changed in early 2005 I got so caught up in coping I didn’t work to make space and time for my Self – just for ME.

Now I’m back at square one. With Dylan starting kindy this year the luxury of time and space has opened to me, but I understand now that it needs to be more than that. I need to invest in me. I need to nurture ME every day.

“Creative living requires the luxury of time – the time which we carve out for ourselves …. Creative living requires the luxury of space for ourselves.”
Julia Cameron – The Artist’s Way

As new Mums, women need to get the pattern of self nurturance happening from the start. So many of the daily certainties of life change after birth. Creating time and space for the Self is a change that can happen right along side with all the others. It’s necessary to recognise that it is not a luxury to have time and space for your Self. Like sleep, it is a necessity. We need to do it first if others are to follow suit and support us. And as Cameron alludes to, we need to ‘carve’ it out for ourselves – no one is going to hand it to us on a silver platter.

To give me the time and space for a morning walk, I had to ‘carve’ (and it was initially like hacking off part of my body) half an hour out of my sleep time, by getting up earlier. Yet within a few days I didn’t miss the sleep. I had more energy, was more alert, more comfortable in my own skin than I had been in years. I was happy, back in touch with my Self having found a way to relive my needs for ‘freedom’ in a way that fitted with my responsibilities as a Mum and my responsibilities to my Self.

It starts by putting yourself on the list of priorities, not at the bottom, but at the top. Nurturing your Self is not something nice to be done sometimes or on occasion, a workshop every now and again, or yoga once a week. Nurturing your Self requires daily attention. Create a routine that is important to you and do something that you love. As mothers we are constantly giving and the cup runs dry very quickly if we don’t take the time to replenish it every day. I realised too late that once the cup runs dry, you mine your soul to keep going.

It’s also important to learn to ‘ask’ for this time and to let others know it is important to you, if you are to function effectively and happily both as a person and as a Mum. Dylan quickly learnt when I began doing the Artist Way, (which requires writing three pages of sponanteous, stream of consciousness every morning) that this was ‘me time’ and it was important. I remember him answering the phone and saying “Mummy is doing her morning pages.” He understood that all demands had to be shelved for that half an hour and he accepted it as part of daily life. The space you hold for your Self needs to be protected and your boundaries set firm – it’s an every day event, not just when it’s suitable or convenient for others. It takes 21 days to establish a new habit, and only three days to break it.

Nourishing and nurturing your Self doesn’t have to be grand or expensive. It’s about simple joys, simple luxuries, simple pleasures and only you will know what it is (if you have no idea see my suggestions following that will nourish your spirit). If you can’t carve out an hour – negotiate for half an hour. Any time is better than no time. It is about time and space for YOU. There is no need to feel guilty, selfish or needy for wanting, needing or desiring time and space to be with your Self. You owe it to yourself and your family to be all there, Mother and Self. We need to take care of ourselves first and foremost, if we are needed to take care of others. This is not just in the early months of having a baby, it is for life! We are also modelling to our children the importance of setting and holding personal boundaries. We also show them that luxury is about simple pleasures that feed the soul, not the ego. Encourage your children to spend time alone doing something that they really enjoy too.

Don’t leave it as long as I did, so long that you lose your Self. But if you do, be heartened - She’ll still be where you left her waiting to be claimed again. She won’t be angry or upset with you – like old friends you’ll embrace, glad to be reunited and time will slip away, like you had never been separated. And you’ll resolve the two of you, to never let it happen again.

This article was first published in Down to Birth's 71 issue subtitled "On Becoming Mum".

SIMPLE JOYS AND PLEASURES
If it’s been so long that you have forgotten what you love here are a few examples gifted to me by friends and Mothers near and far:
Take a morning walk alone
Listen to a favourite piece of music or a whole album
Soak in a bath with essential oils or bath salts
Sit in the shower to wash your hair
Take a drive alone
Paint your toe nails
Put on a face mask.
Enjoy breakfast, lunch, morning or afternoon tea at your favourite café (alone!)
Chill out and do nothing – yes nothing!
Meditate
Moonbath under the moon and count stars as you hang out washing
Stop and breathe three times and remember where you are
Tend to a small veggie garden or potted herbs
Enjoy your favourite tea in a china cup somewhere you love in your home
Dance
Do yoga, tai chi, qui gong …
Do a guided meditation
Read a book
Buy your favourite skin care products and use them every day
Doodle while you listen to your favourite album
Knit, cross stitch, crotchet, macrame
Write in a journal
Play a musical instrument
Read the newspaper from cover to cover
Draw, paint, collage
Get a massage
Go to the art gallery or favourite place
See a movie – alone
Swim – in the sea, at a water hole, in a pool
Walk in the forest or botanical gardens.
Collage your dreams
Put on the toilet door the affirmation ‘When I treat myself as something precious I am strong’ read it three times every time you make a pit stop

