Control

I’m blogging from my phone – which is an infuriating process but if I don’t do it now it won’t get done.

Yesterday when I picked Toddler up from daycare I was going to catch the train with her – something I avoid because trains are not reliable/ are full of nuff nuffs – but she was screaming because she was overtired and I thought it’d get us home quicker but then decided to walk because keeping a tired kid in motion is better than the stillness of waiting. Anyway, it meant I walked us through the intersection I avoid because it scares me. I noticed police tape up and remnants of a vehicle accident – something had plowed through the protective barriers, over the pedestrian path and into a residential fence. I thought that maybe my concern about the traffic was legitimate – Toddler has walked that path. It’s all to do with timing.

Since being back here and moving to this area I have become aware of how much things have little to do with me – how much things are beyond my control or at least not completely within my control.

The traffic in this area scares me. I’ve seen a lot of accidents within the last six months, I tense up very time I hear an engine rev ( which is a lot ) I see people speed at every opportunity they have – or don’t have and do it anyway – and at first I just thought I was being precious fresh off the boat after living in Europe for a few years. It’s fine – get over it Lily. But then, I realize that perhaps I only really notice this because I do not have a car. Everyone else I know, does. I’m walking the streets and catching public transport more than everyone else I know. So when I talk about safety – I guess it is harder to explain, because my experience is different. People don’t know what I’m talking about.

And it’s not my job to make people understand me.

That I can’t go to functions in the evenings – the travel time, the darkness, the anxiety. When I talk about feeling unsafe on social media I’m often fobbed off which upsets me but I do it because I feel safer. I feel safer saying to my hundreds of followers on twitter that I’m on this train and there’s this happening. And I know that twitter is a difficult platform to navigate – we’re all coming at each other with our own limited experiences in just 140 characters but at the risk of offending people because men generally scare/ abuse/ intimidate me in public is of little consequence to why I’m doing it in the first place.

In comparison to a lot of my friends with children – I have extremely little help. I do everything to run the house, to look after three people, to keep my own work going and remembering to eat. I cook all meals which I have to choose, buy and walk home. I do the purchasing of house hold items which I have to choose out and walk home. I have to to take my daughter to and from childcare – walking by myself. I want to go see people and do work i have to catch transport by myself. I am pretty much always on my own. Which makes me a target and again – this is beyond my control.

Within the last few weeks I have been hit, sworn at, and intimidated by men. All in broad daylight which makes me want to go out even less. Which makes me want to make less eye contact – ignore people who randomly start talking to me in public. But I have to go out – I have a family to feed, a house to run and a life to live. I just wish people would take my feelings into consideration – my experience is mine. I wish people would understand that there’s a lot more going on than a simple matter of hiring a babysitter to come and see them. And that that is beyond my control – nothing personal.

But I can’t make people help me, I can’t make them visit me, I’ve done all that I can to help them understand and they just don’t hear me. And that’s ok, I don’t take it personal but I hope people don’t take my lack of appearances personally either – this is beyond my control.

Life’s lemons – metaphor, cliché

Life dealt my little family some lemons yesterday.

Big, genetically modified lemons.

This morning I had the heart breaking task of ending Toddler’s day care, because it is no longer feasible. When I called they offered help – how can they help us through this, which was beautiful but I told them that no, there’s nothing they can do. Thanks anyway.

Toddler has made friends at daycare and we have done all that we can to keep up that consistency for her. She’s had to say goodbye to so many people and places already – but try as we might, I think we need to accept that this - this - is beyond our control.

Because we lack the money, we lack control.

We’re bracing ourselves for other cut backs and changes – don’t even know what they are but we know that they’re coming.

I haven’t had much sleep because I’m trying to work things out, trying to prepare. Trying to negotiate the anger, the hurt, the frustration, the sadness with approaching this objectively.

Because we have to – there is no other option.

 

Emerging Writers Festival

The Emerging Writers Festival begins THIS WEEK and I’m very pleased ( and terrified – in equal parts ) to be hosting a panel:

Writing the Personal, Saturday 3pm
Blogs… Memoir… Biography… how does one write about oneself while making it interesting to others? What kinds of skills or techniques are required? These writers will give you the benefit of their wisdom about sharing the personal.

With ANNA POLETTI, WALTER MASON, LUKE RYAN and FIONA WRIGHT. Hosted by LILY MAE MARTIN

You can access the full calendar and ticket information here: LINK

I’ve had the joy of researching, reading and listening to these four diverse and fantastic writers and I am very excited to be sharing a panel with them.

