one of the best balls in the air

Thank you so much for your comments on my post yesterday. It seems there are lots of us, passionate, interested, throwing all those bright balls in the air! It means a lot to me to hear your words, as always.

I love the sense of community and connection this blog brings, and that's one of the sweetest reasons I throw it up in the air with the other spinning, golden balls. Even though all around me many things need to be done and Regular Life keeps coming up and saying, "Oh, really? You want to do all that? Those dreams are pretty and all, but here's some other stuff to juggle, and they're not remotely as fine."

Because I forgot to mention that less than glamorous ball (or balls! There are so many!)—Everyday Life. Actually these balls are  sometimes more like buzzing pellets, and sometimes like cannon balls. Aren't they? In fact, sometimes they don't so much get juggled as whirl around your head missile-like. "Oy!" They shout. "Try and get me done before I come'n wallop ya!"

Other balls, small and metallic, zip around and snicker. The lumbering cannon balls just hover.

You know all those balls, right? I don't even need to list them. They aren't all bad. You can enjoy that moment you are hanging the washing, when the sun is filtering through the trees, when the birds are calling. You've got these colourful pegs in your hand; the day is just beginning. Or going grocery shopping. Again not so bad when you've got two bouncety kids on either side of the cart, making you laugh. Or the paying of bills, in that moment when you notice you have FIFTY whole dollars to put into the Dream of Going to Italy Fund. Lovely.

You can always make the ordinary shine, after all.

But sometimes one of the new balls, first a zipping, mischevious, roly-poly ball, the ball that is our kitten and her crazy antics, becomes a lumping clumping unmanageable cannonball. She has done so many insane things, but the worst of all has been the trashing of our living room carpet (think: wee and more wee) so much that it needs to be replaced.

Cost! Smell! Stress! Cost! Worry that we'll replace it and she'll keep doing it! More stress! Cost!

The worry of it has become kind of overwhelming. There I've said it. Me with the Flip Side and the Finding the Joy, has become a little unravelled over the behaviour of my kitten. Yeah. The kitten missile walloped me.

So much so that I dropped a really beautiful ball on Saturday.

I was so consumed with the Stuff, the looking for new carpet, the grocery shopping, the worry over finding balance, the whizz and whirl of everything

that I forgot to take my girl to a birthday party.

The party of one of our dearest friends.

A truly sweet, bright, inquisitive, beautiful girl. Who doesn't get dozens of parties—this one was very special.

I simply forgot to go.

My head was crammed full—and I dropped something finer than all those things.

And I'm so sorry for that.



And the dropping of something so lovely says to me:

It's too crowded up there. Some of these balls need to come down.

Or be managed better. Or have more breathing in between. More clarity. More Simple. More Less.


Somehow I need to find a clear, clean path.


And I will find the positive.

I'll breathe in and breathe deeply. And find the joy.

I'm already finding it. We are taking our friend out for an afternoon of cake and pampering, somewhere fancy, somewhere special. The kids can't wait. I can't wait. This dear girl is as much my friend as my kids'.

And I already have a post written that's brimming with goodness, brimming with the joy of learning. Just dancing. Just waiting to be put here.

But I wanted to mention this first. Because this matters too. So much!

Friendship is priceless, precious, glorious.

It matters.

It is one of the brightest, best balls to have in the air.



.

all of me

There are so many of me.

There is my core, first off.

The person who, without hesitation,

knows she is a mother and wife

pacifist

nature lover and joy finder

dreamer.

Then, 

there all the things I am and want to be and want to be good at.

These things are all precious to me,

but sometimes, 

I don't know what to focus on.

It's like I have all these dreams

and all these things that nourish me

and I don't know which one to pick.

These things

sometimes get tangled. 

They wrestle with each other

in my thoughts at night.

They say, Me first! Me now! Me always 

and to the exclusion of all others!

But how am I supposed to choose between my dreams?

I have always wanted to be a published story writer

but I also love writing my blog 

(and reading the blogs of others who inspire me)

so I often spend the hours 

I could be writing my fiction or sending out my work,

 here in BlogLand instead.

I have always dreamed of running writers workshops for children

but as I build that dream, 

it moves into the time we spend together, our homeschool time,

or the time I could spend writing.

Each dream pushes at the other dreams 

and I think at night,

There's not enough time!

Then sometimes,

 the branches of me

tussle with the core of me.

Like, my writing might take me away from sweet, connected time with my husband

or, stressing about balancing all these wants

affects how I 

am as a mother.

Sometimes,

not realising every one of my dreams

messes with my

finding of joy.

And that is hard.

So what to do?

Do I pick one thing?

Do I focus with all my heart and all my energy

on one dream, 

to be sure I realise it and do it well?

I am so drawn to that idea sometimes.

I think of homeschooling and my heart fills.

I think of writing and my heart wants.

I think of working with children and my heart smiles.

I think of focussing on one, and I feel peace 

and loss 

in equal measure.

Because I can't imagine giving up a single one of my dreams.