For more ideas invest in Dr Rachel Harris’s ‘Twenty-minute Retreats: revive your spirits in just minutes a day’ published by Pan Books.

Succulence and Sensuality

Over the weekend I was honoured to be part of a women's spirituality workshop on 'Succulence and Sensuality'. It came at just the right time for me, as I travel to transcend the beliefs I have about sexality and sensuality that are no longer serve me. Over the past six months I've had my beliefs about sex throw up in my face numerous times.

It started last year when I tried to read Linda Savage's "Reclaim Goddess Sexuality" as part of my preparation for creating the 'Sex After Birth' issue of Down to Birth. I read the word sensuality and realised that I've never thought of anything in my life as being sensual - least of all myself. I started to question and query how it could be possible that I could be 34 and have never consider life from a sensual point of view, never considered that sex was more than 'sex' that it had a distinct and important sensual element to it. So sensuality entered my life.


Writing the editorial for the issue was hard -because I had to face up to all the things that I'd been hiding from for the past three years ... and then I had to send it to Dave, for him to read it and OK that it went to print. Putting it all down on paper seemed to make it real, gave substance to the issues I had had. There is something to be said for not just putting something down - whether it be writing or saying it, but for having it witnessed by others. My editorial was witnessed by 300 other women who read that issue (and it's about to go to print again!)


About a month or so later, I picked up "Reclaim Goddess Sexuality" again. I got a little further this time and began the exercise on intimacy. Again, like sensuality, I wondered where my beliefs around intimacy had grown up, as I realised that almost all of my relationships in the past, have been light on in terms of intimacy. It came to me the following day. When I was eight I was in a pantomime, my first time on stage in a live theatrical performance. Over the two week period, I developed a close friendship with another boy in the pantomime. He was older than me, had a track record on the stage and helped to ease me through the worst of my stage fright. What started off as friendship, developed into more ... slowly and what I would consider now, quite innocently. Until one day he kissed me. The kiss was overseen and all hell broke loose. What I learnt from the experience was that intimacy was wrong and it was also dangerous - it got you into trouble.


Reflecting back now - all my relationships (with one exception) grew from one night stands or very short periods of 'getting to know you'. I learnt the lesson well at that tender age that intimacy was to be avoided at all costs. Now I find myself at 34 trying to reconnect with intimacy and find all kinds of walls being thrown up.


About a month back, I was invited to a 'Sex Party' ... something that really pushed my boundaries. I couldn't imagine sitting there discussing vibrators, lotions and potions - trying on lingerie. But I agreed to go - saying I would sit at the back and put a paper bag over my head. It turned out to be one of the most enjoyable afternoons I've had in years. The manner in which the products were presented made them normal - sex portrayed as pleasure! Afterwards we were discussing with the presenter how we all learn at a very early age that sex is dirty and dangerous. When you add that to beliefs around intimacy you come up with some potent barriers to sex.

In my last kinesiology session we went to work on my libido - what was wrong with me? There was nothing wrong with my hormones or my biology. What was wrong - emotional and intellectual issues that were blocking my libido. Jacqui cleared away the blocks and left me in a state to trascend my beliefs. Yeah right ... easier said than done.


Then came the workshop on the weekend with two ladies that I have been lucky enough to sit in circle with over the past three years, both body based psychotherapists. The workshop on 'succulence and sensuality' incorporated elements of the dance workshop that I attended back in February, invoked the Goddesses Hathor, Innana, Freya, Lillith and Lakshmi and provided much process work. The first part of the workshop was held Friday night, with a break over Saturday and then a full day Sunday.


