Family

Stars as Clocks

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The autumn light is so perfect in Sydney, bathing all the old shabby terraces and city streets in honey-haze. I have begun the Currawong book and working steadily.

 

I hadn’t planned to start as I still had research to do but the moon cycle was perfect and sometimes you have to take the risk, shut your eyes, trust in spirits and allow yourself to fall down the rabbit-hole of the story. 

Sometimes it’s only when falling that I get the meaning and twists of the narrative. This book is filled with many things I love to read. I love diving into the story and watching the stars start to form a pattern I can follow. I’m at the first 10 000 words so only around 90 000 to go.

But as always, when you’re a mother as well as a writer, life interrupts and just as I found my rhythm for the words and watching with excitement the word count begin… I have to start taking Daisy to more medical appointments. This time we have seen a real miracle worker in the form of Dr Peter Bablis, a highly recommended kinesiologist, homeopath, chiropractor and host of other skills. Daisy just says he is ‘handsome and looks like Chief Powhatan from Pocahontas’

Daisy in Hyde Park after seeing Peter Bablis

 

I have never visited a kinesiologist before and must say I was incredibly impressed by how he picked up exact stages of her life (including in the womb) when traumatic events occurred. 

It’s always frustrating, however, when you can’t get the words out because of domestic life.

I’m spiralling into space and trusting the story is waiting for me around each twist and curve.

That’s the only timing that makes sense to me. Not the fob-watch or calendar but the stars, the night, the moon and the sun.

polaroid image of room top source

other images source weheartit

 

A Prayer for Mothers

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It’s Mother’s Day in Australia on Sunday.

Sally and Betty from Mad Men

On this day, I’ll be remembering my friends who desperately longed for children but were unable to have them. Also, a beautiful mother who recently lost her only daughter in hospital unexpectedly. And my own mother, who has spent years caring for my very ill father and is a stoic inspiration to us all.

Helena Bonham Carter toy-shopping

Motherhood – it’s the hardest job in the world and hats off to all mothers everywhere!

Lovely Elizabeth Taylor

 

Witchy mum

I saw this post recently on Cherry Menlove’s Blog. It’s from Tina Fey. It seems a perfect piece for Mother’s Day, especially for those of us with girls. xx

Tessa and Sophie Dahl

 

First, Lord:
No tattoos.
May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be beautiful but not damaged, for it’s the damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half and stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her when crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes and not have to wear high heels.

What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design?
I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her own heart with the sinewy strength of her own arms, so she need not lie with drummers.

Grant her a rough patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day –

And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers and the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a ‘Bitch’ in front of Hollister, give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, for I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.

“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a mental note to call me.
And she will forget.
But I’ll know, because I peeped it with your God eyes.

Amen.

Taken from Tina Fey’s book Bossypants.

sally and betty image source here

helena bonham carter image source here

elizabeth taylor source here

Writing with mist

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I have taken the Summer curtains down at home and replaced them with the toile winter curtains. I am sad it is the end of the lovely Easter break. I do enjoy having Daisy at home even though it makes it impossible to write and I love not having to do the school run and lunches.

The Easter show is too expensive. Can’t believe for a family of three it cost nearly $100 to get into the gate to look at a few pigs and chickens. Daisy, of course, loves the pony rides and show bags, but for the same money we spent we could have had a night or two away in a good hotel.

A few photos from the show above. The print in the middle with the girl and bunny is one of the Emily Martin prints I have in Daisy’s room. I love her whimsical work. We did manage one day trip to the very misty mountains.

 I just need to get out of the city at times and walk through the bush, feel crisp, unpolluted air and escape air-traffic noise. I’ve carried the mist from the mountains back with me – it’s swirling around my laptop and through my mind, forming my current book in the Blue Mountains. I’m still plotting and feeling my way through the characters. When they’re ready to talk – I’ll begin. And last night I dreamt of Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski, which has given me an idea for another short story.

 As David said, ‘you’re always working, even when you’re asleep.’

Inner-city Light

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It’s the school holidays and the city streets seem slightly emptied out, with so many gone to the mountains or Byron Bay or their holiday houses. We were too occupied with writing, doctors and life to realise this time had come and so didn’t organise anything. I’m slightly jealous of my friends who have departed. I ache to be in the Blue Mountains at the moment and although we shall have a little day trip or two there, it’s not the same as a long break.

This is my favourite time of writing when I get to daydream, plot and plan and feel the characters moving forward to introduce themselves. I think of this stage as falling into trance when I am beginning to undergo a hypnotic little spell for the book to work. I have certain procedures and superstitions I have to follow for the spell to work and the words to come.

My daughter and I have been ambling along city streets dappled with shadows and mellow autumn sunshine.

This was our walk in pictures today, as we strolled to her swimming class. A man lay nearby out of shot, hit by a car – ambulances and police were everywhere.

Even amongst the traffic, airplanes and gritty chaos the trees and light was spectacular. I kept turning in circles, attempting to take it in. I’m always bemused by how the inner-city is such a paradox of urban and nature combined. Planes so low over the eucalyptus trees that they almost seem to land on our head, trucks, graffiti, bats, lizards, trees. I love the peeling, genteel shabbiness of the old houses and the peeling, gnarled trees guarding the road and having survived countless years of pollution.

