Million Miles Away

 Image from www.weheartit.com

When I was in the midst of the full throttle job search one of the school gate Mums who works full time said to me: "Make the most of this time whilst you aren't working because suddenly you will be, and then all this will seem like a million miles away".  Sure enough I am that person now.  A million miles away.

Initially I did not miss it at all.  I revelled in that separation I was able to shoe horn between myself and the kids and the tireless routine.  I waved a gleeful goodbye as they chased their fast walking Dad up the street.  Hair unbrushed, jackets half on, shoelaces trailing behind.  Character building, I told myself.  I enjoyed that final 10 minutes alone in the quiet house that still seemed to echo the madness of the morning rush.

It has been interesting watching Dad finesse his new role.  Applying a little more precision and organisation to the job as time has gone by.  His initial approach involved a sort of casual savoir faire, some might call arrogance; I would probably choose; ignorance.  I think he truly believed that his experiences with the occasional drop off or afternoon sport session might have prepared him for the daily in and out slog of it all.  The moods, the whining, the dinner cooking, the cleaning, the shopping, the homework and the fights (the washing we all know still mainly gets left for me).  The fatigue.  It is a different kind of tired.

I am definitely one of those 'grass is always greener' types.  It is a curse.  I try hard not to be.  I do love a bit of cerebral make believe.  It is not conducive to true happiness at all.  I have done a lot of work in mindful awareness and other Buddhist practice, a handy tool.  But the force is strong in me and the default setting when I am bored and unhappy unfortunately leads to some kind of fantasy.

When I was on the other side of the fence I ached to work, to be recognised as anything other than a Mother.  I felt I had lost myself in Mothering and this was somehow a root to my unhappiness.  I had defined myself as the person I was before and was yearning to be that person once more.

I see now that things are different than I imagined, I actually define myself first as a Mother.  That the role I bemoaned has actually become the thing I am most proud of.  The thing that gives me the most strength.  The thing I miss most from this other side of the fence.


(On another note I can't actually believe I have finally managed to get a post out, come up for air after being back at work 3 months, hope I can keep it up)

Heart is Home.

We spent a bit of time painting and re-decorating before the summer holidays, before all our stuff arrived back from Aus (I wrote about it here).  

I have blogged a bit about our move back to London and the emotional attachment to furniture and things, so the other day I whizzed about with my new iPhone and took some photos to show the progress and things in their new/old home. 

I used the Hipstamatic app to take the photos, mainly as I love the old school look of them, but this app can make even the shittiest photographer look OK, and I like to think I am pretty OK having picked up a few tips from the husband who is a pro.

Since we live in London and we are Australian I have wanted to bring a little of the sea and sun into our home here.  We are blessed with much light in our home, lots of windows, and with our various hues of white and soft grey to reflect and bounce the light around I have introduced some blue and green and yellow to bring some watery beachy elements into our environment and help us survive the coming darkness.

My absolute decorating hero is Terence Conran.  Somewhere I once read that he says always start with a neutral shell and only add touches colour in the decor.

Black and white entrance with the discontinued Urchin light from Habitat that I adore. 

My table is back in its original home.  I blogged about the table here.  It is a part of our family.  I replaced the black chandeliers with Kartell FLY lights in blue and sage oceany colours.

Kookaburra friends are here with us too. 

Our family of 5 as brass elephants from one of Brad's tours in Asia.  Beyond, a favourite photo of my very glamorous Grandmother Meg.

The Living room.....one day it will be larger when we convert the loft and then can knock through that wall into Jack's room.....but for now it works fine with the 5 of us, but as the kids get bigger and the house starts filling up with beefy teens and their mates we really will need more space.  In fact when we have friends over with extra kids it can get pretty squishy.  So the loft must happen soon or we move.

The wave art on the wall care of the lovely Fernanda, her work is gorgeous.

Another gifted painting of the trees in our local park sits above the first serious things I ever bought for my first apartment in Sydney.  I think they might be Parker chairs and I love them.  The gorgeous yellow handbag is a recent Etsy purchase from here.

Big S and small S, like the two ladies in the house.  Antique whiskey decanter from my Mum's collection.  Yellow candlestick from the flea markets in Berlin.

Here is the carpet I wept on and wrote about here.

Here I am weeping.....

I wrote about the Kookaburra painting here.  And the cupboard here.  And here they are.

