PaintedGuitar.com Blog

Five Years Old

2009-06-29T21:14:00.001+10:00

Good evening my dear loved ones. I hear that your summer is not yet very warm and quite wet. It sounds like our winter down under, but for once, I think it is actually colder here. The wind has been very cold in the day lately, so much that even in the sun, you shiver a little if you don’t have three layers on. Since I last wrote, we have had another major flood. This one was statistically the worst one of the last three, but here on our hill, it wasn’t so bad. Our major highway was flooded for at least three days, preventing Matt from getting to work and preventing Mary from getting home. Matt enjoyed his little vacation but felt terribly guilty for not helping out with the flood relief with which his coworkers were coordinating. It was bright and sunny here for a few days while the flood waters blocked many people from going to work. There are many sad stories of people thinking their whereabouts were more important than the reality of fast flowing water, leading to death out of desperation to get to work or to a loved one. Luckily Matt made the most of his inability to work: playing with the girls and helping around the house. He scheduled a few extra doctor’s appointments and fixed himself up.

Health-wise we are all well enough. Genevieve is over her cold, but Jacinta has a stuffy nose now, nothing severe though. Matt’s back is feeling good, but his shoulder is still quite sore. My right hand has a bit of eczema and it flares up from time to time. It is sore, scaly and sometimes cracks. I am trying a thousand things to cure it naturally and some of them are working…which ones though??? This will be the constant question. Shall I keep up my sad diet of no refined sugar, no caffeine and no alcohol? Or is this exclusion really helpful? I am eating more greens and veggies than I have in a while and feel quite energetic. The girls, being stuck with my cooking are also eating better than ever. Jacinta is perhaps going through a growth spurt, as she eats with much less complaint these days. It would make sense, her legs are getting so long.

I am feeling well rested and running on a full tank, which is abnormal. Last weekend on the full moon I camped out on the other side of the dam in a little tent, all alone. I went out after the girls went to sleep, taking two trips through the gully in the dark, loaded down with books, extra clothes, blankets and a tent. I set up my tent by the light of the moon and a candle. Matt held down the fort in the warmth of our house while I sat bundled up outside gazing at the moon, reading Green building books, and dreaming about our future girly retreat hut. I had the best sleep in a long time, knowing Matt was listening for the girls and I was too far to hear Genevieve wake up with a wet diaper. My toes froze under three pairs of socks and three wool blankets and a sleeping bag. Poor circulation is a bummer, but not so much that I didn’t enjoy my peace and rejuvenation. I was back just in time for the girls to wake up, make breakfast and let the chickens out. To top it off, the next day Matt took the girls out for the day to Koala Park and strawberry picking. I cleaned the house and cleared a major path to get up to our campsite. This was some hard labor, hacking back the weeds, cutting through vines, moving fallen trees and digging up weedy trees. It was gratifying labor though, I felt good and strong and whole.

I found a quote in a green living book which was said by Rilke, something about true loving partners being the guards of each other’s solitude. What a concept, that to truly love one another, we need not spend all our time together. To love is also to assure your loved one enough space to him or herself, necessary solitude. I know Matt needs solitude and I try my best to offer him space, but I have just figured out that I too thirst solitude. Matt is awesome at guarding my solitude, making sure I have space to rejuvenate and thus offer more love from a fuller cup. I know I am a lucky lady.

On one of our “home days” last week, I showed the girls the new path. We left our cold shady house warmed by the fire, and trekked up the wide sunny path, stopping to check out the pink fungus I had discovered. We ended up at the “campsite” and had a picnic lunch in the warm sunlit grass. The girls were amazed to see the tent up and went straight in to pretend sleep. I fiddled and fixed a few tent poles while the girls played with tools and practiced banging in pegs with our new hammer. Jacinta found the rope and eventually we found ourselves roped together wandering around in search of a good tree for a rope swing. We didn’t get very far before they found magic beans and we had to stop and turn them into caterpillars. What we did discover was the best climbing tree on our land, by this point we had freed ourselves of the rope. It was one of those trees with thick, low, sprawling limbs, but tangled up in masses of dead branches from dead weedy trees. Jacinta, our big five year old, climbed out each large limb breaking through the branches, announcing how old she was to climb out and break the branches all by herself. We will return with work gloves and clippers next time, in hopes of uncovering a magnificent cubby house/climbing tree.

So Jacinta turned five, yes indeed. Matt and I spent weeks preparing for this milestone, gift making in the evenings. What an honor it has been to watch her grow. What a joy it was to have her at home with no plans or anyone else to please on her birthday. Jacinta woke up that morning, and excitedly came into our room. “Mommy, can I give Evie her gift now?” were the first words out of her mouth. She had made Genevieve a bracelet the day before, for “Little Sister Day.” Genevieve then ran to pull out her gift for Jacinta, a seashell coin purse, which made them both smile. A few minutes later the girls ran out to the living room and rejoiced at the sight of balloons. Matt started making pink pancakes right away while Jacinta eyed the room for surprises. First she found the special treasure box Matt had built for her, with little tiles inlaid on all sides. Next she found the doll house I had wood burned for she and Genevieve, and they dove into play right away. Later on she found her flower petal hat and pink pancakes on her plate.

It was a peaceful rainy birthday, polka dotted with gifts from loved ones all day long. Jacinta had plans for sun and plans for rain, so we followed the rain plan: go to the library, go to belly dancing class, see our friend Trish and have fish and chips for lunch. Just before another major downpour, we made it home for Evie to nap while Jacinta played and I began cooking for the “feast.” Crepes with ham and goat cheese and salad for dinner and apple pie for dessert. Matt and Mary both came home early to celebrate the day. And lucky for me, they pitched in to get it all ready. Lesson learned: there is a reason you let the cake cool before you stick in the birthday candles, and perhaps a reason you don’t serve hot apple pie for a birthday. Our five lovely handmade beeswax birthday candles almost melted before Jacinta blew them out! Mary and Keith gave Jacinta a new scooter for her birthday. The sweet thing is that she is of the age that she would never have asked for a scooter, or even thought of owning one, but just admired her friends’ scooters. She was surprised and delighted, just in awe for the evening. “I have a scooter like Rory now.”

Matt and I are proud of our Jacinta for so many reasons, but one is her lack of materialism. She will surely go through phases like we all do, but for now, our message has gone through. She is truly grateful for every material good she is given and expects very little, materially. I don’t think this comes from a belief that she is deprived, but because she lives in plenitude. She hasn’t yet learned to be dissatisfied with her lot. I suppose this will change as she gets into school and sees more media but for now, our own brainwashing has prevailed. We are all guilty of brainwashing, we are entitled to some brainwashing as parents. I’m sure we all assume our brand of brainwashing is the best.

Jacinta and Matt sat down to make birthday invitations for her party and Matt asked her if there was anything she would like to request her friends to bring for her birthday, besides toys and clothes. She liked the idea saying that she already had enough toys and didn’t want to have to get rid of any to make space for all the new ones. She asked her friends to each bring a candle. They all brought candles and now every breakfast and dinner she picks two different candles to burn at the table, one for her and one for Evie to watch and blow out at the end of the meal, remembering each friend through their candles. Of course, no five year old would come up with a crazy idea like requesting no toys for their birthday. Brainwashed? Yes, but happy enough? Yes.

The birthday party was exactly what she wanted, a dress up party with a fire, toasted marshmallows, cake and friends. Both girls helped me make an orange chocolate cake, it took longer than any cake I’ve made, but was well worth the effort. Jacinta made a beautiful fruit platter and helped me spice the apple juice and mulled wine. She and Genevieve nibbled while I cut up pineapple, veggies, tofu and meat for the kebabs which Matt cooked on the fire. We prepared all day until it was time to get in our costumes. Genevieve and I were butterflies, Matt a ladybug with big cardboard wings and Jacinta a white cockatoo. It was all very exciting, and then her friends showed up, even better. There were fairies, bats, superheroes, and children who didn’t like to dress up. But they all ran around and played into the night, in and out of the house without much fighting or exclusion. Highlights for the kids were freeze dancing to Irish music, a bat and moth game, a marshmallow hunt, glittering Jacinta’s room, cake and being out in the dark. Us adults all quite enjoyed ourselves too, having drinks and chatting near the fire, watching the children get along, running around and being kind to each other. Matt and I breathed a sigh of relief as we cleaned up the grand mess and took in the new era of our little girl. Five is a big number.

Jacinta tells every shopkeeper now that she had her birthday and she is five now. The next question is always, “Does that mean you are going to big school next year?” She proudly smiles and says yes. Her will grows stronger every day. We were in the car last week and she was singing a French song about a donkey. I joined in. Frustrated, she said, “Mommy, when you start singing a song with me, it changes it! I was trying to sing it differently.” My mom sent Jess some stories she read on a cd for her birthday. Both girls like to listen to the stories while they play, picking up on bits and pieces of each story, laughing and marveling at little phrases. In a book about birds Jacinta hears the word “mockingbird,” and smiles and talks about the mockingbird song. She hears the word “imitate.” “I know what that means mommy, imitate, it means to act like something else…Dangerous, I know what that big word means too. I know a lot of big words mommy.” The other day she told me that two 3s make 6. At preschool she listened to some girls boating that they could count to 10 and 15. She joined the boasting and said, “I can count to 100.” I don’t know that she really can, but she is surely showing signs of pride in possessing knowledge. This tells me that in late January when she walks into that big school in her blue uniform, she will probably be ready and will want to walk into her new world.

Genevieve will enter a new world too, a world with no little blond playmate at her side most days, but filled with other things that remain to be seen. We have been noticing Evie’s laziness on a bike and have encouraged everyone in the house to stop pushing her on the bike. So after a few days of this, she can now pedal her tricycle for the first time. It’s amazing how we can be trained into dependence, and how good it can feel to be liberated of this dependence. Evie quietly announced yesterday as she pedaled across the veranda for the first time, “I doing it!” amazed at herself. Today she pedaled around the whole duck pond with Matt while Jacinta zoomed around on her new scooter.

Luckily I thrive on change so I am not too worried by the thought that Jacinta’s days will soon be filled by other teachers most days of the year. I am trying to focus on the alone time that I will have with Genevieve, like the alone time I had with Jacinta before Genevieve came along. I am excited by the prospect of gardening with her more often. For now, she is my outdoor girl, thrives on the big sky, the open space, the dirt, the wetness. We can spend hours out there, working and playing. No matter how long we garden she always asks to stay out longer when I say it is time for lunch. She loves picking the few peas on the vines, planting seeds in pots, plopping little seedlings in the dirt, watering, and pouring stinky fertilizer on plants. She looked at a pot of beet seedlings that she planted two weeks ago and asked if she could plant her beets. I was just amazed that could identify the little seedlings, I just learned how to do that a few years ago.

Yesterday we transplanted at least fifty parsnip plants, a big pot of mustard, some pea plants, chicory, cabbage, Swiss chard, and chamomile. She picked which plants would go in each bed. While I weeded and prepared the bed, she picked nasturtium leaves and bit patterns into them with her teeth and fed them to me (very good for sore throats and colds). She hid from me in the kiwi vine and ate fennel. While I hilled potato plants she sat in the newly dug trench and called it her home. All the sudden we were cassowaries (huge Aussie birds) looking for food. As the trench grew we collected grubs and the trench became a road for the cassowaries to go to town. Today we planted more pea plants together and some more potatoes. She practiced her new skill on the stepping stones, hopping. She puts adventure and imagination into everything.

Often Genevieve wakes up grumpy, but after a little while she’s charged up to play the day away. The girls are starting to come up with imaginative games on their own now. One morning I saw them sitting on the rug near the fire facing each other, with the excitement of the day before them. Genevieve said excitedly, “What should we play now?” Jacinta came up with the idea and naturally Genevieve liked it. They love puzzles and dancing lately. Puzzling, Jacinta is quite gracious to her little sister, passing Genevieve each piece and telling her where it goes. Dancing, well, that takes tap shoes, special Irish music and a clean floor. We have been dancing along to Irish music, jumping and spinning for a little while now. We were looking for a dance class but found an Irish dancing show instead. “The Rhythms of Ireland,” started at 8pm but Matt and I really wanted to go and to take the girls. The excitement before the show and following have been as wonderful as the show itself. The girls were in awe of the dancers, especially the ladies and their different outfits for each song. Genevieve later revealed her thoughts on the men, “The boys were scary.” They were truly awesome, Matt and I just felt lucky that the dance act would come to a nearby beach town in the winter to dance.

More likely are the winter guests in our house once again, mice. What a nuisance they are. I wish they were ugly like rats so we wouldn’t feel bad killing them. Last night the rats just made their grand entrance, bringing on the true feeling of violation and intrusion. As I sit here warming myself near the lovely fire place I can hear the mice around the place, in the cupboards with the traps, in the musical instrument basket, near the garbage can. They are at least cute, unlike the rat cousins.

Speaking of creatures, we have a rooster now. Friends of ours brought this new beast over for Jacinta’s party. He is big and beautiful and crows like a good rooster should. He follows the hens around and announces every time they lay an egg. The hens are laying 3-4 eggs a day now, perhaps it is the return of sunshine or “Noisy Giant” being there to impress. There is young white hen named Yeek who is always the first to escape when we open the door in the mornings. She is a people loving chicken. she squats whenever Jacinta comes near her, waiting to be picked up. Jacinta has taken to calling her cuddles. This makes life with the chickens much more exciting, a chicken friend who wants cuddles.

Jacinta loves cuddles and tries to get more from Evie than Evie can take. It’s funny because we can’t get enough cuddles from our big girl because she is so focused on getting Genevieve cuddles. Genevieve will always give us cuddles because we are big people and will let her go when she asks. Every morning she looks for Matt for cuddles. This morning Matt was up at 5am for a conference call. He and Jacinta made pancakes and smoothies while Evie and I slept in. Eventually he laid down by the fire to catch a few winks and listen to the girls’ buzzing while they played and I cleaned. Every few minutes Evie would say, “Daddy… I sleep wit you?” After she got under the covers she would say, “Wake up! Wake up your eyes! Read me a story! I read you a story…” She would run and get a book, read a few pages to sleeping daddy then ask him to read her a story. He asked her to sing him some lullabies, but she needed a guitar. She got her “Kukulele” and sat on his head and played and sang. Jacinta thought this looked like fun, so she fetched her out of tune guitar too and sat down to sing. “Evie, you are sitting on daddy’s head. Move down. Let him sleep.” Evie explained that she was comfy and couldn’t move, his face was her pillow. Jacinta, seeking justice Jacinta continued to plead with Evie while Matt smiled under the covers. Eventually they played him a few songs and woke him up.

So life rolls on, new flowers budding while wilting petals fall off and rest peacefully in the dirt until they become soil. I wish you warmth, sweet solitude and giggles in the early morning.

Peace,
Shana

God Be With the Mother

2009-06-17T22:55:00.001+10:00

Michael Leunig says,

God be with the mother. As she carried her child may she carry her soul. As her child was born, may she give birth and life and form to her own, higher truth. As she nourished and protected her child, may she nourish and protect her inner life and her independence. For her soul shall be her most painful birth, her most difficult child and the dearest sister to her other children. Amen.

It is good old comforting serendipity when you feel something strongly, and then you run across beautiful words written by someone else to describe what you needed to say or hear. It is like a welcome from the earth assuring you that everything thing is aligned beautifully just in case you hadn't noticed how amazing creation is. You will receive what you need. The earth is quite hospitable. I never feel right celebrating the bounty of the earth though, because my mind always turns to Sudan, Palestine, Iraq and places filled with suffering. I don't think evil was intentionally created, nor are certain people inherently evil. Fear, deprivation, exploited lands and an insatiable thirst for survival seem to make certain creatures of the earth less hospitable than others.

But the mother, the good mother earth, mothers of children, so giving, so hospitable, so warm and caring. No matter how abundant or scarce things are, mothers find a way to take a piece of themselves and nourish their young with it. But mothers lose energy when we give too much of ourselves and end up with half hearted generosity. Often there is no time left to work on the soul, the inner life, the precious light within that keeps us burning strong. But this is true for most people leading busy lives (not just mothers) when we spend all of our time thinking about other things and other people. A few years ago, I used to wonder what the fascination with yoga was. Although I'm still not into yoga, it makes sense now. Development of the inner life, the soul, with no guilt or "shoulds" attached to it like many forms of religious prayer. Alone time with no goal of losing weight or creating something physically beautiful: a time for nothingness. A time to listen to the earth beating in your own heart. THIS is what I have come to realize I need, thereby justifying my desire to establish a girls hut on the other side of the dam. My girls are still young enough to be like little branches connected to the limb of a tree, mother being the limb. It seems strange but if I am away from the house, from visitors, from stuff, the girls can be with me and I can still nourish my inner life. It is easier alone, but more fun with them.

I have been searching for prayers to do with our girls, prayers with no trace of fear, guilt, redemption, or being saved. Prayers full of awe and wonder and beauty. I can't seem to come up with any on my own. At Ecofaith we sing and hear talk of God. But not so much at home. We noticed this last week when Genevieve asked if we were going to God's place, 45 minutes away in a park in Bellingen. Luckily Jacinta knew that God is everywhere and proceeded to sing about all the places God is for the next 10 minutes. My favorite was, "God is on the meat we eat." Matt and I both grew up with the traditional Original Sin version of Christianity, born and bred in guilt. Matt is quite happy with gardening being prayer and jumping in puddles being prayer.

But wordy me, I need some poetry, some ritual to help Genevieve see that God is not in a park 45 minutes away. Matt has MANY books of beautiful spiritual poetry and I dig through them often. We even have a book of prayers for children from different traditions around the world. But none seem right. Last week our friend Jane read a Leunig poem at the park where God is. AH hah! I had forgotten about Leunig. And voila, after the high and low search, I found a lovely little prayer we might try each night, right on the shelf.

One of our favorite Leunig prayers,

"God help us to live slowly:

To move simply:

To walk softly:

To allow emptiness:

To let the heart create for us."

172 Freedom for my chickens

2009-05-20T23:49:00.003+10:00

Bonsoir mes amis. A lot of English books use French expressions without any translation, and it makes me think, "wow, how do people know what they are talking about?" After some contemplation, I decide that it must be one of those French expressions that most Anglophones understand. Blah blah blah… I hope this letter finds you well and enjoying life, the spring, the sun and stars, or at least, trying to enjoy amidst strife.

Our chickens enjoyed life today more than they have in a while. They are FREE range chickens, as of today. We had locked them up for many reasons, safety, keeping track of eggs, and to keep them from digging up the garden. They have never laid very well anyway, and are only laying one egg a day lately. I am learning how to garden in the presence of large birds that scratch up any disturbed soil, namely turkeys. I figure that our chickens should enjoy the land too, rather than waiting around for us to throw them weeds and dig them grubs. Early this morning Matt carried Genevieve into the pen and accidentally let a chicken out. As I was hanging the clothes on the line I watched how happy and free the hen was. I remembered how nice it was to watch the chickens around the place in the day, to be near them and to see them doing what they do best, scratching for nourishment. So I let them all out. It took them a few minutes to seize their freedom, but it was heaven. No eggs today, but the hens went back to their roost to sleep, all but one hen. I can try and pretend that I care more about what the animals produce than the animals themselves, but I don't think that is me.

Perhaps age wants me to toughen up, age, motherhood and life in the country. I like to play the part of a real farmer but I am FAR from it. When I can take a step away, I wonder whether this new harsh edge will make me happier or steal some of my joy. I suppose we are meant to lose some of our childish awe and joy as time goes by, but how much? Necessity toughens me up, for example, firewood. I ordered a truck load of firewood, which was delivered in massive chunks. Of course Matt would normally be out there chopping and stacking firewood, but this time he was stuck on the couch. Keith taught me the method to the madness in splitting wood. He is a very good teacher, patient, slow and incredibly encouraging. By the end I was able to split a big stump into ten good fire logs in a few minutes. I need to practice though. The girls are making a firewood cabin in the shed, complete with a bench and a door. I keep reminding them that eventually we will have to burn it all down. Jacinta understands the sad reality, but insists that the one piece of wood with the beautiful insect trail must move with her as the bench moves.

Instead of chopping firewood, Matt has been putting his energy into healing, going to work, resting, reading, doing lots of conference calls for the Creation Spirituality Education Program and playing with the girls. Our naturopath again worked wonders on him. Two days later, he was feeling more mobile than he had in two weeks and three visits to the osteopath. He is slowly moving back into normal life, doing lots of chores around the place and tickling the girls. The girls were very kind and gentle with him in his pain, knowing to ask him for stories and cuddles rather than a shoulder ride to the car. He discovered a wonderful children's musician, Dan Zanes, and plays music videos for the girls as they sit on his lap. A week later, he is now able to stand up, play the guitar and play those same songs for the girls and dance with them. The other morning Genevieve woke up in our bed, looked at Matt lying in bed smiling and started her day of chatter. In a sweet sleepy voice she whispered, "You happy Daddy?" He smiled even bigger with his eyes half closed and said, "yes." He is so thankful for his renewed mobility and ability to play and fully join the havoc of the household.

We are all really happy and grateful for Matt's renewed energy and health. Life seems so easy again with all of his help and happiness. Last Sunday was Mother's Day, a day when he wanted so badly to spoil me. I could see that his anguish was almost as much as his physical pain. He did a great job of spoiling me though. I woke up to a new cheminea on the veranda, which means we can now have safe outdoor fires more regularly. He helped Keith, the girls and I make a Mothers Day breakfast and we were off to Ecofaith following. The girls and I took our sweet time at the big fruit shop while he rested in the car. We finished our outing with a trip to a huge Recycled Goods Shop and found some treasures. Then he made purple pancakes with the girls for dinner, all while trying to heal, but feeling great pain. By this weekend he has healed so much that he took the girls to town for a few hours while I gardened and spent hours doing some light building for Jacinta's birthday, making her a musical jewelry box. Today we spent the day out at Ecofaith and then explored the magical rocky creek called "Never Never Creek" in "The Promise Land." He is still on the mend, but leaves for Sydney tomorrow on an airplane for his first week of official job training, what Genevieve calls "Daddy's toilet training."

As it turns out, that was three days ago and Matt has been in Sydney for a few days. The girls and I have been eating smoked fish, tofu and lots of rabbit food, Matt's least favorite dishes. Tonight's tofu was particularly good: ¼ inch slices baked in tamari, peanut and sesame oils and sesame seeds for 30 minutes. Life is pretty much the same, thanks to the rain. We had planned to kick off building our little "women's camp" out on the other side of the dam and camp out for a few nights. Instead we shopped for tarps, tools, tent pegs, ropes, and marshmallows, ready for the next sunny free day to begin. There is a lot of work to be done, but we are excited to try this out and prove it to ourselves that girls can build beautiful things, no matter how long it takes. I foresee a lot of time spent sitting in the high grass and exploring this year and watching the girls come up with imaginative games. But mainly, we are busy to-ing and fro-ing from preschool to playgroup to visits with friends to choir to markets. Our time out there is rare as in the garden. I am contemplating cutting out a few things, but we shall see. I avoid backing out on things when people rely on me.

I also seem to avoid finishing things that I have started. But lo and behold, I finished Jacinta's birthday hat! It was a complicated pattern but it will be ready for her birthday, two weeks away. It is winterizing time. I'd rather chop wood than clean, iron and re-hang the curtains, but after months of dread, I did it! (It's good that I can congratulate myself for doing such tasks, tasks which seem obligatory to others). We can now close the clean curtains for added warmth without disgust of last year's dirt. I bought used wool blankets weeks ago, intending to cut, punch in grommets and hang them over the girls' windows and some walls, as added insulation. Four down, one to go, another load off, almost off. Genevieve loves her wooly cave, asked the other day for "you put a wooly here too?" She thinks they are just for her playing pleasure.

The garden seems to be another place designed just for play these days. I love brewing compost tea/fertilizer, but they seem to be breeding mosquitoes. I have covered them though. I don't understand how the mosquitoes survive. I can fertilize, plant, transplant, weed and water all I want, but once the seedlings are in the ground, they stop growing. My winter garden frustration has returned, lack of sun, maybe. The lemons are tasty though. It is incredibly gratifying to pick a lemon from the garden and squeeze it on our fish, in our tea, and in our salads. We have sparse herbs, which are lovely to have out my front door. The lettuce goes slow but we have a few leaves each day for a tiny salad, pumped it up with herbs and other veggies and salad, voila. I made garden pesto the other day, basil and native spinach. It was so good, and made me smile every time the girls dipped into the jar to sneak a spoonful. We have learned to enjoy pesto without parmesan now that we have completely dropped cow dairy products (minus butter), I just add more nuts.

Keith and I drove out to a seed swap gathering in a magical place, one hour northwest of us. Such a great idea if you can get someone to organize this. Why not save your seeds, which are tried and true to your area and are collected in abundance, and share them with other gardeners? Taking a cash value off of seeds is a lovely feeling, it is yet another of nature's free gifts. It does take energy to collect and knowledge of how to do it, so I don't mind paying. But it feels so good to swap them. The generosity of this crowd was honestly shocking. Aleasa, a permaculture teacher who runs her own nursery, hosted the gathering. After we all swapped, she took out her entire seed stock and let us pot up anything we wanted to take home and grow. She mentioned that her seeds were viable. I wondered how that could be, that she could guarantee all her seeds were still good and would come up. I have so often bought seeds that list an expiration date. It is well within that date, and they NEVER come up. I assume it is my failure. Every one of Aleasa's seeds came up within 3-5 days, tiny flower seeds that I have tried over and over and failed from store-bought organic heirloom seeds. I guess this is what a viable seed is. As Keith and I were leaving an elderly lady from the gathering gave us her address and said she'd love to give us anything we wanted from her 25 year old garden, if we would just drop in for the day. Generosity, a beautiful trait I will keep trying to live up to.

In my limited experience thus far, I have found people from less materially endowed countries to be the most generous. In all my time visiting the Dossas, my Togolese friends, we have rushed off before the meals. They let us leave. My Senegalese family never allowed friends to leave just before dinner. They made them stay. I never want to impose, such a modern Western concept, because many of us would call unexpected guests for dinner as imposing. When I only prepare enough for four people, I get stuck on that number and feel bad cutting anyone out of their share. But for some Africans, this slightly diminished proportion is a small sacrifice to pay in order to keep one's dignity and offering hospitality. Last week, the girls and I visited the Dossas and stayed past 5pm. I specified that I had made dinner for Matt and would leave by 5:30 to go home for dinner. But Christine had been waiting for months to offer us the hospitality she could not give while pregnant and lacking energy and spirit. She insisted and said we must stay, we did. The girls played hard with the rowdy boys until dinner.

New baby Joseph is healthy and lovely to hold and true to form, is handed off instantly when I walk in the door. Everyone in the house is doing well since Joseph was born. No more gestational diabetes, no more fear of eating the wrong thing. The father found a way to get in home child care assistance which is working wonders for the children's English, homework and immersion into Australian culture. What a long way they have all come. How lucky the girls and I are to share in their lives. We enter another world each time we walk in the door, a vibrant household with a constant flow of unexpected visitors. Again we are showered with generosity to learn from.

The girls can learn many things from us, but not the amazing hospitality, generosity and willingness to stop busyness for guests. This week we went to drumming class, belly dancing class, and choir, all essential life lessons :) Both girls are learning to cook very well and understand the cycle of seed to plant to flower to seed and on and on. Jacinta cleaned her room all by herself with no guidance for the first time last week. It was awesome. It hasn't happened since though. There have been a lot of card making occasions the last few weeks, which she loves. Some mornings she wakes before we do and goes straight to work. "Mom, I am going to make Grandma Shari's Mothers Day card." Last week at pre-school she was so excited to make me a Mother's Day Card, she asked the question that every parent knows they will hear at some point, ""Mom, can you go now?" I burst with pride, kissed her goodbye and left, knowing that she had gained enough confidence to seek solitude.

Jacinta's imagination is blossoming, surely something we could never teach but heartily encourage. The other day she was playing on the floor with a bear and a blanket. She was talking and Genevieve asked her what she had said. Knowing it was funny to say this, she smirked and replied, "I am not talking to you, I am talking to me!" She is starting to understand humor on another level, and makes us laugh even more now.

Genevieve is on her 2 year old level of humor, and makes us laugh for very different reasons. Her words and facial expressions are highly entertaining. She rejoices hard and falls hard. Evie is an energetic little dancer, always ready to play with others. She was so excited the other day while dancing that she ran at me and bit my leg. Other times it is easier to back away and foresee the bite coming. Being "sent to her room" does calm her down eventually but changes nothing in her behavior. This is why both Jacinta and I sometimes wince if her face ever comes near our bodies. She is discriminating, and does not bite Matt, Mary or Keith. Genevieve is full of love, rage and will. She can't stand that Jacinta can pour her own rice milk or butter her own toast and she can't. She throws little tantrums all day long, impatient and frustrated at injustice. She packs her own morning tea in a backpack on Jacinta's preschool, carrying her little " pack pack" in and out of town when we drive Jacinta in. She tells everyone she is going to "Little Peeschool," which means life at home with me, getting one on one attention while we work on the house or in the garden, or playing near me while I get things done. She'd rather be playing with Poppy and sometimes I let her. It's a battle to convince her that I'm an okay option but I really treasure our time alone and love our "Little Peeschool" Days.

