On Having A Busy Brain

Man I wish I could be like some of the people I know!

Me as a cadet... Photo taken by local reporter

I wish I could just choose one or two creative endeavors and just buckle down and be amazing at them.  It's never a thing I have been able to do.  Even at high school I struggled to balance school work with Cadets, a part time job*, a boyfriend, school plays and other extra curricula activities.  During my first year at University I also worked three jobs - concurrently, and managed a social life.  My life has always been more hectic than life seems like it should be.

But now I'm starting to rise from the sleep-deprived haze of parenting small children, I'm realising that aside from the kids, my life will probably always be hectic.

I wish this was not the case.  Because it's just logical to me that if you direct a good chunk of your time, thought and energy into one place then you will have more experience behind you to become really good at that thing.  Regardless of what that thing is.  Especially if it's something that's interesting to you (why would anyone bother with anything else?).  Whether it's parenting, or breeding roses or swimming.  Focus usually gets results.

And if you are focused on that one thing, when you aren't thinking about it your brain can maybe have a rest.  Watching a movie is relaxing.  Computer games are relaxing.  Reading is for fun, and maybe also relaxing.  Maybe when your brain has exhausted its focus on that one thing it will allow you to sleep at night.  And that would ensure you had more energy to refocus on that thing in the morning.

Me having a compulsory kanikani in the booth on Family Feud.  So fun!

I have never had focus.  And up until recently, I was fairly sure this inability to do just one (or two) things was a coping mechanism.  Always busy.  Seldom (but sometimes**) in the spotlight.  Excited about the prospects of multiple projects.  Happily rushing along wherever life has taken me.  And maybe this idea is right.  It makes sense given my background and mental health history.  But I recently started to think if maybe I'm supposed to be like this.

Grandin's books are always an interesting read

I've been reading a lot of Temple Grandin lately (after having enjoyed some other books on animal psychology) and am currently reading one of her most recent books on autism (as well her work with animals she is also very well known for talking about and investigating her own autism).  And it made me start thinking.  Obviously, initially about Etta, because despite this not being her diagnosis there are many things she shares with folk with ASD (in particular sensory issues, fixations and difficulty managing her own feelings).  But also in reading a generic checklist of sensory issues, I realised I tick a lot of boxes myself.

I think most people will probably relate to some of the issues.  But when I went through Grandin's list (very helpfully accompanied by management techniques) I realised there were two sections where I either struggled, or still struggle, with more than 50% of the things on the list (auditory processing and olfactory).  And this helped me realise how I crave over-stimulation: I struggle with quiet (usually have mindless TV in the background to soothe my mind), I have a slight obsession with foods and smells, I struggle to just sit still let alone stop talking.  I talk to myself constantly.  When I reflect on this It's not hard to see why I struggle to focus.  A constant hum seems to help me navigate the world but it's also very distracting. 

Patchwork - one of my favorite two player boardgames

So now I am considering that some of us are destined never to be great at one thing.  Because some of us can never just sit down and do one thing.  I have never been able to pick one creative endeavor I love more than any other.  I love writing.  I love cooking.  I love singing.  I love reading.  I love gardening.  I love drawing.  I love designing/making books.  I love photography.  I love animals and wine and board-games and knitting and film.  I cannot choose any one of those things that I love above any other.

And sometimes when I start working on one thing (knitting) it will automatically make me want to do another thing (making jam) because something about it will remind me of the other thing.  And then something about that thing (the colour of jam) will make me think about another thing (painting, or glass work or planting seeds) and then I will be off on a new tangent of passion.

Attack of the Karate Devils (2006) Knitted Painting

If someone asked me what my greatest talent was I would tell them that it was my ability to make connections between things.  Many aspects of education were simple for me because I remembered facts easily and could fit ideas together naturally.  And the reason I did well in writing essays was my ability to connect seemingly disparate things with ease.  It has aided me in everything - whether through making links between knitting and pixels, understanding how to structure layered incentive programs or writing info sheets for varying basic gut health issues.  Every one of those things came down to me connecting the dots.

So I think maybe I am not meant to be good at one thing.  Maybe I am meant to be interested in many things and use those varied interests to make connections.  Maybe those connections will somehow, at some point in time, be useful in some way.  Maybe they already are and I just don't know because my skill is not to recognise usefulness, but to just make connections.

I guess this is a form of self acceptance - I hope so.  I hope I'm not just excusing poor mental health management techniques.  I hope accepting being like this is ok.  And I think probably it is.  What I am working on now is creating structures so that I can at least get to the end point of creative endeavors rather than leaving them cluttering up computers and cupboards.