My friend Marina painted this fun beach painting for me.  We used to have it up behind the dinner table and it was always such a talking point, especially with the kids.  Now it is here in the stairwell, a happy thing to see each day on this busy staircase, especially when it is grey and cold outside.

Top floor....where I am right now, is our office space.  A great light filled spot with a full view out the window down to the garden bellow where the seasons change with such intensity.

The view out the window right now looks a little like this painting my son did a year or so ago.

Love this photo of me and Suki as a newborn.  You forget how quickly they grow.  It sits above the computer and the scale of it never ceases to amaze....my nose is nearly as big as her face!  Her whole head fits perfectly in my hand. 

This guy is pinned up on the pin board.  It's an advertising tear out from an old French magazine celebrating the 150th anniversary of the 'discovery' of Australia! Interesting they chose this image.....

Ganesha...he is a favourite friend from Sri Lanka.

This is the sleeping corner of the younger kids room.  An Eames rocker for story time (actually the world's most uncomfortable chair, but it looks nice right?).

Some of Suki's trinkets from our travels.

I had this picture in my room as a girl. She's still with me. Lucien thinks she's creepy but I still find the girl in the beech tree forest listening to the red robin kind of magical.

Perhaps this Shepard Fairy is more his thing? Girl with the rose grenade.

Finally, and I know the Buddha is SO overdone in homes these days, but we do try to live by the Five Precepts and I write about that journey from time to time like here.  I am starting an 8 week course in Mindfulness this week at the London Buddhist Centre.  So here he is.

There are still a million jobs to be done, it is a work in progress.  But most importantly, I like to be here. My heart is home.

Ocean of Abundance

"I am open and receptive to all the good and abundance in the Universe."

This is my mantra.

I lie in bed before I sleep and picture myself in front of a vast blue ocean stretching out as far as the eye can see. The waves crash violently upon the shore, loud and powerful.  I open my arms wide. Take a deep breath and let the abundance I see fill me. I feel it flowing into me. I am the bottomless cup. I allow it to seep into the deepest darkest corners of my consciousness. Expanding further and deeper. Each drop of this precious gold liquid abundance feeds into my prosperity bringing me wealth of body mind and spirit.

I am visualising like a bastard this week and hoping to heaven that it works for Gods sake.

This jobby waiting game really sucks the big one.

To whoever bothers reading my blog please put the happy little success thought out there for me, let's see if it works, the collective prosperity visualisation.

I wrote about my return to work anxiety here. I have put that aside for now to replace it with the "will I or won't I" get the job anxiety. Soon to be replaced with a new anxiety. Watch this space....

My sister sent me a text just before my second interview earlier this week. It read something like "It's never to late for Good Luck. NEVER."

She seems skeptical about the prosperity visualisations. They are just a slightly more optomistic or esoteric version of the Good Luck theory.

We all have our own quirky ways to push the madness away and let in the light. What are yours?

Fraud

I went to see the oddest Ruby Wax show in the West End earlier this week.  If you are thinking acerbic, quick witted humour, well sure there is a bit of that.  However, the show, entitled "Losing It", was more like a painful public airing/therapy session dealing with Ruby's personal battle with depression.

It was an exploration in using humour as a sort of group therapy.  It was messy and uncomfortable.  She had taken it to The Priory and played to the inmates (is that what you call them?).  Her line is 'If you can make depressed people laugh then you've got a good show'.  I am not so convinced.

I went with a friend who has been living with a seriously depressed partner for many years and I have seen this condition ravish the family's strength and reserve.  For my friend the whole performance left her unsatisfied and angry, neither relieved from a great laughter release nor buoyed by a sense of connection and support.

Ruby's demise into depression is covered in detail in the first half.  The usual suspects were covered; parents, upbringing, school bully's, being/looking different etc.   But she also talks candidly about Motherhood and careers, loss of confidence and jealousy.

She talked about feeling like a fraud.  From being the one at school who everyone picked on or ignored, to then becoming famous and applauded.  Asking herself, "When are these people going to discover I am really not this person but rather the bucked tooth loser from high school?"

I have had the fraud conversation a bit lately.

A friend recently described this feeling (the fraud one) as part of the female condition.  The self doubting, the guilt, the lack of confidence.  Do men feel the same sense of fear?  I am sure they experience fear, but does it come from the same place?

