a sign?
Sunday 30 October, 2005
I'm down to the last few stripy sock competition entries now...this fine stripy leg belongs to the daughter of Kimberley! It's been so much fun show-casing all the entries; I hope you've all enjoyed seeing them...
***
I am rather illogical and superstitious and prone to seeing portents in ordinary events. I acknowledge this is a bit of silly way to conduct one's life, but honestly, I can't help it! How is this for a sign?
I'd been wondering when the Central Districts Short Story Competition was due to roll around again, but I only found out on Friday that entries were due in by the 31st! Because I didn't want to risk my entry not making it in the mail, I decided to hand deliver my entry; (it was a Palmerston North address). There I was thinking, "thank goodness I dropped into that website, otherwise I wouldn't have realised the competition was on again. And just in the nick of time, too." Headed towards the house, in a nice street, the house of a Massey University lecturer, I was feeling content and pleased with myself...THEN as we drew near to the street, there was a police blockade at one end! I harumphed a bit. We took the long route around the street and headed towards the other end of the (quiet, suburban) street...only to find another police blockade, and ARMED POLICEMEN! Fraser pulled over and asked what was happening and the gun-toting policeman told us to please drive away because there was a man with a gun down the street and they were " taking care of it." YIGH!
Now this might not seem that odd to those readers from big, dangerous, busy cities...but this is sleepy old Palmerston North, on a bright and sunny Sunday afternoon at 3pm! The odds of there being an Armed Offender's squad call out happening IN THE ONE STREET I REALLY NEEDED TO GO DOWN are very very very slim.
Fraser's take on it was that the gun-weilding guy was probably a rival writer who was holding an armed stake-out to stop other short stories making it to the lecturer's letter box.
So, we drove home again with my entry still in my hand. Lovely husband offered to drop the entry in this morning on the way to work...so I got it in. However, after the Fates conspiring to stop me from entering in such a bizarre way...I'm not holding out a lot of hope!
Posted on 30 October, 2005 | 12:20pm | 1 comments |
that other country
Thursday 27 October, 2005
Lawson comes for dinner. You had planned to cook him a feast, but it is hot and you've had so little sleep and frankly, food is the last thing on your mind this week. So you go to the supermarket and buy instant salad, instant roasted chicken, instant screw-top wine, instant almond tarts...
He arrives with orchids. He sits under the privet tree and even though he's sad, he sparkles. He makes you laugh. He makes you miss Drew until your bones ache.
You feed him the zero effort, instant dinner and the baby crawls into the salad bowl and over the cheese plate. You eat on the lawn and it feels like mid-summer.
You talk about friends, about Reality TV, about art, about broken hearts and suspended dreams. You sit outside in the dark sipping black tea while Lawson chain smokes. It feels so good to be outside talking and screw the dishes and the nits and the kids for a while. He tells you to enjoy them more, because it goes so fast and you know this to be true but today...
today you felt so old. Today you felt like the cold scrapings from the porridge pot. Like last week's wholemeal bread. Like that itchy jersey that never gets worn. Today you didn't feel like being grateful and calm and philo-fucking-sophical.
It gets cold. You go inside. You lie on the green sofa and listen to Lawson tell stories. You could listen to him all night.
It is like visiting another country.
Eventually, he has to leave. He goes and you turn out the lamps. You do the dishes, put the laundry away. You floss your teeth. You sleep well, the baby cries only once, you dream of river swimming and singing in a punk band.
You wake up happy.
Posted on 27 October, 2005 | 11:26am | 2 comments |
when babies turn into people
Wednesday 26 October, 2005
Lily's child definitely wins the "cutest baby in stripy socks" award! So sweet!
***
Magnus is becoming a lot more opinionated about things lately. He is learning the way of the grizzle and the gripe. He has attained the essential toddler skill of back-arching when his Mama wants him to go in the pram and he doesn't fancy it. Last night, when he didn't like dinner, he grabbed the spoon out of my hand and threw it on the floor. His face, when he is displeased, now turns an unappealling shade of beetroot.
He's been such a chilled out chappie up until now, this all seems a bit shocking. I suspect there might be an impressive temper lurking in there. Yigh. They are newborn and new for such a short time! I want my wee-bug baby back.
Posted on 26 October, 2005 | 10:44am | 1 comments |
knitting and de-nitting
Tuesday 25 October, 2005
Amanda knitted these socks herself! I think people who can knit socks are super-clever!
***
Speaking of 'knitting', our household has nits. Euw! I know, gross! I just got back from spending a princely sum on shampoos and nit-combs and other stuff to get rid of them.
Parenthood is so glamorous. Today is one of those days where I would like my pre-kids life back...where I used to only ever go into the chemist to buy hair dye and silver nail polish and lovely scented soaps...