Saturday we were invited to sit with all the things we didn't like, to look in an acknowledge the parts that were hurting or broken, blocked or hidden. What came up for me, is a hatred of my own body. This stunned me, but by the same token seemed to make quite a lot of sense to. When I began to cut Dylan's breastfeeds back to just a feed before bed last year, I started to stack on the weight. I had real battles with an appetite and metabolism that still ran at a breastfeeding rate, and I put on a lot of weight as a consequence. I've had people assume that I am pregnant -very pregnant, and although I've tried hard not to let it eat away at me, obviously it had.


I realised that if I hated my body - then I wasn't going to consciously or unconsciously treat it with the love, reverance and nurturance that it deserved. I realised that if I considered my body unworthy, then I was actually telling myself that I was unworthy. Neither were the type of self talk that I wanted running in a subterrean stream. Sunday I sat in circle and said all of this - and how I had felt tired and nauseous ... but how in the evening, going out to see live theatre and laughing, I'd felt exhilerated and free. Part of me was going up and part of me was going down.


By the end of the workshop, I felt succulent and I felt sensuous. While there is still many more skins to peel from the onion, I feel as though, for the first time in years that I've had a break through. I can think of sensuality, without sexualising it. I can ponder the beliefs I have held around sex - of sex being about power, of it being wrong, shameful, dirty and dangerous ... and now those beliefs just don't resonnate. They feel like shadows. I understand now that it wasn't having a baby or being a mother that 'destroyed' my sex life. Becoming a mother birthed me as an authentic woman, and sex has remained on hiatus while I have sought out and rebuilt a matrix that conforms with my new beliefs, experiences and world view as a woman.


And I've taken up dancing again ... but not in a class. I've finally burnt onto discs the music I downloaded of Gabrielle Roth's (the 5 Rhythms) and created space to dance in, and an altar of sorts. I've come to understand that I can't 'think' my way out of this, I won't transcend these beliefs mired down in circular thought patterns. The only way I will transcend is to (literally) move through them ... and the only way I know now, is to dance. My body feels alive, tired and sore as this layer of the onion skin is peeled and discarded. The journey continues ....


... But I love my body as I dance, the slow circular movements of my hips, the flowing movements of my arms, the way my head and thoughts quieten and I can just be in the moment. The way my heart quickens, the blood races and my body temperature rises. The freedom the movement lf dance brings with it. And I dance only for me and the Goddess ... and it feels rich and succulent, divine and sensual ... it feels like being truly alive.


Artwork: Sensuality (Lak and Ang) by Louis Parsons - art with soul

The Wonderful Place: a new book by Chrissy Butler

My friend, Chrissy Butler, author and illustrator of "My Brother Jimi Jazz" has a new book The Wonderful Place . The Wonderful Place is a picture book which celebrates the joys of toddler breastfeeding, seen through the eyes of 3 year old Jimi Jazz. The artwork is ink, water colour and collage on paper. Prints can be ordered of any of the artwork.

Chrissy's new book is set for release on the 22nd of August. Copies can be pre-ordered from Chrissy's website here for $22 (including postage and handling inside Australia) or $26 (outside of Australia).

We have loved reading Jimi Jazz and enjoyed being able to share it with other friends as well. As my breastfeeding time has ended (fondly and sadly remembered on Dylan's birthday this year - as it was one whole year without breastfeeding) I am sure that when we get this book, it will open dialogue about that time between the two of us.

transcending

"No spirit guide, teacher or philospher is higher than you. There is nothing higher than you."
Marshall N Lever
From the book 'Bag of Jewels'

My blogging is unpredictable - I'm either prolific or absent. I don't seem to do very well at the middle ground on constant. So here I am ... back in what will probably be prolific mode for a few weeks. No wonder I struggle to maintain an audience! It's OK though ... I need to rise above the expectations on put on myself ... because I am rarely person enough to live up to them (even a demi goddess would be pressed!)

When I completed the Artist Way my contract for the next 90 days included blogging every day (and taking morning walks) I never got back into the swing of walking, and my blogging is here and there. Thankfully I have kept the momentum going with my morning pages. I understand now what Julia Cameron says about them being a place to rest on the page. I find that when it's time to really search through an issue that I am having, I come to rest on the blog page. There is a strange sense of peace and ease here ... and I know that the universe will send me what I need when I put it out here.