I am going back into the real life workforce after a reasonably pre-longed Mothering break.  I describe quite regularly to my friends the sense of fraudulence I feel.  On the one side claiming/believing I am capable and experienced and on the other seriously doubting my ability and worth.

But apparently even woman who haven't had breaks from work and hold lofty respected positions of power are secretly questioning themselves, doubting their ability, all the while clearly being applauded and accoladed for their skill.

I had lunch with a friend today who reminisced about the old days before kids and remembered having moments back then, as she produced huge TV commercial shoots, of thinking to herself, "Am I really doing this? Can I really do this?"

My sister and I wondered if this is all because, for as much as feminism has done to free us, we still feel deep down like it is a man's world, we are not really on an even playing field.  We are posers and fakers in a world that doesn't really belong to us.  Interestingly Ruby does mention the man vs woman earning equality divide.  Comparing the salaries of the husband to the level of subservience of the wife, and the fact that in reverse it is never the case.

I think the fear us Mum's feel stems from the invisibility of Mothering.  From being unseen and unheard whilst giving up so much of ourselves to this relentless job.  There is no question that we relinquish ourselves to the job through pure hearted love.  But the fact that there is no professional 'man's world' recognition for the skill and dedication of Mothering well can make it feel like a huge black hole in the landscape of your experience.

This isn't a question of whether I think you should stay at home or not, the whole issue has always been a spiky one for me.  I won't lie either, Mothering has provided me some of the greatest highs yet also the lowest lows.  Depression is something I know about too now.  I do believe the job of Mothering is completely undervalued and any woman who can navigate sanely through those murky waters should be awarded with any job they desire.

So facing up for work in the real world again is slightly frightening.  Fronting up from the trenches with the confidence to say "Hell yeah I can do that" takes so much courage.

All the while the little man in the back of your head is yelling out "FRAUD FRAUD".

Silky Smooth

I live in an area of London with quite a large Turkish population.  Amongst the many kebab houses and Turkish cafes serving jaw grinding coffee there are a lot of places dedicated to hair.

It is an obsession.

Both the coiffing and the removing of hair is big time around here.  Much time and money is spent upon these pursuits.  I am not just talking about the chicks either.  You want an old fashioned hot cloth and shave, there are a million barbers to do the job.  Back hair?  No problemo.  For a princely sum a course of IPL will transform you from Fozzie Bear into Bear Grylls in a matter of months.  Well, perhaps not quite.

"You Don't Mess with the Zohan" is a favourite movie round at our joint and "silky smooth" is definitely something I like to be.

Best thing about removing my downy mouse coloured fuzz around this neighborhood is that I don't feel freakish at all.  As an hirsute whitey, it ain't nothing compared to some of the stubborn thick black stubble these 'removal' girls face on a daily basis.

I do get a peculiar kick out of sitting in the waiting room and seeing girls in the full niqab coming in for a Brazilian.

http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/n/niqab.asp

Threading is where it is at for the face and especially eyebrows.  I didn't see much or any of this available whilst in Australia and perhaps for the most part it is all going on behind closed doors.  But for the face there is nothing better for fine blonde hair, or darker hair for that matter.  Forget the mo bleach girls.  And for eyebrows, threading really offers the most precise and longest lasting results.

My Mother took me for my first 'mo' wax somewhere toward my later high school years.  All the other girls were using the bleach which only seemed to accentuate the situation.  Sometime after that I probably got my first leg wax too.  It was some time later I first heard talk of bikini shaping and trimming or vajazzles for that matter.  More than twenty years later I hate to think what I have spent on the pursuit of silky smooth.

Threading is an ancient Middle Eastern method of hair removal.  It involves using a long, thin, twisted length of cotton thread and rolling it along the hair line pulling the hair out from the follicle.  It is obviously something someone has to perform upon you and I reckon takes a fair amount of practice to perfect the technique, it is practically an art form.

According to Wikipedia, threading the entire female face is a practice common in Middle Eastern culture as a sign she has reached maturity, done for special occasions such as weddings.  Who started this whole obsession with women needing to look like twelve year old girls on their wedding day?

I don't have that much unsightly facial sprouting but a nicely shaped brow makes the whole face seem different.  Threading is by far a much less invasive practice than smearing hot wax on your face.  It is actually almost mesmerising and nearly relaxing.  (You really do know you are a tired and stretched woman when you can have a wee kip whilst having your bikini region attended to with a bucket of hot wax.)

