It lives

Spring is magical time of year. Trees that have looked dead for months suddenly sprout life. Little green buds fill me with wonder. This spring in Melbourne has been our greenest for many years. Our drought has been momentarily eased by heavy rains, filling our water tanks and prompting our government to announce there won’t be a tightening of water restrictions. Along with the rain we have been excited by electrical storms. I opened our bifold doors on friday and was scared to stand too close to the opening. Counting the seconds between flashes of lightening and cracks of thunder, the closest delay was two seconds!

Last weekend our primary school twilight fair was washed out. Sally came home with a hat she’d won at one of the stalls. She really thought it was the ticket.

Yes, well… that’s what happens when you haven’t seen rain the likes of this for years. Every one gets excited and a little nutty.

Our garden, planted a year ago, is thriving. The buffalo grass is spongy and thick. Our fruit trees, although little, have had buds which are now small fruit. There are already ten little almonds coated in their fluffy green coats on the baby almond tree.

We lost our walnut tree last year when chlorinated water from the pool leaked from a faulty pipe and killed it. We planted another this winter, replacing spoilt soil before leaving a hole for the bare-rooted, tall stick it was. We have waited since the start of spring for it to come to life. It remained a lifeless stick. We gave up hope.

Then quite recently a miracle happened. Long after the other fruit trees had blossomed a little green bud appeared in one of the uppermost nodes. Our family gathered and stood silently in awe for a couple of seconds. The stick was alive! One day it will be a real walnut tree.

To women

I’ve written elsewhere that women are brilliant company but what I wanted to write about today was an overwhelming sense of women as wonderful support for each other. I feel lucky to be a woman and to therefore qualify as a recipient for this.

You know something about life when you embrace change. Change is a large part of life. Just when you think you’ve got a stage of life worked out, another stage is upon you. There’s nothing to bring this home more than being a parent. When I was a parent of babies, I looked towards them growing up as a time of reduced parental input. I’m not saying that reaching this imagined stage of reduced parental input was something I aspired to or held in trepidation, I’m just saying that it was an assumed given from the perspective of one who attended to the needs of small people.

Attending to small people was a significant adjustment to make. It was recognised as significant because support groups would spring up out of the community to help you cope. Play groups for example. (They are called play groups, but a larger function of these groups is social contact between women all making similar adjustments in their lives). There is a lot to learn as a new parent, and it helps when you don’t have to do it alone. I look back to the women I spent my play group years with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and connection.

Recently I attended a mothers day luncheon put on by my eldest daughter’s secondary school. I wasn’t intending to go. You know the feeling? Too much work on, not enough time, wouldn’t know anyone (Kat’s only been at this school a year). But as it happened, one of my colleagues (the L from this story as a matter of fact) has a daughter who has been at this school all the way through. She always attends the social functions and she convinced me to go.

The luncheon was a success. I met a few new people, but mostly L took me under her wing and  sat me at her table. Most of the women sharing L’s table had one or two children older than my Kat. They had all experienced (and survived) parenting teenagers. They shared stories of their survival and I was in awe.  My teenager is finding the years fraught with adjustment and difficulty. It was after sharing some of my current experiences that one of the women turned to me, placed her hand on my arm with warmth and reassurance and said, “why do we have playgroups when the children are little? Its when they are teenagers that we need the most support!”

Its true! When our children are teenagers, so much else is happening in life. Many of us have gone back to work. Our role as ‘parent’ doesn’t seem to warrant the same support. Its not an immediate topic of conversation. Yet it is a difficult parenting stage.

After the mothers day luncheon I fell bolstered and refreshed. The next social occasion is a cocktail party for the opening of the new library. This time I won’t need L to convince me to go. I’ll be there, I’ve found my new “playgroup”.

Compromise and Dignity

As you know, my sister and I are planning a ’surprise’ party for my father to celebrate his 70th birthday. What was to be a surprise party at my place with perhaps a three-piece jazz ensemble and home made-pizza from the oven (see pics) has spiraled into something completely different. We decided to involve my father in the organisation.We needed his input concerning who to invite. Once he was involved, his ideas had to be factored into the equation. The result was like a domino effect as all concerned exhibited their predictable traits, especially when in negotiation with each other.