One lesson I am proud the girls have learned is to take their time, look closely at things and move slow. This may come from their natural childish state of awe and wonder. Amidst all the things I keep telling myself I SHOULD be doing with them, this is one important lesson I feel is accomplished. It is easy to see the negative effects when we try to get somewhere on time. But for me, the positives surely outweigh the negatives. The other day we went to the pond to meet our friends for French class. No one showed up, as I guessed might happen given flu season. Instead we spotted a duck and sat down near her, by the water's edge. After a few minutes of close inspection Jacinta spotted a small tuft of yellow fur beneath the duck and called me over. "Mommy, I think there are ducklings under her!" Over the next few minutes of quiet attention, eleven ducklings snuck out and began to wander in the long grass. The mother duck wandered to another tree and most of the ducklings followed. Three were left behind so the girls gently shepherded them over to mom. Obviously the mother was trying to shake us, but we didn't get the hint. The girls continued to shepherd the trailing ducklings to their mother. After about 30 minutes the mother took them across the pond to a small island and struggled herself to get up a steep ledge. The ducklings could not get up the ledge very easily either. They tried over and over, in different spots, always getting up a few inches and falling on their backs in the water. One by one they made it up the bank, with no help from their mother. We talked about how different human parents are to this mother example, not in a pitying way just natural differences. After another 20 minutes, there was still one duckling left who had given up. We watched a black duck come and chat with the duckling. We sat squinting to see across the water, hoping she would help the baby. But she swam away after a while. We then went on a lovely autumn walk around the pond, threw leaves around and played. We eventually went home for dinner, wishing the little lonely duck luck.

We talked about the duck in the days following. The girls went back to the pond a few times to look for the lonely duckling, once with Matt and once with me. But it is left a mystery. We like mystery, better than the truth sometimes. Like why do our ten chickens average 0-1 eggs per day? If I knew the answer I might have to work harder on them. Good thing I don't know why.

I wish you a lovely spring week, less rain than we are having and a bit of beautiful mystery.

Peace,

Shana

170 Playing docta

2009-04-22T19:18:00.001+10:00

Hello there. I hear spring has sprung for you folk in my homeland. I am smiling as I contemplate the light green, the odor of wet beautiful dirt, hope and the bulb flowers popping their heads out of the dirt in your land. We had our first fire the other night. The wind has been blowing hard for the past few days and it is raining again. The ground is so wet that really, I shouldn't be messing with the soil for fear of compacting it all. But alas, I am not a trained gardener and will give anything a try if I have fifteen minutes to pop a few things into the ground.

The summer is clearly over, it is dark by the time we have dinner. We still have nice fruit in season though. If we only ate local fruit, our fruit salad these days would be kiwis and guavas from our garden (the kiwis are finally ripe after sitting in the fruit basket for over a month) and bananas from the fruit shop. Apples are in season a few hours drive from us so we are starting to enjoy the beauty of autumn apples. What does local mean? Good question, I suppose it is a spectrum of HOW local. Ideally, local food could mean anything grown in your town. Perhaps practically, local food might be anything grown within an hour or two hours driving radius from your house. If we ate only veggies from our garden, we would have cucumbers, green peppers, a few lettuce leaves, one cherry tomato, one leek, some rocket, garlic and warrigal greens every night. But we don't, we buy most veggies from the fruit shop. If we ate only eggs from our chickens (who don't lay well in the cooler days), we could share one or two eggs a day. If we were really dedicated to eating truly local and needed some more protein, we might eat one of the nuisance turkeys who dig up the garden. Instead we just buy local beef and local pork from the butcher. I hope to learn to grow a constant and better variety of veggies some day, and perhaps eat our chickens. We might have to invest in a rooster in that case.

For now, I am just experimenting when I get time, even starting to mow the lawn. This season I am trying out new ways of planting having as my major goal: leaving the soil structure intact. Most importantly I want to preserve the integrity, the life in the soil (worms, fungus, beneficial bacteria, minerals). Anytime the soil is uncovered or looks slightly tilled the turkeys dig it all up in search of worms and grubs and the rats dig up seeds. Introduced to me by my friend Martina almost ten years ago, no dig kind of gardening is much easier, just the addition of compost and liquid fertilizer to build up the fertility in the soil. I pulled out the old corn stalks in my bottom terrace, threw them on the compost heap and did not weed. With my large shovel, I jammed the tip in about 6-8 inches deep, pushed the shovel away from me, dropped in a handful of dried up chicken manure and a potato. I then pulled out the shovel, never taking out any dirt, leaving 13 potatoes underground, hopefully to sprout through the weeds in a while. I did the same with about 80 garlic cloves in the top terrace. I am interested to see how they grow in comparison to my previous efforts involving a lot more labor. I probably should have added some mulch and manure but any doctoring up attracts the turkeys. The girls and I have been weeding and planting peas everywhere in both gardens, and a few have actually come up in spite of too much rain. The fallow ground is diminishing as I find little blocks of time to transplant winter crops like broccoli into the ground. This comes at a good time, when Genevieve has learned to like broccoli.

Matt hacked down a large tree in the middle of the terrace garden with a machete the other day, while standing on a ladder. This does sound insane, yes, but we don't have a working chainsaw and he wanted to help me out. This endeavor made way for more sunshine on the plants and also created a third sturdy post to prop up our heavy kiwi vines. New stepping stones that we made together with our friend Emily will also inspire our garden this winter. We are hopeful for a productive garden. The girls hope to eat peas by the fistful, so we will continue to plant them every chance we get.

Our long awaited guests have come and gone, but what a lovely time we spent with them while they were in our midst. The Easter bunny didn't stay long enough to even sight him. Matt's sister Allison came and spent a few days with us for Easter which was so nice. Jacinta and Genevieve were thrilled to have their aunty here to play, as were we. They had a lovely time baking cookies together, and of course eating them. Jacinta proudly sat on Allison's lap through out the whole Peter Pan play, knowing it was a treat to be near her aunty. We went on a rainy day outing to Koala Park and strawberry picking.

Our friend Emily from Michigan stayed almost two weeks. Her loving, positive and energetic spirit inspired all of us. She had just finished her medical degree in osteopathy. She came to us after six weeks of medical work in Malawi, and a short stay in South Africa with stories and the desire for more adventure and exploration. We chatted late into the evenings, (giving me the chance to knit, listen and flap my gums), shared music and life. She played with the girls who were electrified by her energy. She worked on Matt, Keith, Mary and I, on all of our sore bones and even taught Matt and I how to help each other's knees (me) and back and shoulders (Matt). Her hands were magical. None of us had really had much experience with osteopathy, but after last week, I wish I had an MD who was also an osteopath like Emily. It seems to be one of the best options in the US, an MD who has knowledge and faith in natural remedies and deep tissue therapy. Not only did we have free medical care and great company, but also help with dishes, cooking and child care. Amazing. She slept on a hammock in our tiny abode for a few nights and didn't mind being awoken each morning by Genevieve looking for a playmate.

We packed more outings in the last two weeks than we usually have in two months. Matt took Emily and the girls to Coffs Harbour to visit the Big Banana and the ocean. They walked up and down a small island, Muttonbird Island, no small feat, but beautiful of course. We saw a wood chopping contest, a really funny version of Peter Pan put on by a local theatre group, and went to Bellingen for outdoor church both Sundays. Last Sunday Matt led Ecofaith for the first time while Jason was on vacation.

On Easter Sunday Matt sang his funny version of how the Jesus story can be connected to chocolate eggs. It was great, in between each serious historical verse, he had us all sing, "What about the Easter eggs? I really like Easter eggs! Where are the Easter eggs?" Only Matt could connect chocolate eggs to Jesus.

Easter was really nice. The girls woke up extra early for breakfast and a few non-edible gifts from Matt and I, bulbs to plant and special stones. Soon, they found Easter bunny tracks leading to baskets in a few different places. Jacinta was so in love with the markers Pop and Grandma left in her basket and the one page to color in that she instantly went to work drawing and didn't look at anything else in her basket. There was chocolate to be consumed. While Genevieve began the demolition of her chocolate bilby, our task oriented Jacinta said she'd have chocolate after she had finished. Eventually we hopped down to the garden to find their wheat grass filled baskets, lots of chocolate, jelly beans and the hard boiled dyed eggs. It was quite a crowd of picture-taking admiring adults, Allison, Emily, Keith, Mary, Matt and I. The girls enjoyed the hunt, the chocolate, the company, and it wasn't raining! I hid their baskets over and over, until they ran out of steam and proceeded to have a very chocolatey day. They had a nice playful morning, followed by a long drive to church and another exciting chocolate Easter egg hunt. Emily and I took off on the canoe upon return to Macksville while Matt relaxed with the girls. It was the first time I canoed without the girls in our canoe and actually got to paddle hard. Mary cooked us all a nice dinner to wash away some of the chocolate. The only missing part of Easter was my family in the States. On Monday, we had the chance to connect with some of them on Skype and even talk to them on a web camera and even look at them! It was really weird, but amazing. My little niece in Indiana was baptized on Easter and we got to "see" her along with some more of my family.

After Easter Matt had to go back to work, so Emily and I decided to take the girls camping to the rainforest and see some waterfalls. Emily, like me, is a bit risky and loves a good challenge if beauty and excitement lie at the end of it. We took these girls to some gorgeous hidden corners, "Never Never Land" was our first real stop, a swimming hole on the Never Never River located in "The Promise Land" between Bellingen and Dorrigo. We played on big beautiful slippery rocks, walked through shallow pools, and climbed mossy trees, had a picnic and even saw a Peter Pan and Tinkerbell (or a couple we named as such). Emily was a great navigator, entertainer for the girls and after searching through tens of travel brochures, found a camping site for us. I love traveling in spontaneous company. En route we saw a few amazing waterfalls, and eventually made it to our destination. Dangar Falls was magnificent, and a great hike up and down to get a close up. Jacinta's legs have surely grown up and made the hike all on her own. After a nice dinner in town, we camped under the bright stars close enough to the waterfall that the splash lulled us to sleep. It was a wee bit chilly, but four girls squished in a little tent helped keep us warm. Although one shooting star after another tempted us to stay out stargazing all night, the chill in the air sent us in the tent to find a space in the big sleeping bag. We had such a nice time in Dorrigo that Genevieve has added "Dowigo" to her vocabulary. When asked what she did today, regardless of the truth, she says, "I went to Dowigo." When she packs her little bag and heads out the door, she is going to Dowigo.

I will close with a story about the girls' latest imaginative play. "Evie, do you want to play docta?" Evie replies, "Yeah, I be docta." Jacinta, disregarding her says, "Yeah, Ok, I'll be the docta, but first I am going to make some bandages." Paper, crayons, scissors and a few minutes later Jacinta has three new colored bandages. "Ok Evie, sit down. What hurts?" Evie replies, "My belly hehts." Jacinta instructs her to lay down. It takes a bit of encouragement. I peek in. Evie is on her back on the wooly rug while Jacinta adjusts her legs, looking calm and very involved. I leave them alone and in a few minutes come back in and Genevieve has the colorful bandages on her legs. Jacinta is hoisting her up on her lap, sitting in her doctor's armchair and giving her a big cuddle. Genevieve is actually accepting the cuddle (abnormal). They eventually switch places and Evie cures Jacinta's legs. I try to remain unseen and don't hear much. Today I asked Jacinta to tell my mom about their doctor game. She happily obliged and proceeded to tell mom about their illnesses. "We get bellyaches from eating too much chocolate."

Genevieve, who keeps good track of everyone's whereabouts will tell you that Allison is in Canberra, working, Daddy and Granma are in Kempsey, working, Popy is on hollyday and Emily is in America. We loved our busy home for the holidays and laughed a lot but now we are back to normal and this is pretty good too. With new inspiration and relaxation from our visitors, we are tired, filled with love and still ready to play, new and old games.

Hope you all had a nice "hollyday" too. Enjoy your spring, perhaps with a burst of new life and hope.

Peace,

Shana

169 New Life

2009-04-06T23:27:00.001+10:00

Good evening my friends. I hope this letter flies over to you and finds you in springtime, in flower and in the sun. My sister told me of their spring snow in Wisconsin. I remember Easters in the snow, but there were always buds on the trees and green sprouting up out of the cold, damp earth to remind you of new life springing forth. Today was daylight savings for us, so we are “falling back” as Easter tells of new life. I still can’t wrap my head around celebrating Easter in the autumn. There is never a season of total dormancy here, there is new life in every season. But as we prepare for Easter, this holiday celebrating fertility, rebirth, renaissance, renewed hope, the deciduous trees are dropping their leaves and going to sleep. The sweet summer crops are dying off. The corn, tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, zucchini, melons, and berries who need more sunlight are making way for broccoli, spinach, peas, greens of all kinds and the lovely citrus fruits.

Lillypillies (bitter native berries with seeds) are in season. Harvesting them is really exciting as it involves climbing a massive tree and shaking it until the berries fall onto a sheet laying on the ground to catch them. Climbing higher in a tree than I’ve climbed in my life at age 31 was exhilarating, much better than the berries themselves. In addition to eating a lot of lillypillies, Jacinta scored a rope swing out of this experience. Genevieve got bored and whined for attention.

The garden is actually in quite a dormant state, mainly because I haven’t planted much. There is room for masses of plants, but I haven’t yet converted my attempt at a summer garden to an autumn/winter garden. The nice thing is that I am at peace with the fallow ground. The terrace I redid last month is still empty and the turkeys have dug up my attempt at neatness and a clear path. They are also curbing my attempt at growing salad greens right up at the house. If the girls ever learn a swear word, I will have to blame it on the turkeys, our lovely native pests. We are still eating corn, green peppers and masses of cucumbers from the garden. The rats get a lot of the corn, but when I remember to spray the cobs with clove oil and water, they leave it alone, until it rains.

Rain, rain, rain, yes, there is no shortage of this. We have just had our second major flood in a month. After much damage done to towns around us, the rivers have gone back down, but it is still raining. Schools were closed for a few days in some areas, people were evacuated, many couldn’t get to work or get home to their families. Children and teachers were stuck in schools and on school buses one night until 10pm. Violent winds knocked trees down, power lines, and hills crumbled. Matt was called out at midnight one night to help evacuate families in Urunga, to assist setting them up in temporary housing at the bowling club, fetching their prescription drugs from flooded houses. Cows and horses floated out to sea mooing.

We live on a hill and our bridges didn’t go under, so again, we just played at home, watched the rain and went to town when we needed something. Genevieve had a cold so we didn’t puddle jump as much as we like. But one day we went out with the neighbor girls and almost swam on the road between our dam and the river. I needed a reason to stay inside for a few days and cook and create in the kitchen. Thanks to this rain which hurt so many others, I got what my body needed. The girls and I got busy in the kitchen making gingerbread cookies, applesauce, chocolate, laundry soap, salsa, soap. We decorated baskets for Easter with ribbons and mended a few things. We planted wheat grass for the Easter baskets and I finally found some time to knit.

The girls always love playing with Grandma and Pop. They do a lot of drawing and painting together. Keith draws them beautiful pictures to color in. Genevieve sits for a few minutes and draws but moves onto new things quickly. Jacinta will sit there as long as she is allowed and creates intricate colorful designs to hang up on the walls. Last week at preschool she began a snail, filling in the spiral little by little with a new ray of color. Kids move pretty quick at preschool so she was asked to finish it at home. Jacinta needs to complete things, so different to myself. This beautiful snail was quite a prize for her after she finished. Jacinta prizes her artwork so much that she has a hard time giving it away. It is not uncommon that in her card making for someone else, she spends a long time, then wants to keep the original. She will then quickly make something else for the card. Anytime she makes something for Genevieve (who will probably destroy it), you know she is feeling very loving.

The girls’ games change all the time, what they can do together peacefully and what evokes major fights. This month the peaceful games have been building trains, building marbles towers, drawing and gluing, dolly play, the sandpit and cooking on our new “stove” in the orchard. I set up an old wooden frame on its side and we placed a few bowls and pots on top. It seems to rain almost every night so each day we go to the garden there is fresh rain water ready to cook up. All they need is sand from the pit, some herbs and flowers from the garden, spoons and cups. Blue food coloring added to the fun for a few days, turning the creations into blueberry flavored food. The girls climbed the apple tree together this week, Genevieve’s first solo climbing experience. It was very exciting. Watching the seeds sprout that we have planted in the little seedling hut is also something we can all enjoy.

Although I tried somewhat to make the girls rough and tough, I enjoy quite a few arts which have the reputation of being typically feminine. I have girly girls who love mirrors, clothes and shopping, already. Evie packs a bag or the dolly pram and calls out as she leaves a room, “I’m going to town now, bye bye.” Jacinta takes a few real coins, picks up items from shelves in the house and pays me for them. As her coins are limited, she always requests the money be returned after the purchase. They both gaze in the mirror after each hair do. My oh my.

The games which erupt in screams all come from their will to possess. Jacinta is quite benevolent sharing most everything, but there are certain things she is precious about and for these she pulls the “MINE” card. It’s understandable because Evie still destroys things, sucks things, and pees her pants, charming. Genevieve takes any venom and multiplies it by 10, so her “MINE” hurts your ears. Her most recent rebuttal is to whack Jacinta. She is two. “I am Evie. I am 2.” There is no doubt she is two, she is painfully possessive at the moment. If anyone touches anything that she has ever touched, she nastily reminds you that it is hers. Most times, it is not, she just wishes it were.

She fights a hard fight, but Genevieve makes us laugh a lot too. One of her latest anthems is, “Fruit makes you TOOT! Fruuuiiit makes you ….POOP!” waiting for us to respond with laughter. Jacinta and I often have to confer and ask one another, did she just say…?” She cracks us up and she knows it. Genevieve is saddened by Jacinta’s absence on pre-school days and comments through out the day. “Cinta kwying, no like pee school. Cinta will be happy at home.” Then she’ll ask me, “Mommy why I no go to peeschool? You give me cuddle and say goodbye?” When we leave Jacinta in a good mood at pre-school Genevieve exclaims, “Cinta no kwying!” When I wake Evie to go fetch Jacinta at preschool, in her stupor she says, “Jacinta will be happy.” She knows that every time we pick her big sister up, she is in a good mood and has enjoyed herself. The other day we found an overly exuberant Jacinta at pre-school, thrilled about the new songs and games they had played and about shaking a pretend gorilla’s hand. Jacinta’s friend tried to pick Genevieve up. In a loud strong voice Evie said, “Lily don’t pick me up! I big girl now!” She doesn’t mean to make us laugh all the time, but hearing her string all those words together and say so much is just funny coming out of her tiny little body.

Songs are constantly pulsing through both girls most of the day long: French songs, pre-school songs, dancing songs, lullabies, daddy songs, poppy songs, nursery rhymes, funny songs, and choir songs. Evie has had one song from the Down from the Mountain soundtrack stuck in her head for over a month, “In the Highways In the Hedges.” Jacinta is just about over it. Keith has it on a Dvd and doesn’t mind playing the three little girls singing as nasally as possible over and over, sometimes four times in a row. They stand next to each other as if they are on stage and sing this gospel song just as nasally as the Peasall sisters. Genevieve loudly sings it out on the town, in the fruit shop, at the butcher, “I’ll be somewhere searching for my Lord.” I try to quiet her down but the shop owners encourage her.

Last weekend our choir sang at a community show Friday and Saturday night. This was going to be Jacinta’s first time on a stage, singing the whole set with us. Friday night I led the choir and Jacinta tentatively stood in front of me, held my hands and sang. I had overdressed her, so after a song or two the stage lights overheated her and needed some care, while I was conducting and singing. “I’m hot mommy.” Ignored a few times, she became more insistent. In between songs she asked loudly if she could take off her dress. At this point she went down to see Matt, who was keeping Genevieve off the stage. He had come directly from work/flood relief to help with the girls while I led the choir. Then Genevieve escaped and boldly approached the stage and raised her arms to be picked up and join us. My friend Trish happily obliged. Matt said that when Evie looked out and saw the bright lights and the audience, her eyes lit up saying, “Oh yes, this is the life!” Both evenings were lovely, the girls loved watching the junior high girls and loved the attention they were given for being so little and cute. Their favorite act was the jump roping act put on by the “big girls.” The second night Mary and Keith brought the girls and kept them happy. This night Jacinta chose a cool outfit to wear and was then able to sing the whole set. I was quietly so proud of her, knowing all the words to these songs in Shona, Galithian French, Zulu, and Latin. I try not to outdo her own pride with my joy for her accompishments. It was also Jacinta’s first time holding her own part when I strayed off to sing a solo. We all enjoyed the show, even the cheesy Aussie sing along songs. My favorite act might have been the belly dancers, I always love watching older women with real bellies find freedom and beauty in dance. We don’t dance often enough in Western society.

We have been keeping very busy on the weekends. One Sunday I took the girls to a Harmony Day festival and watched the Coffs Harbor international population put on a show, alongside Aussie culture, both indigenous and non-indigenous. I was surprised by the diversity represented in a small coastal city and just felt so lucky. Different languages, cultures, dances, songs, foods, only 45 minutes from Macksville! A little shot of color and adrenaline flowed through my veins that day. Other weekend activities have included our Autumn Equinox party, an environmental film and discussion night at a café organized by our group of friends, local markets, tree fairs and visits with friends. Besides hanging out with his little girls, Matt has been busy building cabinets and shelving for the bathroom. He is also using up some creative energy on creating a new web-based education model for Creation Spirituality.

Both of us have been digging into the Easter season, trying to figure out how to celebrate it deeply and beautifully with the girls, in autumn. I am looking for songs and poems that lend themselves to rebirth and fertility in autumn in Australia, this is almost fruitless. So much literature is written for the Northern Hemisphere, thus an autumn with true chill and apples and an Easter with tulips and trees coming back to green life. The girls are still too young to know that Jesus was killed off by mean people, so they can’t yet know that Easter is a day when he rises from the dead. So what is left of the Christian story for small children? Bunnies, eggs and chocolate I suppose. Matt is trying to write a story for them for Easter. I have planted wheat grass with them, which I must say is growing quite amazingly and will make a beautiful bed in their Easter baskets. The Easter bunny will give them bulbs to plant, beautiful stones to hold and jellybeans, to pass on a bit of my childhood. We will surely dye some eggs this week. Matt is taking care of the chocolate for us all.

If Easter is about new life, then we should be set, given the fertility of our friends. Since I last wrote, three healthy babies have been born to good friends of ours, two different couples in the USA, and my Togolese friends here just had their little boy yesterday. Just this week two couples of Aussie friends announced their pregnancies. So here’s to Easter, to new life.

Our friend Emily from the USA will be here soon to celebrate the season, as will Matt’s sister Allison from Canberra. Jacinta just started counting the days until our guests Emily and Allison arrive, but even more exciting for her, the guest with long white ears and a stash of sweets. Matt and I are just hoping Emily makes it here safely and with less drama than the last few days of trying to get a visa to travel from Johannesburg to Sydney. My naturopath Belinda gave me a few simple tips that will take years to sink in and perhaps heal little wounds and obsessions of the past. To new life and lasting peace.

I wish you all a lovely Easter, Passover, a refreshing springtime, or a big, bold renaissance, whatever you choose to celebrate.

Peace,

Shana

Long legs and blue hair

2009-03-16T00:19:00.001+11:00

Hello there. The peace of the evening surrounds me. Three little flames dance in the candle beside me. Music fills my ears; vocal harmony balances me in a way that nothing else can. I have decided to write a journal every other week, based on my own need for discipline and the difficulty of remembering events and feelings over four weeks time.

We all need discipline, as adults we can form our own disciplines. Children need us to give them boundaries within which they can learn. Jacinta knows and follows the lines, but sometimes needs to be reminded where she stands, just in case we loosen up a bit. Genevieve continually seeks to determine these lines. She doesn’t see the line as a limit, more as a suggestion. She has started to verbalize her decision to cross a boundary. I took a balloon inside to prevent the grass from popping it and explained my action. Evie whined a bit, “why??? WHY???” She disliked my response and after some contemplation said very firmly, “I be naughty.” She went inside to fetch the balloon and brought it outside and gave me the look. I laugh now, but at that moment, of course I had to respond seriously. As I have said before, Genevieve’s will to experience is much stronger than her will to please.

Jacinta’s friend Lily has the same strong will to do, knowing full well the trouble she will bring upon herself. The other night Lily and her two brothers stayed and played late into the evening while their parents and Matt and I caught up. They played like angels, never fought, continually coming up with imaginative games and activities and cleaning up their messes (when reminded to do so). They played dress up and twirled in their costumes to Hannukah tunes (the official dancing music for all dancing the girls do). They drew big pictures together and truly enjoyed each others’ company. I was amazed that no dramas arose. Then it was clean up time and I found clumps of blond hair on the floor. It turns out that Lily had cut off a chunk of Genevieve’s hair earlier in the evening. Bummer, Evie’s first haircut done by a four year old who innocently explained her action, “Genevieve’s hair was getting too long.” Although I am a little angry, I know this is quite common. My mom tells me that I too had my hair chopped by a two-year old friend.

Since that night the girls have discovered the art of dress up. Jacinta loves to try on new things and help Genevieve dress up. Genevieve never alters her wardrobe though. She wears a purple kimono, a purple feather boa, purple fairy wings and tops it off with a hideous long haired blue wig, every time. Both girls love to gaze at their funny appearance in the mirror but even more, dancing to number one on the Hannukah CD.

Another shared love the girls have now is ice cream making. They do this with upturned bikes on the veranda, turning the pedals with their hands to churn the ice cream into the cup below. My sister and I used to do this as children. Is this a common practice? It’s funny how much of your upbringing you deem as normal and then learn that you were strange and are passing that beautiful strangeness onto your children.

As Jacinta’s legs sprout into long little stick legs and her baby belly thins out, she is getting speedy on her bike, dangerously so on the veranda. She rode to town on her bike with training wheels last week, once with Matt and once with me. We worried about the hill, but she rode slowly behind the stroller as I pushed Evie and made it down safely. The ride to town is no small trip for a little girl. I am amazed at Jacinta’s stamina on some days compared to her lack of it on other days. She always has the energy to lull Genevieve to sleep, every day she is home now. Jacinta now sleeps down in Evie’s bed with her every night. She says it’s because winter is coming and she wants to stay warm. They may bite and kick each other some days, but they always find space for their sisterly love to grow.

Growing older and being a mother I am learning to accept my inability to please everyone and everything. I am often “the meanie,” if there must be one and I am okay with this. We all try to make the girls obey but I am simply around the most, so enforce the most rules and hold to the rhythms of the day. Lately I have been making a concerted effort to stop doing things and lie down to tickle, cuddle and laugh with the girls. It makes a world of difference. It’s sad that I had relegated that role to Matt since he seemed more of a natural at it. Now we share the tickling job and Jacinta and Genevieve smile more. Saturday and Tuesday are our only days with no outings. Given the choice to go to dance class yesterday, Jacinta chose relaxing at home. She relishes peaceful days with no agenda: a good lesson for me.

Matt loves days at home but they are few and far between, as is the nature of earning a living. Work is fine, he will be training for quite a while and learning new procedures. For most community service interactions there must be two people to ensure safety and also to write down all that is said by the clients and workers. So he is serving as the back up person on a lot of outings. What he learns is sad, yes, but certainly not unexpected. Our shire (county) has the highest rate of children being removed from their parents in New South Wales. He treasures his stable family, easy love, and time off even more now. Last weekend he mounted a beautiful little nature display table in our main living room. The girls and I had no problem covering it in treasures from outside and precious stones. This was the perfect place to put Genevieve’s beautiful blond curls and get over my annoyance. I cooked sea scallops in the shell for the first time last week. We were able to use the shells as decoration on the nature table. It is the perfect motivation for treasure collection on walks or gardening.

Matt’s newest project is bathroom renovation. We spent last weekend emptying out the bathroom storage shelves into our newly built outdoor shed. Matt took down the shelves and moved the toilet. Now he is reconfiguring the plumbing in order to move the sink and condense the bathroom. The goal here is to decrease the size of the bathroom and increase the size of the living room. Eventually he will relocate the wall and build in cabinets and drawers. This could be tricky without much time on his hands, but he never ceases to amaze me.

My latest project is fixing up the terrace garden. When you build garden terraces out of wood, naturally there is a lot of upkeep as the wood decomposes. It has been almost three years since it was created so now is the time. The weeds had crept in to stay, the path had risen by four inches due to soil run off and the walls had rotted in my top terrace. I spent about five hours this weekend fixing this problem and actually did it properly. Typically I do things half ass (unfortunate expression, excuse me), but this time I did it well, with shade cloth and everything. An added bonus was the piles of grubs (worms) I dug up for the chickens.