Posted on 25 October, 2005 | 10:35am | 5 comments |
she wishes for trees
Monday 24 October, 2005
Kelly's entry wins the "best grown up boy in stripy socks" entry! Doesn't he look like a funkster?
***
Two years in and the garden is getting better. It is certainly messier and weedier, no longer the pristine and grannyish stretches of bark mulch over weed mat, with the occassional suffocated-looking plants that the previous owner favoured. The neighbour tells you that your backyard used to be full of citrus trees and kowhais; the previous owner chopped them all down. You can't think about this idea too much or you feel like crying or killing someone. Now there is weediness and wildness and irises and creeping geraniums and lavender bushes wriggling with bees. There are also no trees. Well, the trees are there, but they are babies. You have planted cherries, two apples and a French greengage plum. An olive because they like the clay soil and, indeed, the olive is the tallest of them all. A dogwood for the flowers, a magnolia for the scent.
Gardens are counter to the 'have everything now' culture you live in. Today the sun scorches and burns and you do the best you can with a sheet over the clothesline to protect you and the baby. How important trees are. How you don't notice how important trees are until you have none.
One friend suggests buying half grown trees, up to 12 feet tall, for an 'instant' garden. You look into it, but they cost hundreds of dollars, plus delivery and somehow, it doesn't sit right with you. You want to EARN your trees, get to know them, watch them grow.
You have decided to stay in this sweet and small, good-enough house in the not-so-good neighbourhood, in this city which was in so many ways a compromise but already feels like home. Too long in another place and you miss the big sky, the golden hills, the incomparable sunsets and the tantrum-like black summer storms.
So you and the baby walk around the garden and talk to the little trees. You encourage the plum, who has excelled herself this spring. You heap praise on the olive: bought as a one-footer and already as high as the fence. You pick sprigs of apple blossom and tell the apple tree you are looking forward to sampling her wares come autumn. You walk around the garden in your ripped salwah kameez and old-lady sunhat, holding the baby, talking to the trees and not caring if anyone hears you.
In the face of adversity: make soup, plant trees. You decide if you get to see these trees grow taller than the house, you will die happy.
Posted on 24 October, 2005 | 9:32am | 1 comments |
homemade socks
Friday 21 October, 2005
Siri knits all the stripy socks for herself and her family...here are her son's socks. Another great entry!
Posted on 21 October, 2005 | 7:26am | 1 comments |
i live in wales
Thursday 20 October, 2005
Marianne wins the "longest legs in the western world" award. I chose this shot for today because it looks so cheerful and summery and bright.
***
It rains and rains and rains here. We'll have one sunny day to tease us and give us hope, then back to the rain. My clay soil garden turns into a bog and my baby seedlings shrivel and go brown.
Traditionally, Labour weekend is supposed to be the weekend where gardeners sow their summer vegetables - tomatoes, capsicums, beans, basil. To which I say, "Ha!" and "Pah!" and "No chance, matey!" To misquote The Doors: "Out here in the perimeter, there are no tomatoes".
It affects my moods so much, too! Big raspberries to the weather gods.
I might as well be living in Wales! (no disrespect meant to any Welsh readers; but I spent time in Wales when I travelled and it rained. All the time.)
I know the only thing more dull than people telling you about their dreams (which I am also guilty of) is talking about the weather...so I won't say too much more.
One advantage of living in the Wales of the South Pacific is that it is easy to grow leeks. I have a jungle of leeks! Leek and potato soup anyone?
Posted on 20 October, 2005 | 8:33am | 1 comments |
the curve of your g
Wednesday 19 October, 2005
These cute little legs belong to my lovely neice, Gabrielle.
***
Last night I continued the purge of the studio. As happens when you sort through piles of paper, I unearthed piles of letters from friends. I didn't get caught in the trap of re-reading them, but just glancing at the envelopes...letters from friends travelling...New York, London, Scotland, India...letters from friends I've lost touch with, or am estranged from, and reading snippets of letters from my friends before we had children...well, I did feel very nostalgic and a tinge of sadness, too.
Anyway, the point of this post is that there really is nothing like snail mail. Those letters are treasured time capsules, they are the very essence of all those dear people at that exact time in their lives. Email is great and handy and quick and useful and all that...but holding those letters, I felt my friends in the room with me. There is something about the tangibility of their handwriting, the stationary they chose, the clippings they included, the quotations they wrote out, the very effort they went to that makes them far more precious than a printout of an email can ever be.
P J Harvey wrote a song about this on her last album. Hers is a rather erotic take on letter writing; I've just quoted the part of the lyrics here that aren't so much about romantic love...