Plum and Crab-apple Jelly - just gorgeous!

I think most of the reason I prefer working collaboratively is that I have other people to answer to.  Being so far from my tertiary days in both time and life, collaborating with others is now trickier.  So I've started delegating people to be my 'boss' on certain projects so I can set deadlines that I (choose to) believe has an external affect.  They don't even have to do anything, read or see anything - they just have to pretend they're my boss so it creates the illusion that my self enforced deadlines matter.   

I've started setting short term, mid-term and long-term creative goals so that each year I can explore something exciting, whilst still plodding away at a constant practice (currently that's my Suburban Birds project), while having room for quicker turn around projects (jam, baking, crafts).

I'm hopeful that this will help me feel less envious of my talented peers.  And I'm hopeful that while I do not imagine my brain will ever not be busy, maybe instilling a little more order will help me feel calmer, and more able to watch movies for fun.

* OMG I loved this job so much.  It was just a cafe job but it truly has shaped me as a human being in so many ways that I am still grateful for it over 20 years down the track.  I am still so grateful for that time, and the people I met during that time, and how they grew me into who I am now.  It forged my love of cooking, food and counting money.  Cheesy I know, but still very true.

** When mental health allows it.  I love doing little bits of film, tv and ad work and love love LOVED being on Family Feud (have always wanted to be on a game show!)  I have been featured in varying publications over time for so many different things - advice on IBS and gut health, singing, making art, cadets.  Admittedly most of that has been about time and place though.  And dressing like a hipster before 'hipster' was a term is something that gets you noticed..

On having another silly accident

Happy New Year!

Sorry I haven't posted for a while.  Christmas is always a pretty busy time of the year for me with extra shifts at work, extra cooking and activities with the kids.  And this Christmas I also managed to do myself a small, but significant injury.

I am a mostly stay at home Mum.  I do also work part time with the lovely team at Stevens Westcity and we had a combined Christmas work dinner with Farmers at The Vodka Room.  Now while in my not so distant youth I partook in far more tipples than ever advised, since having children this has changed.  While I am partial to one or two glasses of wine I have only exceeded three glasses* on two occasions post-pregnancy - the Christmas work dinner was the second of these occasions.

   I'm a winner!  Wish I had a trophy though...

I had a most fabulous night!  I was friendly to all, gave useful advice ('just be the boss Amos!'), and encouraged everyone to get up onto the dance floor and shake it.  I even won the title of 'Best Dancer' (thus earning the nick-name at work of 'Dancing Queen') and scored me a movie gift card!  And, I managed to be home by 1am as had work the next day.


Buuuut, the other side of that was that in earning my supreme dancer award, I had a couple of falls.  I am not competent at walking in heeled shoes.  I am less competent in dancing in heeled shoes, and I am even less capable again (it turns out) at hootchie dancing in heeled shoes when intoxicated.  So I kinda fell over on my heels a few times.  And while none of these were serious falls, because of my fabulously unco nature, one of those falls resulted in an unexpected injury.

At the time - in spite of my intoxicated state - I knew I had hurt myself.  I had over-extended my thumb when putting my hand out to soften my fall and, having sprained a thumb before, this was precisely what I thought I had done.  It was a bit sore, but not terrible, so I got back to the business of getting down.

One very expensive taxi ride later I got home, bored Murray with tales of drunken shenanigans, and fell into a fairly solid slumber.

But when I woke up and looked at my right hand I got a fright.  Because it had swollen up like a turkey drumstick!

And I had to go to work.  I really didn't want to be that person who doesn't go into work the day after the staff Christmas do...  But I knew that if I'd seen this sort of swelling on anyone else I would make them go and get an x-ray.  So I showed Murray and he said the same thing.  So we reluctantly headed into Whitecross to get checked out.

A few hours later I had been triaged by a nurse, seen by a Dr and xrayed - and in spite of the scary face the nurse made when I saw her, my initial diagnosis was accurate - it was just a severely sprained thumb.  Phew!  I just had to wear a brace and rest it.  And I was only one hour late into work.