Sometimes you have to view the everyday at a different angle for it to make sense or meaning.     

And today it is raining heavily. The sky overhead my little brick is dark and grey.

Harvest Moon over Dickson Street

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Hurrying to my spiritual women’s group meeting, carrying deer antlers. The rain-soaked, almost deserted city streets. Shop windows dummies in vintage clothes observing me with detached boredom.

The blues are playing in the corner pub but I’m blown with the Autumn leaves along the soggy streets.

I love the cooler seasons.

The edit is nearly at an end which also brings me immense relief and pleasure. A few more loose ends to tie together in a bow before sending to the publishers.

Life seemed full of magic and possibilities last night. 

I half-expected a golden deer with vivid blue eyes to come strolling towards me as I scurried along to my meeting.

And the super-moon so large, it kept me awake until 3am, pulsating with the tides and beating dreams away.

This morning, my daughter wakes me vomiting and is kept home from school – sick again. The hours I had looked forward to for editing are bid adieu.

Outside in the garden, the tracks of a deer lead away from my writing shed. 

  

 

A Crack in the Blue Sky.

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We celebrated Daisy turning six on the weekend. It was all rather a blur of Princesses, Pirates, sword-fighting, Piñatas and lollies cascading through the air.

 I made the party bags and David created a Pin The Sword On The Pirate game, which went very well.

The little boys who came dressed as pirates and reminded me very much of Peter Pan’s Lost Boys.

David also dressed as a pirate for the day and I wore a tiara. Daisy had wanted me to wear a pink dress and pink high heels but I settled for yellow high heels.

 I was still creating my party bags at midday on the day of the party. Very stressed! Thankfully, Daisy’s Fairy God Mother turned up to assist in time.

All I can remember is Abba music, sunshine, the sky so blue it hurt your eyes and Daisy dancing against the blue in a pink Princess dress. Life with all its frustrations and sadness could still not be sweeter than watching her dance against the sky.

 The edit of Poets Cottage continues and I am frantically doing one last check knowing that once it goes back to the publishers I cannot change anything major. I am stitching the beak, the eyes, checking the stitching of my loved bird before I release her back to my editor for her to do another check if she is flight-worthy. Editing is exhausting for me. Writing is so much easier. The Autumn sunshine is so mellow. Such a beautiful time of year. But my thoughts and prayers are with Japan and her people very much this week.

 My daughter finds cracks in the pavement and tells me that an earthquake has happened in Sydney. She talks about the big wave in Japan but it’s impossible for her to comprehend. When David and I visited Pompeii several years ago I was struck by the poignant powerful sadness I felt when viewing the figures, preserved for all time, trying to escape the volcanic ash.

This week when I think of Japan I keep seeing those figures. It’s too hard to explain to a six-year-old why cracks appear in blue, perfect skies.

QUEEN OF PREENS AND AUTUMN FIRES

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How refreshing to know we have finally reached Autumn in Sydney. The humidity is still high but thankfully nowhere near the recent heat wave.

I’m also nearing the end of my edit for Poets Cottage, also an enormous relief. I’ve reached that stage where it’s becoming difficult to read the MS one more time.

 I’ve been busy planning my daughter’s sixth birthday party (Pirates & Princesses). This is taking enormous energy and is drama on a high scale. In fact I was so engrossed in my edit and life dramas that I missed a couple of very important medical appointments for Daisy.

Sometimes it’s hard to live in alternate worlds when you are working with fiction. And being a stay home mother has its own challenges of trying to juggle domestic artistry and a small child on top of writing. 

 And last night wasted a few hours of my life, which I’ll never get back, watching the Academy Awards.

I used to be a big fan of the Awards but there’s something repellent about the smugness and preening on the red carpet. For me the highlights of the night were:

Shaun Tan’s Award for best animated short film.

Penelope Cruz’s va va voom, sexy post-baby body and radiant smile. 

Helen Mirren who is always spectacular.

Florence Welch also spectacular with her dramatic hair, and pale skin in Valentino.

And Helena Bonham Carter who I adore and can do no wrong. I love the fact she wore a gown designed by Alice In Wonderland costume designer, Colleen Atwood, as a reminder of what the awards should be about.

Helena is a true original and dazzles – unlike all the over-plucked, waxed, bronzed, bleached and perfect tube women.

 I am being harsh here and last night David pointed out, as a couple of fashion commentators on FOXTEL heavily criticized some of the frocks and women, that this sort of attitude filters down to the school yards and results in bullying. Even though my retort was that the celebrities are over-paid squillions of dollars to deal with this sort of sniping, I concede that he is right. I should really have just turned the television off earlier.

Happy Autumn days if you are in the Southern Hemisphere. Hope this season is filled with abundance and fiery creative passion for you.

 

Autumn Fires by Robert Louis Stevenson

In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!

