tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7603849433862157222024-03-13T14:04:08.696+11:00 respect. love. learning. finding joy… living respectfully… learning creatively… with my beautiful familyHelenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.comBlogger351125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-25414246699488007292016-03-13T11:07:00.002+11:002016-03-13T11:08:55.323+11:00a new blog home and a heartfelt thank you <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh8PRkaSds_JN-dn7MR43OjRh-LgGW_UB-jLBS0aHg31U2tFwp37oazEbnaB2WoP3iMhLxo28YKFkbkRtnp8cxtuJYDlo26AV-CCWRvudZweh4y62KRxA1kp2gjpvdOKO6doY-t0e8JZO4/s1600/12524282_10153839712121236_6904317345624151840_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh8PRkaSds_JN-dn7MR43OjRh-LgGW_UB-jLBS0aHg31U2tFwp37oazEbnaB2WoP3iMhLxo28YKFkbkRtnp8cxtuJYDlo26AV-CCWRvudZweh4y62KRxA1kp2gjpvdOKO6doY-t0e8JZO4/s640/12524282_10153839712121236_6904317345624151840_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Hello to all the beautiful people who visit and have visited this blog for the the past six years. I have had this blog for so long…it has been a wonderful little home for me. I have made lifelong friendships because of it. I have felt supported and heard and loved by everyone who has read my posts, left comments, and let me know in real life what my words have meant to them. Thank you so much for all your words of encouragement and love. I am so grateful.<br />
<br />
In this blog, I wrote my discoveries about parenting and homeschooling. I documented the simple days of my life, my struggles and my celebrations. I wrote about loss and about dealing with serious clinical depression. And I wrote about finding the joy, holding onto it when you find it.<br />
<br />
I love this blog and all the growth and hope and joy it represents. Now, I am ready to move into a new space, one that shows my new journeys, as a writer and a creative writing mentor, and yes, as a mother and a dreamer looking always for light.<br />
<br />
I hope you might join me in my new space? You can find me at <a href="http://helenafoxdunan.com/">helenafoxdunan.com</a>. It would be really lovely to see you there. I promise there will be a lot of photos of the ocean, as the sea is my oxygen, and I love to share what helps me breathe.<br />
<br />
Much love to you all!<br />
<br />
<br />Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com63tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-45459997270805548802015-11-26T15:12:00.000+11:002015-11-26T18:57:53.263+11:00my AnnaMy beautiful friend Anna died a week ago.<br />
<br />
She was in pain; she went to hospital; she was diagnosed with aggressive, advanced cancer; she weakened rapidly; and then she passed away.<br />
<br />
All in the space of two weeks.<br />
<br />
<br />
It is a lot to take in.<br />
<br />
It is like a hole opening out from under you. It is like the stars being blanked out.<br />
<br />
It feels a lot like the end of the world.<br />
<br />
<br />
But her story is a lot bigger and more beautiful than this.<br />
<br />
The story of Anna is about all the ways she lived and loved and inspired and created and healed and connected and transformed.<br />
<br />
It is about her last days…and all the days before.<br />
<br />
It is about how she is here now, living through us, and in spirit, everywhere.<br />
<br />
<br />
This is the eulogy I wrote for my darling Anna. I spoke it at her funeral service yesterday.<br />
<br />
I called it out, to all the wonderful people who loved her so very much, and to the world she loved back.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Eulogy for Anna<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Hello everybody.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Hello [Anna's children, Anna's husband]. Hello dear friends. Hello to Anna's Lay Carmelite family and all those she worked with at [the Hospital]. Hello to those
who cannot be here. Hello [Anna’s mum], and all of Anna’s loved ones in
Czech and India. Hello rolling hills of Jamberoo, which [Anna's daughter] tells me look
just like Anna’s village in Czech, where she grew up. Hello sky, hello trees
that Anna walked among, hello beautiful sea. Hello artists and thinkers. Healers,
makers, and companions. Hello <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">family</i>.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;">I have come to
tell you a story about Anna. It is my story, but it is also yours, because we
have loved Anna together, and we still do. Because we have been lucky enough to
share someone extraordinary.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">I want to start by
saying, that the last week I spent with Anna, was a lot like the hundreds of
moments I spent with her over the past ten years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">In those hospital
rooms, we spoke as we always had, in words of wonder and love, and delight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">We spoke about how
beautiful the world is. She had just told me she was leaving, but in the same
breaths she spoke about the sea. And of art and her family, and how fulfilled
she felt by the things she had done in her life. We talked about writing, colour,
and amazing sunsets. We shared our thoughts, our new ideas and we laughed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">At some point, as
we were smiling at each other, feeling so connected and so thankful, I said to
her, “It’s beautiful,” and then I paused and said, “I know that’s a strange
thing to say right now.” </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">But she nodded, and said emphatically, “But it is. It
is beautiful.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">That whole last
week, all I could feel was Anna’s serenity. Her acceptance, her love, her
peace. It radiated from her. Her serenity and her depth of spirit held me every
second I was with her, and not just during that last week, but as it always
had.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Anna has always
been the person who saw further and understood the world more deeply than
anyone I have ever met. Anna saw possibility, she made room for hope, she saw
endings as beginnings. She was true and real, and she looked for beauty
everywhere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">I hope you can
feel that and see that with me now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Anna meant the
world to me, and to my children. She was their mentor and our dear, dear friend.
We made and celebrated art with Anna almost every week for ten wonderful years.
She was our ‘understander’, our supporter, our inspiration. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">She was my kindred
spirit, my corner stone. </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anna was <i>light,</i> to me</span><span style="line-height: 200%;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">She was all those
changing forms of light, that you can’t always capture in a photograph. You can
try; you can get close, but the best way to understand light like hers, is to
stand quietly and breath it in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Anna was that
trembling, silvery light that comes off the sea in the morning. The rich, honey
light that pours into windows in the afternoon. The floating light of twilight,
the kind that feels like you’re suspended when you walk in it. She was the gentle
light that wakes flowers. She was the brave torch light that travels into caves,
despite the shadows. She was the dancing, electric light that comes with <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>storms, bright and filled with energy, and she
was the searching light that stands tall on headlands, reaching and exploring,
illuminating. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">She was my
laughing light, my true light. She was all the colours that light brings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">One of my
favourite memories of Anna was the morning she came to our house with an art
therapy idea she had. We were to be her test subjects, she said, to see if her
idea would work. So we filled these little squirt bottles with watery paint,
which we then squirted onto damp paper, turning the pages into these kaleidescopic
patterns of swirls and cosmic colours. We did page after page, and what I most
remember of that day was our laughter, and the running outside with our wet
pages to lay them on the lawn. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">The sun was so
rich that day, and Anna kept opening and shutting the sliding door, keeping an
eye out for our indoor cats, as we leaped out and in, out and in, laying the
pages on the singing grass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The day felt
filled with dancing. I can still see it, in technicolour. Anna’s smile was so
wide you could have fallen into it and been happy forever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">And Anna was peace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">She was my safe
space. She was that pocket of time every week, for years, that I could rest in,
where I knew I would be heard and loved and valued. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">She was the same for
my children. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And she was a safe space
for all the people she taught and shared her creative energy with, all the
lucky, lucky people who were guided by her. We all were safe in her hands. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">This is what my
son wrote about Anna, and shared with me last night: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">“Anna brought with
her peace, safety and joy, and an infectious excitement for art and creativity.
She taught me the technical skills to draw and paint, and gave me the courage
and inspiration to use my imagination.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Yes. YES.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">I remember early
on, when my children were very small, she told them, “There are no wrong lines.”
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">And because there
were no wrong lines, they could go anywhere. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">With Anna, you could
do anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You could be truthful,
strange, and fearless. You could experiment, you could imagine beyond, and
without borders. You could go <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">way</i> past
your comfort zone because here, walking or flying beside you, was Anna. Your
own personal guiding presence, your calm fellow traveller. Always offering encouragement,
suggestions, ideas. Telling you that you mattered, that your ideas were bright,
good things. And that your journey was your very own. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Can you imagine
the feeling this brings? The gift this is. I know you can, because I know she
gave that to you. In her friendships, in her work, in her parenting, and in her
marriage. She gave us all space to breathe. She gave us moments of inspiration.
She delighted and energised us. She held us, and gave us room to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">be</b>. </span><span style="line-height: 200%;">She gave us the
tools to see and love ourselves, and to heal.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">And, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">very importantly</i>, she gave — <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to herself, and to us</span> — her art.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She shared her truest stories. She told,
through her art, of her exploration of the world. She documented, more and more
deeply, her contemplations and discoveries, her loves, her memories, her emotions,
her celebrations. She painted her special connection with the world, physical, intellectual,
and spiritual. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Here, in Anna’s
art, lived, and lives, spirit and shadow, light and earth travelling side by
side. Everything sacred. In her life-long work, Anna poured out the deepest
parts of who she was. She lay down, on page after page, her soul self.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Anna’s spirit, her
soul self, was and is, immeasurable. It reaches out far beyond anything the
eye, or even dreams, can see. Her spirit is a singing note, resonating through
every one of us. How extraordinary. How beautiful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">One of the last things
Anna wrote to me, is something I would love for you to carry out with you
today. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">I’d love for you
to keep it in your pocket, sew it into the inside of your shirt, write it on
your skin, weave it into your hair like ribbons. Wear it. Hold it close.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Anna wrote: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">"Take care, and let
your heart be not troubled, but filled with colours."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">So today, I say
her words to all of us who are here, walking this new path together, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we who love her so very much</i>: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-US">Remember to take
care. Let your heart be not troubled. But let it be filled with colours.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFWTaABgUHNBPjTWhmugEsjs0HpO3Cz74REGUZ-vRRA0I5q9jfQI6P_u0FzhwIb7BRS5Km_BlmvP8CZtsypsfNHIETU44bXyxt4LIdIVt_uHMGUhUhoY3vR4SOWTe3Q4ZEuR4R-51z5ELK/s1600/HAPPY+BRAIN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFWTaABgUHNBPjTWhmugEsjs0HpO3Cz74REGUZ-vRRA0I5q9jfQI6P_u0FzhwIb7BRS5Km_BlmvP8CZtsypsfNHIETU44bXyxt4LIdIVt_uHMGUhUhoY3vR4SOWTe3Q4ZEuR4R-51z5ELK/s400/HAPPY+BRAIN.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.redbubble.com/people/annamora/works/10260005-happy-brain">'<i>happy brain'</i></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-67193647648261675642015-08-03T18:19:00.000+10:002015-08-04T06:50:40.712+10:00Today: August 3, 2015<div style="text-align: center;">
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/koolpix_nature/5328974546/in/photolist-97Uotu-fyS3kY-kWVKtz-bVbeCX-oLrsZi-r3ZiKZ-9rTFtf-dJhFET-r3Znuc-ax7USg-aUcQNg-67V5gp-ggYhod-e4EChN-9kZu9W-dwV24z-m26XbQ-xhyFp-7sJqoG-4yzyDR-sbDGDQ-67Vbvn-7QpDKP-9GzrhV-9aBm2T-qLqRiq-qLyxrz-qLyvpD-pBtmEy-oTqZnE-a9foGW-9uJWtz-dH6zo4-7MLCxu-5FjRde-3Gc6a8-biob7v-m1pkCV-pW13Y8-5zb6WV-eh6xWz-9rS9xW-f8xMhc-5PgqGN-8juK3P-e7E4Sg-obYosh-6ePju2-9FcLtn-5oR731" title="Flock of Birds in Flight"><img alt="Flock of Birds in Flight" height="425" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5003/5328974546_333a7810a3_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: large;">Today </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I watched a flag of birds wave<br />
high above the front window of my car<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">They were a lifetime away from me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">and they seemed so beautiful and distant I
had to stop and see<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">Car idle</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
paused on driveway<br />
the old letter box
sighing beside,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">its ‘no advert s ng mat r ls’ peeled into a
scramble of once <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">words and the driveway lifting up </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US">because
of the willow root</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">My children</span> inside<br />
waiting for me to be home
again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-46782972908960237452015-07-25T22:37:00.001+10:002015-07-25T22:49:03.932+10:00Hello :)It has been such a long time.<br />
<br />
Hasn't it?<br />
<br />
A year and a half, and I'm wandering my own pages like a tourist and an old friend.<br />
<br />
I wrote a lot of words here, and I grieved here, and I shared here, and I found the joy here.<br />
<br />
Time has passed, and I'm still the same. Still wandering. Still writing. Still (and always) looking for the joy.<br />
<br />
How are you?<br />
<br />
Is it sunny where you are? Are you snug by a fire or are the bees making paths through the flowers by your ears?<br />
<br />
I wonder how it is for you, in all your places. I hope you have been truly well.<br />
<br />
I have more to say…but for now, it's just a warm and heartfelt<br />
<br />
Hello.<br />
<br />
:)<br />
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<br />Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-15569686737379589242014-02-15T20:22:00.002+11:002014-02-15T20:22:33.477+11:00those holes are spaces for light<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
It took just ten seconds for him to die, for the fluid to enter his veins, for the drug to hit his heart, and there was just enough time for him to lick his lips, one two three times, just enough time for me to say, "<i>Oh</i>. Good boy. <i>Good boy" </i>as he left, and then he was gone.<br />
<br />
Which was surreal, because one second he was still there, still warm and moving slightly under my hands, and then he wasn't.<br />
<br />
And it hit me then that it was over, and hit me again and again, as we wrapped him in a blanket,<br />
as people spoke softly about things and moved about the room;<br />
it hit me in waves—until I felt nauseous, and I had to go outside and drink water by the car as they carried him out—that he was gone.<br />
<br />
And I wanted to step back in time, to please sit a second more with the breathing him, but that's how it was now and I couldn't change it, and all I could do was keep on living while he didn't.<br />
<br />
<br />
And now it's been two days and I keep crying.<br />
I miss my dog, and I know people lose dogs all the time, but I can't stop how it hurts. And it has opened up all these holes I thought I'd filled as best I could. I miss my grandmother and I miss my namesake aunt and I think of my father and my friend from high school who died and I think of my mum's best friends and I miss Jennifer.<br />
<br />
I miss the space my dog took up on the tiles. I think of the space the living take and how after they leave they're still there, but you can't talk to them and you can't hold them and you can't hear their breathing or their laugh or their voice. You can't read their new words or watch their tail wag as you come up to them for a good scratch and you can't talk to them on the phone.<br />
<br />
Their spaces are empty and full at the same time, like the air has rearranged itself in their shape.<br />
<br />
<br />
And I think of how much space the loved take up.<br />
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<br />
<br />
It's real, because there on those tiles, precisely, is where he lay,<br />
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and there in that chair of my memory is my grandmother saying, "Hello! Hello!" as I enter the room,<br />
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and there in that hospital bed is my aunt calling out as I leave, "And I love you too, so much!"<br />
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and there in that photograph is my dad flying a kite, his hair curling in the wind<br />
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and there in her <a href="http://fourseeds.com/">words</a>, is Jennifer always. Noticing, marvelling, guiding me to beauty.<br />
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And it is so beautiful when you see what they have left you.<br />
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It can take your breath away. Leave you weeping and smiling at once.<br />
<br />
Those holes you thought you had to fill just so you could keep moving…<br />
those are the spaces they made and they're not supposed to disappear.<br />
<br />
<br />
You're not supposed to fill them. Those holes are spaces for light.<br />
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<br />
<br />
I think of my dog and how in his final weeks he lay right in the kitchen by the cupboard so you had to step over him to enter or leave.<br />
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On his last day, every time I went near him, he lifted his head and followed me with his eyes<br />
<br />
as if to say<br />
<br />
I'm here.<br />
<br />
<i>I'm here.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Remember me.</i><br />
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And on his last day, before I knew it was his last, I sat with him and brushed his old fur. And he and I looked at each other for long seconds until I put my forehead on his, and after a while he lay back down.<br />
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<br />
And when it's over you get to keep those moments<br />
<br />
forehead to forehead<br />
<br />
that you had<br />
<br />
and the space they made.<br />
<br />
<br />
And they follow you as if to say,<br />
<br />
"I'm here.<br />
<br />
I'm here.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Now you get to remember me</i>."<br />
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<br />Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-42072848065140079912014-02-12T16:25:00.001+11:002014-02-12T16:25:43.938+11:00The Tale of a (Long Ago) Grand Adventure and a Wee Epiphany<span style="background-color: white;"></span><br />
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<i>[Almost five months ago, my little family and I set off on a Grand Adventure… to a tiny town up North to attend a week long circus training camp and festival, where my son was going to perform with his troupe and have One Excellent Week of training. In the meantime, the rest of us planned to frolic, explore the nearby towns, swim in the river, watch shows, and REST. </i></div>