The quote at the start of this post, is more relevant that I probably would care to admit. Thursday I had my kinesiology appointment. What came up for me was that I have blockages concerning a certain area of my life. These issues are not linked to hormones or primal drives (as I might have hoped), instead they belong to emotional and intellectual blockages. Having removed the energetic block it is now up to me to transcend my beliefs ... it's up to me to explore my archetypes and to create a life that is abundant, rather than a life that is neatly pigeon holed.

This would have seemed monumental even a few months ago ... but I feel as though I am finally ready for the challenge (after three and a half years). I know that I can look inwards and outwards, that I can be both brave and savvy to walk this new path. I feel it strongly with the Winter Solstice approaching. There is an urgent need to do away with old beliefs, old patterns, old habits - to release them and allow new energy in. It's time for me to thoroughly and honestly explore my ideas around being a mother and a lover - to allow me to be both. At the moment I seem to be only abe to be one.

So I remind myself ... that there is nothing higher than me, and I can transcends the beliefs that I have created in this world. If I fashioned the cage, then I can also fashion the key that unlocks it.

Happy Mothers Birthday

Happy Mothers Day to those beautiful and hardworking Mums who may be reading this today. I know that not every country is celebrating/honouring motherhood ... but hey, as a mothers we should be celebrated and honoured every day.

This was the first mothers day in four years that I have actually enjoyed. I spent my first mothers day in bed sick with a cold, then the second one in Cairns with Dave elsewhere, last year was great until the point of a family meltdown around dinner time ... so this year I went in without any preconceived ideas.

The morning began in Dylan's bed, where I had staggered to as some time after dawn ... having been muscled collectively out of the big bed by Dylan and Dave. Dylan came in with a huge smile on his face, gave me a big hug and good morning kiss. He told me that the time was 9:20 (a combination of him telling me what hands were on what numbers) - and thus I began the day thinking I had enjoyed a big sleep in (an hour later I realised that it had been 8:00am and thus had missed out on an hours sleep, but gained an hour of cooking time.)

As I wrote my morning pages there was the rustling of wrapping paper and the chattered that accompanies card making ... Dave getting Dylan to dictate what he wanted to write in my card. I had already been honoured with this beautiful piece of artwork (above on Friday) ... which answered all the questions that had gone unanswered the previous day, as to where his artwork was (as he was covered from head to tow in red paint!).

A while later down came Dave and Dylan. Dylan bouncing onto the bed and chanting 'Happy Mothers Birthday Mum" ... he didn't quite understand that it wasn't a birthday ... so it became all Mums birthdays today, as far as he was concerned.

I got this wonderful card (sadly photographed after the sun went down) ... with the following wording ...

Dear Mummy,

Mummy realls loves this card because its sweet! Happy Mothers Birthday.

Love Dylan

It's now pride of place on my night stand. Dylan doesn't produce a whole heap of craft or artwork, so the little that he does is really special.

Dave hurt his back playing with Dylan yesterday, meaning it was up to me to be a whizz in the kitchen to make dessert. We'd planned to enjoy a joint mothers day lunch with Annie and family, and our contribution was dessert. I'd procrastinated yesterday over what to make - cheesecake, brownies, portugese custard tarts, chocolate ripple log (with lashing of creme de menthe in it!), caramel peanut butter tarts ... decisions decisions decisions. In the end I decided to think about it tomorrow.

I wasn't that upset to be in the kitchen on mothers day - especially considering I was making a new recipe ... a mars bar cheesecake. I had to walk up to the corner shop (grateful for having one now!) and got three Mars Bars ... not a good look at 9:00am. Dylan helped to do some rather vigorous stirring, and drop in the chopped up pieces of mars bar ... then transfer the filling from the bowl into the crust ... before he got interested in something else and left me to finish everything off. In the course of doing this I discovered that my brown sugar didn't want to melt to make a butterscotch sauce and thus had to resort to a can of pre-made caramel. Sounds all very naughty and unhealthy really.

We called all our family, caught up on what's been going on, shared mothers day goodwill and then started getting ready to go out for lunch ... which always seems to take longer than it actually should (I'm blaming it on having a new hair style that requires blow drying.)

The kids played happily at Annie and Adrian's ... the energy at the moment between them is more about cooperation and much less about fighting, which is nice. We had a lovely pork roast cooked by Adrian, along with some champagne liquere cocktails. After lunch the menfolk and children disappeared off to the park and we enjoyed a foot spa, a mini facial and I never buffed my finger nails. Yes - unbelievable I know (perhaps I'll give up biting them now?)