And while it is not a serious injury, it does make some things seriously difficult to do, including (but not limited to):

• Driving                                                            
• Carrying small children                  Couldn't write, but could still catch a baby bird...
• Brushing your teeth
  
• Brushing your hair
• Brushing your kids teeth and hair**
• Putting cloth nappies on wriggly toddlers
• Cleaning toilets
• Hanging out washing (possible, but slow cos must do left handed)
• Washing cutlery or really dirty dishes
• Chopping vegetables
• Pouring pints
• Opening tins
• Opening drinks
• Opening doors
• Eating without looking like a cave person
• Writing
• Drawing
• Wrapping Christmas presents
• Putting together kitset furniture
• Making jam
• Wiping your bum
• Opening (and inserting) tampons...
• Not smashing things (at home and at work...)

Lucky for me, this isn't my first time at the injured-at-Christmas rodeo

Consequently, (unlike when I did my ankle) I pulled back all my usual plans for Christmas crafts and just stuck with the basics.  Rather than baking a million things - I just made fudge and jam.  And I outsourced the gingerbread baking to my Mum (who was legendarily helpful in the first annoying week of recovery).  I still made our Christmas calendar - luckily typing requires little dexterity, so using the computer and editing images has been ok provided I do it in small blocks.  And this meant I maintained my sanity for Christmas, which meant both me and my family could still enjoy it!

The other positive was that I have discovered that I am more ambidextrous than I previously realised.  Shortly after arriving to work immediately following my trip to Whitecross, I realised that I had to do a promo changeover at the end of that shift.  Part of this entails using a large special stick to remove, then replace signage which hangs from the ceiling.  And I thought, oh fuck - how will I do this?  I couldn't hold anything with my right hand at all.  So before one of my colleagues left for the day I gave it a go left-handed - and realised that actually, it was simple because actually,  for some reason I always change the signs over left handed and just use the right hand as a prop.  Weird.

Then the next day I realised what a blow this would be to my newfound drawing practice.  So I did what any determined and sensible person would do - I started drawing with my left hand.

This was my first drawing:

While it was difficult to do (brain make other hand do stuff not used to hard) and difficult to sit with, the different quality of the line was really interesting.  I felt quite proud.  I wish I could say I've done heaps of them, but at the moment there are only four drawings and one painting due to usual holiday time and energy constraints.  But nonetheless, it's been really exciting and I will definitely do more.

The other thing is this:

Um, I have a tan.  Impossible to tell usually given my pallor, but actually, like a watch tan, I have a brace tan to prove I could be even whiter***.  Damn I'm hilarious!

So I feel like I've taken this injury in stride better than on previous occasions.  I managed to only miss one hour of work (and only because of the wait times at Whitecross), and only had one extra day of childcare to help manage things for Christmas.  I did have to beg a few rides to and from work as have only just started driving again (I'm only just able to properly grip things again without pain).  So I'm feeling like the master of my injuries.

Which is good, because many people didn't even notice I was injured!  When I saw my old boss and hassled him about not noticing, he said it was because he'd seen me in a brace so often when I used to work for him.  Which made me realise that this was correct.  I used to be in a similar brace very often in the past for my RSI a lot of the time.  Which made me realise that my RSI has been really good the last few years.  Which is awesome!

And that maybe all those previous times in the brace are why I can do so many things left handed and coped so well this time.

So yeah, turns out these days coping with injury is actually totally in my wheelhouse.

It's good to have skills.

Drawing skills, dancing skills, bird catching skills, falling skills... Skilled.

* Please know this is no judgment on parents who do choose to partake in greater quantities.  I just can't.  I have anxiety and can be a bit hyper-vigilant when it comes to looking after my kids (hence needing to fly to another city to have a proper rest).  Consequently, I don't like putting myself into the position of not being in a good state to look after them.  Also, I have seen hungover parents of small kids and it looks like the least fun thing to do ever.  Luckily for me, on this occasion I just had to go to work (far easier to do hung over than looking after small children).

** It took Murray about a week to realise how feral the kids had gotten and that he might need  to learn how to brush their hair...

*** And makes me aware I need to apply way more sunblock.

On A Santa Free Christmas

So it's that time of year again...

For me, it's a hectic, stressful time.  Not just because Christmas, but because I work retail at Christmas.  This year, I have decided to pull back a bit, which has been helped by enforced limitations (broken oven, poor health).  Being on medication has aided me greatly in my ability to do this.

Me last Christmas night after all the madness.  
Enjoying some quality time with our cat family.

Don't get me wrong - I love Christmas.  For me, Christmas is the season of giving - which is why I often end up over-committing myself to gift projects and baking and events.  It is also the season of family.  Christmas Day is all about spending time with family - both my immediate and extended.  The time around Christmas is all about showing those friends and whanau further afield that I care.  This is important, because in the craziness that is daily life I know I miss a lot of opportunities to do this.  Christmas time is an opportunity to give to those who have already given so much to me.