We now have ten chickens. Last weekend bought three young hens who are not yet laying eggs. They joined the five large hens and two bantam hens, entering at the bottom of the pecking order. They took the bullying for a few days, the bantam hens dishing it out too, just grateful to no longer reside at the bottom of the heap. They huddled in a corner for a few days, not even brave enough to sleep on the roost. But after a week, I am proud to say, they have made it to the roost. The snake must have smelled new chooks because he visited shortly after. Luckily the chickens clucked enough to get Matt and I out there to scare off the snake. He was determined though. Wish them luck. We are getting about three or four eggs a day now. Jacinta and Genevieve are thrilled that a bantam hen has started to lay and they get to eat baby eggs. They love their eggs for breakfast and love it when daddy cooks them.

Last Friday morning Matt made his traditional breakfast for the girls, toast fingers and soft boiled eggs. I left the house at 6am to attend a breakfast held by Zonta for International Women’s Day/Week. I was invited to speak/introduce other speakers because of my relationship with the Togolese family. It was an inspiring event to hear from interesting women: from highly educated African refugees to perky sixteen year olds with plans to uplift young girls’ body image. For a little while I got a lift for being recognized for my womanhood outside of motherhood. But then I came back to the ground and remembered why I chose to move across the world to live on land and raise our children, in search my role in a strong local community. Following the breakfast I had an even better morning with my Togolese friend Christine and her son while Matt and then Keith took care of our girls. I asked Christine to stop referring to me as a volunteer and just call me her friend. I think she will soon.

Christine and two friends of mine in the US are due to give birth in the next month. I watch her belly grow and think of my friends Maggie and Adriann and their growing bellies. I think of their drastically different lives and the lives their children will lead. The world is so big. They will all find their own forms of truth and beauty.

It has been a long while since we have had a community with whom we can share Matt’s music, at least here in Australia. Now each Sunday we drive 45 minutes each way to what we call “church or Ecofaith.” It varies each week, but now that Matt has joined we sing a few of his little songs. We sing a round called God is In All Things.
It goes round and round, the other line saying that All Things Are in God. The girls now hum this unconsciously throughout the day. The other song that’s stuck in their heads is “Though there may be many wells, there’s just one river.” I love this concept referring to God being One, and different people around the world all having different wells from which they access the Divine.

Of course there are many ways to experience divinity, beauty beyond comprehension, awe, intricate little webs in creation. I made bread last week and found divinity in the rising dough, in my little girls’ eyes as they rolled out their own bread and in their murmurs as they cuddled in the night. I strapped Evie on my back and dragged the kayak down to the river and found beauty beyond comprehension in the high tide and the crabs hiding in the mangroves. Matt and I lay awake in bed in awe a few nights ago watching a spider spin its web by the light of the moon. I am learning to let go of pleasing everyone in my life, but clinging to beauty that fills me with awe and love.

Peace my loved ones. I wish you a week full of awe and love.
Shana

Smiles of pride and joy

2009-03-02T01:33:00.002+11:00

Good evening. Here I am again after a month with too much to say. My friend Carrie told me as kindly as possible that she does not like the new monthly journal. She said she would rather be put on a short list and receive weekly journals. She suggested I do a survey of my faithful readers and see who prefers weekly to monthly letters. So please drop me a line and let me know which you prefer. A few of you have asked what I endeavor to write. I am working, slowly, on a few intertwining stories inspired by women and men I have known in Senegal, France, Honduras, Australia and the USA, all dancing around the theme of community, the search for community and its absence and presence in our lives.

At the moment Matt and I are feeling pretty held in this sense. Work, playgroup, French class, choir, preschool, friends, Matt’s mum and Keith, our little town with shopkeepers who know our names, local festivals, markets. We have found a spiritual community where we go every Sunday morning, a church, called Eco-faith. It is Christian, recognizing God’s presence in the land and animals and before Jesus came along. Our pastor wrote a book called the God of Evolution. It is outside under shady trees, near a creek where the children can listen or play. You can imagine we are pretty happy after almost four years with no church. We met our new neighbors when a stray dog showed up and stayed all day, a lovely dog. After calling the dog pound, his owner turned out to be a lovely lady who I knew from the markets, a neighbor two doors up the road with two little daughters, ages 2 and almost 4. As you can imagine, being out of town, we’re thrilled and shocked to have little girl neighbors and a young couple who seem really cool.

In addition to this new joy, we are also feeling lucky to have been left unscathed by fires and floods. It rained like crazy last week and our valley was greatly damaged by floods. People lost cows, chickens, crops, houses, cars and more. Kempsey, the town where Matt and Mary work was flooded, the streets and everything. Matt was actually sent home before noon one day. In his work with community services he packed boxes, took phone calls for emergencies and set up helicopter drops for people who were flooded in. A friend of mine, her father tried to save his cows and drove his tractor out to save a few. He got stuck out on the flat and almost drowned in the flood waters, stopped only when he floated into a fence and held on. He lost all of his cattle. Matt visited a man who was living in a trailer on low land, squatting though. Everything he owned floated out the door and was either ruined or floated away. So fire and water, they can really help us and really hurt us. We were not hurt.

Our dam is very full, as is our water tank. Keith and Matt went out in the dark one of the rainy nights and dug a long trench to direct the water down our hill and divert it from the house. This was successful. Our chickens were very wet and stopped laying, water was getting in their pen. I suppose their rainforest origins have been bred out of them. Even though they should be tougher, I really wanted to fix up their pen so they would be happier and lay eggs again. So I climbed up on top of the pen in the pouring rain while the girls watched from the window. Keith passed up fiberglass roofing and a few boards to hold the sheets on. The chickens said thank you with a few eggs. Although the floods caused a lot of suffering, we enjoyed puddle jumping with the girls, just in awe of nature’s power to change. The paddocks on the flat looked like dams. The river nearby came within feet of our dam when the tide came in. The cows all searched for higher ground. Half of our neighbor’s cows were blocked off from his land by the flood waters as their bridge was under a couple of feet of water. Whole colonies of insects were wiped out. Crickets clung to blades of grass, hopelessly trying to hop across newly formed ponds. Beetles crowded around each other desperately paddling to find land. But we galloped down the path, did cartwheels in puddles, splashed ourselves silly and jumped in newly formed ponds. I rejoiced in easy weeding days after the flood. It doesn’t seem fair.

The garden didn’t suffer from the floods, au contraire. The kidney beans that I thought would rot in the ground, all sprouted beautifully after the flood. Lettuce and spinach seedlings I had planted in pots all came up, when logic prepared me for their floating away. I finished the second house garden, sweated more than I have in a while removing, weeding and replacing the rock wall and breaking up the weedy soil. There is not much to eat in the garden besides cucumber, basil, a few tiny peppers, a few beans, and native spinach, “warrigal greens.” The tomatoes have finished, and the rats get every bit of corn just before it is ripe enough to pick. The kiwis still sit on the vine, just as big a beautiful as they have been for the past few months. They take a long time to ripen up. The weeds are growing really well, they loved the rain. There haven’t been any strawberries all month, but Evie spotted two yesterday. The girls and I have been harvesting potatoes from the top terrace and digging grubs (fat white worms) for the chickens and as I weed. The chickens lay more eggs on those days (:

Jacinta and Genevieve need a lot of convincing to go down to the garden. I never make them work, we find fun games for them to play. Eventually they move into their own creative space and make up funny games together. After an hour or so, Jacinta usually comes up with her own idea on what she wants to harvest, plant or climb. Genevieve clings to the sand pit. She has a hard time on her own, but will play near Jacinta for a long while. Nonetheless, they both put up an initial fuss every time because they would rather play with Poppy. It kills me, because every time they come down, they have fun. They learn lessons from snails, birds, clouds and worms. Yet they still whine and complain as much the next time because they’d rather be entertained inside, away from the bugs, dirt and fresh air.

The girls like to be the center of attention, many children do. But kids must learn this important lesson, the world does not revolve around them. Our girls are slower to learn this than all of their friends as there are so many adults in our home. In the garden I try to do other things. When Jacinta is around, Genevieve can do things on her own. But when she is alone with me, she wants me next to her doing what she wants done. She has become very demanding and very verbal. Her verbosity is sometimes cute and funny, but I resist the urge to oblige knowing what she will become. After she has had enough of me not giving her my all, she starts to whine for Poppy. I try to encourage her in her play and garden close by, but it doesn’t work. Being a second child, she is used to company. The other day after a short hour in the garden with Genevieve, I took her out on the kayak on our enlarged dam. She loved that, sitting in my lap, reaching out to touch the lily pads, laying back and gazing at the clouds, singing and even jumping in and out of the kayak to get wet. Luckily I am letting go of my agenda in the garden when I am with the girls. I merely hope to spend time with them in the garden and gaze at everything growing.

Another reason I am feeling so “held” is my naturopath. I went in for a skin problem, which is called psoriasis. I have been applying a honey remedy and have almost cut out caffeine, alcohol and refined sugar. In searching for a stronger remedy for my skin problem, which is hereditary, she dug deeper to find a constitutional treatment for me. This meant asking me hundreds of funny questions about my body’s idiosyncrasies. My hot and cold feet, my cold pinkies, my moles, the extra skin on my toes, the extra skin cells on my legs, my thick head of hair, my tendency to sweat at night but not in the day, that I sucked on my hair as a child, that I never stop moving, that I am more of a doer than a thinker, that I dislike neediness, they all come together in a book somewhere to describe someone of my body type. This is shocking to me. I know there is order in the universe, but that there is a name for my constitution (sanicular aqua) and this particular treatment comes from water in Ottawa, Illinois, not too far from where I grew up! This is grand order in the universe. My Australian naturopath flipped pages following paths to different constitutions for 90 minutes and ended up on water from Illinois. I’m sure it sounds crazy that water from Illinois is going to help me with my skin, but it is not that simple. She connected my body’s tendency to overproduce cells, hair, and skin to my family history of cancer. Like a mathematician proving a new formula, Belinda was thrilled at the discovery of my constitution. She wants to help me clear my slate and hopefully ward off some of my leaning toward cancer. I won’t defend naturopathy or explain how exactly we are treating my skin, I just wanted to share my amazement at a healer’s wisdom and the whole practice of naturopathy.

One thing my naturopath pointed out given my constitution was that I would have touchy children, very true. I think she could know this because your children mimic parts of your constitution until they grow into their own. She pointed out that I toss out what I deem appropriate and expect people to take it and be happy, not in need of more. She also brought me to realize that I never rest. All this creates a recipe for children who need more cuddles, and a me who needs to relax more often. So whether or not one believes in constitutional treatments, it’s wonderful to have a healer who gives me a little bottle of homeopathic drops that might help my skin and tells me to relax, cuddle my children more, and to let them need me.

As I consciously slow down, Jacinta is more at peace every day. We set up the computer in the girls’ bedroom the other day and watched family movies while I sharpened pencils. We had no agenda, no where to rush to, just relaxing inside where they love to be. Jacinta listened to her words as a 2 ½ year old and asked how old she was. Astounded she replied, “Evie says this and she’s not even two yet!” It’s funny because Evie watches Jacinta as a baby and says, “Awhhhh, that’s Evie.” Jacinta quickly replies, “No! That’s me! You weren’t even born yet!”

Jacinta loves alone time with Genevieve, knowing that I will not interrupt. She has started volunteering to put Genevieve down for a nap. She has done it three times now. She reads her little sister stories, and has her lay down in the bed. Evie whimpers a bit, no doubt. She sings her lullabies, strumming a few chords on her ukulele followed by a few lines of the lullabies I sing to her. Sometimes Jacinta gets so into the song she sings opera style at the top of her lungs, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I have to stop what I am doing at this point and stand by the door, muffling my giggles. Once I heard Evie say, “I peed.” So Jacinta kept on singing “Fais dodo,” while changing Evie’s nappy. She had never done it before. It took her so long that Genevieve fell asleep mid-diaper change. I have peaked a few times, and it is divine. Sometimes it takes a long time, but Jacinta hangs on, sometimes beautifully singing threats, “If you don’t go to sleep now, I’m going to leave.” But she hasn’t yet given up and each time she comes out of the room leaving her sleeping little sister behind, she is bubbling with pride.

Jacinta is gaining confidence in so many things at the moment. She can play alone, very happily, even surrounded by friends. This is probably just my own learning to be proud of her for this, rather than thinking she needs to be constantly in the midst of everyone. Jacinta will sit down and look at books on her own now. The other day I opened up a children’s nature dictionary for her. She found a page on digestion and traced the path from mouth to bottom, very interested to see the path the food travels and where the poo comes out. She can manipulate the CD player enough to start the Hannukah CD and dance. She can stop the music to run to her room and put on a dancing dress. Both girls love the way the skirts twirl and thus, will not dance in shorts or pants. (This is not always cute, sometimes quite limiting). Jacinta is back in swimming lessons and is also gaining confidence. She used to tell me to move closer to her and then she would swim. Now she tells me, “Move back mum!” and dives from sitting and swims under water to me. Last night we had a sleepover at some friends’ house. Jacinta happily slept in her friend Isabella’s room after telling Izzy stories for bedtime. In the morning we went to the beach and played in the waves for over an hour. She was knocked under a small wave and recovered, still wanting to keep going. Jacinta grew comfortable enough in the waves that she stayed in with her friends when I got out of the water. Her smile of self discovery, pride in knowing she has learned something new is one of her most genuine smiles.

Genevieve will jump too, no qualms, but stays above water and kicks with her arm band floaties. Although she doesn’t take lessons, Evie sings about Cheryl the swimming teacher. She sings about everything and everyone. When she wants to play trains, she asks if we want to build, “Freight train go so fast?” I led a vocal and rhythm workshop at a small art festival for children last weekend and Genevieve just loved the idea of a little people choir. We sang warm ups, rounds, did handclappy songs and one with rhythm sticks and finished with Freight Train. Genevieve now sings the freight train song and picks new cities to visit with each verse, most often going to America. She and Jacinta love singing along with Keith’s DVD of Down from the Mountain. There are three little girls singing in harmony, “In the highways, in the hedges..” They can’t get enough of the Peasall sisters. Matt took the girls on a big walk in and out of town tonight. He said Evie sang vocal warm ups the whole way, going up and down the scales with every word she saw, “Lochlan’s house, Lochlan’s house, Lochlan’s house…” She is hardly silent, only when she concentrates.

Her favorite game is shopping, she packs bags and boxes and then asks you, “What do joo want?” Playing tea party or in the bath she asks, “What would joo like?” She needs a direct response to every question, or she will repeat the question over and over, never getting annoyed at your lack of response. Lately she has been asking me out of the blue, “Where are joo from?” She nods knowingly and says, “Senegal?” Every time I answer her and tell her I am from America. She says with the same enthusiasm each time, “Ohhhh!” She loves the assurance in being told the same thing over and over. I think this is also why she must test boundaries. In addition to her verbal growth, she is also trying out biting and hitting, with a look in her eye that says it all. I do send her to her room. It feels so funny seeing this tiny girl grumpily plodding off to her bedroom saying, “I naughty, I go to my room.” We stopped using the word naughty a while back because she calls herself naughty all the time and we don’t want her to convince herself that she is naughty. She and Jacinta keep it up though.

Our baby is two now, we celebrated Genevieve and Matt’s birthdays on Thursday. There was a grand lead up to the big day, counting the days left, making gifts, cards and wrapping them all in pretty cloths. Matt spent lots of time and love making Genevieve a music/jewelry box that plays Waltzing Matilda. Jacinta made necklaces and I made bracelets to fill the box. Genevieve had a hard time sleeping the eve of her birthday, she annoyed me but Matt took her on and laughed with her in her wakeful delirium. I stayed up very late that night finishing things up. The day arrived and Jacinta sprang out of bed to hide the presents. Genevieve loved her jewelry, her new music box, her ribbon dancing stick and her little dustpan, but most of all, the balloons. Matt tried out his new milk frother and had a nice coffee before he set off to work. We had a lovely morning celebrating at playgroup and came home to quickly clean the house and cook. I was utterly unprepared but Keith helped me out as did Mary and my friends upon arrival. Matt joined the party after work. I actually gave up hostessing and sat down and enjoyed. The children ran around outside and played dolls (even the boys) in the girls’ room. It’s funny to see a three year old boy with a lion in his shirt say, “I’m pregnant.” Genevieve mainly followed Keith around, leaving the children to play without the party girl. They all seemed to be having fun, the boys went off with tools to the woodchip pile. The girls ran from here to there, see saw, swing set, playing with seed. Our new neighbor Zach painted all of the kids’ faces, intricate designs. We made ribbon dancing sticks for all the kids as party favors. They seemed to enjoy twirling their ribbons and somehow, they didn’t hit each other with their sticks. It was a lovely evening and Evie and Matt are both a year older.

Matt’s mum was beaming to see her son and granddaughter celebrate on their birthdays. I can’t imagine how special that would be to birth your child and see them birth their child on that same day thirty some years later. It’s special enough for me just to picture my children at birth, and remember their beautiful birthing days, the joy, pain and relief of it all.

Hope you had a lovely February. I wish you warmth as you come into spring.
We are easing into autumn and look forward to shorter cooler days. Take care 

Peace,
Shana

God is everywhere

2009-02-08T23:01:00.001+11:00

Good day my loved ones. As I endeavor to interest you with a month of our Aussie lives in what would normally have taken fourteen pages in about four, I am a bit daunted. First off, I can say that spending one month in a real American winter has energized me beyond belief. I was running on empty, in need of the chill like apple and plum trees. (Here we grow the low chill varieties, but alas, I demand more chill than they do.) It could also be that I’m in the honeymoon phase of being home after a month away. It could have something to do with the girls growing up. I might also feel lighter due to a late night chop of my long messy hair. It could also be the inauguration of Barack Obama. It surely couldn’t be the state of the economy energizing me because you know better than I how unsure things are at the moment in the US, the economy from which the rest of the nations’ economies seem to spiral. It couldn’t be that there are any less wars today than there were last month, as far as I know the battles continue to burn strong.

I mostly give the credit to our new discovery: waking up before the children. Both being night people, Matt and I enjoy our alone time in the evenings. The girls were our alarm clock. Now we are trying to start the day alone, either gardening, reading, kayaking, or writing. When the girls awake, we are actually excited to see them. Novel concept. Daylight with no questions, no need to feed anyone, watching the sun rise, working/meditating in the cool of the day, inspired by the sunlight. Many parents learn this lesson quicker than we have. The majority of the world knows and has known this, but we had to come to this discovery on our own.

Another excitement is Matt’s new job. He said goodbye to his friends and clients at Community Care Options in Coffs Harbour about a week ago. They surprised him with their extreme disappointment in his departure, but wished him well in his new position with the government in the Department of Community Services. In his spare time and in his week off between jobs he has outdone himself. He had to give up his work car, bummer. Since this job will be a 40 minute commute heading south instead of north, he car shopped and researched for a few weeks. Just last week he chose and purchased a tiny golden Toyota, nine years used. It is so funny and cute, I can’t help but laugh and smile every time I look at it. I have never seen such a small car in the United States. Speaking of my homeland, Matt is still working hard on the Creation Spirituality website, networking and planning his next teaching trip to the Creation Spirituality Communities Conference in North Carolina for this summer.

Matt is also reorganizing, rewiring, cleaning, and making his tool shed/workshop a productive space. This is big news! It looks awesome. I can even find the tools I need, empowering for both of us. He has rebuilt the desk in our room, also making more efficient use of the small space. He created so much space that we now have a chair in our room, new artwork and can access all of our bookshelves. One of Matt’s major frustrations is being crowded by disorganization and not having the time or energy to do anything about it. Creating space luckily is one of his gifts.

Back in the US when we used to shop as a pastime, Matt used to go to those big organizing stores, wander the aisles of crates and clever storage containers and dream. Now we live too far from the big stores to waste much time dreaming in shops. But we buy less because we aren’t inundated with clever displays to sell you what you want, rather than simply what you need. Having enjoyed late-night superstore shopping in the US, I have come to the conclusion that never ending desire and consumerism are not just convenient, but stressful. The twenty-four hour superstores that exist in many pockets of the US mean that there are NO hours in the day when our needs/wants must wait. If we choose, we could consume all day and all night. It leaves no Sabbath, no rest, no waiting, not on the weekends, and not even in the evenings. I love that our supermarket closes at 8pm and that everything else closes at 5pm, otherwise I would feel obliged to “get the shopping out of the way,” and waste my restful evenings. I love that our camping store is tiny, and has a lot of necessary items smashed into a small space. It’s less likely to entice me to buy anything unnecessary than REI where Matt and I used to love gazing and always found something we could convince ourselves we needed. I’m sure small towns all over have short hours, but I never lived more than ten minutes away from an all-night superstore until I came here. Actually at camp and in Massachusetts, we were about 45 minutes from these monsters. You can bet we drove the distance on the weekends and bought all we needed plus lots of junk at midnight, just for entertainment. We hardly ever shopped in town.

Pardon the interruption of my cultural wanderings, me oh my. Where was I? Matt….yes…in addition to all of his physical productivity, as usual, he is pouring endless love and energy into our little girls.

Genevieve’s imagination is growing as much as her vocabulary. She is a keen little storyteller, and does not limit herself to reality. She makes up stories about what she has done in a day. Mainly she recounts the funny and surprising moments of a day, sometimes getting so excited that she jumbles all the words up and makes no sense. We love her nonsense when it comes because it reminds us that she is not three, although she talks like Jacinta at age 3. One of Matt’s funny recollections was at bath time when Genevieve picked up a foam letter X and said, “Look Daddy, D for pekilan (pelican).” Copying Jacinta is surely the theme now, but sometimes copying doesn’t work out quite right for our baby. She is potty training like a “big girl,” but she reminds us when she wants to be cuddled, pampered or fed, “I baby, mommy.” She does about half of her toilet business on the toilet, but often needs reminders to stop what she’s doing and sit down and wee.

Genevieve is a natural hostess, always too busy trying to serve everyone else things at meals to sit down and eat her meal. Her favorite occupation lately is her little tea set. At any down moment, she sets it all up and serves cups of tea, trying to insist that you must sit down with her to enjoy the tea. This will be a strong memory of her as a baby, standing up, never sitting down unless strapped down or having a tea party. Her friend Henry came to play for the day, without his mummy. Upon entering the house, Evie excitedly ran to Henry’s favorite play corner by the fireplace and breathlessly exclaimed, “Look Henry! Toys!” complete with hand gestures, as if this was his first (and not fiftieth) visit. A lovely hostess and great companion but left alone, sometimes the mischievous side comes out when Evie isn’t being paid much attention. She draws on everything but paper when we are not looking. She pushes stools to get higher on the shelves and pulls down things she knows are off-limits. The other day Jacinta called for us to come see what Evie had done. After my normal, “I’ll be there in a minute-ing,” (which always lasts longer than suggested), Matt and I found Evie with every book off the shelf in their room, this is almost 200 books. “I want to read a book,” said Evie. It is so funny to have a second child who is nothing like our first. I suppose this is normal. Genevieve’s will to do is much stronger than her will to please.

Jacinta’s will to please is so fierce that she seems to battle internally: her own strong will versus the will of the person she is trying to please. The beauty of this is obedience, trust and order, but the difficulty is when she breaks down from the internal battle of wills. Whereas Evie seems to simply choose her own will, Jacinta often chooses to do what she is told, and then feels obliged to teach Evie how to behave and do what she is told, which is a hard task and often leads to another battle. When I leave them alone, I actually tell Jacinta to “forget the rules and have fun, don’t feel like you have to control Genevieve.” Imagine that. It works too, they enjoy each other. Since Jacinta is such a “rule girl,” as Matt says he was too, I want to teach her flexibility, even with rules as she draws lines hard enough for herself.

For example, we have always stressed the importance of hellos and goodbyes to everyone present, African style. Jacinta’s friends are not into “kisses and cuddles,” surely not all the time. Jacinta understands greetings and goodbyes as a rule. After our return from the US, her emotions were a bit high, understandable with so many hellos and goodbyes and love so far away. Her best buddy here, Lily didn’t want a big cuddle on a few occasions. This turned into chasing, screams and tears, one time lasting for ten minutes. We have had a few discussions since then and gotten back on the naturopaths recommendations. Time has passed and she is learning that not many kids her age like cuddles and kisses, at least not here. She sometimes has a hard time finding her way in a group of children free playing if there are no adults to assist. She seems to find comfort in solitude in such situations. I am learning to accept this as a beautiful choice, rather than grief that she can’t find her way in.

Jacinta has so many interests at the moment, it’s hard to get to all of them. She sings all the time, both she and Genevieve dance every day. The girls’ favorite dancing music this month is Hannukah songs, on repeat, over and over. One day in school a teacher may ask about Hannukah and our girls will tell these deprived children who have never met a Jewish person about the horah, dreidels, latkes and menorahs. Jacinta has been painting paper, gnomes, her body, and all of our faces. We have so many craft plans, but very little opportunity to do them with all of the time we spend outside. (This is why we need a real winter!) Jacinta goes to Macksville Preschool on Fridays and has started a new preschool on Wednesdays, Valla Community Preschool. This is a preschool that is the closest thing to the nurturing Steiner school I came to love. It is a twenty minute drive away, instead of the five minute drive to Macksville. Jacinta didn’t know a soul when she began two weeks ago, but is easing her way in through arts, crafts, singing and the playground, without any tears.

In the heat, we are spending a lot of time in the water and Jacinta loves to swim. She gets more confident every day. New water activities are the local pool’s waterslide and paddling alone in the kayak, yelling, “Up to Shore! Up to Shore! She then jumps in, pulls the kayak to shore, climbs back in the kayak and paddles out into the dam again. In this dry heat, the cows have been using the dam too much. It has just gotten too low to swim in safely. Luckily we found a new place to swim, Gumma Reserve is less than ten minutes from home. A clear water creek, a never ending sand bar, salt water, calm water, and we all love it. We loved it so much we decided to take the plunge, upgrade our 2-man dome tent and camp there, 10 minutes from home. We lazed in the creek with water noodles and Evie’s new floaties, canoed, explored the creek, played cricket and pole tennis, lived out of a cooler and did not cook for 2 days and nights. Matt and Jacinta played quite a few games of checkers, which they call “Draughts” (drafts) here. We had a lovely time relaxing together away from home.

The new school year begins just after Australia Day in the last week of January. So now things are just getting rolling again: preschool, playgroup, choir, and French class. Playgroup was on hold in hopes of a more hospitable location. Being the coordinator, I spent some time researching and inquiring at schools, the local council, different halls and the like. It was a good opportunity to get to know my surroundings. In the end, the local elementary school excitedly invited us to meet on their grounds. Although we are all excited to start up again, this means another planned morning. In my dream of a local growers market, I have also been chasing up people who were involved with the bygone Macksville markets, trying to learn the history and understand the reason for their failure.

Besides playing and caring for the girlies, I have found more time for the garden. Matt and I are making better use of our time by taking turns spending time up at the house with the girls in the early morning and evening. Matt has also been a great help with this by making the shed a better play space and just by spending more time in his tool shed. His presence gives the girls extra energy to come down to the garden. I’ve spent some time organizing my side. The garden shed (attached to the workshop/tool shed) now has enough space within to sit down and play/work. Jess, Evie and I processed and packaged dried seeds the other day. Our main pastimes are digging up potatoes, collecting grubs for the chickens, harvesting cherry tomatoes and ripe corn cobs, climbing the apple tree to pick beans, and hunting for baby cucumbers and monster cucumbers. The girls eat the little ones, but I let them jump on and play with the big ones in the sandpit, otherwise the rats get them. We have a better time together in the garden, now that I am getting enough alone time to do the harder work.

Logic (and books) would tell you that having certain veggies right out your door would encourage you to actually harvest them and eat them. Permaculture talks about zones: draw a few concentric circles around your house. In the inner circle (zone 1) there should be a salad greens and herb garden because these are things you probably want for most meals and do not store so well in the fridge. As the zones get further from your house, there you grow things which require lots of space and are harvested less frequently. Given this idea, I was inspired to redo the garden outside my window, because I can’t get out the door and down to the gardens right before meals, when you want your greens and herbs. I have finished one little bed and planted some greens, but have yet to finish the big one. Thinning strawberries is hard to do, in that it feels like you are diminishing your chance for fruit. But the plants multiply themselves into such abundance that they produce very little given the lack of space and the battle for nutrients. Down in the other gardens, technically in zone 3, life is abundant and I have had alone time to ponder the successes, failures and sheer beauty. There are sunflowers scattered throughout. I am hanging a few to dry so we can eat the seeds. The beans and the cucumbers are climbing the corn. One lot of corn is just finishing, while the next crop is one or two weeks away from maturity. Successive plantings are a great theory, but I have never done it before. I planted one full terrace of corn, bean, sunflower and melon seeds the day before we left for the US, assuming it would all fail because I wasn’t there. The arrogance! As if the seeds need me. This terrace is gorgeous! Almost every randomly placed seed came up.

