After a while…

The following poem was a life-saver to me when I was in a really black hole. There is a tremendous amount of power, wisdom and hope in its words. Power, wisdom and hope that became the light at the end of the tunnel when there seemed to be no other.

At the moment I, and some of my dearest girlfriends, are having a pretty crap time. Yes, we are doing what we choose. Yes we are walking in the general direction of our dreams. Yes there is forward motion. But it feels like we are walking slowly into the wind up a damned big hill. (The fact that is feels like we are walking hand in hand helps though.)

I have heard myself, and my besties, say ‘why did no-one tell us it would be like this?‘ too often in recent months. I guess nobody told us because we would have chickened out, run or laughed in their face. I am clinging to the sentiment that these dark periods are normal, natural and necessary. Thrashing around in a cocoon is necessary for a butterfly to be strong enough to fly when the time comes.

With that in mind, and permission from the author (she gave me permission years ago and I had not had the right occasion, till now) I give you After a while

After a while you learn the subtle difference

between holding a hand and chaining a soul

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning

and company doesn’t always mean security

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts

and presents aren’t promises

And you begin to accept your defeats

with your head up and your eyes ahead

with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child

And you learn to build all your roads on today

because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans

and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns

if you get too much.

So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure

that you really are strong

and you really do have worth

And you learn and you learn

with every goodbye you learn …

Copyright 1971 Veronica A. Shoffstall.

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Unplugged connection

Yesterday I feel like a traveled back in time. I caught the train into the city to meet a friend. No blackberry. On the train I read a book. A real paper book. Not a blog or an E book on a smartphone or tablet. We sat on her couch and on her bed like we used to when we were 15 (yes I have known her that long) and we talked. We didn’t communally watch TV, play a game, sms, or update our  Facebook pages. We even let our phones go to voicemail. Oh the horror. We went to lunch at a local cafe and had pies, not some elegantly put together tossed salad, and enjoyed tea and soft drink. No diet or artificial sweetener to be seen. We even shared the best chocolate éclair ever! Yumm.

I read some more on the trip home on the train and when I had the carriage to myself I called a long distance friend to catch up with her. On the walk home I picked up some ingredients for dinner and actually visited a ‘video store’! Two DVDs later (two of my faves) I went home to cook dinner and watch DVDs curled up on the couch with my husband, under a hand-made patchwork quilt no less!

It felt fantastic to just connect. Not connect in the über modern sense of knowing what your friends had for lunch thanks to twitter, or where there are thanks to foursquare, what they did during the week thanks to their Facebook pics. But real connection, to hear the wobble in their voice when they talk about something difficult, to see the smile crinkle the corners of their eyes in a way that an emoticon simply can’t convey. To laugh with someone. To feel that genuine connection, where so much is conveyed between the words.

I don’t know about you, but pretty much every young woman [20 to 35] I care about has been on an emotional roller coaster recently. And we seem to be stuck in the big dipper part swinging from low to lower, with an occasional sharp upswing. The thing that is keeping me (and I know a lot of them) sane, is female connection. Its power simply cannot be underestimated. It is like alchemy for the soul!

Have you thanked your ‘girls’ recently? Mine know who they are… love you guys! xxx

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Dinosaurs beware! The feminists are coming.

Men, heroes, archetypally go out in the world and take on dragons, armies, pirates, rescue damsels, explore foreign lands, build empires, and launch crusades. It is the way of the hero, the masculine, to learn and grow through external challenges.

Women, heroines, archetypically heal the sick, create life, nurture, love, celebrate and teach. It is the way of the heroine to learn and grow through personal challenges, issues of relationship and of the heart.

Masculine energy finds its greatness by breaking free of the everyday while feminine energy manifests its greatness by fully connecting to the everyday and the divinity to be found there.

I am not to say that a woman’s place is gathered around the hearth and the man’s is to be out hunting and exploring the wider world. Such a simplistic conclusion assumes that a woman is totally feminine and a man solely masculine. Each of is has an intricate mix of both energies. We are each masculine and feminine, ying and yang. Which is why it insults all of us when the feminine attributes of humanity are disrespected.