"Put the pen
To the paper
Press the envelope
With my scent
Can't you see
In my handwriting
The curve Of my g?
The longing
Who is left that
Writes these days?
You and me
We'll be different
Take the cap
Off your pen
Wet the envelope
Lick and lick it"
Is hanging on to those letters 'hoarding'? I don't think so. I only keep the important ones. I hope to reach a grand old age and I know that I will enjoy reading back over the letters from my 20s and 30s, particularly as letter writing seem to be a dying art...perhaps no one will write letters anymore by the time I am 80-something? It's possible, but I very much hope it isn't so.
Posted on 19 October, 2005 | 8:52am | 3 comments |
can I play with your Janet Frame?*
Tuesday 18 October, 2005
I love the blatant "I'm outside wearing socks with no shoes and what of it?" attitude in Tania's entry.
***
Wonderful husband has bought me a very cheap, very elderly lap-top computer so that I can have a computer in my 'studio' (an ex-army hut at the bottom of the garden). The lap-top will serve as a fancy typewriter, basically, in that it won't be internet-capable. This is great because I spend way too much time procrastinating on the internet, especially reading other people's blogs!
In honour of the laptop's arrival, I am spring-cleaning my studio. I'm throwing out piles of paper, half-done (abandoned) art projects, magazines and miscellaneous junk. I have terrible hoarding tendencies so I'm trying to get hardcore and throw throw throw.
I've planted jasmine vines either side of the door, with the romantic notion that in summer I'll be able to sit in there working with the door open in a 'fog' of heady sun-warmed jasmine scent. Ymmmm....
My paid work finishes for the year by November 10 and then I have no paid work commitments and four weeks where Willo is still at school. I'm planning to get a lot of writing done then. I'm feeling very excited at the prospect - it's been a thin year for writing (apart from this blog, one terrible short story and a small bunch of poems). Having babies can be rather time-consuming, so I'm not down on myself about it at all.
So I intend to be a bit of a Janet Frame, hiding down the bottom of the section in the army hut, tapping away, only coming inside to make pots of tea. Of course, there is the small matter of the baby, the housework, the meals, my friends, the garden...but still, I can dream, right? (Also, there is the small problem that a) I don't have a large ginger afro like Janet Frame and b) I don't possess even one tenth of her talent....sigh...)
(*NZ band The Muttonbirds had a hit in the mid-90s with a song called 'Giant Friend' and the chorus went "Can I play with your giant friend"? One of my friends misheard the chorus as "Can I play with your Janet Frame?" A curious concept ... but one that I haven't been able to get out my mind for the last ten years.)
Posted on 18 October, 2005 | 10:41am | 0 comments |
the world as he sees it
Monday 17 October, 2005
Suse's entry has a sorta "chilled out bovver girl" look to it, I reckon.
***
Willoughby tells me:
he has one hundred girlfriends and I am one of them, but he can't marry me when he grows up because "you are married to Fraser".
he tells me that he drew a picture of our family at school. He drew Fraser and him as stick people and Magnus and I as round people "because babies and girls are fat. Boys are skinny."
that he will eat cauliflower and spinach "when I am as big as Dad".
that he likes biscuits from the shop best because the biscuits I make are "always different sizes and it's annoying."
that "Dads go to work, kids go to kindy or school but Mum's just go home again."
that the dinosaurs disappeared because humans ate too many for dinner.
that "Otto is cuter than Magnus because Otto laughs in the bath."
that I shoud eat meat because "it tastes really good and the chickens don't mind if you eat them."
that lunchtimes at school are hard sometimes because he likes to play "just with one person at a time and the other kids want to play with lots of kids at once."
that when he grows he will just have one baby and it will be "half girl and half boy".
that he doesn't want to travel to other countries because "New Zealand is more interesting. But I do want to go to Australia on a boat."
that "buddha is a nice man, but my Dad is nicer."
Posted on 17 October, 2005 | 10:20am | 1 comments |
the sea as medicine
Sunday 16 October, 2005
Bronya's entry wins the 'Best Use of Funky Retro Prop' Award!
***
First, some wonderful news! My friend Maria (pronounced 'Mah-rye-ah') gave birth to a healthy and hearty daughter yesterday morning. She arrived at the hospital at 3a.m, ready to push, her baby was birthed at 4.30 a.m and they were back home by 9 a.m. Yaay! Another gorgeous wee spirit enters the world!
***
Note to self: a leisurely morning at the beach, walking along the coast for 5kms, stopping only to dig sand, paddle, poke bluebottles with sticks, and pick up shells is more therapeutic, more restful and more healing than a long hot bath, glass of wine and $80 therapy session all put together. I MUST go for more beach walks! I think the key is leaving your 'worldly' self at the car-park and just taking your child-mind with you.