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<i>Well, things didn't go exactly to plan, and what ended up happening was one of the most challenging not-quite-holidays of our lives. But at some point during the whole crazy mess, I made a discovery that left me feeling invigorated, truly alive, and most of all, grateful.</i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #37404e; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">T</span><span style="color: #37404e; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">his is the tale of that discovery and the path that led me to it, told entirely in Facebook status updates! I never wrote about it here, on this blog, and that feels strange… because even though I'm hardly ever here at the moment, this is still my little Scrapbook Space. This is where I get to place the parts that make up the puzzle of me, and my family, and my very own precious life. And I want</span></i><i><span style="color: #37404e; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"> to paste those long ago words here… </span></i><i><span style="color: #37404e; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">so I can find them always, and remember, and be glad.</span></i></div>
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<i>So here goes! </i></div>
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<i>*with bonus photos at the end—never before seen footage and so on—of some really Good bits in between (and after) the Bad.] </i></div>
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<b>The Tale of A Long Ago Grand Adventure (</b><b>and a Wee Epiphany)</b></div>
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<b>September 26, 2013</b></div>
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This is a nice lake… I'm really glad we are camping next to it :) On our way to Mullum Circus and many beautiful adventures! Thanks to our dear pet sitter, all is well at home too—the cats aren't even fighting (yet)! Which makes this a great holiday already.</div>
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<b>September 27, 2013</b></div>
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Road trips are never boring with this guy…</div>
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<b>September 28, 2013</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Our Mullum Circus adventure begins tomorrow…can't wait :)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">We have entered Sugarcane Land. As far as the eye can see, cane waving...and little houses squatting stolidly inside the fields...and a boy digging with a stick in a bare field, looking carelessly for snakes? And then mountains like pointy hats rising.... Green is all around.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><b>September 30, 2013</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Just another day at the circus… :)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #37404e; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Writing with my girl...under fig trees big as churches...watching people take to the air on great red ribbons…bliss.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i>[And then… this]</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><b>October 2, 2013</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Well the circus adventure hasn't gone quite to plan...our circus boy got sick! Four days and nights of coughing relentlessly, long nights of sleeping (not sleeping) upright in the car, asthma bad enough we had to find the circus doctor in the night, plus flu and fever. We have ended up in a local hotel just so my boy can rest and sleep, and he has missed almost all of his beautiful training camp. Such a shame! We are looking for the positives as best we can, and hoping things turn around soon. It is so beautiful here; silver linings are all around, I'm sure.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><b>October 3, 2013</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Thanks everyone for your lovely and kind comments on my last update! We are (I think and hope!) on the mend. My boy is (VERY gently) participating in his first training session in 3 days after being really sick, and I actually just saw a smile! I'm so thankful that the hours of tending have led to the beginning of wellness, so thankful that I have my endlessly beautiful family, so thankful that we've ridden this out together. Yesterday we sat over dinner and visualised this great, open positive energy flowing out, a whole lot of goodness and wellness beginning from that exact moment...no more feeling sorrowful, disappointed and sick. And now we get to live that lovely picture out. Lucky us :)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i>[And then…after days of heat and dust and coughing and doctor visits and sleepless nights and worry and feeling oh-so-far-from-home and trying to make the best of things and feeling sometimes overwhelmed and weepy,</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #37404e; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><i>I had a wee epiphany, </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #37404e; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><i>which is actually the point of this whole blog post :) ]</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><b>October 4, 2013</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">What happens when you realise your life is yours? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">When you suddenly discover it's yours for the making, that it's entirely up to you how things are going to go? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">You can't always pick the direction... sometimes you find yourself walking a path you believe you'd never choose... in fact, maybe you hardly ever get to choose the path. But I find (and keep finding) that it's what you DO with the path yo</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">u're on that matters. It matters hard; it matters big like a mountain. </span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">What you choose to do with what you're given... that's where the joy begins.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><br />Last night at camp as wind rattled the tent and the night dipped into cold, my boy got his asthma back. He ended up coughing and weeping and totally overwhelmed. He was near panic, needing us to take good care, lift him out of the struggle, fix everything. As we hustled him out of the tent and into the shelter of the car, I felt all snarly and enraged, felt like shaking my fist at the world and saying, 'What did we ever do to you???!' And there was talk of leaving, finally bailing, accepting defeat. But it was close to midnight, so we settled my boy into the car with his sleeping bag and pillow, my husband beside him, and we grimly hunkered down 'til morning.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><br />In the middle of the night I had to pee. I trudged across that long, cold field in the gusty wind, muttering and huddled in my jacket, wishing everything was different. But as I walked I suddenly thought, 'Hey. Hey. Why fight so hard? Why feel so lost? Look up!' </span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><br />So I did.<br /></span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">And saw a sky wild with stars. A sky bright and fiery, just gloriously alight. After the expected 'Wow!' I thought, 'Hey, Self. What if you just accepted all of this...What if you just kept on? What if?'</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><br />And somewhere in the remaining trudge across that ginormous field, in the peeing, in the turning matters over in my mind, my view flipped. Suddenly...in that crazy wind and the nose-nipping cold, I felt exhilarated...the 'Bring It On!' kind. The kind where a tramp across a field to the loo at 3am becomes a triumphant stride back under a blazing sky. The kind where you suddenly feel wholly alive, almost in awe of the adventure you're on. What will happen next? Bring it On! Bring it ON.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><br />And we slept so well, my little family and I. My girl and I like beans in our sleeping bags, snuggled close. My husband and boy in the quiet warmth of the car. All of us... we rested well and slept deeply. No more coughing, no drama, just real rest. What a surprise.<br /></span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">As for today? Well, the sun has done its thing again and risen. We're awake, well fed, alive. So, Bring It, world. Show me what you've got.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">There was so much joy. :)</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">as promised</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizPW3YN9C3ag7NPcJ-Fv1zYI-iEFeI9K6vSbdzSXTAzA0kYESZNKvcPFhvyHZLBOybxV16P5Ocjr7Ezc76kuAaIpLBFkcBFoRRYT-5wPX72rMo_aL72OeeoiqHLaIy5ojRru4QyI8U4S4P/s1600/IMG_4664.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizPW3YN9C3ag7NPcJ-Fv1zYI-iEFeI9K6vSbdzSXTAzA0kYESZNKvcPFhvyHZLBOybxV16P5Ocjr7Ezc76kuAaIpLBFkcBFoRRYT-5wPX72rMo_aL72OeeoiqHLaIy5ojRru4QyI8U4S4P/s1600/IMG_4664.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As our boy languished in the hotel, so sick and sad, <br />my husband and I took turns taking our girl out for adventures…</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy2FLjxZrV9_rx05T_pF-ARCMxz5MDf1fdXTOq1KA0tc0iuz2IA4XjhF2e9G1L0WYyF8t34aFj6qau_Li9MoIS4W9M7BBRhuyStIB54QE9fHVQFrgVoASQo8lQkc0r0A_neRoqStqu13xQ/s1600/IMG_6036.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy2FLjxZrV9_rx05T_pF-ARCMxz5MDf1fdXTOq1KA0tc0iuz2IA4XjhF2e9G1L0WYyF8t34aFj6qau_Li9MoIS4W9M7BBRhuyStIB54QE9fHVQFrgVoASQo8lQkc0r0A_neRoqStqu13xQ/s1600/IMG_6036.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">which included kayaking on an insanely beautiful river <br />(pic taken by the kayak rental owner person)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_27pndg08KFt7u4c7ePiKaj9Two2HQGjnuA5m1tlelYp71O7LiXkdI72G-pGpkwXSs4FH2H4SDrSDNe_8q50l8_kJchn2IRnm7dJu4K6U8wmPH5TH9ZI_cvQgAQx3GcQKwiQw8E9Qn_f3/s1600/IMG_4680.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_27pndg08KFt7u4c7ePiKaj9Two2HQGjnuA5m1tlelYp71O7LiXkdI72G-pGpkwXSs4FH2H4SDrSDNe_8q50l8_kJchn2IRnm7dJu4K6U8wmPH5TH9ZI_cvQgAQx3GcQKwiQw8E9Qn_f3/s1600/IMG_4680.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">here we were at the dinner where we Visualised Good Things</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">here my boy got to have a one-on-one training session with a beautiful juggler <br />who heard he'd been sick and missed all of the training week…<br />and who came to find him and work with him for an hour.<br />No words for how that felt.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And he actually got to perform with his troupe!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And on the last night, we got to watch a man flying through the air<br />while juggling three clubs.<br /><br />Which means<br />there really is magic in the world.<br /><br />Don't you think?</td></tr>
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Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-22091969485841640952014-01-10T13:18:00.000+11:002014-01-10T13:28:09.698+11:00homeschool joy: when the learner becomes the teacher<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
<br />
I don't know if I've mentioned this, but<br />
<br />
I <i>love</i> homeschooling.<br />
<br />
I don't always love the specifics of it,<br />
<br />
like, the day to day frustrations that can crop up ("Could someone <i>please </i>help clean the kitchen?" and "Ah, you forgot your music, and you're only telling me now we're here?" and "Please stop niggling, just for a second so I can think" and "Don't throw the stuffed cat at your sister!")<br />
<br />
or those wobbly fearful moments when you aren't sure you're doing it "right," or when you foolishly spend waaaay too long looking at Eduspeaky Websites that (very importantly and authoritatively) show you all the things you <i>should</i> be doing just because that's what everyone else is doing and that's the box you're supposed to tick (Breathe)<br />
<br />
or… those times you'd really like a bit more time for yourself and (you feel) you simply can't have it (because home-edding can often feel like (and actually IS) a full-time job—even in those down moments when it seems like you're not busy at all. You're still, always, on call)<br />
<br />
but<br />
<br />
I still love the whole thing anyway.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I love the happiness homeschool brings<br />
<br />
when you're totally able to drop everything (or not pick anything up to begin with) and spend real time playing, or learning, or chatting, or sharing, or creating.<br />
<br />
And I love the satisfaction it brings<br />
<br />
when your kids tell you about something they've learned or discovered — you either brought it to their attention and they loved it, or they found it completely on their own and have been immersed in it for hours, only surfacing with a grin to tell you all about it.<br />
<br />
I love the peace homeschooling brings<br />
<br />
when you realise this life fits you completely<br />
<br />
because your kids are following their passions<br />
<br />
and you find you do, in fact, have time to write your novel<br />
<br />
and do art classes (with and without your kids)<br />
<br />
and you ALL get to be in your Element, together.<br />
<br />
<br />
That's amazing<br />
<br />
and a gift<br />
<br />
and a blessing.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
And then.<br />
<br />
And THEN!<br />
<br />
You suddenly find something new has crept up while you weren't even looking.<br />
<br />
<br />
There are now moments, many of them, coming over and over, more and more often,<br />
<br />
where you realise<br />
<br />
you've become the learner<br />
<br />
and they the mentor.<br />
<br />
Because look! —<br />
<br />
they've learned some mad skills of their own<br />
<br />
<i>and want to teach you</i>.<br />
<br />
<br />
Last year, my son did a history course through Coursera, called "A Brief History of Humankind." It was 17 weeks long, and was taught through the University of Jerusalem.<br />
<br />
Well, for 17 weeks (longer in fact, because the course has run a bit into overtime), we have been hearing about the cognitive revolution, the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, the rise of homo sapiens, capitalism, religion, the history of happiness and so on and so forth. Hours of information relayed to us by my 13 year old boy who has LOVED this course. Hours of discussion, hours of learning through my son, hours of knowledge relayed by him to me.<br />
<br />
We are finishing up the course together. Just two more lectures, lying on the big bed with the cicadas chirruping outside, pausing to laugh at the lecturer's wry humour, or chat about the concepts he's raised. It's delicious, is what it is. Learning alongside my son. Learning <i>through</i> my son. So much joy.<br />
<br />
My daughter has been animating and computer programming on Scratch now for a year, and has been producing hours and hours of projects on line. In the past six months, she has also been teaching her dad how to create games, working with her brother on creating silly animations, and just this past week, has begun teaching me to animate.<br />
<br />
I can't believe I didn't start sooner! It's SO much fun.<br />
<br />
I've had to let go of my adult (sort of impatient) self, who wants to have the skill <i>now. </i>I've stopped to listen to my girl as she has shown me each step and explained the purpose of commands that seemed to have no purpose, as she has encouraged me to take the reins with sometimes only a little guidance. It has been really hard to produce these few seconds of animation, but wow. It's been so rewarding.<br />
<br />
In these small moments, that keep coming over and over,<br />
<br />
I can see so clearly how incredibly satisfying it must be for my children, to be such independent learners.<br />
<br />
It must feel pretty cool, to be encouraged (by me, my husband, their mentors, their friends) to find things that interest them, to explore them any time, practice them for hours, immerse themselves as deeply as they want until they are full.<br />
<br />
I love that I can give that to my kids. I love that my children get to be full-time, all-day, any-time-they-want learners and then, and then! That they want to pass on their learning to the lucky people around them.<br />
<br />
I love being their student.<br />
<br />
I love that they are my mentors.<br />
<br />
I love how much I've learned.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Here is my <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/16357631/">second ever animation</a>. I am pleased as peaches about it. It makes me grin, every time I look at it.<br />
<br />
When I win my Academy Award for it (in the not-too-distant future!) I'll say:<br />
<br />
"Thank you. I couldn't have done this without my kids."<br />
<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="402" src="http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/embed/16357631/?autostart=false" width="485"></iframe></div>
Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-58675701100688428262013-12-21T10:52:00.000+11:002013-12-21T10:54:15.885+11:00It's beginning to look a lot like…<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Christmas always comes as a surprise to me.<br />
<br />
Probably because the year is always roaring, kind of like a fire or train or truck or runaway ball in an Indiana Jones movie—it's hard to keep up with time and how quickly it passes. Sometimes you're so busy moving, keeping ahead of the Busy, you don't think of anything but just Getting Through. Or maybe, you're so happily running alongside that train, watching the fire, dancing on that ball, that you just don't notice time doing its thing, moving right along.<br />
<br />
And now, it's 4 days until Christmas and, wait… how did that happen?<br />
<br />
Christmas…the massive holiday that businesses and advertisers plan for, for months, the one that brings in money for shops big and small, the one that involves a lot of buying and thinking about giving… the holiday where everyone wants you to be Happy! Everyone's wishing you a Merry one, in the shops, at the end of term classes, over the phone to each other, strangers and friends alike. It's this thing we're all united by, and stressed out by, and maybe a bit confused about, sometimes. It's like the word that doesn't look weird until you write it a dozen times.<br />
<br />
Christmas. What's it about?<br />
<br />
What are we getting "ready" for?<br />
<br />
Why do we cherish it?<br />
<br />
Who says we should even celebrate it?<br />
<br />
I'm getting these questions from my kids; I'm thinking them myself.<br />
<br />
My family and I live outside the box in so many ways. So why do we "Do" Christmas?<br />
<br />
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<br />
I think the reason so many of us "Do" it, is because that's how it's always been, at least in my collective, European/Australian/American culture. Millions and millions of us join the hustle, do the bustle. We get the presents, make the food, prepare the parties, play the music, decorate. We fret, we argue, we spend. We sit together one day a year beside a tree that people say we should get, opening presents people say we should buy, scarfing down food people say we should eat. We do it, often joyfully, often begrudgingly, often stressfully, often lovingly.<br />
<br />
And then we do it all over again the next year.<br />
<br />
Why?<br />
<br />
Well, it can be fun. Like, a lot of fun.<br />
<br />
Stockings alone. I mean, stockings rock. Seeing that great lumpy thing at the end of your bed at dawn—I'll never forget how excited I used to be. What's not to love about a giant sock full of stuff? The crackle of the paper as you open the tiny Thing and then the next tiny Thing and the next? Sharing what you've found with your brother, your sister, your parents. So much smiling! Then the presents under the tree. The pile of them, literally singing to you, wanting you to shake them, hold them, open them, hug the person who gave them to you. And the giving. Well, that's pretty awesome too. Seeing the look of delight on peoples' faces when they've unwrapped just the thing they wanted. That moment can be so lovely.<br />
<br />
Being together is beautiful too. Families often rock. There's all that love, for one. Then there's the hugging, the laughter, the shared history. The smiling, and of course all the singing. Those Christmas songs! Something about them, it just makes you want to do something jolly, doesn't it? Right there, on the spot.<br />
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<br />
And of course—and for many this comes top of the list of why we "Do" Christmas—well, there's Jesus. For millions of people, this day is a celebration of a life devoted to bringing people to God. I'm not religious…but at the same time I am not <i>not</i> religious, if that makes any sense. I'd call myself spiritual, a person of faith, but I don't know how to explain the depths or intricacies of it to anyone except, sort of, to me. And I think Jesus was pretty awesome—in the same way I also see Buddha, and Ghandi as awesome, and all people who devote their lives to love, peace, and compassion. Jesus saw humanity as all worthy of being saved; he saw all people as deserving of love. He was the turn-the-other-cheek guy, the forgiveness guy, the rebel, the new-path taker, the one who walked with everyone, spoke to everyone, believed in all people. Who wouldn't want to celebrate the birth of a guy like that?<br />