Here’s what happened:

The players are my sister, my brother, my father, my brother’s wife, my children and me.

My sister had dad around for dinner to break the silence about the party plans, save for one surprise element.

Dad rang me a week later to discuss his own plans. He had been to two other seventieth parties, one at Sky High on Mt Dandenong and the other at a suburban RSL club. He’s the sort of person, who takes a good idea on board and thinks its the only way to go.  As far as he was concerned, his party would be either at Sky High or a suburban RSL.

The surprise element was my brother John and his family’s attendance at the party, down from Queensland. But my brother’s wife, Kaz, emailed me to say her folks would come up from Tassie for the party. She asked me to suggest accommodation for them. Dad often likes to put interstate visiting relatives up at his place. I gave him the option, and in doing so unavoidably “spilt the beans” .

A day or so later, my sister phoned me to tell me off. “Did you tell dad John was coming down from Queensland for the party?” was her accusation.

I explained how it came about but my sister continued her tirade. She was not happy. She did not approve of dad’s preferred venues. “I’m not going to an RSL club”, she ranted. And she did not approve of dad hijacking the organisation. “If dad wants to do that with his friends, he can. But as far as I’m concerned thats up to him. We can do a family thing separately”, she determined.

In the past I may have become cross with my sister. This time however, I explained to her that it was a special occasion for dad and that it would make him happy to have his family and friends together (perhaps for the only time), a seventieth was a special occasion and she wouldn’t have to stand around chatting to his friends because there would be enough family there for our separate table. I told her that she didn’t have to do anything. That I would work with dad to get the invitations out. I promised we wouldn’t go to an RSL, but that I’d booked Sky High for a buffet lunch on the Saturday (his actual birth date) and it would all be okay.

She calmed down. She said she wanted to go for a family drive and lunch at a winery perhaps at Kinglake to survey the township recovering from the fires and support local businesses there. I agreed this was a good idea, especially with our interstate guests staying for the weekend, and suggested we could do that as well, perhaps on the Sunday.

I spoke with dad after getting off the phone with my sister to confirm with him that a buffet lunch at Sky High was booked, and immediately my arrangements were blown ’sky high’. He expressed his preference for their function room, which he had found out could  serve finger food from two until five in the afternoon for twenty dollars a head. I expressed my preference for a sit down lunch (I was considering two things: 1. the boredom factor for my children; 2. Seventy-plus people standing around in a cocktail situation. And I sensed EPIC failure). I expressed my reservations to dad and he agreed to reconsider it.

A state of limbo lasted for about two weeks after which time I phoned dad to give him the hurry on. “Have you decided what you want to do yet? We need to get on with the invitations! Its only seven weeks away”. Dad re-expressed his preference for the 2-5 time slot, assured me his friends were all fit enough to mingle in this way. I told him to book it asap, cancel my lunchtime booking and get the contact list to me so I could start phoning for people’s email addresses (dad doesn’t have a computer). Dad expressed such deep gratitude that I had rung him to basically manage him into getting a move on that he almost cried. “You’re a great daughter”, he gushed.

Anyway, he sprang into action. He bounced into my place last weekend with his contact list, reporting that the Sky High was booked. He apologised that there were over double the number of people he originally thought he’d invite. He’d grouped them into categories: Bushwalking Club, Cycling Club, friends, Family and had found himself thinking of more and more people as he wrote.

The contact list was written in his familiar draughtsman-style neat and precise handwriting. I’ve been making calls to the hundred or so on the list. “Hi, I’m jenne, Bill’s daughter”. “Oh is Bill alright?”. “Yes, I’m helping him organize his seventieth birthday…” etc. My kids have reacted to my activity in various ways:

Emma, “Are you ringing Poppy’s Pals again?”. (I laughed so much that I wrote the heading on the list, “Poppy’s pals”).

Rosie, “That must be the most boring and tedious job, talking to old people all day”.

Kat, “Don’t expect us to ring all of your old friends when you are seventy, mum”.

I finished contacting every one after two days. I sent the email out last night and have seven letters to post for people not connected to ‘the net’. I’ve called for people from different aspects of dad’s past and present to make speeches on the day.  My brother was the first to be nominated (by his wife), and I’m looking forward to securing other speakers as the rsvps come in.