***
"'Success' or 'failure', the truth of a life really has to do with its quality. The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention."
-Julia Cameron
***
Today I'm still feeling chilled out from yesterday's beachy experience, my thoughts are with Maria and her one day old girl, my funny bone was tickled by my friend Sarah's description of her 30-something, pregnant-tummied self as the only female at a workshop on graphic novels (she said all the other participants were young, pale, geeky boys), my tastebuds are looking forward to curried cauliflower soup for lunch, and my heart is feeling full of anticipation of a good summer with hot weather, manifold superb salads, lots of babies and daily river swims. *contented sigh*
Posted on 16 October, 2005 | 10:26am | 0 comments |
growing up with 'simplicity'
Friday 14 October, 2005
I like the colour-coordination and composition of Jenny's entry. It has poise and grace.
***
Thanks for your comments on yesterday's post - please keep them coming; it is an interesting discussion.
I was thinking last night about how I grew up with a lot of the voluntary simplicity concepts, before I knew such a thing existed! In my family and community's case, it was born out of necessity. I grew up in a small, semi-rural town where most of the inhabitants (including my Dad) were employed at the local freezing works (meat processing plant). So it was, and still is, a 'working class' town and there wasn't a lot of money around.
'Voluntary Simplicity'-type things that happened in my childhood were:
-lots of handmade and homemade; my mother sewed, knitted, embroidered, gardened, made pottery and made preserves
-working bees; a 'working bee' is like an Amish 'barn-raising'; if a family needed a concrete driveway laid down or a shed built or whatever, a bunch of (usually) Dads would get together and get to it and the family would make a big dinner and offer crates of beer for the workers at the end of the day and a party usually ensued.
-'green dollar' systems; people would swap skills. For example, my mother would sew in return for babysitting, my dad would help Norm across the road with his house maintenance and in return, Norm would give us vegetables from his garden etc.
-communal childcare; there was an informal, fun and (now that I'm a mama) enviable system of childcare. We were often getting picked up by our mother's friends from school because she was on some errand. There were often crowds of kids at our place, while their mothers went shopping or whatever. In those days (it seems now) people were less neurotic and we often roamed pretty free around the neighbourhood in a big pack, called home by my Dad's impressive whistle to some nutritionally questionable dinner like a huge pot of bright red saveloys eaten on spongy white bread with green picallili and washed down with sugary cordial.
-'making your own fun'; we were only allowed to watch TV after school if the weather was wet, otherwise we were chucked outside for bike rides or explorations down by the creek (yep, we were given free license to play unattended down at the creek from the age of about seven - dodgy? I dunno. I wouldn't let my two do it, but are they going to be better off for it?) Another alarming, 'Jack-Ass'-style anecdote is that we didn't have money for many fireworks at guy fawkes, so my Dad used to run a trail of gun powder around the block and set it alight. Woo hoo! That baby went UP!
-no credit; my parents used to save up their money for any big ticket purchases, and they would start to save money for the next summer holidays as soon as we returned from the current one. This seems so weird in our instant credit society, but also sort of admirable.
-and one more thing; we were only given things like toys and books on our birthdays and at Christmas. Writing this I realise I'm always giving Willoughby things (second hand books; boxes of crayons; op-shop toys... does this mean he doesn't appreciate gifts? Perhaps it does.)
When I was studying anthropology at university (the first person in my family's history to make it to university! oh, the pressure!) my lecturer found out where I was from and she got really excited and said "I did my Phd on the 'informal green dollar currency system' of that area!". Weird, huh?! Before she said that, I'd never really thought about or valued what went on there.
All of this has started me thinking...maybe it isn't so much 'voluntary simplicity' that I crave?
Maybe reading those books just set me off on a huge wave of nostalgia for my childhood?
And by the way, is it just my rose-tinted lenses, or did summers in the 70s in NZ seem hotter, longer and more heady than they are these days?
Posted on 14 October, 2005 | 7:47am | 0 comments |
voluntary simplicity
Thursday 13 October, 2005
(no sock picture today because I've got so much to say for myself ...)
I've been reading a lot lately about the 'voluntary simplicity' movement. It really appeals, and I'm going to try and head more that way. Here is a definition, in case you haven't come across it before:
"Voluntary simplicity is a lifestyle considered by its adherents to be a sustainable, ecologically sensitive alternative to the typical, western consumerist lifestyle. The term "downshifting" is often used to describe the act of moving toward a lifestyle based on voluntary simplicity
People who practice voluntary simplicity act consciously to reduce their need for purchased services or goods and, by extension, their need to sell their time for money. Quite often, this means that people who practise this lifestyle must do many things for themselves, such as gardening and cooking, sewing, and constructing or maintaining a home.