Feminism should never have been about giving women the opportunity to prove that they could be heroes and do what men do best, just as well as men. Unfortunately, however we had to combat the erroneous assumption that women were both different to and lesser than our male counterparts. Now that it is [mostly] recognised that women and men are equal it is time to move on to the real role of feminism; equal recognition, respect and reverence for feminine attributes, roles, decisions, contributions, stories and perspectives.

So to those people who still believe raising children is less important than spending 8 hours a day in an office cubical – you are a dinosaur. The face of feminism is changing. No longer are women who rally and burn their bras the iconic feminists. Today feminists are just as likely men as women and they effect change on a personal level, one person, company or situation at a time. Dinosaurs beware! The feminists are coming.

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To the Aunties…

Yesterday was Mother’s day (in Australia). I slept in and woke to the sound of my son running up to the side of my bed. He really does sound like a heard of baby elephants, perhaps it is the fact that he has the physique of a rugby front rower – and he isn’t even 2 yet.

“Happy Birthday to you Mummy! Its Mother’s Day!!!” He screams excitedly. This isn’t as unreasonable as it seems… my birthday was less than a week ago. His Daddy informed me that he used up his only ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ on a friend in the mall while I was still slumbering.

After dragging my sleepy butt out of bed and modelling my new mauve house socks, I grabbed the phone. I called my mum, obviously. Then I called my son’s Aunties.

Yeah, they were as surprised as you probably are. They answered the phone with ‘Happy Mother’s Day!’ (They have had more years to practice than my son.) To which I responded ‘Happy Mother’s Day Auntie!’

To all the Aunts & honorary Aunties, you rock. Really you do. To Cooper’s Aunties – you know who you are – I would be less of a Mum without you. My life, and certainly my son’s life, is more rich, fun, supported, fun, sane, fun and special having you in it.  (Did I mention fun?) You may not have birthed him, but none the less he tells me daily that each of you love him and that he loves you. Every. Single. Day. Without fail. That is pretty special.

So to those women who will not get chocolates today or flowers, don’t worry. The children you love, the children you play with love you regardless of title. Trust me.

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Home

Home can mean so many things. It can mean our physical residence, our city, our country. Something can smell like home, feel like home, sound like home. We can consider a person to constitute our home. Our home could be where we were born or raised. The ‘home team’ doesn’t mean the members all live at the field/ground. Yet I feel ‘at home’ at my girlfriend’s place and don’t often admit how ‘at home’ I feel in the kitchen.

Have your ever found yourself saying ‘I am going home for the weekend’ in reference to your parent’s house. Only to turn around and and announce your departure from their home by saying ‘Alright, I think we should be heading home now’? I know I have.

Home is a feeling. A safety. An acceptance. Home is familiar and comfortable. Home is nice. We are always welcome at home.

My son understands this concept better than most adults. Being a toddler his world revolves around safe, comfortable places. Home is the thing he understands best. Yet he can feel totally at home in an alien place, so long as the right people and objects are with him (the real reason for a baby bag). Home is like his bar (yes, you remember tip) he asks to ‘go home now’ when he is tired of where he is. He tells me that loved ones have ‘gone home’ as soon as we close the front door after a farewell. And often for hours, days and even weeks after that. But reassures me that they will ‘come home soon’ – meaning our home.

Our place really is like that. It is a space where people take their shoes off, not because I am precious about dirt. That is laughable. They take their shoes off (or so I hope) because they know they will curl up on our couch with a coffee or a beer. They often help themselves to said coffee and beer, too! If the proverbial shit hit the fan, I know some of our friends would be comfortable here. They would crave their things, autonomy and the space their own home affords, but I like to think they wouldn’t miss the feeling of a home.

I know I am home when I smell the sea breeze, or feel my over-sized glass teacup in my hands. I feel like I am home when I smell my husbands cologne when my head is resting against his chest in a hug. I feel like home when my son is cuddled up in my arms. I feel like I am home when I see my kitchen bench. I feel at home in jeans.

What feels like home to you?

