where have I been?
Thursday 28 April, 2005
Three places:
1) under an overwhelming wave of marking for the creative writing paper that I tutor. I have fifty students and forty-six of them submitted their first assignments to me last week. I write detailed comments for each student, and although I enjoy the process of doing this, it does seem to be all-consuming, due to the number of students versus the time I have to do it in. Many pots of coffee and late nights...
2) at Castlepoint Beach, attempting to 'holiday' in a caravan. Lovely beachy rambles were had...but very little sleep - with one baby, one pre-schooler and many hailstorms on the tin roof of the caravan...the beach was lush, but I came back feeling more tired than before I left.
3) in a deep funk caused by constant sleep-deprivation, a fight with a close friend last week that left me feeling wobbly, a general sense that my writing 'career' is up the shitter, the school holidays (I know if I were a "good mother" I would love all the extra time with Willoughby...but I'm not a "good mother" - I'm a "good enough" mother, and "good enough" mothers like kindergarten because it gives them two hours in the morning to do stuff) and possibly hormones on top, because even though Magnus is only three months old, I've got my periods back...oh yaay.
So I haven't blogged because of work, absence and then feeling like I had nothing good to say cause my head is so firmly up my butt.
Then this morning, I remembered that the thing I like about my favourite blogs and also one of my favourite books "Operating Insdtructions" by Anne Lammott, is that they show the shitty stuff, they sit with it, they tell it...and I've appreciated it, and thought they were brave.
I don't feel brave. I feel dark and unbalanced and demonic. Today, I want to throw my buddha statue through a window coz he looks so goddamned smug.
Posted on 28 April, 2005 | 4:14pm | 0 comments |
fit mama
Tuesday 12 April, 2005
I've always been terrible at sports. Team sports, solo sports...it doesn't matter. As well as having no athletic ability whatsoever, I can never remember the rules to sports and pretty much have no interest in them. I would literally rather watch paint dry than watch sport on TV. The sportiest thing I do is a yoga class.
But, because this seems to be the year of "question-everything" and because I'm very keen to get a whole lot fitter now that my baby-having days are over, I've decided to do the Special K triathlon next summer.( I don't even know how to spell triathlon.)
So yeah, I'm aware that it's one of those lily-livered "try-athalons"...where chubby sofa-dwellers and skinny weaklings drag themselves out into the sunlight to haul butt around a track and across a pool...but hell, I've got to start somewhere.
I'm pretty scared actually, because the thought of doing it brings up hideous memories of enduring tortuous 'P.E' classes at school. The only 'education' I received about my 'physical' self, was that I was destined to life on the benches. I hate competitiveness. I'm one of those sickening "why can't we all just get along?" types.
So I'm doing this precisely because I would really prefer not to. I want to give my self-image a kick up the pants.
My inspiring friend Lisa, who is quite the gym-freak/sporty-spice is in training for a triathalon too. I was smiling to myself thinking about the difference in our training schedules...
Hers probably goes something like this: Pump class at the gym, weights session, ten km bike ride, 5km sea swim, run, etc...
Mine, as an at-home Mama, goes something like this: yoga session (whoops, fell asleep in the child pose again), walking with pram to supermarket to buy weetbix and toilet-paper (trying to power-walk, but bump into friend from Home Birth association en route so end up dawdling along as we chat), attempt to run around park while Willo plays, but keep having to stop help him on the flying-fox and kiss his injured knees, twenty minutes of TV pilates session on lounge floor while Willo climbs all over me and I keep having to stop to waggle my fingers over Magnus's face to stop him grizzling, jump into the pool and swim laps while Willo has his swimming lesson - just starting to feel a nice burn when twenty minute swimming lesson finishes and have to hop out, put 'Galvanise' by the Chemical Brothers on the stereo and furiously jump around to it, trying to convince Willo that "it's fun to dance!" but he keeps taking the cd out and putting his 'Green Eggs and Ham' cd in...etc etc...
Sigh. It's definitely challenging to get any quality exercise done. I envy the time my child-free friends have to spend on themselves. But, I'm not going to give up. Besides which, it's kinda fun to do it in this hotch-potch way...hell, twenty rounds of 'ringa-ringa roses' can really get you puffing.