And I can do all of these things without Santa.

The major problems I have with Santa are all expressed in this blog post from four years ago.  There is no point in restating these issues - for me nothing has changed. 

What has changed is that I now have more cognitive children who have their own ideas.  Whilst we have iterated to Etta that Santa is not real, but is a modern representation of St Nicholas (who we have taught her about), that many children grow up thinking he is real, and that is ok too.  While I'd love to say she understands that part of things - she doesn't.  I heard her tell her bestie that Santa wasn't real.  The bestie replied that she was wrong - he was real - she'd seen him at the mall.  Etta has also seen him at the mall.  She is on the fence about the reality of Santa.

Terrifying Queen Street Santa - 
The lord of creepy marketing

And that's ok.  The main thing for me is that I'm not lying, and there is no pressure on the 'good' and the 'bad' regarding presents at home.  What Etta chooses to believe is her choice.  We will not denigrate it.  But we will also not reinforce it by introducing gifts from this fiction at home.

Working in retail I have seen a new negative side to Santa.  The first weekend that Santa was in the mall the shopping atmosphere changed.  Overnight, it shifted from cavalier shoppers looking at their lists and feeling a bit smug about being on track for Christmas, to folk madly darting this way and that aimlessly searching for 'the right gift'.  I actually told a man who appeared to be losing his mind to go sit down and have a coffee and make a list on his phone before stepping back inside Farmers.  I was genuinely concerned for his ability to make rational decisions he wouldn't regret.  This was on the 25th of November.

This is in no way Mall Santa's fault.  This is 100% the fault of marketing and consumerism.  For many, Santa has become a visual symbol of the need to fulfill some weird emotional/fiscal obligation.  This is just sad.  While I agree with what many friends and family say - Santa is about giving - he has been commercialised to the point that he is also now associated with buying.  This is sad.  And it reaffirms to me that keeping my home free of this symbol is not a bad thing.

I work in retail, so I know that product placement for Christmas actually begins the last week of September.  Three months before the 25th of December.  It sounds insane (and I am of the mind that it is), but from a profit generation perspective it isn't.  It programs folk to be looking ahead for Christmas.  It helps fix that shopping mindset into the back of shoppers brains.  This is a great little read about just a few of the tactics employed by retailers coming up until Christmas.  Christmas is all about the dollars for retailers.

And Santa... Santa is the icon of the spending.

*         *          *         *         *         *          *         *          *         *          *         *        

This is just my perspective.  I am just trying to explain why we don't have Santa.  As I said earlier, I have no issue with other people having Santa.  And I am not trying to convince you to get rid of Santa - I am not going to be the Vegan at the Christmas dinner explaining all the bad things about pig farms* while you eat ham.  Eat the ham if you want - just understand that it's ok if I choose not to partake.

I am saying this as we have experienced all sorts of responses to us not having Santa.  From straight up outrage, to accusations of 'ruining the magic of childhood', to assumptions that we must be Jehovah's Witnesses - or more generally that we must not celebrate Christmas.  I do struggle to understand why something which has no impact on anyone but us, is any kind of a big deal to anyone else.

Because for us, it's not.  It helps us focus on our family and how we show appreciation for each other.  Our kids know their gifts come from us, because we love them and work hard to choose things that both reflect our values, and their interests.  It helps us not go OTT.  Christmas is a time to recharge - Christmas stocking fillers in our house include things like batteries, new felt pens (if needed), sunblock, bubble bath and fruit.  They do get treat things too, but we try to keep these to a minimum as we know they will be spoiled with this stuff from other family members**.

Shoeboxes with little gifts and treats (under $15 each)

Simplifying also helps us have a little more money at Christmas time to give to others who have greater need than us.  This year the kids decided to do Christmas In A Shoebox and we made up boxes for children in Northland that may otherwise not have very much (if anything) for Christmas.  When they are bigger, I hope we can do more together for charity.  To me - this is all part of giving at Christmas - it's important to give back to our community.

People are in shock that many children are asking for socks and underwear for Christmas.  I struggle to understand how this is shocking when we have the worst homelessness rates in the OECD.  I cannot say how big my Christmas wish is that this were not the case.  I am not trying to be a downer - but I cannot celebrate Christmas without being conscious that so many others are less fortunate than I am.  And it is important to me that my children understand this so they can have compassion for others at what, for some, is an extremely difficult time of the year.