I used to love like a man

About 10 years ago I was falling asleep to Bryan Adams ‘All for love’ and ‘Everything I do I do it for you’. On the other side of my double bed (fully clothed) was my mate and at the foot of my bed on a futon was my now husband and our other best mate. We had had a night of dressing up, drinking and dancing for my mother in law’s 50th. I think.

The songs playing was so very poignant to me at the time. You remember what it is like being a teenager who has just discovered her family of choice. It’s special. It’s adult. Thank heavens I chose well. All of those men are still in my life. All are as good, genuine and strong as they were then. I was as strong as they were then. Not physically, of course (two of them are over 6 feet) but I was as uncompromising, as full-on, and stuck to my guns just as well as they did. If not better. I was seen, excluding the tits, as one of the guys.

Things change. We change. I changed. Where I fit in changed. I am no longer one of the guys. I haven’t been for 5 years. Not since I became a girlfriend.

In retrospect more changed when I became a girlfriend than just the status of my relationship with some close male friends. It was the beginning of the taming of the shrew. I began keeping house, learned to bake, channeled my inner Stepford wife, began to compromise. The way I made decisions changed. The way I loved changed.

As one of the guys my love was direct, action orientated and on my terms. It was almost as though it could be turned on and off. But when it was on intense was the only way to describe it. As Bryan Adams puts it “I’d fight for you, I’d lie for you, walk the wire for you, yeah I’d die for you.”

These days I love like a woman. Feminine love is different. Yes we may take actions out of love and offer umpteen gifts of service, but it is in the spirit of constant love, acceptance and support. It is a borderline compulsion. Where the hell is the off switch? I am yet to find one. Feminine love packs lunches and changes nappies. A woman’s love can be wild and fierce, but in my experience feminine love sounds less like a power ballad and more like a lullaby. Sung quietly in the dead of the night.

Happily married

This is effectively my out of office reply. I am currently up the mountains with family and friends and my very very new husband (formerly my old boyfriend and fiance).

I have a habit of running my mouth off drunk. If you have ever had a drunken conversation with me you will know things you wish you didn’t know that you didn’t want to know. (There is a reason I don’t drink often at all.) But there is a time when a propensity to share intimate details with a wordy flair is a good thing – if you happen to be writing your own wedding ceremony.

So without further ado, below are the vows I vowed to my new husband, not 48 hours ago.

In writing my vows, words failed me. How can I express in words a love that continues to grow exponentially? Numbers have even become redundant descriptors – I think we last settled on “I love you infinity*centillion*brazillion factorial”.

How can I express the love I feel at the simple touch of your hand? The acceptance that radiates from your smile? How can I show that each step I take is sured by the foundation of your faith in me. With your support we turn my weaknesses into strengths and with you at my side I set my sights on climbing mountains without doubt or hesitation.

I love you because you are:

• So strong that you hold me together when I am falling apart

• So soft that I fear not when I need a soft place to fall

• So wise that you teach me patience and persistence (and geography, Portuguese and all things geeky)

• So un-judging that I can tell you my deepest secrets and

• So honourable that I know my heart, and my secrets are safe with you

• So unflappable that I am free to be me; wild and gentle as the mood strikes

• So honest that I grow with the guidance of your constructive criticisms &

• So accepting that I am able to explore my depths knowing that you will love all manifestations of me.

Because I love you I promise to see only the highest in you and to honour the best in you by embodying the best of me. I promise to look to your divine heart and to appreciate your humanity, every day for the rest of my life. I will lovingly be your friend, companion, lover, partner, co-parent, yogini, nursemaid, student, teacher, therapist, editor, P.A, Shakti, partner in crime, coach and playmate.

Tying the knot…

When I agreed to finally end our 5 year engagement and tie the knot, I didn’t expect to have any knots in my stomach. And I don’t. Marriage has been inconsequential in my relationship from the very very early days when we both knew we would be together forever. Since we actually got together after a looong and very fucked up (excuse the French, but no-body could think of a more appropriate term) courtship, nobody has questioned our commitment to each other.