Hope to see you there!

Slipping

I think they key to me is regularity. I love it. It’s probably why I like patterns – I like things that are fairly predictable. Which is something I do not have and that sends me off the edge more than anything with parenting.

My husband’s work hours have always been an issue – but more-so since we had a child. Because instead of just the absence of him and my missing him – there’s another person who reacts to it too. And not only that – there is a lot more that falls into my responsibility and I have to do it alone for an unpredictable amount of time. Deadlines are always shifting, end hours and always being extended. Weekends are taken away, plans are always getting scrapped.

Toddler is still only two, so I can’t explain it to her and she begins to react in a myriad of challenging ways. The one at the moment is anger towards me, screaming and screaming at 4AM and refusing to sleep – no matter what I do. This is when all the Super Nanny tactics and 1, 2, 3 Magic things just do not work. Because she is reacting to a new situation. Of course, writing this I feel for her and I want to comfort her – but in the midst of it I resent her. I resent everything, I resent husband’s job and I resent extended family.

So combined with husbands completely consuming and unpredictable work hours there’s no sense of regularity in family life either. There’s no sense of belonging, love, or family.

My incredible friends offer as much as they can – my mum helps at times ( she too works long hours ) but with their young children and lives and sometimes I feel like such a burden. Lily and her melt downs. I want to help them – I just want things to be OK. To be regular. To be normal. Predicable.

But it’s not and now I am getting to a point where I ask Husband where in the world will your work hours be regular??

Let’s go there.

Crash, boom, bang

Where to start, why am I writing this – why are you reading this? What is the meaning of life? What are we all doing? What the fuck am I doing?

*shrugs*

Husband is working six day weeks, 12 to 13 hour shifts. He comes home exhausted and I feel powerless to help him. He can’t switch off, he can’t relax – which is understandable, because he has no time too.

Toddler is asking for her daddy and searching the house for him morning and night. She tells me she doesn’t want me, she wants daddy and has taken to throwing unstoppable tantrums at 4AM in the morning.

I know we need work and money to pay for the roof over our head and the food that we eat but when there’s more tears than smiles, more exhaustion than relaxation - more time apart than time together I wonder if this is all really worth it.

For all of my disorientation from travel and birthing overseas I think how happy I am that we did that because the other option was a mortgage and that to me seems harder to get out of when you get into it and think hey, this is bullshit. This is a trap. Why are we all so unhappy – I thought having a family and a home was meant to be a happy thing.

( I know it’s more complex than that – but is it.. )

I’m feeling pressures I don’t want to feel, I’m feeling pissed off at most things but I don’t want to be pissed off. I’m crying a lot. I’m alone a lot. I’m elbow deep in chores and my mind is consumed with money matters and I’m thinking shit – I’m down there again.

I’m also thinking – how much of this is my fault?

I think about the budget – goodbye baby bonus I never got – I’m thinking about paid parental leave and what that means for artists, writers .. you know a whole lot of people out there who do not have standard/ regular employment – which beliebe you me – is a lot of us. I’m think how fucking punitive society and tax breaks seem to be towards parents – towards mothers. I’m getting a little resentful and world hatey and if I hear the term ‘middle-class welfare’ or read one more article dissing people who worry about money ( oh, how dare you! ) I might just fucking explode.

So I thought reading things online less would help – but I’m still struggling here and then it just brings about another sense of isolation.

Yay.

Things need to change – for us, for me. But with things being so. damn. expensive and work being the only thing in our lives – there isn’t any room to even think about changes yet alone make them.

I even had the silly idea we’d be able to have another baby but that would throw us even further into this and it would all be on me. All of it. I have no delusions about that.

In good company

I know I’m in good company when the conversation revolves around menstruation, twitter, pubes and Arrested Development.

Ho-Hum

Laundry.

Laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry.

Laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry.

Find the laundry, sort the laundry, put in it the machine, wait until that beep goes off – that makes me want to break things – get the laundry out, hang the laundry – most likely repeat all of this once or twice more. When laundry is dry carry it inside, dump it on chair. Because the laundry basket – wicker and white cloth – is already overflowing.

When people ask where things are, direct them to said basket, chair, corner.

Laundry.

Ode to laundry

Laundry 

Mothers’ Day Movement

The birthing process is a brutal and unforgettable event. For me it was the most horrible experience of my life but also brought me the most amazing person in my life – my daughter.