Posted on 12 April, 2005 | 4:13pm | 0 comments |
zines, impermanence, feijoa crumble
Monday 11 April, 2005
I mentioned on Sunday that I'm reading the 'zines I bought at Dandylion recently. I used to make a 'zine back in the 80s called Vox Populi and I still love the genre. I was thinking that 'zines and blogs share the same qualities: self-published, often dubious production values and an endearing combination of geeky esoterica and earnest emotional ranting.
This is from Doris #22, a 'zine from Carolina in the States:
"I want to stay up all night talking, not drunk, talking and remembering everything, with stars passing through the sky, the rain falling on the roof. I want to watch you and learn your ways. I want to break off this shell I've put on myself that sometimes resembles resignation, resembles panic and desperation, covers something too big to explain, but with patience and care, maybe I can explain it to you."
I like the yearning in this. I think most of us would like to have more real conversations and reveal more of our true selves. Why is it so hard to connect? Yaay for 'zinesters and bloggers unafraid to try...even if they do get dissed for being geeky, earnest hankie-wavers.
I love autumn. It's my favourite season. I love the light, the sunny yet crisply cool days, bringing out my winter clothes and getting excited about wearing scarves and boots again. I also LOVE feijoas in a major way. They are so tart, so aromatic, so grainy...yum-o! You might think it's a bit weird to get excited about a small, green fruit...but I do...there's nothing like the taste of that first feijoa for the autumn.
As well as fantasising about feijoa crumble, I've been thinking more about impermanence.
When I moved into the little studio-space at the bottom of my garden, I put all my most favourite things on the walls: posters, magazine cut-outs, paintings I've done, postcards, quotations, lists etc etc...and I remember thinking at the time, "it's perfect! So inspiring" and I felt like I wouldn't ever need to change it.
I was out there today and I realised that I've ceased to 'see' the things on the wall. They've been there over a year now and I've taken them for granted, some of them have started to fade, and also, I've moved on from some of the things, too. For instance, there were lots of wee talismanic pictures around pregnancy. Also, I was trying to "speak my truth" more, so there were images and quotations around integrity and honesty...
It probably sounds obvious, or banal...but I'm learning lately, in a deeper way than ever before, that change is constant. I've always been such a backwards looker, a nostalgia freak. When I'm hanging with my friends, it's usually me who says "Hey, remember that time...?" or wants to drag the old photos out.
I am a different person day to day, moment to moment. And it's okay. In fact, it's good...exciting...
So I stood in my studio with a big rubbish bag and ripped all of the pictures off the wall. Now it's blank but for a few dried blobs of blu-tack. I'm going to leave it that way for a few days...then I'm going to start filling it again...and see what picture evolves this time.
Posted on 11 April, 2005 | 4:10pm | 0 comments |
new hoodie
Saturday 9 April, 2005
My dear friend Sarah sent me the hoodie on the left from New York for my thirtieth birthday. It was the perfect antidote to any angst I had about turning 30. I love it for many reasons: Sarah gave it to me, it's from the States, it's silly and makes me laugh everytime I put it on, it's an Emily Strange hoodie, it's so cuddly and warm...the list goes on...but now that it's a coupla years old, it's getting a little manky. The fleece is all pilled, it has holes, it's getting thin and is not as warm anymore...
...so I had to buy a new hoodie. (See centre photo - by the way, that's Willoughby's hand tugging at me, not my own weirdly angled, freakishly small hand.) I DO really like my new hoodie. It's by an NZ designer, it has a cool pin-tuck detail down one side and the hood is triple thickness for that super warm and cuddly factor. But it has no ears! When I wore it last week, I felt odd with no ears on my hoodie. I felt like any old Joe-Bloggs hoodie-wearer...
...but THEN! sifting through my local op-shop on Friday I found THIS! (See photo on the right.) Not only is it purple with rainbow stripes (as you know, we have a thing for stripes around these parts) but it HAS EARS! Woo hoo! New hoodie crisis over. I can wear my new, stylish hoodie and yet still look like a dork. Thanks be to the op-shop goddess.