I am looking forward to our wedding weekend. 2 sleeps until we leave for our venue in the mountains and 3 until I am a married woman. Or so my bridesmaids and excited guests keep telling me on Facebook, blogs, SMS and phone calls. I am excited, though not for the reasons they expect. I am nervous, too. But I am not nervous about the declaration of my love for a wonderful man – I am worried that my brownies will not live up to their awesome reputation. Honestly. I am considering making another batch.

A dear friend blogged today about her nervousness regarding my nuptials. I get nervous, only because everybody else is. I am afraid I am missing something. What have I forgotten? Will I get to the top of the stairs and the beginning of the aisle and have the gravity of my marriage hit me like a ton of bricks? Should I be freaking out now, so I don’t later on? I am unworried about my vows. I wrote them in one sitting, with very few revisions. I have known what I wanted to say for the past 5 years. I say these words to my future husband regularly. I tell him what he means to me, beyond the ‘I love you’ so often that we need to find new challenges in our relationship because we are so confident in our union.

Weddings are important. I realise this now, I didn’t when I had panic attacks about guest lists shortly after becoming engaged. I didn’t when 6 months ago I picked this coming weekend –  the weekend of the 5 year anniversary of our relationship – as our wedding day. Weddings are important because they are about love. They are about a couple so in love that their love has overflown their hearts and they want to share it with their friends and family.

Sitting here in my state of relative calm, a secret smile graces my lips. I may the picture of tranquility, but I am sick. I was struck last night with a throat infection. And twice in the past week I have extracted objects from my foot. I am not nervous, but perhaps my body has different ideas.

Landslide…

If you are anything like me when the going gets tough you get tea, ice cream and your favourite song. This song has soothed my frayed nerves as I approached and crossed the boundaries of my comfort zone again and again. So it is no shock to me that I crave it now (along with Magnums and sweet tea) as I am super-fast approaching my nuptials.

The power of lyrics has always moved me. Great lyrics move me as much as Shakespeare and Eliot. The readings at our upcoming wedding are lyrics and my favourite poem by Donne and choosing songs for the ceremony took far more deliberation than my outfit. Such is the importance I place on heartfelt lyrics. I have no idea what inspired Stevie to write Landslide, but I have interpreted it to relate to parenthood, partnership, womanhood, teenage fears, friendship over the course of my love affair with it. Like a pair of comfy jeans or an old friend, it comforts me because we have known each other for the longest time. (I am certain my mother listened to this song when I was in the womb.)

This song, to me, speaks to love. Real love. Deep love. The deepest love. The kind that scares you to your very core. The kind of love that makes you not want to move a muscle in-case you break the spell. The kind of love that threatens to paralyse you. It talks about the complications that love can pose and the difficulties you are bound to face together. It talks about how we define ourselves by who loves us, and how well we love them back. Of the landslide of emotion that threatens to overwhelms us, that we pray we can withstand.

I hope you like it half as much as I do. Landslide, Stevie Nicks.

I took my love and I took it down

I climbed a mountain and I turned around

And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills

Well the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky what is love

Can the child within my heart rise above

Can I sail through the changing ocean tides

Can I handle the seasons of my life

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing ’cause I built my life around you

But time makes you bolder, Children get older

I’m getting older too

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing ’cause I built my life around you

But time makes you bolder, Children get older

I’m getting older, too. Well I’m getting older too

So, take this love and take it down

Year and if you climb a mountain and ya turn around

And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills

Well the landslide brought me down

And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills

Well maybe, Well maybe

Maybe the landslide will bring you down

Unspoken

There are a number of things that we, as women, were never really told. The list of things we don’t discuss is longer still. Some relatively universal experiences (that could easily be compiled into a handbook if you are looking for a business idea) are thrust upon us without so much as a warning. Worse still is that there is no clear lifeline to help us understand what we experienced or how we feel. Any woman over 15 knows, to some degree, what I am talking about. Every woman struggles with some aspect of her womanly experience until she is about to burst and finally confides in a girlfriend, who opposed to being outraged, relates to her experience with great relief.

This phenomena is all around us for one reason. Nobody is talking about the things that actually affect women on a daily basis.