<br />
And if you go to church on Christmas, and sit with others celebrating a life built on love, faith, and kindness? Well that can be beautiful, too. There's so much smiling in church on Christmas—I've been to church twice on a Christmas day, and it felt like a truly happy place to be.<br />
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<br />
But Christmas, the Thing, the constructed reality that we are expected to follow without questioning, I feel a bit full of that. I feel like we're at the edge of reinventing our Christmas, at a turning point where we might start choosing Something Different, something Else.<br />
<br />
Our tree for a start.<br />
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The things we would like to give and get.<br />
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My kids and their wants.<br />
<br />
I have asked my two what they want for Christmas, and repeatedly they've said, "Nothing." My son is saving for juggling clubs…all he'd like is maybe $5 towards those. My girl, well, she literally has asked for nothing at all. We aren't even doing stockings this year. I have bought one shared thing for them, and it's something I would have bought anyway, something they already know about and have seen. They want to give money to Animals Australia, to other charities that support compassion. They don't want any stuff at all. And…this is the most interesting part perhaps… we don't have anything for our extended family yet. Nothing!<br />
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It's that kind of Christmas we seem to be having. Already re-inventing, I suppose!<br />
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<br />
We'll see my family—my mum and sister and nieces and partners—and we'll eat food and we'll be really happy to hang out together. I know we will sing silly songs and my kids and husband and I will give our mostly home-made gifts (if we can make them in time?). And there might be moments we misunderstand each other or worry about something, and we mightn't have a perfect time.<br />
<br />
And we will do it again, next year, because that's what we do. Because being together and singing Christmas songs and opening thoughtful gifts is a dance that can bring a whole lot of joy.<br />
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<br />
But one year… one day… ?<br />
<br />
One day, I'd like my Christmas to be silent. Well, not silent… but quieter. Just shush, Christmas, please, just for a moment? Let me sit with you and look around.<br />
<br />
I'd like the noise of the shops and the people asking me to Buy stuff to settle down.<br />
<br />
I want to not be urged to buy things I don't need or want. I want to not buy stuff just because society tells me to.<br />
<br />
I want to give when the giving makes sense, when the giving helps, when the giving isn't about material stuff, but about something Bigger.<br />
<br />
I'd like all the junk to be replaced with food or shelter or medicine or books.<br />
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I'd like to sit on a beach, or an empty church, or walk in a field of snow, and I'd like to stop, and feel thankful.<br />
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I would like to sit and feel grateful to life. To the Universe. To god—whoever or whatever that might be. To the energy pulsing around, making the earth spin and my molecules knit, and my breath go in, go out, go in.<br />
<br />
I'd like to spend a morning watching waves.<br />
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I'd like to hold hands with my family and tell each person why I love them.<br />
<br />
I want to eat only plants, and talk about real things.<br />
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I want to listen and make a difference.<br />
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I'd like to do something of value.<br />
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I want to laugh.<br />
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I want to give.<br />
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Perhaps we already are? Beginning to have the Christmas I dream of? I think we might be.<br />
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This year, just yesterday, my kids, husband, niece and I made this tree. We had <i>such</i> a beautiful time doing it. I adore it, and <i>everything</i> it represents.<br />
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I think we will have a truly lovely time this Christmas day. I hope you all do, whatever you do—whether you are alone or with families—celebrating, working, living, giving… I hope you find joy.<br />
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Which is the same hope I have for you all the days! The ones before and after, every day that rolls out from you, roaring.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">note:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">the elf with the santa hat and the reindeer were created by my beautiful niece. Juggler and Santa by my boy, cat by my girl. Star by the five of us. Fox by me :)</span><br />
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<br />Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-3474008131238059192013-12-14T23:35:00.001+11:002013-12-15T00:10:03.617+11:00our homeschool—our treasure trove<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our "school year" is almost finished… and what a year it has been. I haven't written a lot about it here, mostly because it's been SO SO busy. Finding time to write it all down has been like trying to catch shooting stars…imagine me, running about the grass, arms up in the air, trying to catch all that light in my hands. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Many days and nights, I don't even try to capture it all. I just watch, my mouth open, dazzled and inspired. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #37404e;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">This year, my son was able to immerse himself completely in his juggling. He has worked so hard and improved so much! He has performed many times in his beloved circus space, plus at school fetes, music camps, our local city festival, </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;">at a big national festival </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;">and, just recently, he did his first solo show as part of a community review. What an amazing year he's had.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">And what a thing, to be able to give (with the </span></span><span style="line-height: 18px;">help</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> of his trainers and mentors) the gift of time and training space to a boy who loves something this much. What an amazing thing, to watch how that gift has helped a boy completely blossom, to completely own the thing he loves, improving so much that big international jugglers are noticing him on YouTube and Facebook. His most recent </span></span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RurONjEHl3g" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">video</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> has over 300 views. What a thing. What a thing! </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">I couldn't be more pleased for him. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;">As for my girl? Well, this year, she discovered and fell in love with <a href="https://www.google.com.au/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=scratch.mit.edu&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&ei=wkasUuXKJqKN8QeMooFY">Scratch</a>, a online computer programming application. She has <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/users/KittyDKat/">created and posted</a> countless animations, games, role plays, stories, and pictures. She has found a beautiful community of (cat-loving!) animators who "Get" her. And she has over 100 followers in the Scratch community. She LOVES it. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;">Now, she's exploring Flash animation and Photoshop, developing her love even further. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;">How awesome to watch her in her element, improving every day, exploring and creating her heart out. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">PLUS, she's now over 300 pages into her novel. Yes, she's writing a novel too! The best days for my girl are filled with writing, reading, dreaming, art-ing, animating, laughing, swimming, and singing (not that we are supposed to listen!). I am so glad I can give her time to do all that.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;">I am so glad I get to give this incredible thing—the gift of time—to my kids. I am so glad </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;">I get to say, 'Yes!' And, 'Oh, that sounds interesting!' And, 'Sure, go and do that!" I get to watch as they dive deeply into the things they love.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;">I get to hear all the things they want to explore, what they want to immerse themselves in; I get to learn all the things that make them tick and move and smile, the things that make them want to get out of bed. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;">I get to hear about their discoveries. I get to sit and watch the movie they've made, hear all about the informational video they've just watched, see the art they've drawn, the animation they've created, hear the song they've just found. I get to sit in the audience or right by their side as they show me who they are. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; line-height: 18px;">And it's like I'm standing with them in this incredible room—a treasure trove of secret drawers and boxes, with tunnels and </span><span style="color: #37404e;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">wondrous things waiting behind curtains. Everywhere we turn there's something new to put in our pocket, something incredible to see and absorb. It's like the room is actually vibrating, like it's filled with notes waiting in the throats of birds. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #37404e;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">And we're so filled with the desire to Learn! and Discover! and Explore! and Make! that our room is sometimes packed to overflowing. Some days, we have to just stop and read a book for a day, or go swimming, and try our very hardest not to learn anything new, just so we can take a break. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #37404e; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">But we can't seem to help ourselves. The learning keeps finding us. The new keeps surprising us. Adventures keep beckoning. Life keeps on bringing us joy.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">P.S.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO6fHIKjlqWYoflrmKeC13FfLB0xsZSWSq2mdOvbck5HTBvq3ztU1ymYUeznWGiqRq-IYrKDQ_xf51Zn6M0JEA4LM6VoGiKEPGNkqLjSQDgtmN8ixJD6LhO4g0n3WF5pXFnt8_Jda30_eF/s1600/ameliabird.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO6fHIKjlqWYoflrmKeC13FfLB0xsZSWSq2mdOvbck5HTBvq3ztU1ymYUeznWGiqRq-IYrKDQ_xf51Zn6M0JEA4LM6VoGiKEPGNkqLjSQDgtmN8ixJD6LhO4g0n3WF5pXFnt8_Jda30_eF/s400/ameliabird.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">bird by my girl…<br /><br />from this week's exhibition with their art class<br />at a lovely <a href="http://exposurearts.com.au/">gallery</a> down town!</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgUs64HJksy-er-9lFwTn0WKfmsCKXFmN7ZF-kNda5kA_jtXla5M66Unt3cru5mH4lZQk3igbG-jgAf86WFJfd3lp01BRRht-w-sagr5zqf5zgmYVKOYNIiWxqUX9HW4_fzgiuM7xVZFdP/s1600/IMG_5215.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgUs64HJksy-er-9lFwTn0WKfmsCKXFmN7ZF-kNda5kA_jtXla5M66Unt3cru5mH4lZQk3igbG-jgAf86WFJfd3lp01BRRht-w-sagr5zqf5zgmYVKOYNIiWxqUX9HW4_fzgiuM7xVZFdP/s400/IMG_5215.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">portrait by my boy…</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd-i3NjApZbavxfoi802DrncZFPi55RMKnApywn6KK9Mbf7xS7RNoieewt19ZPcM8iNmC5S5LWLrRlaRh1FNqbJTGhQhdDnajzLCv3afqR1GemrLsVTUE1uLLVSZ0nM78n-559pGgbkOVV/s1600/IMG_5220.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd-i3NjApZbavxfoi802DrncZFPi55RMKnApywn6KK9Mbf7xS7RNoieewt19ZPcM8iNmC5S5LWLrRlaRh1FNqbJTGhQhdDnajzLCv3afqR1GemrLsVTUE1uLLVSZ0nM78n-559pGgbkOVV/s640/IMG_5220.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">art by the whole class…<br /><br />(my girl's squirrel is on the top left<br />my son's watercolour landscape is the top right)<br /><br />:)</span></td></tr>
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<br />Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-88856137852651383552013-11-04T23:11:00.000+11:002013-11-04T23:11:34.504+11:00around the sun<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9gMUXfReK15MYgPxoE32hhEz6oz98QA7X1sMQ80PjNLVA8ee-dZ1geY9MkCGhLLu6uY9KBLeuWeMH-CrjBQkA0jHLyjZSkZaHRBMhncjD94cLA7dPgTOy8d7Ffaek0uobG3y-QlB2rPuo/s1600/13871815_144x108.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9gMUXfReK15MYgPxoE32hhEz6oz98QA7X1sMQ80PjNLVA8ee-dZ1geY9MkCGhLLu6uY9KBLeuWeMH-CrjBQkA0jHLyjZSkZaHRBMhncjD94cLA7dPgTOy8d7Ffaek0uobG3y-QlB2rPuo/s320/13871815_144x108.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">credit: <br />from my girl's <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/users/KittyDKat/">Scratch profile</a></td></tr>
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I remember the moment she came out and they lay her on my belly and I said, 'Is she all right?' because, you see, it seemed as though she wasn't breathing. She lay so still and was so calm it threw me. Aren't you suppose to bawl the roof off the sucker when life starts?<br />
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Now, I think it's because she had already figured a few things out. Right that moment, she was surrounded by that heart-thumping, sky-breaking-open kind of love people write poems about. She had her skin on mine. Umbilical cord still attached. Life not too curly, yet. What did she need to do these first few moments but relax?<br />
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She's still heart-stoppingly beautiful to me. She's still as full of light and joy as those first syrup-slow seconds. I get to be her mum, still. And always, too.<br />
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It's her birthday today. It's been a really, really nice day.<br />
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Happy Birthday, to one of my best friends—my beautiful, imaginative, kind, inspiring girl.<br />
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<br />Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-79498309207161571272013-11-02T20:37:00.001+11:002013-11-02T20:55:38.012+11:00my son, the juggler<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
My son worked for weeks on this video,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
training every day</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
coming up with new ideas</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
constantly</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
thinking</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
watching </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
commenting </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
listening </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and learning.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
He lives and breathes juggling…</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
he lives and breathes the thing he loves.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
This is where passion and dedication take you. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/RurONjEHl3g" width="420"></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Isn't it lovely?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
:)</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-26763676331128770082013-11-01T23:01:00.002+11:002013-11-01T23:14:53.031+11:00keeping onI wrote a very raw post a few days ago,<br />
which took me literally hours and hours to write…<br />
<br />
but I deleted it for a couple of reasons.<br />
<br />
<b>One…</b><br />
<br />
I was concerned it misrepresented a very dear person who I credit with being part of my Life Safety Net. In the beginning of my post, I wrote words my counsellor said to me, and I don't know that I gave him, or them, justice. Out of context, the words he said seemed less kind than they were in real life, as he sat a leg length away, listening. The words he said were couched in enormous empathy and understanding. I wish you'd been there to see how much they helped, and how much it helped to talk to him.<br />
<br />
I don't know how things would be if I didn't see my 'Professional Brain Sorter' every month or so…if I wasn't able to tip my thoughts out in front of him, like bright pebbles in a sack, and have him there to sift through them all with me. All those bits and bobs and tears and joy…together we try to make sense of it all. I am lucky to have people like that in my life. It's not something I take lightly.<br />
<br />
<b>Two…</b><br />
<br />
I thought my words might be too dark and just too heavy.<br />
<br />
They weren't supposed to be.<br />
<br />
I <i>want</i> to write about homeschooling and our camping trips and swimming and hugs and all my workshops and just how many times we laugh in a single day… but my fears at the Unravelling State of the World seem to be sitting on my shoulders saying, "Oy! Write about us first! Hurry! Hurry! Get everyone to listen! Something must be Done! Nothing else matters but us!" And so those are the words that come out here.<br />
<br />
I want to make a difference in this world. <i>I want to make a difference</i>. But I'd like to remember to live, too.<br />
<br />
I don't know how, in this year of incredible experiences and magical growth and glorious discoveries, I ended up writing more and more about the things that concern me, and bring me down. And almost not at all about the marvellous Everything Else. But I suppose that's part of the journey, right? You don't know what's going to take up space in your brain. You share what you care about, in that moment, the thoughts that rise, the things that you think of in the spaces in between. You just have to hope that the Hard and the Heavy don't fill your pockets and sink you. You have to hope you'll notice the joy, too.<br />
<br />
So in the spirit of noticing and finding joy (Remember that, self? <i>Finding joy.</i>) I want to share the music that got me through the recent Really Rough Patch I wrote about in my deleted post.<br />
<br />
And I'll share some of those deleted words because I want to share the moment, as I was listening to beauty, things seemed to begin to turn around…<br />
<br />
And tomorrow will be another day, where I am certain I will laugh, and my children will hug me, and I will love them like crazy and my husband will be funny,<br />
<br />
and I will smile at all the living things.<br />
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b>The music </b><br />
<b>(aka the soundtrack to the following words…)</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/rO_FTaWGxBc?rel=0" width="560"></iframe></div>
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<b>The words</b><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">And you notice…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">that all these days of being battered by sorrow and
confusion and despair, you've STILL fed your kids and laughed with them because
they are inspiring and beautiful, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">and you've made sure they know they are loved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Somehow, you've taken them swimming and taught your
girl algebra and filmed your son juggling and been proud of your husband and
doled out hugs like people handing out balloons at the mall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">You haven't shouted at anyone and every single day
you've gotten out of bed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">You've smiled at passers by and you've let people
go ahead of you on the road. You've chatted to friends; you've scratched the
dog's belly and stared into his old, old eyes. You've run your workshops and
forgotten about the Awful and the Mad for those magic, light-filled hours.
You've told silly stories to small children. You have made puppets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">You've found … lying determinedly on the
flipside of madness, is delight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Delight is reaching through water as you swim lap
after lap of the pool, your hands pulling you forward. You swim between your
kids as they play. You poke at their bellies under water as you pass them by,
and make them laugh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Delight is listening to your son tell you about
neutrons and the theory of 'intersubjectivity' from his university history
class; it's him showing you his new juggling video; it's watching as he
balances a swim noodle on his chin in the pool.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Delight is hearing your girl laugh at a line in the
<i>Princess Bride</i>, her latest book. It's her telling you about her newest
animation project; it's your girl's arms thrown around you on the couch for no
other reason than Because.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Delight is music, found and held, three days ago.