With a sense of achievement I reflected on the process of compromise. Originally my sister and I would have taken all the organisation out of dad’s hands. What has been achieved now is a party for my father which he feels as though he has organised  by himself. Its reaffirmed him as an agent in control of his own life. I’d forgotten something about him: he organises weekly cycling trips for his riding group, and leads bushwalks for his walking club. He is a very capable organiser in his own right. Usually with his daughters he steps back (and often he grumbles from the side-line). Not this time! Isn’t that great? I’ve learnt that he doesn’t need to be treated like a child. He needs some support. But he doesn’t need to be stripped of responsibility.

Parties for Old People

My father will be seventy years old this August. My sister, brother and I decided last year that we would put a surprise party on for him.

The last time we organized a celebration for my father was at his fiftieth. Twenty years ago in Melbourne, Thai restaurants were a new thing. A Thai restaurant in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, was particularly well known as the place to be. The name of this restaurant was Patee Thai. Its probably still there. But like any good thing, there is now a chain of these ’same name’ restaurants around Melbourne. Just quietly, like anything I used to do in the eighties, I wouldn’t go there now. Been there done that… to death. If you’ve lived through eighties fads and fashions yourself, I’m sure you would understand the sentiment…

Anyway, in the eighties in Melbourne it was all the rage at Patee Thai to book the low tables at the front of the restaurant. The novelty was to sit at these low tables on funky, triangular cushions. From memory, the way you arranged yourself on a triangular cushion was to tuck your knees under one of the triangular corners and sort of kneel resting your butt on a flat edge. 

My sister, Heather, and I booked Patee Thai for my father’s fiftieth and invited a large group of his friends. His friends were all obviously around his age and some of them considerably older. Of the considerably older ones, none are still with us sadly. 

My sister and I were in our twenties. We considered ourselves fairly funky and with-it. We knew booking a party at Patee Thai was the hip thing to do. We never discussed it in this way at the time, but booking dad and his friends into Patee Thai for a sit down meal at low tables on triangular cushions felt like privileging the olds with (our) funkiness. In fact we were so absorbed in the funkiness of the situation to miss the obvious point that asking fiftty-plus year olds to sit-kneel at low tables for over two hours was a rather stupid thing to have done. It was a physical challenge to almost everyone there except my sister and I.  Many of them found the experience ranging from unpleasant to excruciating. Those who managed to sit for that long barely managed to stand after the experience. I remember Uncle Keith(rest his soul)’s large form, supported by two people either side, being hoisted back to standing. The sight reinforced just how low these low tables actually were. He was unsteady for some time either due to the stress of standing on his circulatory system or from the cramping in his legs or both.

Obviously we won’t be making that mistake again. The seventieth is going to be at my place. We’ll fire up the pizza oven and possibly hire a jazz quartet. Seating needs to be well thought out. This is a hurdle we haven’t cleared yet. It will depend upon the numbers. In recent planning discussions I realized neither my siblings nor myself knew how to contact dad’s friends. We’ve now put ’surprise party’ into the too-hard basket and decided to enlist dad’s help putting the invitations together. This is in line with the KISS principal of organisation (Keep It Simple, Stupid). 

Dad will still get a surprise: We have decided not to tell him that my brother and his family are flying down from Queensland to attend. 

When somebody loves you

I have memories of Melbourne when it was a much smaller city than it is now. The place where I grew up, Lower Templestowe, used to be refereed to as “the sticks” because it was on the fringe. My family and I rarely went into the city, even though it was only a fifteen kilometre journey. The rare occasions were at Christmas time to see the Myer windows and when our father took us into his work substation in Carlton (he worked for what was called the Tramways Board back then).

There was no direct route from Lower Templestowe into the city back then. You had to drive through Kew and Richmond. Past the factories in Victoria Street Richmond the Skipping Girl Vinegar neon sign and Coppertone sign showing a dog pulling down a girls knickers were highlights of the drive. 

It was a big deal when the Eastern Freeway was built. It was massive to Melbourne standards. Four lanes each way and a good six kilometers long. I was fourteen when my friend Kaz and I decided to ride our push bikes along the freeway prior to its opening. We entered at its starting point off Bulleen Road, with no real plans about where we were heading. We took packed lunches. 