There are some people who have successfully applied voluntary simplicity techniques to allow them to live on an income of only a few thousand dollars a year. However, it is important to note that money is not the major reason to practise this lifestyle. Most do it to improve their quality of life in one of many dimensions: financial, spirituality, interpersonal relationships, family, etc."
For me, there are so many reasons to head this way, especially important are the spiritual, economic and environmental reasons. I also want to feel like I 'own' my life; I have been trapped in jobs I hated and in debt I couldn't service before, and it isn't a happy place.
I also want my children to grow up in an environment where they see that material wealth isn't the key to happiness, that they can be self-sufficient (in practical, spiritual and emotional senses) without needing to buy or attain things to fill any voids, and where 'success' is measured by the ability to find joy in small things daily, rather than climbing a career ladder or accumulating the most stuff.
There is a lot I have to wrestle with first. I am not as 'handy' and practical as I wish I were, so I need to overcome that and learn to DIY around the house a lot more than I do.
Clothes! I love clothes and have far more than I need and am always buying, swapping, attaining more. They are often from op-shops or cheap chain shops, but the fact is, I don't need most of what I have. Which leads me to...
'Retail therapy'. Although my 'drug of choice' is second hand shopping, I recognise that if I'm feeling low, I shop to cheer myself up. I often buy things I don't really need. It's not so much about the money, as it is usually only a few dollars at a time. I would just like to have the inner strength to 'sit with' my 'negative' feelings and let them do what they need to do, rather than 'squashing/distracting' them with shopping!
Which leads me to 'Craft/making stuff' - I was talking about the craft movement with my friend Sarah the other day. On one hand the crafty movement is SO AMAZING because it is about reclaiming 'womens' arts' and making stuff for yourself and it can be lo-fi and punk-rock and cool...but then, at its extreme end, isn't it again about accumulating MORE STUFF?? And does it then turn into, instead of buying more stuff than you need, MAKING more stuff than you need? How many weird stuffed toys do we need? How many cute tote bags? How many tablecloth skirts? Or is this just mean-spirited and grumpy? What do you think?
And popular culture...I'm a pop culture junkie, not in terms of nasty celebrity nonsense, but music, fashion, zeitgeisty stuff. While I'm not super-fashionable or whatever, I like urban culture, I like knowing what is going on in art/fashion/design/music. Can you employ voluntary simplicity AND surf the pop culture wave? Or does one cancel out the other?
But anyway, one step at a time. I'm going to start by increasing the production of my vegetable garden, gearing up for a big spring clean and purge after my marking finishes, and trying to get Willoughby (not the most daring child) to ride a two-wheeler so we can start cycling around the city as a family. Little steps, right?
Posted on 13 October, 2005 | 11:59am | 5 comments |
forget-me-not
Wednesday 12 October, 2005
Michelle's entry wins the "no-snail-was-harmed-in-the-taking-of-this-photo" and "inventive use of an invertabret" awards.
***
This is a fanciful little story, but I'm a fanciful kinda girl, so bear with me.
There have been so many awful catastrophes in the news lately; there's the tsunami, the London bombings, Hurricane Katrina in the States, the second Bali bombing and last weekend, the earthquake in Pakistan. I was almost coping with it all, until the earthquake and then I found myself switching the radio off, averting my eyes from those pages in the newspaper...it was like I couldn't take one more picture of a distraught person who has lost everything.
Then yesterday, I was gardening. It was the first sunny day after weeks of rain. The ground was wet and boggy. The sun felt like a gift, warm on my back. Magnus was asleep in the pram and the neighbours fluffy white cat was keeping me company and I felt so lucky to have the luxury and the leisure to be gardening in my own backyard with the sun shining and the prospect of avacado on toast for lunch.
Then, pulling oxalis weed out of my trees I noticed literally hundreds of tiny self-seeded forget-me-nots under the trees and bushes hidden from view. So I got my trowel and started to dig them up to transplant into the flower beds and into the sun.
Then it struck me that they were FORGET-ME-NOTS and suddenly it seemed symbolic that I should have found them.
In buddhism, there is a notion called 'loving-kindness' where you focus on a person or people while you meditate and send them all the love and warmth and positivity you can muster. So I decided to 100% focus on the people suffering in Pakistan, and while I re-planted the forget-me-nots, tucking them into the warm soil, I sent them all the loving-kindness I could. I thought about the parents who had lost children, the children who had lost parents, the injured, the dead, the homeless, the jobless...and I just sat with that and tried not to let it overwhelm me.
Now my garden is a sea of tiny blue flowers. It wasn't millions of dollars of aid, it wasn't fresh water or food or tents. But I did what I could and I hope it helped a little. It certainly helped me.