Christmas is a time of added stress for many.  It is unsurprising that our domestic violence rates peak during the holiday period.  There is more financial pressure, there is more pressure on additional childcare (holidays) and there is more pressure to spend time with family.  It is also a time where people may acutely feel a lack of family - maybe they have become estranged, maybe someone they love has passed away in the last year.  During this time of year, these losses can feel much more acute.

Christmas can be hard for many people for many reasons.  It is important to remember this.

In saying that, we still celebrate.  We still gather as a family.  We have a tree.  I make and bake gifts.  We still eat delicious food*** and crack crackers and tell bad jokes.  We still enjoy each others company and share gifts and good times and kindness.  We can remember others, and we can still celebrate what we have.
 
And our kids still definitely share in the magic that is Christmas.     

Etta and Abby last Christmas playing with a singing Christmas ball

in a tent at Nana and Poppa's

Meri Kirihimete everyone!  No matter how you celebrate.  No matter how much or how little you have, I wish everyone peace and love and kindness at this time of the year.

* This example is not indicative of all vegans.
** And we have a really big family! 
*** No ham in this house either.

On Forging A New Relationship With My Body

So earlier this year I tried to do healthier things to lose weight.

I tried properly, in my own way (which is not extreme, as extreme doesn't work well with my mental health) and I stopped blogging about it fairly quickly because for the first time ever my attempts at losing weight felt, well, futile.  I did lose a little bit of weight, but it was gradual.  Like, 100 to 200 grams a week gradual.  Like, I'd rather have just eaten the food and not cared gradual.

So I kinda gave up.

It's not like I usually eat really badly.  In fact, after finding out about my fibroid I went onto a low inflammatory diet* to help manage my pain levels (which, by the way, has worked).  I genuinely like vegetables.  I seldom snack.  I do eat junk food and takeaways, but I try to moderate it and mix it up with loads of vegetarian deliciousness at home.  So it's not like I'm unhealthy, I'm just bigger than I used to be.

Me pre babies - comfy in my skin

And I think what has been most unhelpful with being bigger has been with feeling like I need to be back to how I was before.  This feeling that I should be 8 kg lighter - the weight I was before babies - has meant that I haven't bought nice clothes that fit me - since buying maternity wear.  It has taken me the 2 1/2 years since having my last baby to reconcile that actually, I am ok in this new body - for now anyway.  I have other priorities at the moment, and my health is still good.  What I actually need is just to buy some better fitting clothes.

 Me in new body - no clue what to do with it

 I think this has been a difficult conclusion for me to draw because I have been roughly the same size (apart from unhealthy low weight periods) for my entire adult life.  So buying clothes of a different fit feels as though I have to re-imagine myself as a different person.  Even though I don't feel very different at all.

The other side to this is the realisation that I'm older than I once was.  I've had this conversation with loads of my friends and it's that thing where you don't feel any older than you were at 18.  I think that people should dress however they like - I don't agree with ageist 'rules' of dress.  But I do feel like maybe I am missing out on feeling better in myself by not upgrading my wardrobe to match my phase of life more comfortably.  I mean, I like being ID'ed for booze still at 36, and mistaken for a 20 something young thing at work, but sometimes it's also nice to be treated like a grown up. 

Weirdo pre-kids Hannah.  Shaved head, 
builder hat, rabbit fur coat, merino dress?
Why not?

When you've been dressing the same way since pretty much forever**, the idea of finding a new kind of style is quite scary.  Especially when you're not that keen on fashion, or being trendy, or actually have any kind of clue how to dress yourself.  In my old body - that stuff didn't really matter.  I dressed like a weirdo and I didn't care what people thought because I felt ok in myself.  But with feeling a little more self-conscious of certain parts of my body - it's different now.  It's not that I'm a lot bigger - I'm only one size bigger.  It's more that parts of my body aren't as toned as they once were so I'm more self conscious about them.

So, and this sounds ridiculous, I had to Google 'how to dress'.  Ugh.

The funniest thing about this is that two other women I spoke to within the same week as my search had done the same thing.  I was so glad to hear that I was not alone.  And honestly, that gave me the push I needed to buy some new damn pants!

Pants (or trousers if you're British, I'm not talking about underwear) have been my main problem.  I no longer fit my jeans comfortably.  Not just because I'm bigger, but because my abdominal surgeries and my fibroid mean that denim just isn't comfortable any more.  In Winter, I just rocked me some trackpants and pretened like that was ok.  It wasn't - I had basically given up on having any personal style.  And now it was Summer so it was really time for a pants overhaul.  And - I decided - no more jeans.  Number one rule in my new wardrobe is that it has to be comfortable.  Because what I've noticed is that the clothes I have that I like but that aren't comfortable, don't get worn.

