how to rebirth oneself? Maybe here

Good morning. I can hear the birds at their feeder: slim pigeon, fat pigeon and the Sparrows with names like Icarus and Shaula and Savannah and Little Stevie.

I can hear my son on the couch playing Youtube videos. He has told me to go back to bed. I have wept all night and he knows and he is being kind and also self-serving, because Youtube culcha is naughty funny grimy slinky.

So this me, now, separated, living in a little house in Aloha street. Welcome!  But how to begin again here, in this blog that was begun when I was a (mostly) happy wife, building the dream home within the old home's walls, with a man I sometimes referred to as this ship's Captain?

I left him two months ago. Tired, too tired of being the lone hand on the big boat. Tired, so tired of being lonely in a marriage with a man who who had grown complacent, entitled, and small of spirit.

So I built a smaller boat to better fit my solo hands and it has been fine, even grand at times.  My son my first mate, and on we go, rough riding but oh such views. And I thought my love and care could carry every one, and that I could cope.

In here are old blogs about the building years. I am glad to have them. I have been out of the home for two months. I left it because my ex cannot afford to move and still keep a part time roof over our son. I have left him there so that he could still be a Dad as he tries to get more work to support himself.  Two months and yesterday I found he'd ensconced a woman in for a little love-nesting while I had care of our son.


letter to my ex:

I didn’t go looking, and even when I found it my head grasped all these other ideas: oh that’s my red silk scarf and those lanyards from Tracy and my birthday party. I picked them up, but they were wrong. I saw a red shoe and picked it up thinking these things were mine, foundlings you had put together to give me. But the shoe was wrong too. Then the bra, my fingers finding this satin greasy feeling. Wrong again. Then it began to dawn on me, ‘not mine’, as I found the dress.

And in moments something clicked. Your assumption you would leave our boy with me for 5 days until new years day, and your rage when I countered that. You planned for her to be around a few days. A few pairs of undies in the basket in the study I once loved. Sleeping together. Cocooned in. The intimacy of that speaks of long build.

I have cried all evening and night. Not your concern but I will have to get my bro to help me look after our boy today, I'm tapped out.  

What you’ve done is smashed every positive memory I have in the home I left when I left you.

Wrecked it.

So, I hope for you that it worked. That in fucking her there, and having her stay, it exorcised me fully and fast.

I hope that when you lie in the bed we bought with wedding money, in the room we painted surrounded by the pictures I framed, under the chandelier that has my childhood memories, all you see is her reflected in those crystals and the gold. Her body, not mine.  I hope you can see Diane by Klimt and not remember Windsor. 

I hope that when you walk the hall along the wallpaper I chose and the pictures I filmed and framed, you see it now only as she did, that the house is quirky and that the mum and baby photo is nice.

I hope that when you sit in the backroom now you hear her voice not mine, and that the making of the shelves with my dad is eradicated by the presence of her.

I hope that the bath now is soaked in her image, a picture there of a woman drinking the coffee you made her, lapping away at your little love offering. So intimate. I hope when you sit along our son there you don’t, any more, remember him and I in that bath with bubbles and toys. Just her. No back-story any more of finding the tub on the roadside. No image of my Dad up to his knees in floorboards, or me pregnant on the toilet.

And I hope that the veranda is the same, clear of me, clear of Max, and the pear tree is no longer a story of triumph but something she just looked at.

So yes, since you fucked her and made intimate moments in the home we built and that you live in with our son I hope it worked to serve you well. I truly do. You chose exactly that. So that is what you now have. You chose to make intimacy there and I hope it resonates sweetly for you.

That house now is nothing to me, only a roof over our boy's head. Handovers at the door. I’ll return the house key so you can feel free to keep making new memories to eradicate the old ones, the ones you made with your ex and her family.

It’s a good bridge out, to exorcise the young excited couple from the home, the new parents from the home, the Max from the home. It will make selling up easier.

                                                                         ***

So there is my rancour and oh it feels good to pour it here. It is freeing. I am free, I am going to rebuild, for I am my Mum and Dad's bright strong girl with hands and shoulders for making, and love big enough to billow out the sails.

there is love

This post is half a year old, written before my dad died and when we had a view of his prognosis that was more optimistic.  Yet I still wanted to publish it, because I like to honour my son's evolution, and mark where he learns and grows...

Finn, you still seem so little. But big things abound. Your hero’s journey enters its dark night; you rush on with footballs and pause to lay car-tracks. 

It’s Father’s day and your Grandpa is dying; for my Dad now there is a timeline and a prognosis. Six months, twelve months, maybe more but who knows? We all love him so, and your love for him is so big it spills out in tears and fear.  But off we go for hugs and snags and play. You have some words like cancer and chemo, but we don’t use them this day; time enough for that when hospital begins.  I talk to you about it, that there are weeds in the garden of my big Father’s body. That there is a treatment like weedkiller that will make him feel bad because it kills good things in his body-garden too. That it is not his fault, and it it is not contagious.

You sense my worry and feel your worry, despite our shelter that curves over you like a bull-nosed veranda.

Coming home from the visit we all just needed rest. It had been a big day with Na and Pa, and I felt tetchy and tired.  And then bad things happened around a good little girl, and just like that you fostered her and cared. All your tired green shoots of love and the gruff stuff of big brothering, wrapped around a little girl; and you gave her the gift of normalcy.

YELL> THUMP> BANG! Bad monsters. Ugly hard sounds of shatter from next door. Screams.

