Never too heavy

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There's nothing like the hug you get after one of your kids tells you something that's been on their heart and mind for a while. You can tell by the strength of the hug that the relief they feel is wonderful - like a weight has come off their chest and shoulders and they feel so free again.

 It is a reminder to me to always be open, listen with an open heart, open mind and open ears; without judgement, making sure the words I respond with are measured and full of love. 

I don't ever want them to think that they have to live up to what I think is right and the right way to do things. I want them to forge their own path, embrace their own truth and know that they always have someone to come to who will love and accept them whatever path they are on. I don't ever want them to think that my agenda is more important than theirs. It's not. I want to listen when they have a conflicting opinion. I want to take their opinions on board when they disagree with me.

I want to be approachable, humble, teachable - even accepting teaching from those who are decades younger than I.

Today I had a win. No, it wasn't a win for me. It was a win for both of us. They approached me with a heaviness on their chest and I responded by instinct in just the right way for the situation. The relief was palpable. The understanding mutual. The love strengthened. 

Parenting actually never does end. It just takes on different forms. It's forever moving and changing and developing. I will always be needed as a sounding board, as a home base, as a source of assurance. 

The challenge is to remain open and approachable so that they feel that a situation is never too heavy for me to bear. 

Mum! Get a bandaid....and other Tall Tales

"Mum! Get a Band-aid, quick!  Richard's chopped his finger off!"

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This is from one of those childhood stories. You know the ones. They get bigger and funnier as the years go by and a few more brain cells get whittled off into oblivion. The above sentence is from a tale my brother tells us about two of his friends who were playing "Chicken" with the axe in the back yard. Apparently Richard (whoever he was) was holding his finger on a log and then whipping it away as his young mate brought the axe down. The last time it happened he didn't get his finger away quick enough and the mate went screaming through the backyard,

"Muuum! Get a Band-aid, quick! Richard's chopped his finger off!"

I can recall seeing the young Richard as a child and yes, he was missing a finger. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't, but the story is still fun in the telling year after year!

Then there's the story I remember my friend Katrina telling me. She told me that she and her family were going to travel around Australia and her parents were going to let her tie her horse to the back of the caravan and ride it whilst they drove. I was wildly excited and impressed with this and wished with everything I had that I could go with Katrina and ride on the back if a horse tied to a caravan. Riding horses was my most favourite thing in the world! 

Now, I don't even know if Katrina owned a horse. I never saw it. I don't even know if Katrina and her family travelled around Australia, but I do know that Katrina did leave the school that year and I contented myself with "wild erratic fancies" of Katrina S riding around the country on her horse tied to the back if the family caravan, whoopin' and hollerin' like the Wild Colonial Boy...or girl in this instance!

Childhood memories are interesting things. They are bigger and brighter and scarier than the reality of what actually was. Sometimes I long to see a couple of the things that terrified me as a child just so that I can put things into perspective. Sometimes I wish I could just time travel back to a particular day that holds a significant memory for me just so I can view it with the understanding of adult eyes because I know that what I remember as real is possibly simply laid down because of my childish understanding.

When I was very, very young my Dad and I were dumped by what I remember as the most enormous wave ever. I can still see it my mind; huge and dirty with churned up sand from the bottom of the ocean floor. It was a wave to rival the one that caused the end of the Andrea Gail in the movie, "The Perfect Storm."

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I know it wasn't, but the Tall Tale I tell is that it was because that's how my childish memory laid it down. This is the wave that haunts my dreams to this day.

My childhood memory has also laid down a memory of my Nanna chasing after our car that contained my two little brothers. The car was rolling down an incline towards, what my memory says, the edge of a cliff. My little brothers who were both under the age of five had been playing in the car and had taken off the handbrake. The car started rolling. The most terrifying thought for me at the time was "there are no grownups in the car and it is moving!" The memory of that day is still very vivid to me but coloured by childish understanding. Apparently they weren't headed for the edge of a cliff but there was an embankment there and trees would have broken their descent. Still, it's a tall tale in my mind.

I'm sure every family has their Tall Tales that get taller and taller as the years go by; legends that just keep getting more and more interesting with each telling and you find yourself wondering when exactly the truth started to become distorted. I have tales of house fires and people taking breaths in their coffins that were told to me by my great aunts. I have memories of tales told by an uncle who was notorious for bending the truth and sometimes even now I wonder about them and have to clarify them with my parents because for some reason they have stayed with me throughout all these years and it seems important to check on their validity. 

Sometimes I just love listening to Tall Tales because they are filled with the innocence and invincibility of youth - the sporting tales, the rescue tales, the close shaves. They're filled with all kinds of excitement and bravado and they're told by the people I love the most and with whom I share a common history. There are tales I know are not true at all and I have to fight to keep a straight face in order to maintain the dignity of the teller and I find myself wondering about why the tales are so grandiose. Will I be a teller of outrageous tales one day?

What about you? Do you have some Tall Tales in your family? Who is your biggest Tall Tale Teller?

Germinating idea seeds

They keep telling me I should just do it. Go and just do it. So, today, I wrote a list of things I need and need to do. It's called The Freedom Plan.

Someone approached me about some work yesterday - four days work as an assistant stage manager for an upcoming movement theatre production. They envisage $600 for four days work. Maybe this kind of thing will be the key to having an itinerant lifestyle - traveling from place to place working on gigs.

The feet are getting itchier and itchier. The road and the world beckons. I am my fathers daughter.

My hair is once again super short. It too, represents freedom and boldness, no longer grief, anger and pain.

Although I am frustrated and dissatisfied with the humdrum 9-5 Monday to Friday existence, I am not depressed or hopeless. Something good is just around the corner, in the next room, just around the riverbend. It's not somewhere over the rainbow. I can almost taste it, smell it, touch it.