I also want to buy clothes that suit my regular personal style.  Which is, I guess if you had to put a word on it, flamboyant.  But also lazy***.  And stuff I can run around after children in without embarrassing myself.  And cheap.  I'm not made of money, and even if I were, I'd rather spend it elsewhere.  Also I need clothes that cover my skin (but breathe) for several reasons:

1) Bugs like me and my skin reacts to them.  Consequently, I often have large itchy welts which, if seen by the public, could lead folk to the assumption that I am diseased, or, in the least, lice ridden.
2) It's Summer and the sun is not my friend.  A skin specialist told me I shouldn't live in NZ.  True story.  Basically, I treat my skin like I'm a ginger person.
3) I have excoriation disorder.  This means I sometimes - unconsciously - pick my skin.  I do it when I'm stressed.  I only seem to do it on my upper arms so I like to have clothes that cover this area because it is a bit scarred, and if I've been picking, it's also spotty (and if the area is covered, I'm less likely to pick****).

A bit complicated to program all of this into a Google search...

However I did take some advice from some of the Google spews I read about 'dressing for my shape (and height).  That advice was high waisted pants.  With that one piece of information I bravely went forth to the interweb and looked at my favorite local clothing websites in the hunt of cheap, good pants.  THEN, once found, I did the smart thing and went to the store and tried on the pants to see if I could live with them.

Magic pants

It was like heaven.

Yes, they looked a bit different to what I was used to.  But I truly had no idea I could buy pants as comfortable as pyjama pants and wear them during the daytime without social persecution.  This one pair of pants (my 'fatpants') were the gateway to me re imagining my whole wardrobe.  With the confidence gained from my new fat pants I braved the Pagani factory store in the hopes of finding more cheap clothes.  There I gleaned MORE comfortable pants, a floaty Summer over top thing AND a dress for my work Christmas do.  And they were cheap - $5 comfy pants.  Magic.

My $5 outfit - all items cost $5 each*****

My wardrobe theory with the kids is that three is the magic number - I have applied this to myself also.  After receiving an email about a sneaky 50% discount at another women's fashion store where I hoped to grab some basics, en route I saw that Glassons clearance clothing was all $10 or less.  FOR ONE DAY ONLY!  Price was right, and resulted in my third pair of 'fat pants' - the most pyjamaesque yet.

Three comfy pants to build a new Summer wardrobe around.  Which cost me $40 in total and GAINED me a tonne of confidence in myself.  To that, I've added a couple of floaty shirt things for bad-arm (or sunny) days and a new singlet or two.  It has cost me under $100 to rebuild my wardrobe (including the work do dress which I plan to wear the shit out of) enough to facilitate my change in shape.

The most pyjamaesque daywear I have.
OTT Stripes?  YES!  And I LOVE it!

And I feel great!

And I'm sure I'll feel even better when I have the energy to brave budget bra shopping.

* Not following the rules persay, just avoiding the foods that I know don't work well with my system (foods high in gluten or lactose, red meat, sugar and fizzy drinks)

** Apart from forays into 50's fashion (ditched when I broke my ankle as can no longer cope with heels).

*** I don't usually buy materials that require ironing, because - fuck ironing.

**** It's a coping method.  I don't do all the time and it doesn't really interfere with my life negatively so not really quite at the 'disordered' end of the spectrum.  I'm ok with it.  And no, it doesn't hurt.  I'm used to it.  Hence me not even realising I'm doing it.

***** I know this is by far the best look in terms of 'slimming'.  But I like my stripy PJ pants too.  So I don't care if I look a little bigger in them.  I do have serious booty, and I'm not afraid of it (also aware if I hadn't put my arm there you could see it in this photo and consequently I'd look slimmer.)

A Snippet from my Suburban Birds Zine

It's only a week to go until my exhibition and zine launch!

I am simultaneously excited and terrified.

And busy.  There is always more to do.

Consequently, I did not post a blog yesterday.  So decided instead, to post a snippet from my zine for your perusal.  Enjoy!  The zine will be released next Saturday (25th of November) and you can purchase it from me for $15.  OR ask your local library if they'd like to buy a copy.  It's registered with an ISBN so totally easy for them to buy.