My green thumb is quite inconsistent though. More often I plant whole garden beds, prepare them with a little weeding, a pitchfork, some lime, compost, water and seeds, and get very few or no seeds to . It obviously depends on the plant. Easy crops for me are corn, beans, sunflowers, cucumbers and potatoes. I have a hard time growing carrots, onions, beets, broccoli, lettuce, and peppers. I planted sweet potatoes the other day, but that night the bandicoot dug them all up. I have just planted some popcorn, and wonder of wonders: iceberg lettuce! Jacinta has just started to eat lettuce in salads, but sticks to iceberg. It has to have some nutrients in it, doesn’t it? It’s a start anyway.

Not being churchgoers, our girls know God through the garden, the sun, the rain, music, people, love and a few books that talk about God. Author Sandy Sasso writes wonderful children’s books about God. At bedtime Genevieve and Jacinta most enjoy In God’s Name? Each page talks about a different name someone might call God. For example, the lonely child calls God, “Friend,” the mother nursing her baby calls God, “Mother.” It is abstract as descriptions of God tend to be, but Genevieve has started to point to different pictures and ask, “This is God?” Is the bunny God? Is the bird God? I laugh and tell them that God is everywhere. The other night we listed off all the little places that God is and Evie nodded knowingly and said, “God is everywhere.” Jacinta pointed to the dark brown spots in the plywood above the bed, laughing that God was in those spots. I told them that God made everything. One of us tooted and Jacinta noted that God made the toot. I agreed, “God made us so God must have made toots.” Jacinta thought for a minute and laughed, “So you didn’t make a smelly fart. God made it smelly, you just did it.” Nice excuse.

So I have gone on long enough. We are fortunate to live in New South Wales and not Victoria, where the worst bush fires in the history of Australia are blazing and still killing more people, animals and laying waste to communities. They are far from us, but the mood all around Australia is devastation. Although the devastation is real, I will end on a more positive note. The girls are learning beauty and understanding the world more each day, as we all are. We found a progressive outdoor church this week, something we have sought for a while. Matt starts his new job tomorrow. Send us some rain for Victoria, if you don’t mind.

Peace,
Shana

Bunk

2009-01-11T23:58:00.002+11:00

Hello all!
just wanted to send a link to some pictures of the infamous new bunk beds, matt's occupation while we were in the US.
pretty nice aye?

http://picasaweb.google.com/bu2full/BunkBed?feat=directlink

shana

Warm welcome

2009-01-11T23:56:00.003+11:00

Hello there. Crickets, cicadas and frogs are the choir I hear this evening, so yes, we have safely returned to Australia. We finished our journey with a restful week at my sister's place, the grand finale being a festive Mexican restaurant and margaritas on our last night. Besides the usual United Airlines' errors, our journey home was incredibly easy. Just for a laugh, I'll tell of one of their errors. They changed Jacinta and Genevieve's flights and put them on a flight two hours earlier than mine. It all worked out in the end, but after the fifth person behind a counter told me that they "just couldn't find us any seats together," I chuckled. On our flight from Sydney to San Francisco, a flight attendant actually scolded me for having taken matters into my own hands and swapping seats with someone. I am pretty patient, and did keep up the illusion for my girls that all was well. But after ten years of devoted patronage and even a few free flights from flyer miles, we may not fly United ever again.

Enough complaining, we made it around the world, had an awesome time and came back in one piece. The girls were so much fun, really. They stayed up until about midnight waiting, flying, playing, and wandering airports, then slept sweetly on our final flight across the Pacific. They slept so well, I was able to sleep and even read a book! This hasn't happened on a flight since Jacinta was born. We woke to a sunrise, breakfast, played a little, and landed in sunny Sydney. Customs, immigration, baggage claim, were all painless. One benefit of traveling alone with two small children and a lot of baggage is that the officials pity you and whisk you through quickly without many questions. Jacinta ran out to find Matt while Genevieve was stuck on my cart perched amidst all of our bags. Seeing my bald Matt standing alone waiting with a cute smile on his face brought back memories of my first trip to see him twelve years ago. My how times have changed, but strangely enough the love and anticipation felt much the same.

The warm air felt good, but not a relief. For Genevieve, I think it was a relief. She was born in a land with no snow or ice. I love the cold and always will. Jacinta likes newness and adventure, and loves to do anything I have talked about. What I have come to prefer is life outside, whereas much of my Midwestern American life was lived inside, understandably so. Once we made it out of the airport we spent the day catching up, talking Matt's ears off, visiting friends in Sydney, and driving north to Macksville. Jetlag wasn't really an issue as we slept so well on the airplane. Any normal child would take a nap on a five hour car trip, but our stubborn girl usually makes it through without a rest. This day Jacinta fought fatigue as hard as she could, but finally gave into sleep, more out of anger for being stuck in a car seat than jetlag.

Walking down the path to see our much loved little home was very exciting. Genevieve first noticed, "otha boom flowa," meaning that she saw another rose blooming on the vine. Next the girls ran into their new bedroom to see what their daddy had built them. Drop jawed, we were in awe. I can not describe this amazing new structure, but can now understand what he meant when he told me how long it was taking to complete the project. He built bunk beds perpendicular to each other laced with drawers, drawers that are also steps to climb up to a closet, shelves, hiding places, closets, reading lights, a trap door, even carved a large heart in the side of Jacinta's bed so she can see the sun better from her bed. It is AMAZING. I know he built our house, so I shouldn't be amazed. Our house is useful, efficient, cozy and cute. The beds are full of curves, they are beautiful, and perfectly done. To say the least, the girls instantly fell in love with their new space.

We all enjoy watching our loved ones blossom into right livelihood. I don't think Matt will ever try to market his work because hand craftsmanship takes a LONG time and no one around here would be able to afford him. Most of us buy things mass-produced and shipped from China, made by people and machines who work quickly and don't expect high wages. We surely do, it's hard not to. But it is nice when we can make a few things ourselves and strengthen our skill base and our local economy.

Keith welcomed us home with sausages, salad and "chips," (Jacinta's dinner request). The chickens welcomed us home with a nest full of eggs to eat. My friend Michelle had left us a big box of garden produce on the table. Sweet summer. The girls and I had heard rumors of the garden's growth after lots of rain and sun so we had to run down before dinner. What an amazing beautiful jungle it was! There was corn to eat, little strawberries everywhere, a few blueberries, some beets, cherry tomatoes dripping off the vines and tens of massive yellow cucumbers hiding beneath the vines. The purple beans had successfully climbed and staked themselves on the corn plants, the sunflowers had come up well also. We found a few little green peppers, some honeydew melons, and melon vines everywhere. It was prolific green beauty, so overgrown with weeds that the melon vines were climbing two feet in the air, propped up by the weeds. The grape vine took off and has made few use of its new trellis. The kiwi vines have gone wild and are still home to about twenty little kiwis ripening up. What a welcome home!

We have come home from a great trip, energized by strengthened relationships with my faraway friends and family, to a place we also love and thrive. Each time I come back here I have new revelations. Outside our front door are hundreds of things to occupy, inspire and entertain us. We don't need to leave as much as people in the city to find entertainment. We can swim, canoe, garden, hike, ride bikes, use the playground, build, pick flowers, etc. It sounds picturesque, it sounds like summer camp. But most often we spend our days doing what any other city family does, Matt commutes to work and craves time to unwind from work. I spend most of my day cooking, cleaning, eating, laundering, changing diapers, breaking up fights, and trying to teach good manners. We all have to do these things. What I love about my life here is that I can sit on the veranda and pick apart basil for the pesto, and watch my kids out the window while I do dishes. Although I have a hard time getting out the door to put the clothes on the line, I am so grateful for the laundry line when I get there. Just walking out the door brightens my outlook. Looking at the vast sky above and hearing the birds sing makes the mundane tasks better. Often the girls play and giggle together, they are not always battling it out for the same toy.

To celebrate our return, Matt took a few days off. He took the girls on a few good outings to give me space to put away our things and fill up the girls' closets and drawers. What a privilege to fill the new drawers and take advantage of the newly created play space for the girls. I have emptied boxes and boxes and suitcases. It is gratifying: decluttering and creating space. Nicer than anything, it's just nice to have Matt back in our daily lives, not to mention how good it is to share the load. He's still doing hundreds of little jobs around the house, the most exciting at the moment is the see saw he has built. Keith is painting beautiful designs all over the see saw, he has even let the girls and their friends help. Soon it will be finished and ready for play!

Jacinta's first request for an outing was on the airplane as we were flying home. She wanted to go to Mount Yarrahappini and swim in the rocky creek when it was hot. And so it was, and so we did. Matt and Jacinta dammed up the little creek at certain bends in the river and created little waterfalls, while Evie and I threw rocks in the water. Mainly, my job was to keep our younger, riskier family member out of harm's way and somehow, I did it.

We went slow this week and spent time at home. Usually I must reunite with friends instantly, but not this time. I waited a few days and just celebrated our home, our lovely space, and worked in the garden. I cleared paths to the plants which were ready to harvest, discovering under the jungle unexpected veggies or herbs that I had forgotten. It was a celebration for the girls too, hiding in the corn patch and more importantly eating raw corn and baby cucumbers in the garden. We swam in the dam, played in the bedroom, and spent time cooking our lovely garden produce in our beautiful kitchen. I love coming home to my own kitchen. By the end of the week, we caught up with some friends and Jacinta went back to preschool, in the older " Sun" class this time. Mary came home from work on Friday and we celebrated a calm, late Christmas. Saturday night we went out to beautiful Taylors Arm for the full moon and dinner at our friends' house. The girls played their hearts out with their little friend Nickolas, letting their boyish sides out for the evening. No dollies or games inside, they made "poison" and dug in the sandpit for hours. Sunday we had friends over for brunch and the girls played so hard Genevieve fell asleep on me and Jacinta broke down in tears. So the social calendar has picked up, not all bad.

One highlight this week was Jacinta becoming Genevieve's "potty trainer." She rings a bell when she has to go to the bathroom and tells Genevieve, "It's time to go to the toilet! Come on!" The thrill has worn off, but Genevieve has weed on the potty a few times since we have been back. Another highlight was a late phone call last night from my Senegalese friend Massamba Diadhou who lives in France. I knew only that he had just published his first novel, Oedipe, Le batard des deux mondes, which I love. He called to "introduce" me to his fiancée Isabelle and share the news that his first comedy is about to be acted out for the first time in Paris and then travel around theatres all over France, Couples Mixtes. To top it off, they hope to come to Australia for their honeymoon. On our trip to the States I learned of a few friends who are making real plans to come out and see us. This makes us so happy. We usually have to rush visits with friends in the US, but when people come here, it's usually a long slow visit because they don't have anyone else they need to see.

I do intend to slow down somehow. But there is so much to do. Tonight I couldn't help myself, I went out to mulch, add logs to the terrace garden, water and harvest a little after the girls fell asleep. I have decided to write my journal monthly now, instead of weekly. I want to write something else, so I will keep up the discipline of writing weekly, but only send out my journal monthly. So count yourselves lucky! If you are one of the few who actually read all three pages I write every week, you are free! You can spend a few extra minutes doing or not doing something else.

Take care my kind friends. Peace,

Shana

Book Reccomendation

2009-01-09T22:33:00.002+11:00

I spoke to a few friends of this book while I was in the US last month and thought I would pass on the title for anyone interested. It was the recommendation of a German friend of mine who wanted to help me when Jacinta had colic. It was the best gift I have come across.

Smart Medicine for a Healthier Child
A Practical A-to-Z Reference to Natural and Conventional Treatments for Infants and Children
Janet Zand, N.D., L.Ac., Robert Rountree, M.D., Rachel Walton, MSN, CRNP
Copyright 2003

It has been an empowering guide to help me heal my babies when they are most in need and learn a lot about the roots of dis-ease and the body's functions. Whenever one of us is feeling out of sorts, Matt or I checks out what the book has to say. Most often we find the problem and avoid a trip to the doctor. Sometimes we end up getting a diagnosis from a doctor, then going home and treating the problem herbally, nutritionally and homeopathically, thus avoiding the need for antibiotics.

We also use the adult version called Smart Medicine for Healthier Living
Authors: Zand, Spreen and Lavalle

Both books we found used on the internet, what a great investment.
So there's my little ad.

Mommy get in car

2009-01-09T21:34:00.002+11:00

(sent a week late by the ever-efficient Matt.... sorry - Matt )

Good evening. This evening I write from Milwaukee, in the warmth and comfort of my sister's home. We have made it to our final destination, and not too much worse for wear. We have loved and played our hearts out. The snow, freezing rain and ice were significant last week, but have eased up this week. Jacinta was quite disappointed to arrive here and have missed the snow that was taller than her, last week. Looking out the window at the last layer of snow only an inch deep with clumps of grass peeking through, she asked, "Mommy, can we still dig tunnels under the snow?" Her disappointment didn't last though, given the excitement of waking up to her cousins and all of their toys every morning.

This is the eighth place we have called home on our trip. Genevieve and Jacinta both have held strong in their energy to open themselves to anything and everything put before them. I could say they are excellent travelers, and this would not be false. But it goes deeper than that. I think that traveling, changing their comfort zone every day or two and keeping the environment positive has enlarged their comfort zone. Some marvel at their flexibility, but I expect it of them. Matt and I have always said we would be each others' home, and I suppose our children too have to trust us to be their "home," wherever we are. The only routine I can offer them is three meals a day, somewhere to lay their heads, lots of love, security, adventure and good people everywhere.

We had a relaxed visit at my mom and George's house in Indiana. Their house is filled with beautiful music and my mother's love, which we all enjoyed. The girls had been asking when we would return to Grandma Shari's, knowing the routine there. Wake up, play with toys and trinkets, revel in Christmas lights and trains, watch old Christmas movies, eat simply, and if they are lucky, taste a few of the sweet treats lying around that they wouldn't normally have at home. I have been practicing low maintenance with food while in the States and it has been good for everyone. One day was dreadfully cold, so frigid even I wouldn't let the girls go out of the house. They didn't mind, or even get cabin fever. Mom read Jacinta many stories, marveling at how long she could sit and listen. Mom introduced Jacinta to Strawberry Shortcake, the little girl, a character I had forgotten from childhood. The girls went wild with my mom's box of stickers at any dull moment.

One of our only outings was shopping at Kmart. Jacinta was in a daze as we passed the toy section, never having seen such abundance in plastic crap. Contrary to my silent disgust at the excess, she was in silent awe, drop jawed at all of the pretty dollies hiding behind plastic packages. She didn't ask for anything, just asked me to stop and gaze with her at this or that, every five feet of shopping aisle. Superstores are in Australia too, we just don't go very often and never go to the toy section. Browsing through Kmart brought back funny memories of browsing superstore aisles aimlessly on high school and college late nights with friends. What a good consumer I used to be. I used to be an expert price hunter, which was always low quality and often led to buying unnecessary items just because I got a deal. Now I just buy good quality food, no matter the price, buy most everything else secondhand, (cutting the sweatshops out of the loop), and save up for airline tickets.

We will always have to save for airline tickets, we love our family too much to stay away for long. Spending Christmas with my family has been such a treat, it has been about four years since our last Christmas together. Matt's absence was eerie though, it was our first Christmas apart since we met in 1996. Christmas Eve my sister and her family had planned to come out to mom's but the roads were incredibly icy. We all knew our beautiful plan to celebrate together with all of mom's grandchildren in the same place might not come to fruition, we don't control the weather. But we prepared all day long as if they would make it. We practiced a finger puppet play to tell the Christmas story. Mom cooked the meal, the girls and I tried to crack a path through the ice so people could walk, but this proved impossible. We enjoyed the fresh air and using shovels though. We had fun making an apple pie for dessert. Et voila! Lecia, Ben, Kai and Paige made it through the snow and ice to celebrate Christmas Eve with us. Jacinta, Mom and I put on the puppet show. Then mom played the piano and everyone else joined in singing kidsy Christmas songs and played along with bells, tambourines, and triangles. We had a lovely meal followed by presents. Jacinta enjoyed being the elf bringing gifts to others, but mainly enjoyed the abundance of gifts for her. It is difficult for children to be grateful in such abundance. She and Genevieve instantly fell in love with the tea set Mom and George gave them. Nonetheless, Jacinta asked after each gift, "Are there any more for me?"

Waking on Christmas morning to pack up to say goodbye to my mother and George was difficult, not knowing when we will be able to return. I tried to focus on gratitude for having had the chance to come at all. It has been an awesome reunion. And so it continued at my Dad's house in Mokena, Illinois. Dad had been cooking all day long, the aroma wafting through the house was a warm welcome. My dad has always loved cooking but he's focusing on really healthy whole food right now, so this meal was a dream come true. The girls appreciated the few candy dishes around the house more than anything, well maybe. Opening gifts around a Christmas tree and playing with tiny babies were perhaps more exciting. My sister and her family came over, followed by my step-sister and her family including their three week old baby girl. It was a festive reunion, enchanted by Dad and Barb's hospitality and our growing menagerie. We ended the evening by lighting the menorah with Barb and Lisa, a first for new little baby Natalia and for my girls who aren't lucky enough to have any Jewish friends or family in Australia.

In the days following the girls learned some Hannukah songs. Barb and I sang a few songs while my daddy worked out some piano music and played along. Playing by ear is a skill many covet. My dad was blessed with an amazing ear so we all benefit from his music. Dad read Jacinta a bunch of stories, giggling to himself as he read silly Dr. Seuss. We ate well, played inside, and relaxed. One morning it was so iced over I took the girls out "ice skating" in their boots. This was a fun challenge for Jacinta, cold, snow and ice mean adventure for her right now. Genevieve just held on tight and stayed put when I plopped her down somewhere safe. She likes eating ice and snow. We bunny hopped across the snow and made patterns with our feet, but snow angels are too hard to make on ice! We played on Uncle Jeff's swings and played with ice on the trees. Our most exciting find was a pine scented ice hat we picked off the top of a little pine tree and wore on our heads.

Again, we had to say goodbye, but this time we got on a train. Trains are exciting for children, and for me as we were heading to Chicago. My high school friend Courtney met us at the train station downtown and guided us through the streets and the "L" (elevated train) to her house in Bucktown. Escalators and elevators, tall buildings and people everywhere kept the girls in awe on our little trek, even through the rain. What I miss most about cold winters is the beauty of going into a house to escape the frigid air, the love you feel for your shelter. Going into Courtney and Tim's cozy abode was especially good that day due to the rain, also because they are both kid magnets. Missing their daddy like crazy by this time, the girls quickly fell in love with Tim, the male of the house. Genevieve followed him around asking to be picked up and tickled. He was happy to oblige. We spent the evening having dinner and drinks with some of my close high school friends. We didn't spend too much time gossiping about old friends, but really enjoyed each others' thirty year old point of views. It is amazing how we have separately followed such similar paths and come to many of the same conclusions about life and how to live well.

Saying hello and goodbye is easier for me than it is for the girls, but after a month of this, they are getting used to the drill. Each morning Genevieve wakes up, expecting to pack up and leave she asks for her coat and says, "mommy, get in car?" At random moments of the day Genevieve ponders the love we have basked in, visiting with each of our friends and family. We may have only spent a few hours with some friends but she keeps them alive as the days go by. "Don and Linda?" "Go see Iris?" "Go see Otto?" "Hannalori?" "Go see Jim and Suzanne?" "Go see Cindy?" "Courtney's car?" "Tim pick me up?" Jacinta is quick to bring her little sister back to reality. Sharply she replies, "No Genevieve, we are far away now. We won't see them until we are bigger." Genevieve has been asking to see daddy for a long time, but knows somehow that he is very far away. So she has been asking to see Uncle Ben for a while now. Now we are here with at my sister and Ben's home, with "Uncle Ben." She loves wrestling with him, but asks more persistently to see her daddy.

The girls are having a blast with their cousins Paige and Kai as am I with the whole family. It is very cold outside, and cozy and warm inside near the fire. Good food, good people, warmth, love and endless activities to do. Milwaukee is a really cool city, accessible, beautiful, progressive, and easy to get around. Sometimes when I am home in Australia after the girls have gone to bed, I dream of this: knitting by the fire next to my sister as she feeds her beautiful baby, chatting the night away. My dream has come true and I am so thankful. But now that we have been away from our "home" for a while, I also dream of sitting on the back veranda that Matt built, looking at the stars with my husband, just holding hands, in silence and in awe.

Each day the girls' questions and demands grow. Genevieve picks up the phone a few times a day to ask, "Call daddy?" "Go see daddy?" is not an uncommon request, especially as we get in and out of the car. "Okay, I'm ready to see daddy." They know it is soon. The other day we all had a blast playing at the indoor gardens in Milwaukee, three huge Domes filled with plants. On the way home Genevieve said out of the blue, "I miss my home. Go airplane?" Not only was I shocked, linguistically speaking, but the concept of missing someone, she gets it. So here we are in Milwaukee, loving our family but knowing how very much we love our home, so very far away. The New Year has arrived, it is now 2009. My hope this year is this:

Sing more Dance more Play more Trust more Make music Listen to silence Talk less Move less

Happy New Year my loved ones.

Peace,

Shana

Warm inside

2008-12-23T18:37:00.001+11:00

Good evening my dear family and friends. It is all a bit much: too much warmth, beauty and goodness to even begin. We have traveled hundreds of miles looping from northwestern Indiana to Western Michigan, then across Michigan to the east side and back once again to my mom's place in Indiana. It's hard to believe all the places we have been and all the love we have sopped up since I last wrote. So with egg-nog in hand, surrounded by the mom's comforting melodies on the piano I will endeavor to sum it all up without boring you to tears.
We caught up with friends in Holland, Zeeland, Lake Orion, Birmingham, Rochester Hills, Almont and Ferndale. They spoiled us, fed us, entertained us, made us happy to be there and sad to leave, and even lent us a car or drove us to our next stop. My friend Adriann drove two hours to pick us up from Indiana. On our Michigan friend tour, we saw lovely round pregnant bellies, new babies, young friends six inches taller, old students of mine a foot taller, beloved friends who were still the same size but older and wiser. We didn't sleep much, but played hard, hence the reason the girls still have colds. After the initial shock and awe of cold and snow in Illinois, in Holland Jacinta discovered icicles and hot chocolate while Genevieve slept away the afternoon. The girls played with their little friend Jillian and discovered American heaters, taking turns in front of the vent relishing the warmth and watching their hair blow.
In Zeeland we walked to the sledding hill under the light of a huge full moon with our friends. Sara dragged Emmaline and Jacinta in a sled while I pushed Genevieve in an amazing snowbound stroller. Jacinta is quite brave in the sled, insisting that she go alone. We all took turns, Genevieve riding in between my legs. At one point Emmaline was running alongside Jacinta as her sled raced down the hill and got a little too close. Jacinta's sled clipped her on the heels, knocking her flat on top of Jacinta so they rode down the hill together for a few seconds until Emmaline gracefully rolled off. Sarah and I quietly waited to see whether tears or laughter would follow, dying of silent laughter inside. Neither occurred until we reacted. So the result was laughter and a great story to tell, which Genevieve tries to retell at any dull moment. Sarah and Ben drove us across the state to our next stop. There were four kids under the age of five in the mini van. They never once admitted that it was any trouble, further convincing me that goodness and generosity are the norm.
Saying hello and goodbye so quickly was difficult. I guess the goodbyes were easier as each friend dropped us at a new friends' house, allowing them to meet and ease the sadness of parting as it was laced with a hello, at least for us. Sipping tea with my friend Adriann, watching Jacinta play with icicles outside the window while Adriann told me about the extensive local food network they support pulled at my heartstrings. Life in the snow is so familiar, such a big part of me, yet I don't know how to mother in the snow. It takes twenty minutes to round up hats, coats, mittens, boots, scarves and snowsuits and dress the girls and myself. Snow mothers know how to keep mittens on babies, maybe, and how to blow on their hands to warm them up. Not I, although I am learning. We lose a mitten here and there. Today I had to drive ten minutes back to the store because Genevieve had kicked off one boot and left it in the parking lot, but we found it! I do know how to play in the snow though and this has been fun.
On the first day of Detroit snow we drove out to our camp with some friends. Our goal was to see our friend Chris, see our camp under a white blanket, sled, make snow angels, throw snowballs, see a few deer, shop at the biggest resale shop I know, and spend some good time with Carrie, Otto, Nigel and new baby Zachariah. We got to do it all, and it was beautiful. Jacinta had practiced snow angel technique on the carpet with her godmother Suzanne that morning. Given a thick blanket of snow at camp, she was very proud of her effort, gloating later that we had made the "most beautiful snow angels EVER." Sledding was impossible as the snow was too fresh, but we tried. Snowballs were fun, but Evie couldn't keep her mittens on. Jacinta whined as we left, feeling ripped off, "Mommy, I don't want to leave, I want to stay for a month." On the way home Otto fell asleep on her lap, which she didn't find near as cute as we did. She struggled for about twenty minutes, finally wedging a coat between his heavy head and her lap.
On our last day in Detroit, there was a snow day, meaning no school, no work for many people and dangerous driving. The snow was gorgeous, but unfortunately prevented reunions with a few friends. Luckily we didn't need to drive, but had to walk a few blocks to grab some things from our home of the week. Evie was bundled up tight, strapped onto my back and then wrapped up in a blanket tucking her snuggly onto my back. She slightly resembled a mountain baby from Peru. We walked and watched cars spin out on major roads, trudged through a foot of snow, ecstatic at the beauty and peace of being on foot. Genevieve sang "It's raining it's pouring." She doesn't know any snow songs. This inspired me to teach the girls an old French snow songs.
We paid a visit to the school where I once taught French and caught up with some friends and former students. We made it outside to join the third grade class in a biodynamic preparation, adding manure and a few special things to the water which was to be spread on their spring garden plot. The girls played in the kinder room at school, one which I dream could be theirs while I caught up with a friend.
I had a chance to chat with the new French teacher, and discuss eight graders and how on earth you go about teaching them. One night my friend Maureen and her family hosted us and even had a staff potluck for us to see old friends. This was so nice to see some of the people who empowered me to bring up my children the way that I am. Jacinta and Genevieve spent much of their time sending baskets up and down a staircase with "mail" for us. My favorite part of the evening was making music, something I always wish I had the courage to suggest at a gathering. Perhaps this is why I like teaching, so that it is my duty to suggest and music can always be a part.
Music was abundant at church. We do not attend in Australia but greatly miss our old church in Michigan, where Jacinta was baptized. We heard bells, trombones, the family orchestra, the choir, and even a guitar class. Matt started the guitar class a while back. It is still going and they were teaching some kids an old song of Matt's. The girls and I joined them for a few minutes. It was funny for Jacinta to walk into a room and see a bunch of big kids she didn't know listening to a recording of Matt and I singing a song she didn't really know. I think she thought we were pretty cool that day. Little does she know the church is our only fan club. Old friends and nice church members that knew Jacinta marveled at her size and tried to hold back their giggles at her accent. Some couldn't hide it and told her "I like your accent." She didn't really know what they meant, just wanted to watch the trains in the train room, play with the large electric snowman that danced and sang and with the toys in Cindy's office. We had some time with our good friends Cindy, Diane and Sheila, spending the afternoon at Cindy's house. The girls actually slept, exhausted from the potluck the night before.
The girls held up pretty well given the tightly packed social itinerary. Our friends kindly dealt with my last minute planning and found a way to see us in spite of limited options. One day we went to camp, raced back to meet one friend for coffee at 4pm, then another for Thai food at 6pm. The next day we drove to Detroit to look around (saw the cool ice-skating rink), made it to school by 12:30 and back home by 4:30 to get Genevieve to sleep, leave Jacinta with her kind godparents. I met friends for Ethiopian food, came home to pick up the girls and take them out for a sleep over at the Hayes' house. The next day was the snow day, also Iris' birthday party, another fun filled day catching up with friends and once again, saying goodbye. The girls' bodies were longing for rest, but like me, they have an innate curiosity for new places and faces, or at least, they have learned to keep up with their crazy social mommy.
While in Detroit, our good friends Jim and Suzanne hosted us at their home in Ferndale. Not only are these folks the couple to whom Matt and I owe our coming together (camp), but they are also Jacinta's godparents and well-trained grandparents. The girls fell in love with Jim and Suzanne, and loved the comfort of their embrace, of sleeping in the same place for a week amidst the busy social calendar. It felt like my grandparents house, except they shared the cooking. Jim was up every morning with a beautifully laid table for breakfast, listening to Christmas music while Suzanne or their daughter Hannalori cooked dinner every night. Jim asked Jacinta what she wanted for breakfast every evening and came through every morning. Jacinta of course enjoyed this privilege. This was even better for me,
beautiful breakfast that I had no part in making on a tired morning. The girls spent a lot of time under the Christmas tree with Jim playing with the train. They seemed to know exactly what the girls liked to talk about, what they enjoyed and made the time to read to them, teach them little crafts and just play. This is a family that respects tradition. Their house is filled with the past, but they do not let it rot. They celebrate it, make use of it, and spend their time being creative in the present, inspired by the way of their parents. It was inspiring, comfortable, tiring week in a town I love, truly worth the travel.
We ended our trip with a true American breakfast at a groovy Ferndale cafe with our good friends Don and Linda. They used to take Matt, Jess and I out to breakfast on Saturday mornings when we lived here, incredibly entertained by our baby's table antics. So it was even funnier this time with calm Jacinta and her new cheeky, sneaky little sister. Linda used to hold Jacinta while Matt and I ate and Don took pictures and snickered to himself. Genevieve is not exactly "holdable" right now, but our old friends helped me out as much as they could. It just took a LONG time to eat this huge American breakfast while assisting my little girls, which was okay. Linda entertained with finger plays and even Genevieve was taken in, amazing.
Both girls told stories as they love to do. Genevieve talked about Koala Park, Jedda licking her face, daddy tickles and Poppy saying, "no squirmy wormy," as if it all happened yesterday. Every day, she asks to see the person she saw the day before, not able to understand that we will not see them for a long time. She decided today that she's going back to Australia to see daddy.
Linda and Don put us on the train and then returned our friend Cindy's car for us, what amazing friends hold us together. The train ride was both relaxing and exciting for us all. We saw deer, birds, frozen ponds, running streams through the snow, small towns, factory towns and rotting houses. Jacinta learned how to finger knit on a Canadian corker while Evie napped. We arrived an hour late, and then had a bit of trouble finding my mom, who couldn't find the train station. But goodness prevailed, as it always does. Some kind souls from Haiti drove us to mom and George who stopped their search in a KFC parking lot and just waited after their two hour search in the snow. It was stressful for us all, but the girls held on, as did George who was in pain, just having undergone his fourth and final surgery unclogging his arteries. We made it home safely, and are relaxing together. The girls are comfortable, they asked to come back to Grandma Shari's each time they got tired of socializing in Michigan. Now they can sleep and play inside, sheltered from the frigid air outside. We made gingerbread cookies today and sent them to our benevolent Haitian friends.
Life is good. We are resting, enjoying our loved ones, but missing Matt. We are warm and grateful. I hope you are too (: I am sure that this is not an issue if you are in Australia (:
Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah!
Love,Shana

Beautiful Snow

2008-12-12T08:14:00.001+11:00

As I sit here listening to my mother playing the piano live and not on a recording, the warm cozy comfort I feel being sheltered from the frigid air outside make it hard to believe where I was a week ago. We were en route to Sydney with Matt, maybe stopped at Koala Park feeding kangaroos, driving on the Pacific Highway or visiting with Matt's dad and step mom at the seaside. We have come a long way, no doubt. But the few days with my family have already made the trip worthwhile, and we still have over three weeks left!

