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From the Blog

Amazing Grace

To all the Weary Mess Makers: Love has your Back

I’ve been doing a lot of washing lately. On first read this may sound virtuous, or, depending on who is reading this, downright depressing. But for me, when I start hitting the laundry, say, several times a day, it usually means my arms are trying to process what my heart can’t, won’t, or doesn’t want to yet. Sure, it’s not a glamourous or romantic form of escapism. I’m not driving into the sunset, windswept tendrils flying, shirking my responsibilities. I’m bending over a machine, perspiration on my forehead, swirling my confusion in with the powder and dettol. Because, sometimes you just want things to be clear, to see results. A load of dirty, crumpled washing in, a load of clean, fresh-smelling clarity out. Resolution. Achievement. A basket of chaos to a line full of order.

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Faith

You have your Brother’s eyes

I didn’t intend to go to the meeting.  These days Dr M does most of these things alone, reporting back to me later in stolen snatches, in precious together-breaths caught above or between the perennial kid noise of our household. But my parents were over helping, and the thought of going out together —anywhere—was appealing. On the way there in the car, Dr M and I attempted to catch up. It occurred to me recently that our marriage  can feel a bit like speed-dating, or, perhaps a better image, like a scene from one of our all time favourite shows, The West Wing…

Read More
anxiety

When the world wants to disorient you

That’s my first thought as daughter E and I run-walk through the school’s side gate, awkwardly steering the double pram containing Baby J and the combined chaos of our morning…all the while trying to look cool as we kick up dust. If it feels big to me, it must feel enormous to her.

Read More
Amazing Grace

You are not your Anxiety

In an earlier post I called anxiety the great imposter. It’s a class-A actress. If anxiety were to audition for a role, especially one that involved threat of death or insanity, suffering, and plain-old-pain, anxiety would secure the lead. Because anxiety doesn’t just effect your mind, it inhabits your body too. Something a lot of people might not realise about anxiety is just how much it hurts physically…

Read More
Amazing Grace

‘Let’s Start Again’

Even with the windows open, and the late summer breeze coursing through, the atmosphere in the car was thick with it: our back-and-forth, black and white, your-wrong-I’m-right barrage. Because isn’t it the tragedy, that as well as the best, we reserve our very worst for those we love the most. Those closest to us, we often push the furthest.

Read More
Amazing Grace

Lighter Days: On Letting Go

By all predictions, it shouldn’t have been what it was. My hyper-vigilant, perfectly trained, parent-perfectionist-worrier-warrior radar had already assessed it. This day was meant to be B-A-D! The facts of the case were as follows: an over-tired mum ,with a sore throat, and an aching back…

Read More
Memories of my brother

Sky song for my parents

It’s 5:30pm, an overcast September evening in early Spring, and I’ve escaped the holiday house we are staying in with our three kids for a moment to take a short walk. There’s music playing through my headphones, because, in my opinion, sunset and surf always look at their best accompanied by music, especially if its slow, and raw, and acoustic. And I’m also naturally lazy and I need the music to carry me forward until my feet find their rhythm.

Read More
Amazing Grace

All the Stories we tell ourselves….

I’ve been thinking lately about all the stories I tell myself. About all the stories we all tell ourselves. Some narratives, I’d be more than happy to publish: like how I’m wife to Dr M, mum of three beautiful kids, a lover of literature…

Read More
Faith

Parenting Confessions: Sometimes I Feel Like an Imposter Mama

It came to my attention recently that our kids hardly know our names. Our original identities, that is. The ones we possessed before we became parents. The revelation took place in one of those back-and-forward chats you have with your offspring when you are attempting to pass traffic-time, to fill the narrow space of shared automobile air (in our case sliced into a tight five) with anything other than screams, drama or repeated requests for snacks…

Read More
Faith

The Days Following: Behind the Scenes of Grief

In the days following my brother’s death, there was nothing to do, and everything to do. Our normal lives had been put on hold while we negotiated that strange, liminal zone between the vaporous shock of the news, and the more solid event of the funeral. Really, though, our old lives had been obliterated. What you don’t perhaps at first realise, is that the death of a family member, or someone similarly close, means a form of death also for the one left behind. Old identities, patterns of living, habits of thought, securities, all become dust. Grievers must suddenly assume the shoes of emotional-construction workers, forced to forge new lives from the ruins of the old.