You reached for it then like it was a lifejacket, thrown as you bobbed about on
the echoing waves, there under a fathomless sky, alone in a sea you'd built
with your mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Delight was that moment, three days ago, as you
listened to that song.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">There you are, do you see?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">You are sitting at the computer, bathed in only a
dim square of light. Night pulses, possums scritch the eucalypts outside. Kids
are in bed, your husband is far, far, far away somewhere in the house; you've
shut him out with those headphones on; you can't even speak to tell him how sad
and afraid you are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The song begins, it's enormous, it's beautiful.
Everything hurts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The cat wanders by, his tail effortlessly high; he
peers at you. You are just another breathing thing in this house, just another
thing. But in that moment, suddenly, he's all you have. You will, you wish—all
your senses reaching—for him to leap into your lap and stay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">He leaps up. He pauses, two paws balanced on each
thigh. Does he sense, his tail twitching slightly, how deep your despair runs
right now?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The music rises, builds. Will he stay? Will he
stay?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">As the music opens up and lays you bare, the cat
turns into a fur circle, and lies down. You pull him close. His paw reaches to
wrap around your arm. He stays.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">You are so grateful, you cry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It is the first time you've cried, all these long,
Mad days. You don't know how many there have been; more than one, more than
enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Everything curves out from this. The song. Your tears.
The cat. The warm. It's the beginning of something else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The beginning of talking to people you love…again,
again…and the beginning of reaching out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">There, do you see it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Somewhere on the spinning disc that is madness and
delight bound impossibly together,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">perhaps pinned to the ridged, thin seam in between<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">or perhaps floating around it, like an idea<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">or an electron cloud,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">is something a tiny bit like hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-65054046039576864842013-09-24T11:11:00.003+10:002013-11-01T23:25:29.578+11:00Ghandi and bees: how to save the earth<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPy2appPxHO9MFMslV1gsgschxzaLQlyaUVVROIgWvaMwqiPw0PYF84PVoljA4psAk2AQ1c40A0bPGpHKHrskjsosKFS4UXzD3wxkvcwqEiAww0fC6BKCkUMN25h3baMXsqmE4_aD_o0DP/s1600/IMG_4510.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPy2appPxHO9MFMslV1gsgschxzaLQlyaUVVROIgWvaMwqiPw0PYF84PVoljA4psAk2AQ1c40A0bPGpHKHrskjsosKFS4UXzD3wxkvcwqEiAww0fC6BKCkUMN25h3baMXsqmE4_aD_o0DP/s320/IMG_4510.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The bees are making paths only they can see in my mandarin tree. Flower to flower, gathering pollen on their legs like old ladies carrying shopping bags. They dance in the sun to sound only they can hear, move back and forth in steps older than time; they are ancient.<br />
<br />
I watch from my laundry room, washing my hands in the sink.<br />
<br />
I think of the age of bees. The age of gathering pollen and passing pollen and making the flowers bloom and the act of bringing life, and I know that I don't understand it all. But it is beautiful.<br />
<br />
I watch the bees and think of the planet, dying. Dying at our hands, dying if we do nothing. The science reports everywhere agree; news and pictures call chaos from all their corners. And I wash my hands in the sink and feel outraged and heartbroken because 7 billion of us aren't marching in the streets. We aren't all singing the land and sea back to health, tending, caring, mending. We aren't saving the earth together, standing with our hands outstretched.<br />
<br />
I think of Ghandi. I think of civil disobedience. I think of the power of a collective Us. What if we all stopped? Refused to do anything else until the planet was safe?<br />
<br />
What if we lay down in front of every choice that demeaned and starved and spoiled the earth and said, No More Please.<br />
<br />
Would we ever be so brave?<br />
<br />
Civil disobedience—Ghandi practiced it. Rosa Parks too. The guy in Tianamen Square. All it takes is a steadfast and polite refusal to accept what is, a refusal to accept what other people say cannot be changed. What if we practiced that kind of refusal without retribution, anger, vitriol? What if we said No without shouting, without fists in the air or punches thrown? What if we all said No, repeatedly, spoke the type of No where people might actually listen.<br />
<br />
Could we do that?<br />
<br />
Could we lie down together, a sea of us, side by side, tips of fingers touching? Walk the road together, miles of us, shoulder to shoulder, in peace? Speak together, our voices one long, collective song? Sit down in simple, massive barricades and refuse point blank to accept the kind of destruction that makes us weep, the kind that could leave us with no planet left to protect?<br />
<br />
Could we be so united?<br />
<br />
Could we be so calm?<br />
<br />
Could we be so wise?<br />
<br />
I see, so clearly, the path we could follow. The song we could all hear, the one we could all move our feet to, the steps we could take. All of us, dancing or still. All of us making a difference. It is far, far simpler than we choose to believe.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-etZHrZXgOpCdDHLxfCo1lnO8-GB9nqqJ7luLhWpkwRrCVS3OdVGO4-GQ1iYnJREqbVHYtfslcIt1vbiRN8wB5MsncBsduqe6XFH9nuOo9Yj3uvfAhRjbgpTYwKPnlryYe8ldW_KOunBV/s1600/globe_west_172_grid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-etZHrZXgOpCdDHLxfCo1lnO8-GB9nqqJ7luLhWpkwRrCVS3OdVGO4-GQ1iYnJREqbVHYtfslcIt1vbiRN8wB5MsncBsduqe6XFH9nuOo9Yj3uvfAhRjbgpTYwKPnlryYe8ldW_KOunBV/s320/globe_west_172_grid.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/">credit</a></span></div>
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Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-80602253837903769042013-09-14T08:59:00.000+10:002013-09-14T11:15:38.912+10:00If you asked meSo my last post was a bit abrupt… After being away, AGAIN, for over a month, there should have been some, you know, light chat maybe, maybe a kiss on the cheek and a 'How have you been? You've been well? Good! And the kids? How are they? How's work? Nice, nice, I'm so pleased to bump into you!'<br />
<br />
And we would have smiled and been so glad to see each other. And then you might have asked me How I Was Feeling, and you might have asked, "Are you Okay?"<br />
<br />
Would I have been honest?<br />
<br />
Would I have said, "Well…some days have been glorious. Other days … have felt raw, like each pore hurt."<br />
<br />
Would I have said, "Some days I've felt that the world's ugliness is too ugly. Some days I've thought, I can't live like this! All the unkindness. It's impossible to bear."<br />
<br />
Would I have said, "Some days it's like I carry the hurt of all the others. I feel so much, too much, for the animals, the trees, the children, the ocean, the innocent, the war-torn, and the lost. I think about them at night, when I wake and through the day… and it's like their voices are clattering inside, calling out. But their voices are my voice too, and it's my confusion, my hurt, my sorrow too, because I can't explain all the ugliness to my kids; I can't explain it even to myself. I can't make it okay.<br />
<br />
Those days are harder than others."<br />
<br />
<br />
Would you have been a bit lost for words?<br />
<br />
<br />
But then I would have smiled and said, "Every single day though, literally every single day, I have laughed."<br />
<br />
And I would have said, "Every single day, every second of my days, is filled with love."<br />
<br />
<br />
And I would say,<i> "I feel so grateful for that."</i><br />
<br />
<br />
And then I would tell you something pure and personal.<br />
<br />
"Every single day," I would say, "begins and ends with one goal: Be Kind. Be the Kindest, most compassionate person I can be."<br />
<br />
Well, you might laugh a little then, because in that moment I would <i>totally</i> sound like a Hallmark card.<br />
<br />
(And I'd laugh too, because I always laugh when other people laugh, and even when they don't. I do a lot of laughing, actually, and a lot of smiling in between.)<br />
<br />
And you might say, "Every day? Seriously? No-one's that perfect!" and secretly you might have thought, 'Dude. Who can be kind every day? I mean, everyone's got to crack at some point.'<br />
<br />
I'd say, "I'm not saying I'm perfect—I totally mess up sometimes. But I catch myself, sometimes even before I mess up. Those are nice moments—choosing the kinder path as it shows itself. And I say sorry, a lot more than I used to."<br />
<br />
I would keep talking then, because I'd be getting on a roll. And I would hope you were listening still, because I'd be sharing what I care about the most.<br />
<br />
"Kindness…it's everything; it's my daily, simple goal. It's the core of who I am and want to be. It's not even that hard, once you start—my kids are kind almost 100 percent of the time, and they do it instinctively. And they're not even boring—all that kindness and compassion and they're still really interesting, funny people."<br />
<br />
And then I'd get this wild, hopeful light in my eyes. I'd lean forward intently and say this:<br />
<br />
"Imagine. What if every day, people thought, "Hey.…What is the kindest, most thoughtful thing I could do today? What if they then went and did it—imagine how beautiful the world could be."<br />
<br />
I'd say, "Imagine a world where kindness always won. What if instead of hurting, we stopped and thought, How would that feel, if this hurtful act or cruel word was said or done to me? What if we lived as though we <i>were</i> the Other? What if we spent our time looking out instead of looking in?"<br />
<br />
<br />
And I would confess, "I know I'm not perfect. There is no perfect. I think of me often, just like everyone else. I want to publish my novel. I want to ride my bike and go to the movies and get a foot massage and not have to make dinner some nights. I want to be loved.<br />
<br />
But I also want to be MORE.<br />
<br />
I want to love <i>back</i>.<br />
<br />
I want to be of service. I want to speak out against ugliness. I want to Be Kind today and all days.<br />
<br />
I want to put Kindness in a dropper, with all the others who seek to be kind; I want to plant it drip by sweet drip on the plants and in the sea and on the sidewalks where it will spread out in great ripples. The kindness would be impossible to miss then, because there'd be so many of us, smiling and hopeful, droppers in hand, spreading love.<br />
<br />
Imagine that. Just imagine that." I would say.<br />
<br />
At least, that's what I hope I would say, if I was standing there in front of you,<br />
<br />
and you asked me How I Was.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3j5Sggql8zRa-1lvwCWr5tvY8KvGcVp3rafrEuaYOvh9pqZG-CJJXQdNNrOSzpQTSSAqOl9NrZQxcolV3FT4bd_cP7Me-eLyzkuZECXHq36GrNVST8SZTDRI3oaTkgJYOZHj9hlJwxUUV/s1600/IMG_4012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3j5Sggql8zRa-1lvwCWr5tvY8KvGcVp3rafrEuaYOvh9pqZG-CJJXQdNNrOSzpQTSSAqOl9NrZQxcolV3FT4bd_cP7Me-eLyzkuZECXHq36GrNVST8SZTDRI3oaTkgJYOZHj9hlJwxUUV/s400/IMG_4012.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-84089562940432090342013-09-13T08:10:00.000+10:002013-09-13T08:17:04.876+10:00lifted<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px; text-align: left;"></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRkA1FqooGmIppigM_Lt4fJv6FOsqCi_LaEGx5tKF5I_XOvhfte5WKYj9PqLJjltcMr_3B4Lh9TzSTNT5Zjh7Qw6mFFQtVupIJRcJg04DhL0KgZ3Ja6JI1a3sAtXHuGze65zMqBhnlZkLX/s1600/18412_10151689519816236_410558067_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRkA1FqooGmIppigM_Lt4fJv6FOsqCi_LaEGx5tKF5I_XOvhfte5WKYj9PqLJjltcMr_3B4Lh9TzSTNT5Zjh7Qw6mFFQtVupIJRcJg04DhL0KgZ3Ja6JI1a3sAtXHuGze65zMqBhnlZkLX/s400/18412_10151689519816236_410558067_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have no time for ugly things. I have no time for hurting others, no time for ugly words, no time for turning a blind eye to suffering, no time for senseless violence, no time for being quiet just because this is the way things are. I have no time for doing nothing merely because there is too much to do, no time for looking away merely because looking is so hard. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But…the ugly is all around. Sometimes it weighs you, wants to grind you to a nub; it wants to claim you. What do you do? What do <i>I </i>do?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">All I have against the ugly are my own infinitely tiny steps, my own small voice, my own actions. How can they be enough, in the face of everything? Somehow, sometimes, they are. Enough for me to get from waking moment to waking moment. And then I see the others, walking too, speaking too, acting and making their own tiny dust mote miracles. Here I am, here we are—here we shout!—all we mere specks, speaking out.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And I am lifted by wonder. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM4ntK3nG_PNpPXEMhP1SOUnHnx78yzqfC1AHYdd5xxYiW4Hs_gwdJiqU-ft1UkdOIuRX04FCRsxupoM7cDSz_r7EexNqmeWp1fOhF68OAcerWxhqfuTISRS2OmFk8vUsvKHqhv1aP5K_L/s1600/1004829_10151736401761236_855813581_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM4ntK3nG_PNpPXEMhP1SOUnHnx78yzqfC1AHYdd5xxYiW4Hs_gwdJiqU-ft1UkdOIuRX04FCRsxupoM7cDSz_r7EexNqmeWp1fOhF68OAcerWxhqfuTISRS2OmFk8vUsvKHqhv1aP5K_L/s400/1004829_10151736401761236_855813581_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-90976990678911202772013-08-04T18:10:00.000+10:002013-08-04T18:10:37.559+10:00a day in the life… What's she been doing?<br />
<br />
The last 24 hours have been filled to the brim with…<br />
<br />
books made,<br />
stories told,<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL_M8Cmcliw-Uu4RT44PR-QPPWvAHFudwDoOtKhave-KrRXqXUo9EG0RKG51LNMtVFNNKG_rqbJmG7wHWwD5lNCqz_IQYu-OeWTu_mbbRr3OvuMPtdqCKjVnO3rn1_yh7S06WOpENqlUh7/s1600/IMG_4002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL_M8Cmcliw-Uu4RT44PR-QPPWvAHFudwDoOtKhave-KrRXqXUo9EG0RKG51LNMtVFNNKG_rqbJmG7wHWwD5lNCqz_IQYu-OeWTu_mbbRr3OvuMPtdqCKjVnO3rn1_yh7S06WOpENqlUh7/s320/IMG_4002.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoc1U7IxZqA2iGylvV5w61JImOorGOLfDq7p8y9hF880DVOy6D4A248admdGofNgcyEVdg2da2ojFI_JjH0r83Av29WhzK4rrFL-j78Xl-cDUmpYp0EXZugFn8F5CYkE7VPuuBlOXsdbjW/s1600/IMG_4003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoc1U7IxZqA2iGylvV5w61JImOorGOLfDq7p8y9hF880DVOy6D4A248admdGofNgcyEVdg2da2ojFI_JjH0r83Av29WhzK4rrFL-j78Xl-cDUmpYp0EXZugFn8F5CYkE7VPuuBlOXsdbjW/s320/IMG_4003.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4X_OUfwniru-3ySeTxZpqboWqMHjsgLEj6EiwspwsHcJsFwoEoywWMY8kdNkbWLbbGH4dZi9QqqcPLJvn_HSGmtsYPBYwO_tZCZgCoMMpvZbssQz5WY5dXrFWY3nyqKU0LTVoPzIsQQJH/s1600/IMG_4004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4X_OUfwniru-3ySeTxZpqboWqMHjsgLEj6EiwspwsHcJsFwoEoywWMY8kdNkbWLbbGH4dZi9QqqcPLJvn_HSGmtsYPBYwO_tZCZgCoMMpvZbssQz5WY5dXrFWY3nyqKU0LTVoPzIsQQJH/s320/IMG_4004.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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and drawings drawn (sometimes with a mum!).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM6e5OFTMZjrp-X10H0eqc1KUuvWR-s_XdPFT2q0mh9H0fUGa-E6kHoQ1Xm9L5t0r1jhd3PunSJNlmBVYynZnrpoQS_P4X0qhzTj53EvzmD1BhNonF5jkhw1ozNQMuq48T9oxsFn-Sgaul/s1600/IMG_4022.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM6e5OFTMZjrp-X10H0eqc1KUuvWR-s_XdPFT2q0mh9H0fUGa-E6kHoQ1Xm9L5t0r1jhd3PunSJNlmBVYynZnrpoQS_P4X0qhzTj53EvzmD1BhNonF5jkhw1ozNQMuq48T9oxsFn-Sgaul/s400/IMG_4022.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(Mine are the green boxes, hers are the black…<br />the 2 of us making whiteboard stories on a sleepy Sunday morning)</td></tr>
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<br />
Then hot chocolates sipped…<br />
while walking to the sea,<br />
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<div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">
and a path followed</div>