In my constant (futile) attempt to be less attached to things and more zen I 'weeded' our book collection recently of over half of our books. My lovely friend Ben took them into Arty Bees bookshop for us and now we have 200 smackaroos to spend there. Woo hoo! I told Fraser that we have to spend the money on huge coffee-table type books so that we only bring one or two new books into the house, otherwise the whole exercise of trying to get rid of more stuff would have been in vain. My friend Tania suggested that we just buy one huge book and attach legs to it and actually use it as a coffee table. I'm considering it. I'm thinking the collected works of Warhol might be nice to rest my flat white and cameo cream biscuit on...
Lately, I'm loving hand-scrawled 'zines like "Help! My Snowman's Burning!" from Wellington, rediscovering the delights of pumpkin soup now that autumn is here, dragonflies, vanilla insence, and our friend Arron's DVD projector - we get to go to his house and have the full cinematic experience except we can take the kids with us and have wine and Thai takeaways instead of yukky watered-down Coke and stale popcorn...and after the main feature, some Bjˆrk live or vintage Bowie to ease out the evening to. Yaay for Arron and his DVD projector. Bachelor pads are go!
Posted on 09 April, 2005 | 4:07pm | 0 comments |
base emotion
Tuesday 5 April, 2005
Aah..there's nothing like some time away from home to give you a bit of perspective on life.
I realised while I was away, that recently my 'base emotion' (the emotional state that I operate at and return to throughout the day) has been one of scattered, angry anxiety. Nice, huh? I think it built up slowly and was a combination of sleep deprivation, adjusting to having a new baby, finding a way to do the 'at home parent' thing to my satisfaction, having a million creative projects on my to-do list, and the pressures of my part-time jobs...
It's been manifesting itself as back-pain, headaches and a feeling of disatisfaction with my life.
Fraser and I have been talking about selling our house, because after living here for a year, we are less than thrilled with the neighbourhood. I also realised while we were away, that I'd started doing that thing where I focus on something in the future as the bandaid for all of my problems...it used to be "when we are in our own house...life will be better". Funny that after only a year in this house, it has become "when we sell this house and move to a better neighbourhood life will be better." I've noticed that my friends do it too: "After the holiday..."; "After I quit my job..."; "After I lose ten kilos..."
I feel like since Magnus was born, I forgot everything my buddhist beliefs had taught me over the last five years. There is only here and now. That's all we ever have.
So since I've been home again, I've been consciously trying to make my "base emotion" one of peacefulness, gratitude and contentment. It isn't easy and it is a constant struggle...but it's a nicer place to be than the anxious, disatisfied place.
I think the 'scattered' feeling comes from being an arty-type who measures my days by 'productiveness'. What did I produce today? What did I create? And because I have two children and three part-time jobs, the answer is often 'nothing'.
This week I've been experimenting with the idea of fifteen minute blocks of reinvention. The idea came from a quotation that I read is Keri Smith's book 'Living Out Loud' which I heartily reccomend as it's not only a fabulous book but it has lots of freebies in it like stickers, postcards and board games) One of her postcards reads "reinvent yourself daily". I've always thought this is a cute idea, but it occurred to me that with mothering and so many other roles in my life, daily was too much of a time comittment! So I'm doing, reinvent yourself hourly!
So far it's great. Instead of feeling constantly scattered and stressed, I say to myself (and yes, I really am this conscious and schizophrenic inside my head) "for the next fifteen minutes I am Helen the Earth Mother." This means that I fully engage with whatever Willoughby, Magnus and I are doing and don't allow any thoughts of deadlines, dinner or creative projects enter my head. It makes it so much more fun to play with Willoughby when I'm fully engaged like this!
Here are some other variations of my fifteen minute blocks of reinvention:
"I am Helen the tenacious writer and will write a few hundred words of my book without even pausing to scratch my nose."
"I am Helen, amateur gourmet chef and will now cook dinner in a calm and happy way."
"I am Helen the punk rocker and will now jump around the lounge to the Ramones and pretend I am in New York in the 70s"
"I am Helen the enlightened being and will sit here on the couch and stare at this candle flame and not let thoughts enter my head."
"I am Helen, and I'm a schizoid-freak...not only do I have these weirdo thoughts., I blog them." (Circle of fellow freaks reply, "Hello Helen!")
Now Magnus is crying, I am Helen, woman trying to write a blog entry while baby is crying and her overdue marking is lying in front of her on the desk...(breathe) but I am so calm, calm, calm (delusional) and calm...
Posted on 05 April, 2005 | 3:55pm | 0 comments |