The freeway was smooth to ride on, quiet and pretty. It’s flanked by golf courses. We rode for a few kilometers before deciding to have lunch. We parked our bikes and hopped over the low fence onto one of the golf courses. Not knowing anything about golf, we chose a lovely mown circular patch of grass for our picnic. 

Kaz’ mother had a knack with oranges. She had a tool that cut the peel around its diameter. It was then possible to peel the oranges in two half circles. It was like magic really. The skins just peeled right off and retained their shape. You could put them back together again and it looked like a whole orange. Or you could put the half-oranges inside your top and it would look like you actually had tits! I can’t remember who did it first, but I do remember rolling around on the green laughing until I cried when Kaz paraded around with one inside her bike shorts against her crotch.

Now days, the freeway extends way beyond Bulleen Road and Melbourne extends so far beyond the suburb of my childhood that it is just about metropolitan. A lot has changed. Kaz left school to become a dental nurse. She married, had two daughters and moved to the country. I stayed on at school and went through uni. 

Despite only seeing Kaz a couple of times after we both had children, she sent me a christmas card every year. My kids don’t remember Kaz. They only know her as ‘the one who sends mum a Christmas card every year even though she never sends one back’. This is no reflection on the way I felt about Kaz. I just sucked at writing cards. When my kids were younger and before I went back to work I made the effort, enlisting the kids’ help like a production line. But I haven’t written one for years. The kids have wizened up and they have their own to write. Sometimes I send out group emails for Christmas but I didn’t have electronic contact details for Kaz.

On Saturday morning I received a phone call from one of our mutual friends to inform me that Kaz had passed away. “What? How could this happen?” I asked, possibly naively but definitely out of shock. After I listened to a description of the diseases that ended Kaz’ life, the caller and I shared an emotional moment. “She loved you Jenne”, I was told.

The first day I found out about Kaz’ death I was in shock. I had no way to express my grief. I was agitated and confused. On the second day, I was less emotional and felt a sudden renewed awe for life. On the third day (today) I bought a beautiful bunch of twenty mixed roses from the market spontaneously. “They’ll last longer in the heat if you cut the stems every few days and put ice in the water”, the florist told me. As I arranged the flowers at home I thought of Kaz. I don’t know how to grieve but having the flowers there as a representation seemed to help a lot.

The Home Office

I’m working from home today. I recently set up my home office. Only last week the cabinetry was completed. I now have built-in filing drawers and book shelves. Its taking some time to unpack my boxes. Its an opportunity to reorganise. Occasionally I become distracted from the tidying task to re-read articles I’d forgotten about.

When we moved into our new home, many decisions were made with as little running around as possible. For example, when it came time to choose tapware etc, I went to our local plumbing supplier and chose everything within an hour. We have renovated before. I know that once these items are in the home, you do not notice them.

The light fittings were a little more tricky. Our first port of call was a solar energy company for LED downlights. These have satisfied our requirements for most of the house. For feature lights I went to an Italian glass importer. These choices I also made quickly. But in the anticipation of how they would look hanging here I experienced the heebie jeebies. Some of the fittings I chose are ‘out there’. Luckily in situ they do work well. The family love them and people continually remark upon them. 

Setting up my home office, I went to Coco Republic on an unplanned adventure (there was a store amongst many other furniture shops which I passed on my way somewhere else with a little time to kill). I found a glass-topped desk and a groovy swivel chair. Its a combination that looks great in the room. Being able to see through the desk means it doesn’t dominate the space. But yesterday I discovered another benefit of a see through desk:

I can ‘talk’ to Pussykins!

Oh bundle me in cotton wool and let me soak my feet

I must be feeling vulnerable because one of those friendship chain emails just sent to me brought tears to my eyes. I wouldn’t say that I’m shattered after The Oaks yesterday, but I am ‘worse for wear’. 