How lucky we are to have the gift of each day. How insignificant our small, neurotic itchings are in the face of catastrophes like this one. Forget-them-not.
Posted on 12 October, 2005 | 9:51am | 2 comments |
sinking in
Tuesday 11 October, 2005
Erin's entry wins the 'Cutest shoes in the world' Award! (Not an actual award, more a virtual award.)
***
You know the vegetarianism is sinking in to your core when:
a) you start rescuing drowning worms from deep puddles after rain storms
b) veganism no longer seems like an extreme view
c) you start wrestling with the ethics of your leather shoes
d) you accidentally suck a wee spider up the vacum cleaner, and feel genuine regret
Posted on 11 October, 2005 | 6:48am | 1 comments |
losing my religion
Monday 10 October, 2005
I'll post a different sock comp entry every day until I run out. Today's is a beautiful shot by Brandi, of her daughter. I like how atmospheric and intimate it is.
***
Here's a wee poem I wrote after dropping Willo at school this morning:
MORNING WALK
Startled by a man
yelling "Hope!" and "Faith!"
across the field
until two fuschia pink-clad girls
tumble out of the trees at the edge
of the playgroud and run towards him
my morning messiah becomes
a frustrated Papa, his human prophecies
late for school
Posted on 10 October, 2005 | 11:04am | 0 comments |
2005 stripy sock studio photo competition results
Sunday 9 October, 2005
Finally, after much hair-tearing, eye-rubbing, consultation with co-art-director (husband) and agonising here they are...
Thank you with all my heart to everyone who entered the competition. It was so lovely to get your emails and wonderful pictures. It was extremely difficult to choose only three winners and I really wish I was super-rich and could go out and get socks for everyone who entered! If you didnít win, I hope you had fun entering. Iíll be featuring different sock competition shots on the daily blog over the next month or so, so keep checking in! After that, all competition shots will be in the gallery and its gonna look so great, thanks to y'all!
But, letís cut to the chase (why do I feel like Iím at the Oscars while Iím writing this?) the winners of the first ever Stripy Sock Studio Photo Competition 2005 are:
Stripy Sock Urban: Bernadette
I like the saturated colours of this shot, the close angle and the composition. Is it just me, or does this shot have an air of sweet melancholy? Bernadette's photo shows a true appreciation of the boundless lovely intimacies of wearing a stripy sock. (That sounds a bit creepy, I didn't mean it to!) Congratulations, Bernadette!
Stripy Sock Nature: Charlotte
Again, the first thing that struck me about this shot was the colours. The photo has quirk and appeal and I thought it was cheering, somehow. (A cool 'back story' about this shot is that these beautiful homemade socks were all knitted by Charlotte's grandmother, now in her 80s.) Well done, Charlotte!
Stripy Sock Superhero: Amanda
The only photoshopped entry! This shot wins the superhero category because it shows imagination, inspiration and it made me giggle a lot when I first saw it. Amanda also sent in another highly amusing entry, which I will reveal at a later date. Go, Amanda!
Sock winners - I'll be mailing your socks out to you this week! :)
To everyone who entered, you all shine like stars and you rock, which makes you ROCKSTARS! Thanks again, and endlesslyÖxxxxxxx Helenski xxxxxxxxxx
Posted on 09 October, 2005 | 1:05pm | 3 comments |
recent notable dreams
Saturday 8 October, 2005
Lately, my dreams are so good I feel annoyed when I wake:
I dream that I see Sarah striding up The Terrace looking like an urban bandita. Orange shawl, pistols, black fedora, cowgirl boots, smoking a fat Havana cigar.
I dream I set up a printing press in the backyard and print the most exceptional book in the world. It has lots of recipes and herbal remedies and poems and people say they feel they need never buy another book, after reading it.
I dream Maria has her baby and integrates it into her life without a ripple. I call her up and she says, "Oh yeah, the baby. I had it on Thursday. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, it went okay" as though she were talking about an afternoon out.
I dream I live in a house built half on land and half on a river. When I wake I am blinded by the golden light of the sun glaring off the water and the room smells of fennel and onion weed. I sleep in my swimming togs.
I dream I bake a cake and when we cut into it, frogs leap out.
I dream I win in a competition a large buddha made from turquoise. We hire a crane to get it into our lounge. When I rub its big toe, $2 coins fall out of its mouth.
