What it is is beautiful

I turned 43 last week. One of the best things for me about moving to Melbourne has been getting the Melbourne Cup public holiday, which often falls around my birthday (November 4, FYI:)

This year I threw a little 'Cuppa' party, which was pretty fun... Although I discovered that when it comes to my friends, if you ask them to wear a hat, they won't; whereas if you say 'Don't bring a present', they will. I guess we're all getting to the age where we do what we like instead of sticking to 'the rules'. Or maybe we just need better reading glasses.

Anyways, Dan gave me a book of poems by Sarah Dunning Park. It's called 'what it is is beautiful' and the byline is honest poems for mothers of small children. Bingo!

Here's a taste of one of my favourites:

RX
It hit me,
helping my listless kid into the backseat
And then reaching, tissue in hand,
To swipe at her sister's runny nose:
It's impossible to stop.

Her incessant stuffiness, yes, and that junky cough that won't quit --
but even more, it's impossible to stop
This cycle of constant motion.

I thought all this
while shifting into reverse
and tapping at the map on my phone
and passing a sippy cup to the back
and unwrapping a piece of red candy
masquerading as medicinal balm
for my sore throat.

The sloughed-off wrapper landed softly
among the library books beside me,
but the lozenge's marketing slogan
kept looping through my head:

The show must go on, 
it urged, or perhaps warned,
since I felt a sense of deep foreboding
that our show was teetering
on the brink of collapse.

Do you like it? I just love how her mind works, possibly because it's a bit like how mine works (I love that we have so much in common!!!) And I think she does well at being honest & real about the challenges of motherhood without being a martyr or overly sentimental.

In case you're wondering, the poem does have a happy-ish ending. Basically, the mother imagines that in a bygone era a kind doctor would come to her house and prescribe the treatment (RX) she needs for her soul - to slow down.

So, here's to finding moments of 'slow' in the midst of life's chaos and busy-ness. And to birthdays, that remind us of how we're getting older but hopefully wiser and quirkier and still loved, quirks and all.

Blood and Water

Holidays can be wonderful. Especially if you get to go somewhere that involves passports and free accomodation. For us, that was our holiday last week to New Zealand.

Highlights: Seeing my sister Jenny's new house & being swept up in their family dynamic for a week, making a campfire in the backyard & toasting marshmellows, indoor camping/sleepover for the kids, discovering quirky shops, cafes and architecture (I fell in love with the Hampton-style houses in St Johns and surrounds), fish & chips at Mission Bay, walking around Mt Wellington and the kids tumbling down the green Shire-like hills.

Unexpected delights: being contacted by an old friend & sharing a spontaneous plate of oysters, wandering the grungy K-Road with Dan - a tradition which we began as uni students, reconnecting in  idyllic Matakana with a family who'd spent a 'gap' year in Melbourne and attended our church ("Why did we never do this in Melbourne?") and picking out a caseload of scarves, jewellery, knick-knacks and gifts from Jenny's warehouse to take home...My sister & bro-in law run a gift wholesale business, so it shouldn't be that unexpected, but I'd forgotten how fun it is to raid her stuff! As teenagers she'd tell me off for 'borrowing' her clothes...But she's more than made up for past angst now - even providing an extra suitcase to carry all the extra luggage.

Material aquisitions aside, the biggest delight for me was seeing the cousins having a ball. Nothing like spending a week living together for family bonding! My niece is 9 and has 6 male cousins so was over the moon to meet Evangeline and spend 'girltime' with her.

No family is perfect, but I feel incredibly blessed to have these people in my life.

Seasons Greetings

Hello Spring!

2015 has been a pretty momentous year. My third child Evangeline (a girl!) was born December 30 of last year. We moved house 2 weeks after the birth (crazy, I know) and my eldest boy Nate started school in the new suburb.
So, almost 9 months later and I feel like I'm just coming up for air, looking around and saying 'Ah, so is this what my new life looks like... Actually, it's not bad!'
I am so, so happy to see the cherry blossom trees blooming everywhere, signalling that we've made it through one of the coldest and bitterest Melbourne Winters ever.

Scratching around for some 'Springy' poetry, I found myself drawn instead to an Autumnal one. It's  'At Mornington' by Gwen Harwood, one my all-time favourite Aussie poets. Here's a taste:

This morning I saw in your garden
fine pumpkins grown on a trellis
so it seemed that the vines were rising
to flourish the fruits of the earth
above their humble station
in airy defiance of nature
- a parable of myself,
a skinful of elements climbing
from earth to the fastness of light;
now come to that time of life
when our bones begin to wear us,
to settle our flesh in final shape
as the drying face of land
rose out of earth's seamless waters.

See the clip for a complete rendition of 'At Mornington':

I wonder what you thought of it?
My hubby would probably call it a sad poem, but I prefer to think of it as nostalgic, reflective and cathartic. It's about memory, friendship, mortality. What more could you want in a poem?
May this Spring provide more than enough to refresh you, in whatever season of life you find yourself.