Matt took a week off work to enjoy our presence and help with preparation for our trip. He took the girls out a few times, bought gifts for me to take, even submitted to a garden tour to discover how much I wanted done while I was gone. He helped so much that I never had a stressful moment, prior to coming in contact with United Airlines at the airport, which is to be expected. He helped us through as much as he could, until we had to go through security. This will be the longest he has ever been away from the girls, but he didn't let his sadness show in the hopes that the girls would be purely excited and travel well. Amazing daddy.

These girls are great little travelers. United sure isn't known for great service, but luckily we ran into a few kind souls who tried to help us. They may have seated the girls and I 30 rows apart and could not fix it pre-boarding, but we ended up together and made it across the ocean safely. I can't ask for much more. Genevieve is a heavy lap infant, but temporary loss of circulation saved us $2000. Both girls slept well, played well, and enjoyed the plastic packaged meals. They loved seeing the boats down in the water, the clouds, the sun set, the stars, and certainly the beautiful mountains of San Francisco as we landed. Genevieve saw "Daddy! Daddy!" every time she looked out the window, sounding so convincing she made us look. This was the first time I traveled alone with two girls, and the first time I could not sleep so I sure wished it was Daddy. Our layover In SF was great thanks to my friend Sarah who picked us up and took us out to a park and to her home for lunch. Another highlight was meeting her new husband. Sarah had more energy for the girls, pumped us up on healthy food and coffee for the jet lagged mom, and got us back to the airport on time to fly to Chicago. California weather was a great way to ease into the US.

Arriving in Chicago was a familiar shock to the system, frigid air and snow, something the girls do not know. Getting across O'hare with the girls and the luggage at 10pm, took longer than it would take most humans. But we lallygagged. Genevieve was a zombie in the stroller. Jacinta floated slowly from moving walkway to moving walkway, rolling her suitcase only because I looked so pathetic trying to drag everything else. The pretty lights overhead kept her going, as the lonely sound of the busker on the saxophone playing Silent Night in the corridor did for me. I almost kissed the shuttle driver I was so grateful for a hand after an hour of O'hare. The girls both curious, had to touch the snow before we went into the Super 8. It was quite a celebration: pizza, phone calls, bath time, stories and bed, all by 2am.

The girls slept until 11:30am. We packed up and waited in the lobby for our ride. He was a little lost so we had to go out and have a little snowball fight, the girls are in awe of this powdery ice. "Uncle Ben," Genevieve's most talked about family member, eventually found us and took us away into the arms of family. Home sweet home. Home is wherever we stay for the night, but for the girls right now home is mom and sister. With a little bit of coaching, they are learning to inhabit a small space and avoid squawking at each other. What a world of difference being out of ones' comfort zone can make. They finish each other's lullabies before bed, and have learned to share a bed. They giggle quite a bit and have improved at sharing. They have been great travel companions, we laugh a lot.

Jacinta has been singing a lot of songs with recognizable melodies, but in a strange language. She seems to be at peace amidst all the moving around. She goes nuts when she sees a squirrel. Surprisingly we have only seen four, keeping up the illusion that they are a rare species. Jacinta is quite happy to go out with my parents or stay home without me, just as long as she gets to do what she most desires. After we had tried out sledding in dad's backyard with my nephew and brother in law, my dad took her out sledding on her own. She loved it and tired out Grandpa. My dad loves the sound of her calling out, "Come on Grandpa." She cried the first time she got sprayed in the face from the sled, but I guess it was a shocking sensation.

Genevieve was downright angry at the cold. After a fifteen minutes in the snow she lost it. Although it's fun to mock the little Aussie for her lack of experience in the cold, it may have been fatigue. We spent a lot of time inside catching up with my sister and her family. The girls are smitten with their cousins, especially little Paige who is eight months old. Their Uncle Jeff was home for the weekend from his group home and likes to do puzzles. Watching Jeff do puzzles is one thing that will actually bring the girls to silence, he is amazing. Genevieve, in her obsession to make sure people "look at her," followed Jeff around his meditative rounds about six times around the stairwell demanding, "Look Uncle Jeff...boots!" Jeff needs to keep moving more than communicate verbally so he ran away while she chased him. Eventually, I made her think he had actually looked.

So now we are at my mom's house in Indiana. The girls are comfortable and in Christmas heaven. We got down all the boxes today and put up the Christmas tree. We strung popcorn, put up lights, listened to Christmas music and mom's music boxes. The girls particularly love the battery operated train that runs around a Christmas tree and plays music. There are toys everywhere, but no snow outside. Today Jacinta and I bundled up and pretended we were squirrels outside while Evie slept. Following the nap and stamping with Grandma, we enjoyed two very American delicacies: shoe shopping after 5pm and a Mexican restaurant. I am home.

Perhaps the most exciting news is that I have two new nieces, born in the last week. Both my step brother and step sister have had little girls and they are beautiful. Jacinta asked, "Mommy, why do I keep getting new cousins?" Lisa and Terry had a little girl named Natalia Katzman Wister and David and Christine had a little girl named Lucienne Aleta Whittinghill. Yesterday Mom and George took the girls and I out to Lafayette to meet little Lucy, what a treat. It was a long drive, but we found an awesome little family restaurant called the Whistle Stop en route, filled with electric trains running around tracks above your head while you dine. Meeting Lucienne was wonderful, both girls felt honored to meet such a small little being. Genevieve is still talking about, "Jacinta hold Lucy." We ask her if she got to touch her and she gets this light in her eyes, pauses, smiles and says, "Yeeeeessss."

Speaking of the devil, it is 1am and little Evie is talking in bed. She has been awake and chatting to the monitor for over thirty minutes. "Cinta touch Evie's foot. Mommy? Mommmy? Mommy? Shana? Grandma?"

Enjoy the cold. I am enjoying the cold I have missed for so long, but more so the people inside.
Peace,
Shana

I see beauty

2008-11-29T23:24:00.002+11:00

Good evening. Another Thanksgiving has gone by here in Australia with no turkey on the table. I’m sure the bush turkeys in our backyard are relieved, once again. I hope you spent the day in good company, grateful for abundance peace, and hope. We actually celebrated Thanksgiving on Monday and had all of our friends here for a feast. This is my third Thanksgiving in Australia, and perhaps the best because we had all of our friends here to celebrate our gratitude for the earth, her abundance and for each other. Usually I just spend the day missing my family and wishing I could be home for pumpkin pie and falling asleep on the couch next to my sister while mom plays the piano. But this time I organized a big party. Everyone brought vines and flowers to make crowns and door wreaths. My French class children acted out a prayer of gratitude (in English) to use as a blessing just before the meal. They proudly sang their French blessing for the adults first though. The food was mostly local and all very tasty, but I had to buy cranberries from America to share this very important Americanism. I actually hydrated Craisins and added spices to make the sauce. I dug up a few early potatoes and baked them, along with a sweet potato pie and baked polenta. The weather was perfect, otherwise it would have been a bit cramped inside. The children ran their little hearts out, until it grew so dark they could no longer see their own feet.

I love watching the girls fall asleep after a night like that, toppling over like a tower of blocks. I wish I could fall asleep like them without a care in the world, without a list of unfinished tasks rolling through my head, without plans for tomorrow, without regret for my last harsh words with Jacinta. Don’t get me wrong, I do sleep pretty carelessly when my head hits the pillow. The hard task is getting to the pillow and letting the day end. Matt and I both try to make our days last too long and suffer each morning. The poor children wake up so joyfully and meet such dreadfully tired parents. “I hungwy mawmmy,” Genevieve pleads to me while I lay in bed begrudging her wakefulness. But the way she says that phrase, it’s still so cute. I have to laugh, which rouses me enough to drag my body out of bed. This morning Jacinta screamed at 5am, “MOMMY! MOMMY! There’s a mozzy in here and he’s bothering me.” I couldn’t get rid of the determined mosquito so we set up in another room. The mouse in the lounge room kept Jacinta from falling asleep again. By 6am, Genevieve called out, “Mommy?? Come get me!” After I fetched her, Jacinta entertained while I went back to sleep with the two girls crawling around my exhausted body. By 6:25 Jacinta asked, “Mommy, can we ask daddy to play Candyland?” A sweet smile stretched across my face, “What a good idea,” and they were off, to jump on daddy. They granted me a few extra minutes of sleep until Genevieve came back with her earnest face, “Mawmmy, I hungwy.”

This Genevieve character, she is so much fun to watch as she becomes her own little person. She likes to talk about pain and mishaps. She talks and sings most of the time and when left with nothing to say, she brings up old bumps and bruises with the most dramatic face, poor child carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. “Evie..tick on head…take out…” This happened about three weeks ago. “Oyster shell river…poor Evie…” This happened maybe three weeks ago too. “Mommy…cut arm….ooohhhh.” She will search for my cuts to show them to others, “roll up sleeve mommy.” “Maxine…knock ova mailbox.” My friend backed in to our mailbox the other day and my one year old tells anyone that will listen. Perhaps she is at a melancholic moment given how long it is taking her eye teeth to come out. I keep hoping they will pop out this week, prior to our flight across the Pacific.
Although she harps on pain and fights to protect her possessions with all her might, Evie smiles, laughs and loves a lot too. She still lists off all the friends she loves. She watches the big kids closely and remembers everything they do. She sings a few songs on her own now. “Twinkle Twinkle Little Stah,” is one of my favorites. “Jingle Bells” is a new favorite for which she has to find a bell to shake while she sings. If I don’t sing her to sleep, she sings, “Fais Dodo” to herself in her cot. “She has been singing Baa baa Black Sheep for long enough to substitute the words herself, changing the recipient of the wool each time. Matt took her on a drive tonight and said she did some new improvisation, “Baa baa black sheep Have you any wool? Not yet,” and that was the end. They were looking at the clouds in the sky and Genevieve said, “Daddy? I see beauty.” Awwhhhh…we are proud parents. Children are expert beauty seekers.

Jacinta had her last day of preschool this week. She walked in proudly carrying a gift for her teachers, a bean mosaic in the shape of a rainbow. Later on she told the tale of how “the big girls came and wanted to know all about it!” Next year she will move up to the “big room.” This year she and her buddy Lilly are still in the little room where they have naps and cuddly teachers. But they have grown, what a change in just ten months. Even so, when we turned up to our Togolese friends’ house, the bright shiny big sister swooped Jacinta up and tied her on to her back carrying her around like a baby proudly saying, “THIS is how we do it in Africa. Come on Genevieve, I carry you too.” Later on Jacinta called me to the other room, “Look mom! Watch them!” The 12 year old was unbraiding her friends’ hair, taking out each of the hundreds of tiny braids one by one, while her little brothers . “What are they doing?” Jacinta was in awe, to say the least. Whereas Genevieve was chanting, “Car mom! Car mom!” to leave ASAP, Jacinta did not want to leave.”

I feel very lucky to be able to offer the girls a broader perspective on family/social life because normal school (even preschool age) cliques can be rough to get through. These little boys may whack each other more than we have ever seen, and their older siblings may have more control over them than I could ever handle (as the younger sister), but they don’t question an order and they aren’t catty like Jacinta’s girlfriends. They don’t use words as much, actions speak louder than words. It could be a gender thing, or a cultural thing but Jacinta’s friends are already using exclusion to hurt each other, to conquer. I remember this about girls and I hate it. I wonder if it crosses cultural boundaries and why. One of my main goals to teach the girls is extreme inclusion. Unfortunately I can not teach their friends nor protect them from the pain of exclusion. It’s just one of those painful lessons Jacinta is already learning.

Matt reminds me that all we can do is build their confidence in whatever skills they seem to love. The hope is that when they encounter the negativity of certain children, they will be filled with enough confidence in their own bag of tricks that they don’t suffer the blow. So on we sing, plant and create. We made beeswax candles again the other day and Jacinta stayed with it long enough to really learn the art. She loves to master things and do them well. The girls are very lucky to be part of an adult choir, welcomed by ten adults every Thursday night. They sing as much as they can, soaking up every word while they distract the choir members. They all pay as much attention as possible while smiling and remembering their own children at this age. Friday night we had a choir party and sang for our families. The girls were the only little people in a crowd of thirty adults, they love this. Jacinta tapped along with tapping sticks and actually stood up and sang with us for a lot of the songs, surprising us all with what she had soaked up while playing with blocks at rehearsal. Genevieve danced and shook maracas, hung on different ladies’ skirts, (nearly pulling mine down a few times), and ran from room to room soaking up the stardom of being a cute little girl. Matt recorded it all for us. I just tried to focus and not laugh too hard during my solos at Genevieve climbing through everyone’s legs.

Our choir has not performed for almost two years, but when it rains it pours. Saturday morning we had another “gig” at a humble little outdoor festival. Our director couldn’t be there so Terry and I took turns leading. It was really nice and we actually recruited a few new men. Jacinta had a chance to sing with us and show her friends what she does on Thursday nights. It’s an inspiring gathering called Art in the Park, but “artist” being used to describe anyone who creates and wants to share their passion, not necessarily sell it. So a few spinners brought their wheels, a soap maker brought wool and taught kids how to felt wool onto soap and create a good scrubber. One dad taught kite making and there was a puppet show. Guitarists played music for us, a few good cooks sold food to everyone. A carpenter taught people how to work with wood. With all this activity, our children still found another source of entertainment: running across open fields and digging in sticky sap. The sap stuck on their fingers then prevented them from doing any other activities. Oh well. They had fun and Matt took a lot of pictures.

So now Matt is off for two weeks. Right now he is celebrating his freedom by watching Team America and laughing himself silly. He played with the girls all day, went for a nice long kayak ride, and just finished the dishes. It is nice to have him home and see him so relaxed. I suppose when you only have two days a week at home you try to smash more in, but two weeks, that’s good.

The girls and I leave for the US in six days. I am stuck in indecision as to what to do next. My biggest questions are: how much can I sanely carry and what can I do to the garden to prepare it for my absence? There is much to be done, but no need to stress about it. It will all happen. Surely I won’t get much sleep on my last night here, but adrenaline will carry me through. Matt plans to take the girls out a bit this week, which will be lovely.

For now, I bid you goodnight. I will write again from Chicago. Happy Thanksgiving. And please ask Santa for snow because the girls are ready for it! Jacinta was telling my mom on the phone, “I haven’t seen snow since I was a baby…and Genevieve has never seen snow! I know it is going to be colder than the freezer, but I just don’t know how much colder.” Interesting…

Take care,
Shana

Beautiful Muddy Waters

2008-11-23T22:07:00.001+11:00

Good evening (: Health is restored here as well as our busyness. I hope this letter finds you all in good health also. My stepfather had another surgery to unblock his arteries and restore circulation in his legs. It went well and he is on the mend, so we are all relieved and thankful. When I look back at the week, I can’t seem to process all that has passed through my hands, heart and mind. I also can’t see how I am still awake, but I am. In addition to really needing a couple of hours devoted to processing the week, Matt just brought me a cup of coffee and three little squares of chocolate.

Matt looks forward to his weekend chocolate, but not as much as a break from work. He still spends a lot of time on the road and in the company of unwell people. He has learned a lot more than I’ll ever know about the end of life and about disease. His shoulder has been causing him pain, but last night it eased up. He says it might have been my comfrey ointment, which of course makes me happy. But it also could have been chance. He and Keith spent some time this past week recycling timber from our neighbor’s house which is being reconstructed, lugging loads with the tractor to our massive timber pile. They are both feeling pretty lucky to have scored such good timber and plan to use it on numerous projects. Matt will soon dive into major changes in our house, the girls’ bedroom, sizing down our bathroom, and enlarging our lounge room. He only has one week of work left before his little vacation, just before we leave for the US. He wants to get in some extra time with us before we leave him to update the house.

While Matt played with the girls inside our cozy house, I started out the week with a few hours to myself in the garden, in the pouring rain. Typically I like gardening in the rain, but I was still not feeling 100% so I stayed in the shed, the messy garden shed, surrounded by mess that could have been sorted months ago. The garlic had to be harvested this week to save it from rotting in the ground from all the moisture. To store garlic you need to hang it in an airy place, free from sun and moisture, hence, the shed. Thus the impetus to clean up the piles of cardboard boxes, cracked hoses, rolls of weed cloth, dirty jars, messy tools, piles of fruit fly bags, newspaper rolls of old seeds, cracked pots and stacks of good pots. I find it hard to summon the energy to do something as cleansing as getting rid of junk when I see hundreds of other little tasks out in the dirt that might grow into food. Now I look at my clean shed which has room for people and garlic and am grateful for the rain which made me clean it and harvest the garlic early.

Harvesting root crops is definitely my favorite garden job, as it is all hidden until the moment you dig it up. You can not put it back in the ground if you don’t like what you see, what you see is what you get. I planted eighty garlic cloves about five months ago and did relatively little for them. Tuesday, Genevieve and I dressed up in our raincoats and took our tools down to the terrace garden. She played with the garlic plants after I dug them up and threw them in a pile. She picked off all of the garlic babies (tiny garlic cloves stuck on the bottom of each head of garlic) and sorted them. We left a lot of them in the garden bed, which is nice because in two years, magically, each little baby will grow a full head of garlic without any help from me. As the rain dripped down our foreheads, I celebrated the massive heads of garlic, a years worth of garlic. Genevieve tried to dig too and sang the few rain songs she knew, “raining pouring old man snoring,” and a little French rain song about a frog.

Later that day I picked Jacinta and Lily up from preschool. They had been inside all day and were really happy to come down and help me clean, braid and hang the garlic in the newly cleaned shed. I think the gathering instinct comes naturally to many of us because they entertained themselves for over an hour collecting garlic babies, hoarding them, counting them, and always searching for more. The big girls were delighted to take part in the harvest and process of such a good crop and to have a role to play in the process. They also enjoyed being outside, so close to the rain, yet warm and dry under shelter. We had such a lovely time that I lost my mind, high on the rare occurrence that the three girls play peacefully together. So we invited Lily to sleep over and keep the party going. All in all, it was fine, Lily was lovely but Jacinta was too tired for change so she had a long tantrum about which pajamas to wear. After this, the girls had fun together. I didn’t get much sleep, but this was actually quite humorous. I was woken only by the girls kicking each other in their sleep, (the response being separation) and by their shouts wanting to know where the other had gone. Genevieve woke with all the commotion. Matt and I both lost sleep but for me, it was pretty funny because I could laugh at my own insanity. Matt didn’t find it all so humorous, but dealt with my silly spontaneity. It is my nature to make quick decisions and believe that all will go well, without a worry in the world that something could go wrong. I haven’t had any real problems yet, and haven’t suffered a life of anxiety or fear. I am grateful, but also know that good energy plus a little bit of common sense usually generate a good outcome. A first sleepover isn’t too big of a risk though.

The rains left us alone by Wednesday with a sticky heat that just made you want to live in water. We had swimming lessons that day, but this was inside in an overheated pool with chlorine and white walls. Jacinta is learning how to do the crawl and can do a few strokes on her own now. Genevieve, on the other hand, cries for me or Matt the whole time, which isn’t working out. No big deal. Thursday afternoon, we needed to swim so I convinced Jacinta that we should try out swimming in the dam, since the water has started looking clear. She and Evie wore their life jackets and clung on to me at first, grossed out by the mud below but in awe of the tiny fish surrounding us. After a while, Jacinta was in heaven, swimming off on her own, liberated by this wet paradise that is our backyard. We all swam out to the middle, chasing a seed pod on the surface of the water, but couldn’t make it as far as the lily pads. Today Matt came down with us and crossed the dam with her so she could smell the purple water lily while I stayed with Genevieve. By the end we were sitting in the mud, throwing mud balls out in the water, jumping in the mud like frogs. We floated on our backs and watched the clouds. Jacinta made up a shadow chasing game. We swam across the dam a few times practicing Jacinta’s new skills until our fingers and toes turned into prunes. This was beautiful for me, as I find pond swimming one of the most liberating places to be. Swimming in a small confined body of water, I hover above the unknown brown bottom, with nothing to gaze upon but the surface of the water, trees, plants, birds, and sky. Jacinta was liberated by the mud. She has learned to enjoy the muck, the beauty of a swimming hole in your back yard and has a new motivation to learn to swim.

Matt paddled the girls and I all the way to town this morning. It was our longest trip as a family, perhaps 45 minutes long, yet the most serene. It was early and the tide was high, the water was very still. We saw a few pelicans and a few boats. Going under the two bridges was pretty exciting for the girls, Genevieve requesting, “again??” after we had rowed under the last bridge. We made it to town without the usual whining and had coffee, tea, croissants and bananas on the riverbank. The girls played on the inundated dock, as it was high tide. Kind Mary and Keith brought us the car, so I could take the girls to dance and Matt could row back solo. It’s a hard life (:

Speaking of a hard life, a true hard life, we visited our Togolese refugee friends this week. The mother was glued to her cell phone all day long, trying in vain to reach her mother back in Togo who had left her a message that morning. This image is stuck in my head: her inexperience with technology, her ability to stare at the phone in silence for so long, hoping somehow she would get through, her sadness, her fear, her anxiety, her ignorance of why her mother would call this day after 7 months had gone by since she left Africa. Given the state of the mother, the girls and I played with the boys, who seemed to be used to her preoccupation. The three year old was in his own world, jumping off every bit of furniture he could find (even the shelves and the keyboard) imitating different animals. This was a good ice breaker for my girls. Jacinta observed and giggled. Genevieve eventually joined in and chased the monkey. We brought a truck to share and as Jacinta got it out of the bag, she said, “We should give this to you, you like it so much.” We played the organ together (another kind donation in this house full of strange items), then read some books in English. I kept turning off the television so they would stop zoning out. After a while, they decided that we were more entertaining anyway, luckily because they cold easily climb the shelves and turn it back on. Jacinta read one of the simple books for us all, humbled by the chance to help teach. At one point she was shocked because the older boy said something in English. It turns out they know quite a bit, they were just holding back because they didn’t know us. After the books, the boys took us to their sunny backyard to place the potted vegetables we had brought for them. They proudly showed us the one tomato plant they had. Jacinta asked the oldest boy for a shovel. He nodded knowingly and brought us a scrubbing brush. We giggled and asked again. This time he came back with laundry soap, then a bucket of water. Finally we went with him to find a crayon. Jacinta drew him a shovel. He nodded, went and asked his mother and returned with a “No.” So we left the plants in pots, as planned and went to the beach.

Imagine arriving at the ocean for the first time, never having seen waves before. You are in a new land with a bunch of strangers, with a lot of strange rules. This white woman puts on cream and asks you to hold her hand and walk towards this vast body of water. I suppose it would depend on your age, but these little boys were curious, excited and completely trusting of the strength of my hands. They each had one. We didn’t go deeper than an inch or two, but the waves came up to about 8 inches a few times. They held on for dear life, exhilarated, but trying to figure out how to get a good hold when Genevieve and the two boys each needed a hand. Jacinta was in her own world in the sand making prints, playing with rocks, jumping in the water. For once, she was the most confident little person in the water. By the end, she silently showed them how to sit in the water and let the little waves roll them over.

Next we went to the jetty for fish and chips. As the food arrived, Genevieve fell asleep. The children were all very hungry. Jacinta didn’t like her fish, as usual. While he continually stockpiled his plate, the older boy quickly offered to take everything she didn’t want. Jacinta happily stacked his plate every time I handed her a new piece of fish to try. There was a small voice inside my head saying, “He shouldn’t take all that, he hasn’t even finished what is on his plate.” But Jacinta’s inside voice of inspired generosity won. Their mom bought all of the children icy poles (popsicles) while Evie was sleeping. Jacinta and the two boys sat on the rocks with no space between them, savoring the sweet ice while Genevieve slowly woke and ate her fish. Evie finished her meal just as the older children were finishing their dessert. Jacinta offered her little sister the rest of her icy pole. Then the five year old followed suit. Then the three year old followed suit. This was normal for the boys, sharing. But for Jacinta, this was big. Usually it’s like pulling teeth to get her to do this. But this time, her initial voluntary giving started a chain reaction of giving. Genevieve sat down with the three older children and allowed the youngest boy to put his arm around her while she savored her lemony ice and they watched the boats. It feels so good to share, everyone knows that. In our culture, this seems to be a lesson that takes years to learn.
Even if this generosity only comes out once in a while in my girls, I’ll take it, smile deeply each time and just hope for more.

I suppose their generosity will come out more and more as I give them more freedom. We went to a birthday party this week. Knowing there would be piles of sweets, I told Jacinta that she could make her own food choices given that she knows which things make her body healthy and which things don’t really make her feel well, but are just for fun. She slowly tasted each thing, resisting the urge to ask permission each time. She shined. When the piñata was smashed she grabbed one little bag of gummy candy and ran away to show me what she had gotten. She didn’t stay and pick up the piles of other things she could have grabbed, but relished her prize. A few minutes later she proudly told me that she had given Genevieve a red one (she loves red).

Jacinta is learning generosity as am I. I am also unlearning dogma. Candy is full of crap, yes, but I must let her live in this world, and live joyfully. So to celebrate her new food freedom, we created a gingerbread house on Friday night. We all worked together after Matt came home from work, gluing the walls together with sugary frosting and covering the house in lollies. It was very exciting seeing it all come together, and of course, tasting as we worked. Today our friends Rory and Michelle came over to do some recording (Rory is 5 and loves to sing and play guitar) and helped us demolish the house. It feels funny baking a gingerbread house in this heat, but pretty tasty and great fun for the family.

“A bush tucker walk” is also good fun for the family, if you know what you are doing and I do not. I have always figured that most of the weeds I pull are useful, but needed a good guide. The girls and I visited a school this week and went on one of these walks, led by a humble expert. He showed us all the weeds in our garden which we can put in a salad, which wild seeds to grind up and make bread, which wild berries are edible, which wild roots can be used in stew, which leaves can heal stubborn wounds. We ate kangaroo stew, warrigal greens quiche, a weedy salad, and damper (a thick flatbread cooked on the fire) for lunch. It was awesome for me, but my girls are pretty picky. They enjoyed the lead up to the meal though, especially picking berries and watching children at “big school.”