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…to a glorious ocean</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwPRUoU6EJXmXfi8GQ-DO2C_pLge_4C0lITLENW2cPv6k6t6xGVHQvubR8KyZv3MiOexe7NHaeJpz8eLLi0BgTG6cBSJ536caxs69nm-XB646YWNN2AW67tNfg67_iju8mcK9yV5E1qby-/s1600/IMG_4023.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwPRUoU6EJXmXfi8GQ-DO2C_pLge_4C0lITLENW2cPv6k6t6xGVHQvubR8KyZv3MiOexe7NHaeJpz8eLLi0BgTG6cBSJ536caxs69nm-XB646YWNN2AW67tNfg67_iju8mcK9yV5E1qby-/s320/IMG_4023.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjWCha_e0PnZq7TkZSR8Zt1RkM8dOY97lDR96plG9MEFTGcjjBq6nmaB9_9hWd9E7xZatZmNmLk-LktaPAv-iOB3KcJu6ol6ITPT6tDfFCLdCvi-ZqPR_UFawTQSGKKMQgDjJijhfHgnws/s1600/IMG_4027.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjWCha_e0PnZq7TkZSR8Zt1RkM8dOY97lDR96plG9MEFTGcjjBq6nmaB9_9hWd9E7xZatZmNmLk-LktaPAv-iOB3KcJu6ol6ITPT6tDfFCLdCvi-ZqPR_UFawTQSGKKMQgDjJijhfHgnws/s320/IMG_4027.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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</div>
and a little blowhole photographed.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV181iGd6_Pbk9tSthDAO1J5M67NGfMT8aUO0v_JCeCV5l2knhcZqPC9HxGRzHLT4ns_pxSCxxSQ1v584aYLQn1uBuZAbIYGBxGabKLknYvUK0hjwPTR9ZCwW0Dwwa1513gi4PA3PYf9GJ/s1600/IMG_4044.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV181iGd6_Pbk9tSthDAO1J5M67NGfMT8aUO0v_JCeCV5l2knhcZqPC9HxGRzHLT4ns_pxSCxxSQ1v584aYLQn1uBuZAbIYGBxGabKLknYvUK0hjwPTR9ZCwW0Dwwa1513gi4PA3PYf9GJ/s320/IMG_4044.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<br />
Colours discovered,<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYX42I0Bn7Rs6ofRsOmcLysLm2P_vbfDatuYnvsf0xL28Z9Ke2V2zPPAtlTZ6mbrGqNF3qBVuOFX522OEhpFu1OBLcpwLFFn77X5L8rgJ7WKo8BXVhhIaqK5_ZAhiYuxLmlHEo8q-FBFnW/s1600/IMG_4053.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYX42I0Bn7Rs6ofRsOmcLysLm2P_vbfDatuYnvsf0xL28Z9Ke2V2zPPAtlTZ6mbrGqNF3qBVuOFX522OEhpFu1OBLcpwLFFn77X5L8rgJ7WKo8BXVhhIaqK5_ZAhiYuxLmlHEo8q-FBFnW/s320/IMG_4053.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZvJnLoVodB0-9gOT6-w8T3A4ZO48O1XSftQsUlODIAxaAL8lXOrFtmVr_zFsngh_HtcmAf4LhK76nxrL-exXGfk2z6OD8Qq9fkPWZcWcV4UcCVhGvTH4u-WI_66Bp7PmtDVBCDRgXFlhY/s1600/IMG_4045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZvJnLoVodB0-9gOT6-w8T3A4ZO48O1XSftQsUlODIAxaAL8lXOrFtmVr_zFsngh_HtcmAf4LhK76nxrL-exXGfk2z6OD8Qq9fkPWZcWcV4UcCVhGvTH4u-WI_66Bp7PmtDVBCDRgXFlhY/s320/IMG_4045.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
patterns made,<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-uYn036CTf51Lg8GMB_azPVD42lsPGu0BmkD7ftcGANJfvkaZwzzfPq827PIXrI8FdJ8umfn5jGRFHLrNubU9k8qnWPPYgUD1WVhCqE0TU2Qxop5-hUafsQ0EJ7p-ZmHfJAp3M-Z6uZR/s1600/IMG_4054.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-uYn036CTf51Lg8GMB_azPVD42lsPGu0BmkD7ftcGANJfvkaZwzzfPq827PIXrI8FdJ8umfn5jGRFHLrNubU9k8qnWPPYgUD1WVhCqE0TU2Qxop5-hUafsQ0EJ7p-ZmHfJAp3M-Z6uZR/s320/IMG_4054.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicSITAcPvgY1tLyWmFp5adBu0etbbt9VpSLGxJjeNjTOTyTxMgXFub36UDH0QcDL382EWAf2KwtYwLqcBJ5dbt6JWSzdcQ-NfkJm4tw5Nr6_kARbRbhchGc_Yfw3kQkCZQI2Yc_eDw9p9I/s1600/IMG_4048.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicSITAcPvgY1tLyWmFp5adBu0etbbt9VpSLGxJjeNjTOTyTxMgXFub36UDH0QcDL382EWAf2KwtYwLqcBJ5dbt6JWSzdcQ-NfkJm4tw5Nr6_kARbRbhchGc_Yfw3kQkCZQI2Yc_eDw9p9I/s320/IMG_4048.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSe7PTDT4kwpUIxa_6C8VBRmO1qypZPtZI8qnPYPTl1YJJhu5XlY17C2k33vzYCZAvvDy6ThFPepmdvnRzDcQRYaBQSxcPeBtQRJBA6Nc0qZZffpXM9mun4aX3Dk8oSFOqhPZ8rASD3TVG/s1600/IMG_4051.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSe7PTDT4kwpUIxa_6C8VBRmO1qypZPtZI8qnPYPTl1YJJhu5XlY17C2k33vzYCZAvvDy6ThFPepmdvnRzDcQRYaBQSxcPeBtQRJBA6Nc0qZZffpXM9mun4aX3Dk8oSFOqhPZ8rASD3TVG/s320/IMG_4051.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">this pattern is by me…<br />the rest are my girl's :) </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8G7EFbLmEIYF_8b21dPV5NgvCVZJJvyG3-MSAo2pMPw05XsqAQ8nviCFFd8I3kCGOtOXgUnwQgnsmw3_MhD5vWPJQxOih5K85wOfhnPW8ZKyTF9rlRz0xMJz3wTEqgNES6EyJiSS_sJGf/s1600/IMG_4056.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8G7EFbLmEIYF_8b21dPV5NgvCVZJJvyG3-MSAo2pMPw05XsqAQ8nviCFFd8I3kCGOtOXgUnwQgnsmw3_MhD5vWPJQxOih5K85wOfhnPW8ZKyTF9rlRz0xMJz3wTEqgNES6EyJiSS_sJGf/s320/IMG_4056.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
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and a hat caught by the wind and lost to the sea (oh no! But so funny, too!).</div>
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<br />
Then…<br />
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home for more drawing!<br />
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And more stories!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2tQRRk4MNuAIakgR6AmKpLlsilHzujnZ9eb-OYr9Ch4bydJkT5_hpt-S86i0QnWl1qX9QkRA1Py4iIKb-f22Z6PNrNV4cKac_nHJWtavxeO95vfgViuGntj4hKQ21JRgHHVF7tdmF01xH/s1600/wooden1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2tQRRk4MNuAIakgR6AmKpLlsilHzujnZ9eb-OYr9Ch4bydJkT5_hpt-S86i0QnWl1qX9QkRA1Py4iIKb-f22Z6PNrNV4cKac_nHJWtavxeO95vfgViuGntj4hKQ21JRgHHVF7tdmF01xH/s320/wooden1.jpg" width="238" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKrQPzp0VEHDlGmFNfS6gs9Txdz7Y5qHe2krfH9qNjnKZ3ofm7MytBkvCreAdVSuD2oRmy-4_IWxy8xwfozEhDqed_0HMwO2Ve9DTA03Im4SPkpQ0THEB6JX0dREkzkN1lAJp4mP-vvYQ1/s1600/wooden2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKrQPzp0VEHDlGmFNfS6gs9Txdz7Y5qHe2krfH9qNjnKZ3ofm7MytBkvCreAdVSuD2oRmy-4_IWxy8xwfozEhDqed_0HMwO2Ve9DTA03Im4SPkpQ0THEB6JX0dREkzkN1lAJp4mP-vvYQ1/s320/wooden2.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<br />
So much to talk about;<br />
<br />
so much laughter!<br />
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She is such a joy to be with.<br />
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What a beautiful friend.<br />
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<br />
<br />Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-30846794118006331402013-07-28T19:03:00.002+10:002013-07-28T19:12:59.895+10:00really, truly<div style="text-align: left;">
"Busy"… </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
and "Really, truly happy."</div>
<br />
That's how I'd describe the past month and a half!<br />
<br />
We just had the "school holidays" … the kids filled them with rest, reading, making animations and games, juggling, writing, art, walks on the beach…on repeat for 14 days. It was BLISS.<br />
<br />
I thought I would spend the holidays writing my novel…but my mind said Otherwise!<br />
<br />
My mind kept me up night after night with a Grand New Plan, got me leaning for a pen at two in the morning so I could scrawl notes on the back of my hand, got me fizzy with excitement for creative projects and wide awake dreams. Night after night I wrote notes in my little book…my husband laughed to see me about to go to sleep, just about to nod off, then going, "Oh, sorry, I just have to write one more thing…" and turning on the light to write Another Idea down.<br />
<br />
It's been an amazing time. A whole Realise-Your-Dreams time, a time of sweet energy and to-the-core peace.<br />
<br />
This is what I've been doing!<br />
<br />
I set up two brand new workshops, which I am calling "The Imaginarium"—they are creativity workshops for young people which I'm running from my home. I am running them every Friday—two groups meeting alternately every fortnight, all homeschoolers. Both groups have now met, and both have been deliciously fun! I have just created a website, a blog really, to showcase what the Imaginarium is all about and what we'll get up to. It's going to be updated with photos of our projects, stories, all the creative things we'll explore…we are just beginning, and I can't wait to see what happens.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif0GPGK-sqXu3-YesWoFuex8ZkUSB1WjliiCP_rcK7p_k9BAiAuv3EzIUJPyPphAfhun1ev8zWEWEZ0IUl2mxHeMC0RUn44xZEq-6vrazlhe5vrpNg8-dRUxLmQXKhKPtiELKIMD_Rhj0E/s1600/introducingtheimaginarium.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif0GPGK-sqXu3-YesWoFuex8ZkUSB1WjliiCP_rcK7p_k9BAiAuv3EzIUJPyPphAfhun1ev8zWEWEZ0IUl2mxHeMC0RUn44xZEq-6vrazlhe5vrpNg8-dRUxLmQXKhKPtiELKIMD_Rhj0E/s1600/introducingtheimaginarium.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click <a href="http://theimaginariumblog.blogspot.com.au/">here</a> to get to the new Blog! :)</td></tr>
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<br />
I also moved my Tuesday workshop to my house, my once-kind-of-chaotic-but-now-pretty-cosy home, which is now set up with nooks in which to write and draw, cushions and benches to sit on, and creative spaces all over the place. After years of living in a fairly chaotic house, we fixed it up last year, and it's made such a huge difference. It means I can finally run things from my home, and that makes me so happy. The sweet thing is, because I'm running so many workshops from home, the house is pretty much always tidy. This isn't me boasting—this is me, amazed and relieved. :)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicWV2Nn9UMNI4m_TJD5xDShfmLPkVeZlWYm_X5K1qF8tdXatxpAQXS54huSDwKPG8fKbMN44mrKHBXJdBhwvquPZfx-anD7xGe7-NNEA8mTAnxg2GC2iuWUusK167UDYvv3fjW6kdW4s3z/s1600/learning+area1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicWV2Nn9UMNI4m_TJD5xDShfmLPkVeZlWYm_X5K1qF8tdXatxpAQXS54huSDwKPG8fKbMN44mrKHBXJdBhwvquPZfx-anD7xGe7-NNEA8mTAnxg2GC2iuWUusK167UDYvv3fjW6kdW4s3z/s320/learning+area1.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1SMRq_gOLp-JfbeikRF_ZRdH6hS2DCX0Q5__JRnwKnSL2fxQnAhSdUt13FU3IuS-USF_4emlWRMFBwVdG3_C_4QgcMV5REykiCwymrPKk_J7U3YeT8bhc1zjNBqJa8FWZB7-szUYl0bxY/s1600/living.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1SMRq_gOLp-JfbeikRF_ZRdH6hS2DCX0Q5__JRnwKnSL2fxQnAhSdUt13FU3IuS-USF_4emlWRMFBwVdG3_C_4QgcMV5REykiCwymrPKk_J7U3YeT8bhc1zjNBqJa8FWZB7-szUYl0bxY/s320/living.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKC1L4KM6vuEmhSuGsmeTldBbLdMAcpLJPVIC0u9_kb_sJaWm9nSoiA8t52uAm1UBScl1YLZAoEch-9KDosNo7allyZpSiJOnCWFfGp462IvWFYLRr8r5dm-TrvXMX5Kt9y6GhMO6dxxUm/s1600/learning+area+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKC1L4KM6vuEmhSuGsmeTldBbLdMAcpLJPVIC0u9_kb_sJaWm9nSoiA8t52uAm1UBScl1YLZAoEch-9KDosNo7allyZpSiJOnCWFfGp462IvWFYLRr8r5dm-TrvXMX5Kt9y6GhMO6dxxUm/s320/learning+area+3.jpg" width="294" /></a></div>
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<br />
I can't even tell you what a dream this has been for me. I remember doing my Masters and telling my friends how one day I really wanted to create a Creative Arts space for young people, a safe and supportive place where kids and young adults could come and have their voices be heard. Now I'm running workshops three times a week—my Young Writers Workshop on Tuesdays, my Imaginarium on Fridays, and The Writers Room on Saturdays. Each one is so special and gives me such joy I could burst. The laughter and enthusiasm alone is enough to fill me—then there's the stories these young people tell, the drawings, the jokes, the ideas they share, the vulnerability they have and the ways they show they feel safe…my goodness… it's a cup-runneth-completely-over kind of thing. I thank everyone for coming each time, and I mean it from the bottom of my heart, from the ends of my toes on up.<br />
<br />
<br />
What else?<br />
<br />
Well, I've been in touch with a Creative Arts studio about doing some writing workshops with them. I don't know when I'll have time to do them, or if they'll even ask me, but wow, they were lovely women, and that was a really nice meeting! :) <br />
<br />
I did a drawing workshop a couple of weeks ago at that same studio, run by the same awesome women. I got to sit cosily in their space on a Tuesday night with a bunch of artists, all drawing and painting a gorgeous soul-singer who sang to us for over an hour. It was so lovely. It looks like I'll get to go regularly, too—how perfect.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBfzW63d4WkAdDlSrPy-WsD4KS30gLhsX92GwS8cma3am2F3TlGa9cNkOCTa8zxWK6lGPgM0agAILjrYEMZmxD7elMFxi0W_vrtuDHIt1K_yKco45jFDN6Trl2uuI0sxf0xcVLZth7CwVF/s1600/studio-19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBfzW63d4WkAdDlSrPy-WsD4KS30gLhsX92GwS8cma3am2F3TlGa9cNkOCTa8zxWK6lGPgM0agAILjrYEMZmxD7elMFxi0W_vrtuDHIt1K_yKco45jFDN6Trl2uuI0sxf0xcVLZth7CwVF/s640/studio-19.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://exposurearts.com.au/about/">The lovely Studio 19</a></td></tr>
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Plus!<br />
<br />
I met with the manager of my son's Circus school, and I'm going to do some work for them—help them set up their educational programs in schools. Just in my spare time, you know?!<br />
<br />
I finished editing a friend's beautiful project—a book of stories to go with a CD of songs, sung by mothers to their children. It's a very special project that has brought my friend so much joy. I can't wait to see the finished product!<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ-SvtkqoxRnk8GSu0PRDwndUPzQlEcqpU7e-E30AcOj7rfIeRQ18PyHIJ2FgmMEIzU8H6vgXrdYokNG2t_zWEpx3d0LCpr7cOUR_FR2SIomGCKQLCRkpxt6uIZn8cMwTtDdG_HnOGaB1N/s1600/1010991_465885213501036_763177136_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ-SvtkqoxRnk8GSu0PRDwndUPzQlEcqpU7e-E30AcOj7rfIeRQ18PyHIJ2FgmMEIzU8H6vgXrdYokNG2t_zWEpx3d0LCpr7cOUR_FR2SIomGCKQLCRkpxt6uIZn8cMwTtDdG_HnOGaB1N/s1600/1010991_465885213501036_763177136_n.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/MotherSong/127374517352109">MotherSong on Facebook</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Plus…!<br />
<br />
I joined a gym, and have been exercising like a little gym bunny (…minus the spandex). And hardly obsessively…just enough.<br />
<br />
And we've been walking on the beach, breathing in the ocean, the sunlight, and the can't-wrap-your-arms-around-it-because-it's too-big-but-you-hug-it-in-your-mind-anyway…sweet space all around.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKf5o5KDNgU-FmtfVl5UkJ5kDXpCNSeMznk3kxfkJxyl05K6UfA0LT_HWWPp6g13eM6qSx0WDU-YIQKv_GcT7PBE4Re13CCQuU-lnVZaaASS0oCC5GD1LLJlesK5YEet6i1VkYNCFfIH4M/s1600/looking+for+rocks.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKf5o5KDNgU-FmtfVl5UkJ5kDXpCNSeMznk3kxfkJxyl05K6UfA0LT_HWWPp6g13eM6qSx0WDU-YIQKv_GcT7PBE4Re13CCQuU-lnVZaaASS0oCC5GD1LLJlesK5YEet6i1VkYNCFfIH4M/s400/looking+for+rocks.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Plus, plus, PLUS!<br />
<br />
We got re-registered as homeschoolers. After a wee lapse in registering (oh…um, just a two year gap? Really, hardly a lapse at all!), I spent my spare moments over the holidays putting together all our records, setting up our homeschooling plans, compiling the kids' work, so that I could present a great package to the Authorised Person. He came last Thursday—we spent two hours talking his ear off and doing a huge "show-and-tell session"—and he was really pleased with what we were doing. We got approved to homeschool for another long slab of time, and it felt so, so satisfying.<br />
<br />
To celebrate, we took ourselves out to lunch, and then we went to the Art Gallery, just because we love it there. We saw an incredibly moving <a href="http://www.wollongongcitygallery.com/exhibitions/Pages/Me,theRoadI.aspx">exhibition</a> (that happened to be wildly educational too), and we talked for ages about it afterwards. It was a magic homeschooling day; it was a magic family day—it was just Happy All Around.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb-o1m-8dBszKVu_Xk2Zs6Gwl_zRXhzjaZ6Y2pH79AtahYPncm-69DDya4HBy80PDhp7oD5jV2T0nxgUYSbMCl_lW7J_7VgarcKYPlwaELuKc9_c_DX2rZB_KXGvsCaMebf9Vt2v1rl97r/s1600/Gateway+by+Arja.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb-o1m-8dBszKVu_Xk2Zs6Gwl_zRXhzjaZ6Y2pH79AtahYPncm-69DDya4HBy80PDhp7oD5jV2T0nxgUYSbMCl_lW7J_7VgarcKYPlwaELuKc9_c_DX2rZB_KXGvsCaMebf9Vt2v1rl97r/s320/Gateway+by+Arja.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the exhibits, this beautiful piece called<br />
<i>Gateway </i>is actually done by a friend of mine, <br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><a href="http://www.arjavalimaki.com/106860/gallery">Arja Välimäki</a>! </span>She is so talented.</div>
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<br />
It might seem that things are too busy here, but they actually aren't! I've set up our "schedule" so that there are open spaces everywhere. I know when my son is going to be training at circus, and when we will be at home. We've cut down on some things, and have left lovely fields of time for reading, exploring, talking, learning, learning, learning.<br />
<br />
I feel like my creative self is truly awake. Our homeschooling selves are being satisfied. Our need for time and space to rest is being met. Our love for books and art is being fed, our passions are never neglected.<br />
<br />
Some days we're tired, some days we have colds and aches, some days we don't want to fix dinner, and some days the laundry pile is HUGE.<br />
<br />
But life is still full and deeply satisfying. I think the word for that is "Good."<br />
<br />
And there's this contentment sitting in the core of me, in the deep and furthest places where anxiety and overwhelm too often used to be. It's a complex feeling… hearty like soup and crusty bread…sometimes. It's fizzy like sparkling water… sometimes. It's giddy and sweet and solid and calm—it is fluid and arranges itself like clouds (the kind you watch while lying on your back on grass; the kind that make the shape of barking dogs and dragons chasing their tails). It's a feeling that has a lot of laughter in it.<br />
<br />
I think the name for<i> </i>it is… "Happy."<br />
<br />
Or is it "Content"?<br />
<br />
How about, "At Peace"?<br />
<br />
Perhaps, "Surrendering To What Is"?<br />
<br />
"Accepting?"<br />
<br />