I wore a new pair of shoes. The leather was fairly stiff and I chose bare skin rather than ’stay-ups’ (my choice of stocking). This was a mistake. After ignoring hot spots on my feet all day, at the end of the day we had a long walk out of Flemington to endure, along with tens of thousands of other patrons due to a failure in the train system. There were literally no trains to or from Flemington from 4.30! With the last race at around 5pm, you can imagine the chaos this caused. The result for me was red raw skin on every toe – the worst case of blisters I have ever experienced EVER (and this includes other endurance activities like bushwalking, XC skiing and rogaining). 

I should have either stuck with the remarkably comfortable heels I bought in Florence or packed a pair of thongs (flip-flops for those of you not from Australia). In my Florence heels last year I went the distance at the races and danced the night away. Not this year. I had two invitations from two different groups of girlfriends to party on. One group left in a bus, and another group left the racecourse by boat. Each were heading into the city for dinner and to kick on afterwards but my feet cried out for mercy. I declined both invitations. Trudging out of Flemington on foot was not what I had in mind though. Luckily, a local lass drove her car in and was able to pick our walking party up a kilometer or two out from the course. Unlike other punters who were left stranded or walking all the way from Flemington into the city, we were rescued.

Here is a solution we didn’t think of:

And last night I didn’t sleep a wink. I’ve been off caffeine for months, but drank two caffe lattes at the Oaks (in between the sparkling wine). Consequently I lay awake like a porcelain doll without eyelids. Laying in bed awake I experienced the unusual feeling that I still had my hat on my head. All day I had become accustomed to it being like a sensory extension. With the hat extending high above and around my head I became attuned to wind currents. If you have ever had sea legs after being on a boat all day, then you might be able to imagine how my neck and head retained the memory of resisting the motion of the hat.

The hat was a hit. I received lots of lovely and some funny comments. The comments about it as a satellite dish wore thin. The most original comment I received for the day was from a guy who asked if I had brought along a spatula and was intending to cook up a stir-fry, and if so could he have some.

My luck on the ponies really only started at the second-last race. I decided to ignore all common sense. I read the field and waited for psychic premonitions. In this way I picked the last two winners. Someone heeded my premonition and placed a $50 bet to win. Sadly this wasn’t me. I tend to bet more conservatively ($10 is my limit per race). 

You’d think reading this that my day at Flemington was so so. Not so! I’m just in a tired funk atm. Yesterday was glorious weather wise. The atmosphere was like a relaxed party party. I shared a table with five girlfriends (and one of their hubbies, who is also a friend). It was one of those enjoyable days that takes you outside of normal life. You feel different, lighter. You almost forget you are a mum. lol.

ps. I charged my camera ready to take. So I thought! My girls had been playing with it the night before and it was all out of battery. I’ll have to rely on photos sent to me from my friends before I can post them here. Please bear with a short delay. Oaks Day photos coming soon xx

Spring Magic

Spring in Melbourne is a wonderful time. Melbournians at this time though, will always begin a conversation with a comment about the weather. Our weather is variable at the best of times, but Spring is something else! Why only on Wednesday, we were blessed with perfect mid-twenties, no wind, absolutely glorious weather that put everyone in a good mood. Carmel (my favorite person at work) and I made the most of it by walking up to a French deli  (a recently discovered secret of ours) and pretending we were in Paris. I changed out of my bike riding gear and into suitable French deli attire and although I developed blisters from the pointy white shoes I chose my enjoyment could not be dampened. We feasted on duck pie (me) and goats cheese tart (Carmel), followed by tiny, delicate custard tarts and coffee. Back in my riding gear and riding home afterwards, the spell was still in the air. Motorists were singing out of their car windows and chatting to me at traffic lights. 

Then on Thursday we had black skies and thunderstorms, followed by sunshine and humidity!!

You can understand why the weather is a concern if you remember that next week is the Spring Racing Carnival and ladies from far and wide (including yours truly) have already organised their racing attire. It is not uncommon to see women in strappy, flowing dresses being lashed by freezing winds or to see the same women on another year burning to a crisp under the Australian sun. If its windy this year, I’m done for! My hatinator will be like a toy aerofoil! I’ll be blown across the starting gate and over the chimney tops. (Pics below, what do you think?).

Hatinator by Kim Fletcher, milliner. 

The teenager finds out that on the other side of the boundary there is no cataclysmic event.