So with all that, what shall I take from this week? My friend from Togo is a tiny fish in a big scary sea. The mountains she has to climb are beyond my control and imagination, but I can bring them potted plants, popcorn and distract them from their pain. I can eat weed salad, sacrifice some control in exchange for more genuine generosity, swim in a muddy dam and feel beauty, goodness and freedom.

With that, I bid you goodnight.
Peace,
Shana

Also…some of your emails have been blocking my address as spam. I don’t know what to do about it, but would love suggestions. The best bet is that I stop sending these via email just in case there is something bad attached and leave it for you to look on the internet, www.paintedguitar.com. Look on the Blog.

Blow ya kisses all day

2008-11-15T23:34:00.002+11:00

Hello there. Time is flying, it’s hard to believe that it is already the third week of November. Your stores are probably filled with Thanksgiving decorations (which I actually miss) while ours are already turning red and green. Jacinta is getting so excited for Christmas, especially when she sees the trees, garland, ornaments, and even the fake Santas.

We have had another relaxing week, with no playgroup, French class or choir to outline our days. I love waking up with no place to go although I do miss chatting with my friends. I am sure Jacinta would be happy to play with her buddies, but I love being able to focus on the girls and can’t do so with a full house. We moved slow, read books inside, even on beautiful sunny mornings, painted, created with play dough, packed for our trip, dressed up dollies, built towers out of blocks for the little wine cork animals, danced, drummed on our bellies, and sang. It’s nice to be out of voice because I can really hear the girls sing. I still had to keep up with the laundry and the cooking, but I’ll admit, I am an incredibly uninspired cook these days. I hear the inspiration comes back as the children get older. I feel like we should stay inside for some reason when we’re sick, perhaps because the out doors make you want to run and move fast. But I think I expend less energy outside because I am not surrounded by dirty dishes and unfolded laundry, but lush green foliage and colorful flowers.

On these lovely lollygagging days at home the only packing I do is packing water and extra clothes to head down to the garden. Packing and unpacking to go out is a big time investment for me. So I have welcomed the change, even if our seclusion is caused by illness. We watched our seeds grow each day and observed amazing insects in the garden. We jumped on the new stepping stones that Matt made with the girls. I discovered some hidden red pepper seedlings, which was one of the only seeds I could not successfully sprout. We transplanted those, sunflower seedlings, and lettuce seedlings. Jacinta’s love for the garden goes up and down, right now, she is on a high. She asks to transplant, and is learning how to do it very well. I am teaching her the few new tips I learned from my gardening class. She is shockingly receptive and quite eager to learn. She makes little stick fences around each seedling to prevent us from stepping on the tiny plants, knowing that Genevieve might tear them down. My effort to save certain plants from being squashed by little girls’ feet and turkeys claws uprooting them has been plant pots. I cut the bottom off of a pot and shove it down in the ground until it the plant is established. Although the pots are a bit of an eyesore, so far it is working out for the corn, zucchini and melon plants.

On the fruit front, our first plum tree and our nectarine tree are coming to an end. We ate a lot of the fruit. The bats had their share and we got rid of a lot to destroy fruit fly larvae. There is one plum tree left with fruit. Our apple tree was ripe and lovely on Monday when we discovered sweet apples and evidence of bat munching. We ate a few apples, picked a few for the house and rejoiced that they were ready, given that we had no clue they’d be ready so soon. On the same day, Jacinta discovered that the apple tree was climbable, so she sat on a branch munching happily away. Giddy that we had actually grown a good climbing tree, I started pruning, to make it safer and easier. That night the bats enjoyed my pruning job, I had make a lovely space for them to get in and eat all the apples, except for three. Jacinta has retold this story quite a few times already to friends, “Do you want to hear something REALLY sad?”

Genevieve got through her conjunctivitis in three days, but then I got a sore throat. Both girls were in great health by the time my immune system gave up. Two of Genevieve’s eye teeth came through, leaving two to go which cause her great pain and give her “the grumps.” Or so we think this is the reason for her snootiness. “MINE,” she yells nastily. Jacinta of course still reminds her that, “No Genevieve (in a calm voice), it is not yours. It is ours. Everything belongs to Mother Earth.” She says this with such a superior calm, as if she remembers this lesson every time she refuses to share with her little sister. Although I must say, Jacinta is increasing her ability to share, speak calmly and remember that she is older and should be calm and understanding with her little sister friend.

Genevieve, keeping up the reputation of a little sibling, has started crying wolf. While Jacinta is three feet away, she calls out, “Jinta hurt me.” Genevieve is getting to the age when I can bust her for things like that. As you can imagine, this makes Jacinta very happy, and restores her faith in fair treatment. Genevieve gets pickier by the day and lately, refuses to eat her meal saying, “no like it…..Pear!!!” She is trying out the power to refuse what is offered and demand fruit. Jacinta also loves to share the rules with Evie, “You have to eat your meal before you can have any dessert.” Jacinta then tries the same trick and I ask her what she just told Genevieve. The sheepish grin says it all. She loves knowing the boundaries and teaching them, but acts more her age when it comes to following them.

Jacinta is starting to realize the power she has over Genevieve. Evie almost always says, “Ah huh,” to every question, meaning yes. Jacinta constantly gives Genevieve choices, which of course, she can not answer. A child her age is not meant to make choices, it is not developmentally appropriate. So after four or five attempts, Jacinta picks the one she wants Evie to have and asks, “Evie, do you want the green one?” (Jacinta doesn’t like green.) “Ah huh.” Jacinta is also noticing how her little sister repeats everything she says and is proud. Jacinta says to Matt every day as he leaves for work, “I’ll blow you kisses all day long!” Now Genevieve says the same exact thing every time Matt walks out the door.

Matt has been going out the door to work all week, nothing new. He doesn’t say much about it, other than that it is busy and he has too many clients. This week he drove back and forth a bit more than usual and is tired of driving, taking clients to and from hospital. He does get insight into life at the end. He meets and assists all different kinds of people, which is interesting culturally. He did mention this week that one of the drugs that almost all of his patients take was first marketed as rat poison. Hmm…

Besides paid work, Matt finished his little storage shed, so he is now onto another project. Our garden/building shed is a bit of a wreck, too much stuff in a small space and with inadequate methods of storage. Matt is using a massive red truck tarp to increase the size of the existing tin roof and keep rain off the building materials. He cut weeds down with the whippersnipper for a few hours too. Friday night after work he came home from work and found us playing in the garden. So he dove into a half-finished project. The sandpit needed shade and the grapevine needed a trellis so he set a few long birch tree poles in concrete and screwed on four sheets of lattice. I dreamed this up a while ago, and am pretty excited to see the results. It adds another level to the garden, and of course, the grapes and the shade will be much appreciated.
Besides taking turns being ill this week, there were a few days when we were all well. These were extraordinary days. We were pretty lucky to have “Pa and Carolyn” stop in for a few hours for a cup of tea, to check out the garden, the new things Matt had built, play with the girls and even go out for Chinese food. They hadn’t been out since Genevieve was born, the mosquitoes scared them away. Luckily this year is much better on that front.

Today I took the girls out to Bellingen for the markets. It was a hot day, but we found some lovely Christmas gifts and fresh blueberries and peaches. We ran into a few friends and even met another French woman. Jacinta and Genevieve particularly enjoyed the music, the jumping castle, the smoked fish, and the swimming pool. My favorite purchase was a few old garden tools, in much better quality than what you can buy in a store. It poured down rain as we were leaving, a quick way to cool things off.

On Tuesday, I left the house at 4:45am leaving the girls in Matt’s care until 7:30 and then in Keith’s care for the rest of the day. I drove to Coffs Harbour to pick up a few kind refugees from Burma and Togo. I then drove us all to harvest garlic in Thora, a lush rainy valley of hippies, many of whom work, share, live and play together. Not only was it my first full day away from the house actually being paid, but I was surrounded by really interesting people, pulling hundreds of garlic heads out of beautifully fertile soil in a gorgeous valley. The harmony of the four different languages danced in my head, transporting me to a place I have never been before: in the beautiful isolated countryside surrounded by people from all over the world, something that seems to happen only in the city. I translated French into English so the locals could learn a little bit about the Togolese folk. I learned from the local Thora people what people talk about in a close knit community tied to the land: grown men discussing birds, chamomile growing techniques, sheep, soil health, and beer brewing. I chatted with my new friend (a former chauffeur) from Togo who sat shot gun, nervous that I couldn’t drive. We talked about African politics. We talked about vegetables, what they could not find here, and what they can probably grow here. I couldn’t speak much with the Burmese people, but we tried. Mostly, I just watched the woman as we pulled garlic together, mystified and in awe of her silence. I wondered how she was so good in the field, tried to imagine what her life before had been, and what was inside her silence as she stared off into the mountains. I love being at home with my girls, but the lessons I learned this day made all the effort worth it.

I have a lot to learn. It’s lucky they are twenty-four hours in each day. But the night is fast disappearing, so I will leave you and surely learn something as I slumber the night away. Good night.

Peace,
Shana

Derama Obama

2008-11-08T23:26:00.003+11:00

Good evening my American friends and family. Out my window I see dripping tree ferns and lush green undergrowth in the last misty hour of daylight. It looks no different than it did last week, but much has changed. The American people (Matt and I included) elected a man that Matt and I really respect. He gives us hope for the future, rather than fear and shame. No matter who the president is, if you voted for the winner, it feels rather different than when you voted for the loser. The last time I voted for the winner I was nineteen years old and didn’t know much about politics, just how my parents usually voted. This time I was 31 years old and sat in a living room in Australia glued to the television on Wednesday between 11am and 4:30pm with my two little girls. The girls knew something had to be going on for their mom to sit in front of the television in daylight. Jacinta knew we were choosing a new rule maker for the USA. “Why do we want a new one? Why do you like Derama Obama better than the other man? Why is it just men? What is war? Why do they send people to other places and kill them? We don’t want to kill anyone or anything, do we mommy?” We talked about the fact that we do kill things, like mosquitoes, rats, mice, caterpillars, fruit flies: anything that destroys the things we need. We did not discuss why one would kill another human though, luckily she doesn’t know this happens yet. These were all very hard questions to answer in four year old terms and actually keep her feeling that the world and most of the people in it are good.

We danced the happy dance as each new state was called for Obama. Matt got off work early to join us, anxious all day that he was missing out. (The election has been a MAJOR pastime for Matt, so much that he is now searching other forms of entertainment). We had to take breaks for hanging out laundry, helping Genevieve go down for a nap and going to swimming lessons. But we made it back just in time for Obama’s acceptance speech, live, luckily. Seeing the new American President elect accept his new commission in my hometown in Grant Park was amazing, moving, beautiful. Of course Barrack Obama cannot save the world, or make the USA a place capable of taking good care of the earth and all of its people in just four years. But he can get us further than anyone else running for office, certainly with the help of all the people mobilized to elect him. He again used the word sacrifice in his acceptance speech. The strong African-American presence, standing alongside the newly involved youth, standing alongside the more “normal” looking political crowd: what a beautiful tapestry. The face of politics is changing. Diversity can only bring a more egalitarian, balanced government.

I am usually pretty optimistic and hopeful (Thank you Mommy) but not when I think of government. What has changed is that I feel hope not only in the little pockets around me, but also in a massive, powerful institution, the US government. It has the power and has, at times, used it to wreak havoc around the planet to secure its best interests. But it also has the power to do good, and has done so in the past. I won’t expand (you may breathe a sigh of relief), but just say that with sacrifice and creativity America can really do some good for the earth and the whole human race.

To top off the week’s excitement, the girls and I went out to Coffs Harbour on Friday to spend the day with our new Togolese friends. They are political refugees from a tiny French-speaking West African country. Of the family of six, we spent time with a lovely lady my age and her two sons, ages 3 and 5. For confidentiality reasons, I can’t give too many details. For me, it was like finding a part of me that only comes out in the presence of a strong African woman. I made a friend: the African mother I dream of sharing with my daughters. She has much knowledge and experience to share with me, as I have to share with her. She seeks understanding, a place in this strange city, community, and friendship. She did not choose to come here, but is grateful for her safety and the good, caring Australian government. She has good memories of her more distant past and found joy in talking about the trees and foods of her home. The girls and I knew a few Togolese songs, which our new friends happened to know. The mother smiled and transported herself home. She hummed the lullaby, wistfully translated the words from Mino into French and showed us the accompanying movements. She speaks five languages, but not much English.

Jacinta understands this not as “volunteer work,” but as making new friends. She tried her best to play with the little boys, but mostly listened, observed and stayed close by my side. Genevieve moseyed around in search of toys, food and fun, doing whatever everyone was doing. Jacinta knows that her job is to play and to help the boys learn English. She reminded me how to pronounce the name of their language, “Ewe mommy, they say Yehway.” Children rise to the challenge when given one. Jacinta was more patient and tolerant than I have seen her. She didn’t show much desire to join the boys until we had been there for a few hours. My girls and the boys had no language in common. The children interacted when drawing pictures at the kitchen table and also playing at the park. Although this was nothing like frolicking with her friends in the back yard, Jacinta felt the importance of this day somehow and actually wanted to stay longer than I expected. As we drove home, Jacinta reported that she had taught the mother the word “watermelon,” proudly demonstrating how she slowly pronounced it for her, “wah-ta-mehl-on.” Genevieve slept. This very different experience for Jacinta was just another place to play for Genevieve. It just happened to be a place where a lot of French and Ewe were spoken, and not much English.

Genevieve loves to play anywhere, but this week she has needed extra cuddles. Not only are her eye teeth coming through, but earned her first bee sting by grabbing a borage flower. Jacinta dove in as the helpful big sister, fetching things I needed for the sting (baking soda, cloths and ice) also adding in distractions. She kept the plums and gingerbread cookies rolling in and kept the drinks coming, all the while confidently assuring her sister, “That’s all you need Evie, ice and bi-carb, it’s going to get better.” She had splinters and got pink-eye. She then cut her foot on an oyster shell. Mary and Keith arrived home this week. In addition to the girls’ excitement to have their playmates back, it was really lucky to have their help with this oyster cut. Mary cleaned it out as well as she could while the rest of us distracted her with shaving cream. That night we did have the emergency room doctor take a look, just in case. The extraordinarily informative emergency room doctor reassured us that it was going to be fine and gave us a few good baby bandages to keep the slice clean and covered. She can’t walk very well and has taken to saying, “Cawwy me,” very cutely.

Although Genevieve is dripping from numerous parts of her little body and is sore in many places, she is not sleeping any more than before. She wakes more in the night, but sleep in the morning. As my need for sleep increased this week, her attempts to get me out of bed went up a level. After a few attempts of “Mommy open eyes, mommy wake up, open eyes,” she said angrily, “Naughty mommy! no close eyes!” She did actually succeed in rousing me with laughter.

Little children are easily distracted from their pain when they have other tasks at hand, I guess we all are. Genevieve is happy that the mosquitoes have finally arrived. You can just smack the air and she giggles instantly, saying “moustique!” waiting for your next attempt to smash a mosquito. Easy entertainment, by day Evie is quite happy doing anything. From “helping out” with the dishes, playing with random bits of anything to imaginative play with her big sister. The girls really came up with some lovely games this month, riding bikes together, riding together on the rocking horse, taking turns sometimes and battling it out others. Genevieve of course prefers one on one attention, but what is more natural in a family is that the adults are usually busy doing something as there are many tasks to run a household. Jacinta fills that role more now. When we can enjoy the sights and sounds of our little girls playing together without any adult input while we are busy doing our own tasks, Matt and I really love the size of our tiny house. But both of us do love when we can just sit down and play. For Genevieve, the second child, it is special. Jacinta expects this, she was once an only child.

It is raining and has been doing so intermittently all week long. This is why the mosquitoes have been able to increase their numbers, but also good for our water supply and garden. The rain has done all the work in the garden, this is my excuse for not having found the time to do much at all. Jacinta did plant a box of carrots and we picked fruit. The nectarines and plums are still in seasons and taste really nice. We actually dried a bunch of plums, which was a mistake. They turned bitter like cranberries in the drier, so we are using them in muffins. The weeds will be pretty rough after all this rain. The chickens will like the weeds. Speaking of chickens, they all escaped this week. I spent a frustrating afternoon cussing them out while I shamelessly chased them, in vain. I guess I only enjoy chicken chasing when I’m in the mood. I actually caught the wild rooster in a cage, but when Matt went to move him into the pen, the sneaky thing escaped again. Then Matt did some shameless chicken chasing and enjoyed himself, releasing work stress through rooster harassment. A few days later, a fox got the wild rooster early in the morning. Too bad we couldn’t convince him to live in our safe little chicken pen. The wild life does seem much better though.

The past few weeks Matt has been working on a small storage shed, neighboring the chicken pen. Last week he put a roof on so he could work through the rain. Now that he knows he can build a house, he seems pretty confident to build little buildings. This shed went up in less than a month, all wooden with a tin roof and a window for sunlight. I’m sure we’ll be able to fill it up pretty quickly. Jacinta loves building with her daddy. Since she helped a little bit along the way, she takes great interest in the daily progress. Genevieve too is interested in the cute little shed. She always found a way to sneak onto the dangerous building site, so I am grateful that it is finished.

After Jacinta has heard a few bedtime stories, she now tries to convince us that she is not sleepy. I leave her but Matt humors her since he has been gone most of the day. I hear them from the other room. “Tell me about your day Jacinta.” “No Daddy, you tell me first.” I never listen to what they say, but I wonder how Matt describes his day to a four year old. I wonder how Jacinta describes what we have done all day. Matt’s voice usually stops pretty quickly, but I can hear Jacinta’s voice through the walls going on and on. What an opportunity, to have her daddy right there, doing nothing else, wanting nothing more than to listen to his little girl talk. Jacinta is very lucky, her daddy knows what chatty girls need. We all are lucky for one reason or another.

I wish you all luck and a loved one who knows what you need. We might long for an open ear, a warm embrace, a place to stay, or someone to play with. My new Togolese friend probably longs for these same things, plus a few more. She has gone through a hell that I could never imagine, but even so, she has a place to stay and counts her blessings that she can walk anywhere without fear for her life (besides on the highway). The Aussie government knows what its people need and provide universal health care for them. Someday the US may be able to be do so. We can hope and help somehow, all in time.

Peace,
Shana

Dead day

2008-11-04T22:44:00.002+11:00

Good evening friends. I am sitting here in darkness, lit by this obnoxious computer screen and by a small green Jack-O- Lantern smiling at me. Therefore, I must wish you a Happy Halloween. Perhaps if I were in America I might dread this holiday now because certain children’s costumes might scare the kids and force me to answer questions like, “Mommy, what’s a devil?” It would certainly bring masses of artificially flavored, artificially colored, sugary junk food into our house. But I have always loved Halloween for bringing the community together, the fun of dressing up and walking around in darkness in the autumn and actually seeing other humans out in the street. As I kid I loved all that, plus the masses of junk food.

Here in Australia Halloween is something new, fun for children, but not really embraced by many adults. It seems that the older the opinion holder, the more it is seen as yet another example of the Americanization of the world, which for younger people is not really a problem. But mostly, it is not celebrated here. Thus I can easily pick and choose which parts of Halloween I want to celebrate. Yesterday the girls and I celebrated all day long, dressed as butterflies. We started the day out with our wings and antennas and went on a treasure hunt for decaying bits of nature. Usually we hunt for beautiful colorful flowers, so this was actually a really cool twist to search for beauty in the dead. Both girls got really into it, Jacinta of course correcting her little sister, “No Genevieve. That’s not dead.” I’m not sure Genevieve really got it, but each time she picked up something dead, she pronounced it “dead.” Jacinta had mourned the passing of a beautiful red rose, but this day she lovingly gathered all of its dried up fermenting petals, put them in her basket to place on our nature table inside the house. She also noticed the rose bud forming on a branch nearby.

Our little table is now covered in dead ferns, orange and brown leaves, sticks, seed pods, and fermenting flower petals. We ended our walk in the orchard and picked some plums, nectarines and almost ripe apples. We then bobbed for them in the sandpit. Turns out that only the apples floated, I suppose that’s why I’ve never heard of bobbing for anything else! I was actually shocked that they were edible, I guess bat munched fruit should have been a sign that they were ripening up. Jacinta enjoyed trying once again at this silly game, but eventually just grabbed a nectarine with her hands and enjoyed it. Genevieve stuck her face in the water just for kicks, but found a much easier way to grab fruit out of a tub of water. After a while she just sat in the tub and enjoyed the fruit and the coolness of the water.

We intertwined my childhood traditions like popcorn balls, pumpkins and trick or treating with a true celebration of our loved ones who have died. We took present day Halloween and crossed it with some of the respectful traditions of The Day of the Dead and All Saints Day. Natural death is not meant to be so terrible, just part of the cycle. All Hallow’s Eve’s origins were respectful of ancestors and loved ones. I dug out pictures of our grandparents and momentos they had given to us, which were then placed on our nature table amongst the dead leaves and flower petals. For now, Jacinta loves hearing stories about everyone we know or once knew. Our little baby friend who died five hours after birth had her special place on our table, Theresa. Jacinta put some toys on the table that Theresa might have liked. We talked about these special people all day long. Today we had a special meal and made food that our Grandmas used to make, dining on the plates my grandmother made. I found a lot of these ideas in a book called Celebrating the Great Mother. I enjoy learning earth centered ways to celebrate holidays, it just makes sense. I look back fondly on the times I spent in church with my family but certainly the Church of the past is at fault for distancing many of us humans from earth based celebrations on the basis of being “godless pagan rituals.” There used to be mysticism in Christianity, less dogma and fewer people crying “Jesus save ME!” I know some places of worship are trying to tie earth celebration into their normal services and celebrations, which I think is wonderful and necessary to relieve us of our obsessive self-centeredness. So although I can’t yet create mysticism in myself and believe that good spirits are coming to visit us tonight because of our welcoming little Jack-O-Lantern, I hope to offer the beauty of mystery and the unknown to our girls.

The big unknown this week is the US election. I began writing this entry just after Halloween and due to extraordinary busyness, I will finish it as you are all waking up on Election Day. The outcome seems more predictable than it has been for the last couple elections, but we never can know. What a different feeling it will be tomorrow night, after America has decided who we want to lead us through the next four years of life probably including major economic change, environmental action, and the global nuclear arms race. It is major; imagine if we actually elect the first black man to the Oval Office. IMAGINE that! What a statement that we are truly ready for change. In one of the debates a woman asked the question that no American politician would choose, (I’m paraphrasing here) “Do you think that in this economic slump, we as Americans should be making any sacrifices?” Sacrifice? Compromise? What a concept. It was so nice to hear Obama actually admit the need to scrimp a little bit, I think he referred to energy saving. But scrimping seems to be something recent American politicians don’t discuss, never wanting to admit that us glorious proud Americans should have to scrimp. I’m sure they talked about scrimping and saving in the Depression, but have avoided the topic to keep that economy growing. But that’s where I get lost.

As I understand it, the US economy is based on the fact that Gross Domestic Product must continually grow to make it all work. They never mentioned this topic in college, but I have always wondered where will the earth find all the extra resources to keep up the growth? I suppose that is why we need other countries, economically, to exploit their resources to keep our economy continually growing. But can we ALL keep growing our GDP or just a few energetic nations? What happens when the countries we depend on for our own growth decide they want to go out in search of the earth’s supposed “unlimited” supply of wealth? Obviously the US is experiencing a recession, and as a result, so are many other globalized economies. We will come out of it, as we always do, what goes up must come down. But as the climate warms up and wars for oil roll on indefinitely, I guess I wonder if we’ll come out of this recession with the same economic belief that consumption and standard of living must continually rise to keep our economy going. But politicians don’t often think beyond their four year terms, I wish they did!

And I’m sure you’re wishing I’d get off the election and talk about our peaceful life here in the country. I cut myself off pretty well from the onslaught of unwanted media and I am far away from America so I’m not sick of the “campaign.” But just contemplating such big ideas hurts my poor little brain, so I will move on. The evolution of one’s brain is amazing, depending on what you use and what has been allowed to fade. The other day I racked my brains to divide 120 by 6, actually wrote it down before I realized how dumb I have become. Perhaps the knowledge I have gained in the garden took the spot where I stored my mathematical intellect.

Our pomegranate tree is in flower! The bright pink rubbery looking buds have burst open into bright pink flowers. The kiwi vines were budding last week for the first time. Their fuzzy little buds have just burst into gentle white flower today. If you are under four feet tall you can stand below in its shade and gaze above at the beautiful flowers, hiding amongst the fuzzy green leaves. The artichoke plant has created its second and third fruits. It is actually a thistle. The precious vegetable you buy in the shop is actually the bud, picked just before it opens up and turns into a big purple flower. Our garlic terrace is almost ready to harvest. We have fifty potato plants that I can not hope to mulch as I should, but they are in flower, another fun job for the girls to pick off the flower. One great thing about growing some vegetables is that picking off their flowers actually makes them grow better veggies, certainly in the case of root and leaf vegetables. Jacinta is becoming a confident little gardener and loves to repeat little bits of knowledge as she takes them to heart. “Mommy, if you pick off the garlic flower, it makes the garlic head grow bigger,” my little teacher.

It’s a good thing Jacinta has Genevieve to teach, as she has a lot to share. She has taught Genevieve so many games in these past few weeks. They have actually come up with quite a few activities that they can do together and not fight. Genevieve is starting the “MINE” stage. Jacinta, mimicking me, quickly corrects her little sister. “Genevieve, that is not YOURS, nothing is YOURS, it is all OURS. We share EVERYTHING.” She doesn’t go into the spiel that the earth gave the materials for the item, that someone else made it, and someone else gave it to us and that we will probably pass it on to someone else after we grow out of it. But I’m sure she will someday. Funny enough, Genevieve somehow gets over the possession and moves on after Jacinta corrects her.

Genevieve has taken on Jacinta’s strong character, or more likely, came to earth with that herself. Both girls are very demanding. One of my biggest jobs is not allowing them to turn into little controlling princesses, of course by asserting my own very strong will. Genevieve is still waking up with the rooster, far too early for parents who can not go to sleep before 11 pm or sometimes midnight. Once out of her crib we try cuddling her like we did successfully with Jacinta (until Evie was born). She scoffs at that idea, “Mommy, get up!” I growl and roll over. After she eventually drags me out of the bedroom, I may lay down on the couch and try to watch her play. “Mommy, get up……Mommy get off pillow…Table!” No response from me, so she goes for politesse. “Mommy, get off pillow…pease!” I have to get up at that point and jump into the nonstop action of the day.

Today we cleaned up our Halloween nature table. Jacinta thought we were going to save all of the dead leaves and flowers in a box for next year. We sprinkled them all over one of our gardens and let go of them. The whole circle is so clear to her. She understands that those precious rose petals are going to rot and make our native berry bush grow. She can take what she is ready to absorb with the human element of honoring our passed loved ones. Although it is spring here, and we are not surrounded by fermenting leaves and empty trees, some how it all feels so appropriate, especially with the election. Letting certain things go, letting them rot, and eventually enriching the earth, preparing the way for beautiful things to come. Matt has just come in to report that the polls have opened in the US.

I will leave you. I wish you happy Election Day, and hope and pray that beautiful things do come with change.

Peace,
Shana

Magical Flowers

2008-10-26T23:56:00.002+11:00

Good evening. I have just come in from the garden, which is one of my favorite ways to end the day. Last year at this time I would have come in annoyed by all of the mosquitoes. But this year they are not a problem as of yet. I think I saw two mosquitoes tonight. For the last three years here in Australia, I have begun writing after putting the girl(s) to bed. But now that the girls are getting older and daylight lasts until 8pm, Matt and I are trying something new: taking turns doing the bedtime routine so that he can kayak or build and I can garden.

Most garden tasks really should be done in the early morning or in the cool of the afternoon or evening. These are both very difficult times to be packing the girls up when they are not fed, dressed or ready to get really dirty or when I need to be cooking dinner or doing the bedtime routine. So I spent my free hour of dusk transplanting leeks, lettuce, watermelon, peppers and tomatoes. It feels great to be filling up the empty garden beds with plants that will hopefully nourish us. I have two massive gardens, unnecessarily big actually, which are not yet planted out. Empty beds grow weeds, but aren’t all that bad. Digging in the soil that I left fallow (out of laziness) last season is rewarding as it is better than any soil I have ever planted in. The girls and I leave for America in maybe five weeks. If I don’t fill the garden, it will just be less work, which is not so bad. Speaking of, I must run and turn off the sprinkler, oops.