NO FANS – SORRY

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We survived the Sydney heat wave with record-breaking temperatures in the forties for endless days. During this uncomfortable time, we couldn’t eat or sleep. I never handle humidity.
To prove the Gods have a twisted sense of humour our much loved retro style fan died. And it proved impossible to get another as Sydney ran out of fans. People were frantically buying six at a time and shop assistants had signs around their necks saying NO FANS SORRY. We don’t have air con so that was a pretty interesting few days. Plus, my daughter became very ill with a urinary tract infection.
Throughout the high fever, heatwave and NO FAN, I still had to keep plodding along with my edit which is on deadline.
Some days I only had an hour to spend on it so that’s what I had to take.
Throughout the long, humid, steaming hell I thought many times of our recent holiday when I walked for hours on the Nut in Stanley feeling the cool, pure winds from Antarctica whip my lungs. And although I wanted to lounge around the house looking sultry in a sweat-stained slip like Elizabeth Taylor. I really just looked and felt like a dying little weed.   
 
One beautiful magical moment in the madness of the heatwave. A title for the book following Poets Cottage ‘came’ to me. The working title is Currawong House but the title that came to me was stronger. It slid into my heat-fatigued brain as I sat at the computer one day fantasising over Country Homes in England.
The edit for Poets Cottage has reached a new stage. I’ve realised how strengthened the book and characters have become.It’s the difference between a loved picture book and a 3D pop out version. The edit has bought more of the book to life and tightened it in ways I couldn’t have predicted.
 
And a couple of family pics outside the Captain’s Cottage. We looked relaxed and happy because we were.
 
 
 
 
 
And speaking of fans and cool, I picked up Vanity Fair which has Johnny Depp interviewed by Patti Smith. Yes, I know it’s a couple of months old but in Australia I have to wait for the ship copies as the plane magazines are so expensive. Another wonderful Depp interview with lots of insights into this complex, talented and very likeable actor.
We finally bought a fan, a tiny, white little girl who alas, lacks the power of our old Mad Men fan. Probably, the last little fan left in Sydney. But she is most loved and welcome and is fanning me now as I write.

Home

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Returning from Tasmania is always difficult. It feels to me like entering back to grey-and-white Kansas in Sydney from the sparkling Tasmanian Oz. But return we must for the big smoke is where David works. And yet, the Tasmanian soil seemed alive to me when I tread on it. The sea, the sky, the air sang and sparkled. Everything feels crisp, new and more beautifully shaded in Tasmania.

I spent an hour a day walking the magical Nut in Stanley. Here my only company at times were hundreds of pademelons, blue wrens. rabbits and air blowing from Antarctica, said to be the purest in the world. As I walked, the panoramic views stretched for miles of sea and sky. The landscape looks at times like the moors in Haworth and the coastline is very Cornwall in places. It’s an incredibly gothic, spectacular place and both David and myself are more than a little Nut-obsessed.

I was very proud that five-year-old Daisy climbed it one day and didn’t use the chair-lift. It was on the Nut, I received another idea for a book and a title. Stanley is a most inspiring place for me!

 And so I have come full circle. Poets Cottage began in 2007 with my last holiday in Stanley. Now I am editing it and it will be a published book.

 I spent some of the week in the Captain’s Cottage editing and it was a humbling experience to share the edit with that delightful cottage in the most enchanting of fishing villages.

I was also most fortunate to personally meet and thank several locals who inspired the book and provided material that I could use. Warmest congratulations to Marguerite Eldridge of Stanley for her Australia Day award honours in the creative arts. Marguerite and her partner Lin were very instrumental in Poets Cottage, providing the title, and also inspiring the character of Birdie Pinkerton. Marguerite’s books about life in Stanley were also of great help in my research. It is wonderful to see this talented and gracious lady be recognised for her creativity at this stage of her life. I’m very grateful I got to personally thank her and she didn’t object to my daughter taking over her house and biscuit barrel!

We visited close family and it was joyful to see Daisy play with her cousins and relatives and delight in the magic of houses with large backyards, trampolines and sandpits. Always hard to leave but this trip even more so. And every day I see myself back on the Nut feeling that icy wind rush through me and the earth singing as I walk on her. There’s no place like home.

Tourists and Ghosts

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I’m going away for a couple of weeks on a research trip for my writing. Think wild seas, cottage-gardens and overgrown cemeteries. I’m looking forward to escaping from the humidity in Sydney. I’ve been slowly working away at my edit for Poets Cottage. Slowly because my daughter is home on holidays and so finding the time to write is almost impossible.
 
David took Daisy to see Tangled this week and I saw Johnny Depp in The Tourist. This movie has a plot almost as plausible as an episode of Midsomer Murders but the imagery is spectacular. Retro, blue and moody. Venice is always magic. Johnny Depp spoke in a recent interview about walking the Venetian streets at night and the ghosts coming alive for him.
 
Venice is a city filled with tourists, dreams and ghosts. I treasure the memories of the holiday David and I had there. A city with no cars breathes a silence heavy with poetry and memory; it haunts you forevermore. I can still hear her waters and remember the colours of the grand buildings lining the canal. When you wish to walk with ghosts, Venice is the city for your journey.