you
I see you work hard
Controlling your surrender
The rust pays no heed
Page 5 of 6
The joy of poo blur
The household toddler has had a visit from gastro this week. That meant being woken every two hours for two nights in a row by a fevering child, living in a blur of repetition of toilet checking, bottom wiping, hand washing, administering water and offering dry foods, and surrendering to dropping all plans. It has meant losing wages whilst still paying for unused daycare, and having the tv on way more than usual.
On the back of all this, yesterday I sat 2 adult naplan exams, complete with overcoming the stress of the power point not charging my lap top, my mouse stopping working, and the remote proctor not being able to access my camera, resulting in a 45 minute delay to my exam start time. Somehow managed to get a delicious evening meal on the table, and little one is on the mend today.
Yet the biggest challenge for me was helping her to put on the tiny gardening gloves that she was insisting on wearing for our walk this morning.
She also brought a cushion “in case I fall over”.
So of course one block into our walk, I’m carrying a pair of gloves rolled up, a cushion, a hand full of lillipillis, a few flowers, a bagged dog poo, and the lead of our 40kg old man. All in one hand to keep the other hand free to hold hands with little to cross the road.
A young woman jogging freely in the other direction with both hands free and ponytail swinging, smiled at us.
I thought, maybe she looks at us and wishes she could have this moment.
I am having this moment. This is what life has given me right now. What a joy.
Mindful Walking
“I know the Earth is my mother; a great living being. I vow to protect the Earth, and the Earth protects me.”
This invitation by Thay to infuse our walking with loving mindfulness is perfect as the weeks of rain clear and we may be walking more than we have recently. As we walk and remember our interbeing with all that we see, and notice the changes since our last walk, we can feel deep gratitude for the protection our great Mother Earth offers us, and strengthen our resolve to do what we can to preserve this precious planet.
Thay also invites us to walk with full awareness of our love for the Earth:
“Each step can express your love for the Earth. As you walk, you can say
‘I love the Earth. I am in love with the Earth.’”
“With both body and mind present as we take each step, when we are fully present, every step, placed gently, and mindfully on Mother Earth can bring us a lot of healing and happiness…
…We’re not stepping on something inanimate… in every speck of dust or grain of sand there are countless bodhisattvas… …we can be in contact through our feet with the Great Bodhisattva Mother Earth.
‘With each step, I come home to the Earth.
With each step, I return to my source.
With each step, I take refuge in Mother Earth.’ “
This morning, I held 2 gazaneas, 3 buttercups, my child’s hat, her umbrella that she has become accustomed to bringing, the dog lead, and a small Koala. I was so grateful that she had decided against also bringing her A2 sized laminated alphabet chart in the walk as she’d contemplated, as I did what I could to incorporate the essence of this beautiful practice into my daily life.
How do you enjoy the kissing our Mother Earth with imprints of reverence and gratitude as you walk?
These quotations are from “Love Letter to The Earth” but I can’t check the date of publication as darling Miss Two is ‘reading’ it right now in this wonderful moment.
The illness and some cures
I’m sick of people referring to their kids as little terrors or monsters. Of expecting their 6 month old babies to self soothe. Of asking for advice on how to be able to get their kids used to less human connection.
I’m sick of seeing babies in prams with screens in front of them. I’m sick of hearing parents use power-over and fear tactics with their children. I’m sick of crappy gender stereotyping through clothes and toys.
I’m sick of parents asking on parenting groups about what “stuff” to buy for their kids.
I’m sick of the chilling impact on the early years of human life that capitalism and ecological terrorism is having. I’m sick of the pressure that keeping on top of basic living costs is putting on parents.
I want to see a world where parenting is regarded as THE most important job. Where the people doing it are supported financially and by community to do it to their best ability. Where everything we know about secure attachment, neuropsychology, and our deepest needs for love and belonging, informs the core motivation of how we raise our children.
I want to see extreme overhauls of our education systems so that teachers are upheld to support the biologically wired, natural and beautiful blossoming of innately intelligent, good, active humans.
I want to see a medical system that supports families to have great nutrition, sleep, and spiritual support before labels and prescriptions.
I want to see a world where we understand the value of unstructured time together. The value of parents having time to breathe, alone with themselves. The value of free play.
I want to live in a world where we know that we’re all in this together.
Not a big ask. And I know I’m not alone in this wish.
“Mum, would you like to smile?”
These are the first words I heard this morning.
Followed by “there you go Mama, so lovely”.
I say ‘this morning’ in reference to the time after birds had started.
All the talking in wake and sleep that happened between 2:00 am and the birds shall be known as night talking. Night talking is not to be encouraged, as cute as some of the stuff is (Mummy I draw a beautiful pitcha on your aaaaaaaaarm); and shall not be spoken of again.
But that morning invitation to smile. Oh!
Thay makes the same invitation in the morning prayer:
Waking up this morning I smile
Twenty four brand new hours are before me
I vow to live mindfully in each moment
And to look at all beings with eyes of compassion
The beautiful hand made poster of this recitation that I used to have stuck beside the bed was long ago removed by a curious baby. Some days I remember to start the day with a smile to this poem, many days I’m swept up with the earliest demands.