We had another lollygagging week at home, only going out a few times. Fruit on the trees makes days at home exciting. The nectarines are ripe now and the plums, well, Jacinta thinks they are ready but I disagree. We are also putting a few friendly chickens out in the moveable pen each day. We have two Isa Brown chickens given to us by my friend Maxine. She loved them but grew tired of their unceasing efforts to get in her house. The hens seem to have taken on my friend’s gentle and kind demeanor. Jacinta came up with another strange name, both called “Leoplelook” which rhymes with “People chook.” They are quite happy to be picked up and cuddled, and much easier to catch than the chicks. Luckily Jacinta has given up on the chicks and holds and pets the Leoplelooks instead. It’s a funny sight because the chickens are quite large. The only fear is that they will flap their wings in her arms, which hurts a little bit but is mostly frightening. She shed s a few tears saying, “She flapped me ): ” in the saddest voice. Genevieve likes the idea of holding the chickens, she’ll boldly chase them but always chickens out when she gets close. Our hens are laying three to four eggs a day and help the soil structure in little corners of the garden, no complaints.

We had a few cold windy days, so we stayed inside, sorted through clothes in search of winter clothes to take to the US and cooked. We baked muffins, made fishcakes, mayonnaise and a few salads. We still snuck out in the crazy wind to collect a few things from the garden. The girls each pulled some old bitter carrots and actually ate them, it’s amazing what they will eat in the garden and how much they can dislike the very same vegetable at the dinner table. Matt has had a sore wrist so we harvested comfrey root, calendula flowers and chamomile flowers to make an ointment.

Comfrey is a magical plant, sometimes called knit bone and known for its healing properties. A friend of mine actually ground up comfrey leaves and froze it in little packets for direct application after I gave birth to Jacinta. My tear healed quite well with the comfrey. The girls love doing things for daddy. We all enjoyed processing the flowers and chopping the comfrey root. I seethed the plant matter in oil for an hour and then added melted beeswax to solidify the ointment. We have also been making calendula oil with our flowers, something I learned in France from my friend Monique. The girls love harvesting the flowers as they bloom. Every few days we strain the oil, discard the old flower petals and drop in the new petals. We leave the oil in a jar in the sun, shaking it as often as possible. It seems to be working.
Calendula is another lovely healing plant, specifically for skin though.

We don’t know that the comfrey ointment will really “knit” Matt’s sprained wrist back together, but we had fun making it and it never hurts to try. We didn’t buy anything or have to leave the house! That’s something I really love teaching the girls, empowering them to know that you can make a lot of things yourself and need not go the shops for every little thing. Jacinta is starting to take pride in certain bits of wisdom. After she has heard me say the same thing a few times, something I have just learned in the past few years, she comes out with it on her own, as if it just clicked. “Mommy, we HAVE to knock off the garlic and the potato flowers so that the plant can grow its roots better.” This is a job she and Genevieve love.

“MY job,” Genevieve said in her sleep the other night. She and Jacinta love accomplishing things, so much that they fight over the privilege at times. Of course there are times when they can think of something better to do, mainly Jacinta. They feed Jedda, the dog while Keith and Mary are away. Although I don’t expect her to do anything, I do ask, just in case she is looking for a “job.” On a good day she will put away shoes, clean up things she has tipped out, feed the dog with Jacinta, pick flowers, and make more messes. Egg collection isn’t so successful, but Jedda likes it when Evie gets an egg. Jacinta can handle the egg collection, and will even ask to transplant seedlings now, on a good day. Most days, a job she wishes upon herself is the best bet as she often tries to refuse suggested jobs.

Both girls like the idea of having a job with daddy. On Saturday Jacinta jumped at the idea of helping daddy build the storage shed. A few minutes later, she was out of her dance clothes, in garden clothes and work boots and out the door. Matt has the frame up now, and half of the floor down. Jacinta hammered in a few nails on the floor, what an honor. Evie asks, “Help build? daddy?” Matt has taken her over to the future shed “to build” a few times, but this risky girl is not much help on a building site.

One of Genevieve’s new interests is books, one book in particular. Margaret Wise Brown is a great children’s author, some of our favorites are Goodnight Moon , The Big Red Barn and The Sleepy Book. We read these books to Jacinta over and over for her first few years of life. In The Sleepy Book, Margaret wrote a poem called “Little Donkey on the Hill.” Another illustrator took the poem and turned it into its own picture book and we came across it at a used book sale about a year ago. I like to sing the poem, Genevieve just loves it, as Jacinta used to. Any time we go into the bedroom Evie pulls it off the shelf, shoves it towards me, tries to get up on the “sleepy chair,” and beckons me to join her saying, “”Little Donkey?” She asks about “Little donkey?” or “little monkey?” any time she is tired, preparing for bed, and even in her sleep. She practices other words and phrases from the poem throughout the day, it’s very cute. She is rarely silent, unless concentrating on playing. When she stirs in the night, she tells me in her sleep, “Nappy mommy…, drink of wata.” Tonight I went to change her nappy and she tooted, giggling, “Toot…tooted…” in her sleep. She also mentioned the donkey on the hill.
Jacinta is starting to sit down with Genevieve and the book to sing “Little Donkey on the Hill,” of course noting later that she is a good big sister. This morning Matt found them at the other end of the house and asked what they were doing. “A raisin walk, daddy,” that would be walking around eating raisins together. Later they were playing “Goodnight, Good morning,” with piles of pillows and blankets. Jacinta is starting to feel the honor that comes with being an elder sibling as Genevieve repeats everything she says and wants everything the Jacinta wants, even if she doesn’t understand what she is really asking for. Jacinta often yells up to me as I trudge up the hill with heavy Genevieve and a few bags in my arms, eager to put down my load in the car. “WAIT FOR ME!” Genevieve heard this a few times, so today as she lead us all up the hill, she looked back and yelled, “Wait for me!” I love watching language form. The sounds come first, then the comprehension of what is being said. This is why I believe foreign languages are best taught through immersion rather than translation. We had a great French class this week on that note. My friend Zoie came and helped out, and this always makes a good class. Genevieve is starting to share her words in class and respond like the older children, somewhat.

So Genevieve’s new love is books and Jacinta’s new love is tadpoles. Our kind neighbors brought us a bucket of them from their pool. Jacinta and Lily lovingly fed them masses of flowers, under our supervision for a while but then covered the bucket with a centimeter layer of foliage. We found them all dead a few hours later, but Jacinta wasn’t terribly sad, just wondered why. I explained a few possibilities but that Matt had said there were more tadpoles in the pool we could find. Soon enough Matt and Jacinta went off with a net and bucket. Jacinta was very proud to have caught them all with her hands and went straight to work feeding them tiny vegetable greens, egg yolk and ground up corn and wheat. She looks at them every hour. A few have died anyway, but she is trying her best and learning good lessons. No doubt Genevieve loves them too and has had enough self control to not tip the whole bucket.

We were such homebodies this week that our first major outing in a car with five children and two mothers driving 45 minutes to Coffs Harbor didn’t seem too chaotic.
We went to a big regional playgroup festival at a park and brought along a little friend of Jacinta and Lily’s. We actually coached Jacinta and Lily on how to include their friend and not make her feel like a third wheel (as they have unfortunately already learned to exclude). They did great! At one point they sat on a swing together and then stopped and said there was room for Isabella and asked if I could find her for them. They all loved the jumping castle, Genevieve has been talking about it since. They all had their faces painted as butterflies and rode on a horse drawn buggy, just before the storm arrived. Anissa watched all five children on the gymnastics obstacle course while I ran and got sausage sandwiches (a necessary item at every Aussie event) and fruit for us all. We made it to a tiny cubby house, just big enough for all five children, two strollers and two moms just before it down poured. It was quite cozy, but eventually we ran through the rain for the car. All wet and bedraggled, the girls and I went in to Matt’s work to meet his co-workers for the first time. It was all very exciting, and perhaps tiring. Unfortunately we couldn’t track down any coffee on the way home.

This weekend hasn’t been as laid back as our weekdays. Dance class and the tree fair were on Saturday. To complicate things I took home a random dog thinking my friends had accidentally forgotten it at dance class. Our friends stopped in for a few hours to pick up some old sheets of tin for their garden and have some coffee. This coincided with the neighborly gift of tadpoles. Saturday night I went out with some girlfriends from playgroup. We had a Girls Night In, chipped in to support of breast cancer, and in support of happy mommas. We had a great time. I had to laugh at how my conversations have changed in the past five years. We drank wine, ate cheese, crackers and sweets, and laughed a lot. We discussed chickens, gardens, children, birth, dancing, how little we go out, and swapped seeds. Sunday morning we went to
“Art in the Park,” where we met up with friends. The girls listened to Dreamtime stories and painted with Ochre. When we came home, Jacinta and I read stories outside on a blanket while Matt worked on the shed and Evie napped. Eventually I fell asleep and Jacinta went tadpoling with Matt. Matt was joking with Jacinta about what we were going to order for dinner, telling her that we would order boogars and Brussels sprouts, lovely, I know. Even funnier was Jacinta’s response, sounding dramatically annoyed at silly Daddy. “No Daddy, we’ll have Hot chips and Brussels sprouts!” We ended the day at the windy beach with fish and chips, no Brussels sprouts though.

The energy little people get from sand, water, sea air, birds and the freedom of a limitless horizon is just awesome. Matt and I were freezing from the wind, but could not pull them away… and didn’t really want to. They were on fire, Evie ran and jumped, exhilarated by each new pool with her mouth wide open all the while, she rolled over and over in the shallow tide pools. Jacinta did forward rolls, landing on her head, laughing, jumping from tide pool to tide pool, smashing all of the little crab sand designs, digging like a dog. Their physical energy is energizing, but their unconscious mental energy is something we adults can really learn from. You can see the freedom, the undoubting belief in truth, beauty and goodness in their eyes and in their jumps.

I wish us all some of their freedom and beauty.
Have a lovely week.

Love,
Shana

Bye bye Button

2008-10-19T00:11:00.002+11:00

Good evening. I hope you are well and enjoying all surrounding you or at least, coping with it. I am feeling really relaxed and happy with my surroundings at the moment. I had almost two hours alone this evening to garden, surely a good way to begin a peaceful evening, although my back may be sore from wheeling barrows of mulch down the hill. The sounds I hear at the moment are Beethoven’s Emperoro Piano Concerto Number 5, Jedda snoring, Matt watching a movie in the other room, and crickets chirping, all pretty peaceful. I am inhaling the fresh air through the window and the smell of the coffee in my cup, brewed with a hint of nutmeg and cinnamon. Looking out the window, I see nothing in the dark but my reflection in the dirty glass. If I choose to look around the room, I will see piles of clean unfolded laundry, bags waiting to be unpacked from our last outing, a big pile of freshly picked spinach, colorful toys, spilled food and dirty shoes all over the floor, but clean dishes, thanks to Matt. But I am avoiding eye contact with the mess so I can actually focus on something besides the seemingly futile work of cleaning up a room that will be trashed all too soon.

The girls and I have spent a lot of time at home this week, and for the most part we were not ill. Most of the time we had no plans and just let the wind blow us wherever it willed. We spent time outside: hanging laundry, playing with, chasing, and feeding chickens, working and playing in the garden and sandpit, and playing on the little playground. Since I was the only adult around, there was no hope of any extra entertainment. So they had to make use of each other and quite enjoyed themselves. They whined less and played independently, which is a nice change.

What adventures we had. One afternoon I took them on a bike ride to the neighbor’s place, about one kilometer down a weedy gravel road, over cattle grates, bridge and up and down hills. I thought Jacinta might practice on her bike, a bit naïve of me. Jacinta lasted about three minutes on her bike and then ditched it in the grass, saying she’d run alongside. That lasted another three minutes. Keith has always talked about the old days when he carried his three kids to town on his pushbike. I remember being eleven and doing the very same thing with my friends, minus the baby strapped into her seat at the back. So quick thinking, I decided I would “have a go.” Jacinta sat on the bike seat and held onto my hips while I stood and pedaled while Genevieve giggled with delight to have Jacinta up at her level. We did it! Both the neighbors and Matt doubt my intelligence, but hey, nobody got hurt, we had a good time and we made it there and back, remembering to retrieve the little bike from the weeds.

Another adventure this week has been gathering fruit. As the nectarines and plums are so close to being ripe, the girls are wanting to eat more and more each day. Jacinta told me that she has a nectarine tree in her ear. “Do you want to know what it said Mommy?” She then whispered in my ear, “It said, ‘I think I will be ripe next week.’” There are still strawberries, but the turkeys and slugs get most of them. The hunt is still quite entertaining. Our kind neighbors are sharing their white mulberry tree with us, and it is ready for the picking. It is a lovely tree just next to our orchard with low hanging branches and shade. Genevieve can sit alone in the crook of the tree and munch. Jacinta is a hoarder, collecting twenty berries and counting them, but not eating any until she has “enough.” She then sits down to enjoy. Genevieve and I munch while I pick. It is going to be a fruit feast from here on out, unless the fruit bats and turkeys get it all, which seems unlikely.

One morning I suggested we try and harvest a few blackberries. Knowing I would be without adult help, I brought along Genevieve’s highchair and strapped her in to prevent her from following me up the ladder. She was actually quite happy in her little chair watching. I decided to go to the fruitiest part of the tree, and perhaps the most dangerous. Jacinta advised me against this, wanting me to go up on the shed instead, but there were no mulberries up there. There is a defunct rusted out water tank sitting under the tree. Knowing it was not very sturdy I carefully placed my ladder on the edge of the tank and planned to just stand on the ladder, never setting foot on the old tank. I climbed up slowly, as slowly as the old tank collapsed and the ladder sunk with it. It was pretty funny, and again, luck was on my side. Not many mulberries though, that’s when we decided white mulberries would probably taste better anyway.

Chickens were another source of entertainment. Our hens are laying very well, but have become quite bold and a bit scary to Jacinta. She doesn’t spend much time playing in the pen now. The chicks are also growing brave enough to sneak out the holes in the fence so we spent some time chasing chicks and patching up tiny holes in the pen. One night the mother hen and all eleven chicks escaped and fell asleep in the shed. Mid-sleep, we packed them up in a little cage. I kept them locked up in this cage and then in a pen in the garden until the next day when our friend Nelly came to pick up eight of the chicks and a rooster, no mummy hen though. Jacinta was fine with this, understanding that we can not feed them all, nor keep any more roosters, just as long as we kept a few chicks. We tried to catch the wild clucky hen that lives under the house for Nelly but failed on the first day. The next day, I did successfully trap her in a large cage, in addition to a hungry rooster awaiting Nelly. Unfortunately, that night, something hungry dug its way into the cage and devoured both chickens. Ahhh!!! I unintentionally sacrificed these poor chickens, how terrible for them. I’ll get over it and I guess they already have, as they are probably being digested. There is a chance that they both dug their way out to go on a Bremen Town Musician Tour, and just left a few feathers behind to fool us. Or so I can pretend to allay my guilt.

For these amazing birds that entertain us and give us good protein, I have been pondering creating a movable pen that I can use in the garden. They love unused garden bed to scratch up. They do the weeding, till the soil all in search of insects and fertilize the soil. All the materials to create such a pen are lying around here in dangerous piles, no need to purchase anything, except for a real practical idea and some motivation. If everything is in one spot and I needn’t hunt down tools with two girls hanging off me, I accomplish things. But this is often not the case. My friend Anissa is different and luckily has been spending a lot of time here. She is energized by the things that wear me out. So we made the movable pen this week, in addition to clearing a few more garden beds and planting seeds and seedlings while the children played in the sandpit and also pretended to be chickens inside the wire cage while we constructed the little pen.. Two real hens tried it out today, seemed happy for a few hours and did not escape. Bonus.

With no major outings this week, we still did quite a bit of socializing. Since Anissa and the kids were the only ones who came for French class on Monday, we thought we’d switch gears a little. We taught them some gymnastics first, since both of us moms were gymnasts. (I was sore for a few days following). I had playgroup here instead of canceling it because of the rain. All the moms helped out with cleaning and caring so it worked out pretty well. Jacinta had her friend Adelle over to play one day. That same evening Anissa and Craig brought the kids over after dinner for a movie night. The kids eventually slept and we were able to watch and discuss a movie on how Cuba survived Peak Oil because they had to pull together and dive into local organic agriculture to feed themselves and recreate true community. It’s no wonder how little I know about one of the USA’s supposed arch enemies. Cuba is an inspiration, not because of its communist standing in the world but because of its tenacity in dealing with exclusion from the global market. I knew their healthcare system was pretty awesome, but now I know they have even more to teach us in these uncertain times.

I can’t see Western governments humbling themselves to embrace and learn from Cuba’s experience any time soon, given how much flack Obama is getting for the mere mention of his willingness to even sit at a table with Mamhoud Ahmadinejad. Imagine a US president getting advice from a communist nation, hee hee. It seems that many countries forget to look outside their borders for ideas. We can only hope that things are changing now with so much free information floating around.

Floating…well, a jump but…Genevieve took her first swimming lesson this week. She watched Jacinta first, who was delighted to be back in the warm water with her swimming teacher. When it was her turn, slowly and bravely Genevieve marched up to the edge of the pool. She lost her nerve when she realized she was getting in the water with a “stranger,” but stayed in for the whole 15 minute lesson. She floated back and forth with Cheryl, using all the different toys, noodles, kick boards and mirrors that Jacinta uses, whimpering from time to time. That evening she said over and over, “lay down…Cheryl…simming.” She practiced kicking and laying down in the bath tub, it was beautiful.

Matt tried so hard to make it to their swimming lesson, but work has just been really busy. I took a few pictures and movies which made him feel better. He is on call this week which is a bummer, and also had a little stomach flu. Now that the nights are longer, Matt’s trying to work outside a little bit after work, inspired by the major urge to clean up and organize. He and Jacinta worked on putting together the roof racks on the car, which ended up being the wrong size. Today he worked on his storage shed: clearing the space, gathering materials and beginning the foundation. He needed the tractor for something, so Evie had her first tractor ride. She lasted a long while, even clapping and saying, “Yay!” when it was all over, so happy for the ride. Both girls get so excited when Matt comes home from work, following him around for a good while. They must need a change in adult energy and know that he will probably make them giggle.

We have so much fun as a family getting the girls ready for bed, if we are all awake enough for the routine. Tonight Genevieve said, “bye bye button.” She was talking to her belly button who was being locked away in an all in one pajama. Jacinta gloated that she was wearing pajamas in which she could still touch her belly button so logically, Genevieve dove into her big sister’s belly button. Jacinta is unpredictable as to what she will find funny, cute or unacceptable. Today in the car Jacinta decided to “assist” Genevieve in placing a pair of training pants on her head. Genevieve, also unpredictable, found this hilarious. So I drove through town with Evie’s head hidden inside her pink undies. At some point they fell off and she sweetly called out, “Cinta…help….hat.” Jacinta laughed and explained to Evie that she would have to wait until we got home and she could get out of her car seat to put the undies back on her head. Jacinta loves to be a helper, she sits with Evie while she is trying to wee on the potty. Genevieve actually did her first wee on the potty this week, a fluke though.

Good humor, this is a good word for the week. I sometimes forget to laugh with my girls. Sometimes I take my “job” as a mom too seriously, feeling an everlasting need to teach and be an authority figure. I find myself reminding Jacinta to laugh more at Genevieve, rather than getting terribly frustrated. I guess this is best way to learn from ourselves, seeing our own undesirable behaviors come out of our children and realizing that it is a slight problem. I forget that I should probably change myself first, before preaching what I have not learned to practice. I am a woman of too many words, but I’ll try. Laugh a lot, especially at yourself this week, I’ll try too. Take care,

Peace,
Shana

Spring cleaning

2008-10-12T23:43:00.001+11:00

Hello there. Spring is truly here, to prove it, my spring cleaning urge is totally gone. I finished the last grating task on my list, getting rid of the mass of clutter in the girls’ room. It took a few hours of solitude and a little Prairie Home Companion to keep me going. Keith took the girls to Kempsey to visit Mary and the retired residents in her facility for morning tea. I was able to sneak out the give away items and get rid of the trash just as they came down the hill. I become perhaps more attached to the girls’ things than they do because almost everything they have is a gift from someone we love. I remember the history of each item, but also know we can not keep it all and someone else would make better use of certain beloved blankets, clothes and toys. So the dwindling down of the bedroom is actually quite emotional, but also feels good, freeing, creating space to breathe, imagine, move and play. To preserve a few beloved items longer I have decided to make Genevieve a quilt of all of our favorite little clothes that both girls wore. I have also found a few blankets that are close enough in size to sew together and turn them into a big girl blanket. And I wonder why Jacinta has trouble letting go of things…

There are millions of tasks that should have been on my mental spring cleaning list, but alas, they didn’t make the cut. The windows are better off dirty and full of spider webs to catch flies and mosquitoes and to deter birds from flying into them only to end up with broken necks. Yet another beautiful bald headed pigeon slammed into the window and died this week. The girls always put a flower on the birdie’s body as we bury them. These birds are bigger than our bantam chickens, it’s a wonder we don’t cook them up and eat them instead of some other source of protein on our plate. Keith says people used to eat them. Speaking of chickens, we have two more laying hens now, a gift from another friend. Now we have five laying hens and fourteen free loaders  The eggs are lovely, the girls love to find them each afternoon. If Genevieve gets there first she usually cracks one or two, which makes Jedda the dog happy. The chicks are still nice to hold, but very jumpy now.

The area around the chook pen used to be really dangerous, with scraps of jagged metal lying around, planks of wood with protruding nails in piles, scraps of chicken wire lying around and long weeds. Keith dug his heels in and really cleaned up a lot of the mess this week, inspired by his upcoming holiday to South Australia. (He and Mary left yesterday on their big road trip). Matt just finished up the major work on the cellar so he too was able to tick off one of his big tasks, and also get rid of one more danger zone. This weekend Matt ran on the clean up energy further cleaning up the yard, burning off more old vines, sticks, weeds and useless scraps of wood. He is preparing to enlarge and reorganize his tool shed which necessitated a major clean up. Jacinta has always strayed away from these danger zones, but Genevieve is a different child. She is not that firm on her feet yet but is drawn to the danger zones, out of mere curiosity. This weeks’ progress was amazing, especially because it was unexpected.

Any bit of garden progress is unexpected. I set my expectations pretty low given my status as a novice gardener. This way I am pleased with the smallest of things. All of the citrus trees are setting fruit at the moment. The heaven-scented flower petals are dropping off, leaving behind tiny green balls which will grow into limes, lemons and oranges. The two plum trees and one nectarine tree are loaded with fruit, just ripening up. The nectarines should only be another couple of weeks, and the plums will follow shortly after. Jacinta and Genevieve could give a more accurate account on ripeness because they eat a fruit off of each tree each day, just to taste the hint of sweetness and how it gets sweeter every day. Jacinta says she won’t mind if she doesn’t get many ripe nectarines, at least she is beating the fruit fly to them! True.

The terrace garden strawberries took an extra month to get going, but they are finally ready and are the biggest ones yet. I have a lovely patch right outside my bedroom window, but the turkeys steal them when they are still white. They are also back at their old tricks, digging up freshly planted seeds and seedlings. This has made turkey chasing a fun and acceptable activity for the girls and I. Today I planted a patch of corn, but had to cover the seeds with oyster netting to prevent rat, turkey and toddler damage. The garden is at a really exciting, tempting stage. There is a lot of space because the seedlings are all small, little cucumber, bean, potato and tomato plants everywhere. The empty looking dirt makes me want to plant more, but I will try to resist. I want a little bit of everything, but certainly masses of peppers, melons and tomatoes. Today while Matt took the girls out to Bellwood (park/beach), I had time to dream, mulch, plant corn, create a few new teepees for tomatoes and beans to climb, and actually dig through a few weeds and discover young seedlings. Spring is a very hopeful time, I can just see these plants two feet high in a few months. I can see my girls playing hide and seek in between the 30 corn stalks that might be taller than them by December. My mom has always smiled remembering playing in the corn as a little girl. I remember running through corn fields in Montana, Brittany (France), and corn mazes in Michigan and I sure smile thinking of these times. Our girls may also smile looking back in a couple decades. I’d better find a way to make it grow like my Grandma did!

I remember visiting my grandparents as a child and trying out farm life for a week at a time. A week never did it, I was always on the outside. I remember the rodeo and the auction, I never understood. I enjoyed myself no doubt, but I couldn’t really appreciate the beauty of it because I did not belong. Now I go to the local showground a few times a year for different festivals: Pro-Ag, the Macksville Show (Fair), and the Dexter Cattle Show. I see my cousins in the proud teenagers caring for and showing the cattle, horses and sheep and I think I understand now. What a treat to grow up doing something from childhood that you know you can do as a useful trade for the rest of your life, if you so choose. Certainly many of them will go to the city and do something else, but they have that light in them, that pride, the ability to handle massive, mysterious animals and make a living off the land because their parents taught them. They know something about the land on which they live. I had a lot of pride as a teenager, but it was not a pride in home. It was a pride that I thought came from me, myself and I. We all prided ourselves on being accepted by our peers, being different from our parents and siblings, finding our own path, not following anyone, getting good enough grades, doing well in sports, and being confident enough to leave our home town and find a much “cooler” place to get a college education and study something that would make us happy and/or wealthy.

Perhaps these strong-looking teenagers at the showground want the very same things I wanted and maybe they want to leave town as soon as they finish high school. I won’t know until my girls get there. But in any case, I like the little town fairs here, I like belonging. We went to two on Saturday, “Back to Bowra” and “Pro-Ag.” In Bowraville we saw “billy cart races,” which are like little go carts with no motor that get pushed down a hill to see which child rolls to fastest. Jacinta said she will do it next year. We watched the parade down the main street: the Rainbow Serpent (worn by fifteen adults hiding underneath the brightly colored cloth snake body), local clubs on floats, horses, old tractors, and children walking on stilts. We saw men and little girls break boards in a Tai Kwon Do show and a belly dancing show, which inspired Jess and Evie to get up and dance. Bowraville has a strong aboriginal population so councilman Martin welcomed us all to Gumbaynggir country and lead a few traditional dances. Genevieve was a little frightened for some reason. Jacinta innocently asked, “Mommy, why is that man just wearing big red undies?” She didn’t ask about the paint all over their bodies. Nor was she startled by the large women belly dancing, she was just entranced by the beauty of the dance. Dancing is so liberating, I just wish we didn’t stand around spectating. Don’t you think more dancing would do us all some good?

We saw a little black lamb get sheared at Pro Ag, even took home a pile of his wool. We chatted to the solar power people and found out about solar hot water heaters. They seem to be the first step in solar power, meaning the most affordable and most effective at reducing your electricity bill. We watched a magic show with the girls: card tricks, silly jokes, rabbits in hats and all that jazz. Following the show Troppo Bob let the children hold his baby bunnies. Jacinta held on to one black bunny for about ten minutes while she waited patiently for her balloon creature. Genevieve requested a pink fish, but Bob didn’t hear and said, “How about a doggy?” “Yes,” Genevieve replied. At every twist of the balloon, she gently tried to take the balloon. She finally got her doggy and loved it so much she bit and popped him before we made it home. That evening I asked Jacinta what she remembered most about her day and she said, “Holding the fuzzy wool and holding the soft black bunny.” I guess she values her sense of touch like I value my sense of smell.

Matt likes to play around with Jacinta. I think it’s his role in a house full of girls, my dad did the same. Last night Matt asked, “Jacinta, do you have three noses?” After a few years of stupid questions she gave it back to him. She didn’t merely laugh and say, “dad-deeeee.” Her reply was quick and well thought out, “If you come out of someone’s belly, and they only have one nose – that’s how many noses you have. How many noses do you have Daddy?”

This week I wish I did not have a nose, but only a big soft heart to take care of little Evie with her middle of the night stomach flu. I’m sure Matt would agree as he has done most of the clean up. She is her normal cute mischievous self by day, but poor little Genevieve has vomited in the middle of the night, for the last three nights. After she vomits, she is chatty and happy, but wants to go back to bed. Last night, in the cutest, most pathetic voice she could muster, she said, “Hurts…” I asked her what hurt and she said, “Bewwy, Bewwy hurts.” We think she may be through it, fingers crossed. Just as I typed that last sentence, she awoke and needed a nappy change, no vomit. So far so good.

With me getting over my cold and Genevieve with her stomach flu, we have been laying pretty low. I tried to relax at night and actually wanted to watch movies. Matt discovered a good way to convince me to watch West Wing with him: a free shoulder massage. I’ll take any bribe for a back rub. Matt was home Monday and Tuesday which was wonderful for my healing. Jacinta got him to take her to preschool AND pick her up, a big treat to have daddy at preschool.

The girls continue their journey learning how to share space, share attention and appreciate each other. One success is taking turns, Evie repeats over and over until she gets what she wants, “Evie tuhn?” She likes short turns, and will give back the coveted object within a second of receiving it, but then expects it to return just as quickly if she sweetly asks, “Evie tuhn?” Jacinta, as a result of manners drilled into her head, will not give Evie anything if she does not say “please,” and then encourages her to say thank you, which she does. They are very funny, Matt and I find ourselves laughing often at the girls, which feels great.