(especially homeschooling. especially writing.

especially guiding young writers)

So, 

do I keep juggling instead?

Because the juggling brings unexpected, deep, happiness.

A blog post might resonate with my true writer, mother, dreamer self.

A child might move me almost to tears in writers workshop.

We might have a day of pure Flow, a day of homeschooling so good I feel like skipping down the street, hollering and whooping, my arms out like wings. 

I might send off a story for the first time in years and feel just. so. fine. afterwards.

I might have an interview to be a creative writing teacher 

and feel such joy from connecting with like-minded spirits.

Each branch feeds the others,

each dream 

building on the other

until I'm

a rustle and tangle 

of

 thought. 

inspiration.

 fulfillment.

Until my heart smiles and fills and wants 

all at once.

And I 

finally sleep to the whisper of leaves.

first days of term

It's a new term! I love the start of a new school term; it reinforces everything I cherish about our choice to homeschool.

I love that on Thursday, at 9am (just as bells were ringing State-wide to start the school term), I was in my pyjamas, making chocolate crepes for my kids.

Yum!

I love that on the first day of term, we played the entire day.

Friends came over and the kids did role-playing games with their toys, scootered to the park, ate a picnic lunch at the playground and scootered home just in time to go to Homeschool group. (For more playing!)

from my phone…
the specks in this picture are
4 kids scootering madly down the street!

I love that yesterday my son recited a page-long list of all the things he wanted to get done this term, then sat for ages reading on the couch with the kitten on his lap.

I love that my girl went straight to her desk (the desk she loves and lives at) and started writing and drawing and making. Like she does every single day of her life :)

Then the kids explored an Iron Age game on the internet,
played a maths game with me,
then hopped out to the Art Gallery for our new committment—art workshops, run by a dear friend.

Our first days felt so organic. So right.

Living and learning naturally.

Living days of Flow.

(and days of Tricky too—because even on an "I love homeschool" day like yesterday you can get a parking ticket, your boy slips on a driveway and wallops his butt, and your kitten gets into, and wrecks, a brand new loaf of bread. This is when you breathe, and breathe deeply. And continue listing all that's good).

I love being with my homeschooling friends, talking about everything under the sun—from educational philosophies to what music we're listening to, and what we're having for dinner tonight. They're such an enthusiastic, devoted, supportive bunch. It feeds my heart to be around them.

I love learning creatively. Passionately. Wholeheartedly.

I love being different. Alternative and unusual and curious and special.

(and there's a kind of magic in every one of those words. Isn't there?)

I love that our first days of term

looked a lot like our days of not-term!

And every day felt…

all-the-way-through, right-to-our-very-bones,

just right.


.

Camping Trip: the last bits

 the sand the sea the lake the sky the fire 

my family

the light! the peace! 

my centre. 

(And now that I've been re-calibrated

renewed and re-energised, I'll get back to writing 

about something else beside this camping trip! 

This wonderful, clear, bright time.)

chain of shells

I shall make a chain of shells she said

and the boy said Ah

and the girl said Oh

and the two said Me too

(though the girl couldn't help herself and made

an owl instead!)

They

found shells in perfect quarter circles

strewn around the dune—

a bird's finished meal 

they thought

(she imagined it sitting 

back and 

rubbing its tummy with its feathery wings, 

maybe loosening its belt a notch

or two).

The sand

was linked 

with white by white

like the souls of the things

that used to live inside

were holding hands.

Camping Trip: Part II

Once Upon A Time!

A family was camping, and had had two beautiful days out in the sunshine. But it was time to move on. Time, in fact, for Day Three.

3.

We packed up (and oh, it takes a long time to pack up camp!), and went up North.

North to the place I went as a child with my family, when my family was intact; where I then went as a young adult with my father and my grandmother for Christmas, and years later visited as an adult with my then-boyfriend and University friends.

Ah. That's a long ribbon of history. I was about to add another bright bead to it. A visit with my husband and kids.

As we turned up the road into the National Park I thought, But it's paved!

Because when I was a kid, the road was all dirt and pock-marked and we'd bounce through the ruts in our little Suzuki van. And when a car came towards us, dirt cloud flying, we'd scramble to shut our windows, singing out, "Close all windows, Emergency Call!" Always with the same singsong sound. 

You could begin to see the Dunes rising up behind the trees to our right. I said to my kids, Look! Look! They glanced up from their wild role-playing game with their toys, said, Cool! and returned to their game.

But I remember as a child just staring, and gaping, and thinking, They're so big! So big! 

We checked out camp grounds, wanting to find one with a fireplace

because when I was a child we had a fire. 

And found a campsite, just by the lake. A little way off from the water, in a fenced off area set up for three groups of campers.

And I remembered that when I was a child, we drove up and parked right next to the water. There were no cordoned off camping spaces, just the natural space the trees made. We nestled our little tent in between the trees and woke to the lapping sound of lakewater. 