 Me in the pink - a country kid                

Nostalgia and Sense of Self               

 

This project was born of nostalgia.  Growing up on farms one of my favourite things to do was to lie in the paddocks' long grass and wait.  Eventually, the curious cattle would move so close I could peer right up into their wet noses and grass stained grins.  I would lie prone as long as my little body could hold the suspense, then leap up chortling at the terror I unleashed in the eyes of my horrified friends.  I climbed low branched trees and perched, with pen and paper, to write poems and short fictions while watching the birds above and the sheep below.              

For a time, at a very deep level of my consciousness this aspect of my person seemed lost.  Moving to the suburbs to start a family reinforced this sense of loss.  I never expected to raise children in the suburbs.  I never expected this because I could not imagine anything more amazing than growing up in the isolated country as I did.  And I naively assumed that either I would never have children, or that somehow having children would herald a return to rural life.

So I never expected to be a suburban housewife.  Most of the previous ten years of my life near the city I lived a frenetic life: day jobs, art projects, nights filled with gigs, openings and book launches.  

   Me featured in Black Magazine -
     Crazy knitting housewife lady

But somehow I simultaneously predicted this future.  I parodied housewifery through my work at design school.  I printed scenes of my family scrap-booking.  I knitted mundane objects – like life-size lamp-posts to poke fun at the every day.  My work investigated the meditative qualities of repetition, and its relationship to the female experience.  Life in the suburbs always struck me as so banal, so boring.  And in my view of my self – an art student who made ridiculous unmarketable objects - I was neither of those things.

But there I was, another suburban housewife.  Two children in under two years, pushing a Mountain Buggy with one hand, while pulling a reluctant toddler along with the other.  It felt simultaneously unreal and like the natural trajectory of my life.  I both missed my former life, and felt grateful for the excuse (children) to no longer live it.

But the longer I stayed away from my the book launches and exhibition openings the more invisible I began to feel.  I felt an enormous sense of loss, not just in the divide between myself and my childless friends, but in my sense of self.  I have always been a creative - but becoming a Mum sapped me of creative energy.  Before pregnancy I always planned on my kids having the most amazing knitted clothing and toys.  Pregnancy stole my brain; I locked the workplace toilet key in the toilet four times, I couldn't write my own patterns any more.

 Motherhood: Completely changed my world

And once my first child was born I couldn't write poetry either.  Holding this small thing my partner and I had made and were wholly responsible for made poetry seem pretty redundant.  How could anything matter as much as this small person?  How could I ever write anything as meaningful as her existence?  I attempted writing many times and deleted every line.  It all felt so dishonest.

Whilst genuinely enjoying the journey of motherhood, this inability to create fed my anxiety.

In times of difficulty in managing my mental health I have regularly returned to gratitude.  Regular contemplation of the things you are grateful for is a researched, proven and simple method to manage depression.  And it's a method that has always worked for me.  On one of my many excursions into getting well I realised how regularly what I was most grateful for, was the birds.

 

A rosella would flit briefly into the macrocarpa tree overhanging our driveway.  A sparrow would turn its head just so and throw me a cheeky look.  A blackbird would perch on the neighbours rooftop and its sing its little heart out just to mark the coming dusk.

In discovering how much of a salve birds were to my mental state, I began to wonder why.  Why did these little brown sparrows have the capacity to impact my life so profoundly?

Photograph from Day 6

I realised it was because I felt akin to the sparrows.  As a housewife, I felt like I had become invisible.  I was there, I existed, I went places and I did things, but because of my feelings of what it meant to be 'just a housewife' I did not really exist.  The sparrows were the same.  They were everywhere, they are brown and dull.  But looking closely you come to see them as individuals.  Like us, they live their lives in patterns, but moment to moment they can be dazzling and funny and beautiful.  Capturing a bird in a moment of joy is a window into a glorious life.

Seeing this in the birds, truly seeing it, day after day began to give my life more relevance.  Not only mine, but the lives of my peers.

In writing off my suburban parenthood as invisible, I had written off the value of my friends and family who were also parents.  This was not a conscious thing.  I am a feminist.  I strongly value women's work and experience, particularly that of parents.  But my belief in the value of the varied experiences of women was meaningless if I couldn't apply it to myself.

The birds brought back the little girl laid out in the paddock.  They built the bridge back through time to the suspense before the joy of simple things.  They showed me I had the capacity to completely engage with nature where-ever I was.  Because it was part of who I was.  They helped me value my experience, and the experiences of other suburban Mums. 

Discovering the birds reconnected me to my creative self.

 Fantail - drawing from earlier this week

On Having Amazing Mum Friends

I have some amazing Mum friends.