Somewhere between the anticipation of the Melbourne Cup Carnival, involving the attending of fashion shows and purchasing the biggest hatinator anyone has ever seen because it looked fab on the night amongst other outrageous hats, fascinators and hatinators but then bringing it home and being told “it looks like a mammoth satelite dish”, and “mmm, you should be able to pick up the race call from anywhere with that on your head” and riding in Around the Bay, including training and getting my bike serviced at the last minute by the same guy who teased me about the photo on my license last year but this year getting a lecture from him about bike maintenance, as in “you should oil your chain, and clean the grime off your frame and this is how you do it… ” and when enquiring why?, being told “because if you look after your gear it will look after you” which is something my dad would have said six thousand times to me before, I have been losing sleep over how to deal with a teenager who suddenly has a new boyfriend, insomnia, lack of interest in school, a blossoming social life and an irrepressible desire to spend hours in the bathroom putting makeup on and doing her hair. She has been sleeping with her mobile phone under her pillow and receiving texts from her boyfriend when she should be sleeping, and if not, likely to be staying awake in anticipation. She argued with me about being allowed to attend the after party for her boyfriend’s school play and told me she didn’t care that it would end late and tire her out for school because she didn’t care about school anyway.

However, over the weekend, she broke up with her boyfriend on Saturday, was visibly upset, talked about it with me the same day and said that it was what she wanted and that it felt like a load off her mind. On Sunday she spent ages mucking around in the bathroom putting a second hole in one ear, and a second and third hole in the other despite advice I’d given her to wait until she was at least eighteen before doing the multiples. All I said on the day was, you shouldn’t be faffing around in the bathroom for hours over your appearance when you have so many assignments overdue!

“I can’t believe you didn’t get angry at me when I pierced my ears”, she said to me after school on Monday. 

“What’s the point of being angry? It was already done. Getting angry wouldn’t have changed anything”.

“I suppose so. I just thought you’d be upset”.

“Well, I was disappointed. You didn’t follow my advice”.

“Okay then. Well I can live with that”. She seemed to reflect for a moment before continuing, “And by the way, I finished my science prac off over lunchtime today and handed it in. Yeah, I’m getting up to date with my work. I’m getting on top of it, and it feels much better. I’m sorry for saying I don’t care about my school work. I do care and I’ve decided to put a big effort in for the rest of the term. Because its only six weeks and I’ll be able to chill over the holidays. Yeah, and I’m gonna work hard in year eleven next year because I don’t want to develop bad study habits going into year twelve”.

This monologue was like pennies from heaven to me.

Later I wondered, why had the light suddenly come on? Could it be that in overstepping a boundary I’d set and piercing her own ears she realised on the other side of the boundary there was no cataclysmic event… just the same old turf… and for as far as she could see… and that it was up to her to decide where her boundaries needed to be?

PS. Do you want to see a photo of my hatinator?

We need her

One of my friends, with whom I was closest to after the birth of my first two daughters, use to joke about our crazy lives. Plunging head first into motherhood for the first and the second times is probably the biggest challenge anyone could face. (Having more children is a pinch after that adjustment). Her favorite thing to say (and I remember the setting: it would often be when we were dressing children after having taken them for a swim at the local pool. The little children would be hungry, tired. You’d try to strap one into the pram with food before dressing the second one. You’d feel like you were in a worm canning factory) was,

“My life is a mess! My children are maniacs!”. She’d then laugh as she did an impersonation of a person nolonger able to speak. 

This morning when I read about Jane Goodall’s visit to Melbourne: “Heed wake-up call for world: Jane Goodall has a simple label for the state of the Earth, a mess” my train of thought touched down upon my friend’s rant, “my life is a mess”.

Jane Goodall says the world is a mess! My life is a mess! (It is). 

That’s why I need Jane Goodall.

She has come to Melbourne, with a purpose. She visited our wonderful gorilla enclosure at the Melbourne Zoo to raise awareness that recycling mobile phones could save gorilla habitat in the Congo. A metal used in their construction is mined there. 

And that’s why we need Jane Goodall.

It seems simple. But it takes someone like Jane Goodall, who can think across economic, cultural and political divides, and the mess of daily life to make these connections. And suggest solutions. Little by little we might be able to unravel the mess.