I went down to the water's edge

and the lake, and the trees leaning out, looked exactly the same as they did when I was a child.

 

It was stunning. I thought, I think we're camping in the same place! It looked just like it. There was one tree especially that called to me; it curved out over the water like the dipped neck of a swan.

And suddenly I could picture my sister and I clambering out over that tree. My sister, always the more daring one, always went further, while I watched, delighted. 

She and I explored every tree near our campsite, climbed along them (or up!). We were daredevil explorers then. The whole campsite was our glorious wilderness.

A little while later, I went off to the nearby enviro-toilets. They were a marvel. They were completely clean and odourless; they were the latest in pit-toilet, nature-loo technology. I was very impressed! (As impressed as you can be, by a loo).

And I remembered that as a child, I was given a shovel and toilet paper…

hmm…

enough said? 

After setting up camp, it was time to collect some wood for the fire. For some reason I missed the sign that said, "Please don't use the wood from the Park; the grubs and insects and earth need it." I saw that the next day and we promptly went and bought firewood. But on this day, I was still living in my memories, where

my father and mother would drive up and down the dirt road and we'd spot firewood lying on the ground. We'd gather huge armfuls, and pile the wood into the back of our little van.  I remember chopping it up back at camp, with our bright, sharp axe. 

So we did the same. We drove along and tried to find wood, and my husband crackled about in the bushes in his boots. We found one beauty, a long, thin fallen treetrunk. We thought we could jump on it to snap it. No go. We tried leaning it on the car and breaking off a piece. Nup. We tried running it over with the car! It would not budge. By this time my husband and I were laughing so hard we were bent over. The kids thought we were nuts. Then my husband got into the car, leaned over and picked up the trunk, somehow juggled it so he was holding it with a single hand outside the driver window, and drove back to the campsite, pulling the tree along with him.

We must have looked like crazy people!!

And the whole time I could see my parents in the front of the van, talking and laughing. The wood piled up behind us. My sister beside me. Sun shining. 

Then it was time to visit the Dunes.

We drove to the beach access path. I actually felt butterflies. Would it be the same? Would my children like it? Would the dunes be as big?

Why, yes. 

Yes, it was.

Yes, they did.

Yes, they were.

And I remembered sliding down the dunes with my sister, wild haired and laughing…

Walking up to the dunes with my grandmother. She with her stick. My dad and I holding kites, ready to launch them into the wind.

Striding along endless waves of sand with my university friends, carting surfboards in the bright sun, under the bluest sky.

I remembered.

The pictures flashed up, one after another. Like my history was standing beside me, watchful and precious, like tissue paper pictures, placed delicately over one other.

And then,

we made our own memories. Made new pictures. Made another layer of sweet history.

And the Past smiled. 

finding spirit

There are many days I could sit quietly and think…

about what spirit is, for me.

So many holy days to spark contemplation, so many people pausing.

Today, Easter Sunday, is one such day. A deeply important day, in this part of the world and others.

If I lived in Morocco,

Israel,

Tibet,

or the Sudan,

the days to pause, the holy moments, might be different.

Perhaps I'd find people dancing and calling out their name for God,

or kneeling towards Mecca,

or praying in a synagogue,

or quietly meditating in a room, high in the mountains.

(I know I'd find this happening here in Australia too, if I looked.) 

All of these people would be resonating. Finding their spirit. Their song. The path that feels truest to them. 

All these ways, these days, this kaleidoscope of faith,

are 

beautiful to me. 

We were watching the sunset the other day, looking over a lake that I loved as a child.

We stood high, high on a sand dune, the sea behind us, the lake before us. The sun dipped lower and lower over faraway hills.

Out of the blue, I said to my husband, "Who decides when Easter is? The date is always different."

He didn't have an answer straight away. I turned back and watched how the falling sun changed the light. The hills waited, infinite layers of blue. Tiny birds darted through the bushes. Called to each other, nestled into the trees. Larger birds coasted the twilight wind, their wings out like palms of the hand, held upward.

And then I said, "I wonder what those hills are." 

Thinking to myself, Are they part of the National Park? They are so beautiful. They seem to go on and on.

And my husband said, "Perhaps the Church?"

In that moment, I thought he meant the hills. I had already forgotten my question a minute earlier. 

In that moment, I thought, Yes. 

It felt so true to me. 

Of course. The hills are the church. 

And the sky all around. 

And the birds calling, the sun dipping, the light changing, 

the water in the distance, so still, and fading into blue grey. 

And the sound of the surf behind me, purring, holding me up with its hand warm on my back. 

This, here, is my church. This is where my spirit feels truest. 

My feet on the sand, rooted into the Now, into this moment. This view. These sounds. These trees, this life, this sky, this sea. The living, breathing, vibrating, resonating natural world. 

My spirit is here. This is my worshipful space. 

And I felt such peace. 

Such connection.

Such joy. 

On this day, and on others, where the spirit rises and holds you, 

wherever you are, 

however your spirit sings,

I wish you beauty, peace, and love.