Read More
Amazing Grace

To all the Weary Mess Makers: Love has your Back

I’ve been doing a lot of washing lately. On first read this may sound virtuous, or, depending on who is reading this, downright depressing. But for me, when I start hitting the laundry, say, several times a day, it usually means my arms are trying to process what my heart can’t, won’t, or doesn’t want to yet. Sure, it’s not a glamourous or romantic form of escapism. I’m not driving into the sunset, windswept tendrils flying, shirking my responsibilities. I’m bending over a machine, perspiration on my forehead, swirling my confusion in with the powder and dettol. Because, sometimes you just want things to be clear, to see results. A load of dirty, crumpled washing in, a load of clean, fresh-smelling clarity out. Resolution. Achievement. A basket of chaos to a line full of order.

Read More
Faith

You have your Brother’s eyes

I didn’t intend to go to the meeting.  These days Dr M does most of these things alone, reporting back to me later in stolen snatches, in precious together-breaths caught above or between the perennial kid noise of our household. But my parents were over helping, and the thought of going out together —anywhere—was appealing. On the way there in the car, Dr M and I attempted to catch up. It occurred to me recently that our marriage  can feel a bit like speed-dating, or, perhaps a better image, like a scene from one of our all time favourite shows, The West Wing…

Read More
anxiety

When the world wants to disorient you

That’s my first thought as daughter E and I run-walk through the school’s side gate, awkwardly steering the double pram containing Baby J and the combined chaos of our morning…all the while trying to look cool as we kick up dust. If it feels big to me, it must feel enormous to her.

Read More
Amazing Grace

You are not your Anxiety

In an earlier post I called anxiety the great imposter. It’s a class-A actress. If anxiety were to audition for a role, especially one that involved threat of death or insanity, suffering, and plain-old-pain, anxiety would secure the lead. Because anxiety doesn’t just effect your mind, it inhabits your body too. Something a lot of people might not realise about anxiety is just how much it hurts physically…

Read More
Amazing Grace

‘Let’s Start Again’

Even with the windows open, and the late summer breeze coursing through, the atmosphere in the car was thick with it: our back-and-forth, black and white, your-wrong-I’m-right barrage. Because isn’t it the tragedy, that as well as the best, we reserve our very worst for those we love the most. Those closest to us, we often push the furthest.

Read More
Amazing Grace

Lighter Days: On Letting Go

By all predictions, it shouldn’t have been what it was. My hyper-vigilant, perfectly trained, parent-perfectionist-worrier-warrior radar had already assessed it. This day was meant to be B-A-D! The facts of the case were as follows: an over-tired mum ,with a sore throat, and an aching back…

Read More
Memories of my brother

Sky song for my parents

It’s 5:30pm, an overcast September evening in early Spring, and I’ve escaped the holiday house we are staying in with our three kids for a moment to take a short walk. There’s music playing through my headphones, because, in my opinion, sunset and surf always look at their best accompanied by music, especially if its slow, and raw, and acoustic. And I’m also naturally lazy and I need the music to carry me forward until my feet find their rhythm.

Read More
Amazing Grace

All the Stories we tell ourselves….

I’ve been thinking lately about all the stories I tell myself. About all the stories we all tell ourselves. Some narratives, I’d be more than happy to publish: like how I’m wife to Dr M, mum of three beautiful kids, a lover of literature…

Read More
Faith

Parenting Confessions: Sometimes I Feel Like an Imposter Mama

It came to my attention recently that our kids hardly know our names. Our original identities, that is. The ones we possessed before we became parents. The revelation took place in one of those back-and-forward chats you have with your offspring when you are attempting to pass traffic-time, to fill the narrow space of shared automobile air (in our case sliced into a tight five) with anything other than screams, drama or repeated requests for snacks…

Read More
Faith

The Days Following: Behind the Scenes of Grief

In the days following my brother’s death, there was nothing to do, and everything to do. Our normal lives had been put on hold while we negotiated that strange, liminal zone between the vaporous shock of the news, and the more solid event of the funeral. Really, though, our old lives had been obliterated. What you don’t perhaps at first realise, is that the death of a family member, or someone similarly close, means a form of death also for the one left behind. Old identities, patterns of living, habits of thought, securities, all become dust. Grievers must suddenly assume the shoes of emotional-construction workers, forced to forge new lives from the ruins of the old.

Read More