Posted on 08 October, 2005 | 9:41am | 1 comments |
bag ladies for positive change
Thursday 6 October, 2005
This wonderful, inspiring story has been in the news this week. It really struck me how rarely stuff in the mainstream news is positive! Collingwood is a small town. Wouldn't it be great if a whole city did this? I can imagine supermarkets and food stores getting behind it, but it is hard to imagine boutiques and bookstores etc giving up their glossy plastic bags, which are all about 'brand identity' and free advertising:
COLLINGWOOD BECOMES PLASTIC BAG FREE
On Tuesday October the 4th, the South Island town of Collingwood will be the first to go plastic shopping bag free in New Zealand.
The retailers of Collingwood have taken the plunge and are no longer stocking plastic shopping bags, instead they are offering boxes, paper and cloth bags and encouraging the locals to bring their own. "Collingwood is a pioneering town, always has been, and still is." said Paddy Gillooly, owner of Farewell Spit Eco Tours, "This is a good thing for Collingwood, with a positive environmental impact".
Food Centre co-owner Col Thorne commented "the time is right for us to do it now, particularly with the price of oil going up" This brave step stems from the Golden Bay Bag Ladies' campaigning, which has also resulted in a sharp reduction in the numbers of plastic shopping bags used in Golden Bay.
They are thrilled with the news that all the Collingwood retailers are standing together to get rid of the wasteful, ubiquitous plastic shopping bag and hope that other kiwi communities will be inspired to follow Collingwood's lead.
Posted on 06 October, 2005 | 7:13am | 2 comments |
I know, I know, three blog entries in one day...
Wednesday 5 October, 2005
As much as I try to avoid engaging in the endless capitalist treadmill of 'needing' to buy stuff to feel fufilled and all that... we op-shopped for nearly two hours! Luckily, Willo loves op shops too! We stopped at a horrid, but handy cafe and the only vegetarian thing in the whole place was hot chips, so we shared a plate and then steeled ourselves for the freezing and blustery walk back.
So:
One copy of 'The Witch's Daughter' by Nina Bawden, illustrated by Shirley Hughes (I love Shirley Hughes' art - it takes me straight back to being seven years old.)
One vintage 'Animals of Australia' tablecloth
One vintage 'Native Birds of New Zealand' tea-towel
One old, framed tapestry (It says on the back "To Edie, Loving thoughts for all your kindness to your auld freen, Bonny. 6 Sept. 1960" and then, in different handwriting. "Tapestry worked by my mother, M.Boniface nee. Mackenzie, aged 86 years.") Is 'auld freen' Scottish for 'Old Friend' do you think? And isn't it cute that M.Boniface, nee Mackenzie got called 'Bonny', obviously a play on her married surname? What did the 'M' stand for? Maude? Margaret? Mildred?)
One home-crafted chick-lady pot-holder. Isn't she cute? She has a "Mammy" kerchief and earrings! So weird! yet so cute.
Also, for the boys (not pictured)
one bag of 'lucky dip' art supplies, which contained paints, stencils, stickers, felts, crayons, coloured pencils, paintbrushes and a kid's art apron with a rainbow on it.
one wooden alphabet game
two cute melamine picnic plates with dragonflies and flowers on them (is it possible there will be picnic weather again?)
one hot pink steamroller
later, we're all feeling a lot more cheerful. Total spend? $12. Woo hoo!
Thanks be to the op-shop goddess...when she giveth, she giveth generously.
Posted on 05 October, 2005 | 12:10pm | 0 comments |
in case anyone in NZ thought I was being overly dramatic about the weather...
Wednesday 5 October, 2005
Welcome to spring in Palmerston North!
Posted on 05 October, 2005 | 8:01am | 1 comments |
in search of grace
Wednesday 5 October, 2005
Here's how a fed-up mama gets through a dark spot:
Post a picture of the pink flowers you bought yourself for your birthday, to remind you of beauty and grace.
Sip coffee, your second and it's only 8.25 a.m. Plan to drink more and forget the vows to detox for 'spring'.
Put 'spring' in quotation marks, because it is f**kn' freezing. Your hands are like ice and yesterday it hailed all day.
Eye the pile of marking. Roll your eyes. Look away. Last night you stayed up until 10.30 marking and the thought of doing more today is making you nauseous.
Decide to stop teaching creative writing for a living, because it makes you start to hate creative writing in all forms, including your own work. Acknowledge as this thought passes that you say this every year, but every year you go back to it, because when it isn't awful, its great.
Let your kid watch morning TV, even though most mornings he's not allowed to. Consistency-schmonsistency.
You must do a blog entry. It will give you a sense of achievement, like you are some kind of creative person. Like your life isn't all work and bum-wiping and cooking and these four walls.
Vow to eat something more nutritionally balanced than toast today.
Pray that the slug Willoughby just found in the bathroom is not dampness related.
Decide to leave it all behind. Brave the weather. Bundle up the kids and go for a walk. Indulge in some $10 retail therapy at the op-shop, allowing your kid to buy more plastic crap that he doesn't need and allowing yourself to buy whatever the hell takes your fancy.