"Awake" and "(Mostly) Mindful" and<br />
<br />
"Grateful"<br />
<br />
and<br />
<br />
"Fulfilled"?<br />
<br />
Yeah, all of the above. That's me. :)<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRvFT9vVKDO1weRyRQT1GmSpx4W0PKa8dQTmZoR3d0C_NgjWLhFHj4hyN7LVlGcG6cO7fUSf47KfRozRBKZQSyfLL0oSnk31sadihJWyoKQJMZpUe_-xWevhcvUwGBcb7XRXTyeekfK0et/s1600/us+on+the+train.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRvFT9vVKDO1weRyRQT1GmSpx4W0PKa8dQTmZoR3d0C_NgjWLhFHj4hyN7LVlGcG6cO7fUSf47KfRozRBKZQSyfLL0oSnk31sadihJWyoKQJMZpUe_-xWevhcvUwGBcb7XRXTyeekfK0et/s400/us+on+the+train.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-8382439602634827262013-06-14T21:54:00.000+10:002013-06-14T22:43:47.470+10:00Don't be discouraged<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #424648; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">More than just a bout of the
blues, depression isn't a weakness, nor is it something that you can simply
"snap out" of. Depression is a chronic illness that usually requires
long-term treatment, like diabetes or high blood pressure. But don't get
discouraged. <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/depression/DS00175">The Mayo Clinic</a></span> </blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I live with depression. I live with it like
you might live with a coloured rock constantly in your pocket, or a strange and
lumpy weight hanging from a string around your neck.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I have lived with the illness for so long. Most of my life. Over the years I have wished it away; I have ignored it; I
have felt panicked by it. I have judged myself—felt so terrible for falling so
low, for being so pitifully "weak" as to be so sad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">In the past I believed that voice in my ear, the one that said
everyone else had this living thing in the bag. "Look around you!" it
sneered, "no-one else is lost like you! Everyone else is coping
fine! Everyone is clean and shiny and full of pluck and vigour! You're the only
one curled in the bathroom wanting to die!"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Ah. Every time I think about it, I think how exhausting it has been. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Getting sick with clinical depression is awful. It feels
so terrible you'd never wish it on another living being. What kind of mean trick
is this? Not wanting to live when the world is wild with beauty. Finding your whole self raw and whole days unbearable when your kids are
literally dancing and singing in the exact space you are in—that's some bizarre
torture right there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">What's hard is there's also a weird comfort
to bleakness like that. It's just <i>so </i>familiar.
Depression becomes your old blanket, your worn groove; it's the loose tooth you
fiddle with your tongue, the addiction that soothes you, the only path you
know. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Many times I have treated it. And many
times, after I stopped being acutely sad, acutely anxious, acutely wishing to not be alive—I forgot, over time, to keep taking
care of myself. Forgot to keep exercising, seeing counsellors, seeking the sun,
talking, being mindful, sleeping, eating well, taking medicines (herbal or
otherwise), exercising, exercising, exercising. So inevitably, I got sick
again. Just as sick as before, the old groove rising up, the familiar rut
coming to claim me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But not this time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The dark can't take you if you see it
coming. It sounds too simple, but after all these years… you see, </span>I know it so well now, treated it for so
long…It's impossible to miss. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">These days, right when I see it coming is when the fight begins.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Oh, yeah, depression? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I see you standing there, saying you know
me best, hissing like some dude selling sorrow from the pockets of your
trenchcoat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I see you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Who do you think you are, sidling out of
the alleyway peddling your old wares, smiling that toothy smile? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Don't you realise? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I see you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-US">And I'm
not afraid of you.</span></i><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Right here is the moment I kick myself fiercely into gear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I go to yoga—it's only my second time. I twist
my body into wild and improbable shapes next to the bendy young things. They can
fold themselves into origami swans but that's okay—I may be the strangest swan
anyone's ever seen, but I'm there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I let myself cry in front of my counsellor because I'm really tired, and a bit overwhelmed, and because it's not weak to weep. And I speak to friends about some recent insomnia and
they give advice and I see my naturopath and together we do some tweaking until
I'm sleeping again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I go to the doctor and renew my mental
health plan, just as I have year after year after year. I sit there speaking
plainly, unashamed of recent bleak moments, because at least I am sitting here,
damnit, talking and treating this. As I
always have. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">And I talk to my husband 'til midnight, and
we sift through the stuff and plan days I can exercise regularly, days I can stick to. We figure what we need to do to keep me well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It's a sign of strength to recognise when
you're beginning to slide into sickness and to tell the people who matter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It's strength to say depression is an
illness, just like so many others. It is nothing to be ashamed of.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It's strength to say, Hey, I deserve to be
well; I choose the new groove, the fresh path, that bright way of seeing… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">even <i>with</i>
the coloured rock in my pocket, or the strangely-shaped weight at my neck. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Those are just rocks and things. They don't define who I am.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-49068189654307457042013-06-12T18:18:00.001+10:002013-06-12T18:20:39.298+10:00some thoughts from the busy buzz of my brain…Let's pretend I haven't been away for six weeks, shall we? Let's pretend I wrote in here just yesterday, and that we're just picking up where I left off…?<br />
<br />
Yeah?<br />
<br />
Perfect :)<br />
<br />
Now…where was I?<br />
<br />
Ah. Yes. Walking outside.<br />
<br />
It's winter here, but we're kind of lucky.<br />
<br />
We get to spend winter in a world that usually looks like this.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZOvRcFqWxtMNKkj7mzDyWBwalx8X3mFNgGcX0hZj6NVZMzYhHaHcCQE9_P7B8lb1WBOlliHucBmesGlSkELvU1iPlOljYmlAX4x9HbU771szCJXOME1jeIYmEiTborEJ67S0odKzdgmNa/s1600/wgong1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZOvRcFqWxtMNKkj7mzDyWBwalx8X3mFNgGcX0hZj6NVZMzYhHaHcCQE9_P7B8lb1WBOlliHucBmesGlSkELvU1iPlOljYmlAX4x9HbU771szCJXOME1jeIYmEiTborEJ67S0odKzdgmNa/s400/wgong1.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzyr1ow4Cpw83ipVcxLkofYkShwWxMcO_TgzDoLDJexK__5l8SmhgPBM_6CHsVu0HhDeUJ3hN9b0RhWWO7miCo8sWXZLnT2-iQlc7ttsbrVY-uCnb2AhH8A18GoGajRkKRNfZTFXEMPxLb/s1600/wgong2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzyr1ow4Cpw83ipVcxLkofYkShwWxMcO_TgzDoLDJexK__5l8SmhgPBM_6CHsVu0HhDeUJ3hN9b0RhWWO7miCo8sWXZLnT2-iQlc7ttsbrVY-uCnb2AhH8A18GoGajRkKRNfZTFXEMPxLb/s400/wgong2.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I took these photos a week or so ago, on the day my girl and I walked from the beach to the new chocolateria downtown. It was HEAVEN. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
They had so many vegan options, from fruit fondue to churros to decadent hot chocolates. We ate way too much sugar, but then walked it off in the sunshine, through the park, by the sea. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
That was a really nice day.</div>
<br />
<br />
Today, our world<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhidC1tdIZAl4vX8JLKonPQ872dzPf540zg0Ec70sj7uLAP4BxIM2It8l1IbUAHbndVVpTLwkr6ND9GRPJs064yBdDpZNZwXY5fVhEvUeHFYv7sUngRPOWnav-VAYYkTmQqdQENwpw2Q4dc/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhidC1tdIZAl4vX8JLKonPQ872dzPf540zg0Ec70sj7uLAP4BxIM2It8l1IbUAHbndVVpTLwkr6ND9GRPJs064yBdDpZNZwXY5fVhEvUeHFYv7sUngRPOWnav-VAYYkTmQqdQENwpw2Q4dc/s400/images.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://rogerevans.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/gray-skies.jpg&imgrefurl=http://rogerevansonline.com/2011/09/25/grey-skies-smilin-at-me/&h=768&w=1024&sz=34&tbnid=Sk_E5K-fcQ9ROM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=120&zoom=1&usg=__GgNSNjlsxRW_ax0uAKthMZvdsyQ=&docid=M17mzbwUIdlJXM&sa=X&ei=myS4UdqbC6-QiQeE64HACA&ved=0CF0Q9QEwDg&dur=3367">credit</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
has looked mostly like this…<br />
<br />
But that might be because it's been a really busy month and we just had a really busy weekend and lots of late nights, and we are really <i>really</i> tired. <br />
<br />
PLUS, it was raining. It's almost never washed out and grey here. There are clouds all over where the sun should be. What's up with that?<br />
<br />
It's funny because my son just got his braces tightened today, and he was in a bit of pain. And he was so tired and it was the start of another busy day, and he looked out at the clouds, and the grey sky and the rain, and he said, "At least the weather's good today."<br />
My boy.<br />
<br />
Speaking of my boy…!<br />
<br />
He turned thirteen the other day. Wow. How can I be the mother of a thirteen year old? I remember that time of my life so clearly. I remember the music I listened to, and the days going by, and high school life, and…I think my boy might be happier than I was then. At least I think (and hope) he's having a spectacular life—filled with adventures, laughter, security and so much love. I hope he looks back on it and goes, <i>Yeah</i>, that was a good time.<br />
<br />
He says I can't post photos of him any more without his approval. He says I can't call him a kid any more. Actually, I'll rephrase that: he has asked <i>very</i> politely for me not to call him a kid any more. And he wanders off to band these days without giving me a kiss. Sigh…!<br />
<br />
So rather than show him at his birthday dinner holding tofu up to his eyeballs, and rather than show him juggling rings or balls or clubs, or show him blowing out the 13 candles that we stuck into a tub of soy ice cream…<br />
<br />
here's a photo of his brand new, totally-adored juggling clubs. They have become an extension of him, so they kind of count.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKzBxgoYZaQUfdSTTAi5ye5bi6akovTyg67YZ24ILZlFF1q6dGK4Y-3G_deyDb5Vx83t4GXjdre-NQIwhI-wtHLdYmJUK6YXSLy5-KI43LaKD3G3pIxp0ikD97MY7pBtwxlJ1gB4LxOdvG/s1600/clubs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKzBxgoYZaQUfdSTTAi5ye5bi6akovTyg67YZ24ILZlFF1q6dGK4Y-3G_deyDb5Vx83t4GXjdre-NQIwhI-wtHLdYmJUK6YXSLy5-KI43LaKD3G3pIxp0ikD97MY7pBtwxlJ1gB4LxOdvG/s400/clubs.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I do love him so.<br />
<br />
<br />
My son's birthday marked a year to the day since my friend Jennifer passed away.<br />
<br />
I thought of her through the whole day…felt love, felt glad that I'd known her…then thought of her some more. I think of her all the time…she taught me some incredible things, and left us all with some beautiful gifts—<i>strength and thankfulness being two of them</i>. What a guide she's been in my life.<br />
<br />
She'll always be a part of my boy's birthday… like she was a part of our wedding, and our lives, and that goes on; it hasn't changed.<br />
<br />
I am so glad I got to know her and be her friend.<br />
<br />
<br />
As for everything else?<br />
<br />
I am thick in the writing of my novel. Like, so deep inside it it's all I want to do. I want to write when I wake up, when I'm driving my son and daughter to all their classes and things, when I'm cooking…pretty much all moments of the day. Some days I want to move to a writers monastery where all the monks have to do is sit in reverence before the page.<br />
<br />
It's kind of hard to do anything else, kind of hard to think straight. I suppose that's the feeling of being in love, right? But with someone you can only see for minutes at a time, sometimes for longer stretches, but in the end someone or something always takes you away.<br />
<br />
This sort of constant tearing at the heart can't be good for a person, can it? I'd break it off, but you see, we're tied together now.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFgH8OIg0k6Y9ZoQltiPWHllK9QPy1WhJDiLJW54UAkY2O9QoLsEvcHfCWi37QUPG2_1tn13j97VhhX4SUcnAFjA60aGhkSR6LrbmrBBWsqYxYUdPBkUYjj_gQ23oN2uA97pzyQeJgCh83/s1600/cat+and+book.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFgH8OIg0k6Y9ZoQltiPWHllK9QPy1WhJDiLJW54UAkY2O9QoLsEvcHfCWi37QUPG2_1tn13j97VhhX4SUcnAFjA60aGhkSR6LrbmrBBWsqYxYUdPBkUYjj_gQ23oN2uA97pzyQeJgCh83/s400/cat+and+book.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The novel is the reason I haven't written here more; the novel is the reason the laundry doesn't get done and the groceries stay in their bags and why I'm late sometimes.<br />
<br />
I would like to write more here,<br />
<br />
but until this thing is Done, I can't…<br />
<br />
so…<br />
<br />
I'm thinking maybe I'll write <i>less?</i><br />
<br />
But more often.<br />
<br />
Yeah. <i>Yeah</i>.<br />
<br />
That's it—less is the new more!<br />
<br />
Little posts, like little postcards… from the brain that's constantly thinking of towns and magic kingdoms and girls who steal moonlight, and what to do with the Queen, and why did she go there and should I turn her into a bird?<br />
<br />
Could be kind of interesting :)<br />
<br />
So I'll see if I can do that. Postcards. Just little ones…tiny colourful thoughts… like those shells you might pick up on the beach. That might be just right.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN4NRYuFBGsIMSpsxdcYUZ9Rc2Z6E3FR24XL-A_Ar3mGCJPc43hIlw4MJ1sX8Ai_jQ8Dh1gCbKw9edHwPyIhUD17IP6j4tX4RfZ3ixVJE2MjTAaiv7zlWBC_nD_PScLcFrgkYuvl0hYQ-o/s1600/seashell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN4NRYuFBGsIMSpsxdcYUZ9Rc2Z6E3FR24XL-A_Ar3mGCJPc43hIlw4MJ1sX8Ai_jQ8Dh1gCbKw9edHwPyIhUD17IP6j4tX4RfZ3ixVJE2MjTAaiv7zlWBC_nD_PScLcFrgkYuvl0hYQ-o/s400/seashell.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Love and peace to you all! :)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-23448626471681748112013-04-28T14:48:00.001+10:002013-04-28T14:49:12.067+10:00Sometimes it's just nice…<div style="text-align: center;">
Sometimes it's nice just to take a walk, you know?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6xIK08OwpWOqt1C8ulCeFUClxCmq69dPX7kmyFIY9JFq2r_ZQruwIYaV4GnuBnEhient5y2rXzj0KU6_9GJ-J40iFntOzw1u6_8gspJNVQIrGJcUKlUqJxoPE6IqT4tS5mafbS7lReoGT/s1600/IMG_3294.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6xIK08OwpWOqt1C8ulCeFUClxCmq69dPX7kmyFIY9JFq2r_ZQruwIYaV4GnuBnEhient5y2rXzj0KU6_9GJ-J40iFntOzw1u6_8gspJNVQIrGJcUKlUqJxoPE6IqT4tS5mafbS7lReoGT/s400/IMG_3294.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And say hello to the trees.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje-DR7GxSYUvUjVHUDdgS8yS26aMRWTs2ltiDt0avHSWfNDs4hj-sfqLE-5rsqduEwqS0_IS4ONpMBTd2jNvwQgvH-RylsC4v-bBL-f1GG1Zwws6EX4f-3b19nJaaH4kww6M_eg_GiAQa0/s1600/IMG_3318.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje-DR7GxSYUvUjVHUDdgS8yS26aMRWTs2ltiDt0avHSWfNDs4hj-sfqLE-5rsqduEwqS0_IS4ONpMBTd2jNvwQgvH-RylsC4v-bBL-f1GG1Zwws6EX4f-3b19nJaaH4kww6M_eg_GiAQa0/s400/IMG_3318.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It's nice to find wombat holes tucked into glades…</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA787rualZ4kmjlH5UTuBoONOmm9dVdspJGSe051wj3U8KXZqKqCTQdkhIYPrA_P0_xtlmZNkEO5rFuxRx5xUqJ8O8OUEdvMCQru0EFDj6i888SkQOQSrWqJi_dayJdO44mDuRCTlfXyDj/s1600/IMG_3287.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA787rualZ4kmjlH5UTuBoONOmm9dVdspJGSe051wj3U8KXZqKqCTQdkhIYPrA_P0_xtlmZNkEO5rFuxRx5xUqJ8O8OUEdvMCQru0EFDj6i888SkQOQSrWqJi_dayJdO44mDuRCTlfXyDj/s400/IMG_3287.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and see that the sky is an uninterrupted blue.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-nNWpaKUi_mflG4yfDczMOmy5FCu0bLZPjVfO-IiyRDqVh4lJ76-7SciW-Coh7o3J_BuqoBbZKklb8ie9PZRsiUko0IFMp7M4g6wj61DKBRMg0U8jDYGUl7qgV2I8dEcTqc-FXwB3W3rC/s1600/IMG_3295.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-nNWpaKUi_mflG4yfDczMOmy5FCu0bLZPjVfO-IiyRDqVh4lJ76-7SciW-Coh7o3J_BuqoBbZKklb8ie9PZRsiUko0IFMp7M4g6wj61DKBRMg0U8jDYGUl7qgV2I8dEcTqc-FXwB3W3rC/s400/IMG_3295.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It's nice to look over water with sun glinting off it…</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXRAd_NF49qQVGWQYklJlSUTRaGKN1Fyk8zoOiBE2MxFpRl2JXOol26uEjAPu5Lhc-hOrv-6Ru-aGqje7q738Ym5dcdSChv1qHAVRjLj0AceIFpkLKdnXCMTRLJAcc-rlu-j1d-W7Gm5id/s1600/IMG_3278.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXRAd_NF49qQVGWQYklJlSUTRaGKN1Fyk8zoOiBE2MxFpRl2JXOol26uEjAPu5Lhc-hOrv-6Ru-aGqje7q738Ym5dcdSChv1qHAVRjLj0AceIFpkLKdnXCMTRLJAcc-rlu-j1d-W7Gm5id/s400/IMG_3278.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and find mushrooms as big as your hand! </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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It's nice to stand by beautiful things…</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Cb28ykzV90xhg3sqREFpcxun9iu2TExsEZdhxJdEwGQCpFbjHqoUma8NW1FZQiqIbdD0fUVysCK1EmCh1WLIpeTJ9oVOe7VYzds76fz-pbgtY_OLi9XadPxffZTd1OUnOm6XxxqjN6GK/s1600/IMG_3260.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Cb28ykzV90xhg3sqREFpcxun9iu2TExsEZdhxJdEwGQCpFbjHqoUma8NW1FZQiqIbdD0fUVysCK1EmCh1WLIpeTJ9oVOe7VYzds76fz-pbgtY_OLi9XadPxffZTd1OUnOm6XxxqjN6GK/s400/IMG_3260.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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and notice the wild, reaching…</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF119lPGQuPtAianlLyTazXN1rfAAFemmKxrEMEVKWBljVjfLCpN1enK06lnzVWeEV3eU4i3h3YeqFO32eVZlgniQAox1zbLm7GTgq2w98hNgkyClYpFLdWR3t8-KNMYYGh1FvInjYGKYU/s1600/IMG_3269.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF119lPGQuPtAianlLyTazXN1rfAAFemmKxrEMEVKWBljVjfLCpN1enK06lnzVWeEV3eU4i3h3YeqFO32eVZlgniQAox1zbLm7GTgq2w98hNgkyClYpFLdWR3t8-KNMYYGh1FvInjYGKYU/s400/IMG_3269.jpg" width="333" /></a></div>