Today they synthesised and my smile was so big, my presence in the moment so true; my gratitude for the life I have so visceral. Whatever the day brings, it started with a smile, and a smile to the invitation to smile.
Being awake since 2:00 is going to be ok…
Little legs
“Mummy I get pants for meeeeee”.
Long little legs go running down the hall, with the pitter patter of new red leather shoes beating out the allegretto of a single-focused mission.
I gaze in wonder at the space before my eyes where she passed by with her announcement. Those little legs. Strong and certain, holding her to the earth; lifting her to the sky, where she was once a star.
A star, waiting for just the right time to take up the long-extended invitation to come and be loved by us.
And here she is, full of life, full of words. Full of erroneous requests at 4:00 am.
And as she is full, so does she fill me.
With a love so heart-expanding that I too, grow taller. With a joy so face-opening that my smile lines stretch further. With a giddying glow so all-encompassing that I’m sitting here in the kitchen, awe-struck.
That those little legs are the result of an orgasm.
Mind. Blown.
New tricks
Things feel pretty glum.
My old dog is getting wobbly in the hips, but today was another new day for him.
He showed the same optimism for a morning walk that he does every day, intuiting before any of us could tell, that the rainy grey morning was but a light cleanse of yesterday’s dusts before the blood-warming heat crept in.
He sniffed and pissed his way along the High St as if it was any other day; particularly pernickety about some zones in a way that we could never sense the importance of.
He patiently let the toddler proffer a freshly picked dandelion intrusively close to his veteran snout, and behaved with grace when a neighbourhood cat came slinking out onto the path for the “dendle” petting she knows is guaranteed when our trio passes by.
Glad, with so many birthdays behind him, for a short walk; home once more, he allowed his muscles a break from holding him in shape , as he sighed his large nobility into a pile on his indoor bed, trusting that things were in order, and a feed would come soon.
Despite more than twelve years passing since his rescue, his breakfast meets his gut like iron filings to a magnet, over almost as it began. But these are sweet days, and the toddlers rejected egg scraps will likely follow soon as seconds.
They do. Today is good.
Watching him, he spends his day in a similar way to how my grandfather used to self-admonishingly describe his own idle days on the other side of ninety. And I am glad for him, that he can feel the changes in the breeze, hear the conferences of the magpies, sense the light shifting as clouds move across his patch of vast sky.
Witnessing with calm the bubbling babbling bauble of golden curls and rapid synapses; an anchor of cool self-authority, the dog just is.
All day.
As he was yesterday.
Accepting.
Present.
Inhaling.
Exhaling.
How many pats today? A lovely brushing in the sun? The child incorporating his water bowl into her play? What is his agency in any of this? Could I manage life with the same serene dignity as he does, with so much beyond my control?
Do I?
If only.
Instead, I am stirred up, fragile in my tiredness, and vulnerable in the wake of decades of perceived misuse. Crashing after building hope that intelligent change was within reach. Needing just that little bit more resource to be able to stay in the lane of everything actually being ok. Perhaps even frightened, for what it represents, that the majority of our population have used our chance to choose, to hand the power to racist river-killing bigots.
I’m glad the dog doesn’t know. He feels my sad. And he soothes me in it by showing me that today is another day.
And tomorrow will be too.
Onward dear heart.
International Women’s Day
Grateful this
International Women’s Day
For my:
💜right to vote
💚reproductive freedom
💜access to education
💚freedom to marry who I choose, and to not marry at all
💜property rights
💚freedom to work
💜ability to gather with other women
💚daughters being raised in a time when they know their voices are powerful
💜independence
💚freedom to dress as I choose
💜feminist allies of all genders
💚fire in my belly
💜certainty that we will continue to be part of more and more positive change until systems operate from a basis of true equality for all people all over the world
💚ultimate mother, our planet Earth
💜great fortune at living in a time when so much hard work has already been done to make it possible for me to list all these things safely
💚privilege, and my awareness that I can use it to bust oppression
Attend your local IWD Rally! Gather in solidarity to celebrate and agitate!
On striving
“Good better best, never let it rest, until your good is better, and your better best”.
Urgh. I wasn’t in scouts or whatever place this ditty comes from. But I was in a dysfunctional family with a judgy single mum who used to say this, and busted her nut to put me through dance training.
Ballet brain.
That conditioning instilled from early childhood that there is always more trying to be done.
So I’m 40. I’m raising a teen and a toddler. The teen is home schooling.
I’ve been admired, adored, adulated, and very bloody good in every job I’ve ever worked.
And yet, amongst all the life work I’m already doing, I’m trying to complete a Masters degree.
Why?
It’s hard work. It’s indoor, screen based work, on days where I put the little one into care, when the days outside beckon me into them, with garden chores, bird conferences, and subtle shifts in the breeze, all waiting to shower me with the joy of being alive.
But here I sit, generating feelings of inadequacy, panic, fatigue…
for what?
I am already great. I believe this.
I am already contributing.
I am already employable.
I am already tired.
I am already tired.
I have worked hard enough for long enough.
This one does not spark joy today.
Spritely Musings 