I’m on the 2:30 train to Cranbourne. I’ve just met a new friend, Jane, in Melbourne where we spent three lovely hours wandering around the Art of Banksy exhibition followed by a wonderful lunch at Dymocks bookshop. I had vegan shepherds pie accompanied by ginger & lemon tea. I’m feeling tired but also a little…
Tag: life
The rambling recesses of my mind
I’ve been going through a thing. And it has been so hard to talk about, to compartmentalise, to rationalise, indeed to live. The thing itself has been harrowing enough, but it is the soul reaching thoughts and feelings that have left me reeling. Mr C and I were watching TV the other night; sometimes I…
View from a bed
I’m in bed. Recuperating from a hysterectomy. I have a way of downplaying things that happen to me. I tend to speak about seemingly big things like they aren’t big things at all. I think if I do this I am in effect minimising the magnitude of what has happened to me. I downplayed my…
Bearing witness to death is bearing witness to life
The last two weeks have passed in a blur; acceptance into university, preparations for Master J as he enters his last ever year of high school and assisting my mother and father-in-law as they prepare for the end of her life. She isn’t dead. And it is likely that she will live a number of…
Happily demented – life, love, connections and no memory
I’ve been rethinking things. This week has been difficult. For me, but for my extended family most of all. One of our family members has advanced Alzheimers and after 54 years of marriage, the very very difficult decision has been made to finally place her, gently, in a home. Being a carer takes so much…
On reflection
I hug my dad tightly and as I do, tears spring to my eyes. This takes me completely by surprise. In the past, our relationship has been fraught. I have never been able to admit it before, but he and I are so very much alike. Opinionated, hot headed, kind, passionate. We have clashed because…
The unchartered road to finding our bravery
When I was a child, despite my turbulent and chaotic homelife, I believe I was somewhat brave. When I was 8, my mom would get me to sing “Scarborough Fair” in front of her friends because she loved my voice so much. I would also sing “Amazing Grace”, a song she loved so much that…
The chrysalis of life
I’m undergoing a change. It’s been an awfully long time coming. Slow, like a snail, gliding, unfurling and expanding inside my brain. It feels like I have been in a chrysalis for so long now. As I break my way to the surface, I find myself unsteady, wobbly even, with my new emerging wings. It…
I DO NOT LIKE THE COLD
Our heating conked out this morning. My mom always used to say that you can always judge the character of a person by the way they dealt with things going wrong in their life. My character is pants. I do not like the cold. At. All. Which is weird because I live in Melbourne. And…
A STORY OF MOTHERHOOD ON MOTHERS DAY
Happy Mother’s Day to all those women who have beautiful children prancing around the planet. May you have a beautiful soulful day. I have an app on my phone called Story Corps. I downloaded it ages ago. It is an app that helps you document every day life. It is an app that documents oral…