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and see a boy,</div>
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in his Element.</div>
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It's nice to run…</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0_96kIM3UWeec_W8aV-PZlVdjTu7NeyuaOnmhvFqWvIgdFgAOkVHozU4XBx52MWMEftBe-Totkg8qG16r4BUNBaXDwnfUJsHj8iabQXJRGwV4dKls9dqSdCZws3B5Hmv_NnlPAUG_JGgb/s1600/IMG_3297.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0_96kIM3UWeec_W8aV-PZlVdjTu7NeyuaOnmhvFqWvIgdFgAOkVHozU4XBx52MWMEftBe-Totkg8qG16r4BUNBaXDwnfUJsHj8iabQXJRGwV4dKls9dqSdCZws3B5Hmv_NnlPAUG_JGgb/s400/IMG_3297.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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and dig…</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6RpUAXQ4o2Qf1EJTBrnx8qPX1kEpMGKClBE-a_R3bOhYIqi8lAJg4VyP_ZkwYV2TWtvNS4JK84SBSFF7rwAQBV7B6eni11_PRa3Prt4d5aTMQmU87i-w9Aq7hqWYJtvWsKKTYHIsV0ZM0/s1600/IMG_3220.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6RpUAXQ4o2Qf1EJTBrnx8qPX1kEpMGKClBE-a_R3bOhYIqi8lAJg4VyP_ZkwYV2TWtvNS4JK84SBSFF7rwAQBV7B6eni11_PRa3Prt4d5aTMQmU87i-w9Aq7hqWYJtvWsKKTYHIsV0ZM0/s400/IMG_3220.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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and walk by water…</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg9IOlbBL2qOhWbkv4dt19B7UPMua-p8aRlKVyu73t0bVg6zH8OdsR6M0JZyRD47Sxyfrz6zxWrtIl9yXpado7HHqHHGl3PP-1nNee6iBmxnmPdopHjNI36vJ_ki_gK99XC5pNdLV1Bw18/s1600/IMG_3256.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg9IOlbBL2qOhWbkv4dt19B7UPMua-p8aRlKVyu73t0bVg6zH8OdsR6M0JZyRD47Sxyfrz6zxWrtIl9yXpado7HHqHHGl3PP-1nNee6iBmxnmPdopHjNI36vJ_ki_gK99XC5pNdLV1Bw18/s400/IMG_3256.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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and jump into holes left just for you.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiHQYADQhivZuNPzW1lTrP8xZB00aMKN3tDYq5HtKuZCGfGQLDv-ACk-c8dKM9qnKYRHbppt3zk5sPr3K_fqpy-mzKVgT98pxcty408GjE8y1sXhwmct1F0qd1uTV0_hXPhnkTJovqHiEX/s1600/IMG_3301+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiHQYADQhivZuNPzW1lTrP8xZB00aMKN3tDYq5HtKuZCGfGQLDv-ACk-c8dKM9qnKYRHbppt3zk5sPr3K_fqpy-mzKVgT98pxcty408GjE8y1sXhwmct1F0qd1uTV0_hXPhnkTJovqHiEX/s400/IMG_3301+2.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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It's nice to notice</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
the colour of clouds…</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-ZUNBwk7MzkPmOaBhiEYYYf0otjFYb9P3ygSPPsyu7Lv1uPp7DGQD8OSr2rGnfnjRRGXKoRUUvDZssGypTzuYCMIyggk6_vnPzK4eIlG1yLFBT2GDeZvpG3mRrZprNgGZNTxkiAxC4IOw/s1600/IMG_3313.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-ZUNBwk7MzkPmOaBhiEYYYf0otjFYb9P3ygSPPsyu7Lv1uPp7DGQD8OSr2rGnfnjRRGXKoRUUvDZssGypTzuYCMIyggk6_vnPzK4eIlG1yLFBT2GDeZvpG3mRrZprNgGZNTxkiAxC4IOw/s400/IMG_3313.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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to sit</div>
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in the moment your porridge is done</div>
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and listen to the simple tick</div>
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of the clock</div>
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and your own, quiet breathing.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSnYB-G7kxlV5Sb20B3b3euZlzMg5UJLrwnLWEx88EKnF2Uj58Y36mcxqbYZn-eu-GKqe9hAUwrSwfEcUQHoVV_GA9hpdg7w9m-65QpK8HqLIZBQNpKz3cW8dpW_rBYs7tlJrQSGjPzI2G/s1600/IMG_3317.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSnYB-G7kxlV5Sb20B3b3euZlzMg5UJLrwnLWEx88EKnF2Uj58Y36mcxqbYZn-eu-GKqe9hAUwrSwfEcUQHoVV_GA9hpdg7w9m-65QpK8HqLIZBQNpKz3cW8dpW_rBYs7tlJrQSGjPzI2G/s320/IMG_3317.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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It's so nice to take time</div>
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to be together,</div>
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to take note…</div>
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isn't it?</div>
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And so very nice </div>
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to smile!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0rKFnTYoo0HLwkqU3imSr5_o_-55JeNoT170G4vJDdrl8ejF-VqoDQqSaFXX443YrqDS4IHPoZyQq6z2KQDd-Q4kZGkFwcZF2JffoIJ5jNX0Od9Ci2E3ooiHftbFGstc-0GbF8JqFKYmc/s1600/IMG_3274.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0rKFnTYoo0HLwkqU3imSr5_o_-55JeNoT170G4vJDdrl8ejF-VqoDQqSaFXX443YrqDS4IHPoZyQq6z2KQDd-Q4kZGkFwcZF2JffoIJ5jNX0Od9Ci2E3ooiHftbFGstc-0GbF8JqFKYmc/s400/IMG_3274.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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:)</div>
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Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-42059066207411611282013-04-21T09:27:00.000+10:002013-04-22T20:33:34.390+10:00guns, love, winter, and bracesWe tried to go walking by the beach yesterday between thunderstorms, and got lashed by our first grey autumn rain. The sea frothed and surfers leaped into the waves, and the clouds made a mushy mess of the sky. We couldn't help but laugh, the four of us, striding in that wet, together. <br />
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And they caught the Boston bomber yesterday and people were alternately weeping and cheering in the streets.<br />
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My son ate his thousandth cup of soup last night. He is into day five of braces. They hurt, they hurt, they hurt. I would gladly take his pain and live it, if I could. But I can't, so all I can do is lie beside him at night and tell him stories at 3am, as I did on night one, when he couldn't sleep for pain. Sometimes that's all you have—your stories, your love, your closeness.<br />
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I have entered a debate on gun control, it seems, in this blog. I suppose if you bring up a subject, you engage. So I guess I am engaged. But only so far as it's healthy for me, and my family to engage…At some point I move away to make soup, to sit with my son and watch movies on the couch with him and give him pain relief. Last night the four of us played Pictionary at the dining table, our heads bent over the paper, and we laughed 'til we cried. I move away from the debate, but also move closer…to send good wishes and peace to those who feel differently from me.<br />
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Both sides of the gun control debate have solid statistics at hand to argue their point. They have history to back them, and essays and quotes from famous people. Both sides have real-life stories, tragedies, heart-wrenching and affirming tales to support their side. With a debate like this comes strong emotion. And strident rhetoric. And tears. With a debate like this, with every decision and news story, you have weeping and cheering…in the streets, on couches, by hospital beds. With a debate like this, there can be no winner. You just have lives, affected.<br />
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So I am sending love to those affected by violence. In Boston. In Syria. In my own home town. I am sending my beliefs out into the ether. I believe in conversation and community. I believe that we can be collective guardians of the world. I don't believe things are "bad" or "good" or that "evil" exists. I don't believe in "us" and "them." I think violence comes through a chain of choices and circumstance, people let down, led astray, feeling there are no other options. I believe violence can be met by a wall of peace.<br />
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I believe the focus of society should be on creating the most <i>compassionate</i> <i>community</i>. I don't think we have to be docile or passive: I think we can be alive and alight with our kindness, our empathy, our passion for non-violence. I believe we can sit on buses and be conscientious objectors. We can stand at microphones and have dreams that inspire nations. We can listen to and help those who are frustrated and unwell. We can be inspired by those who seek and have sought Peace. Love. Equality. Understanding. We can sing, and speak out, and protect our children—we can change the world.<br />
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I am a pacifist. I am a mother. I am an informed, gentle, global citizen. I am happy to debate, but I know where I would debate, if I could choose. Not in a town hall at a podium, with notes in my hand. I wouldn't stand or sit opposite my opposition, shaking my fist. I would rather not be behind the computer, writing words to people who don't agree with me, but instead sitting together—mother <i>beside</i> mother, person <i>beside</i> person—at a kitchen table, or side by side on the couch. I would have our hands curled around cups of tea. I would have us talking and listening. Talking, and <i>listening</i>.<br />
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Sun is out today. I think we're going to the local markets; they're held at a little school that overlooks the sea. Music is always playing. We will be together. The sea will probably be an impossible, perfect blue.<br />
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<br />Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-36395475086361777172013-04-18T12:51:00.003+10:002013-09-14T11:16:12.459+10:00peace to allHasn't it been a strange and imperfect week?<br />
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You look at the newspaper and it's heartbreaking—ranging from difficult to impossible—all around, in country after country.<br />
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And you sit with your boy as he struggles through pain and you feel it as though it's your pain.<br />
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And you're tired and you'd like life to be simple, but it isn't.<br />
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And the laundry pile is huge.<br />
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I was sitting on the edge of my bed this morning, thinking, "Today isn't going to be easy."<br />
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Once upon a time, I would lie down on days like these, and let the hard take over.<br />
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I looked at the sky and the trees and heard the birds. Sky was a cloudless blue. Trees were green and wild. Birds were talking, telling each other stories.<br />
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And I got up.<br />
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Today I got up and took some laundry downstairs and that was a small, good thing.<br />
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Today, my son, who just got braces yesterday morning and was up all night in pain, just put on some Miles Davis. I'm writing to the music that makes my son happy.<br />
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Today I read a <a href="http://www.redoakroad.com/2013/04/dont-just-give-it-live-it.html">blog post</a> where the person suggested we focus on being kind. Being patient. Breathing deeply. <i>Yes</i>, I thought.<br />
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I've had some strange times this week, interacting and, for the first time, debating/respectfully disagreeing with people online. I am usually very agreeable on social media, so this felt new for me: kind of fiery and peaceful at the same time. The people I have "debated" with I respect hugely, and I have not wanted to seem argumentative. But I have wanted to share an alternative view: my view, my truth.<br />
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I am finding that I'd like to speak, and speak, and speak my truth more. And, of course, let people speak theirs in turn.<br />
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Already I write about animal suffering a little on this blog, but not often. I "like" things that relate to animal rights on Facebook, and every now and then, I share information I feel is important to read. But there are more things I care about. Things I am quiet about because I don't want to push an "agenda" or have this blog become political or be about "causes." But what I care about, and the change I want to see in the world, really matters to me. People are making huge changes happen in the world by speaking out. Why don't I, more?<br />
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For some reason I've been thinking about Gandhi a lot recently. What would he do? What would he say in the face of the NRA's agenda, and bombings in the US and drone attacks in Pakistan, in the face of factory farming, hunting in National Parks, of people living lives of judgement and hate… all things I find difficult to bear?<br />
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I believe he would speak, and speak, and speak, his truth.<br />
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He would BE the change he wished to see in the world.<br />
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So this is the change I wish to see in the world. The change I try to live daily:<br />
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People putting kindness and compassion above all.<br />
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People living in, and accepting, equality.<br />
<br />
People prioritising peace, and the lives of others, over "centuries-old rights" and "this is how things have always been."<br />
<br />
People seeking non-violent solutions for conflict.<br />
<br />
People protecting the voiceless.<br />
<br />
<br />
It's not how a lot of the world is right now, but I keep hoping. And getting up in spite of things. I keep choosing kindness, compassion, positivity. And writing my truth.<br />
<br />
<br />
Here I sit, on this day that's turning out to be not so hard after all…with a cat on my lap, listening to jazz. It's just started to rain and I can hear it pick-pocking the verandah roof outside.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
I will write words I care about. I will feel sadness and confusion for the people of Boston. I will feel joy that marriage equality has been recognised in New Zealand. I will mourn another bombing in Iraq in the days leading up to their election. I will be baffled and <i>deeply</i> disappointed by the Senate choosing not to change gun laws in the US. I will march against live export when Animals Australia brings the rally to the city of Sydney. I will hug my children.<br />
<br />
I will get up in a minute and put the laundry on. Give my son some more pain relief. Make him some more soup. Listen to the rain.<br />
<br />
And send, as always, love and peace, to all.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DW4DXOAXF8U" width="560"></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">People in the public gallery of the New Zealand Parliament, </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">singing the Maori love song "Pokarekare Ana" </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">moments after same-sex marriage legislation was passed. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Beautiful.</span> </div>
Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-12210771275609702342013-04-10T20:49:00.000+10:002013-04-10T20:54:00.843+10:00SPAM: a collection of poems<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://fineartamerica.com/"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbbUj_2L6twVmTqUnyzLos1su5zI4zzrlGJWTdco_pE8s4DEfewT4lYfQwz0ICCXwkn4EwIdpwGxYR8J5Z_f-o8zxPsQcvqHSVSVQPRfOUY7eQUuktZaXyeKCkm_fnJvyrdxlMvOhs3EDQ/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></div>
<b style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: inherit;"><br /></b>
<b style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: inherit;"><br /></b>
<b style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: inherit;">The doctor's wife</b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I like what I see so now i'm following you.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Place a bowl of pot pourri on your window sill, so breezes can </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">waft the scents around.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Theгe's a fine line between the all-natural sorts of snoring
that should </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">cause no worries, and the </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">consistently habitual type of snoring
that </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">goes out of control.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;">When your discs realign, </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;">you will probably feel plenty of relief from lumbar pain.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Also there still may be timing or emotional issues that hold you
apart—</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">this may not be your only Soul-Mate. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: inherit;">I'm uniquely qualified to say so
because I was a doctor's wife in the 60's.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Your ex</b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A woman could undoubtedly go </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">away your ex </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">domicile through
morning, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">self-confident in your girl manifestation,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> find out through mid-day
teas, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">my significant other become tricked.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><b>Exactly. How?</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The former individual is equitable of </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">more session lessons for
the uncastrated case. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Like if something goes unsuitable, how region can they
bank?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Unquestionably unwell</b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Unwell unquestionably come more </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">formerly again since </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">exactly the
same nearly very often </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">inside case </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">you shield this increase.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Tough love</b> </span></span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This may sound strange. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These websites have already been in </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">existence for several years. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Your conversations are mostly small talk.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <b>Love</b></span></span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh my goodness! </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Awesome article dude!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: inherit;">Gгeat deliverу. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: inherit;">Ѕoliԁ argumentѕ. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: inherit;">Kеep up thе grеat wоrκ.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><i>by</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><i>Anonymous</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: x-small;"><i>(ps: Thank you, dear commenters of all kinds, </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: x-small;"><i>for the laughter, support, and inspiration you have given me over the years. Much love to you!)</i></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-72834276095067459632013-04-08T21:45:00.001+10:002013-04-08T21:52:25.194+10:00if music be the food of love…My husband had a really big concert on the weekend.<br />
<br />
Every year, he puts together a big band of young people to play with a famous jazz musician (or two, three, or more!). I've written about this band before, <a href="http://respectlovelearning.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/mega.html">here</a>, but that was almost three years ago! Time for a retell, I think. :) Every year, these kids and young adults get together on the day of the performance (for their one and only rehearsal!), get given sheet music they haven't seen before, plus a t-shirt to wear on the night, and get shown where to sit. They rehearse, hard, for 6 hours, then come back that night to perform. It's incredibly exciting for a lot of these kids—there's nothing like it in the area. I suspect there might be nothing like it in the country.<br />
<br />
Now, when I say a big band, I mean, a really really REALLY big band. It is made up of 150 people. 150! Yes. All those young people work together to create a concert, led by a man with huge vision and energy (my amazing husband, who is helped by lovely, tireless colleagues), all of them running on sheer exuberance, talent, and courage. Some kids have only been playing for a year, and they sit beside people who are in their last year of highschool (even early university), and somehow, it works.<br />
<br />
The only things they're asked to do? To have fun. To either play (or look like they're playing!). And to go for it. <br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-9s4-Z0PdCDJNVI8tZ7BpQIBrjNvuUX2XFFCDpoNNhnrB7KQqmaUjQTRW3rLuJAX_UPmWVpsbptek9pJetCbHceiyI3FWEXitJGTLHG3apvxlX83ZVivvVkbmIZzzTVW0E7n7lXC8z1Vp/s1600/IMG_3159.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-9s4-Z0PdCDJNVI8tZ7BpQIBrjNvuUX2XFFCDpoNNhnrB7KQqmaUjQTRW3rLuJAX_UPmWVpsbptek9pJetCbHceiyI3FWEXitJGTLHG3apvxlX83ZVivvVkbmIZzzTVW0E7n7lXC8z1Vp/s400/IMG_3159.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
My husband came up with this idea about 7 years ago, and his wonderful Conservatorium of Music has put on six Megaband shows so far. I've designed the t-shirt for every concert, and my son has played four times. We've had jazz, funk, and latin greats all come to play as guest artists, and on Friday night, we had 900 people come to watch. It's a thing now. Like, a real THING, something you might imagine kids remembering when they grow up…like, how maybe they got their guitar or music or drum sticks signed by this awesome musician, or how maybe that was the first time they ever properly performed and they were so nervous but they did it, and this maybe was the beginning of them realising they wanted to be a musician.<br />
<br />
This lovely night has become part of our mutual history now, part of my family's and my town's story. It makes up some of the colours, the woven pattern of our place here. What a beautiful thing for people to be part (and proud) of.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
For me, however, my favourite part of the night was a small and perfect thing. Something that felt so personal, but was shared with over a thousand other people. And afterwards, I felt all weepy with pride.<br />
<br />
You see, my husband directed the band wearing Converse sneakers.<br />
<br />
Second-hand ones, at that.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
He wore a gorgeous black suit, crisp white shirt, grey tie, and these grey canvas "classic" Chuck Taylors. He bought them from the op-shop the other day, scrubbed them clean, and wore them to this "big deal" event. And the lack of black leather 'dress shoes' was noticeable—so much so that one of our two famous guest artists called my husband on it.<br />
<br />
The guest who is a friend of my husband's, made a joke about my husband's tennis shoes. He suggested maybe my husband forgot to change shoes, and perhaps my husband needed to borrow his again, like that time four years ago (when my husband actually forgot to bring his own). <br />
<br />
That got a good laugh, and then my husband good-humouredly went to the microphone and said something to this effect:<br />
<br />
"These aren't just tennis shoes, man. These are Converse all-stars. These were made with no animal products."<br />
<br />
Applause rippled through the audience, rose like a quiet wave through the theatre.<br />
<br />
"So don't be givin' me grief 'bout my shoes no mo'."<br />
<br />
And he grinned at the famous jazz man, who grinned back, and my husband turned to the band and began conducting the next piece, and the famous jazz man began to play something beautiful.<br />
<br />
And while the night wasn't—at all—about animals or about ethics or choices or beliefs, the night, for me, became in that moment about something bigger than music, bigger than us sitting here, bigger than 150 kids having the time of their lives. It became about standing up for, reaching up towards, something that is as big as spirit, and as deep.<br />
<br />
When my husband could have said nothing, he spoke for living things that do not sing or play or have a voice as we do, but <i>feel</i> as we do. He spoke for creatures who might have loved to listen to the music as we did, and been lifted by that music into joy.<br />
<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lXKDu6cdXLI" width="560"></iframe></div>
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<br />Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-760384943386215722.post-37329900471839716432013-04-05T01:15:00.000+11:002013-04-05T02:53:52.005+11:00a slave to passion: the unschooling wayWe started the school year this February…with a timetable.<br />
<br />
Yes, you're reading that right! We free and unfettered "life learners," we long-term unschooly types, tried a timetable on for size this term.<br />
<br />
Oh, it was <i>so</i> pretty.<br />
<br />
I dolled things up by changing the font, using different colours and text sizes, fitting things into coloured boxes, all in the attempt to make the Scheduled Learning Opportunities look enticing and fun.<br />
<br />
I printed it out and put it in a plastic sleeve where we oohed and aahed over it. It looked so fancy, so polished, so Sensible and Straight.<br />
<br />
<br />
And I had high hopes for it, in the beginning. This timetable thing was how I was finally going to fit all the government expectations and requirements into the week, squeeze them in like step-sisters' toes into our glass slipper.<br />
<br />
You see, at the beginning of the school year, I suddenly got hit by a fit of the Have To's. The Shoulds, the It's Got to Look Like This'es. My son was going into year 8 this year, and two days before term began, I suddenly thought, "Woah! This is serious! Better start "Doing" high school, then!" I forgot we'd been perfectly happily "Doing" high school all last year, without the sense of squishiness, without feeling the subjects crowding into the week like mad concert goers rushing the stage.<br />
<br />
So, I tried to fit all the Stuff—the language, technology, science, maths, literacy, history, geography, all the boxes you're <i>supposed</i> to tick every single week—in around the kids' passions. But these things were bullies…or at least, by attempting to change who we are and how we learn, I turned these Required Subjects into bullies…because they shoved my son's juggling practice to the far reaches of the day. Half an hour in the mornings, maybe. Perhaps an hour or two on a Wednesday, if he was lucky. He had evenings, which I thought were enough, working on his passion before bedtime.<br />
<br />
But the problem with (and the beauty of) passion is, it's all consuming. It is your greatest love, your escape; your saviour and your finest hour.<br />
<br />
Go without the thing you love for long, and it's torment. You aren't yourself. Everything feels wrong, feels wobbly, like you're not in the right skin, the right life.<br />
<br />
I know this, because without my own passion, I get lost. When I'm not writing, everything feels a bit (or a lot) off kilter. There are times I can mask the feeling with more exercise. Magnesium supplements. Extra sleep. And with mindfulness exercises…where I take note, gladly, that I am well and get to hang out with my kids all day.<br />
<br />
But if I forget to write, or get so busy tweaking a schedule that doesn't fit—"facilitating learning experiences exactly between the hours of 9 and 12 on a Monday, and 10 to 1 on a Tuesday, etc, etc"—that my writing time shrinks to nearly nothing, then after a time, it feels like a limb is missing.<br />
<!--EndFragment--><br />
The last few weeks, I've begun to truly prioritise my writing. Brought my computer everywhere I've gone. Grabbed every spare minute to write, write, write. I've written in the mornings while the kids eat their breakfast, written while they've pottered away at their projects, begun to put my writer self first. I've written 20,000 words over the past month, and it feels beautiful.<br />
<br />
And as I've raised my passion up, valued it, prioritised it…well, our timetable has, sort of, um, fallen away.<br />
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US">What has this done to my newly-organised homeschool family? Well, the kids have gone back to learning, exploring, creating, discovering,
just as they have been, quite organically (with us as a team, following ideas,
suggestions, and desires), for four homeschooling years.<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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And as for my son's juggling, it is setting up home in centre stage.<br />
<br />
<br />
The other day, you see, my son showed me yet another Youtube juggling video—one of the hundreds, literally, he has watched over the past year.<br />
<br />
He said to me, "Mum, this guy [<i>pointing to the teenager doing mad tricks</i>…] practices juggling for three hours a day, seven days a week."<br />
<br />
I said, "Really???" and he said, "Yes."<br />
<br />
"Huh. Would <i>you</i> want to do that???"<br />
<br />
"<i>YES</i>."<br />
<br />
He was so quiet, sitting there at the computer, looking at me with these eyes—the only word to describe what I saw there, was 'Hunger.'<br />
<br />
He didn't just <i>want</i> to throw objects into the air for every waking minute of every day. He <i>needed to</i>. He was unmoored without it.<br />
<br />
Something clicked. So this is what passion looks like when it's outside your own body.<br />
<br />
We talked for ages about how to make this love an actual, honest to goodness priority. He had his circus classes, yes, but needed practice time too—hours and hours. And practice space—he needed tall ceilings. He needed time to watch videos, to make videos, to think about juggling, to breathe in circus arts like oxygen.<br />
<br />
So we're doing it. Going for it, jumping into the deep.<br />
<br />
We've set up open training at his circus space. Two hours here, three hours there, almost every day of the week. I've talked with his teachers and they've told me what he needs, to get into university to study circus arts. They're setting higher goals, harder tasks, because they take this thing seriously. They will take it seriously <i>for as long as it's my son's dream</i>. I've even booked my boy into ballet class—he can't wait to start.<br />
<br />
I've rewritten a timetable he might never see. Great swathes of the day are filled with the words, "Circus Training." Our classes—art, tennis, writers workshop, music and more music—are marked down too. But the "Official Stuff?" The boxes filled with labels like "maths"? Gone. I've rewritten the timetable…for me. Now that it's been written, with all the right bits in, I'm not sure, honestly, if I'll look at it again.<br />
<br />
Passion is valid, vital, alive. It's okay…it really is…if it is <i>everything</i> and all the other Stuff fits and flows around it. I've read articles about unschooling and kids having consuming passions and how this all can work…and I am finding my way again.<br />
<br />
Which brings us to today.<br />
<br />
My son made juggling videos, all day. He filmed his training yesterday, edited and formatted the movie, added text and music. Together we created a Youtube account for him. He worked his way around the site for hours, adding a profile pic, creating a cover image for his Youtube channel, subscribing to his favourite jugglers. He uploaded his first ever Youtube video. Hurrah! And then…he went and made another.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br /></div>
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<br />Helenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08560926974431305982noreply@blogger.com10