I have Mum friends that keep their houses tidy.

I have Mum friends that also have successful careers.

I have Mum friends that run marathons.

I have Mum friends with amazing hair.

I have Mum friends that are work and write amazing plays.

I have Mum friends who still create and exhibit art in galleries 

I have Mum friends that write award nominated books. 

                Andra, I think you're amazing

I have Mum friends that have no family close by.

 

I have Single Mum friends.

And while I love my family and life, it is a daily struggle not to compare myself with my many  successful Mum friends.

 

I am not sure if this is a thing that Mums from creative backgrounds struggle with more intently than regular Mums.  But I think not.  I think most Mums probably compare themselves in some ways with others.  And while I'm sure this has always been the case (how does Mrs Jones get her nappies so white?), I also think the advent of social media has exacerbated the ways in which we compare ourselves.

How do they get their nappies so white?  Maybe sunshine?

Because now we have an insight into our Mum friends kids lunchboxes, holidays, meal plans, work-life balance and how fine they're looking post baby-belly.

And it's tough.

At the moment my house is a shambles.  The rubbish bins need to be emptied.  The fridge and freezers need to be cleaned out.  The bathroom needs a general scrub and the kids rooms are both atrocious.  I did clean my bedroom this week - the state it was in was starting to impact on my sleep.  I am embarrassed to have my Mum over and fearful that - post recent surgery - she will tidy up while Abby and I nap (she did, by the way).

The house looks like shit but look! I drew this bird.

There are a multitude of reasons for this mess.  The main one being that I am working on my Suburban Birds project to get it set for the zine to launch in a few weeks.  And Abby's started waking more overnight and starts her day at 5am.  And I have been quite unwell this week and struggling to do anything.  And I have pre-schoolers who, bless their wee souls, leave a path of destruction in their wake.  So I tend to focus on the necessary cleaning (pee, poo, washing, dishes) and leave the rest.

But somehow in a few weeks, the parts of the house that will be seen will be clean enough, my zine will be complete* and my exhibition will be hung.  And even though this is the first time I've exhibited work since I've had kids, or written anything that's been (self)published, and even though my Christmas shopping is still not done, the garden has gone to pot and the floor in the kitchen still needs replacing I am sure I will have some Mum friends that will think 'How does she manage this when she's a Mum?'

Ahhh, my beautiful jelly.                 

What you can't see here is that it didn't set properly.

We need to remember that people clean up before we visit them.  That the biscuits they've given us aren't necessarily the first batch, and that some people have childcare available.  We need to remember that what we're seeing and comparing ourselves with is only what is presented to us - it's just a tiny snippet of someone else's life.  And on social media these snippets are edited and selected to put our best face forward.

When we compare ourselves to others we are often missing most of the picture.  We usually don't know how much people earn, their family circumstances, their expectations, their experience.  We don't know how much support people have, how healthy they are, if they have cleaners or nannies or family support.  We may know some of these things - particularly of our close friends - but it's unlikely we have the full picture most of the time.

It has taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I simply need more sleep to be functional than some people I know**.  Consequently, I have less productive hours in the day to work with.  Rather than feeling guilty or comparing myself to people with different circumstances, I should focus on what I am doing with the hours I have.  And to remember there are people who need more sleep that have even less time than me.

Check out this photo of a pigeon!  
Don't look in my kitchen...

And because I am embarrassed by the shambolic aspects of my life I, like many others, only post the images that project the image of myself, or my family, that I want people to see.  We have to realise that while we're busy coveting some aspect of another amazing Mums life, someone is likely coveting yours.

We are all amazing Mums*** in some form or another.  Rather than coveting those other amazing Mums we should revel in the amazing things we have, the amazing things we do and the amazing people we are.  Because within the context of our own lives - these snippeted highlights - even if they may seem small in the context of the larger world - are still extraordinary.


* It will not be perfect, but it will exist as a physical object in the world.

** I am pretty sure this is from when I had undiagnosed Glandular Fever in my early 20's as this seems to be when it started.  My immunity is awesome - I am seldom sick - so long as I get enough rest.  It's not a crazy amount - just 7 to 8 hours of quality sleep - but difficult to achieve with kids and intermittent insomnia.  I note this sleep thing because I know some people I know feel like 4 to 5 hours is ample.  And I kinda envy them.

*** You may not be someone's Mum exactly, but I'm sure you will Mum someone (colleagues, parents, guinea pigs).  And even if you don't - pretty sure this thing probably applies to most people.  Aside from those who think they are better than everyone.