Quote Le Tigre: Get off the internet. Keep on Living.
Posted on 05 October, 2005 | 7:22am | 0 comments |
avocado
Tuesday 4 October, 2005
I am eating avocado. It is my special treat. Fraser and Willo don't like it, so I get to eat it all by myself. This avocado cost far too much money, but it was perfectly ripe so I splashed out. You are appraising me with that expressionless, intense stare babies have. I stare back.
I feel sad today. Hassled, harried, harrased. You stare and it is like you see that about me. You have a compassionate stare. You are what people call an "old soul".
I stare back. My eyes blur with tears. You reach and take the piece of avocado off my fork. You taste it, considering the texture, squishing the creaminess through your five teeth until you have green foam around your mouth. I find this endearing because I am your mother. Anyone else would grimace. You reach and touch my face: "Mah! Mah! Mah! Mah!" you say. Yep, Mama, that's me. I smile. I have to remember that the mama stuff comes first, screw the rest. Just the way you stare can make me feel better. Then you reach for more avocado. You are my ally, my confidante, my cushion. And you don't even speak yet.
Looks like I will share my avocados from now on. I like to share. Thank you, little avocado-eating-zen-child for the look you gave that saved me today.
Posted on 04 October, 2005 | 8:11am | 1 comments |
stripy sock competition - submission date extension
Monday 3 October, 2005
Here's the deal.
The competition 'officially' ended last Friday. I went away for the weekend and this week is the second week of the school holidays, plus I have muchos work to do, so I can't see myself getting to the judging until this weekend. Therefore, if you wanted to submit an entry and didn't quite get to it yet, please go for it. I'll extend the competition until THIS FRIDAY, which is October 7th. Judging will take place over the weekend and results will be posted NEXT MONDAY, which is October 10th.
Thanks to all of you who have entered thus far. You are all rock stars!
(Stripy feet above belong to one Sarah Laing of Wellington, New Zealand. Not an entry, just a great 'archival' photo!)
Posted on 03 October, 2005 | 2:07pm | 0 comments |
without the trying, what is there?
Monday 3 October, 2005
You know how sometimes you read a book and you feel like it's a mirror? Like you are looking into a version of your own life? I'm reading a book like that right now. I'm half-way through and so far (this is a terrible 'review' cliche, but hell, it's true!) I've laughed out loud, I've cried and I've boiled with empathetic anger. The book is 'Breeder: Real Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers'. It's another book from the inspiring 'hip mama' Ariel Gore.
I submitted an essay for consideration for this book - it got rejected, so for a long time I was feeling too curmudgeonly about the book to buy it. (Probably only other writers will understand this unreasonable and immature sentiment!) But I'm over it now, and I bought it on the weekend. Its proving to be one of those books that tests the family's patience, because when I ought to be paying attention to puzzle-doing, colouring-in and train-track building, I'm immersed in the book going "Sorry...wha?....huh?...sorry, did you say something?"
Here is one of the many quotations from the book that has had me going "YEAH!" out loud and punching the air. But it is reading about other mothers like this one that gives me faith, gives me strength and reminds me that I am a writer and it IS worth the struggle...without my creative hopes and dreams, what is there?:
"It is not always so easy to intergrate my artistic aspirations with my regular mama life. It is difficult to write with a small boy and an infant daughter. I sometimes catch a glimpse of myself: a woman digging around for a pen and paper, balancing a baby on her hip, calling frantically for her son to climb down off the counter "and leave the peanut butter alone, please!" striving to remember that one perfect poetic line as the dirty dishes breed in the sink. And I wonder why I don't let something go, lighten my load and make the journey a little easier. Of course, it couldn't be the baby, who would tumble to the ground witout my arm securely around her. And it couldn't be my son, who would surely kill himself if not for my vigilant watch. I know the only something I could get rid of would be my oddly strung bits of words and rhythm; yet I cling to them like a drowning woman. (The dishes, however, get the shaft.) ...There are always things I ought to be doing other than writing...I hunch over my desk, one ear strained for the baby's cry, the other tuned to the inner rhythm I attend to when I write. The pull between these desires creates a powerful tension withing which I am able to work and to live. I can give myself to my writing because of the power I draw from mothering."
-Sherry Thompson
Now I'd better get my head outta the clouds and go be mama - it's after 9am and we're all still in our PJs, the breakfast dishes are in the sink and the baby still has his night nappy on. I have more marking to do, an idea for a short story burning in the back of my brain and two sons to entertain, feed and keep happy. And so the juggling act begins afresh each day...
Posted on 03 October, 2005 | 7:14am | 5 comments |