Confronting

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There are times where I really, really, really don't like ageing.

Most of the time I can fool myself into thinking I'm still 25. Honestly, I feel it. Fresh, vital, alive.

But the mirror doesn't lie and seeing myself on camera is even worse.

I'm now understanding celebrities going under the knife or getting Botox and collagen and whatever else they do. The sense of panic that's set in over the past day or so is just horrendous - almost more than I can bear to be honest.

As Dolly Parton says in Steel Magnolias; "Time marches on and eventually you realise it's marching across your face!"

I'm feeling a bit lost at the moment. I'm tired of working a job just for the money. I'm told to do something I'm passionate about but I don't know what that is. I long to be free, unfettered, not reliant upon money so I can pay bills to simply exist. I want to get out of here and explore and learn and create and be a part of a community of free spirits. This 9 - 5 Monday to Friday existence of looking forward to two free days is just nuts. I'm getting older and I don't want to live out the rest of my life doing the same old same old and being bored as shit. I want to live.

And life seems to beckon from the road.

Watching them fly

Chloe is studying Film and Television at a local academy. I am excited for her because she's on the path towards her dream. She has always loved film; not just watching them, but the process of making them, the art behind them, lighting, sound, production...everything.

For one of her assignments she had to write a synopsis for a four minute "postcard", including a run sheet, a call sheet, equipment list, prop list, cast list. She had to scout for locations and organise the cast.

She was in her element.

Unfortunately, with the weather and sickness and people being unavailable, the synopsis had to undergo several re-writes, locations had to be changed, cast had to be re-hired. She was in despair but kept soldiering on.

Today she started filming. I was honored to be among the cast of The Gesture and spent a couple of hours on set with Chloe and the crew. There's more to film-making than I first thought. I learned a lot.

Brad and Alessandro set up the camera for another series of shots.

But what I loved most of all was seeing my daughter interacting with others and they with her. I loved seeing them defer to her when it came to the creative process, consult with her about how the shots should be set up. I loved seeing her make decisions with confidence and with a goal in mind. She was managing her cast and crew with professionalism and tact. The crew interacted with her with dignity and respect. I was so proud.

Consulting on the creative process.

All I have wanted was for my children to grow up and find their own place in the world; a place where they will be valued for the people they are and the contributions they make.

This year I have seen that dream slowly take shape. I am so proud.

The Path

Every morning now it's the same. My alarm sounds at 5:45am. I hit the snooze button twice until I finally drag myself out of bed. My sleep hasn't been total. I'm woken at least twice by my snoring, scratching, six year old Cavalier who needs to go outside. She's not like my former Cav, who went outside, did her business and quickly made her way back in to the warmth. Oh no. This one likes to smell new smells, greet the cats and generally check that all is as she left it.

But still, I wake and don my running gear. It is still dark when I make my way to the reserve. During the winter I have wondered what motivates me to keep doing this? Is it commitment to my fitness, my mental health? Is it a need to doggedly keep trying until I reach the 10k goal? Is it to silence the voices from the past who still whisper with the sinister undertones of the now dormant eating disorder? Or is it simple lunacy? I don't know. Maybe a combination of all of them. I suspect so. But every morning the path calls and I heed it.

I estimate now that I have been doing this for two years. It's become a habit. There are times where I feel I could run and keep on running if not for time constraints. There are others where running my average of 6k is an exercise in endurance from start to finish. Still, the end is always the same. That delicious feeling of a body that feels awake and alive, the blood coursing through my veins and an indescribable feeling of being clean. I don't know what that's about. The end is the reason I run. The high that I suspect is a million times better than the one any chemical can give. The knowledge that I have once again conquered the arguments I put in front of myself. 

Sometimes the run is a lonely place. It's just me there alone in the slumbering, dark neighbourhood. I find the voice of my RunKeeper strangely comforting - the American voice who, every five minutes tells me the time I've been running, the distance and my average pace. I play games with her, trying to increase some numbers and decrease others. She's become a bit of a motivating friend, better than any personal trainer. She doesn't yell at me to do better or go faster. She just gives me the facts. It's my own voice that urges me on, saying, "Keep going! You can do this! Stop complaining! You know this is the hard bit and it gets easier! Don't be lazy!"

The impossible has happened. Several years ago my doctor said he wanted me to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. At the time I thought he was dreaming. I was only 19 when I was first pregnant and I thought that asking a 40-something year old woman to get back to the same weight as her 19 year old self was beyond the realms of possibility. But I did. I've lost 6kg and I'm here. I used to think that kilos weren't really heavy but I was carrying a 3kg bag of oranges the other day and marvelled at the weight of it. I've lost two bags of oranges! Remarkable!

I don't know where this running will take me. At the moment I don't care. I hope one day I'll get to the 10k goal. I remember how elated I felt the first time I ran my first full kilometre - a whole circuit of my running track. I guess it's simply a case of adding just one more circuit until I get there. It's achievable. I know it.

Solitude Standing

It's taken me a while to get to the point where I'm okay with doing things on my own. There's just something about cinemas and restaurants that just screams out party and togetherness and groups. Walking into a restaurant to dine on your own? It kind of feels a bit...conspicuous, doesn't it? 

I love it now. I'm beyond caring about what people think. I now just go in and am shown to a table, peruse a menu, select and savour some delicious food. I take my time. I think, I may read, I listen to what's happening around me. Sometimes there's a friendly waiter that may serve me and we chat for several minutes. All in all I enjoy it. I'm learning to simply be present in a moment.

I did end up enroling in the Self Esteem course that I mentioned in my previous post. I'm quite looking forward to it. I love that I am walking my own path; not doing anything out of ritual or obligation but rather exploring where the path leads me with fearlessness.

I'm learning to tap into the Source of love that is within that drives out all fear.