All is well out here. I can hear a rodent attempting to sneak in the front door, ick. I shall leave you and try to discourage the intruder. Good night.

Peace,
Shana

Pride and Mischief

2008-10-06T22:28:00.002+11:00

Good evening loved ones, cough, cough. I hope you are enjoying the lovely scent of autumn all around you. My nose hasn’t been lucky enough to sniff the fermenting leaves and fires for three years now. I am very smell-oriented, cough, cough. This scent stayed in me for a long time, I could inhale deeply and summon this scent to mind, but it seems to have disappeared. I hope that arriving in the US in early December there will still be a little of this scent in the air to replenish me, cough, cough.

My chest infection has decided to stay a while. I stayed home this week and tried to stop talking for a little while, but I am not very good at that. I rested a little bit. Keith took the girls out a few times, to help me out. But of course, I did not rest as I should have. I gardened and cleaned as fast as I could to make use of the time. I did rest a little though. I actually sat and played in the sandbox with the girls, rather than gardening in the sun while they play in the shade. We turned a sand mountain into a volcano with baking soda and vinegar. I am exhausted by the end of each day though, so my body forces me to sleep early. It seems to be the only way to stop coughing at night. The girls don’t mind me being sick though. My temper is a bit shorter, I wonder if they notice. Probably. Jacinta thoughtfully said, “Mommy…you’re still a good mommy…even with that yucky sickness.”

Sweet Jacinta, she is full of kind words these days. When we say good night to the girls, we always say, “I love you,” just like my parents always did. Jacinta sometimes thoughtlessly mumbles, “I love you too…” Last night she surprised me when I told her “I love you.” She thought a moment and strongly replied, “I love you too Mommy. I love you more than anything in the whole wide world.” What a rewarding development. Besides incessant comparisons and competitions, Jacinta is learning the art of honest flattery. She said to Matt that same evening, “Daddy, I love you sixty-four million. I love you more than anything in the whole wide world.” Luckily in her explorations of the superlative, there is room for more than one at the top.

Our newly formed chicken flock doesn’t seem to have determined their pecking order yet. Rather than sleeping on their roost and battling it out who gets the prime spot on top, they all scrunch up into one corner on top of their laying box. Sometimes I pick them up mid-sleep and relocate them on the roost, only to discover an intruding rooster hiding underneath the brown hen’s bum. In addition to the three laying hens, we came across a bantam (small) hen in Keith’s shed who had just hatched eleven chicks. So the flock has just gone from 3 to 15, plus a desperate rooster or two. The roosters have lost their will to roam free. They either sit outside the pen looking in all day long, or simply fly in and hang out with the hens. It is interesting that they choose imprisonment rather than liberty, just to get a little action from hens that are too large for them anyway. I understand all boys’ schools now.

Like the roosters, Jacinta too is in love with the chickens, but mainly the chicks. She was able to grab the little chicks for the first few days but now the mother hen has become more aggressive so I have to grab the chicks for Jacinta to cuddle a few times a day. She’ll sit with a chick for as long as it will let her, sometimes set it upon the greens she has gathered and always says goodbye with a nuzzle on the cheek. Today all of the chickens escaped through a half-open door, so we had an adventure getting them all back home safely, nets, chasing, cages and all. Matt was the star of the show, I never knew he was such a clever chicken chaser. He seemed rather annoyed though. I on the other hand, while running and chasing them further from their pen, actually smiled and thought, “Wow, this is great fun!” Although I don’t have the sense to steer them in the right direction, I did catch Madame Poule with a net and was quite proud. Jacinta and Genevieve (well…somewhat) guarded the door to the pen and made sure they all stayed in while we chased the rest.

The girls are both getting so big and confident. Genevieve and I picked Jacinta up from preschool on Tuesday, with her bike in the front seat, some popcorn and a mango to share. We went to the duck pond in town to play, an outing we love more each time we go. Jacinta was straight out the car and on her bike, riding as fast as she could, back and forth under the beautiful shady tree cover. Genevieve and I went to a bench and dove into the popcorn, feeding ourselves and the moorhens, and watching the amazing birdlife on the islands in the middle of the pond: cranes, spoonbills, ibis, galahs, rainbow lorikeets. Jacinta looked joyful, carefree, and confident. I know she is truly enjoying herself when she does great things without the need to know I am watching. Not once did she say, “Look at me!” But of course, I was.

Jacinta went to playgroup without us on Thursday, but with a friend of mine. It was a dress-up day and she went as a butterfly. We had fun making her costume. It felt strange sending off my beautiful butterfly and missing out on her flight. She never gives much detail when she spends time away from me, but she told me about a few sweet treats and playing on a huge play structure. She talked about sliding down the pole, with help. She has mentioned before that her other friends Lily and Adelle can both go down without help, more amazed by their ability than feeling sorry for herself. Friday I took the girls to a new park and there happened to be a pole there. Jacinta worked on that pole until she could do it alone. Genevieve climbed across this scary hoopy thing over and over while I followed closely below with my hands ready to catch her if she fell. But climbers are climbers, and of course, she never fell. Siblings are good to teach that important lesson that we all have different gifts. Jacinta openly admitted that she was too scared to even step on the thing that her little sister could do. She was proud that she had mastered the pole and that was “her thing.”

Genevieve’s thing is climbing. She climbed higher this week than ever before. It is mulberry season now so there is a need for a big ladder, for the mulberry tree is much taller than the guava tree. Usually Keith climbs the ladder and fetches the berries alone, but I joined him a few days ago and I can see why he goes alone now. It is physically impossible to restrain Genevieve from climbing that ladder. She understands the word “no” now, but her physical will is so much stronger than one little word and sometimes my strength. The ladder is like a magnet sucking her in. We all went swimming at the neighbor’s pool the other day and again, she found an even higher ladder to a slide that even scared me. I shook in my boots as I stood at the bottom, doing all I could to make sure she didn’t tumble. But of course, she slipped down safely and loved the steep metal slide, hand made by our neighbor.

Our little climber is also mischievous, nothing like her sister at this age. Jacinta didn’t really toy with mischief, if I remember correctly. Genevieve’s will to experience is much more powerful than her will to please. In the past few weeks, I have had to clean up more “experiential messes” than ever before: sunscreen, water, juice, goldenseal ointment, flour, porridge, and rice. Yesterday the girls helped paint a plank of wood for the cellar (Matt is back in action on it). I stripped them down ahead of time, knowing it would be messy. But Genevieve immediately gave up on the plank of wood, her belly really needed to be blue. Genevieve’s mischief inspires the same in Jacinta, who a few minutes later joined Genevieve in her blueness.

Matt took the girls to Mount Yarrahappini to explore the creek and look at the waterfall this morning. Laughing at the insanity of it all later on, he described Genevieve as a maniac with a death wish. She started off walking in one inch deep puddles in her gum boots, and soon enough, went in up to her knees, and eventually sat down in the cold creek, and lay back to look up at the trees. Matt and I took the girls canoeing Sunday morning at low tide. It was rough getting the canoe out over the muck, but Matt did well. Getting the girls and I through it was perhaps the worst part. With our boots stuck under the mud, we became immobile. I fell flat on my behind with Genevieve in my arms and Jacinta next to me, about to have a meltdown. After carrying the canoe out, Matt came back and helped us out, all leaving our boots behind and trudging barefoot, sinking six inches below the surface with each step. It was a rough start but we had a nice time once we got going. The girls both get antsy after about 20 minutes, so Genevieve in her bulky life jacket leaned out of the canoe to touch the water. I’ll do anything to keep us out on the water, so I counterbalanced her with my weight. Eventually she leaned in so far she got her hair wet, and put her feet in. Jacinta, again, was inspired by her little sister’s idea of entertainment and joined in. Genevieve is fearless in many ways, and very trusting, I’d bet that most children her age are too. I remember that Jacinta used to be almost fearless. I guess fear and caution come with experience, a little later.

When Matt takes Genevieve out in the kayak, she seems calm, restrained and perhaps even cautious. It may be the way she is held between his legs while he paddles. Both girls look so peaceful and content sitting in Matt’s lap while he does all the work. They take turns going out, but both like the feel of the water rushing through their fingers and the hunt for duck feathers floating on the surface. Matt doesn’t get to go out as much as he’d like, it is still a treat. He snuck off one afternoon as soon as he got home, since the girls were busy playing with Keith. Jacinta found out and was pretty sad. Needless to say, he’ll probably say hello first next time.

Work for Matt has been very busy, for there are lots of sick people. A hospital overload means a case overload so he is running to and fro. But lo and behold, he is in the middle of a four day weekend. So he dove back to work on the cellar, insulating the walls, filling holes, trying to make it efficient and rodent proof. One recent joy Matt had was the arrival of Matthew Fox’s latest book, The Hidden Spirituality of Men, in which my Matt has an eight-page essay printed in full, including two of his own songs. Upon request, Matt wrote this essay on the paternal heart a while back, not really knowing how Fox might use it. The first he heard of it was a few weeks ago when a friend emailed to congratulate him on the essay, having read it in the book. Needless to say, Matt (Henry) is feeling pretty happy about the whole thing. Otherwise, one of Matt’s major interests at the moment is the US election, obsessed by the polls and news articles. We both received our absentee ballots this week. He is an eager voter as am I, but he even took a photo of his ballot, so proud of his choice. Jacinta helped me vote today, it’s all very exciting.

We were anxious for the Vice Presidential Debates this week. I couldn’t wait to hear both Biden and Palin speak, not having heard either of them speak, unedited by the media. I taped it while Matt was at work, as it was on at 10am here. We sat down that evening with a glass of good red wine to enjoy. I’ll spare you detail, but just say that I liked them both as humans with a good sense of humor and good intentions, a much more pleasant tone than the McCain/Obama debate. I thought Governor Palin was a slight bit more intelligent than the media has made her out to be, although she did make up her own questions (as I tend to do). I was not convinced of her ability to lead this US out of the rut we are in. Again, I agree with Biden’s plans and policies and am more convinced by his ability to lead a country. Obviously I don’t live in the US and have not been bombarded with the overwhelming media like you all have been because I was actually sad when the debate ended. Just two days until the next one!

Another exciting event was the arrival of a package I ordered from Amazon.France about a month ago. I have in my hands a novel written by my Senegalese host brother, Massamba Diadhou, published and for sale on Amazon. This is amazing, and really good reading to nourish the Franco-Senegalese side of me. I can hear him speaking through his characters. I know which traits of his main character are a mirror of his own personality or what he aims to be. I can see the places he describes, and hear the same stories Massamba and his siblings told me echoed in this book. I also ordered a few children’s movies in French, so now Jacinta is watching a cartoon about a little boy who lives with monks and talks to animals. Music speaks to her more than anything. She has already fallen in love with the theme song. I told her we could learn it too. Breathlessly she replied, “No mommy, this is the prettiest song ever and only they can sing it like this.” This inspires her to watch the little 20 minute stories as much as she is allowed.

It’s hard to be ill and have this much excitement in one week, but yet another event happened and required energy and voice. Our food co-op met and began discussing how to become a “Transition Town.” http://transitiontowns.org (There are a few transition towns in the USA, Boulder, Co is one.) It will be years before we can truly organize ourselves, but we have opened the discussion. We know there are hundreds of people in this valley who would agree on the need for these type of changes, it is just the question of how and if we have the energy to gather and do something together. The individual will is there, so it will be interesting to see how we make it a collective will, at least for those already convinced. For now, I’m just doing a little research...and trying to garden, cook simply and play more in the sandbox with the girls.

We made a volcano in the sand, with baking soda and vinegar, very exciting as Jacinta has never even heard the word, volcano. Another simple joy is that Genevieve now tells you when she needs a nappy change. After the announcement, she goes to the couch and lies down flat, awaiting relief. Jacinta’s big news is her new suitcase, special for big girls who are flying to America for Christmas. She is packed, literally, and ready to go. Her suitcase contains eleven books and five sweaters and is wheeled around the house constantly. “Mommy, I feel like we are leaving tomorrow!” Two months, tomorrow, what’s the difference to a four year old?

Matt has put a few more movies on our website and will put a new one on this week so have a look if you get a chance, www.paintedguitar.com

Have a lovely October, enjoy the scent. If anyone can figure out how to bottle it, please send me some!!!

Peace,
Shana

Chicken celebration

2008-09-28T23:09:00.001+10:00

Good evening loved ones. Spring has fully arrived. The fire place no longer burns in the evenings, but is now covered in puzzles. The girls have finally gotten rid of their colds. They can play in the sprinkler and play with buckets of water in the sandbox. Jacinta made soups in her outdoor kitchen with water even in the colder weather, but Genevieve can only play with water when it is warm. She is very happily making soups now too. Both girls love the huge aloe plants around the place, and especially enjoy playing with the green goop inside each leaf. Jacinta has been making aloe soup!

Spring energy is in the air, Jacinta can feel her little body growing into a longer, stronger one that can take more risks and act more independently. She loves preschool and doesn’t seem to mind leaving us at home for the day. “Daddy and I both need a day out of the house.” She will run down to the garden ahead of me to hunt for strawberries, sad if we come too quickly after. “When I grow up I am going to be treasure hunter. The only time I’ll stop is on the weekends, like daddy.” A few of the only seedlings that have sprouted are her alyssum seeds and one cucumber seed. The rats dug up most of the others. She proudly waters them each day and is starting to pot up extra seedlings too. She is very proud to row with her own paddle on the canoe. This weekend Matt took Jacinta and two of her little friends out on the dam in the canoe. She proudly told them all what needed to be done, (she never turns down an opportunity to tell you what to do).

Jacinta’s questions are growing in depth to equal her physical growth asking things like, “When does forever end?” Her songs are also growing in detail. This week she made up her first song in French. As she sung it to me, I saw what they mean of the folk soul of a language. When she presented it to me, it took her a few moments to begin as she had to dig deep inside to pull out a different side of herself. It was a quiet and beautiful song about leaves of different colors and sizes. I think she likes this different persona in both her mother and herself because she starts speaking little bits of French now, even when I forget and speak English. She says, “Ok, let’s pretend I only speak French and you only speak English.” We don’t get very far though 

To add to the new energy of the season, our friends popped over with a gift Wednesday morning: three laying hens for our newly built chook pen. Jacinta, Genevieve and I quickly got dressed after the phone call offering chickens. I had just bought our first 25 kilo bag of organic chicken feed the day before, so we found a garbage can and tipped it all in. We set up their water and food, laid wood shavings in their laying box and dusted the walls. Then came Anissa, Lily and Henry down the hill with a cardboard box full of chickens. What joy, it is a totally new life having our own chickens to care for. They are all locked up in their shady weedy chicken run, and lay eggs in a logical place for us to see. They can not escape or lay eggs in hidden locations. We get to eat them! Usually chickens stop laying when they are relocated, but our new ladies have been laying since the first day, so far at least. Jacinta and Genevieve can go to the chook pen alone, check for eggs, play, feed them, fill up their water, and even shovel their manure into a bucket for the garden. We have a great place for our kitchen scraps and a reason to go outside as soon as we wake in the morning. There are two black ones, “Horch,” named by Genevieve, “Madame Poule,” named by me, and one brown hen, “Brownie brownie oldie oldie moldy foldy weehah,” named by Jacinta. The poor hens, having such silly names. I’m guessing Jacinta will change her hen’s name weekly. The three roosters are going crazy trying to get into the pen, one actually made it in today. I had fun chasing him out.
Our friends stayed around for a while after the chickens had been welcomed. We celebrated all day long. We made our first smoothies of the season. The girls went off holding hands in search of lichen on dead branches, but needed some help. So I took the babies out and we all went on a treasure hunt. Other than one fight over a tree between Lily and Jacinta, we had a lovely time, rolling down the neighbors’ hill, picking flowers, climbing trees, stumps, fences and the hill. All the while, Anissa had brought her box of seeds and offered to plant as many as she could in my garden. A surprise garden, what a treat. When her little Henry started to cry for her, I decided to take the babies down to see the neighbors’ cows in the double stroller. This was a new sensation, taking two tiny people down the bumpy hill to find cattle. When we found the cows, Henry’s tears stopped and turned into giggles as he reached out to touch the cows. The girls eventually came barreling down the hill to join us. So we walked back towards the cows and to the bridge to toss pebbles into the water, to “go plop,” as Evie calls it. Having four kids to myself was really nice, for 90 minutes, perhaps as nice as Anissa’s 90 minutes of alone time planting. The children are getting old enough that we can do this. We are just figuring out how to take turns with the children. So far so good.

Wednesday night Anissa and I went out to Bellingen for a meeting for a Local Food Network. It was not “local” for us, but we were looking for inspiration and ideas and that is exactly what we found. Bellingen shire is part of a “Peak Oil Transition Initiative” that aims to gradually wean cities off of dependence on oil and onto greener alternatives. Amongst other things, they want to be able to feed themselves when the trucks stop bringing food to the supermarket from afar, when petrol becomes so rare and expensive that food transport becomes a luxury item, as it was in the past. It was shocking to sit in a room with so many people who actually believe this is a real possibility and are taking action to wean themselves before all the chaos strikes. I still drive to town to do everything and can’t imagine what I would do. I think I could deal with living off the land, but I don’t know how we will fly across the Pacific Ocean without petrol. I can’t imagine it all actually happening but I admire people for taking action to reduce petrol dependence. They are forming committees for market gardens, teaching gardens, community gardens, transport, social support, seed saving, and education. It was in Bellingen, a very progressive hippy town, so its other worldliness was to be expected. It did the trick though. Anissa and I had a night out, were inspired and got a lot of ideas to bring back to our little food co-op, “Friendly Food.”

One idea was swapping labor, taking turns doing major work on each others’ gardens. So Anissa, acting quickly suggested we try it this weekend. Saturday Anissa and Craig brought their three children here and we shocked our terrace garden into shape. We weeded paths, weed-whacked, trimmed overgrowth, repaired a leaning terrace, added a new terrace, dug in new steps so you can walk safely down the terraces, and cleared out dangerous stumps. We all took turns with the kids in the sandpit, in the sprinkler, Matt took them canoeing, Keith took them on a lawnmower ride to collect cow manure for fertilizer, and Mary played with Genevieve on the swings. Sunday we went to their house to repair their chicken dome and move it to a new place in the garden. Anissa mowed the grass and weed whacked, Matt and Craig built a solar wax melter and I did a few small jobs but mainly entertained the kids. Both days were good fun, hot and full days. The kids are surely sleeping well at night. It would have taken weeks, perhaps months for me to do the terrace garden without this day. And all of the machine work, I can not do at this point in time. There is no doubt that many hands make light work, and it is a lot more fun too. I understand why there are so many television shows that you can watch people make major improvements on other people’s houses. It’s exciting to see it done, but perhaps even more fun to participate.

There have been so many tasks on my mental to do list that I ticked off this week. Making the terrace garden safe, mending a pile of clothes, re-doing the girls’ drawers for spring, organizing a messy accumulation of important papers, learning how to make pita bread, meeting up with a French lady in town and making fruit fly baits, all these things are done! Getting sick again wasn’t on my list, but I suppose it is my turn as the girls have stopped coughing. Matt and I wanted to take the girls on a canoe ride down the creek which runs through our neighbors’ farm and we did. They loved it! They seemed much more at ease in a small body of water, rightly so. They loved ducking under the low hanging tree branches and “plopping” dead branches into the water. I could not tick off, “get rid of our friendly cupboard mouse.” It is still here, making the girls giggle and search, and me scream when I come upon it unexpectedly.

It wasn’t on my list, but spending more time on my own was something I did this week. It is hot now, so Keith has filled up the spa. He took the girls for a little swim a couple times this week. Genevieve came back so tired, she actually told him she needed to sleep. (I gave her lunch first and she fell asleep in her chair.) The girls love painting with patient Poppy, and they had a chance to do so this week, while I cleaned the house. Before dinner they often seek out Keith to turn on a record and dance with them, tiding them over until Matt gets home or I finish dinner. I went out with Anissa Wednesday night, then went out again with my friend Trish after choir on Thursday night. What is going on? The girls had daddy two nights in a row and it all went smoothly, besides Genevieve’s recent surge of mid-sleep restlessness. Matt had to laugh when Evie one night after she laid down and submitted to the idea of sleep, she said, “The End,” and fell asleep.

I am just in love with these girls, they make me laugh, work harder, think harder, reach for beauty to share with them and sing more. I love their songs, the French songs they sing without me, Jacinta’s made up songs, and the ones she has silently learned in choir and surprises me by singing along with me at home. I love the sounds they make when they think they are in their own world, totally ignorant that anyone else is listening. I love the way they sing normal children’s songs like Old MacDonald. Genevieve starts this one off on her own, “Oink Oink, ee-i-ee-i-o,” hoping that we’ll all join in. Matt gets a kick out of Genevieve’s farm, she goes back and forth between a duck and a pig. Matt suggested a chicken….”NOoooooo,” she coyly replied. Jacinta commented this week that Genevieve is the nicest to touch because she is the youngest and her skin feels the softest. Jacinta may have a break down anytime her little sister comes near something she is playing, but hopefully this is a phase that will soon pass. I think they are as in love with each other as we are with them. They just have little power struggles from time to time, we all do I suppose.

Speaking of power struggles, Matt and I were able to see the US presidential debates in full this weekend. Me oh my, it was good to hear them both speak. Although I disagree with McCain’s policy choices on numerous issues, I do respect him and think he is an intelligent, well-traveled, well-spoken man. He surely succeeded in playing the experience card, repeating the phrase a few too many times, “Now Senator Obama doesn’t understand this, but…” McCain does have more experience, true, but he was belittling Obama a bit much. To me, Obama is also a very intelligent, respectable, well thought out man with whom I agree on most issues. He responded well to every one of McCain’s attempts to act like his experience in war, in Washington and around the world was going to make him the only man for the job. McCain’s great experience will prepare him for more of the same. Obama’s passion and experience will prepare him for innovation and change, which seems to be what we need. There are major differences between the two. So the skeptics that say, “they are all the same,” are terribly wrong. It’s hard to know who is telling the truth when they bash each other on voting records. Aren’t they supposed to vote on behalf of their constituents anyway? Sometimes they give in for the sake of the party or one part of a bill, so to tell what they really believe from that is difficult. All in all, I loved the debate. I’m happy to know both candidates are at least intelligent and have both stood up for some of the things I believe in. I sure hope for Obama’s passion and energy, but I won’t cry like I did when Bush got elected if McCain gets in. Well, I don’t know, he doesn’t seem to believe in nuclear proliferation, universal health care, or more equality in education.
To deal with the 700 billion dollar bail out, he would freeze spending for all but three things: military, veterans benefits and …one more thing, I forget. He is honest, no doubt but that says something to me about where his priorities are.

It seems so far away, and so important. But all I can do from here is wait for the next debate. For now, we’ll celebrate our girls and the chickens and the eggs we now have in our back yard. We had an eggy meal the other night to celebrate. Jacinta and I cooked for two hours straight while Genevieve napped. We made soufflé, strawberry cake, potatoes and asparagus. She tried out using a big girl knife and did very well under supervision. Another proud achievement she can stack in her little hat. She hated the soufflé and wouldn’t touch the asparagus, but we had a lovely time cooking together anyway.

We may not agree on everything, but one thing we all can do together and do well, is eat. We may not like every part of the meal, but hopefully enough of something to get by. Some or all of our food may have traveled thousands of miles to make it to our plates, but there is still some petrol out there to bring our food to us and take us to the shop to buy it. It may cause wars and cost a lot of money, but it is what it is until we change it.

Peace,
Shana

How ya goin?

2008-09-22T23:10:00.002+10:00

Good evening. Today is our Spring Equinox and your Autumn Equinox. There sure seem to be some ugly economic problems and justified anxiety in the US at the moment. It’s probably not such a concern that the seasons are changing. It’s understandable, it seems like a pretty intense time. But just a few hours ago marked the perfect balance between light and dark, twelve hours of each. It’s time to let go of the things that aren’t working, move on to new ideas, to feel the balance of the dark and the light and search for such balance in our own lives. From here on out, our days will gradually overpower our nights as your nights will gradually overpower your days. You’ll laugh at what pagan hippies we are becoming, but we had an Equinox celebration with our friends last night. None of us had ever planned such a thing, so it took some major preparation. I am actually quite relieved. We didn’t dance around the fire or anything, but it was lovely to mark the season together.

Mainly we planned activities for the children, much safer to get them to do things we don’t have the courage to do. We set up a balance beam with ice on one side and flowers on the other, (Matt’s idea). I acted out a sprouting seed behind a curtain, while the children played the role of the sun and the rain. Anissa made “hairy caterpillars” with them, putting cotton balls in egg cartons with alfalfa seeds on top to be watered. The kids all brought “treasures” to decorate the nature table, surrounding the little handmade beeswax candles that Anissa and I made with our girls. Craig robbed his beehive for the occasion and brought containers full of fresh honeycomb for us all to take home. Sara dried and crumbled herbs to sprinkle in the fire. Spinach, asparagus and artichokes are all in season so we had a little bit of each, all home grown. We feasted on dishes, funnily enough, all containing spinach. Luckily it was dark by the time we ate so the children couldn’t see what color they were eating. We enjoyed ourselves, although it’s hard not to with a bright fire and stars above your head.

The weather has been good, warm enough to garden first thing in the morning. With strawberries to hunt and the nectarines getting bigger each day, I don’t have to drag anyone down to the garden. It is even warm enough to get wet, let the girls water the plants and play in the sprinkler. This morning I set Genevieve up in the sandpit with a big bucket of water and lots of little cups, quite a treat after being deprived of water play for a while. The mosquitoes are on their way, but not out in full force yet so we are making use of our freedom thus far. We spent some time planting seedlings, playing with dirt, planting new native shrubs and flowers, watering everything, bagging fruit in the trees as fruit fly protection, and of course, strawberry hunting. I spent a few hours in the dark planting potatoes, their sprouts were over four inches long so they could not wait any longer. My back was sore the next day from wheeling barrow loads of compost and mulch down the hill, but it was worth it, knowing such a task would have been impossible with the girls.

On the night of the full moon, Matt and the girls and I went out on the veranda to watch bats and to watch the moon rise. The bats are amazing here, their wingspan looks like it is surely over a foot wide. After a while we laid out a few blankets and Evie fell asleep looking up at the stars with the sound of large bat wings filling her ears. Matt played with his new camera snapping shots of anything he could.

Matt seems pretty happy: having a good job, lovely little girls and me , a kayak to release some energy and a new camera to fiddle with. If he gets home early enough from work and can see that I am in no great need, he puts on his massive black gum boots and runs down to grab the kayak. On Friday he got home in time to grab the girls and I to go canoeing. Dinner may have been terribly late, but it was worth it. Canoeing at dusk when nothing but dinner is left of the day. Matt finished up the chook pen yesterday, so complete that all we need now is grain, straw and some chickens. The girls and I joke about decorating the walls of the pen for the chickens,

I too am well, content, peaceful now, and very tired. Genevieve is still a terrible sleeper but she’ll grow up some day. Each morning she wakes before 6am, having slept the last few hours in our bed in hope of keeping her asleep until at least 6. Matt and I grumble around while she tries her hardest to will us out of bed. Eventually she gets me (or Matt sometimes) by saying, “Nappy?” “Drink of Water?” If that doesn’t work, she pulls on me saying, “Come on.” “get up!” She tries to dress me, “Jumpa? Slippers, socks?” I need to go to bed earlier but just can’t, so I am grumpy with her for waking. It’s not right, I know. Choir is good fun, I am also practicing my guitar more. I am feeling well connected to my family. My mom has just sent me a few cds of her piano music, and just today a cd of her reading stories to the girls. I hear my mom’s voice now any time I turn on her cd. My dad and Barb called today and we were able to spend Saturday with Matt’s dad and Carolyn.

After dance on Saturday, we took the girls out to Koala Park to meet Matt’s dad and Carolyn. It was nice to go on a long drive as a passenger. I was able to sew en route: a few screen sleeves to protect the fruit trees from fruit fly. Genevieve slept and Jacinta entertained herself pretty well. We don’t see Pete and Carolyn too much, so it was quite a special day, not to mention the animals. We pat koalas, fed kangaroos, held baby guinea pigs, watched quolls hunt, and checked out all the birds and reptiles. I don’t think I have ever fed a kangaroo out of my hand, what a thrill. Jacinta was able to feed crushed corn to a momma kangaroo and the joey in her pouch, it was beautiful.
One highlight was meeting their first chatty cockatoo. Over and over she said, “hello! How ya goin?” Supposedly she was shocked to hear an animal speak, but eventually she got used to it and now expects all birds to talk, hee hee.

Be thankful for the short journal tonight. Genevieve fell asleep in her chair at the table this afternoon, as I am falling asleep here at the computer.

Take care my friends,
Shana