Category: Amazing Grace

From the Blog

Amazing Grace

Words for the Overwhelmed

A giant clock fell off our wall the other day. That’s right. You heard me correctly. I was very nearly squashed beneath the weight of time.

There I was, walking down our narrow hallway, the one always scattered with an obstacle course worth of toys, the hallway we continuously play domestic bumper cars in, the one with the school word-lists hanging precariously from the white rental walls with perspiring balls of blu tack (our kids call it ‘glue tack’) when boom! The shabby-chic aqua clock, bought for an irresistible bargain on Gumtree, fell with a thunderous bang from its single nail, narrowly missing my recently broken little toe.

Read More
Amazing Grace

How can I love you more?

It was mid-1990. I remember it, in a pleasant, hazy sort of way. The Winter Olympics played on a small square television set (who knew then that flat screens were so much cooler), I was acquainted with the thrill of my favourite books, and the secure encirclement of parents who seemed intuitively to understand how to make us their trusted friends.

Read More
Amazing Grace

Returning to Basics

Autumn has come late to Sydney. An almost-winter purity sidles quietly in amongst the bustle and grit of the inner-city suburbs. And even as the air crispens to cold nights, the days continue to be lit by a wealth of golden sunlight I’m sure we rarely appreciate as we should.  We read about leaves —my newly minted homeschooling daughter and I —and how the reds and yellows that come out to dance at this time in the Southern hemisphere are the tree’s real heart colour hidden the rest of the year.

Read More
Amazing Grace

My Fear and I, Up in the Sky

If weeks had theme songs, and those theme songs had catchy choruses, this week’s song might be called something like ‘Looking Up’, the chorus, ‘Are we going on the plane today?! Today, today, up up away.’

Read More
Amazing Grace

Angel Words for Earthly Fears

Our daughter has recently acquired a new fear. I say acquired as we tend to collect fears in our family, like some people collect stamps. Ever since a seagull swooped down and took a chip —not even her chip, mind you, but a chip in the hand of someone standing nearby her— E has convinced herself that every bird, at every time, in every environment, is a chip-stealing, beady-eyed vigilante.

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
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
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
Amazing Grace

Words for the Overwhelmed

A giant clock fell off our wall the other day. That’s right. You heard me correctly. I was very nearly squashed beneath the weight of time.

There I was, walking down our narrow hallway, the one always scattered with an obstacle course worth of toys, the hallway we continuously play domestic bumper cars in, the one with the school word-lists hanging precariously from the white rental walls with perspiring balls of blu tack (our kids call it ‘glue tack’) when boom! The shabby-chic aqua clock, bought for an irresistible bargain on Gumtree, fell with a thunderous bang from its single nail, narrowly missing my recently broken little toe.

Read More
Amazing Grace

How can I love you more?

It was mid-1990. I remember it, in a pleasant, hazy sort of way. The Winter Olympics played on a small square television set (who knew then that flat screens were so much cooler), I was acquainted with the thrill of my favourite books, and the secure encirclement of parents who seemed intuitively to understand how to make us their trusted friends.

Read More
Amazing Grace

Returning to Basics

Autumn has come late to Sydney. An almost-winter purity sidles quietly in amongst the bustle and grit of the inner-city suburbs. And even as the air crispens to cold nights, the days continue to be lit by a wealth of golden sunlight I’m sure we rarely appreciate as we should.  We read about leaves —my newly minted homeschooling daughter and I —and how the reds and yellows that come out to dance at this time in the Southern hemisphere are the tree’s real heart colour hidden the rest of the year.

Read More
Amazing Grace

My Fear and I, Up in the Sky

If weeks had theme songs, and those theme songs had catchy choruses, this week’s song might be called something like ‘Looking Up’, the chorus, ‘Are we going on the plane today?! Today, today, up up away.’

Read More
Amazing Grace

Angel Words for Earthly Fears

Our daughter has recently acquired a new fear. I say acquired as we tend to collect fears in our family, like some people collect stamps. Ever since a seagull swooped down and took a chip —not even her chip, mind you, but a chip in the hand of someone standing nearby her— E has convinced herself that every bird, at every time, in every environment, is a chip-stealing, beady-eyed vigilante.

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
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
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