We discuss paid maternity leave (which I support by the way) as though it will, upon implementation, magically make motherhood valued in society. We discuss equal pay in the workforce as though a woman in her child bearing years is hired as easily as a fertile man. We discuss the new models of marriage, where the man knows how to turn on the vacuum, as though such changes magically help us deal with the daily grind of partnership. They don’t. They won’t. And for the most part these grand ideals and overarching themes don’t effect us nearly as much as knowing how to have a proper discussion with your partner about money. Or sex.

On the subject of sex, why is it that once taboo sexual practices such as spanking (which rests firmly under the banner of BDSM by the way), are considered appropriate fodder for radio add campaigns, when taboos covering femininity are still firmly in place?

I for one am sick of bitching about it to my partner and friends. I am irreverent, but my heart is true and my skin sufficiently thick enough. Watch this space, because I will be speaking about the unspoken. I don’t mean to offend, I am just tired of my experience being classified as offensive.

Who will speak first?

There is a post sitting in my WordPress drafts folder waiting to be posted. Courage isn’t something I lack. I have never been afraid to speak my mind. But something holds me back. My irreverence.

I firmly believe that our experiences as women may be vastly different, but that there are ineffable webs that connect us. I believe, and this has been bolstered by experience, that our internal experiences of the world are similar. I have learned that, more often than not, if there is an aspect of my womanhood that I find stressful that I am not alone. It frustrates me to no end that I have been forced to learn this the hard way.

My experience is largely an open book. When I experience something significant or difficult my natural instinct is to discuss it in order to understand it. I work hard to let go of (cultural) shame or guilt I feel, especially when I have done no wrong. As a result subjects that are not ‘polite’ to discuss don’t bother me in the least. In fact the double standards of what it is acceptable for men to discuss in comparison to the many natural and normal subjects it is considered unacceptable for women to discuss outages me.

So my question to you is this;

Are we ready to discuss the aspects of our inner lives that have been shushed until now? Or am I simply irreverent?

The more feedback I get the easier it will be to decide whether to publish the post languishing in my drafts.

Three Reluctant Cinderellas

I grew up very cynical about love, and men in general I guess. Marriage to me was an outdated institution that held no real meaning or value any more (I mean women can own property now and all). Most people exchange their ‘I do’s’ oblivious to the irony that family or familia originally meant ‘the totality of slaves belonging to any one man’. Without dredging up the old revolutionary rhetoric of my youth it suffices to say that a marriage certificate was never on my to do list.

It seems that about 6 months ago the world turned on it’s axis. And pigs flew. And hell froze over. Cupid took control and wreaked his special kind of havoc in our lives. Not just mine, but the lives of my best friends as well. Under cupid’s rule we were thrust into the center of a delicious kind of chaos that we each dreaded and relish at the same time; Love. Romantic love.

None of us are particularly sappy women. I would happily walk through the valley of death with these two women because I am confident that the three of us would be the baddest crew in the valley. None of us are untouched by tragedy or sacrifice. We don’t play the fool, the damsel or the victim and none of us ever believed the hallmark ideal or in happy endings. But it seems as though we will play Cinderella despite ourselves.

Six months ago I set a wedding date. No need for congratulations, I had already been engaged for over 3 years at that point, I just finally bit the bullet and decided to go through with it. Around the same time one of my best friends walked away from an AMAZING career and chose another path, which has led her though a whirlwind romance with a wonderful man. I mean she has been hired twice, sight unseen, on the strength of her resumé alone and yet has flourished despite her career being demoted in her list of priorities. And just last week my other BFF replaced her 10 year title as ‘Girlfriend’ with the shiny new one ‘Fiance’ despite never expecting to marry her wonderful beau.

I don’t know where cupid is going with all this, and I can’t speak for the others, but I hope that I manage to make my wedding something meaningful to me. Something that reflects my relationship with myself and my partner. I won’t be saying ‘I do’ but instead agreeing to kick his sorry ass when he needs a reality check and promising not to walk away when our ugliness comes out, which it inevitably will in a long-term relationship. I hope in those few minutes before we walk down the aisle (my friends are also bridesmaids, of course) that I don’t feel alien in my Ivory dress and my Cinderella moment, but instead feel the dawning of a new age; where fulfilled women choose evolved relationships with worthy men.