We were lucky though, we had medical intervention and treatment after the event. But though we were in a hospital tended to by a room full of professionals ( as it became an emergency situation ) we were still both close not not being very lucky at all.

I keep thinking that had of I been a woman born into a developing country, or even of a different time – we both would have died.

We didn’t though, but those thoughts still stay with me. So when I read about maternal death statistics - historical and geographical – my whole body feels it.

I loath hallmark, I loath enforced gift giving days as I believe people should show their appreciation of one another every single day. I also think gift giving should happen when you come across something you know someone important to you would enjoy and it doesn’t matter what day it is.

The Mothers’ Day Movement is something that I came across in my twitter feed this morning, it’s a movement inspired by the book Half The Sky ( a must read for everyone, especially if you think you are politically aware ) and it aims to raise money for women and girls in developing countries.

So I asked my husband to donate some money towards this charity as my gift and I thought I would it here and I know people would like to know about this and possibly donate towards as well:

http://mothersdaymovement.org/

“The Fistula Foundation helps women suffering from obstetric fistula as a result of obstructed labor during childbirth and lack of medical intervention. No woman should suffer a life of isolation and misery simply for trying to bring a child into the world“

 

Market Day

When we were searching for a house I had two conditions. One – we were close to a train station, because trams are bullshit in Melbourne and you cannot get a pram onto it. Two – we were near a market of some sort.

I got both of these – and more, I love my house – and market day always makes me super happy. I love selecting the foods I know everyone enjoys and I get to buy and try new things all the time because it’s all so cheap and fresh.

Not all experiments are good and sometimes I just do not have the time to make the things I want to – but there’s bagels, fresh flowers, yummy fruit and vegetables - it makes me so happy. The coffee is crap and I’m still a long way off from being familiar with people but we’ll get there.

Necessary loss

Coming back to Australia involved a lot of loss.

Sad, but necessary loss.

I left Cardiff where I gestated, birthed and became a mother. I found a letter last week with the details of the tree that was planted in honor of my daughters birth – for every baby born in Wales they plant a tree – and I cried. I never got to see that tree because I spent a long, long time healing, then winter with a newborn – pushing a pram through snow – and then we left.

I left Berlin where I found myself - professionally and personally – many years ago, where I had some of the most amazing times of my life. Where my relationship strengthened, where we dreamed about moving to and then moved to it – with a baby. Where I kept trying and trying and trying and yet still couldn’t be satisfied. Where my daughter began to crawl, talk ( in German ) and walk. Where I did it pretty much on my own and then reached my breaking point. Then I see other peoples pictures of Berlin – and find old photos on my phone – and I think of how well I know those streets, those cobblestones, the corners, the buildings, the graffiti, the mess, the smells – and then I cry because all the memories of my baby growing up are on the other side of the globe.

But it was necessary, and it’s a grief I can bare. As opposed to when I was in Berlin where almost two years in I was so unhappy my chest often felt like it was splitting open.

I still go over these memories and feelings to try and understand myself in the here and the now. What is important to me – what makes me happy. There’s a lot of reasons why I left Melbourne in the first place but these reasons became less important as my life took on a different shape. I see the difference in places and culture in ways that sound pretty obvious but I didn’t really know or understand before living life as an expat. Melbourne still leaves me stumped in many ways – the six degrees of separation really being two or one here. Everyone knows everyone. I’m OK with that, I wasn’t in 2008 – I didn’t know how to navigate that and I take everyone and everything less personally now.

( This post has taken on a different shape to what I initially thought it would.. )

Still I am trying to find out what is important to me – what makes me happy and what I want out of my life. I’m OK with that too – not being where I thought I should be and not having what I think I should have. I don’t own a home – I probably never will. I don’t drive – I probably won’t know how to for a very, very long time. Or own a car. I don’t have long friendships that span over my childhood, teenage years and early twenties. I don’t have people I have known since Anja’s birth – and bonded over birthing around the same time.

My career as an artist is proving trickier than I anticipated – things beyond my control are making me ask new questions. This isn’t a nourishing industry – I never went into it thinking that it was – by by golly, it just feels like obstacle after obstacle and some days I feel so fucking worthless and then conflicted about feeling worthless because I have so much that means so much so perhaps it is this career that is damaging – and not me.

If so, then I need to get away from it – because if it is repeatedly hurting me what the hell am I doing. Life is worth more than this, I am worth more than this.

Anyway, as I said – this took on a different shape to what I had started out with so I’ll write about that in my nest post. My daughter is getting frustrated with me and I am still in my PJ’s.