Coffee/tea and more cheese cake later on in the afternoon, more silly jokes (even though the worse of the champagne had worn off) and we ventured into discussions on politics and religion ... mostly about whether Phillip Adams is agnostic or atheist ... so guess we were talking about someone else's religion and politics.

The kids sat down to watch Surfs Up and Dave lying on the loungeroom floor with a hot pack on his back got suckered into it as well. Around 5:00pm Dylan asked when we were going home ... and it was time to go.

Such a relaxing, enjoyable EASY day ... and tomorrow we're off to see comedian Ross Noble (Dave's favourite stand up comedian) We've got front row seats - which is quite possibly quite dangerous seeings Noble bases at least the first half of his shows on just interplay with the audience. Sure that there will be more tales to tell this time tomorrow night.

Good-bye .... hello!

"You say good-bye ... and I say hello"

Beatles

I love the way holidays act like mini life endings. When you come back even though the furniture may still be where you left it, the curtains still sitting on your bureau waiting to be hemmed and hung, and there's green slime lining the pool - just as you left it, nothing ever really is exactly the same. You've changed inside.

Before I became a parent, I never really took holidays. In 1995 I went to Sydney for a week with a friend of mine. It wasn't a complete disaster, but the whole experience left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. Then in 2001, after I quit my job I took an extended holiday to Victoria and then into New South Wales. It gave me a new perspective on life and I came back refreshed and ready to launch into a new career as a university student.

Now each time we take a break (and this was our first ever big family holiday, exploring somewhere other than the known terrains of where our families live) we seem to come back charged, better connected to each other. I know for sure that I have more patience and this time I'm seeking out ways to keep it. I hope that I have the tenacity, patience and ingenuity to keep this reconnection to famiy alive and evolving in the months to come.

My new boots, written about in my final post before going away, and now broken in and looking well worn. It was an interesting way for me to reflect both forwards and backwards on life. The very first day I wore them - you guess it, blisters!! Well to be brutally honest - one had gone beyond the phase of blistering and it was a lovely weeping open sore. I didn't take another pair of shoes with me, so I had to find ways of getting around in them. Whilst not freezing, it wasn't appropriate to get around without shoes on.

The first full day in Tassie, I relented and bought strapping tape, my save old remedy for blistering/sore feet. This reminded me of my months working on a cruise boat, with a pair of shoes that just never broke in and softened, and the lovely mess of tattered strapping tape that would adorn my heels for the week or more that I was aboard. This time, with the tape over the bandaids - my feet were in agony. The second day we were there, I noticed that Dave didn't always do up his hiking boots ... and thus we went into slipper-boot mode. For days I wandered around with bandaids on my heels and my boots undone. It went from being bareable to being comfortable and my feet slowly healed.

Then my heels were healed enough - just as the bandaids ran out, to put the strapping tape on them. Next I could do my boots up. Finally 8 days into our trip, I took the two hours hike around Dove Lake, at the foot of Cradle Mountain, with my boots done up and no pain.

It got me thinking about what its like to adopt new beliefs, or to let go of old beliefs. It's damn painful. You build a little blister like cocoon around yourself to allow the assimilation/metamorphosis to take place - somewhere to feel safe, warm, wet and womblike. I know that the cocoon that I built around myself in pregnancy was a pretty tough one - my decision to birth my baby at home, put me on the defensive with family and friends. I realise now that I probably did become a bit of a zealot as well. The next cocoon that came was the one that was built for me by the early motherhood and this is where I am at.

Now I'm shedding this skin and trying to work through what I want to keep and what I want to let go of. Even after this holiday I am still in my cocoon and keen to be here a little longer - perhaps a whole while longer. It seems I've been here all year.

Going back to be in the town that I spent my teenage years in, including a night where we spent our holidays, bought lots of ghosts up, lots of untouched and unexamined feelings. More feelings and deep senses of shame that were long buried .. but there were also lots of good memories brought up.

I'm trying to get the best of the old me, and the new me, to create the next evolution of myself.I know that you can't help take the worst of you along also - but I'm hoping that for once it will be tempered somewhat ... which brings me to glance up at the card of Temperance that I have had on my wall for almost a year now ..'balance, harmony, truth'. These are what I want to believe in now, strive for, to bring to each breathe of my life. The next step on the path of my year of authenticity.