When the police came because neighbor J had called them I got them chairs to sit in our front yard. J could wait for her daughter to be dropped home there, and talk to the police about how her ex-partner had become violent on her and her little home next door.

Finn, you were so curious about the police being out in our yard with her.  You peered at them out of the front window. You were worried about the daughter, A, a sweetly smart little redhead of three years that you’d been friends with for her whole life.  When she came home, she came straight in with us for a play, as J was still making her statement. You were so kind with her. She was worried, intuitive, wanting her Mum but also wanting your assurances and company. 

But why were the police there?

Why? Because it was a safe space for J. Because she had just been physically attacked, because I heard it, for yet another time. Because she knew she could bang on our door for help, as she had done before.  Because we can welcome her lovely girl for a play with a boy who who adores her, and he can be her sheltering veranda, a little space that’s warm and safe.  

She’s a strawberry of a girl, she admires you and plays to your level and calls you 'Faann', and in turn you get to be a big brother. You and she played, and peeped at the police. I told you they were helping A’s mum find ‘stolen house keys’.  It helped A understand why she wasn’t in her usual home next door, which had been trashed by the ex. Finn, I think you knew that it was more than that, yet you played, you made fun, and you shared your eve and your telly and your parents and your pizza. 

Later on I told you the truth. That sometimes men think its OK to hit and kick and throw things, when its never OK, no matter how bad a tantrum is going on. 

So on one of our own hard days I was reminded of my privilege: a ‘throw me in the air’ Dad, a safe childhood and safe home. And of my NORMS that aren’t privilege, that should be the given: I’ve never been hit, kicked or choked by the one I call my love.

But back to you, my Finn. 

You can be mighty, you can be naughty, you can buzz like a bee, you can drive my heart wild with it, but today you fostered. You gave of your good life to a little girl who was your friend, and you did it with grace and empathy.  I saw your care and I fell even more deeply in proud-Mama-love with you.  

My sweet sun, you are as juicy with love as an orange-half. Let it flow, little one, it's your superpower.




* J and her daughter moved away a month later, to a big house with the Sister/Aunt.  We've lost touch but I like to think they are safe and thriving.  Finn misses A, which is OK.  One day some random chance will have them meet!

My Dad died. Here is why I loved him and thought him my sun.

I love you Dad for so many reasons, but mostly because you took me seriously. I wasn’t a girlie girl, I was a tomboy, and you let me be that, and you enjoyed it too.  From the moment we moved to Vermont I was always down in your tool-shed alongside you. So you taught me- how to use tools, clean them, and put them away.

You showed me how to make a box. We had to measure up, with a ruler. I think that was the only time I saw you measure with anything other than your hands and a pencil! I had to saw the wood, make it all fit, glue it and nail it. You said if I could make a box I could make anything.  Then you gave me scrap wood to extend a tree house in the paddock next door. I made it awesome and spent many times there, bombing Dean and his mates with pinecones.

Because of you I know how to hang wallpaper and that it only sticks of you swear at it and stomp on it.  I read a famous five on my bed as you hung the wattle-flower wallpaper. I know you hung it the right way round, despite the ongoing tease from us all that it was upside down. You did good, Dad, and the swearing kept it firmly stuck for years.

You taught me how to change a car tire, clean battery points, top up my oil and water, and we even re-sprayed my first car together, a hideous shade of safety yellow so everyone could see me and my Volvo coming.  

One night outside KATEES nightclub Jenny Aitken and I changed a tire while drunken guys catcalled. I felt so proud. Thanks for that Dad.

When I was little and asked for a toolkit for Christmas, you didn’t laugh, or encourage me to get a doll. Somehow you found one- a miniature set in a wooden carry box. And they were real tools, with weight and purpose and red handles- a hammer, saw, screwdriver and more, all to fit my small hand. 

 I used some of the nails from it to hammer extra planks onto my cubby walls. The planks turned out to be walnut, and destined for the kitchen as shelves.  You were so angry when you realized what I’d done. But you also praised my straight nailing!

Other parts of being your tomboy girl were riding the old postie motorbike around the paddock, feeding apples to the horses next door, and climbing. I was about nine when I climbed to the top of the pine tree in our yard. Then I looked down and freaked!  And yelled out a VERY bad swear word little girls shouldn’t say.  You didn’t rescue me. You came partway up and talked me down.  I could feel proud, even as I got a bum-smack for the swearing.

Thanks Dad, for teaching me to shake hands properly.  You taught Dean and me that your handshake is your word, so when you give it you must see the thing through and do it right.  Because you hated   ‘gonna-do-ers’ I grew up believing in doing, in taking action on dreams to make them real.  It’s a good life lesson, thanks Dad.

Some other life lessons I got from you Dad: the world is not straight, so measure it by eye and hand. Cracks will always come back. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t fix them each time they do. Be useful. Don’t wallow. When you feel blue go for a drive out into the country, or find something to fix. Climb the tree, don’t be scared. Someone will be there to talk you back down.

Dad, all these things you left me with help me feel sound, and useful, and like I’m meant to be here, and that’s such a lovely thing you gave to me.  You used to thrown me in the air until the sky touched my head, and you made me feel so loved.

 I need to give you something back and so it’s this.  You are in the warmth. There are droplets drying from your skin because you have just swum. The heat is rising, and the sun is straight above you. You have no work to do, nothing to fix.  You are drifting in an out of a dream, sitting in your chair, basking like a lizard in the sun.