Silky smooth.....mmmm

Browbeaten

Huddled on the floor of the living room.  Wet cloth in hand.  I rested my head on the new carpet.  My heart lay heavy in my chest and I could feel tears welling up from that lump in the back of my hoarse throat. 

He was upstairs in his room.  Sobbing his little heart out.

"Please don't yell at me Mummy".

Motherhood.

It is not always rosy.

I spend a bit of time checking out other blogs,  mostly interior porn but the occasional Mummy blog too.

There are a lot of rose tinted versions of family life to take your pick from and thereby feel totally inadequate.

A parenting failure.  

A lot of photos of cute babies on jaunty sepia toned European holidays.  Of neat little corners in colourful homes tended by SAHM's who's lives appear to be totally fulfilled with the baking and making and crocheting of wonderful wonderful.

Parental gloating.

It is not really like that.  Surely?

Fleeting moments only.

I sometimes lie in bed at night fretting about my children.  Feeling the leaden weight of their future upon my shoulders. 

They fuck you up, your Mum and Dad.  And with the best intentions.  We just really can't help it.

This Be the Verse  BY PHILIP LARKIN

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

We are not infallible.  And sometimes the decisions we make as parents are going to have repurcussions we are not proud of. 

Sometimes, when we are discouraged by a difficult situation, anger does seem helpful, appearing to bring more energy, confidence and determination. And while it is true that anger brings extra energy, it eclipses the best part of our brain: its rationality. So the energy of anger is almost always unreliable. It can cause an immense amount of destructive, unfortunate behavior. - Dalai Lama

Is it rational to lose it over spilt milk on the new carpet? 

Is it rational to lose it when children do childish things? 


Is it rational to raise our voices?

In the Buddhist teachings it tells us that there is no such thing as righteous anger.  However, none of us are immune to the destructive forces of anger.  Life is constantly throwing up difficult situations and we have a choice whether or not to react.

The tears on the carpet incident occurred mid school holidays.  Things have greatly improved now we all have a little more focus and routine.  But the fact is I really don't enjoy losing it or raising my voice.  I always feel totally defeated.  

If we can remember to take a deep breath during these stressful moments, and remind ourselves that we have a choice, more often than not the more rational options will then have an opportunity to be heard. 

No need to hand on the misery.  Avoid the browbeating and embrace the loving kindness.  


Sometimes easier said than done.

Less is More.

The last week in London has been fairly challenging to say the least.  Summer holiday mayhem, madness, machiavellianism.

And that is just in my own home let alone what has been going on in the streets.

I must admit I had a moment one evening last week.  Lying on the sofa, with Brad away in Birmingham just as the riots kicked off there,  I briefly wondered why I had removed my children from their carefree, barefooted sunny freedom and brought them back here.  A dark moment in a night filled with sirens and a palpable tension.

It has taken me a week to remind myself why we made the decision we did.  A friend once told me that there are no good or bad decisions, just decisions.  From those decisions we learn valuable lessons.  We make a choice and we need to make the most of what we have.  Live in the moment without regrets or attachments.

Many of my readers will know that my decision making process (with regard to this return to London) was long and considered, even painful and tiresome.  I recently read a great article here about making difficult decisions, and I reckon I can tick quite a few of the those suggestions, and therefore rest easy in this place.

I decided to start a photo diary on my Facebook page to document the things I love about London.  As a way to focus on the positive.  Because there are always surprises and random moments of beauty and wonder in this city.   If we take them for granted, then it is easy to only see the dark and dirt and chaos.

Having left this city for a few years for some soul cleansing in my homeland, I have returned with a deeper understanding of what it takes to survive here.  In a city of constant motion, where the energy flows like a thunderous river, nearly visible to the naked eye.  Ever so mesmerizing, so easy to fall in and be swept away with the currents, tossed and tumbled and washed ashore like a piece of useless flotsam, miles from where you started or intended to go (this of course can sometimes be a good thing).

We have to be able to know when to stand behind the yellow line.  Take a seat and breath.  To observe the motion without feeling we have to jump on board.

I received another of my daily truths from Brave Girls Club today, and as I quite often find, it was a timely message about slowing down, not getting caught up in the race to have everything (or at least what we are lead to believe is everything we need).  Stopping in the moment without grasping for the next.

This message applies to life in every corner of the globe.